Emergency response to railroad accidents involving hazardous materials

The chemical industry has to face safety problems linked to the hazards of chemicals and the risks posed by the plants where they are handled. However, their transport may cause significant risk values too: it’s not totally possible to avoid the occurrence of accidents. This work is focused on the emergency response to railway accidents involving hazardous materials, that is what has to be done once they happen to limit their consequences. A first effort has been devoted to understand the role given to this theme within legislations: it has been found out that often it’s not even taken into account. Exceptionally a few countries adopt guidelines suggesting how to plan the response, who is appointed to intervene and which actions should be taken first. An investigation has been made to define the tools available for the responders, with attention on the availability of chemical-specific safety distances. It has emerged that the ERG book adopted by some American countries has suggestions and the Belgian legislation too establishes criteria to evaluate these distances. An analysis has been conducted then on the most recent accidents occurred worldwide, to understand how the response was performed and which safety distances were adopted. These values were compared with the numbers reported by the ERG book and the results of two devoted software tools for consequence analysis of accidental spills scenarios. This comparison has shown that there are differences between them and that a more standardized approach is necessary. This is why further developments of the topic should focus on promoting uniform procedures for emergency response planning and on a worldwide adoption of a guidebook with suggestions about actions to reduce consequences and about safety distances, determined following finer researches. For this aim, the development of a detailed database of hazardous materials transportation accidents could be useful.

Proposta di traduzione parziale di How to seek and find the Lord di Peter Masters

Lo scopo di questo elaborato è quello di proporre una traduzione parziale dall’inglese di un libretto teologico evangelico dell’autore Peter Masters, dal titolo How To Seek And Find The Lord. È un libretto molto conosciuto tra i cristiani evangelici di cui esistono già traduzioni in spagnolo, francese, portoghese e polacco; il mio obiettivo è proporne una in italiano. La scelta di questa tipologia testuale per il mio elaborato finale deriva dalla fede che professo, come si poteva immaginare. Essendo io di fede cristiana evangelica ho scelto di affrontare un tema con il quale sono costantemente a contatto, di cui mi interesso e che conosco a fondo, nonostante sia un argomento ostico. I testi teologici sono infatti delicati da trattare e hanno contenuti spirituali sui quali esistono diverse opinioni. Inoltre si pensa che ci siano diverse interpretazioni di un testo religioso come la Bibbia, ma il libretto che andrò a presentare mira proprio a chiarire che, in realtà, non è affatto così.