WorldWideScience

Sample records for eruption warning systems

  1. Russian eruption warning systems for aviation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neal, C.; Girina, O.; Senyukov, S.; Rybin, A.; Osiensky, J.; Izbekov, P.; Ferguson, G.

    2009-01-01

    More than 65 potentially active volcanoes on the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Kurile Islands pose a substantial threat to aircraft on the Northern Pacific (NOPAC), Russian Trans-East (RTE), and Pacific Organized Track System (PACOTS) air routes. The Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team (KVERT) monitors and reports on volcanic hazards to aviation for Kamchatka and the north Kuriles. KVERT scientists utilize real-time seismic data, daily satellite views of the region, real-time video, and pilot and field reports of activity to track and alert the aviation industry of hazardous activity. Most Kurile Island volcanoes are monitored by the Sakhalin Volcanic Eruption Response Team (SVERT) based in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. SVERT uses daily moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite images to look for volcanic activity along this 1,250-km chain of islands. Neither operation is staffed 24 h per day. In addition, the vast majority of Russian volcanoes are not monitored seismically in real-time. Other challenges include multiple time-zones and language differences that hamper communication among volcanologists and meteorologists in the US, Japan, and Russia who share the responsibility to issue official warnings. Rapid, consistent verification of explosive eruptions and determination of cloud heights remain significant technical challenges. Despite these difficulties, in more than a decade of frequent eruptive activity in Kamchatka and the northern Kuriles, no damaging encounters with volcanic ash from Russian eruptions have been recorded. ?? Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.

  2. Volcano warning systems: Chapter 67

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gregg, Chris E.; Houghton, Bruce F.; Ewert, John W.

    2015-01-01

    Messages conveying volcano alert level such as Watches and Warnings are designed to provide people with risk information before, during, and after eruptions. Information is communicated to people from volcano observatories and emergency management agencies and from informal sources and social and environmental cues. Any individual or agency can be both a message sender and a recipient and multiple messages received from multiple sources is the norm in a volcanic crisis. Significant challenges to developing effective warning systems for volcanic hazards stem from the great diversity in unrest, eruption, and post-eruption processes and the rapidly advancing digital technologies that people use to seek real-time risk information. Challenges also involve the need to invest resources before unrest to help people develop shared mental models of important risk factors. Two populations of people are the target of volcano notifications–ground- and aviation-based populations, and volcano warning systems must address both distinctly different populations.

  3. Warning signals for eruptive events in spreading fires.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fox, Jerome M; Whitesides, George M

    2015-02-24

    Spreading fires are noisy (and potentially chaotic) systems in which transitions in dynamics are notoriously difficult to predict. As flames move through spatially heterogeneous environments, sudden shifts in temperature, wind, or topography can generate combustion instabilities, or trigger self-stabilizing feedback loops, that dramatically amplify the intensities and rates with which fires propagate. Such transitions are rarely captured by predictive models of fire behavior and, thus, complicate efforts in fire suppression. This paper describes a simple, remarkably instructive physical model for examining the eruption of small flames into intense, rapidly moving flames stabilized by feedback between wind and fire (i.e., "wind-fire coupling"-a mechanism of feedback particularly relevant to forest fires), and it presents evidence that characteristic patterns in the dynamics of spreading flames indicate when such transitions are likely to occur. In this model system, flames propagate along strips of nitrocellulose with one of two possible modes of propagation: a slow, structured mode, and a fast, unstructured mode sustained by wind-fire coupling. Experimental examination of patterns in dynamics that emerge near bifurcation points suggests that symptoms of critical slowing down (i.e., the slowed recovery of the system from perturbations as it approaches tipping points) warn of impending transitions to the unstructured mode. Findings suggest that slowing responses of spreading flames to sudden changes in environment (e.g., wind, terrain, temperature) may anticipate the onset of intense, feedback-stabilized modes of propagation (e.g., "blowup fires" in forests).

  4. Using Digital Cameras to Detect Warning Signs of Volcanic Eruptions

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    Girona, T.; Huber, C.; Trinh, K. T.; Protti, M.; Pacheco, J. F.

