The OGS experience in rapid determination of source parameters and ShakeMaps for NE Italy

OGS manages an integrated seismic network designed to monitor regional seismic activity of North-East Italy (NI) and surroundings. The network includes 11 digital broadband seismometers and 27 short period stations. Waveforms and parametric data are exchanged in real time with the local Civil Defence agencies, the INGV, the Earth Science Department of the University of Trieste, the Zentralanstalt für Meterologie und Geodynamik (ZAMG) in Vienna, and the Agencija Republike Slovenije za Okolje (ARSO) in Ljubljana, in order to support emergency management and seismological studies in the whole Alps–Dinarides junction zone. The Antelope software suite from BRTT has been chosen as the common basis for real time data exchange, rapid location of earthquakes and alerting

A scoping review of seismic risk communication in Europe

Although earthquakes are a threat in many countries and considerable resources have been invested in safety regulations, communities at risk often lack awareness and preparedness. Risk communication is a key tool for building resilient communities, raising awareness, and increasing preparedness. Over the past 2 decades, seismic risk communication has evolved significantly. This has led to a reorientation from a predominantly “one-way”, top-down communication model to the promotion of new models in which people, their needs, and their participation in disaster risk management are central elements. The 2015–2030 Sendai Framework recommendations, recent disaster experiences and research have highlighted that new models can improve communication effectiveness. In this paper, we critically explore this transition by conducting a scoping review (n=109 publications) of seismic risk communication in Europe. We analyse the approaches, messages, tools, and channels used for seismic risk communication and how they have changed over time. The results reveal that the stated goals of seismic risk communication are, in decreasing order, to share information, raise awareness, change behaviours/beliefs, and increase preparedness. Pupils, students, and citizens are the primary recipients of communication activities. Over the years, two trends have emerged. First, “two-way”, transdisciplinary and bottom-up communication models prevailed over the “one-way” model. Second, communication aimed more at promoting proactive behaviours than just informing the public. Face-to-face, hands-on activities, and serious games are key tools to engage with the public. The results also reveal the emerging role of social media to target different audiences/social groups. Strikingly, only one-fifth of the analysed publications explicitly build on or tests risk communication theories. Future research could focus on comparing practices across countries and risks (e.g., earthquakes and floods) and on innovating communication theories and methodologies, especially by incorporating the role of information technologies and social media

Acquiring, archiving, analyzing and exchanging seismic data in real time at the Seismological Research Center of the OGS in Italy

After the 1976 Friuli earthquake (Ms = 6.5) in north-eastern Italy that caused about 1,000 casualties and widespread destruction in the Friuli area, the Italian government established the Centro di Ricerche Sismologiche (CRS). This is now a department of the Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale (OGS), and it is specifically devoted to the monitoring of the seismicity of north-eastern Italy. Since its inception, the North-East Italy Seismic Network has grown enormously. Currently, it consists of 14 broad-band and 20 short-period seismic stations, all of which are telemetered to and acquired in real time at the OGS-CRS data center in Udine. Data exchange agreements in place with other Italian, Slovenian, Austrian and Swiss seismological institutes lead to a total number of 94 seismic stations acquired in real time, which confirms that the OGS is the reference institute for seismic monitoring of north-eastern Italy. Since 2002, CRS has been using the Antelope software suite as the main tool for collecting, analyzing, archiving and exchanging seismic data. SeisComP is also used as a real-time data exchange server tool. A customized web accessible server is used to manually relocate earthquakes, and automatic procedures have been set-up for moment-tensor determination, shaking-map computation, web publishing of earthquake parametric data, waveform drumplots, state-of-health parameters, and quality checks of the station by spectra analysis. Scripts for email/SMS/fax alerting to public institutions have also been customized. Recently, a real-time seismology website was designed and set-up (http://rts.crs.inogs.it/)

Seismic hazard for the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). Part 2: broadband scenarios at the Fier Compressor Station (Albania)

AbstractTo ensure environmental and public safety, critical facilities require rigorous seismic hazard analysis to define seismic input for their design. We consider the case of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which is a pipeline that transports natural gas from the Caspian Sea to southern Italy, crossing active faults and areas characterized by high seismicity levels. For this pipeline, we develop a Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment (PSHA) for the broader area, and, for the selected critical sites, we perform deterministic seismic hazard assessment (DSHA), by calculating shaking scenarios that account for the physics of the source, propagation, and site effects. This paper presents a DSHA for a compressor station located at Fier, along the Albanian coastal region. Considering the location of the most hazardous faults in the study site, revealed by the PSHA disaggregation, we model the ground motion for two different scenarios to simulate the worst-case scenario for this compressor station. We compute broadband waveforms for receivers on soft soils by applying specific transfer functions estimated from the available geotechnical data for the Fier area. The simulations reproduce the variability observed in the ground motion recorded in the near-earthquake source. The vertical ground motion is strong for receivers placed above the rupture areas and should not be ignored in seismic designs; furthermore, our vertical simulations reproduce the displacement and the static offset of the ground motion highlighted in recent studies. This observation confirms the importance of the DSHA analysis in defining the expected pipeline damage functions and permanent soil deformations

