Joint method development period in Kuopio in 2007: Difference between revisions

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'''Joint method development period''' was an idea from the second annual meeting of Intarese. The idea in short is to get the key method developers from different institutes in one place for a long enough period to be able to produce and finish something during that time. The joint method developement period is organized by KTL and targeted mainly to SP1 & SP4 people, although partipcipation is open to anyone interested.
[[Category:Meetings]]
'''Joint method development period''' was an idea from the second annual meeting of Intarese. The idea in short was to get the key method developers from different institutes in one place for a long enough period to be able to produce and finish something during that time. The joint method developement period was organized by KTL and targeted mainly to SP1 & SP4 people, although participation was open to anyone interested. The joint method development workshop was held in Kuopio 12.3.-23.3.2007


This page contains information on the joint method development period and a brief description of the means and tools that are currently being used in applying the pyrkilo method in environmental health risk assessments in KTL. In the end of the page, there is also a copy of the WP1.4 plan for months 13-30. Please feel free to make major edits when necessary.
This page contains information on the joint method development period and a brief description of the means and tools that are currently being used in applying the pyrkilo method in environmental health risk assessments in KTL. Please feel free to make major edits when necessary. Check also the links below.


Check also these links.
 
*[[Risk assessment on airports - Kuopio workshop case study]]
'''Pages created/started in the workshop:'''
*[[Kuopio workshop report | intermediate report from this workshop]]
*[[Tools needed in Intarese toolbox]] - phases/steps of RA, methods and tools available/needed
*[[Kuopio workshop social programme | social activities during the workshop]]
*[[Assessment workspace (Intarese method)]] - description of the concept
*[[Risk assessment on airports - Kuopio workshop case study]] - case study main page
*[[media:Feedback from Kuopio workshop.ppt]] - Jouni's presentation to SP1 meeting 20.3.
*[[Kuopio workshop report]] - report from the workshop
*[[Kuopio workshop social programme]] - social activities during the workshop
 
 
'''Other related and useful links:'''
*[[Glossary of environmental health]] updated
*[[:Category:First level scoping objects]]
*[[R80 Pyrkilo method article|description of the pyrkilo method (a manuscript)]]
*[[R80 Pyrkilo method article|description of the pyrkilo method (a manuscript)]]
*[[heande:Heande:Structures of the building blocks of open risk assessments| open risk assessment and its building blocks]]
*[[heande:Heande:Structures of the building blocks of open risk assessments| open risk assessment and its building blocks]]
Line 20: Line 30:
*[[Environmental health planner for policy]] comments by Leendert van Bree
*[[Environmental health planner for policy]] comments by Leendert van Bree
*[[HIA and DALYs]] by Anne Knol
*[[HIA and DALYs]] by Anne Knol
*[[The Impact Pathway and Cost-Benefit Modelling Review]]
*[[The Impact Pathway and Cost-Benefit Modelling Review]] by Peter Bickel
*[[Monte Carlo simulation]]
*[[Monte Carlo simulation]]
*[[Image:Third-draft protocol exposure-health effect (1 3).doc]]
*[[Image:Third-draft protocol exposure-health effect (1 3).doc]]


==SP1 meeting notes==
The SP1 meeting 20.3. notes have been moved to: [[SP1 Integrated assessment methodology]]


==Method development period==
==Method development period==
We welcome everyone interested in these methods to Kuopio for a two-week workshop in March 12 to 23. The participating institutes (and their representatives) are RIVM (Anne, SP1), USTUTT (Alex, SP4), NILU (Sjur WP4.1), UU (Hanna WP1.3), IC (Clive) and KTL (Risk analysis group WP1.4 + air hygiene lab WP1.2). In addition Mari Vanhatalo from University of Helsinki / EVAHER project will participate in the workshop for a couple of days.
The participating institutes from Intarese (and their representatives) were RIVM (Anne Knol), USTUTT (Alex Kuhn), NILU (Sjur Björndalsaeter), UU (Hanna Boogaard), IC (Clive Sabel) and KTL (Risk analysis group WP1.4 + air hygiene lab WP1.2). In addition we had Mari Vanhatalo from University of Helsinki / EVAHER project and Patrycja Jesionek from TU Delft / Beneris project visiting the workshop for a few days during the first week.


===The aims of this workshop===
===The aims of the workshop===
*to familiarise everyone to the tools that are being used and developed for risk assessment in the participating institutes
*to familiarise everyone to the tools that are being used and developed for risk assessment in the participating institutes
*to identify possible overlaps, gaps, and interface mismatchs, and try to find a reasonable solutions to these
*to identify possible overlaps, gaps, and interface mismatchs, and try to find a reasonable solutions to these
Line 35: Line 49:
*to write a report about what we learnt for internal use in Intarese (or even for external use?)
*to write a report about what we learnt for internal use in Intarese (or even for external use?)