    2017-12-01

    Monitoring volcanic outgassing is fundamental to improve the forecasting of volcanic eruptions. Recent efforts have led to the advent of new methods to measure the concentration and flux of volcanic gases with unprecedented temporal resolution, thus allowing us to obtain reliable high-frequency (up to 1 Hz) time series of outgassing activity. These high-frequency methods have shown that volcanic outgassing can be periodic sometimes (with periodicities ranging from 101 s to 103 s), although it remains unknown whether the spectral features of outgassing reflect the processes that ultimately trigger volcanic unrest and eruptions. In this study, we explore the evolution of the spectral content of the outgassing activity of Turrialba volcano (Costa Rica) using digital images (with digital brightness as a proxy for the emissions of water vapor [Girona et al., 2015]). Images were taken at 1 km distance with 1 Hz sampling rate, and the time period analyzed (from April 2016 to April 2017) is characterized by episodes of quiescent outgassing, ash explosions, and sporadic eruptions of ballistics. Our preliminary results show that: 1) quiescent states of Turrialba volcano are characterized by outgassing frequency spectra with fractal distribution; 2) superimposed onto the fractal frequency spectra, well-defined pulses with period around 100 s emerge hours to days before some of the eruptions of ballistics. An important conclusion of this study is that digital cameras can be potentially used in real-time volcano monitoring to detect warning signs of eruptions, as well as to better understand subsurface processes and track the changing conditions below volcanic craters. Our ongoing study also explores the correlation between the evolution of the spectral content of outgassing, infrasound data, and shallow seismicity. Girona, T., F. Costa, B. Taisne, B. Aggangan, and S. Ildefonso (2015), Fractal degassing from Erebus and Mayon volcanoes revealed by a new method to monitor H2O

  5. Developing effective warning systems: Ongoing research at Ruapehu volcano, New Zealand

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    Leonard, Graham S.; Johnston, David M.; Paton, Douglas; Christianson, Amy; Becker, Julia; Keys, Harry

    2008-05-01

    PurposeThis paper examines the unique challenges to volcanic risk management associated with having a ski area on an active volcano. Using a series of simulated eruption/lahar events at Ruapehu volcano, New Zealand, as a context, a model of risk management that integrates warning system design and technology, risk perceptions and the human response is explored. Principal resultsDespite increases in the observed audibility and comprehension of the warning message, recall of public education content, and people's awareness of volcanic risk, a persistent minority of the public continued to demonstrate only moderate awareness of the correct actions to take during a warning and failed to respond effectively. A relationship between level of staff competence and correct public response allowed the level of public response to be used to identify residual risk and additional staff training needs. The quality of staff awareness, action and decision-making has emerged as a critical factor, from detailed staff and public interviews and from exercise observations. Staff actions are especially important for mobilising correct public response at Ruapehu ski areas due to the transient nature of the visitor population. Introduction of education material and staff training strategies that included the development of emergency decision-making competencies improved knowledge of correct actions, and increased the proportion of people moving out of harm's way during blind tests. Major conclusionsWarning effectiveness is a function of more than good hazard knowledge and the generation and notification of an early warning message. For warning systems to be effective, these factors must be complemented by accurate knowledge of risk and risk management actions. By combining the Ruapehu findings with those of other warning system studies in New Zealand, and internationally, a practical five-step model for effective early warning systems is discussed. These steps must be based upon sound and

  6. Should We Stay Or Should We Go Now? Hazard Warnings, Risk Perception, and Evacuation Decisions at Pacaya Volcano, Guatemala During the 2010 Eruption.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lechner, H. N.; Rouleau, M.

