THE HELLENIC NATIONAL TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER: RESEARCH, OPERATIONAL AND TRAINING ACTIVITIES

Το Εθνικό Κέντρο Προειδοποίησης για Τσουνάμι (ΕΚΠΤ) ιδρύθηκε στην Ελλάδα με νόμο, το Σεπτέμβριο του 2010, και λειτουργεί ως ιδιαίτερη μονάδα του Γεωδυναμικού Ινστιτούτο του Εθνικού Αστεροσκοπείου Αθηνών (ΕΑΑ-ΓΙ). Το κέντρο λειτουργεί σε 24/7 βάση και σκοπό έχει την παρακολούθηση της εκδήλωσης τσουνάμι στην Ελλάδα και την ανατολική Μεσόγειο, παρέχοντας μηνύματα προειδοποίησης στη Γενική Γραμματεία Πολιτικής Προστασίας. Από τον Αύγουστο του 2012, το ΕΚΠΤ ενεργεί ως Υποψήφιος Πάροχος Υπηρεσιών Τσουνάμι (CTSP) στο πλαίσιο του Σύστηματος Προειδοποίησης για Τσουνάμι στο Βορειοανατολικό Ατλαντικό, τη Μεσόγειο και τις γειτονικές θάλασσες (NEAMTWS) της IOC/UNESCO. Η λειτουργία του ΕΚΠΤ βασίζεται στο εθνικό δίκτυο σεισμογράφων και παλιρροιογράφων του ΕΑΑ και αξιοποιεί ποικιλία βάσεων δεδομένων, αλγορίθμων και υπολογιστικών εργαλείων. Η συνεργασία με κορυφαία ερευνητικά ιδρύματα, στο πλαίσιο σημαντικών ερευνητικών έργων χρηματοδοτούμενων από την ΕΕ, ενισχύει την επιστημονική κατάρτιση του κέντρου. H εκπαίδευση του προσωπικού που συμμετέχει στην 24-ωρη λειτουργία του κέντρου, διεξάγεται συνεχώς μέσω δοκιμών και ασκήσεων, προκειμένου να διατηρηθεί ένα υψηλό επίπεδο ετοιμότητας και ανταπόκρισης σε περίπτωση έκτακτης ανάγκης. Από τον Αύγουστο του 2012 το ΕΚΠΤ ως επιχειρησιακό κέντρο έχει εκδώσει έγκαιρα 14 μηνύματα προειδοποίησης για πιθανά τσουνάμι μετά από ισχυρούς σεισμούς.The Hellenic National Tsunami Warning Center (HL-NTWC), which is a unit of the Institute of Geodynamics of the National Observatory of Athens (NOA-IG), was officially established in Greece by law in September 2010. It operates a 24/7 tsunami monitoring service for Greece and the eastern Mediterranean Sea, providing warning messages to the General Secretariat for Civil Protection in Greece. Since August 2012, HL-NTWC acts as Candidate Tsunami Service Provider (CTSP) in the framework of the North-Eastern Atlantic, the Mediterranean and connected seas Tsunami Warning System (NEAMTWS) of the IOC/UNESCO providing tsunami messages to a large number of subscribers. The HL-NTWC function is based on the national seismograph and tide gauge networks of NOA-IG and incorporates several data bases, algorithms and computational tools. Collaboration with top class research institutions in the framework of important EC funded tsunami research projects strengthens the scientific background of the center. Tests, exercises and training of the duty officers involved in the 24/7 operation of the HL-NTWC are carried on constantly, in order to maintain a high level of readiness and response in case of emergency. In its operational life since August 2012 the HL-NTWC has timely issued tsunami warning messages for 14 potentially tsunamigenic earthquake events

A Profile of Premature Birth in Erie County

Produced by the United Way of Buffalo & Erie County and the United Way Healthy Start, Healthy Future for All Coalition, this report examines why it is important to reduce premature birth in Erie County. A premature birth is a birth that occurs with less than 37 weeks gestation. Even if a mother is healthy and follows all of the preventative measures, she may still experience a premature birth. Babies born at 39 to 40 weeks gestation have the best chance of being healthy. We can work to reduce premature birth by addressing modifiable risk factors that make premature birth more likely to occur

Medicare Supplemental Insurance: Today\u27s Crisis

The purpose of health insurance is to spread risk. The system works under the assumption that, at any given point in time, only a percentage of the people in a given group will be sick. Regardless of health status, all members of the group will be paying premiums in order to cover the cost of care for those who need it. As a group, however, seniors represent a high-risk population. They are more likely than younger people to need health care services and tend to require longer hospital stays. Yet, while their expenses are greater, their financial resources are generally more limited. Seniors are falling victim to their double vulnerability in the areas of health and income. As the only insurer in Massachusetts required to offer Medicare Supplemental Insurance (Medigap), Blue Cross and Blue Shield (BC/BS) has historically been the major provider of such coverage. Today, however, rising health care costs combined with the declining competitiveness of BC/BS are producing expensive Medigap premiums that many people cannot afford. Growing numbers of Massachusetts\u27 elders are without adequate health care coverage. In 1990 alone, close to 40,000 Massachusetts seniors either dropped or downgraded their nongroup BC/BS supplemental coverage. The rising premium rates are causing some seniors to assume the health and financial risk of being underinsured. Other seniors with inadequate coverage are being forced to choose between foregoing necessary medical care or shouldering huge out-of-pocket costs. In this report, we investigate the cost and enrollment trends in Medigap insurance over the past ten years, particularly those in BC/BS, and identify some of the systemic problems of Medigap in the context of the Massachusetts insurance market. Finally, we look at some possible directions for Medigap insurance reform

Lime Treated

products Statements addressing origin, composition and manufacturer of all materials and product

Beijing, Gender and Environment – Challenges for Ecological Sustainability, Development and Justice?

Twenty years ago the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action was adopted to ‘… advance the goals of equality, development and peace for all women everywhere …’ (Beijing Declaration, 1995, paragraph 3). Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Chapter K (of the Beijing Platform for Action) on ‘women and the environment’ laid down three strategic objectives, inter alia , with objective 2 being to ‘integrate gender concerns and perspectives in policies and programmes for sustainable development’. This article demonstrates the importance of the implementation of this objective – on the one hand for progress on gender equality, and on the other hand for an ecologically sustainable development

Introducing the Care Certificate evaluation (innovative practice)

Although investment in staff development is a prerequisite for high quality and innovative care, the training needs of unregistered care staff have often been neglected, particularly within dementia care provision. The Care Certificate, which was fully launched in in England in April 2015, has aimed to redress this neglect by providing a consistent and transferable approach to the training of the front line health and social care workforce. In order to optimise its impact, the implementation of the Care Certificate is now being evaluated through an 18 month study funded by the Department of Health Policy Research Programme. It is the purpose of this article to outline this evaluation

Family Unification, Exotic States and Light Magnetic Monopoles

Models with fermions in bifundamental representations can lead naturally to family unification as opposed to family replication. Such models typically predict (exotic) color singlet states with fractional electric charge, and magnetic monopoles with multiple Dirac charge. The exotics may be at the TeV scale, and relatively light magnetic monopoles (greater than about 10^7 GeV) can be present in the galaxy with abundance near the Parker bound. We focus on three family SU(4)XSU(3)XSU(3) models.Comment: 37 page