Engineering-risk Books

***This is a big book full of a lot of facts and figures.*** (Yes a very big book, not a cover to cover book.) 824 pages, 5 chapters and by no means a read it from cover to cover book. The first two chapters, the "Introduction" and "the What's and Whys of Metrics" are the authors interesting and quite knowledgeable overview of the world of operational, personal, physical and IT security metrics. After, the remaining chapters get in-depth. Chapter 3 "Measuring Compliance" goes into great detail about relating the different acts, bills, regulations and directives with various Metrics. Chapter 4 "Measuring Resilience" provides numerous worksheets and questionnaires as well as an abundance of information regarding threats, asset protection, mission protection, audit trails and others. Finally Chapter 5 "Measuring ROI" covers cost, benefits, some case studies and comparative analysis as well again some great worksheets.
A very useful and well organized guide. (Although a bit on the expensive side)

I founding this book most informative and would reccommend it to any person within my sphere of bussines.

The new book,DEGREES OF BELIEF. is much more than the subtitle, Subjective Probability and Engineering Judgment, would imply. The author presents a scholarly, sensible treatise that covers both theory and practice and, most importantly, builds a beautiful bridge between them.

The various quotes from lectures and writings of Karl Terzaghi, Ralph Peck and other giants of the engineering profession add much to the book. Moreover, the author's emphasis on the wholeness of theory and practice and that regardless of the paradigm, judgment is imperative,make this book so outstanding.

John Barton has written a very worthwhile reference book on dust explosions. It is not a book to replace Rolf Eckhoff's "Dust Explosions in the Process Industries", rather, it is a companion. Dust explosions are complex and those of us who work in the field would agree that there is much about them that is not well understood. Barton has given the subject a new look and particularly for those of us in the USA, a useful insight into the logic and approach of our European colleagues. The logic diagrams alone are worth the price of the book. There is more meat in his treatment of suppression systems than I have seen anywhere else in print. The discussion of vent sizing is excellent and I happen to agree with Barton that the FMRC model has advantages over the others and should be more widely avialable. In addition to vent sizing there is also a very useful discussion of related supplementary design considerations. Barton also covers propagation between linked vessels in a very thorough manner. The illustrations are clear, the photos support the text well and are very useful. The book is well organized, well researched, and easy to use. Highly recommended.

"This book provides a comprehensive one-volume summary of the state-of-the-art in both the basic and applied aspects of earthquake occurrence and seismic risk reduction. It can be used as a reference by both specialists (e.g., seismologists, earthquake engineers, and physicists)and related professionals (e.g., government officials, land-use planners). The volume covers scientific issues, their applications, and policy issues. Each of the eight chapters is followed by a thorough set of reference to recent literature."

This text provides a rich combination of theory, practical explanation, and numerical examples. You even get some computer code! Monte Carlo techniques are at the heart of any complex risk/uncertainty estimation procedure, and the authors have embraced this as an extension to the old tools of the past, that were basically limited by number crunching power. A bonus is the chapter on maximizing economic value of a discovery, which is really beyond the challenges of exploration risking, going into the development and operations phases.

This book is for risk management professionals, or those who work with risk management (project managers, IT security and business continuity professionals and engineers) who want or need to master advanced risk management techniques based on real world issues and factors. Although the book is focused on risk management from a DoD contracting perspective, the material is applicable to commercial organizations as well. The author provides an appendix that compare DoD contracting and commercial environments to ensure that this book has a wide appeal (A Comparison of Risk Management for Commercial and Defense Programs). Obviously if you work in the DoD contracting industry this book is going to be more applicable.

The book begins with an introduction that discusses risk management, why it's needed and what it is. I felt that this material was too basic for an advanced book, but the subsequent chapters quickly got to the heart of the subject by providing the details for an implementation life cycle of an effective risk management process that consists of:
(1) Implementation
(2) Planning
(3) Identification
(4) Analysis
(5) Managing risks
(6) Monitoring

What makes this book valuable for real world practitioners are the pragmatic advice for developing a risk management process that is based on the lessons learned by the author and best practices. In fact, there are over 250 such lessons learned. These alone make the book worthwhile for even the most experienced practitioner because there are sure to be many that you may not have considered. In addition to the best practices, the author provides pitfalls common to risk management and how to avoid them.

Another aspect of this book that adds value is the use of readily available tools, such as Microsoft Excel, and popular simulation software (CrystalBall) to reinforce the techniques that are described in the book. Overall this is one of the best books on risk management that I own because it goes into deep detail and coves advanced topics. It also is practical instead of theoretical, which sets it apart from most risk management books.

Albert Einstein once wrote that you should never despise simple books.

This is certainly an example of a simple book, about the ideas and principles behind risk, which the author explains thoroughly. It is full of insights too, and will probably never go out of date. It gives you a clear understanding of risk in any context, financial or otherwise.

A new, easy to understand risk measure, the author's invention, is central to the book. He uses it effectively to explain the well known but hard to understand standard deviation measure of risk. He also uses it to derive a new version of the risk equation that makes risk elimination and reduction possibilities almost obvious. The original risk equation, over which the author's version is a clear improvement, was first proposed by William Sharpe.

But be warned. This is a book for ideas people only. The author is clearly only interested in principles. (The front cover does state that the book is about practical principles, and means it.) All of the author's examples, many of them almost trivial, are geared to getting the reader to understand a unified set of principles represented by a few basic equations. Nowhere will you find a detailed method for carrying out some specific complex operation, either in finance or everyday systems. The author obviously assumes that if you have understood the principles, you will be able to figure out what to do in any situation, even an entirely new one.

Some people are not very comfortable with ideas, concepts and principles, however, especially application of principles to new situations. They are more comfortable dealing with complex specifics and standard procedures. Such readers may react negatively to this book, since it lacks specific information about any specific situation. With that caveat, I rate it five stars. I found one obvious typographic error near the end, inside an arithmetic expression that came out right.

This book is the first that I have seen tackling the newer commodity markets of weather, emissions, bandwidth and coal trading. It is easy to read and quite informative. Peter Fusaro has assembled the leading practioners from the global energy trading community to offer their insights into these emerging markets. Moreover, software solutions, European gas trading, electronic energy trading and iondex construction are explained simply and clearly for the laymen. It's a must buy if you want to get up to speed fast in these rapidly changing markets which are now more important than ever due to the Enron financial meltdown.

Fantastic Invasion is Douglas Adams in Africa galoshes and all....discovering new tribes like the WaBenzi's and the like. This is a look at the modern African continent with a bit of tongue in cheek and none of the paternalism or simplistic viewpoints that normally pervade literature about Africa and its problems. If you are not a sensitive viewer and want your mind blown away by someone that tells it like it is read this journey through Africa. Notwithstanding that this book is more than 20 years old it still has lessons to teach us all.