    2017-12-01

    Pacaya volcano, in Guatemala, presents considerable risk to nearby communities and in May 2010, the volcano experienced its largest eruption in more than a decade. The eruption damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes, injured scores of people with one fatality, and prompted the evacuation of approximately 2000 people from several communities. During this eruption crisis, people living within at-risk communities were presented with the choice to evacuate or remain in the hazard zone. Many chose not to leave. Using quantitative methodologies, this research investigates evacuation decisions through causal relationships between hazard warnings, evacuation orders, risk perception, evacuation intention and behavior, and attempts to understand why some people chose to stay in harm's-way. In October 2016, we conducted a door-to-door survey administered to 172 households in eight communities within 5 km of the active vent. Participants were asked to rank factors that influenced their decision to evacuate or not, their level of trust in emergency management agencies, and the intention to evacuate during a future crisis. Initial analysis suggests that many people have confidence in emergency management agencies and information from volcano scientists; however, during the 2010 eruption, warning messages and evacuation orders were based on previous eruption patterns and tephra distribution and therefore disseminated differentially to at-risk communities. This likely delayed evacuation decisions by households in the communities that were most affected by the eruption. The data also suggest that while many households perceive evacuation as the most effective protective action, the perceived risk to one's home and property may play a more important role in the decision making process. We will discuss these results as well as communication strategies between agencies and communities, and how to better facilitate more effective and successful evacuations during future eruption crises

  7. Instrumentation Recommendations for Volcano Monitoring at U.S. Volcanoes Under the National Volcano Early Warning System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moran, Seth C.; Freymueller, Jeff T.; LaHusen, Richard G.; McGee, Kenneth A.; Poland, Michael P.; Power, John A.; Schmidt, David A.; Schneider, David J.; Stephens, George; Werner, Cynthia A.; White, Randall A.

    2008-01-01

    As magma moves toward the surface, it interacts with anything in its path: hydrothermal systems, cooling magma bodies from previous eruptions, and (or) the surrounding 'country rock'. Magma also undergoes significant changes in its physical properties as pressure and temperature conditions change along its path. These interactions and changes lead to a range of geophysical and geochemical phenomena. The goal of volcano monitoring is to detect and correctly interpret such phenomena in order to provide early and accurate warnings of impending eruptions. Given the well-documented hazards posed by volcanoes to both ground-based populations (for example, Blong, 1984; Scott, 1989) and aviation (for example, Neal and others, 1997; Miller and Casadevall, 2000), volcano monitoring is critical for public safety and hazard mitigation. Only with adequate monitoring systems in place can volcano observatories provide accurate and timely forecasts and alerts of possible eruptive activity. At most U.S. volcanoes, observatories traditionally have employed a two-component approach to volcano monitoring: (1) install instrumentation sufficient to detect unrest at volcanic systems likely to erupt in the not-too-distant future; and (2) once unrest is detected, install any instrumentation needed for eruption prediction and monitoring. This reactive approach is problematic, however, for two reasons. 1. At many volcanoes, rapid installation of new ground-1. based instruments is difficult or impossible. Factors that complicate rapid response include (a) eruptions that are preceded by short (hours to days) precursory sequences of geophysical and (or) geochemical activity, as occurred at Mount Redoubt (Alaska) in 1989 (24 hours), Anatahan (Mariana Islands) in 2003 (6 hours), and Mount St. Helens (Washington) in 1980 and 2004 (7 and 8 days, respectively); (b) inclement weather conditions, which may prohibit installation of new equipment for days, weeks, or even months, particularly at

  8. Evaluation on the Implementation of Early Warning System for Debris Flow in Merapi Area (Case Study at Boyong River

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ali Cahyadi Achmad

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available One of disasters caused by volcanic activity of Mount Merapi is secondary disaster. The disaster usually occurs after eruption and this volcanic activity produces volcanic and pyroclastic material deposit around the top of the mountain as a result of previous eruption. This material might collapse downward in the form of debris flow as it is affected by natural event such as high intensity rainfall. Therefore, a research is needed to analyze whether existing forecasting and early warning system are capable to provide information for the people living in hazardous area before the debris flood occur. This research was carried out using field survey, observation and interview method. Data analysis used qualitative descriptive method by making description of actual condition of the researched location general condition and qualitative analysis of telemetry system installed on Mount Merapi. The qualitative analysis of telemetry system covers network, hardware, software, power supply, security system, operation and maintenance, also human resources. Research analysis used primary and secondary data. Research results revealed that mean rainfall intensity above of 60 mm/hour might trigger debris flood. Early warning should be given at the rainfall intensity level of 50-55 mm/hour, and debris flood time travel from the upstream to the observed location in Pulowatu Village is 45 minute. Based on the analysis of the present forecasting and early warning system, it is known that some of the equipment is not well functioned, so that debris flow cannot be predicted and detected. This is caused by the lack of human resource quality of the officers in operating and maintaining the equipment. Concerning that matter, it is necessary to conduct some improvement to achieve better forecasting and early warning system in order to give information regarding occurrence of debris flow.

