Risk science is an interdisciplinary science with a very vast scope. It covers many areas accompanying hazard, and it encompasses basic research on hazard and exposure estimation to assessment, management and communication of risks, including governmental actions and societal responses. Another feature of risk science is that it is a discipline with the aim of practical application. The author has involved in research on governmental actions to air pollutants and genetically engineered organisms in foreign countries under contract with Japanese governmental agencies. Through these works, author got to know how risk science is practically applied in the governmental actions in foreign countries. In the society with rapid technological innovations and high demands for safety, there are vast areas where risk science could play important roles. The important point would be to have the wide view and deep insight into the practical application.

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An overview is presented on the comparison between asbestos and nanofiber from the viewpoint of risk perception. After reviewing various fundamental concepts related to fibers, it is pointed out that asbestos and nanofiber have significant differences in size and structure, although both fall into the category of respirable fiber. The results of hazard evaluation for asbestos and related fibers show significant variability among materials, thus making a simple extrapolation of previous knowledge to nanofiber impossible. Therefore, the risk analysis of various nanofibers, such as carbon nanotubes, needs to be carried out for individual classes with specific size, shape, and other structural characteristics. Towards this end, an increasing number of toxicological studies are indeed under way, especially for carbon nanotubes.

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This paper discusses a simulation model of evacuation behavior from a building during a fire. To evaluate life safety of occupants against a fire, simulation of evacuation behavior could be used. The evacuation and smoke movement interactive simulation model has been developed to handle the evacuation of large populations of individuals with mixed abilities. The system is a deterministic simulation program implemented by the agent-based computer language, Repast. The advantages of the model are: 1) to handle evacuation of individual evacuees considering variety of behavioral parameters, 2) to handle total evacuation in a multi-story building via the stairs, 3) to consider interactions between egress behavior and spread of smoke in a building. Two case studies were carried out to examine the simulation model. The one is total evacuation for a five stories building and the other is remodeling of the Nagasakiya Amagasaki store fire occurred in 1990.

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In this study, we simulated the volume of severely-damaged buildings and deaths in Aichi and Chiba prefecture caused by large-scale earthquakes. We also tried to quantify the seismic risk in these prefectures using the parameters of hazard, exposure and vulnerability for interregional comparison in order to prioritize disaster prevention countermeasures. As the result, we could calculate individual risk of those in 50 years by 1km mesh areas using scenario-based prediction of ground motion. The risks caused by major subduction-zone earthquakes are larger than those caused by major active fault zone earthquakes because of the high probability of the former earthquakes. Furthermore, the damage and risk in Aichi prefecture are higher than those in Chiba prefecture, and the risk of death living in wooden buildings is from 10^-5 to 10^-3.

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