Microclimate

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Microclimate on rock located in intertidal zone in Sunrise-on-Sea, South Africa

 

A microclimate is a local set of atmospheric conditions that differ from those in the surrounding areas, often with a slight difference but sometimes with a substantial one. The term may refer to areas as small as a few square meters or square feet (for example a garden bed or a cave) or as large as many square kilometers or square miles. Because climate is statistical, which implies spatial and temporal variation of the mean values of the describing parameters, within a region there can occur and persist over time sets of statistically distinct conditions, that is, microclimates. Microclimates can be found in most places.

Microclimates exist, for example, near bodies of water which may cool the local atmosphere, or in heavy urban areas where brick, concrete, and asphalt absorb the sun's energy, heat up, and re-radiate that heat to the ambient air: the resulting urban heat island is a kind of microclimate.

Another contributing factor of microclimate is the slope or aspect of an area. South-facing slopes in the Northern Hemisphere and north-facing slopes in the Southern Hemisphere are exposed to more direct sunlight than opposite slopes and are therefore warmer for longer periods of time, giving the slope a warmer microclimate than the areas around the slope. The lowest area of a glen may sometimes frost sooner or harder than a nearby spot uphill, because cold air sinks, a drying breeze may not reach the lowest bottom, and humidity lingers and precipitates, then freezes.

Background

Tree ferns thrive in a protected dell area in the Lost Gardens of Heligan, in Cornwall, England, latitude 50° 15'N.

 

The terminology "micro-climate" first appeared in the 1950s in publications such as Climates in Miniature: A Study of Micro-Climate Environment (Thomas Bedford Franklin, 1955).

The area in a developed industrial park may vary greatly from a wooded park nearby, as natural flora in parks absorb light and heat in leaves that a building roof or parking lot just radiates back into the air. Advocates of solar energy argue that widespread use of solar collection can mitigate overheating of urban environments by absorbing sunlight and putting it to work instead of heating the foreign surface objects.

A microclimate can offer an opportunity as a small growing region for crops that cannot thrive in the broader area; this concept is often used in permaculture practiced in northern temperate climates. Microclimates can be used to the advantage of gardeners who carefully choose and position their plants. Cities often raise the average temperature by zoning, and a sheltered position can reduce the severity of winter. Roof gardening, however, exposes plants to more extreme temperatures in both summer and winter.

In an urban area, tall buildings create their own microclimate, both by overshadowing large areas and by channeling strong winds to ground level. Wind effects around tall buildings are assessed as part of a microclimate study.

Microclimates can also refer to purpose-made environments, such as those in a room or other enclosure. Microclimates are commonly created and carefully maintained in museum display and storage environments. This can be done using passive methods, such as silica gel, or with active microclimate control devices. 

Usually, if the inland areas have a humid continental climate, the coastal areas stay much milder during winter months, in contrast to the hotter summers. This is the case further north on the American west coast, such as in British Columbia, Canada, where Vancouver has an oceanic wet winter with rare frosts, but inland areas that average several degrees warmer in summer have cold and snowy winters.

Soil types

The type of soil found in an area can also affect microclimates. For example, soils heavy in clay can act like pavement, moderating the near ground temperature. On the other hand, if soil has many air pockets, then the heat could be trapped underneath the topsoil, resulting in the increased possibility of frost at ground level.

Sources and influences on microclimate

Two main parameters to define a microclimate within a certain area are temperature and humidity. A source of a drop in temperature and/or humidity can be attributed to different sources or influences. Often microclimate is shaped by a conglomerate of different influences and is a subject of microscale meteorology.

Cold air pool

The well known examples of cold air pool (CAP) effect are Gstettneralm Sinkhole in Austria (lowest recorded temperature −53 °C (−63 °F))  and Peter Sinks in the US. The main criterion on the wind speed ${\displaystyle v}$ in order to create a warm air flow penetration into a CAP is the following:

${\displaystyle \mathrm {Fr} ={\frac {v}{Nh}}\geq \mathrm {Fr} _{c},}$

where ${\displaystyle \mathrm {Fr} }$ is the Froude number, ${\displaystyle N}$ --- the Brunt–Väisälä frequency, ${\displaystyle h}$ --- depth of the valley, and ${\displaystyle \mathrm {Fr} _{c}}$ --- Froude number at the threshold wind speed.

Craters

The presence of permafrost close to the surface in a crater creates a unique microclimate environment.

Caves and lava tubes

As similar as lava tubes can be to caves which are not formed due to volcanic activity the microclimate within the former is different due to dominant presence of basalt. Lava tubes and basaltic caves are important astrobiological targets on Earth and Mars.

Plant microclimate

As pointed out by Rudolf Geiger in his book  not only climate influences the living plant but the opposite effect of the interaction of plants on their environment can also take place, and is known as plant climate.

Dams

Artificial reservoirs as well as natural ones create microclimates and often influence the macroscopic climate as well.