  9. DISTANT EARLY WARNING SYSTEM for Tsunamis - A wide-area and multi-hazard approach

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    Hammitzsch, Martin; Lendholt, Matthias; Wächter, Joachim

    2010-05-01

    The DEWS (Distant Early Warning System) [1] project, funded under the 6th Framework Programme of the European Union, has the objective to create a new generation of interoperable early warning systems based on an open sensor platform. This platform integrates OGC [2] SWE [3] compliant sensor systems for the rapid detection of hazardous events, like earthquakes, sea level anomalies, ocean floor occurrences, and ground displacements in the case of tsunami early warning. Based on the upstream information flow DEWS focuses on the improvement of downstream capacities of warning centres especially by improving information logistics for effective and targeted warning message aggregation for a multilingual environment. Multiple telecommunication channels will be used for the dissemination of warning messages. Wherever possible, existing standards have been integrated. The Command and Control User Interface (CCUI), a rich client application based on Eclipse RCP (Rich Client Platform) [4] and the open source GIS uDig [5], integrates various OGC services. Using WMS (Web Map Service) [6] and WFS (Web Feature Service) [7] spatial data are utilized to depict the situation picture and to integrate a simulation system via WPS (Web Processing Service) [8] to identify affected areas. Warning messages are compiled and transmitted in the OASIS [9] CAP (Common Alerting Protocol) [10] standard together with addressing information defined via EDXL-DE (Emergency Data Exchange Language - Distribution Element) [11]. Internal interfaces are realized with SOAP [12] web services. Based on results of GITEWS [13] - in particular the GITEWS Tsunami Service Bus [14] - the DEWS approach provides an implementation for tsunami early warning systems but other geological paradigms are going to follow, e.g. volcanic eruptions or landslides. Therefore in future also multi-hazard functionality is conceivable. The specific software architecture of DEWS makes it possible to dock varying sensors to the

  10. Early Warning System Ghana: how to successfully implement a disaster early warning system in a data scarce region

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    Udo, Job; Jungermann, Nicole

    2016-04-01

    Ghana is a country frequently struck by natural disasters like floods and droughts. Timely warning or detection of such disasters will mitigate the negative impact on lives and property. However, local data and monitoring systems necessary to provide such a warning are hardly available. The availability and improvement of internet, mobile phones and satellites has provided new possibilities for disaster warning systems in data scarce regions such as Ghana. Our presentation describes the development of an early warning system (EWS) in Ghana completely based on satellite based open data. The EWS provides a flood or drought hazard warning on sub-catchment level and links the warning to a more detailed flood or drought risk map, to enable the disaster coordinator to send warnings or relieve more efficiently to areas that have the highest risk. This is especially relevant because some areas for which the system is implemented are very remote. The system is developed and tested to be robust and operational especially in remote areas. This means that the necessary information is also available under limited internet conditions and not dependent on local computer facilities. In many rural areas in Ghana communities rely on indigenous knowledge when it comes to flood or drought disaster forecasting. The EWS has a feature that allows indigenous knowledge indicators to be taken into account in the warning and makes easy comparison possible with the satellite based warnings.

  11. Developments in real-time monitoring for geologic hazard warnings (Invited)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leith, W. S.; Mandeville, C. W.; Earle, P. S.

