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As a matter of fact, avoiding unexpected events with an undesired outcome is an element of survival strategies.
Such events are encountered unexpectedly mainly because they occur rarely. Both, safety and security measures are the main pillars to prevent them by appropriate inspections. Common tools in both areas e.g. are radiological technologies enabling an insight into objects to detect suspicious features without even touching them. Since any of these measures is linked to efforts, costs or even obstructions of ongoing processes, it needs a rationale to invest into an appropriate activity. A putative objection to take action in this direction always could be the question 'when and how often it could happen'. This gave rise to find approaches how to define 'rare events' and how to deal with them. Since they entail both, the frequency of occurrence and the unpleasantness of the possible outcome make them to have something in common with the definition of risk: a combination of the probability of occurrence of harm and the severity of that harm. Tackling putative consequences is one side of the coin whereas understanding the rareness of an event is the other, an aspect that worries but not always fully understood.
As a first step in approaching the subject 'rare events', the putative occurrence rate is considered in terms of probability distribution functions or their cumulative ones, resp. The problems of estimating an incidence of such an event will be tackled subsequently with the problem of assessing the reliability of diagnostic measures.
Any numeric approach of dealing with rare events inevitably remains an ill defined or 'ill-posed' problem that needs additional information for a reasonably satisfying solution. Ways to ease this situation can be found in utilizing additional information, also commonly called prior knowledge, that might be introduced via the Bayesian inference or by regularization algorithms. Simplified models will demonstrate how to apply such tools.
As a consequence, there are ways helping to avoid unexpected ad 'surprises' by taking adequate measures in due time upon the correct perception of certain indications.
EFNDT working group 5 'NDT technology for public security and safety', two areas with the same aim
(2014)
It is a quite common and understandable wish to make the world a safer place. This entails both freedom from danger, and thus encompasses both, safety and security. However, it is a trivial fact that public security and technical safety are commitments to distinct social entities that might be quite understandable due to the various kinds of threats. On the other hand, it is a common justifiable interest to have effective methodologies to detect them in time, i.e., before something disastrous might happen. It is rather obvious that particularly non-destructive inspection technologies, namely radiological methods, are applied in both areas. As a logical consequence, sharing the technical knowledge and experiences could be of benefit for both of them. However, the different areas of activities cleave the information exchange between them. In order to overcome this gap, the EFNDT Working Group 5 'NDT Technology for Public Security and Safety' (EFNDT WG 5) has taken an initiative to bring together actors of both areas of activities, symbolized as building a 'bridge'. The activities of the EFNDT WG 5 range from identifying features exhibiting certain threats that are detectable with available NDT technologies, adapting and improving them according to their specified applications and to search for alternative technologies or ways of applications where deemed to be applicable. Successful exchanges of information and experiences have been achieved in recent workshops, where also new ideas have been raised for future common projects. This kind of work is far from being completed; it is more or less at its beginning. In future workshops it is intended to follow up these ideas and to pave the way for future common interdisciplinary projects. Therefore, all groups involved in such projects are welcome, not only researchers and NDT-specialists, but also all endusers of the respective technologies as well as theoreticians for risk assessment, performance evaluation, modelling, statistics etc. All the addressed areas are deemed to play an important role in making the world a safer place, cooperatively.