Cities and regions known for microclimates

Americas

• Northern California above the Bay Area is also well known for microclimates with significant differences of temperatures. The coastline typically averages between 17 and 19 °C (63 and 66 °F) during summer months along that coastline, but inland towns not far from the ocean such as Lakeport, average as much as 34 °C (93 °F) in spite of being just around 40 miles inland. Even as far north as the Klamath River valley around the 41st parallel north between Willow Creek and Eureka averages such temperatures, which is extremely hot for such northerly areas. At this parallel, the temperature at the coast is so cool that Willow Creek beats Eureka's all-time record temperature on average 79 times per year. This is in spite of the areas being less than 50 miles from each other. In oceanic stable terms it is like traveling from the summers in the north of England to the south of Spain in a fraction of the distance.
  • San Francisco is a city with microclimates and submicroclimates. Due to the city's varied topography and influence from the prevailing summer marine layer, weather conditions can vary by as much as 9 °F (5 °C) from block to block. The Noe Valley district for example, is typically warmer and sunnier than adjacent areas because the surrounding hills block some of the cool fog from the Pacific.
  • The region as a whole, known as the San Francisco Bay area can have a wide range of extremes in temperature. In the basins and valleys adjoining the coast, climate is subject to wide variations within short distances as a result of the influence of topography on the circulation of marine air. The San Francisco Bay Area offers many varieties of climate within a few miles. In the Bay area, for example, the average maximum temperature in July is about 64 °F (18 °C) at Half Moon Bay on the coast, 87 °F (31 °C) at Walnut Creek only 25 mi (40 km) inland, and 95 °F (35 °C) at Tracy, just 50 mi (80 km) inland.
• The Los Angeles and San Diego areas are also subject to phenomena typical of a microclimate. The temperatures can vary as much as 18 °F (10 °C)) between inland areas and the coast, with a temperature gradient of over one degree per mile (1.6 km) from the coast inland. Hills and mountains can also block coastal air masses. The San Fernando Valley is usually much warmer in summer than most of Los Angeles, because the Santa Monica Mountains usually block the cool ocean breezes and fog. Southern California has also a weather phenomenon called "June Gloom" or "May Grey", which sometimes gives overcast or foggy skies in the morning at the coast, but usually gives sunny skies by noon, during late spring and early summer.
• Calgary, Alberta is also known for its microclimates. Especially notable are the differences between the downtown and river valley/flood plain regions and the areas to the west and north. This is largely due to an elevation difference within the city's boundaries of over 1,000 ft (300 m), but can also be attributed somewhat, to the effects of the seasonal Chinooks.
• Halifax, Nova Scotia also has numerous microclimates. Coastal temperatures and weather conditions can differ considerably from areas located just 5–15 km (3.1–9.3 mi) inland. This is true in all seasons. Varying elevations are common throughout the city, and it is even possible to experience several microclimates while traveling on a single highway due to these changing elevations.
• Chesapeake Bay is also known for its subtropical microclimate. It is most notable for its mild climatic effects on the area east and west of the lowlands of Maryland and Delmarva. Having over 64,000 square miles of water; (most of which is a mix of fresh and salt water) creates higher levels of humidity and heat in the spring and summer months. An example of this effect is the survival of tropical palm trees and plants such as water hyacinths in the area.
• Santiago, Chile and Villa de Merlo, Argentina are also subject to microclimates.

Europe

• Known for its wines, the Ticino region in Switzerland benefits from a microclimate in which palm trees and banana trees grow.
• Montreux in Switzerland.
• Gran Canaria is called "Miniature Continent" for its rich variety of microclimates.
• Tenerife is known for its wide variety of microclimates.
• Biddulph Grange is very rich with microclimates as a result of the large dips and variety of very large trees alongside a large amount of water.
• Leeds, located in Yorkshire, England is known to have a number of microclimates because of the number of valleys surrounding the city centre.
• The coastal areas in the Andalusia region of Spain typically average around at 30 °C (86 °F) in summer, but Tarifa only averages 24 °C (75 °F). Further north along the coast Cádiz has a summer average of 27 °C (81 °F) with very warm nights, whereas nearby Jerez de la Frontera has summer highs of 33 °C (91 °F) with inland areas further north such as Seville being even hotter.

Asia and Oceania

• Amman, Jordan has extreme examples of microclimate, and almost every neighbourhood exhibits its own weather. It is known among locals that some boroughs such as the northern and western suburbs are among the coldest in the city, and can be experiencing frost or snow whilst other warmer districts such as the city centre can be at much warmer temperatures at the same time.
• Yazd and Kashan in Iran, the traditional architecture benefits from central courtyards with trees and water pools that function together with wind catchers to create a favorable microclimate in this desert area.
• Sydney, Australia has a microclimate occurring prominently in the warmer months. Inland, in Sydney's western suburbs, the climate is drier and significantly hotter with temperatures generally around 3–7 °C (5–13 °F) above Sydney CBD and Eastern Suburbs (the coast), as sea breezes don't penetrate further inland. In summer, the coast averages at 25.9 °C (78.6 °F), while inland varies between 28 and 30 °C (82 and 86 °F), depending on the suburb. In extreme occasions, the Coast would have a temperature of 24 °C (75 °F), while a suburb 20 km (12.43 mi)) inland bakes in 36 °C (97 °F) heat. However, winter lows in the West are around 3–5 °C (5–9 °F) cooler than the coastal suburbs, and may provide mild to moderate frost. Within the city and surrounds, rainfall varies, from around 682.5 mm (26.87 in) in the far-west to 1,213.8 mm (47.79 in) at Observatory Hill (the east, or the coast).

Risk management

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Example of risk assessment: A NASA model showing areas at high risk from impact for the International Space Station

 

Risk management is the identification, evaluation, and prioritization of risks (defined in ISO 31000 as the effect of uncertainty on objectives) followed by coordinated and economical application of resources to minimize, monitor, and control the probability or impact of unfortunate events or to maximize the realization of opportunities. 