    2013-12-01

    Real-time data from global, national and local sensor networks enable prompt alerts and warnings of earthquakes, tsunami, volcanic eruptions, geomagnetic storms , broad-scale crustal deformation and landslides. State-of-the-art seismic systems can locate and evaluate earthquake sources in seconds, enabling 'earthquake early warnings' to be broadcast ahead of the damaging surface waves so that protective actions can be taken. Strong motion monitoring systems in buildings now support near-real-time structural damage detection systems, and in quiet times can be used for state-of-health monitoring. High-rate GPS data are being integrated with seismic strong motion data, allowing accurate determination of earthquake displacements in near-real time. GPS data, combined with rainfall, groundwater and geophone data, are now used for near-real-time landslide monitoring and warnings. Real-time sea-floor water pressure data are key for assessing tsunami generation by large earthquakes. For monitoring remote volcanoes that lack local ground-based instrumentation, the USGS uses new technologies such as infrasound arrays and the worldwide lightning detection array to detect eruptions in progress. A new real-time UV-camera system for measuring the two dimensional SO2 flux from volcanic plumes will allow correlations with other volcano monitoring data streams to yield fundamental data on changes in gas flux as an eruption precursor, and how magmas de-gas prior to and during eruptions. Precision magnetic field data support the generation of real-time indices of geomagnetic disturbances (Dst, K and others), and can be used to model electrical currents in the crust and bulk power system. Ground-induced electrical current monitors are used to track those currents so that power grids can be effectively managed during geomagnetic storms. Beyond geophysical sensor data, USGS is using social media to rapidly detect possible earthquakes and to collect firsthand accounts of the impacts of

  12. Environment Agency England flood warning systems

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    Strong, Chris; Walters, Mark; Haynes, Elizabeth; Dobson, Peter

    2015-04-01

    Context In England around 5 million homes are at risk of flooding. We invest significantly in flood prevention and management schemes but we can never prevent all flooding. Early alerting systems are fundamental to helping us reduce the impacts of flooding. The Environment Agency has had the responsibility for flood warning since 1996. In 2006 we invested in a new dissemination system that would send direct messages to pre-identified recipients via a range of channels. Since then we have continuously improved the system and service we offer. In 2010 we introduced an 'opt-out' service where we pre-registered landline numbers in flood risk areas, significantly increasing the customer base. The service has performed exceptionally well under intense flood conditions. Over a period of 3 days in December 2013, when England was experiencing an east coast storm surge, the system sent nearly 350,000 telephone messages, 85,000 emails and 70,000 text messages, with a peak call rate of around 37,000 per hour and 100% availability. The Floodline Warnings Direct (FWD) System FWD provides warnings in advance of flooding so that people at risk and responders can take action to minimise the impact of the flood. Warnings are sent via telephone, fax, text message, pager or e-mail to over 1.1 million properties located within flood risk areas in England. Triggers for issuing alerts and warnings include attained and forecast river levels and rainfall in some rapidly responding locations. There are three levels of warning: Flood Alert, Flood Warning and Severe Flood Warning, and a stand down message. The warnings can be updated to include relevant information to help inform those at risk. Working with our current provider Fujitsu, the system is under a programme of continuous improvement including expanding the 'opt-out' service to mobile phone numbers registered to at risk addresses, allowing mobile registration to the system for people 'on the move' and providing access to

  13. Idiosyncrasies of volcanic sulfur viscosity and the triggering of unheralded volcanic eruptions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Teresa eScolamacchia

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Unheralded blue-sky eruptions from dormant volcanoes cause serious fatalities, such as at Mt. Ontake (Japan on 27 September 2014. Could these events result from magmatic gas being trapped within hydrothermal system aquifers by elemental sulfur (Se clogging pores, due to sharp increases in its viscosity when heated above 159oC? This mechanism was thought to prime unheralded eruptions at Mt. Ruapehu in New Zealand. Impurities in sulfur (As, Te, Se are known to modify S-viscosity and industry experiments showed that organic compounds, H2S, and halogens dramatically influence Se viscosity under typical hydrothermal heating/cooling rates and temperature thresholds. However, the effects of complex sulfur compositions are currently ignored at volcanoes, despite its near ubiquity in long-lived volcano-hydrothermal systems. Models of impure S behavior must be urgently formulated to detect pre-eruptive warning signs before the next blue-sky eruption

