Mathematical methods of probabilistic safety analysis

The objectives of this project include the following: (1) to make significant strides in the provision of improved bases or criteria for decision-making involving risk to the public health and safety (where a risk involves a combination of a hazard and the probability of that hazard); (2) to make significant strides in the structuring and development of improved, and possibly alternative, general methodologies for assessing risk and risk-benefit for technological systems; (3) to develop improvements in the techniques for the quantitative assessment of risk and benefit; (4) to apply methods of risk and risk-benefit assessment to specific applications in nuclear power (and possibly other technological systems) in order to test methodologies, to uncover needed improvements and gaps in technique, and to provide a partial, selective, independent assessment of the levels of risk arising from nuclear power.