Risks can come from various sources including uncertainty in financial markets, threats from project failures (at any phase in design, development, production, or sustainment life-cycles), legal liabilities, credit risk, accidents, natural causes and disasters, deliberate attack from an adversary, or events of uncertain or unpredictable root-cause. There are two types of events i.e. negative events can be classified as risks while positive events are classified as opportunities. Several risk management standards have been developed including the Project Management Institute, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, actuarial societies, and ISO standards. Methods, definitions and goals vary widely according to whether the risk management method is in the context of project management, security, engineering, industrial processes, financial portfolios, actuarial assessments, or public health and safety. 

Strategies to manage threats (uncertainties with negative consequences) typically include avoiding the threat, reducing the negative effect or probability of the threat, transferring all or part of the threat to another party, and even retaining some or all of the potential or actual consequences of a particular threat, and the opposites for opportunities (uncertain future states with benefits).

Certain aspects of many of the risk management standards have come under criticism for having no measurable improvement on risk; whereas the confidence in estimates and decisions seem to increase. For example, one study found that one in six IT projects were "black swans" with gigantic overruns (cost overruns averaged 200%, and schedule overruns 70%).

Introduction

A widely used vocabulary for risk management is defined by ISO Guide 73:2009, "Risk management. Vocabulary."

In ideal risk management, a prioritization process is followed whereby the risks with the greatest loss (or impact) and the greatest probability of occurring are handled first, and risks with lower probability of occurrence and lower loss are handled in descending order. In practice the process of assessing overall risk can be difficult, and balancing resources used to mitigate between risks with a high probability of occurrence but lower loss versus a risk with high loss but lower probability of occurrence can often be mishandled.

Intangible risk management identifies a new type of a risk that has a 100% probability of occurring but is ignored by the organization due to a lack of identification ability. For example, when deficient knowledge is applied to a situation, a knowledge risk materializes. Relationship risk appears when ineffective collaboration occurs. Process-engagement risk may be an issue when ineffective operational procedures are applied. These risks directly reduce the productivity of knowledge workers, decrease cost-effectiveness, profitability, service, quality, reputation, brand value, and earnings quality. Intangible risk management allows risk management to create immediate value from the identification and reduction of risks that reduce productivity. 

Risk management also faces difficulties in allocating resources. This is the idea of opportunity cost. Resources spent on risk management could have been spent on more profitable activities. Again, ideal risk management minimizes spending (or manpower or other resources) and also minimizes the negative effects of risks. 

According to the definition to the risk, the risk is the possibility that an event will occur and adversely affect the achievement of an objective. Therefore, risk itself has the uncertainty. Risk management such as COSO ERM, can help managers have a good control for their risk. Each company may have different internal control components, which leads to different outcomes. For example, the framework for ERM components includes Internal Environment, Objective Setting, Event Identification, Risk Assessment, Risk Response, Control Activities, Information and Communication, and Monitoring.

Method

For the most part, these methods consist of the following elements, performed, more or less, in the following order.

1. identify, characterize threats
2. assess the vulnerability of critical assets to specific threats
3. determine the risk (i.e. the expected likelihood and consequences of specific types of attacks on specific assets)
4. identify ways to reduce those risks
5. prioritize risk reduction measures

Principles

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) identifies the following principles of risk management:

Risk management should:

• create value – resources expended to mitigate risk should be less than the consequence of inaction
• be an integral part of organizational processes
• be part of decision making process
• explicitly address uncertainty and assumptions
• be a systematic and structured process
• be based on the best available information
• be tailorable
• take human factors into account
• be transparent and inclusive
• be dynamic, iterative and responsive to change
• be capable of continual improvement and enhancement
• be continually or periodically re-assessed.

Process

According to the standard ISO 31000 "Risk management – Principles and guidelines on implementation," the process of risk management consists of several steps as follows:

Establishing the context

This involves:

1. • the social scope of risk management
   • the identity and objectives of stakeholders
   • the basis upon which risks will be evaluated, constraints.
2. defining a framework for the activity and an agenda for identification
3. developing an analysis of risks involved in the process
4. mitigation or solution of risks using available technological, human and organizational resources

Identification

After establishing the context, the next step in the process of managing risk is to identify potential risks. Risks are about events that, when triggered, cause problems or benefits. Hence, risk identification can start with the source of our problems and those of our competitors (benefit), or with the problem itself.

• Source analysis – Risk sources may be internal or external to the system that is the target of risk management (use mitigation instead of management since by its own definition risk deals with factors of decision-making that cannot be managed).

Examples of risk sources are: stakeholders of a project, employees of a company or the weather over an airport.

• Problem analysis – Risks are related to identified threats. For example: the threat of losing money, the threat of abuse of confidential information or the threat of human errors, accidents and casualties. The threats may exist with various entities, most important with shareholders, customers and legislative bodies such as the government.

When either source or problem is known, the events that a source may trigger or the events that can lead to a problem can be investigated. For example: stakeholders withdrawing during a project may endanger funding of the project; confidential information may be stolen by employees even within a closed network; lightning striking an aircraft during takeoff may make all people on board immediate casualties. 

