A Screening Methodology for the Identification and Ranking of Infrastructure Vulnerabilities due to Terrorism

by George E. Apostolakis

and

Modeling Exposure, Reliability, and Recovery in Complex Clinical Settings Participation

by By Marlene B. Goldman, Sc.D.

Wednesday, December 1, 2004
4:05-4:30 PM Social gathering, light snacks
4:30–6:30 PM Program

Conference Room, CDM
One Cambridge Place, 50 Hampshire Street,
Cambridge, MA

RSVP Required to Korin Scheible at CDM, ScheibleKA@cdm.com by noon the day of the meeting to facilitate security sign in.

A Screening Methodology for the Identification and Ranking of Infrastructure Vulnerabilities due to Terrorism

George E. Apostolakis
Professor of Nuclear Engineering and of Engineering Systems
MIT Department of Nuclear Engineering
Email: apostola@mit.edu
Phone: 617-252-1570
Fax: 617-258-8863

Summary: The extreme importance of critical infrastructures to modern society is widely recognized. These infrastructures are complex and interdependent. Protecting the critical infrastructures from terrorism presents an enormous challenge. Recognizing that society cannot afford the costs associated with absolute protection, it is necessary to identify and prioritize the vulnerabilities in these infrastructures. By protecting the critical locations society achieves the greatest benefit for the protection investment. This paper presents a methodology for the identification and prioritization of vulnerabilities in infrastructures. We model the infrastructures as interconnected digraphs and employ graph theory to identify the candidate vulnerable scenarios. These scenarios are screened for their susceptibility to a terrorist attack, and a prioritized list of vulnerabilities is produced. The prioritization methodology is based on multi-attribute utility theory. The methodology is illustrated through the presentation of a portion on the analysis conducted on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Biography: Dr. Apostolakis holds a PhD in Engineering Science and Applied Mathematics from Caltech. His research interests include methods for probabilistic risk assessment of complex technological systems; risk management involving several stakeholder groups; decision analysis; human reliability models; organizational factors and safety culture; infrastructure security; and risk-informed and performance-based regulation. Dr. Apostolakis has received several awards and honors, most recently the Tommy Thompson Award, Nuclear Installations Safety Division, American Nuclear Society in 1999. Dr. Dr. Apostolakis is Editor-in-Chief, Reliability Engineering and System Safety, An International Journal, Elsevier Science Publishers, England; Founder and Secretary, International Association for Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management; Member and Former Chairman, Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission; and a member of the editorial boards of several journals.

Modeling Exposure, Reliability, and Recovery in Complex Clinical Settings Participation

Marlene B. Goldman, Sc.D.
Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
phone: 617.667.2933
fax: 617.667.2924
email: mgoldman@bidmc.harvard.edu

Summary:While probabilistic risk assessment is becoming more widely applied, it has not yet been adapted for use in evaluating the safety of patient care. The health care environment is an extraordinarily complex system, often involving sophisticated patient and treatment protocols, a high level of automation and instrumentation, large volumes of information, and interdisciplinary coordination. This presentation will begin with a discussion of the role of aviation safety training in the labor and delivery environment and then describe the adaptation of risk assessment principles to identify and evaluate the impact of system factors that contribute to variations in the process of obstetric care.

Biography: Dr. Goldman is associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She specializes in the design, conduct, and analysis of large epidemiologic cohort studies and clinical trials. She has published widely on the impact of environmental, occupational, and lifestyle influences on reproductive health and the carcinogenic consequences of diagnostic and therapeutic ionizing radiation. Dr. Goldman is lead epidemiologist on three federally-funded clinical trials investigating optimal therapy options for infertility and improving the quality of care that women receive during labor and delivery. She is principal investigator of an AHRQ-funded project to evaluate risk and recovery in the labor and delivery environment.