An introduction to second-order random variables in human health risk assessments
Title:
An introduction to second-order random variables in human health risk assessments
Author:
Burmaster, David E. Wilson, Andrew M.
Appeared in:
Human and ecological risk assessment
Paging:
Volume 2 (1996) nr. 4 pages 892-919
Year:
1996-12
Contents:
When performing a human health risk assessment using probabilistic methods, risk assessors need a way to distinguish, analyze, and visualize both the variability and the uncertainty in a quantity. As described by many previous authors, first-order random variables represent variability, i.e., the heterogeneity or diversity in a well-characterized population which is usually not reducible through further measurement or study. Growing in popularity, second-order random variables also include uncertainty, i.e., partial ignorance or lack of perfect knowledge about a poorly characterized phenomenon which may be reducible through further study. In this paper, we explore second-order random variables as a way to encode and propagate variability and uncertainty separately.
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