Georisks in the Mediterranean and their mitigation

An international scientific conference organised by the Seismic Monitoring and Research Unit, Department of Geoscience, Faculty of Science, Department of Civil and Structural Engineering and Department of Construction and Property Management, Faculty of the Built Environment, University of Malta.Part of the SIMIT project: Integrated civil protection system for the Italo-Maltese cross-border area. Italia-Malta Programme – Cohesion Policy 2007-2013This conference is one of the activities organised within the SIMIT strategic project (Integrated Cross-Border Italo-Maltese System of Civil Protection), Italia-Malta Operational Programme 2007 – 2013. SIMIT aims to establish a system of collaboration in Civil Protection procedures and data management between Sicilian and Maltese partners, so as to guarantee the safety and protection of the citizens and infrastructure of the cross-border area. It is led by the Department of Civil Protection of the Sicilian region, and has as other partners the Department of Civil Protection of Malta and the Universities of Palermo, Catania and Malta. SIMIT was launched in March 2013, and will come to a close in October 2015. Ever since the initial formulation of the project, it has been recognised that a state of national preparedness and correct strategies in the face of natural hazards cannot be truly effective without a sound scientific knowledge of the hazards and related risks. The University of Malta, together with colleagues from other Universities in the project, has been contributing mostly to the gathering and application of scientific knowledge, both in earthquake hazard as well as in building vulnerability. The issue of seismic hazard in the cross-border region has been identified as deserving foremost importance. South-East Sicily in particular has suffered on more than one occasion the effects of large devastating earthquakes. Malta, although fortunately more removed from the sources of such large earthquakes, has not been completely spared of their damaging effects. The drastic increase in the building density over recent decades has raised the level of awareness and concern of citizens and authorities about our vulnerability. These considerations have spurred scientists from the cross-border region to work together towards a deeper understanding of the underlying causes and nature of seismic and associated hazards, such as landslide and tsunami. The SIMIT project has provided us with the means of improving earthquake surveillance and analysis in the Sicily Channel and further afield in the Mediterranean, as well as with facilities to study the behaviour of our rocks and buildings during earthquake shaking. The role of the civil engineering community in this endeavour cannot be overstated, and this is reflected in the incorporation, from the beginning, of the civil engineering component in the SIMIT project. Constructing safer buildings is now accepted to be the major option towards human loss mitigation during strong earthquakes, and this project has provided us with a welcome opportunity for interaction between the two disciplines. Finally the role of the Civil Protection authorities must occupy a central position, as we recognize the importance of their prevention, coordination and intervention efforts, aided by the input of the scientific community. This conference brings together a diversity of geoscientists and engineers whose collaboration is the only way forward to tackling issues and strategies for risk mitigation. Moreover we welcome the contribution of participants from farther afield than the Central Mediterranean, so that their varied experience may enhance our efforts. We are proud to host the conference in the historic city of Valletta, in the heart of the Mediterranean, which also serves as a constant reminder of the responsibility of all regions to protect and conserve our collective heritage.peer-reviewe

Estimating selected disaggregated socio-economic indicators using small area estimation techniques