===Issues to be resolved===
*What are the methods that will be recommended for case studies?
*What are the tools and software that will be recommended for case studies?
*Which methods and tools will be included as parts of the Intarese general method?
*Will the Intarese general method and its products be totally open access (General Public Licence GPL)?
*What is the most important output for SP 4 and the toolbox?
**''provide a workspace''
**''maybe test out methods (e.g. for issue framing) in a draft environment while the design phase is still ongoing''
**''We have collected all the necessary parts of an assessment and the corresponding methods and tools - this is a good basis for the needed functionality of the toolbox''
===methods/tools framework at the start of the workshop===


[[Image:Workshop diagram.PNG]]
[[Image:Workshop diagram.PNG]]


The picture attempts to represent an outline of the available methods and tools to be used in the workshop case study. Comments, additions, corrections etc. are very welcome.
The above picture was made before the workshop as an attempt to represent an outline of the available methods and tools to be used in the workshop case study (and in applying the Intarese method). This idea developed further during the workshop and the results can be seen in the tables at [[Tools needed in Intarese toolbox]] page.


===The structure of the workshop===
===The structure of the workshop===
We will be working on a practical case attempting to make an integrated risk assessment using the methods and tools we have or are developing within Intarese. The case study topic will be [[Risk_assessment_on_airports_-_Kuopio_workshop_case_study | airports (air pollution+noise; air traffic+surface traffic)]].


The workshop participants could be roughly grouped e.g. as follows:
We started working on a practical case attempting to make an integrated risk assessment using the methods and tools we have available or are developing within Intarese. The case study topic was chosen to be [[Risk_assessment_on_airports_-_Kuopio_workshop_case_study | Schiphol airport (air pollution+noise; air traffic+surface traffic)]].
*'''core team''': Jouni, Mikko, Anne (12.3.-19.3.), Alex (16.3.-23.3.), Hanna (12.3.-19.3.), Sjur (12.3.-15.3.), Clive (14.3. evening - 19.3. morning), Mari (15.3.-16.3.)...
 
*'''KTL team''': Marko, Olli, Anna, Virpi, Eva, Miranda, Markku, Juha V (system support), Aleksi, Einari, ...
The workshop participants could be roughly grouped e.g. as follows (duration of stay in Kuopio in brackets):
*'''core workshop team''': Jouni, Mikko, Anne (12.3.-19.3.), Alex (16.3.-23.3.), Hanna (12.3.-19.3.), Sjur (12.3.-15.3.), Clive (14.3. evening - 19.3. morning), Mari (15.3.-16.3.), Patrycja (15.3.-19.3.)
*'''KTL team''': Marko, Olli, Anna, Virpi, Eva, Miranda, Markku, Juha V (system support)
*'''local leaders''': Matti, Juha P
*'''local leaders''': Matti, Juha P
*'''remote leaders''': David, Erik, Marco, Gerard, Rainer, Aasmund, ...
*'''remote leaders''': David, Erik, Marco, Gerard, Rainer, Aasmund, ...


The core team will be working full-time on the case study during the whole workshop period, or at least the time of their presence in Kuopio. KTL team will also strongly take part in making the assessment as well as meetings and discussions, but only a proportion of their daily work time will be required to be spent on working on their responsibility areas of the case study. The local leaders will be welcome to attend every part of the workshop, especially the early phases, but no individual particular tasks will be allocated to them.
The core team was working full-time on the case study during their participation within the workshop period. KTL team also strongly took part in making the case study assessment as well as participated in meetings and other discussions, but naturally were also involved with other issues beside the workshop. The local leaders took part in some of the meetings as were available from other duties and also held some other Intarese related discussions and meetings with the participants during the workshop.


The remote leaders will be incorporated in the process by preliminary e-mail discussions on the case topic, a teleconference meeting on the second day of the workshop, access to follow-up on the Intarese-wiki, an intermediate report delivered to the SP1 meeting (+ feedback on it) and final reporting on the workshop. The lessons learned will be also presented in the SP4 meeting coming up in late March or April. Participation to daily morning meetings via phone is also possible, please inform about your interest in advance on this to the list of meetings below.
The remote leaders were incorporated in the process by preliminary e-mail discussions on the case topic, a teleconference meeting on the second day of the workshop (which unfortunately failed due to technical reasons), access to follow-up on the Intarese-wiki, an intermediate report delivered to the SP1 meeting (+ feedback on it) and final reporting on the workshop. The lessons learned and other outputs of the workshop will be also presented in the SP4 meeting coming up in mid-April. Participation to daily morning meetings via phone was also possible and was made use of a few times.


