L. Tandy Herren

The use of probability elicitation in the high-level nuclear waste regulation program

Abstract Expert judgement elicitation is expected to be used in the performance assessments (PA) of the long-term behavior of high-level waste (HLW) geologic repositories. As a preparation for an effective review of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) PA, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is evaluating the mechanics of eliciting expert judgements. One of the objectives of this evaluation is to explore techniques for generating and aggregating probabilistic judgements of future conditions at the proposed HLW repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. An actual elicitation was conducted as an aid to these evaluations. This paper documents this probabilistically centered elicitation and subsequent activities to explore aggregation of opinion techniques. Future climate in the Yucca Mountain, Nevada vicinity was selected as the topic for elicitation. Personnel from the NRC and Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses (CNWRA) defined the climatic parameters of interest in conjunction with a panel of five expert climatologists. Individual elicitations were performed with each climatologist to produce probabilistic estimates of each parameter at seven points of time in the future. The elicitations employed the fractile technique to generate cumulative probability distributions representing the uncertainty in the predictions. After the individual elicitations, a group session was conducted to explore aggregation and consensus methods.

Future climate at Yucca Mountain, Nevada proposed high-level radioactive waste repository

Abstract Physical and social science techniques were combined to quantitatively predict distance future climate using formal expert elicitation. Natural and human induced environmental changes for the next 10000 years at the site of the proposed high-level radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada were analyzed.1 Experienced climatologists were formally elicited to detail anticipated changes in controls and consequent climate at Yucca Mountain. Future climate at Yucca Mountain was described as very stable, due to the dominant control of the rainshadow effect of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Anthropogenically caused warming (less than +3000 years) and astronomically induced cooling (more than +5000 years) will significantly influence the future climate.

The disease progression explorer: risk assessment support in chronic, multifactorial diseases

Managing and treating chronic, multifactorial diseases, such as atherosclerosis, osteoporosis, asthma, and periodontal disease, requires understanding the role of each risk factor in the disease and the interrelationships between risk factors. The discovery of a new risk factor often generates a new way of looking at the disease process and how to anticipate its expected progression. The Disease Progression Explorer concept was designed to support the transfer of information about a new risk factor for a disease from the research lab to clinical practice. Through the use of the Disease Progression Explorer, this transfer is supported by a graphical system that shows directly how risk factors, alone and in combination, influence the expected course of the disease and shows how disease management strategies and therapies can affect the patient’s anticipated outcome. This paper describes a Disease Progression Explorer for periodontal disease called the Perio-DPE.