PubMed Health⌕ Search

PubMed · 16310943

Harnessing data mining to explore incident databases.

Abstract

Large numbers of incident related databases have been established in the last three decades. The majority of attempts to explore these data marts were trials to identify patterns via first glance into the datasets. This study investigated a subset of incidents from fixed facilities in Harris County, TX, extracted from the National Response Center database. By classifying the information into groups and using data mining techniques, interesting patterns of incidents according to characteristics such as type of equipment involved, type of chemical released and causes involved were revealed and further these were used to modify the annual failure probabilities of equipments.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Sumit Anand, Nir Keren, Marietta J Tretter, Yanjun Wang, T Michael O'Connor, M Sam Mannan. 2005-11-28. Harnessing data mining to explore incident databases.. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhazmat.2005.07.046

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

The need for the "new health geography" in epidemiologic studies of environment and health.

Growth during the past decade in what can be broadly referred to as social and environmental epidemiologic research has been an important contributor to an emerging understanding of environment and health relationships. While the incorporation of geographic information systems as well as concepts such as "neighborhoods" might be viewed as evidence of social epidemiology moving closer to health geography, I argue that the two fields are not well aligned. Health geography has much more to contribute to studies of environment and health, and attention by social epidemiologists to those potential contributions could help rectify this misalignment. This paper suggests a number of geographic perspectives on health and environment that could create useful connections between geography and public health, via social epidemiology. To illustrate this potential, I use an ongoing study of a Texas community exposed to a large petrochemical complex-an inquiry constructed in the mode of social epidemiology - as a case in point. I apply several perspectives and concepts from geography to the case study. Cultural ecology, discourse materialized, political ecology, and territoriality are used to assess the Texas City situation and suggest important types of understandings that can enhance the social epidemiology approach to environment and health. I conclude with a discussion of the prospects for a social epidemiology infused with this type of geographic thought and analysis.

Chemical Industry↗

Development of a continuous electrolytic system with discharging only one pH-controlled stream and its characteristics.

In order to produce only a pH-controlled solution without discharging any unused solution, this work has developed a continuous electrolytic system with an ion exchange membrane-equipped electrolyzer and a tank, called as a pH-adjustment reservoir, placed just in front of the electrolyzer, where as a target solution was fed into the pH-adjustment reservoir, a portion of the solution in the pH-adjustment reservoir was circulated through the cathodic or anodic chamber of the electrolyzer depending on the type of the ion exchange membrane used, and another portion of the solution in the pH-adjustment reservoir was discharged from the electrolytic system through the opposite electrode chamber with its pH being controlled. The internal circulation of the pH-adjustment reservoir solution through the anodic chamber in the case of using a cation exchange membrane and that through the cathodic chamber in the case of using an anion exchange membrane could make the solution, discharged from the other counter chamber, effectively acidic and basic, respectively. The phenomena of the pH being controlled in the system could be explained by the electro-migration of the ion species in the solution through the ion exchange membrane under a cell potential difference between the anode and the cathode and its consequently-occurring non-charge equilibriums and the electrolytic water-split reactions in the anodic and cathodic chambers.

Chemical Industry↗

Mercury speciation in the hair of pre-school children living near a chlor-alkali plant.

Exposure to mercury species was assessed in the hair of 130 Spanish children (age 4) from the general population in two areas. Both areas are exposed to different sources of mercury: a point source in Ribera d'Ebre (northeastern Spain) and a diffuse source on the island of Menorca (northwestern Mediterranean). The median MeHg values in the hair of children from Ribera d'Ebre (RE) were nearly twice (0.631 microg/g vs. 0.370 microg/g) those of children from Menorca (MC) (p < 0.05). Total Hg showed a similar trend (REmedian: 0.720 microg/g vs. MCmedian: 0.476 microg/g). Nevertheless, inorganic mercury levels were similar in the two groups of children (REmedian: 0.186 microg/g vs. MCmedian: 0.210 microg/g). Two subgroups of the Ribera d'Ebre group were defined: children living in Flix (a village near a chlor-alkali plant) (RE1) and children living on the outskirts of Flix with no clear, direct influence of the plant (RE2). The mercury concentrations in RE1 were also significantly higher than those in Menorca, but no significant differences were found between Menorca and the RE2 subgroup. We evaluated the fish consumption of RE1, RE2 and MC and found that the Menorcan children consumed significantly less fish (p < 0.05) than the other two subgroups. Children who consumed fish more than three times a week had higher MeHg concentrations (beta (SE) = 0.991 (0.279) than those who ate it less than once a week. Nevertheless, the differences in MeHg levels between children from Ribera d'Ebre and Menorca remained statistically significant after adjustment for fish intake and other variables (beta (SE) = 0.779 (0.203) for children from RE1). In conclusion, local sources other than seafood contribute significantly to MeHg content in hair in the two Ribera d'Ebre subgroups.

Chemical Industry↗