'''organization of the participants'''
'''Organization and working-hours'''


{|{{prettytable}}
The organization table and working-hours table were out-dated and archived to history. You can find them following the link:
! Name
[http://www.pyrkilo.fi/intarese/index.php?title=Intarese:Joint_method_development_period_in_Kuopio_in_2007&oldid=4827]
! Seat
! Computer
! Apartment
! Phone number
|-----
| Anne
| room 259 (with Juha V)
| desktop available
| Katiska A 5/1
| +358-17-201487
|-----
| Hanna
| room 260 (with Virpi)
| desktop available
| Katiska A 5/2
| +358-17-201479
|-----
| Sjur
| room 257 (with Mikko)
| brings own laptop
| Katiska A 5/3
| +358-17-201347
|-----
| Alex
| room 257 (with Mikko)
| I will bring my own laptop
| Katiska A 5/3
| +358-17-201347
|-----
| Clive
| room 273
| desktop available
| Katiska A 3/1
|
|-----
| Mari
| room 256 (with Marko)
| brings her own laptop
| own accommodation
| +358-17-201485
|}


Katiska = student apartment building, Katiskaniementie 6, 70700 Kuopio (Rauhalahti)
===The schedule & meeting minutes===


'''Monday 12.3.


'''Working-hours per person'''
Start-up meeting
*the content of the meeting is basically representad in the causal-chain diagram of the case study page: [[Risk assessment on airports - Kuopio workshop case study]]


ADD YOUR OWN HOURS INTO THE TABLE BASED ON WHAT YOU CAN CONTRIBUTE TO THE WORKSHOP
'''Tuesday 13.3.'''
 
{|{{prettytable}}
! Name
! Mon
! Tue
! Wed
! Thu
! Fri
! Mon
! Tue
! Wed
! Thu
! Fri
|-----
| Jouni
| 7 h
| 6 h
| 5 h
| 6 h
| 4 h
| 7 h
| -
| 3 h
| 3 h
| 5 h
|-----
| Mikko
| 7 h
| 7 h
| 4 h
| 7 h
| 7 h
| 6 h
| 7 h
| 7 h
| 7 h
| 7 h
|-----
| Anne
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| -
| -
| -
| -
|-----
| Hanna
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| -
| -
| -
| -
|-----
| Sjur
| 2-3h
| 7h
| 7h
| 3h
| -
| -
| -
| -
| -
| -
|-----
| Alex
| 1-2 h
| 2-3 h
| ca. 2 h
| - (travelling)
| ca. 7 h
| ca. 7 h
| ca. 7 h
| ca. 7 h
| ca. 7 h
| ca. 7 h
|-----
| Clive
| -
| -
| element
| element
| element
| element
| -
| -
| -
| -
|-----
| Mari
| -
| -
| -
| element
| element
| -
| -
| -
| -
| -
|-----
| Marko
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
|-----
| Olli
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
|-----
| Anna
| 4 h
| 4 h
| 4 h
| 8 h
| 4 h
| 6 h
| 6 h
| -
| 4 h
| 4 h
|-----
| Juha V
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
|-----
| Virpi
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
|-----
| Marjo
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
|-----
| Einari
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
|-----
| Aleksi
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
|-----
| Eva
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
|-----
| Miranda
| -
| -
| -
| -
| -
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
|-----
| Markku
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
|-----
| Total working hours
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
| element
|}


Morning meeting 9:30 [[Short Minutes workshop Kuopio|Minutes]], remote participants: Alex (+49 711 685-87838)


====The schedule====
The planned teleconference at 13:00 was eventually cancelled due to technical difficulties. We got some comments on phone from Erik and they can be found at the [[Risk assessment on airports - Kuopio workshop case study | case study page]] along with some discussion.


'''Daily morning meetings 9:30 - 10:30 Finnish time''', E-wing meeting room
'''Wednesday 14.3.'''


*Tuesday 13.3. 9:30 [[Short Minutes workshop Kuopio|Minutes]]
Morning meeting  9:30, remote participants: Alex (+49 711 685-87838)
Remote participants: Alex (+49 711 685-87838)
**Please fill the working hours that you can spend on the workshop
**What tools exist for scoping?
***Alex's issue framing tool
***Something from NILU?
***Mediawiki categories
**Based on what we now know, what is the scoping?
**Tasks for the day: what they are and who does what
**Anne's causal diagram
***Methods and tools linked to the diagram
 
 
*Wednesday 14.3. 9:30
Remote participants: Alex (+49 711 685-87838)
 
Discussed issues:
 
List of methods, tools and programs that we have and what we aould like to have.


Disussion content: list of methods, tools and programs that we have and what we would like to have:
*Scoping tool
*Scoping tool
**needed
**needed
Line 419: Line 136:
**Meta-analysis methods for epi and tox data
**Meta-analysis methods for epi and tox data


*Thursday 15.3. 9:30 ADD YOUR NAME HERE IF YOU WANT TO PARTICIPATE VIA PHONE
*Friday 16.3. 9:30 ADD YOUR NAME HERE IF YOU WANT TO PARTICIPATE VIA PHONE


'''Thursday 15.3.'''


