Vrancea Rapid Early Warning System (REWS) for Bucharest and industrial objectives - New technology for earthquakes monitoring

Nowadays natural disasters phenomena as hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis or earthquakes, are still difficult to prevent. Based on signaling of the phenomenon imminent appearance in the destructive area, important limitations in human losses and material damages will be carried out. For that  reason, WARNING turned into a key objective, both in theoretical and practical research.  For the earthquakes, warning intervals are nevertheless very short - seconds to maximum one minute (Mexico City case). Even if the time window is reduced, automated decision measures are possible to establish in case of an well organized system, mainly for: protection of dangerous chemical units and oil installations; shutdown valves of the natural gas pipelines to prevent fire hazard; protection of nuclear power plants and other high-risk nuclear objectives; electrical insulating of the power distribution network systems; alerting of emergency services, alerting of civil protection, and particularly of  civil population; protection of railway transportation systems etc.  In Romania, the major seismic risk zone is located in Vrancea region. The earthquakes occurring in this area are the main sources of the seismic hazard on the Romania territory.  Seismotectonic characteristics of the Vrancea region offered the opportunity to create and develop a rapid seismic warning system. This system is simple, reasonably low-priced and robust and allows warning in an approximately 25 seconds time window for Bucharest. Warning signal obtained will be issued at the responsible factors and specific users in order to control automated blocking of the installations and to carry out the required protection actions

Seismic zoning characterization for the seismic hazard assessment in south-eastern Romania territory

The seismic hazard assessment in dense-populated areas and the strategic objectives design are based on the study of seismicity of the seismogenic sources (which can have an effect at the site above a specified minimum level that is considered risky) and the attenuation between focus and site. The purpose of this paper is to provide a complete set of information required for a probabilistic assessment of the seismic hazard in the southeast Romania relative to the following seismic sources: Vrancea zone (in the crust and intermediate-depth domains), Predobrogean depression zone, Intramoesian zone and Shabla-Dulovo (Bulgaria) zone. As an example, the obtained input parameters are used to evaluate the seismic hazard distribution due to the crustal earthquakes applying the McGuire's procedure (1976). These preliminary results are in good agreement with the previous research based on deterministic approach (Radulian et al. 2000)

Cardiac sympathetic denervation in patients with refractory ventricular arrhythmias or electrical storm: intermediate and long-term follow-up.

BackgroundLeft and bilateral cardiac sympathetic denervation (CSD) have been shown to reduce burden of ventricular arrhythmias acutely in a small number of patients with ventricular tachyarrhythmia (VT) storm. The effects of this procedure beyond the acute setting are unknown.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to evaluate the intermediate and long-term effects of left and bilateral CSD in patients with cardiomyopathy and refractory VT or VT storm.MethodsRetrospective analysis of medical records for patients who underwent either left or bilateral CSD for VT storm or refractory VT between April 2009 and December 2012 was performed.ResultsForty-one patients underwent CSD (14 left CSD, 27 bilateral CSD). There was a significant reduction in the burden of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) shocks during follow-up compared to the 12 months before the procedure. The number of ICD shocks was reduced from a mean of 19.6 ± 19 preprocedure to 2.3 ± 2.9 postprocedure (P < .001), with 90% of patients experiencing a reduction in ICD shocks. At mean follow-up of 367 ± 251 days postprocedure, survival free of ICD shock was 30% in the left CSD group and 48% in the bilateral CSD group. Shock-free survival was greater in the bilateral group than in the left CSD group (P = .04).ConclusionIn patients with VT storm, bilateral CSD is more beneficial than left CSD. The beneficial effects of bilateral CSD extend beyond the acute postsympathectomy period, with continued freedom from ICD shocks in 48% of patients and a significant reduction in ICD shocks in 90% of patients

Cardiac sympathetic denervation in patients with refractory ventricular arrhythmias or electrical storm: intermediate and long-term follow-up.

BackgroundLeft and bilateral cardiac sympathetic denervation (CSD) have been shown to reduce burden of ventricular arrhythmias acutely in a small number of patients with ventricular tachyarrhythmia (VT) storm. The effects of this procedure beyond the acute setting are unknown.ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to evaluate the intermediate and long-term effects of left and bilateral CSD in patients with cardiomyopathy and refractory VT or VT storm.MethodsRetrospective analysis of medical records for patients who underwent either left or bilateral CSD for VT storm or refractory VT between April 2009 and December 2012 was performed.ResultsForty-one patients underwent CSD (14 left CSD, 27 bilateral CSD). There was a significant reduction in the burden of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) shocks during follow-up compared to the 12 months before the procedure. The number of ICD shocks was reduced from a mean of 19.6 ± 19 preprocedure to 2.3 ± 2.9 postprocedure (P < .001), with 90% of patients experiencing a reduction in ICD shocks. At mean follow-up of 367 ± 251 days postprocedure, survival free of ICD shock was 30% in the left CSD group and 48% in the bilateral CSD group. Shock-free survival was greater in the bilateral group than in the left CSD group (P = .04).ConclusionIn patients with VT storm, bilateral CSD is more beneficial than left CSD. The beneficial effects of bilateral CSD extend beyond the acute postsympathectomy period, with continued freedom from ICD shocks in 48% of patients and a significant reduction in ICD shocks in 90% of patients

Attenuation of the peak ground motion for the special case of Vrancea intermediate-depth earthquakes and seismic hazard assessment at NPP Cernavoda

Attenuation specific from Vrancea intermediate-depth focus toward SE is revised at length in order to re-evaluate the seismic hazard at the nuclear power plant (NPP) Cernavoda. To this aim, we took into consideration all the strong motion data available for the region and test a large range of relationship types. Since the instrumental data are limited as magnitude and  depth intervals, the extrapolation based on the attenuation laws deduced from these data to great magnitudes is very instable and must be carefully considered. The extrapolation outside the characteristic domain of the available database leads to large deviations, especially at large magnitudes and for the relations which contain the depth as independent parameter

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International audienc

Recent achievements of the neo-deterministic seismic hazard assessment in the CEI region

Recent achievements of the neo-deterministic seismic hazard assessment in the CEI regio