In 2015, the United Nations (UN) set up 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030 (General Assembly, 2015). The goals encompass indicators of various socioeconomic characteristics (General Assembly, 2015). To reach them, there is a need to reliably measure the indicators, especially at disaggregated levels. National Statistical Institutes (NSI) collect data on various socio-economic indicators by conducting censuses or sample surveys. Although a census provides data on the entire population, it is only carried out every 10 years in most countries and it requires enormous financial resources. Sample surveys on the other hand are commonly used because they are cheaper and require a shorter time to collect (Sarndal et al., 2003; Cochran, 2007). They are, therefore, essential sources of data on the country’s key socio-economic indicators, which are necessary for policy-making, allocating resources, and determining interventions necessary. Surveys are mostly designed for the national level and specific planned areas or domains. Therefore, the drawback is sample surveys are not adequate for data dis-aggregation due to small sample sizes (Rao and Molina, 2015). In this thesis, geographical divisions will be called areas, while other sub-divisions such as age-sex-ethnicity will be called domains in line with (Pfeffermann, 2013; Rao and Molina, 2015). One solution to obtain reliable estimates at disaggregated levels is to use small area estimation (SAE) techniques. SAE increases the precision of survey estimates by combining the survey data and another source of data, for example, a previous census, administrative data or other passively recorded data such as mobile phone data as used in Schmid et al. (2017). The results obtained using the survey data only are called direct estimates, while those obtained using SAE models will be called model-based estimates. The auxiliary data are covariates related to the response variable of interest (Rao and Molina, 2015). According to Rao and Molina (2015), an area or domain is regarded as small if the area or domain sample size is inadequate to estimate the desired accuracy. The field of SAE has grown substantially over the years mainly due to the demand from governments and private sectors. Currently, it is possible to estimate several linear and non-linear target statistics such as the mean and the Gini coefficient (Gini, 1912), respectively. This thesis contributes to the wide literature on SAE by presenting three important applications using Kenyan data sources. Chapter 1 is an application to estimate poverty and inequality in Kenya. The Empirical Best Predictor (EBP) of Molina and Rao (2010) and the M-quantile model of Chambers and Tzavidis (2006) are used to estimate poverty and inequality in Kenya. Four indicators are estimated, i.e. the mean, the Head Count Ratio, the Poverty Gap and the Gini coefficient. Three transformations are explored: the logarithmic, log-shift and the Box-Cox to mitigate the requirement for normality of model errors. The M-quantile model is used as a robust alternative to the EBP. The mean squared errors are estimated using bootstrap procedures. Chapter 2 is an application to estimate health insurance coverage in Kenyan counties using a binary M-quantile SAE model (Chambers et al., 2016) for women and men aged 15 to 49 years old. This has the advantage that we avoid specifying the distribution of the random effects and distributional robustness is automatically achieved. The MSE is estimated using an analytical approach based on Taylor series linearization. Chapter 3 presents the estimation of overweight prevalence at the county level in Kenya. In this application, the Fay-Herriot model (Fay and Herriot, 1979) is explored with arcsine square-root transformation. This is to stabilize the variance and meet the assumption of normality. To transform back to the original scale, we use a bias-corrected back transformation. For this model, the design variance is smoothed using Generalized Variance Functions as in (Pratesi, 2016, Chapter 11). The mean squared error is estimated using a bootstrap procedure. In summary, this thesis contributes to the vast literature on small area estimation from an applied perspective by; (a) Presenting for the first time regional disaggregated SAE results for selected indicators for Kenya. (b) Combining data sources to improve the estimation of the selected disaggregated socioeconomic indicators. (c) Exploring data-driven transformations to mitigate the assumption of normality in linear and linear mixed-effects models. (d) Presenting a robust approach to small area estimation based on the M-quantile model. (e) Estimating the mean squared error to access uncertainty using bootstrap procedures

The IRMA III control and communication system

xi, 193 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm.The IRMA III infrared radiometer is a passive atmospheric water vapor detector designed for use with interferometric submillimeter arrays as a method of phase correction. The IRMA III instrument employs a distributed, multi-tasking software control system permitting precise fine-grained control at remote locations over a low-bandwidth network connection. IRMA's software is divided among three processors tasked with performing three primary functions: command interpretation, data collection and motor control of IRMA's Alt-Az mount. IRMA's hardware control and communication functionality is based on compact, low cost, energy efficient Rabbit 2000 microcontroller modules, selected to meet IRMA's limited space and power requirements. IRMA accepts scripts defined in a custom, high level control language as its method of control, which the operator can write or dynamically generated by a separate GUI front-end program

searching for local particularities in the center of the Milky Way and extragalactic nuclei at high angular resolution

All projects aim at pushing the limits of our knowledge about the interaction between a galaxy and a supermassive black hole (SMBH) at its center. The development of a new instrument can be as valuable as combining different datasets. I follow both approaches and developed projects which deal with new instrumentation and telescope technology, combine datasets from different wavelengths and resolutions, and incorporate recent theoretical models and predictions, which can be verified empirically. The first two of the six chapters compile astrophysical and technical background of the individual projects, which are presented in the following four chapters. While the first project (Chapter 3) deals with observations of the innermost parsec of our Galaxy, Chapter 4 presents data of the inner kpc of an active galaxy. The subjects of Chapters 5 and 6 are very luminous AGN/host systems, so-called QSOs. Whereas Chapter 5 presents global, spatially unresolved properties of SMBH/host systems, the radio jet, analyzed in the final Chapter 6, combines all size scales. It is investigated from close to its origin out to several kpc. The accretion onto the black hole of the Milky Way (Chapter 3) is extremely inefficient and the SMBH possibly interacts dominantly via tidal forces only. The next discussed system (Chapter 4) is the prototype of moderately luminous Seyfert 2 AGN, NGC 1068. Here a strong local influence of the nuclear X-ray radiation is observed. Chapter 5 deals with the possible global importance of radiative interaction between highly luminous QSO AGN and the host. The radio jet in Chapte 6 definitely shows signs of interaction with the matter of its host several kpc away from the nucleus. Chapters 3-6 include a dedicated introductory and a conclusive section, which put the results obtained in the larger astrophysical context of the observation ...thesi