*Monday 19.3. 9:30 ADD YOUR NAME HERE IF YOU WANT TO PARTICIPATE VIA PHONE
Morning meeting 9:30
*Tuesday 20.3. 9:30 ADD YOUR NAME HERE IF YOU WANT TO PARTICIPATE VIA PHONE
*Wednesday 21.3. 9:30 ADD YOUR NAME HERE IF YOU WANT TO PARTICIPATE VIA PHONE
*Thursday 22.3. 9:30 ADD YOUR NAME HERE IF YOU WANT TO PARTICIPATE VIA PHONE
*Friday 23.3. 9:30 ADD YOUR NAME HERE IF YOU WANT TO PARTICIPATE VIA PHONE (in 2nd floor lecture hall)


Agenda/highlights of discussion:
*Introduction of what has been going on to the newcomers (Patrycja, Clive, Mari)
**Patrycja to present her BBN model in friday morning meeting
*MNP uncertainty guide demo (Anne, Sjur)
**the tool can be adapted to meet Intarese needs
*Intarese demonstrator demo (Sjur)
**an updated demonstrator to be done later this year
**this workshop should provide a rough suggestion of the needed toolbox functionalities
*tools needed in Intarese toolbox
**participants to have a look and edit the page - will be discussed later in more detail
*contents of variable, input and method pages
**serious effort to making the case required thursday and friday
**limitations of night-time noise chosen as the only policy option to be considered


Documenting/reporting work in Intarese-wiki
*'''NEW''' [[:Category:First level scoping objects]]
*'''NEW''' [[Glossary of environmental health]] updated
*'''NEW''' [[Tools needed in Intarese toolbox]] ''- Please comment!''


'''Monday 12.3.'''


Meeting at 12.30-14.00 E-wing meeting room
'''Friday 16.3.'''
*practical arrangements
*initial scoping
*allocation of tasks


Morning meeting 9:30 '''IN B-WING MEETING ROOM'''


'''Tuesday 13.3.'''
Agenda/minutes:
 
*What to present in SP1 meeting next tuesday?
*Teleconference meeting with remote participants on the content of the case starting 13:00 Finnish time, B-wing meeting room
**[[Tools needed in Intarese toolbox | essential parts of integrated RA, available (+ needed?) methods, available (+ needed?) tools]]
 
**how different parts of the case study assessment are linked with different methods and tools
Agenda:
*Getting on with the case assessment
*Decision on scoping: what are the details to be studied related to airport risks?
**emphasis on identification of linkages between variables and methods/tools
*Decision on methods that should be used or tested during the workshop
**noise policy case as the essential part of the case study assessment
*Decision on software and tools that should be used or tested during the workshop
*Patrycja's BBN model presentation was given in the afternoon 15:00
*Content of the report from the workshop (draft will be presented in SP1 meeting on Tuesday 20.3.)
*Add other items here as necessary
 
Teleconference was eventually cancelled due to technical difficulties. We got some comments from Erik which can be found at the [[Risk assessment on airports - Kuopio workshop case study | case study page]] along with some discussion.
 
*Starting the assessment work
 
 
'''Wednesday 14.3. - Friday 16.3.'''
*data collection, describing variables, discussions, ...




'''Saturday 17.3. - Sunday 18.3.'''
'''Weekend 17.3.-18.3.'''
*[[Kuopio workshop social programme | social activities]]
*[[Kuopio workshop social programme | social activities]]
*freetime
*freetime
*(individual work on own tasks?)


'''Monday 19.3.'''
'''Monday 19.3.'''
*preparing an [[Kuopio workshop report | intermediate report]] for SP1 meeting
*assessment work goes on...
'''Tuesday 20.3. - Thursday 22.3.'''
*finalizing the assessment with respect to SP1 meeting feedback
'''Friday 23.3'''
*Preparing a [[Kuopio workshop report | report]] on the workshop
==Issues to be resolved==
===What are the methods that will be recommended for case studies?===
===What are the tools and software that will be recommended for case studies?===
===Which methods and tools will be included as parts of the Intarese general method?===
===Will the Intarese general method and its products be totally open access (General Public Licence GPL)?===
==Pyrkilo interface==
In this section, we describe the different tools that we have been developing in KTL and within ERAC (Environmental Risk Assessment Center, Kuopio. ERAC is a joint effort of KTL, University of Kuopio, and National Geological Survey of Finland). We have NOT added other programs and tools to this platform, such as the demonstrator of the current toolbox, or the uncertainty program by MNP. This is not because we wouldn't think they aren't important. They are. But we thought it is better to first show what we have and what we don't have in our institute, and only then add other things to the platform.


