Sensitivity of threshold risk

Abstract:

Professor Jerzy will briefly describe two instances of safety critical systems – in disparate applications - where the risk of crossing an undesirable threshold is very sensitive to certain control parameters. We call this phenomenon an “instability wedge of risk” and observe that it carries with it both dangers of failure and opportunities for intervention to prevent such failures.

One of these applications arises in the context of the risk of overcrowding at a large public hospital where failure may entail an inability to quickly admit and adequately treat patients arriving by ambulance in need of urgent attention. The other application addresses the risk of the abundance of a harvested species (e.g., fish) falling crossing a threshold level below which its viability may be in question.

It will be seen that, mathematically, the two problems are very similar. Is there a more general principle to be discovered here?

Jerzy Filar is a broadly trained applied mathematician with research interests spanning a wide spectrum of both theoretical and applied topics in Operations Research, Optimisation, Game Theory, Applied Probability and Environmental Modelling. Professor Filar co-authored three research level books. He also authored or co-authored approximately 100 refereed research papers. He is editor-in-chief of Environmental Modelling and Assessment and serves on editorial boards of JMAA and a number of other journals. Professor Filar is a Fellow of the Australian Mathematical Society. He has supervised or co-supervised 25 PhD students who are working at various universities, industries and research institutions across the world.