The chosen method of identifying risks may depend on culture, industry practice and compliance. The identification methods are formed by templates or the development of templates for identifying source, problem or event. Common risk identification methods are:

• Objectives-based risk identification – Organizations and project teams have objectives. Any event that may endanger achieving an objective partly or completely is identified as risk.
• Scenario-based risk identification – In scenario analysis different scenarios are created. The scenarios may be the alternative ways to achieve an objective, or an analysis of the interaction of forces in, for example, a market or battle. Any event that triggers an undesired scenario alternative is identified as risk.
• Taxonomy-based risk identification – The taxonomy in taxonomy-based risk identification is a breakdown of possible risk sources. Based on the taxonomy and knowledge of best practices, a questionnaire is compiled. The answers to the questions reveal risks.
• Common-risk checking  – In several industries, lists with known risks are available. Each risk in the list can be checked for application to a particular situation.
• Risk charting – This method combines the above approaches by listing resources at risk, threats to those resources, modifying factors which may increase or decrease the risk and consequences it is wished to avoid. Creating a matrix under these headings enables a variety of approaches. One can begin with resources and consider the threats they are exposed to and the consequences of each. Alternatively one can start with the threats and examine which resources they would affect, or one can begin with the consequences and determine which combination of threats and resources would be involved to bring them about.

Assessment

Once risks have been identified, they must then be assessed as to their potential severity of impact (generally a negative impact, such as damage or loss) and to the probability of occurrence. These quantities can be either simple to measure, in the case of the value of a lost building, or impossible to know for sure in the case of an unlikely event, the probability of occurrence of which is unknown. Therefore, in the assessment process it is critical to make the best educated decisions in order to properly prioritize the implementation of the risk management plan.

Even a short-term positive improvement can have long-term negative impacts. Take the "turnpike" example. A highway is widened to allow more traffic. More traffic capacity leads to greater development in the areas surrounding the improved traffic capacity. Over time, traffic thereby increases to fill available capacity. Turnpikes thereby need to be expanded in a seemingly endless cycles. There are many other engineering examples where expanded capacity (to do any function) is soon filled by increased demand. Since expansion comes at a cost, the resulting growth could become unsustainable without forecasting and management.

The fundamental difficulty in risk assessment is determining the rate of occurrence since statistical information is not available on all kinds of past incidents and is particularly scanty in the case of catastrophic events, simply because of their infrequency. Furthermore, evaluating the severity of the consequences (impact) is often quite difficult for intangible assets. Asset valuation is another question that needs to be addressed. Thus, best educated opinions and available statistics are the primary sources of information. Nevertheless, risk assessment should produce such information for senior executives of the organization that the primary risks are easy to understand and that the risk management decisions may be prioritized within overall company goals. Thus, there have been several theories and attempts to quantify risks. Numerous different risk formulae exist, but perhaps the most widely accepted formula for risk quantification is: "Rate (or probability) of occurrence multiplied by the impact of the event equals risk magnitude."

Risk options

Risk mitigation measures are usually formulated according to one or more of the following major risk options, which are:

1. Design a new business process with adequate built-in risk control and containment measures from the start.
2. Periodically re-assess risks that are accepted in ongoing processes as a normal feature of business operations and modify mitigation measures.
3. Transfer risks to an external agency (e.g. an insurance company)
4. Avoid risks altogether (e.g. by closing down a particular high-risk business area)

Later research has shown that the financial benefits of risk management are less dependent on the formula used but are more dependent on the frequency and how risk assessment is performed. 

In business it is imperative to be able to present the findings of risk assessments in financial, market, or schedule terms. Robert Courtney Jr. (IBM, 1970) proposed a formula for presenting risks in financial terms. The Courtney formula was accepted as the official risk analysis method for the US governmental agencies. The formula proposes calculation of ALE (annualized loss expectancy) and compares the expected loss value to the security control implementation costs.

Potential risk treatments

Once risks have been identified and assessed, all techniques to manage the risk fall into one or more of these four major categories:

• Avoidance (eliminate, withdraw from or not become involved)
• Reduction (optimize – mitigate)
• Sharing (transfer – outsource or insure)
• Retention (accept and budget)

Ideal use of these risk control strategies may not be possible. Some of them may involve trade-offs that are not acceptable to the organization or person making the risk management decisions. Another source, from the US Department of Defense (see link), Defense Acquisition University, calls these categories ACAT, for Avoid, Control, Accept, or Transfer. This use of the ACAT acronym is reminiscent of another ACAT (for Acquisition Category) used in US Defense industry procurements, in which Risk Management figures prominently in decision making and planning.

Risk avoidance

This includes not performing an activity that could carry risk. An example would be not buying a property or business in order to not take on the legal liability that comes with it. Another would be not flying in order not to take the risk that the airplane were to be hijacked. Avoidance may seem the answer to all risks, but avoiding risks also means losing out on the potential gain that accepting (retaining) the risk may have allowed. Not entering a business to avoid the risk of loss also avoids the possibility of earning profits. Increasing risk regulation in hospitals has led to avoidance of treating higher risk conditions, in favor of patients presenting with lower risk.

Risk reduction

Risk reduction or "optimization" involves reducing the severity of the loss or the likelihood of the loss from occurring. For example, sprinklers are designed to put out a fire to reduce the risk of loss by fire. This method may cause a greater loss by water damage and therefore may not be suitable. Halon fire suppression systems may mitigate that risk, but the cost may be prohibitive as a strategy. 

Acknowledging that risks can be positive or negative, optimizing risks means finding a balance between negative risk and the benefit of the operation or activity; and between risk reduction and effort applied. By an offshore drilling contractor effectively applying Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) management in its organization, it can optimize risk to achieve levels of residual risk that are tolerable.

Modern software development methodologies reduce risk by developing and delivering software incrementally. Early methodologies suffered from the fact that they only delivered software in the final phase of development; any problems encountered in earlier phases meant costly rework and often jeopardized the whole project. By developing in iterations, software projects can limit effort wasted to a single iteration.

