Is There a Role for Qualitative Risk Assessment?

Classically, risk is characterised by a point value probability indicating the likelihood of occurrence of an adverse effect. However, there are domains where the attainability of objective numerical risk characterisations is increasingly being questioned. This paper reviews the arguments in favour of extending classical techniques of risk assessment to incorporate meaningful qualitative and weak quantitative risk characterisations. A technique in which linguistic uncertainty terms are defined in terms of patterns of argument is then proposed. The technique is demonstrated using a prototype computer-based system for predicting the carcinogenic risk due to novel chemical compounds.

[1]  Division on Earth.  Risk Assessment in the Federal Government: Managing the Process , 1983 .

[2]  John Fox,et al.  Three Arguments for Extending the Framework of Probability , 1985, UAI.

[3]  David Poole,et al.  On the Comparison of Theories: Preferring the Most Specific Explanation , 1985, IJCAI.

[4]  U. Epa.  Guidelines for carcinogen risk assessment , 1986 .

[5]  Ronald Prescott Loui,et al.  Defeat among arguments: a system of defeasible inference , 1987, Comput. Intell..

[6]  Donald Nute,et al.  Defeasible reasoning and decision support systems , 1988, Decis. Support Syst..

[7]  John Fox,et al.  Symbolic Decision Theory and Autonomous Systems , 1991, UAI 1991.

[8]  Guidelines for the evaluation of chemicals for carcinogenicity. Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment. , 1991, Reports on health and social subjects.

[9]  D. Sanderson,et al.  Computer Prediction of Possible Toxic Action from Chemical Structure; The DEREK System , 1991, Human & experimental toxicology.

[10]  R. Tennant,et al.  Definitive relationships among chemical structure, carcinogenicity and mutagenicity for 301 chemicals tested by the U.S. NTP. , 1991, Mutation research.

[11]  John Fox,et al.  Arguments, Contradicitions and Practical Reasoning , 1992, ECAI.

[12]  John Fox,et al.  An argumentation-based approach to risk assesment , 1993 .

[13]  Didier Dubois,et al.  Inconsistency Management and Prioritized Syntax-Based Entailment , 1993, IJCAI.

[14]  Paul J. Krause,et al.  Dialectic reasoning with inconsistent information , 1993, UAI.

[15]  Didier Dubois,et al.  Non-standard theories of uncertainty in knowledge representation and reasoning , 1994, The Knowledge Engineering Review.

[16]  J. Ashby.  Benzyl acetate: from mutagenic carcinogen to non-mutagenic non-carcinogenic in 7 years? , 1994, Mutation research.

[17]  David V. Budescu,et al.  A review of human linguistic probability processing: General principles and empirical evidence , 1995, The Knowledge Engineering Review.

[18]  John Fox,et al.  A LOGIC OF ARGUMENTATION FOR REASONING UNDER UNCERTAINTY , 1995, Comput. Intell..

[19]  J E Ridings,et al.  Computer prediction of possible toxic action from chemical structure: an update on the DEREK system. , 1996, Toxicology.