  14. Communication architecture of an early warning system

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    M. Angermann

    2010-11-01

    Full Text Available This article discusses aspects of communication architecture for early warning systems (EWS in general and gives details of the specific communication architecture of an early warning system against tsunamis. While its sensors are the "eyes and ears" of a warning system and enable the system to sense physical effects, its communication links and terminals are its "nerves and mouth" which transport measurements and estimates within the system and eventually warnings towards the affected population. Designing the communication architecture of an EWS against tsunamis is particularly challenging. Its sensors are typically very heterogeneous and spread several thousand kilometers apart. They are often located in remote areas and belong to different organizations. Similarly, the geographic spread of the potentially affected population is wide. Moreover, a failure to deliver a warning has fatal consequences. Yet, the communication infrastructure is likely to be affected by the disaster itself. Based on an analysis of the criticality, vulnerability and availability of communication means, we describe the design and implementation of a communication system that employs both terrestrial and satellite communication links. We believe that many of the issues we encountered during our work in the GITEWS project (German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System, Rudloff et al., 2009 on the design and implementation communication architecture are also relevant for other types of warning systems. With this article, we intend to share our insights and lessons learned.

  15. A review of studies on community based early warning systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Margaret Macherera

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available Community-based early warning systems involve community driven collection and analysis of information that enable warning messages to help a community to react to a hazard and reduce the resulting loss or harm. Most early warning systems are designed at the national or global level. Local communities’ capacity to predict weather conditions using indigenous knowledge has been demonstrated in studies focusing on climate change and agriculture in some African countries. This review was motivated by successes made in non-disease specific community-based early warning systems with a view to identify opportunities for developing similar systems for malaria. This article reviewed the existing community-based early warning systems documented in literature. The types of disasters that are addressed by these systems and the methodologies utilised in the development of the systems were identified. The review showed that most of the documented community-based early warning systems focus on natural disasters such as floods, drought, and landslides. Community-based early warning systems for human diseases are very few, even though such systems exist at national and regional and global levels. There is a clear gap in terms of community-based malaria early warning systems. The methodologies for the development of the community-based early warning systems reviewed mainly derive from the four elements of early warning systems; namely risk knowledge, monitoring, warning communication and response capability. The review indicated the need for the development of community based early warning systems for human diseases. Keywords: community; early warning; disaster; hazards

  16. Human Response to Emergency Warning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sorensen, J.

    2009-12-01

    Almost every day people evacuate from their homes, businesses or other sites, even ships, in response to actual or predicted threats or hazards. Evacuation is the primary protective action utilized in large-scale emergencies such as hurricanes, floods, tornados, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, or wildfires. Although often precautionary, protecting human lives by temporally relocating populations before or during times of threat remains a major emergency management strategy. One of the most formidable challenges facing emergency officials is evacuating residents for a fast-moving and largely unpredictable event such as a wildfire or a local tsunami. How to issue effective warnings to those at risk in time for residents to take appropriate action is an on-going problem. To do so, some communities have instituted advanced communications systems that include reverse telephone call-down systems or other alerting systems to notify at-risk residents of imminent threats. This presentation examines the effectiveness of using reverse telephone call-down systems for warning San Diego residents of wildfires in the October of 2007. This is the first systematic study conducted on this topic and is based on interviews with 1200 households in the evacuation areas.