Outsourcing could be an example of risk sharing strategy if the outsourcer can demonstrate higher capability at managing or reducing risks. For example, a company may outsource only its software development, the manufacturing of hard goods, or customer support needs to another company, while handling the business management itself. This way, the company can concentrate more on business development without having to worry as much about the manufacturing process, managing the development team, or finding a physical location for a center.

Risk sharing

Briefly defined as "sharing with another party the burden of loss or the benefit of gain, from a risk, and the measures to reduce a risk."

The term of 'risk transfer' is often used in place of risk sharing in the mistaken belief that you can transfer a risk to a third party through insurance or outsourcing. In practice if the insurance company or contractor go bankrupt or end up in court, the original risk is likely to still revert to the first party. As such in the terminology of practitioners and scholars alike, the purchase of an insurance contract is often described as a "transfer of risk." However, technically speaking, the buyer of the contract generally retains legal responsibility for the losses "transferred", meaning that insurance may be described more accurately as a post-event compensatory mechanism. For example, a personal injuries insurance policy does not transfer the risk of a car accident to the insurance company. The risk still lies with the policy holder namely the person who has been in the accident. The insurance policy simply provides that if an accident (the event) occurs involving the policy holder then some compensation may be payable to the policy holder that is commensurate with the suffering/damage. 

Some ways of managing risk fall into multiple categories. Risk retention pools are technically retaining the risk for the group, but spreading it over the whole group involves transfer among individual members of the group. This is different from traditional insurance, in that no premium is exchanged between members of the group up front, but instead losses are assessed to all members of the group.

Risk retention

Risk retention involves accepting the loss, or benefit of gain, from a risk when the incident occurs. True self-insurance falls in this category. Risk retention is a viable strategy for small risks where the cost of insuring against the risk would be greater over time than the total losses sustained. All risks that are not avoided or transferred are retained by default. This includes risks that are so large or catastrophic that either they cannot be insured against or the premiums would be infeasible. War is an example since most property and risks are not insured against war, so the loss attributed to war is retained by the insured. Also any amounts of potential loss (risk) over the amount insured is retained risk. This may also be acceptable if the chance of a very large loss is small or if the cost to insure for greater coverage amounts is so great that it would hinder the goals of the organization too much.

Risk management plan

Select appropriate controls or countermeasures to mitigate each risk. Risk mitigation needs to be approved by the appropriate level of management. For instance, a risk concerning the image of the organization should have top management decision behind it whereas IT management would have the authority to decide on computer virus risks. 

The risk management plan should propose applicable and effective security controls for managing the risks. For example, an observed high risk of computer viruses could be mitigated by acquiring and implementing antivirus software. A good risk management plan should contain a schedule for control implementation and responsible persons for those actions. 

According to ISO/IEC 27001, the stage immediately after completion of the risk assessment phase consists of preparing a Risk Treatment Plan, which should document the decisions about how each of the identified risks should be handled. Mitigation of risks often means selection of security controls, which should be documented in a Statement of Applicability, which identifies which particular control objectives and controls from the standard have been selected, and why.

Implementation

Implementation follows all of the planned methods for mitigating the effect of the risks. Purchase insurance policies for the risks that it has been decided to transferred to an insurer, avoid all risks that can be avoided without sacrificing the entity's goals, reduce others, and retain the rest.

Review and evaluation of the plan

Initial risk management plans will never be perfect. Practice, experience, and actual loss results will necessitate changes in the plan and contribute information to allow possible different decisions to be made in dealing with the risks being faced. 

Risk analysis results and management plans should be updated periodically. There are two primary reasons for this:

1. to evaluate whether the previously selected security controls are still applicable and effective
2. to evaluate the possible risk level changes in the business environment. For example, information risks are a good example of rapidly changing business environment.

Limitations

Prioritizing the risk management processes too highly could keep an organization from ever completing a project or even getting started. This is especially true if other work is suspended until the risk management process is considered complete.

It is also important to keep in mind the distinction between risk and uncertainty. Risk can be measured by impacts × probability.

If risks are improperly assessed and prioritized, time can be wasted in dealing with risk of losses that are not likely to occur. Spending too much time assessing and managing unlikely risks can divert resources that could be used more profitably. Unlikely events do occur but if the risk is unlikely enough to occur it may be better to simply retain the risk and deal with the result if the loss does in fact occur. Qualitative risk assessment is subjective and lacks consistency. The primary justification for a formal risk assessment process is legal and bureaucratic.

Areas

As applied to corporate finance, risk management is the technique for measuring, monitoring and controlling the financial or operational risk on a firm's balance sheet, a traditional measure is the value at risk (VaR), but there also other measures like profit at risk (PaR) or margin at risk. The Basel II framework breaks risks into market risk (price risk), credit risk and operational risk and also specifies methods for calculating capital requirements for each of these components.

In Information Technology, Risk management includes "Incident Handling", an action plan for dealing with intrusions, cyber-theft, denial of service, fire, floods, and other security-related events. According to the SANS Institute, it is a six step process: Preparation, Identification, Containment, Eradication, Recovery, and Lessons Learned.

Enterprise

In enterprise risk management, a risk is defined as a possible event or circumstance that can have negative influences on the enterprise in question. Its impact can be on the very existence, the resources (human and capital), the products and services, or the customers of the enterprise, as well as external impacts on society, markets, or the environment. In a financial institution, enterprise risk management is normally thought of as the combination of credit risk, interest rate risk or asset liability management, liquidity risk, market risk, and operational risk. 

In the more general case, every probable risk can have a pre-formulated plan to deal with its possible consequences (to ensure contingency if the risk becomes a liability).