===Overview===
Morning meeting 10:30, essentials:
*[[Tools needed in Intarese toolbox | framework, methods and tools -tables]] appear to be the most important output of the workshop so far
*[[Assessment workspace (Intarese method) | assessment workspace]] concept seems to capture effectively the primary needs for the Intarese toolbox
*the case study assessment has been useful in coordinating our discussions about the framework methods and tools, but does not appear to be producing hardly any direct results
*the main points to be written out [[Kuopio workshop report | intermediate report]] page for SP1 meeting


The purpose of the platform is to offer all functionalities that are needed to perform an [[heande:Heande:Structures of the building blocks of open risk assessments|Open Risk Assessment (ORA)]] and publish its results. This includes issue framing, drafting the model and variables, collecting data, estimating the values and distributions for the variables, evaluating stakeholder preferences, computing the models, storing the results, and displaying the results to the endusers. Several people and groups of people would use this platform. Depending on his/her role, a person can participate in several different phases of the risk assessment process and contribute to several different ways by offering understanding, opinions, and information. There are many user interfaces to deal with the many tasks that occur during a risk assessment process. The technical details are destribed below in more detail. The methodological issues are described in a manuscript about [[R80 Pyrkilo method article|pyrkilo method]], and a draft manuscript about [[R85 Pyrkilo efficiency article|efficiency issues]] related to the method.
'''Tuesday 20.3.'''


[[image:Pyrkilo platform.PNG]]
Morning meeting 9:30, essentials:
*continue working on the [[Tools needed in Intarese toolbox | tables]]
*contribute to development/description of the [[Assessment workspace (Intarese method) | assessment workspace]]
*case study work can be frozen for the time being at least until we get the SP1 meeting feedback


===Programs used in the platform===
'''Wednesday 21.3.'''


The platform consists of several programs.
Morning meeting 9:30


====MediaWiki====
Agenda/minutes:
*feedback from SP1 meeting
**see the comments by Jouni above
*decision of focusing efforts on last 3 days of workshop
**tables still have space for improvement
**assessment workspace concept needs to be worked on
**case study can be left to wait for possible further use for the time being
**let's try to make full use of Alex's presence during this week (valuation presentation, WP1.4 discussions, glossary discussions, ...)


'''MediaWiki''' is the central program in the platform. It is the same program that is used to run Wikipedia, the open encyclopedia. It is basically a content management system with an internet-based, user-friendly interface that allows a number of people to work on a set of documents simultaneously. Its major properties are
'''Thursday 22.3.'''
*a strict version control
*a simple coding and formatting system
*user identification
*contributions released immediately to everyone to read
*possibility to attach discussions of the content. Each page has a discussion page for this purpose.
*good working environment for text and figures (also tables, although a bit more complicated)
*good categorisation and search tools for pages
*possibility to use templates (a block of content that appears the same way on several pages)


Morning meeting 9:30


Mediawiki is not especially good at (although it can handle these)
Agenda/minutes:
*copy-pasting contents back and forth from one program to another (formatting problems)
*work for the last days
*storing ready-made documents (not a file management system)
**improvement of tables (everyone)
**ideas/comments/anything to be put on the assessment workspace -page (everyone)
**writing a report: how things happened?, what was good/bad? what did we learn?, etc. (Mikko + everyone)
*Alex's brief presentation about health impact valuation + discussion
[[Media:Monetisation.ppt]]
*after the meeting we also ended up talking about organising a European risk analysis study program as a spin-off/result of Intarese


'''Discussion on content management programs'''
*Glossary discussion (Alex, Mikko)
*discussion/meeting about WP1.4 deliverables due end of April (Jouni, Alex, Mikko, Marko?, ...)


{{Discussion
'''Friday 23.3.'''
|Dispute = What should be the program of choice for editing the contents of risk assessments?
*A) Mediawiki
*B) Emailing Word documents around
|Outcome = Mediawiki is the program of choice.
|Argumentation =
{{defend_invalid| |B) is a good choice.| }}
:{{attack|1: |no version control, people easily drop out of email lists.|--[[User:Jouni|Jouni]] 10:32, 16 January 2007 (EET)}}
}}


Morning meeting 10:15 (in Jouni's room)


'''Risk-assessment-related functionalities in MediaWiki:'''
Remote participant: Clive (+44 1327 843319)
*'''Main namespace''' is an area that contains article-like descriptions of risk-related issues, such as risk assessments, method descriptions etc.
*'''Variable namespace''' contains more structured contributions in the form of [[heande:Heande:Structures of the building blocks of open risk assessments|variables]]. This namespace
**describes variables and their attributes
**describes causal links between variables
**Describes the discussions related to the content of a variable on its Talk (or discussion) page.
**describes the value judgements related to outcomes or other variables.
**describes smaller pieces of data (and gives links to larger pieces) and describes how the data was used to derive the estimate of a variable.
**describes rank correlations between variables (possibly using vine copula method).
**describes set-item relationships between items. This means that a variable may inherit properties from a more general variable of the same kind.
**describes other non-causal relationships between variables.
*'''Model namespace''' contains Analytica and other model files. There can be translated into variables in the Variable namespace or updated based on existing variables.
 
====Analytica====
 
See [[Monte Carlo simulation]].
 
