[en] Historically and methodologically counterposed until now, the environmentalist and the economic approach to environmental problems need to be integrated in a new approach that considers, from one side, the relevance of the ecological equilibria for the economic systems and, from the other side, the economic dimension (in terms of investments and transformations in the production system) of any attempt to achieve a better environment. In order to achieve this integration, both approaches are compelled to give up some cultural habits that have characterized them, and have contributed to over-emphasize the opposition between them. The article shows that both approaches can converge into a new one, in which environment is no longer only an holistic, not bargainable, natural external limit to human activity (as in the environmentalist approach), nor simply a scarce and exhaustible resource (as economics tends to consider it); environment should instead become part of the reproducibility sphere, or, in other words, it must be regarded as part of the output that the economic system provides. This new approach, due to scientific and technological advances, is made possible for an increasing class of environmental problems. In order to do this, an evolution is required, that could be able to convert environmental goals into investment and technological innovation goals, and communicate to the firms the value society assigns to environmental resources. This value, the author suggests, should correspond to the reproduction cost. Various examples of this new approach are analyzed and discussed

[en] This paper presents the methods used to evaluate the utilization of manpower by using time motion methods that determine productive and non-productive status of technicians. It also presents the methods used to determine if technician's time and plant equipment is used in the most beneficial and cost effective manner. Assigned routine tasks are evaluated to determine if they are adequate, inadequate or not necessary

[en] In today's competitive gas gathering, processing, storage and transportation business environment, the requirements to do business are continually changing. These changes arise from government regulations such as the amendments to the Clean Air Act concerning the environment and FERC Order 636 concerning business practices. Other changes are due to advances in technology such as electronic flow measurement (EFM) and real-time communications capabilities within the gas industry. Gas gathering, processing, storage and transportation companies must be flexible in adapting to these changes to remain competitive. These dynamic requirements can be met with an open, real-time gas management computer information system. Such a system provides flexible services with a variety of software applications. Allocations, nominations management and gas dispatching are examples of applications that are provided on a real-time basis. By providing real-time services, the gas management system enables operations personnel to make timely adjustments within the current accounting period. Benefits realized from implementing a real-time gas management system include reduced unaccountable gas, reduced imbalance penalties, reduced regulatory violations, improved facility operations and better service to customers. These benefits give a company the competitive edge. This article discusses the applications provided, the benefits from implementing a real-time gas management system, and the definition of such a system

[en] The article is an analysis of the problem of incorporating the environment in the national accounting system as an essential part of a country's revenue. Revenue is defined here as the value which is necessary for the prudent management of a nation's expenses and balances. After a first analysis of the importance of properly structuring national accounting systems, methods used in certain countries such as France, Japan and Germany were considered in order to single out the limitations and merits of these methods. The purpose is to find a standard method which would allow for comparison with the situation in various countries and, in this way, indicate directives for better management of the environment in all of its aspects

[en] This paper describes analytic tools we developed to quantify the effectiveness of safeguards against theft of special nuclear material by insiders. These tools help identify vulnerabilities in existing safeguards, suggest potential improvements, and help assess the benefits of these upgrades prior to implementation. Alone, these tools are not sufficient for safeguards planning, since the cost of implementing all suggested upgrades almost always exceeds the available resources. This paper describes another tool we developed to allow comparsion of benefits of various upgrades to identify those upgrade packages that achieve the greatest improvement in protection for a given cost and to provide a priority ranking among cost-effective packages, thereby helping decision-makers select the upgrades to implement and highlight the mount of residual risk. 5 refs., 3 figs

[en] With reference to highly debated sustainable growth strategies to counter pressing interrelated global environmental and socio-economic problems, this paper reviews economic and resource development theories proposed by classical and neoclassical economists. The review evidences the growing debate among public administration decision makers regarding appropriate methods to assess the worth of natural resources and ecosystems. Proposed methods tend to be biased either towards environmental protection or economic development. Two major difficulties in the effective implementation of sustainable growth strategies are also evidenced - the management of such strategies would require appropriate revisions to national accounting systems, and the dynamic flow of energy and materials between an economic system and the environment would generate a sequence of unstable structures evolving in a chaotic and unpredictable way

[en] Are the costs of greenhouse gas emissions abatement justified by the perceived benefits of sustained climate stability? Do people of the present generation have a moral right to impose climate risks on their descendants in generations to come? This report examines these questions in light of the emergent facts of climate science and their socioeconomic implications. We consider alternative normative criteria for social decision-making with particular emphasis on cost-benefit analysis and the principle of sustainable development. While each framework yields important insights, we argue that the gross uncertainties associated with climate change and the distribution of impacts between present and future generations constrain the usefulness of cost-benefit criteria in evaluating climate policy. If one accepts the ethical proposition that it is morally wrong to impose catastrophic risks on unborn generations when reducing those risks would not noticeably diminish the quality of life of existing persons, a case can be made for concerted policy action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (118 refs., 3 figs., 4 tabs.)

[en] This report addresses the identification of the critical engineering data needs for the commercialization of magnetic confinement fusion (MCF). The project assessed these for twenty-four MCF reactor designs. This resulted in the identification of seventy-eight critical engineering data requirements. These were weighted and ranked to arrive at a workable number of potential experimental areas that would contribute to the needed data base. These were presented to a workshop of MCF reactor concept advocates, technologists, experimentalists and test facility managers for evaluation. They recommended a set of specific experiments to resolve the identified needs. Using the criteria of high benefit-to-cost, timeliness, and appropriateness for EPRI sponsorship, the list of workshop-recommended experiments was narrowed to a selected set of twenty. These were further explored to enable a selection of ten experiments for consideration of sponsorship by EPRI. The selected experiments were then examined in more detail regarding the justification for the experiment, preliminary experiment definition, expected results, schedule and milestones and the approximate experiment cost. These ten experiment plans are discussed

[en] We have developed a model to compare the relative cost-effectiveness of two or more diagnostic tests. The model defines a cost-effectiveness ratio (CER) for a diagnostic test as the ratio of effective cost to base cost, only dollar costs considered. Effective cost includes base cost, cost of dealing with expected side effects, and wastage due to imperfect test performance. Test performance is measured by diagnostic utility (DU), a measure of test outcomes incorporating the decision-analytic variables sensitivity, specificity, equivocal fraction, disease probability, and outcome utility. Each of these factors affecting DU, and hence CER, is a local, not universal, value; these local values strongly affect CER, which in effect becomes a property of the local medical setting. When DU = +1 and there are no adverse effects, CER = 1 and the patient benefits from the test dollar for dollar. When there are adverse effects effective cost exceeds base cost, and for an imperfect test DU < 1; in either case CER > 1. As DU approaches 0 (worthless test), CER approaches infinity (no effectiveness at any cost). If DU is negative, indicating that doing the test at all would be detrimental, CER also becomes negative. We conclude that the CER model is a useful preliminary method for ranking the relative cost-effectiveness of diagnostic tests, and that the comparisons would best be done using local values; different groups might well arrive at different rankings. (Author)

[en] The proper definition and quantification of human safety is discussed and from this basis the historical development of our present very high standard of safety is traced. It is shown that increased safety is closely associated with increased wealth, and the quantitative relationship between then is derived from different sources of evidence. When this factor is applied to the production of wealth by industry, a safety benefit is indicated which exceeds the asserted risks by orders of magnitude. It is concluded that present policies and attitudes in respect to the safety of industry may be diametrically wrong. (orig.)