  17. Systems and Sensors for Debris-flow Monitoring and Warning

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    Lorenzo Marchi

    2008-04-01

    Full Text Available Debris flows are a type of mass movement that occurs in mountain torrents. They consist of a high concentration of solid material in water that flows as a wave with a steep front. Debris flows can be considered a phenomenon intermediate between landslides and water floods. They are amongst the most hazardous natural processes in mountainous regions and may occur under different climatic conditions. Their destructiveness is due to different factors: their capability of transporting and depositing huge amounts of solid materials, which may also reach large sizes (boulders of several cubic meters are commonly transported by debris flows, their steep fronts, which may reach several meters of height and also their high velocities. The implementation of both structural and nonstructural control measures is often required when debris flows endanger routes, urban areas and other infrastructures. Sensor networks for debris-flow monitoring and warning play an important role amongst non-structural measures intended to reduce debris-flow risk. In particular, debris flow warning systems can be subdivided into two main classes: advance warning and event warning systems. These two classes employ different types of sensors. Advance warning systems are based on monitoring causative hydrometeorological processes (typically rainfall and aim to issue a warning before a possible debris flow is triggered. Event warning systems are based on detecting debris flows when these processes are in progress. They have a much smaller lead time than advance warning ones but are also less prone to false alarms. Advance warning for debris flows employs sensors and techniques typical of meteorology and hydrology, including measuring rainfall by means of rain gauges and weather radar and monitoring water discharge in headwater streams. Event warning systems use different types of sensors, encompassing ultrasonic or radar gauges, ground vibration sensors, videocameras, avalanche

  18. Managing Risks? Early Warning Systems for Climate Change

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    Sitati, A. M.; Zommers, Z. A.; Habilov, M.

    2014-12-01

    Early warning systems are a tool with which to minimize risks posed by climate related hazards. Although great strides have been made in developing early warning systems most deal with one hazard, only provide short-term warnings and do not reach the most vulnerable. This presentation will review research results of the United Nations Environment Programme's CLIM-WARN project. The project seeks to identify how governments can better communicate risks by designing multi-hazard early warning systems that deliver actionable warnings across timescales. Household surveys and focus group discussions were conducted in 36 communities in Kenya, Ghana and Burkina Faso in order to identify relevant climate related hazards, current response strategies and early warning needs. Preliminary results show significant variability in both risks and needs within and between countries. For instance, floods are more frequent in rural western parts of Kenya. Droughts are frequent in the north while populations in urban areas face a range of hazards - floods, droughts, disease outbreaks - that sometimes occur simultaneously. The majority of the rural population, especially women, the disabled and the elderly, do not have access to modern media such as radio, television, or internet. While 55% of rural populace never watches television, 64% of urban respondents watch television on a daily basis. Communities have different concepts of how to design warning systems. It will be a challenge for national governments to create systems that accommodate such diversity yet provide standard quality of service to all. There is a need for flexible and forward-looking early warning systems that deliver broader information about risks. Information disseminated through the system could not only include details of hazards, but also long-term adaptation options, general education, and health information, thus increasingly both capabilities and response options.

  19. Evolution of tsunami warning systems and products.

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    Bernard, Eddie; Titov, Vasily

    2015-10-28

    Each year, about 60 000 people and $4 billion (US$) in assets are exposed to the global tsunami hazard. Accurate and reliable tsunami warning systems have been shown to provide a significant defence for this flooding hazard. However, the evolution of warning systems has been influenced by two processes: deadly tsunamis and available technology. In this paper, we explore the evolution of science and technology used in tsunami warning systems, the evolution of their products using warning technologies, and offer suggestions for a new generation of warning products, aimed at the flooding nature of the hazard, to reduce future tsunami impacts on society. We conclude that coastal communities would be well served by receiving three standardized, accurate, real-time tsunami warning products, namely (i) tsunami energy estimate, (ii) flooding maps and (iii) tsunami-induced harbour current maps to minimize the impact of tsunamis. Such information would arm communities with vital flooding guidance for evacuations and port operations. The advantage of global standardized flooding products delivered in a common format is efficiency and accuracy, which leads to effectiveness in promoting tsunami resilience at the community level. © 2015 The Authors.