From the information above and the average cost per employee over time, or cost accrual ratio, a project manager can estimate:

• the cost associated with the risk if it arises, estimated by multiplying employee costs per unit time by the estimated time lost (cost impact, C where C = cost accrual ratio * S).
• the probable increase in time associated with a risk (schedule variance due to risk, Rs where Rs = P * S):
  • Sorting on this value puts the highest risks to the schedule first. This is intended to cause the greatest risks to the project to be attempted first so that risk is minimized as quickly as possible.
  • This is slightly misleading as schedule variances with a large P and small S and vice versa are not equivalent. (The risk of the RMS Titanic sinking vs. the passengers' meals being served at slightly the wrong time).
• the probable increase in cost associated with a risk (cost variance due to risk, Rc where Rc = P*C = P*CAR*S = P*S*CAR)
  • sorting on this value puts the highest risks to the budget first.
  • see concerns about schedule variance as this is a function of it, as illustrated in the equation above.

Risk in a project or process can be due either to Special Cause Variation or Common Cause Variation and requires appropriate treatment. That is to re-iterate the concern about extreme cases not being equivalent in the list immediately above.

Enterprise Security

ESRM is a security program management approach that links security activities to an enterprise's mission and business goals through risk management methods. The security leader's role in ESRM is to manage risks of harm to enterprise assets in partnership with the business leaders whose assets are exposed to those risks. ESRM involves educating business leaders on the realistic impacts of identified risks, presenting potential strategies to mitigate those impacts, then enacting the option chosen by the business in line with accepted levels of business risk tolerance

Medical device

For medical devices, risk management is a process for identifying, evaluating and mitigating risks associated with harm to people and damage to property or the environment. Risk management is an integral part of medical device design and development, production processes and evaluation of field experience, and is applicable to all types of medical devices. The evidence of its application is required by most regulatory bodies such as the US FDA. The management of risks for medical devices is described by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in ISO 14971:2007, Medical Devices—The application of risk management to medical devices, a product safety standard. The standard provides a process framework and associated requirements for management responsibilities, risk analysis and evaluation, risk controls and lifecycle risk management. 

The European version of the risk management standard was updated in 2009 and again in 2012 to refer to the Medical Devices Directive (MDD) and Active Implantable Medical Device Directive (AIMDD) revision in 2007, as well as the In Vitro Medical Device Directive (IVDD). The requirements of EN 14971:2012 are nearly identical to ISO 14971:2007. The differences include three "(informative)" Z Annexes that refer to the new MDD, AIMDD, and IVDD. These annexes indicate content deviations that include the requirement for risks to be reduced as far as possible, and the requirement that risks be mitigated by design and not by labeling on the medical device (i.e., labeling can no longer be used to mitigate risk). 

Typical risk analysis and evaluation techniques adopted by the medical device industry include hazard analysis, fault tree analysis (FTA), failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), hazard and operability study (HAZOP), and risk traceability analysis for ensuring risk controls are implemented and effective (i.e. tracking risks identified to product requirements, design specifications, verification and validation results etc.). FTA analysis requires diagramming software. FMEA analysis can be done using a spreadsheet program. There are also integrated medical device risk management solutions. 

Through a draft guidance, the FDA has introduced another method named "Safety Assurance Case" for medical device safety assurance analysis. The safety assurance case is structured argument reasoning about systems appropriate for scientists and engineers, supported by a body of evidence, that provides a compelling, comprehensible and valid case that a system is safe for a given application in a given environment. With the guidance, a safety assurance case is expected for safety critical devices (e.g. infusion devices) as part of the pre-market clearance submission, e.g. 510(k). In 2013, the FDA introduced another draft guidance expecting medical device manufacturers to submit cybersecurity risk analysis information.

Project management

Project risk management must be considered at the different phases of acquisition. In the beginning of a project, the advancement of technical developments, or threats presented by a competitor's projects, may cause a risk or threat assessment and subsequent evaluation of alternatives. Once a decision is made, and the project begun, more familiar project management applications can be used:

An example of the Risk Register for a project that includes 4 steps: Identify, Analyze, Plan Response, Monitor and Control.

• Planning how risk will be managed in the particular project. Plans should include risk management tasks, responsibilities, activities and budget.
• Assigning a risk officer – a team member other than a project manager who is responsible for foreseeing potential project problems. Typical characteristic of risk officer is a healthy skepticism.
• Maintaining live project risk database. Each risk should have the following attributes: opening date, title, short description, probability and importance. Optionally a risk may have an assigned person responsible for its resolution and a date by which the risk must be resolved.
• Creating anonymous risk reporting channel. Each team member should have the possibility to report risks that he/she foresees in the project.
• Preparing mitigation plans for risks that are chosen to be mitigated. The purpose of the mitigation plan is to describe how this particular risk will be handled – what, when, by whom and how will it be done to avoid it or minimize consequences if it becomes a liability.
• Summarizing planned and faced risks, effectiveness of mitigation activities, and effort spent for the risk management.

Megaprojects (infrastructure)

Megaprojects (sometimes also called "major programs") are large-scale investment projects, typically costing more than $1 billion per project. Megaprojects include major bridges, tunnels, highways, railways, airports, seaports, power plants, dams, wastewater projects, coastal flood protection schemes, oil and natural gas extraction projects, public buildings, information technology systems, aerospace projects, and defense systems. Megaprojects have been shown to be particularly risky in terms of finance, safety, and social and environmental impacts. Risk management is therefore particularly pertinent for megaprojects and special methods and special education have been developed for such risk management.