Production of biogas - a manner of manufacturing

Advertising is commonly criticised for being pervasive, offensive, manipulative, harmful and irresponsible. This thesis focuses on the subjective criticisms and complex issues related to taste, decency, morality and offence, particularly as applied to, and understood within, the public and non-profit contexts. It is positioned at the intersection of marketing communications, marketing ethics, and social and non-profit marketing and explores how shocking, offensive and/or controversial (SOC) advertising appeals are interpreted, regulated and contested, by divergent groups of people. The approach taken is inspired by stakeholder theory and its focus on ethical decision-making for the betterment of all stakeholders. A mixed methods research design was adopted, resulting in three studies and these are presented as three discrete articles. Article I maps the field of existing research into SOC advertising and identifies gaps in our knowledge by means of a systematic literature review. It offers a critical appraisal of the field by highlighting definitional tensions, limited interdisciplinary work and an overdependence on student samples, on quantitative analysis and on non-longitudinal methodologies. It then proposes a series of remedies to these shortcomings. The second and third papers continue this reparative work by conceptualising and analysing actual SOC advertising interpretations and contestations. Article II explores the interpretations and experiences of SOC advertising within the regulatory context by analysing evidence from complainants, advertisers and regulatory bodies. It then proposes and develops an interpretation of the implicit power dynamics through which their contradictory interests overlap. The methodology underpinning this chapter combines a thematic content analysis of a substantial archive of complaints submitted to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) with an interpretation of case adjudication reports influenced by the work of Michel Foucault. The findings suggest that the regulation of SOC advertising prioritises the interests of firms and advertisers by relegating the role of complainant to that of merely registering complaints. The focus of Article III moves from the regulatory framework to the complained-about advertisements themselves. It provides an innovative theoretical and methodological approach to analysing SOC advertisements, rooted in the classic Aristotelian notion of rhetorical appeals and figuration, by developing and analysing a carefully selected example in detail. The analysis reveals an implicit NFP sector-specific appeal to ethos and the importance of a complex appeal to pathos. Each of the papers offers a different level of analysis of the often-contradictory viewpoints represented by stakeholder groups involved in, or affected by, the use of SOC advertising tactics. These viewpoints include academics, general consumers, the vocal minority of complainants, the advertisers including the non-profit and public organisations and the advertising creatives, and the advertising regulator. Taken together, the papers amount to a thesis that makes an important contribution to debates about the appropriateness, ethics, and application of SOC themes, formats and imagery in social and non-profit advertising. By exploring the regulatory processes of the ASA, an exemplary advertising self-regulatory body, it further contributes to the discourse on self-regulatory practices and highlights an NFP sector-specific consequentialist approach that appears to stifle the voice of the offended complainant. On a practical level, this work has implications for advertising practitioners and advertising regulators who are involved in producing and regulating advertising that uses SOC tactics

Rationale and design of an independent randomised controlled trial evaluating the effectiveness of aripiprazole or haloperidol in combination with clozapine for treatment-resistant schizophrenia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>One third to two thirds of people with schizophrenia have persistent psychotic symptoms despite clozapine treatment. Under real-world circumstances, the need to provide effective therapeutic interventions to patients who do not have an optimal response to clozapine has been cited as the most common reason for simultaneously prescribing a second antipsychotic drug in combination treatment strategies. In a clinical area where the pressing need of providing therapeutic answers has progressively increased the occurrence of antipsychotic polypharmacy, despite the lack of robust evidence of its efficacy, we sought to implement a pre-planned protocol where two alternative therapeutic answers are systematically provided and evaluated within the context of a pragmatic, multicentre, independent randomised study.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>The principal clinical question to be answered by the present project is the relative efficacy and tolerability of combination treatment with clozapine plus aripiprazole compared with combination treatment with clozapine plus haloperidol in patients with an incomplete response to treatment with clozapine over an appropriate period of time. This project is a prospective, multicentre, randomized, parallel-group, superiority trial that follow patients over a period of 12 months. Withdrawal from allocated treatment within 3 months is the primary outcome.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The implementation of the protocol presented here shows that it is possible to create a network of community psychiatric services that accept the idea of using their everyday clinical practice to produce randomised knowledge. The employed pragmatic attitude allowed to randomly allocate more than 100 individuals, which means that this study is the largest antipsychotic combination trial conducted so far in Western countries. We expect that the current project, by generating evidence on whether it is clinically useful to combine clozapine with aripiprazole rather than with haloperidol, provides physicians with a solid evidence base to be directly applied in the routine care of patients with schizophrenia.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p><b>Clincaltrials.gov Identifier</b>: NCT00395915</p

