Open risk assessment Lecture 3: Assessment products and their relations

1. Mikko Pohjola KTL, Finland Open risk assessment Lecture 3: Assessment products and their relations

2. Lecture contents • Assessment products • Relations between assessment products • Attributes of assessment products

3. General assessment framework

4. Assessment products • Produced by assessment processes • Intended to trigger their use process(es) • Formally structured information objects • Assessment, variable, class • Assessments and variables are hypotheses of a given state of being • Development through falsification of hypothesis • Classes are sets of structured information objects • All products are objects that develop in time • E.g. there is no such thing as a draft variable

5. General assessment processes

6. Assessment • Provides ”the answer to a certain specific need” • A collection of variables according to the specific need • Contains also assessment-specific information • Assessment-level analyses • Assessment-level conclusions • The implications of contextual factors are described on assessment-level • Example: Benefit-risk assessment on farmed salmon

7. Assessment products • Variable • The basic building block of assessments • Description of reality within a defined scope • Scope defined by the specific need (for an assessment) • Other content independent of context given scope • Several different kinds of variables • Indicators, end-point variables, decision variables, key variables, … • Variables can belong to several assessments • Example: Benefit-risk assessment on farmed salmon

8. Assessment products • Class • A practical (non-fundamental) kind of objects • Classes are collections of variables and assessments that share a certain property or properties • E.g. ”Class: Emission variables” or ”Class: Environmental health risk assessments” • General purpose of class is to describe shared properties (not to list objects with shared properties) • General information may be attributed to a class, and then utilised in objects belonging to the class • Classes are important in making information efficiently re-usable

9. Lecture contents • Assessment products • Relations between assessment products • Internal structure of assessment products

10. Relations between assessment products • Between levels of complexity • Context – assessment – variable • Causality between variables • Membership of classes

11. Levels of complexity • Assessments belong to context, variables belong to assessments • Context determines assessment (scope), assessment determines variable (scope) • Variables are, however, independent objects, given their scope • A variable can belong to several assessments

12. Causality between variables • Causal relations are defined within variables • Variable/definition/causality • Representation also in form of causal diagrams • Causal diagrams are a practical means of presenting assessments as collections of variables and their relations: • Assessment endpoints • Indicators • Decision variables • Other variables

13. Causal diagram

14. Membership of class • Both assessments and variables can also belong to classes • A loose, non-ontological, relation for practical management of information objects • Membership to a particular class can be based on any inclusion criterion

15. Relations between assessment products

16. Lecture contents • Assessment products • Relations between assessment products • Internal structure of assessment products

17. Attributes of assessment products • All objects have the same attribute structure: • Name: identifier • Scope: a question to answer • Definition: the basis for an answer • Result: the answer to the question

18. Attributes of assessment products • Sub-attributes vary from object type to another • Attributes of different object types contain different kinds of information • The primary purpose varies between object types • Assessments and variables are descriptions of a hypothesis about a state of being and the process that leads/led to that hypothesis

19. Variable • Name - identifier • Scope – formulation of a question to answer • Definition – how the answer is derived • Causality • Data • Formula • Unit • Result – answer to the question (a hypothesis) • Quantitative whenever possible • Example: Benefit-risk assessment on farmed salmon

20. Assessment

21. Assessment • The implications of context are described within assessment • Scope -> definition -> result • Significant part of assessment content is described within the variables belonging to it • Assessment description also contains case-specific assessment-level information • Example: Benefit-risk assessment on farmed salmon

22. Class • Name – identifier • Scope –what objects belong to this class? • Definition – description of a shared property or properties • described in a form directly quotable from other objects • Result – list of member objects

23. Summary • Three product types: • Assessment, variable, class • Three types of relations: • belonging/defining, causality, membership • Universal attributes: • name, scope, definition, result