Natural disasters

It is important to assess risk in regard to natural disasters like floods, earthquakes, and so on. Outcomes of natural disaster risk assessment are valuable when considering future repair costs, business interruption losses and other downtime, effects on the environment, insurance costs, and the proposed costs of reducing the risk. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction is a 2015 international accord that has set goals and targets for disaster risk reduction in response to natural disasters. There are regular International Disaster and Risk Conferences in Davos to deal with integral risk management.

Wilderness

The management of risks to persons and property in wilderness and remote natural areas has developed with increases in outdoor recreation participation and decreased social tolerance for loss. Organizations providing commercial wilderness experiences can now align with national and international consensus standards for training and equipment such as ANSI/NASBLA 101-2017 (boating), UIAA 152 (ice climbing tools), and European Norm 13089:2015 + A1:2015 (mountaineering equipment). The Association for Experiential Education offers accreditation for wilderness adventure programs. The Wilderness Risk Management Conference provides access to best practices, and specialist organizations provide wilderness risk management consulting and training.

Information technology

IT risk is a risk related to information technology. This is a relatively new term due to an increasing awareness that information security is simply one facet of a multitude of risks that are relevant to IT and the real world processes it supports.

ISACA's Risk IT framework ties IT risk to enterprise risk management. 

Duty of Care Risk Analysis (DoCRA) evaluates risks and their safeguards and considers the interests of all parties potentially affected by those risks. 

CIS RAM provides a method to design and evaluate the implementation of the CIS Controls™.

Petroleum and natural gas

For the offshore oil and gas industry, operational risk management is regulated by the safety case regime in many countries. Hazard identification and risk assessment tools and techniques are described in the international standard ISO 17776:2000, and organisations such as the IADC (International Association of Drilling Contractors) publish guidelines for Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) Case development which are based on the ISO standard. Further, diagrammatic representations of hazardous events are often expected by governmental regulators as part of risk management in safety case submissions; these are known as bow-tie diagrams (see Network theory in risk assessment). The technique is also used by organisations and regulators in mining, aviation, health, defence, industrial and finance.

Pharmaceutical sector

The principles and tools for quality risk management are increasingly being applied to different aspects of pharmaceutical quality systems. These aspects include development, manufacturing, distribution, inspection, and submission/review processes throughout the lifecycle of drug substances, drug products, biological and biotechnological products (including the use of raw materials, solvents, excipients, packaging and labeling materials in drug products, biological and biotechnological products). Risk management is also applied to the assessment of microbiological contamination in relation to pharmaceutical products and cleanroom manufacturing environments.

Risk communication

Risk communication is a complex cross-disciplinary academic field related to core values of the targeted audiences. Problems for risk communicators involve how to reach the intended audience, how to make the risk comprehensible and relatable to other risks, how to pay appropriate respect to the audience's values related to the risk, how to predict the audience's response to the communication, etc. A main goal of risk communication is to improve collective and individual decision making. Risk communication is somewhat related to crisis communication. Some experts coincide that risk is not only enrooted in the communication process but also it cannot be dissociated from the use of language. Though each culture develops its own fears and risks, these construes apply only by the hosting culture.

Berserker (Saberhagen)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Berserker

July 1986 Ace 13th printing features cover art by Boris Vallejo.
Author	Fred Saberhagen
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Science fiction
Publisher	Ballantine '67, Penguin '70/'85 (UK), Ace '78/'79/'80/'84/'92
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
ISBN	0-441-05495-1 (Ace '92 edition)

The Berserker series is a series of space opera science fiction short stories and novels by Fred Saberhagen, in which robotic self-replicating machines strive to destroy all life.

These Berserkers, named after the human berserker warriors of Norse legend, are doomsday weapons left over from an interstellar war between two races of extraterrestrials. They all have machine intelligence, and their sizes range from that of an asteroid, in the case of an automated repair and construction base, down to human size (and shape) or smaller. The Berserkers' bases are capable of manufacturing more and deadlier Berserkers as need arises.

The Berserker stories (published as novels and short stories) depict the fight between Berserkers and the sentient species of the Milky Way Galaxy: Homo sapiens (referred to as "Earth-descended" or "ED" humans, or as "Solarians") is the only sentient species aggressive enough to counter Berserkers.

First appearances

The first story, "Without a Thought" (originally published as "Fortress Ship")  (1963), was basically a puzzle story, whose protagonist must find a way to simulate intelligence to fool an enemy trying to determine whether there was any conscious being present in a spaceship. 

Saberhagen came up with the Berserker as the rationale for the story on the spur of the moment, but the basic concept was so fruitful, with so many possible ramifications, that he used it as the basis of many stories. A common theme in the stories is of how the apparent weaknesses and inconsistencies of living beings are actually the strengths that bring about the killer machines' eventual defeat.

The second story, "Goodlife" (1963), introduces human traitors or collaborators who cooperate with the Berserker machines to stay alive for a little longer.

Backstory

The original Berserkers were designed and built as an ultimate weapon, by a race now known only as the Builders, to wipe out their rivals, the Red Race, in a war which took place at a time corresponding to Earth's Paleolithic era. The Builders failed to ensure their own immunity from Berserker attack, or they lost those safeguards through an unknown malfunction that changed the Berserker programming, and they were exterminated by their own creation very shortly after the demise of the Red Race. The Berserkers then set out across the galaxy to fulfill their core programmed imperative, which is now, simply, to destroy all life wherever they can find it. 