====Result distribution database====
 
'''Result distribution database''' is an idea of an SQL database for result distributions of the variables. The main idea is that the variables and their distributions are program-independent in this environment. If their precalculated result distributions are stored in a database, the risk models can be analysed based on these results independent on which program was used to produce the results. In addition, if the model runs are done in a coherent way, these distributions form a large joint distribution that can be used to conditionalising, backward inference, and optimising, which are usually difficult tasks.
 
The main properties are
*a large SQL database where each variable forms a table
*each table has a fixed number of rows, which equals to the number of simulations used to calculate the model (in the pilot version, this could be in the order of 5000, but in the real database, it should be in the order of 1,000,000 to 10,000,000.
*tables indexed by predefined fractiles to speed up the performance
 
 
Major problems
*needs constant updating and simulation (requirements for the hardware)
*When the structure has been fixed, all models must have the same number of simulations irrespective of model size.
 
Alternative programs could be
*Netica, a commercial program for handling joint distributions based on sample files.
 
====Other possible programs====
 
These programs do not exist in KTL, and there is not (yet) active development going on related to these. However, they could be potentiallly useful programs to attach to the platform.
 
'''File management system''' could assist the risk assessment by providing a centralised database of original data that could be used in the modelling.
 
'''Value evaluator''' could be a web-based questionnaire where stakeholders could rank different outcomes or events in the order of their personal preference. These could then be synthesised and used in the valuation process of risk assessment outcomes.
 
'''Expert elicitator''' could be a web-based questionnaire where experts could give their best estimates on various variables. The answers could be synthesised based on expert-specific weights that would be determined based on their previous performance in this task. There are existing methods to do this using extensive interviews, but it has never been tried over internet.
 
 
===Interfaces needed to get the platform running===
 
'''Mediawiki and the user''' interface exists already, as it is a major part of the Mediawiki program. It is continuously developed by a large Mediawiki community. KTL has a specialised ICT person to update and develop Mediawiki used in pyrkilo risk assessments. We have several projects that constantly utilise this interface, and experience is increasing rapidly.
 
'''Ana-Wiki interface''' is about 1) translating Analytica model files into Mediawiki pages as variables, and 2) updating Analytica model files based on the updated contents in Mediawiki variable pages. This development is ongoing in the [http://www.beneris.eu Beneris project] and these interface tools should be available during spring 2007. We are currently testing a pilot version of Ana-Wiki converter.
 
'''Database interface''' is for converting Analytica (or other simulation program, such as R) results into the database. Analytica has functionalities for input/output from/to SQL databases, so this should not be a huge task. However, we do not have practical experience on this. We are actively testing this functionality, and we should have more experience before February 2007.
 
'''Result interface''' is for showing results from the database to the endusers. Although this is a critical thing and should be developed carefully, it can be  postponed to a later stage when the other parts are running. However, some kind of pilot interface should be developed rather early so that researchers in the project can test the database and its functionalities.
 
'''Data interface''', '''Elicitation interface''', and '''Evaluation interface''' are only needed if these tools are developed further. These are not crucial thing at the moment.


Agenda/minutes:
*finalizing the output:
**report to be written with links to the tables, case and assessment workspace -pages
***description of things worked out (or not)
***also general lessons learned and individual comments included
***implications of the output pointed out
***a pdf-version to be created and distributed within the project (only highlights of the case included)
*making use of the output:
**assessment workspace and framework/method description to be included in [[WP1.4]] deliverables due in April
**assessment workspace and framework/method description to be presented in [[SP4]] meeting in April
**WP1.4 will suggest assessment workspace concept framework/method description to be included in the training workshop (in May) contents
**let's try to get some WP3.X('s) to do/present/share/disseminate their work in wiki using the assessment workspace idea
***this serves the purposes of both guidance and feedback to/from SP1 & SP3
*We should develop the idea of producing ascientific article about the workshop and its outputs
**e.g. the process of creating the Intarese method (Clive's proposal)
**this should be done following the Intarese dissemination strategy


----
----


{| {{prettytable}}
|
*Draft Planning for Next 18 Months (1 Nov 06 – 30 April 08) was removed because it was not the final version. To see the draft, click [http://www.pyrkilo.fi/intarese/index.php?title=Intarese:Joint_method_development_period_in_Kuopio_in_2007&oldid=4077 here].
*Draft Planning for Next 18 Months (1 Nov 06 – 30 April 08) was removed because it was not the final version. To see the draft, click [http://www.pyrkilo.fi/intarese/index.php?title=Intarese:Joint_method_development_period_in_Kuopio_in_2007&oldid=4077 here].
 
*Pyrkilo interface was moved to [[Assessment workspace (Intarese method)]]
|}
[[category:Kuopio workshop]]
[[category:Kuopio workshop]]
[[category:Intarese]]
[[Category:Events]]
[[Category:Open assessment training]]

Latest revision as of 12:45, 28 March 2011

Joint method development period was an idea from the second annual meeting of Intarese. The idea in short was to get the key method developers from different institutes in one place for a long enough period to be able to produce and finish something during that time. The joint method developement period was organized by KTL and targeted mainly to SP1 & SP4 people, although participation was open to anyone interested. The joint method development workshop was held in Kuopio 12.3.-23.3.2007

This page contains information on the joint method development period and a brief description of the means and tools that are currently being used in applying the pyrkilo method in environmental health risk assessments in KTL. Please feel free to make major edits when necessary. Check also the links below.


