Do floating ceilings solve the usury rate problem?

Interest rates

Disintermediation: an old disorder with a new remedy

Disintermediation

Bank reserve requirements and their enforcement: a comparison across streets

Bank reserves ; Money supply

Inflation and personal saving: an update

Inflation (Finance) ; Saving and investment

What can we learn from the January 2012 Northern Italy earthquakes?

This note focuses on the ground motion recorded during the recent moderate earthquakes occurred in the central part of Northern Italy (panel 1), a region characterized by low seismicity. For this area the Italian seismic hazard map (Stucchi et al., 2011) assigns a maximum horizontal acceleration (rock site) up to 0.2 g (10% probability of exceedance in 50 yrs). In the last 4 years, the region was struck by 9 earthquakes in the magnitude range 4≤Mw≤5.0, with the three largest located in the Northern Apennines (Mw 4.9 and 5.0 Parma events, December 2008 and January 2012) and in the Po plain (Mw 4.9 Reggio Emila event of January 2012). We analyze the strongmotion data (distance < 300 km) from these events recorded by stations belonging to the INGV (RAIS, http://rais.mi.ingv.it; RSNC http://iside.rm.ingv.it) and DPC (RAN, www.protezionecivile.it; http://itaca.mi.ingv.it). The 2008 and 2012 Parma events, both characterized by reverse focal mechanisms (http://cnt.rm.ingv.it/), have depths of 27 and 60 km respectively. The deep event produced a maximum peak ground acceleration (PGA) of 97 cm/s2 at Novellara (NVL, EC8 C class) station (70 km from the epicenter). The 25th January 2012 event (depth of 34 km) produced a maximum PGA of 114 cm/s2 at Sorbolo (SRP) station (7 km from the epicenter). Preliminary analyses show: 1) a peculiar ground-motion attenuation of the deep Parma event with respect to the shallow one. In panel 2, the PGAs for the two Parma events are plotted as a function of hypocentral distance and compared to the global ground motion prediction equation (GMPE) calibrated by Cauzzi and Faccioli (2008) using events with depth < 30 km. The different distance-decay of PGA for the deep event (blue for A class of EC8 and red for B and C classes, CEN 2003) is evident, in particular for distance up to 100 km. On the other hand, the PGAs of the 2008 Parma crustal event (grey) are well explained by this GMPE. In panel 3, the PGAs for the deep 2012 event, grouped for EC8 classes, are compared to the national GMPE calibrated by Bindi et al. (2011) using crustal events and epicentral distance. Also in this case, the GMPE underestimates the PGAs up to 200 km. Although most of the class C sites (red) show the largest PGAs, the underestimation cannot be completely ascribed to site effects. The large PGAs from the Parma deep event, with respect to the shallow one, could be explained in terms of source effects (e.g. large stress drop values enhancing the high-frequency radiation). In addition, as explained by Castro et al. (2008), the different attenuation in the lower and upper crust could explain the large PGAs recorded for the 2012 deep event. 2) seismic amplification at Po Plain sites: In panel 4, the PGAs of the January 25th, Mw 4.9, Reggio Emilia event are plotted as a function of the epicentral distance, together with the Bindi et al. (2011) GMPE. In general, the largest amplitudes occur at the Po plain sites (red), suggesting possible peculiar site response. An overall increase of the PGAs is observed around 100km, in agreement with the results of Bragato et al. (2011) that studied the regional influence of Moho S-wave reflections in the area. An example of site response is shown in panel 5, considering TREG (class C) and ZEN8 (class A) stations (panel 5a), located at 88 km from the Reggio Emila epicentre. The rotational standard spectral ratio (panel 5b) for 10 s of S wave shows polarized amplifications around 2 Hz, detected also at others Po plain sites (not reported), as well as amplification on the vertical component. The points discussed above should to be interpreted as a warning for future applications dealing with ground motion estimation in the aftermath of an earthquake in this area (e.g. ShakeMap calculation): currently used GMPEs, based on different events and sites characteristics could lead to significant bias in the final results

Qui INGV

L’INGV, a partire dal 2006, ha iniziato una fase di potenziamento del monitoraggio accelerometrico, installando nelle aree centrali della pianura padana 22 sensori strong-motion (Rete Accelerometrica Italia Settentrionale, RAIS, http://rais.mi.ingv.it/). Dal 2008, sensori accelerometrici sono stati via via installati in 105 siti a Rete Sismica Nazionale (RSN), gestita dal Centro Nazionale Terremoti (CNT). Nel complesso le 127 stazioni accelerometriche presenti sul territorio nazionale costituiscono a tutti gli effetti la rete accelerometrica nazionale INGV. I dati acquisiti da tutte le stazioni accelerometriche sono attualmente distribuiti in tempo reale tramite il portale EIDA (European Integrated Data Archive; http://eida.rm.ingv.it/) e sono principalmente utilizzati per il calcolo delle Shakemaps a scala nazionale. Attualmente, l’INGV sta realizzando un portale web per la distribuzione dei dati accelerometrici registrati dalle stazioni INGV, composto da 2 moduli distinti: il primo, denominato ISMD, ha lo scopo di archiviaziare e distribuire in tempo quasi reale (poche ore dopo l’evento) le forme d’onda accelerometriche in formato non corretto ed i relativi metadati ottenuti a seguito di una procedura di processamento automatico; il secondo, denominato DYNA, è una banca dati relazionale, contenente le forme d’onda di accelerazione, velocità e spostamento e gli spettri di risposta di accelerazione, ottenuti attraverso il processamento manuale dei segnali non corretti, oltre ai relativi metadati associati agli eventi sismici ed alle stazioni di registrazione Il prototipo del portale dei dati accelerometrici INGV (Figura 1) è stato pubblicato lo scorso maggio, a seguito della sequenza sismica Emiliana

Estimation of topographical effects at Narni ridge (Central Italy): comparisons between experimental results and numerical modelling

In the present work the seismic site response of Narni ridge (central Italy) is evaluated by comparing experimental results and numerical simulations. The inhabited village of Narni is located in the central Italian Apennines at the top of a steep massive limestone ridge. From March to September 2009 the site was instrumented with 10 weak-motion stations, 3 of which located at the base of the ridge and 7 at the top. The velocimetric network recorded 642 events of ML up to 5.3 and hypocentral distance up to about 100 km. The great amount of data are related to the April 2009 L’Aquila sequence. The site response was analyzed using both reference (SSR, Standard Spectral Ratio) and non reference spectral techniques (HVSR, Horizontal to Vertical Spectral Ratio). Moreover directional analyses were performed in order to evaluate the influence of the ridge orientation with respect to the selected source-site paths. In general the experimental results show amplification factors for frequencies between 4 and 5 Hz for almost all stations installed along the crest. The SSR technique provides amplification factors up to 4.5 detected considering directions perpendicular to the main elongation of the ridge. The results obtained from the monitoring activity were used as a target for bidimensional and tridimensional numerical simulations, performed using a hybrid finite-boundary element method for 2D and a boundary element method for 3D analyses respectively. In general, the results obtained through numerical simulation fit well the experimental data in terms of range of amplified frequencies, but they underestimate by a factor of about 2 the related amplification factors with respect to the observations

Strong-motion parameters of the Mw=6.3 Abruzzo (Central Italy) earthquake

INGVPublished1.1. TTC - Monitoraggio sismico del territorio nazionaleope