A similar premise, though on a much smaller scale, was previously introduced by Walter M. Miller, Jr. in the 1954 short story “I Made You,”, described by reviewer N. Samuelson as "A pure ‘ sorcerer’s apprentice’ sketch, about a war machine on the moon which kills anyone who comes within its range, including one of its programmers, because its control circuits are damaged.".

List of species

The Berserker stories features many different characters originating from many different species, human and alien. These include:

Berserkers

The Berserkers are intelligent machines, created by an organic race in the past as a doomsday weapon, a group of robots with one goal: to destroy all organic life. 

Berserkers exist in a multitude of shapes, sizes and forms. The most common Berserkers are large spherical interstellar spacecraft, heavily armed and armored, equipped with self-replicating factories, and capable of producing numerous scout craft, foot soldiers, and other weapons of war. 

Little is known of the Berserkers' history other than that they were created to destroy the Red Race, who are now extinct. The creators of the Berserkers are known as the Builders, who were also later destroyed by the Berserkers.

The Builders

The Builders were a precursor race, of whom little is known other than they created and were later destroyed by the Berserkers. Saberhagen describes them thus:

And of the Builders themselves, their own all-too-effective weapons, the berserkers, had left nothing but a few obscure records—video and voice recordings. Those videos had recorded slender, fine-boned beings, topologically like Solarian humans with the sole visible exception of the eye, which in the Builder species was a single organ, stretching clear across the upper face, with a bright bulging pupil that slid rapidly back and forth.

In most of the ancient Builder graphics, no matter how elegantly enhanced, the berserkers' creators showed as hardly more than stick drawing of orange glowing substance. Now for the first time in history it was plain to Solarian eyes that that orange color and brightness were the result of some kind of clothing, the exposed skin being a dullish yellow where it showed on the face, the four-fingered hands, and across part of the chest.

The Builders created the Berserkers in a genocidal war with the Red Race, which ended in both races' extinction by the Berserkers.

Red Race

The Red Race was another precursor race, of which little is known other than that their extinction was the Builders' purpose in creating the Berserkers millennia ago.

Carmpan

The Carmpan are a patient and peaceful species; their culture is one of logic, reason, pacifism, and philosophy. They lend what support they can to the Humans, but in non-martial forms. They are incapable of direct aggression, but they do possess one special power, a telepathic ability to speak to other sentients across the stars, a method of communication that the Berserkers cannot spy on. Their most effective help to ED (Earth Descended) Solarians is the 'Prophecy of Probability' in which they can give information on future events. This prophecy is very taxing and can even cause the death of a Carmpan. 

Although their bodies are described as boxy and machine-like, the Carmpan are also a biological lifeform and thus a target for the genocidal programming of the Berzerkers. As such, they have allied themselves with the human race against the Berserkers. 

The first stories in the series are related by an individual Carmpan, the "3rd Historian", who seeks to chronicle life in the Galaxy and the struggle against the Berserkers.

Humanity

Homo sapiens, referred to as "Earth-descended" or "ED" Humans, or as "Solarians", is the only sentient species aggressive enough to counter Berserkers. 

The Berserkers have severely threatened human civilizations and wiped out billions of humans and other more exotic species. The remnants of human civilization have learned to be wily in order to survive. Berserker technology is much more advanced than that of any known human society. The survivors are disparate and lack the ability to act as a united foe to the Berserkers. While ED humans have massed powerful fleets on many occasions, bickering and strife between factions both political and cultural have often blunted the Solarian Armadas effectiveness, ironically furthering the power of their 'Von Neumann' machine foes, the Berserkers.

Goodlife

The Berserkers are known to cooperate with each other, most of the time. They sometimes spare the lives of human (or other organic) traitors or collaborators, known as "goodlife", who are willing to cooperate to help destroy other lifeforms.

Qwib-qwib

Later stories involve the Qwib-qwib, an anti-Berserker berserker.

Adaptations

• A board game based on the series was produced by Flying Buffalo Inc in 1982.
• A comic book adaptation is being created by Fan-Atic Press.

Related concepts

Other examples of science fiction stories containing replicators bent on the destruction of organic life include:

• Cylons, robotic antagonists bent on destroying all humankind. In fact, much of Battlestar Galactica borrows heavily from Fred Saberhagen's berserker stories, including Saberhagen's race of Builders, whose "sliding single eye" became the signature design element for the Cylons.
• "The Doomsday Machine", a Star Trek episode about a planet-eating machine from another galaxy.
• The Festival, a civilization of uploaded minds with strange designs on Humanity, in Singularity Sky by Charles Stross.
• The Hypotheticals, intelligent Von Neumann machines with strange designs on Earth, in Spin by Robert Charles Wilson.
• Inhibitors, in the fiction of Alastair Reynolds: a formerly organic race, completely converted over to machine form, who are non-sapient, and describe themselves as "post-intelligent".
• The Killers, a civilization of self-replicating machines designed to destroy any potential threat to their (possibly long-dead) creators, in The Forge of God and sequel Anvil of Stars by Greg Bear.
• Reapers, machine intelligences bent on the destruction of organic life, in Mass Effect.
• Necrons, an ancient race of skeleton-like robots in Warhammer 40,000.
• Skynet, an artificial intelligence bent on the destruction of mankind, and its agents the Terminators, in the movie The Terminator and its sequels.
• The Xymos Nanoswarms in Prey by Michael Crichton.
• The (!*!*!), a machine intelligence/civilization bent on the extermination of organic life, from the Bolo universe stories about a fictional type of artificially intelligent super-heavy tank.