Seismic risk assessment for developing countries : Pakistan as a case study

Modern Earthquake Risk Assessment (ERA) methods usually require seismo-tectonic information for Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment (PSHA) that may not be readily available in developing countries. To bypass this drawback, this paper presents a practical event-based PSHA method that uses instrumental seismicity, available historical seismicity, as well as limited information on geology and tectonic setting. Historical seismicity is integrated with instrumental seismicity to determine the long-term hazard. The tectonic setting is included by assigning seismic source zones associated with known major faults. Monte Carlo simulations are used to generate earthquake catalogues with randomized key hazard parameters. A case study region in Pakistan is selected to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method. The results indicate that the proposed method produces seismic hazard maps consistent with previous studies, thus being suitable for generating such maps in regions where limited data are available. The PSHA procedure is developed as an integral part of an ERA framework named EQRAM. The framework is also used to determine seismic risk in terms of annual losses for the study region

Synergistic effect of CuO nanocrystals and Cu-oxo-Fe clusters on silica support in promotion of total catalytic oxidation of toluene as a model volatile organic air pollutant

Monometallic (CuO and FeO$_x$) and bimetallic (CuFeO$_x$) entities on different supports are promising transition-metal low-cost catalysts for catalytic oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOC) from industrial air alternatively to noble-metal catalysts which are currently in use. In this work we report for the first time that the promotion of catalytic oxidation of toluene as a model VOC is due to the cooperative redox effect between CuO nanocrystals and finely dispersed Cu-oxo-Fe clusters on mesoporous silica with defined Fe/Cu molar ratio. This increases the number and reactivity of adsorbed electrophilic (O$^−$ and O$_2^−$) as well as nucleophilic lattice oxygen (O$^{2-}$) species at the CuO crystal and and Cu-oxo-Fe cluster interface, thus providing up to twofold enhancement in catalytic activity for total oxidation of toluene. Catalysts were prepared via direct synthesis of Fe-functionalized disordered mesoporous silica containing only isolated iron sites followed by copper addition via impregnation

Seismic hazard assessment and site-dependent response spectra parameters of the current seismic design code in Albania

A probabilistically based hazard map of Albania expressed in terms of PGA for 475 years of return period following the spatially smoothed seismicity approach proposed by Frankel (1995) and developed by Slovenian researchers (Lapajne et al. 1997), is presented.  Taking advantage of this development, an effort has been made to analyze the parameters of site-dependent acceleration response spectra parameters of the current seismic design code KTP-N.2-89 in Albania