The OGS experience in rapid determination of source parameters and ShakeMaps for NE Italy

OGS manages an integrated seismic network designed to monitor regional seismic activity of North-East Italy (NI) and surroundings. The network includes 11 digital broadband seismometers and 27 short period stations. Waveforms and parametric data are exchanged in real time with the local Civil Defence agencies, the INGV, the Earth Science Department of the University of Trieste, the Zentralanstalt für Meterologie und Geodynamik (ZAMG) in Vienna, and the Agencija Republike Slovenije za Okolje (ARSO) in Ljubljana, in order to support emergency management and seismological studies in the whole Alps–Dinarides junction zone. The Antelope software suite from BRTT has been chosen as the common basis for real time data exchange, rapid location of earthquakes and alerting.UnpublishedErice (PA), Italy4.2. TTC - Modelli per la stima della pericolosità sismica a scala nazionaleope

Ground-motion simulations within ShakeMap methodology: application to the 2008 Iwate-Miyagi Nairiku (Japan) and 1980 Irpinia (Italy) earthquakes

ShakeMap package uses empirical Ground Motion Prediction Equations (GMPEs) to estimate the ground motion where recorded data are not available. Recorded and estimated values are then interpolated in order to produce a shaking map associated with the seismic event of interest. The ShakeMap approach better works in regions with dense stations coverage, where the observed ground motions adequately constrain the interpolation. On the other hand, in poorly instrumented regions, the ground motion estimate mainly relies on the GMPEs that account only for average characteristics of source and wave propagation processes. In this study we investigated the improvement of ShakeMap in the near-fault area accounting for source effects, at different level of approximation, and including synthetic estimates at sites where recordings are not available. We focus on the 2008, Mw 7.0, Iwate-Miyagi Nairiku (Japan) earthquake as a case study because of the large amount of recorded data. As first step, we calculated the shakemaps to be used as reference using all station recordings and simple source information such as the earthquake magnitude and fault geometry. We then removed several subsets of stations from the original data-set and computed the shakemaps (i) using the estimations of the ground motion obtained by GMPE and (ii) replacing them with the peak values from synthetic time-histories. Simulated seismograms are computed by a hybrid deterministic-stochastic method for extended fault, using rupture fault models with different degree of approximation of source properties. In fact, within few hours, a preliminary rupture model can be obtained from the inversion of teleseismic data, and after 24 hours a kinematic source inversion of strong-motion records can be available. We evaluate the deviations from the reference map and the sensitivity to the number of sites where recordings are not available. Our results show that shakemaps are more and more reliable as the coverage of stations is uniformly distributed in the near-source area. Moreover, the shakemaps obtained by the use of combination of slip inversion model and strong-motion simulations are more reliable than those obtained by the use of GMPEs. The accuracy of source model does not significantly affect the results, making the proposed methodology applicable to regions with sparse station coverage. As an example, we apply it to a poorly instrumented earthquake of similar magnitude, the 1980, Ms 6.9, Irpinia (Southern Italy) earthquake. When the peak motions inferred from synthetic seismograms are included in the database, the fit with respect to the observed Mercalli–Cancani–Sieberg intensities improves

Moho reflection effects in the Po plain (Northern Italy) observed from instrumental and intensity data.

Recent moderate-sized earthquakes (ML≤5.2) that occurred in northern Italy demonstrate that the currently available ground-motion prediction equations (GMPEs) largely underestimate shaking in the Po Plain region at hypocentral distances greater than 70 km. In order to investigate this phenomenon, we collected a set of peak ground acceleration (PGA) observations for weak and moderate earthquakes in the area. Nonparametric regression analysis of PGA observations as a function of magnitude and hypocentral distance shows that PGA is systematically enhanced for distances between 70 and 200 km. An indirect estimation through the analysis of the attenuation of macroseismic intensities suggests that the effect also applies to strong earthquakes (ML>5.5). We performed numerical modeling experiments to investigate the cause of the phenomenon. The characteristics of the computed synthetic seismograms indicate that the enhancement of ground motion is mainly an effect of the reflection of S waves at the Moho (SmS phase). The analysis of both real and synthetic data shows that the Moho reflection effect is maximized at hypocentral distances between 90 and 150 km, where the PGA increases by a factor larger than 2.4.Published2142-21521.1. TTC - Monitoraggio sismico del territorio nazionaleJCR Journalrestricte