Farmsteads and Funerary Sites

MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) undertook extensive excavations during the construction of two separate, but adjacent road schemes, some 4.5km apart near Houghton Regis and Toddington, in south Central Bedfordshire. Taken as a whole, the excavations provide a detailed multi-period dataset for regional and national comparison. The first evidence for occupation occurred in the middle/late Bronze Age comprising pits and clusters of postholes, including four-post and six-post structures. Two pit alignments, more than 2km apart, also indicate that land divisions were being established, and in the late Bronze Age/early Iron Age a significant new settlement emerged in the valley bottom. Parts of a further contemporary earlier-middle Iron Age settlement lay at the top of the valley but neither settlement extended into the Roman period. In the late Iron Age or early Roman period three or four new settlements emerged with occupation continuing into the late Roman period in at least one of these. Of particular interest was the recovery of two significant Aylesford-Swarling type cemeteries as well as a third cemetery which largely comprised unurned burials, including some busta, but with few accompanying grave goods. In the late 7th-century a small probable Christian conversion open-ground inhumation cemetery was established with burials accompanied by a range of objects, including a rare work box, knives, brooches, chatelaine keys and a spearhead. Parts of three medieval settlements were uncovered including one with a potters' working area

Geotechnical Engineering for the Preservation of Monuments and Historic Sites III

The conservation of monuments and historic sites is one of the most challenging problems facing modern civilization. It involves, in inextricable patterns, factors belonging to different fields (cultural, humanistic, social, technical, economical, administrative) and the requirements of safety and use appear to be (or often are) in conflict with the respect of the integrity of the monuments. The complexity of the topic is such that a shared framework of reference is still lacking among art historians, architects, structural and geotechnical engineers. The complexity of the subject is such that a shared frame of reference is still lacking among art historians, architects, architectural and geotechnical engineers. And while there are exemplary cases of an integral approach to each building element with its static and architectural function, as a material witness to the culture and construction techniques of the original historical period, there are still examples of uncritical reliance on modern technology leading to the substitution from earlier structures to new ones, preserving only the iconic look of the original monument. Geotechnical Engineering for the Preservation of Monuments and Historic Sites III collects the contributions to the eponymous 3rd International ISSMGE TC301 Symposium (Naples, Italy, 22-24 June 2022). The papers cover a wide range of topics, which include: 　 - Principles of conservation, maintenance strategies, case histories - The knowledge: investigations and monitoring - Seismic risk, site effects, soil structure interaction - Effects of urban development and tunnelling on built heritage - Preservation of diffuse heritage: soil instability, subsidence, environmental damages The present volume aims at geotechnical engineers and academics involved in the preservation of monuments and historic sites worldwide

Bibliography of Lewis Research Center technical publications announced in 1987

This compilation of abstracts describes and indexes the technical reporting that resulted from the scientific and engineering work performed and managed by the Lewis Research Center in 1987. All the publications were announced in the 1987 issues of STAR (Scientific and Technical Aerospace Reports) and/or IAA (International Aerospace Abstracts). Included are research reports, journal articles, conference presentations, patents and patent applications, and theses

