ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION |
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Accidents occur when hazards escape detection during preventive measures, such as a job or process safety analysis, when hazards are not obvious, or as the result of combinations of circumstances that were difficult to foresee. A thorough accident investigation may identify previously overlooked physical, environmental, or process hazards, the need for new or more extensive safety training, or unsafe work practices. The primary focus of any accident investigation should be the determination of the facts surrounding the incident and the lessons that can be learned to prevent future similar occurrences.
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ADMIRALTY / MARITIME |
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Admiralty law (usually referred to as simply admiralty and also referred to as maritime law or Law of the Sea) is a distinct body of law which governs maritime questions and offenses. Under conventions of international law, the flag flown by a ship generally determines the source of law to be applied in admiralty cases, regardless of which court has personal jurisdiction over the parties. This has led some ships to fly flags of convenience.
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AIR QUALITY |
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Air quality generally refers to either the outdoor and indoor air quality standards set by the US Government that determines the acceptable levels of certain gaseous emissions.
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BUILDING INSPECTION |
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Construction and building inspectors examine buildings, highways and streets, sewer and water systems, dams, bridges, and other structures to ensure that their construction, alteration, or repair complies with building codes and ordinances, zoning regulations, and contract specifications. Building codes and standards are the primary means by which building construction is regulated in the United States for the health and safety of the general public. National model building codes are published by the International Code Council (ICC), although many localities have additional ordinances and codes that modify or add to the National model codes. To monitor compliance with regulations, inspectors make an initial inspection during the first phase of construction and follow up with further inspections throughout the construction project. However, no inspection is ever exactly the same. In areas where certain types of severe weather or natural disasterssuch as earthquakes or hurricanesare more common, inspectors monitor compliance with additional safety regulations designed to protect structures and occupants during those events.
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DIGITAL TELEVISION |
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DTV can be used to carry more channels in the same amount of bandwidth than analog TV (6 MHz or 7 MHz in Europe) and to receive high-definition programming. The digital signal eliminates common analog broadcasting artifacts such as "ghosting", "snow", and static noises in audio. However, when the signal is transmitted at a too low data rate DTV replaces these artifacts with new MPEG compression artifacts, such as "blocking", and may fail to work entirely in situations where analog television would have produced an impaired but watchable picture. Depending on the sophistication and level of the error correction defined by the technical standard that the broadcaster complies with, DTV may either work perfectly or not work at all.
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EARTHQUAKES |
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An earthquake is a sudden and sometimes catastrophic movement of a part of the Earth's surface. Earthquakes result from the dynamic release of elastic strain energy that radiates seismic waves. Earthquakes typically result from the movement of faults, planar zones of deformation within the Earth's upper crust. The word earthquake is also widely used to indicate the source region itself. The Earth's lithosphere is a patch work of plates in slow but constant motion (see plate tectonics). Earthquakes occur where the stress resulting from the differential motion of these plates exceeds the strength of the crust. The highest stress (and possible weakest zones) are most often found at the boundaries of the tectonic plates and hence these locations are where the majority of earthquakes occur. Events located at plate boundaries are called interplate earthquakes; the less frequent events that occur in the interior of the lithospheric plates are called intraplate earthquakes (see, for example, New Madrid Seismic Zone). Earthquakes related to plate tectonics are called tectonic earthquakes. Most earthquakes are tectonic, but they also occur in volcanic regions and as the result of a number of anthropogenic sources, such as reservoir induced seismicity, mining and the removal or injection of fluids into the crust. Seismic waves including some strong enough to be felt by humans can also be caused by explosions (chemical or nuclear), landslides, and collapse of old mine shafts, though these sources are not strictly earthquakes. These sources will also show a different seismogram than earthquakes
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EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT |
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Emergency preparedness is a set of doctrines to prepare civil society to cope with - or plan for - natural or man-made disasters. Emergency Operations or Disaster relief are the subset of these doctrines that are concerned with recovery efforts; these comprise the execution or implementation of the Emergency preparedness plans. This is usually a government policy adapted from civil defense to prepare for nonmilitary civil emergencies before they happen. Emergency management involves plans, structures and arrangements established to engage the normal endeavours of government, voluntary and private agencies in a comprehensive and coordinated way to respond to the whole spectrum of emergency needs. This is also known as disaster management
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ENVIRONMENT |
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The natural environment comprises all living and non-living things that occur naturally on Earth. In its purest sense, it is thus an environment that is not the result of human activity or intervention. The natural environment may be contrasted to "the built environment."
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INSURANCE - GENERAL |
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General insurance policies, including automobile and homeowners policies, provide payments depending on the loss from a particular financial event. General insurance typically comprises any insurance that is not determined to be life insurance, and is called property and casualty insurance in the U.S..
In the UK, General insurance is broadly divided into three areas; personal lines, commercial lines and London market.
The London market insures with large commercial risks, for example insuring supermarkets, football players and other very specific risks.
Commercial lines products are usually designed for relatively small legal entities. These would include workers comp (employers liability), public liability, product liability, commercial fleet and other general insurance products sold in a relatively standard fashion to many organisations.
Personal lines products are designed to be sold in large quantities. This would include autos (private car), homeowners (household), pet insurance, creditor insurance and others.
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INTERNET |
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The Internet, or simply the Net, is the publicly accessible worldwide system of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using a standardized Internet Protocol (IP). It is made up of thousands of smaller commercial, academic, domestic, and government networks. It carries various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, and the interlinked Web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web.
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MARINE & MARITIME |
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From the latin "maritimus", maritime refers to things relating to the sea. Maritime law (also referred to as Admiralty law) is a distinct body of law which governs maritime questions and offenses.
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METEOROLOGY |
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Meteorology is the scientific study of the atmosphere that focuses on weather processes and forecasting. Meteorological phenomena are observable weather events which illuminate and are explained by the science of meteorology. Those events are bound by the variables that exist in Earth's atmosphere. They are temperature, pressure, water vapor, and the gradients and interactions of each variable, and how they change in time. The majority of Earth's observed weather is located in the troposphere.
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PLASTICS |
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Plastic covers a range of synthetic or semisynthetic polymerization products. They are composed of organic condensation or addition polymers and may contain other substances to improve performance or economics. There are few natural polymers generally considered to be "plastics". Plastics can be formed into objects or films or fibers. Their name is derived from the fact that many are malleable, having the property of plasticity. Plastics are designed with immense variation in properties such as heat tolerance, hardness, resiliency and many others. Combined with this adaptability, the general uniformity of composition and light weight of plastics ensures their use in almost all industrial segments.
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TRAFFIC |
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Traffic in the traditional form refers to the movement of motorized vehicles, unmotorized vehicles and pedestrians on roads. Traffic laws are the laws which govern traffic and regulta vehicles, while rules of the road are both the laws and the informal rules that may have developed over time to facilitate the orderly and timely flow of traffic.
In modern networking it refers to the activity being carried in the network.
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