Pages created/started in the workshop:


Other related and useful links:


SP1 meeting notes

The SP1 meeting 20.3. notes have been moved to: SP1 Integrated assessment methodology

Method development period

The participating institutes from Intarese (and their representatives) were RIVM (Anne Knol), USTUTT (Alex Kuhn), NILU (Sjur Björndalsaeter), UU (Hanna Boogaard), IC (Clive Sabel) and KTL (Risk analysis group WP1.4 + air hygiene lab WP1.2). In addition we had Mari Vanhatalo from University of Helsinki / EVAHER project and Patrycja Jesionek from TU Delft / Beneris project visiting the workshop for a few days during the first week.

The aims of the workshop

  • to familiarise everyone to the tools that are being used and developed for risk assessment in the participating institutes
  • to identify possible overlaps, gaps, and interface mismatchs, and try to find a reasonable solutions to these
  • to work together on a specific case study in practice with the existing tools
  • to gain practical experience on the tools and methods and identify development needs
  • to write a report about what we learnt for internal use in Intarese (or even for external use?)

Issues to be resolved

  • What are the methods that will be recommended for case studies?
  • What are the tools and software that will be recommended for case studies?
  • Which methods and tools will be included as parts of the Intarese general method?
  • Will the Intarese general method and its products be totally open access (General Public Licence GPL)?
  • What is the most important output for SP 4 and the toolbox?
    • provide a workspace
    • maybe test out methods (e.g. for issue framing) in a draft environment while the design phase is still ongoing
    • We have collected all the necessary parts of an assessment and the corresponding methods and tools - this is a good basis for the needed functionality of the toolbox

methods/tools framework at the start of the workshop

The above picture was made before the workshop as an attempt to represent an outline of the available methods and tools to be used in the workshop case study (and in applying the Intarese method). This idea developed further during the workshop and the results can be seen in the tables at Tools needed in Intarese toolbox page.

The structure of the workshop

We started working on a practical case attempting to make an integrated risk assessment using the methods and tools we have available or are developing within Intarese. The case study topic was chosen to be Schiphol airport (air pollution+noise; air traffic+surface traffic).

The workshop participants could be roughly grouped e.g. as follows (duration of stay in Kuopio in brackets):

  • core workshop team: Jouni, Mikko, Anne (12.3.-19.3.), Alex (16.3.-23.3.), Hanna (12.3.-19.3.), Sjur (12.3.-15.3.), Clive (14.3. evening - 19.3. morning), Mari (15.3.-16.3.), Patrycja (15.3.-19.3.)
  • KTL team: Marko, Olli, Anna, Virpi, Eva, Miranda, Markku, Juha V (system support)
  • local leaders: Matti, Juha P
  • remote leaders: David, Erik, Marco, Gerard, Rainer, Aasmund, ...

The core team was working full-time on the case study during their participation within the workshop period. KTL team also strongly took part in making the case study assessment as well as participated in meetings and other discussions, but naturally were also involved with other issues beside the workshop. The local leaders took part in some of the meetings as were available from other duties and also held some other Intarese related discussions and meetings with the participants during the workshop.

The remote leaders were incorporated in the process by preliminary e-mail discussions on the case topic, a teleconference meeting on the second day of the workshop (which unfortunately failed due to technical reasons), access to follow-up on the Intarese-wiki, an intermediate report delivered to the SP1 meeting (+ feedback on it) and final reporting on the workshop. The lessons learned and other outputs of the workshop will be also presented in the SP4 meeting coming up in mid-April. Participation to daily morning meetings via phone was also possible and was made use of a few times.

Organization and working-hours

The organization table and working-hours table were out-dated and archived to history. You can find them following the link: [1]

The schedule & meeting minutes

Monday 12.3.

Start-up meeting

Tuesday 13.3.

Morning meeting 9:30 Minutes, remote participants: Alex (+49 711 685-87838)

The planned teleconference at 13:00 was eventually cancelled due to technical difficulties. We got some comments on phone from Erik and they can be found at the case study page along with some discussion.

Wednesday 14.3.