Farmsteads and Funerary Sites

MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) undertook extensive excavations during the construction of two separate, but adjacent road schemes, some 4.5km apart near Houghton Regis and Toddington, in south Central Bedfordshire. Taken as a whole, the excavations provide a detailed multi-period dataset for regional and national comparison. The first evidence for occupation occurred in the middle/late Bronze Age comprising pits and clusters of postholes, including four-post and six-post structures. Two pit alignments, more than 2km apart, also indicate that land divisions were being established, and in the late Bronze Age/early Iron Age a significant new settlement emerged in the valley bottom. Parts of a further contemporary earlier-middle Iron Age settlement lay at the top of the valley but neither settlement extended into the Roman period. In the late Iron Age or early Roman period three or four new settlements emerged with occupation continuing into the late Roman period in at least one of these. Of particular interest was the recovery of two significant Aylesford-Swarling type cemeteries as well as a third cemetery which largely comprised unurned burials, including some busta, but with few accompanying grave goods. In the late 7th-century a small probable Christian conversion open-ground inhumation cemetery was established with burials accompanied by a range of objects, including a rare work box, knives, brooches, chatelaine keys and a spearhead. Parts of three medieval settlements were uncovered including one with a potters' working area

Integrated analysis of building vulnerability in urban areas affected by slow-moving, intermittent landslides using SAR Interferometry

Slow-moving landslides are a natural hazard which affects wide areas in the world causing relevant economic damage to structures and infrastructures. To this reason, the analysis of landslide-induced consequences plays a key role in risk prevention and mitigation activities. The thesis shows a general methodology which can be used to forecast spatial and temporal evolution of building vulnerability in urban settlements affected by slow-moving and intermittent landslides. Multi-level and integrated analysis of landslide kinematics and exposed elements allows to assess at different scales of representation and at different levels of accuracy, future conditions of damage of existing facilities. Satellite Radar Interferometry and in particular the Differential SAR Interferometry (DInSAR) technique has been successfully applied as a remote-sensing tool to provide information both on spatial and temporal landslide evolution and on interaction with structures in urban areas. Integration of C and X-band SAR data (acquired between 2002 and 2016) with conventional monitoring techniques allows to reach a thorough knowledge of landslide kinematics; subsequently, structural analyses to detect the relationship between slope movements and building damage have been performed, by using qualitative, semi-quantitative and quantitative approaches. Such methodology has been tested in Moio della Civitella urban settlement, Salerno Province, whose territory is affected by several slow-moving landslides. At small scale of representation, preliminary cause-effect relationship and the updating of landslide inventory map have been provided; at medium scale of analysis, vulnerability zoning map through matrix-approach and influence of vulnerability factors on performance of structures through fragility curves approach, have been defined. Finally, at a detailed scale, structural behavior of buildings has been investigated by means of analytical or numerical analyses. The proposed methodology could be applied to other scenarios affected by similar phenomena and once validated, can be valuably used for damage analysis and forecasting

Probing the Depths: Relativistic, Hydrodynamic Simulations and X-ray Observations of Pulsar Wind Nebulae.

I have undertaken a joint computational and observational study of the interaction of a light, relativistic pulsar wind with a dense, ambient medium. Such a scenario has been suggested as the origin of asymmetric pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe). I present an analysis of Chandra X-ray Observatory data on the supernova remnant (SNR) MSH 11-62. I show that the central region's spectrum above 2 keV is dominated by non-thermal emission consistent with that from a PWN. The spatial and spectral analyses strongly suggest that the nebula harbors a compact object with an inferred spin-down energy sufficient to rotationally power the nebula. Nebular asymmetry strongly suggests that the nebula has been crushed by the SNR reverse shock and the nebula and SNR are consistent with being in pressure equilibrium. Thus, this observation provides evidence that, in this case, the density distribution of the interstellar medium has had a dynamical effect on the morphology of the SNR/PWN system. Another scenario wherein the ambient medium influences PWNe morphology arises when the pulsar's space velocity is supersonic. In order to study such a system I have applied an existing adaptive-mesh, axisymmetric, relativistic hydrodynamic code to the simulation of the interaction of a relativistic pulsar wind with the ambient flow setup by the space motion of the pulsar. I discuss simulations showing that this interaction can give rise to asymmetry reminiscent of the Guitar nebula leading to the formation of a relativistic backflow harboring a series of internal shockwaves. The shockwaves provide thermalized energy that is available for the continued inflation of the PWN bubble. In turn, the bubble enhances the asymmetry, thereby providing positive feedback to the backflow. Further, I present the first results from an extension of the model to study the shock acceleration, and subsequent synchrotron cooling, of particles advected by the flow. The new module may be used to compute models of synchrotron emissivity and to provide an energy sink, allowing for the exploration of the role of cooling on the flow dynamics.Ph.D.Astronomy and AstrophysicsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60827/1/jpbernst_1.pd