Morning meeting 9:30, remote participants: Alex (+49 711 685-87838)

Disussion content: list of methods, tools and programs that we have and what we would like to have:

  • Scoping tool
    • needed
    • Describe functionalities
    • Demonstration
  • Stakeholder + communication:
    • Selection of stakeholders?
    • Meetings
    • Mediawiki
  • Uncertainty
    • MNP UNC.Guide (reminder for each variable)
    • WP1.3:checklist
    • Monte-Carlo simulation, Bayesian statistics
    • Sensitivity analyses tools (Frey et al. 200? article)
  • Perception
    • Online tool
  • Presentation and communication
    • Guidance exists (EPA?)
    • Structured reports (also other parts than the final report)
  • Expert judgement
    • Selection of experts
    • Expert elicitation (excalibur)
    • WP1.3 (and WP1.5)
  • Value of information
    • EVPI, EVPXI and so on
    • Could answer to question:How far you should go?
  • Indicators
    • Guidance in developing
    • Need for improved DPSEEA
    • Use of WHO indicators: needs work
    • What is the difference between indicator and variable? (Mikko:indicators are variables with special interest)
    • SP3?
  • Combination of data
    • Meta-analysis methods for epi and tox data


Thursday 15.3.

Morning meeting 9:30

Agenda/highlights of discussion:

  • Introduction of what has been going on to the newcomers (Patrycja, Clive, Mari)
    • Patrycja to present her BBN model in friday morning meeting
  • MNP uncertainty guide demo (Anne, Sjur)
    • the tool can be adapted to meet Intarese needs
  • Intarese demonstrator demo (Sjur)
    • an updated demonstrator to be done later this year
    • this workshop should provide a rough suggestion of the needed toolbox functionalities
  • tools needed in Intarese toolbox
    • participants to have a look and edit the page - will be discussed later in more detail
  • contents of variable, input and method pages
    • serious effort to making the case required thursday and friday
    • limitations of night-time noise chosen as the only policy option to be considered


Friday 16.3.

Morning meeting 9:30 IN B-WING MEETING ROOM

Agenda/minutes:

  • What to present in SP1 meeting next tuesday?
  • Getting on with the case assessment
    • emphasis on identification of linkages between variables and methods/tools
    • noise policy case as the essential part of the case study assessment
  • Patrycja's BBN model presentation was given in the afternoon 15:00


Weekend 17.3.-18.3.

Monday 19.3.

Morning meeting 10:30, essentials:

  • framework, methods and tools -tables appear to be the most important output of the workshop so far
  • assessment workspace concept seems to capture effectively the primary needs for the Intarese toolbox
  • the case study assessment has been useful in coordinating our discussions about the framework methods and tools, but does not appear to be producing hardly any direct results
  • the main points to be written out intermediate report page for SP1 meeting

Tuesday 20.3.

Morning meeting 9:30, essentials:

  • continue working on the tables
  • contribute to development/description of the assessment workspace
  • case study work can be frozen for the time being at least until we get the SP1 meeting feedback

Wednesday 21.3.

Morning meeting 9:30

Agenda/minutes:

  • feedback from SP1 meeting
    • see the comments by Jouni above
  • decision of focusing efforts on last 3 days of workshop
    • tables still have space for improvement
    • assessment workspace concept needs to be worked on
    • case study can be left to wait for possible further use for the time being
    • let's try to make full use of Alex's presence during this week (valuation presentation, WP1.4 discussions, glossary discussions, ...)

Thursday 22.3.

Morning meeting 9:30

Agenda/minutes:

  • work for the last days
    • improvement of tables (everyone)
    • ideas/comments/anything to be put on the assessment workspace -page (everyone)
    • writing a report: how things happened?, what was good/bad? what did we learn?, etc. (Mikko + everyone)
  • Alex's brief presentation about health impact valuation + discussion

Media:Monetisation.ppt

  • after the meeting we also ended up talking about organising a European risk analysis study program as a spin-off/result of Intarese
  • Glossary discussion (Alex, Mikko)
  • discussion/meeting about WP1.4 deliverables due end of April (Jouni, Alex, Mikko, Marko?, ...)

Friday 23.3.

Morning meeting 10:15 (in Jouni's room)

Remote participant: Clive (+44 1327 843319)

Agenda/minutes:

  • finalizing the output:
    • report to be written with links to the tables, case and assessment workspace -pages
      • description of things worked out (or not)
      • also general lessons learned and individual comments included
      • implications of the output pointed out
      • a pdf-version to be created and distributed within the project (only highlights of the case included)
  • making use of the output:
    • assessment workspace and framework/method description to be included in WP1.4 deliverables due in April
    • assessment workspace and framework/method description to be presented in SP4 meeting in April
    • WP1.4 will suggest assessment workspace concept framework/method description to be included in the training workshop (in May) contents
    • let's try to get some WP3.X('s) to do/present/share/disseminate their work in wiki using the assessment workspace idea
      • this serves the purposes of both guidance and feedback to/from SP1 & SP3
  • We should develop the idea of producing ascientific article about the workshop and its outputs
    • e.g. the process of creating the Intarese method (Clive's proposal)
    • this should be done following the Intarese dissemination strategy
  • Draft Planning for Next 18 Months (1 Nov 06 – 30 April 08) was removed because it was not the final version. To see the draft, click here.
  • Pyrkilo interface was moved to Assessment workspace (Intarese method)
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