  20. Evolution of tsunami warning systems and products

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bernard, Eddie; Titov, Vasily

    2015-01-01

    Each year, about 60 000 people and $4 billion (US$) in assets are exposed to the global tsunami hazard. Accurate and reliable tsunami warning systems have been shown to provide a significant defence for this flooding hazard. However, the evolution of warning systems has been influenced by two processes: deadly tsunamis and available technology. In this paper, we explore the evolution of science and technology used in tsunami warning systems, the evolution of their products using warning technologies, and offer suggestions for a new generation of warning products, aimed at the flooding nature of the hazard, to reduce future tsunami impacts on society. We conclude that coastal communities would be well served by receiving three standardized, accurate, real-time tsunami warning products, namely (i) tsunami energy estimate, (ii) flooding maps and (iii) tsunami-induced harbour current maps to minimize the impact of tsunamis. Such information would arm communities with vital flooding guidance for evacuations and port operations. The advantage of global standardized flooding products delivered in a common format is efficiency and accuracy, which leads to effectiveness in promoting tsunami resilience at the community level. PMID:26392620

  1. Reliability and effectiveness of early warning systems for natural hazards: Concept and application to debris flow warning

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sättele, Martina; Bründl, Michael; Straub, Daniel

    2015-01-01

    Early Warning Systems (EWS) are increasingly applied to mitigate the risks posed by natural hazards. To compare the effect of EWS with alternative risk reduction measures and to optimize their design and operation, their reliability and effectiveness must be quantified. In the present contribution, a framework approach to the evaluation of threshold-based EWS for natural hazards is presented. The system reliability is classically represented by the Probability of Detection (POD) and Probability of False Alarms (PFA). We demonstrate how the EWS effectiveness, which is a measure of risk reduction, can be formulated as a function of POD and PFA. To model the EWS and compute the reliability, we develop a framework based on Bayesian Networks, which is further extended to a decision graph, facilitating the optimization of the warning system. In a case study, the framework is applied to the assessment of an existing debris flow EWS. The application demonstrates the potential of the framework for identifying the important factors influencing the effectiveness of the EWS and determining optimal warning strategies and system configurations. - Highlights: • Warning systems are increasingly applied measures to reduce natural hazard risks. • Bayesian Networks (BN) are powerful tools to quantify warning system's reliability. • The effectiveness is defined to assess the optimality of warning systems. • By extending BNs to decision graphs, the optimal warning strategy is identified. • Sensors positioning significantly influence the effectiveness of warning systems

  2. Design of vehicle intelligent anti-collision warning system

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    Xu, Yangyang; Wang, Ying

    2018-05-01

    This paper mainly designs a low cost, high-accuracy, micro-miniaturization, and digital display and acousto-optic alarm features of the vehicle intelligent anti-collision warning system that based on MCU AT89C51. The vehicle intelligent anti-collision warning system includes forward anti-collision warning system, auto parking systems and reversing anti-collision radar system. It mainly develops on the basis of ultrasonic distance measurement, its performance is reliable, thus the driving safety is greatly improved and the parking security and efficiency enhance enormously.

  3. Structure health assessment and warning system (SHAWS)

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    Bock, Daniel M.; Kim, Keehoon; Mapar, Jalal

    2008-03-01

    We are developing a Structure Health Assessment and Warning System (SHAWS) based on building displacement measurements and wireless communication. SHAWS will measure and predict the stability/instability of a building, determine whether it is safe for emergency responders to enter during an emergency, and provide individual warnings on the condition of the structure. SHAWS incorporates remote sensing nodes (RSNs) installed on the exterior frame of a building. Each RSN includes a temperature sensor, a three-axis accelerometer making static-acceleration measurements, and a ZigBee wireless system (IEEE 802.15.4). The RSNs will be deployed remotely using an air cannon delivery system, with each RSN having an innovative adhesive structure for fast (<10 min) and strong installation under emergency conditions. Once the building has moved past a threshold (~0.25 in./building story), a warning will be issued to emergency responders. In addition to the RSNs, SHAWS will include a base station located on an emergency responder's primary vehicle, a PDA for mobile data display to guide responders, and individual warning modules that can be worn by each responder. The individual warning modules will include visual and audio indicators with a ZigBee receiver to provide the proper degree of warning to each responder.

  4. Severe hypertriglyceridemia presenting as eruptive xanthomatosis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sameera S Vangara

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Eruptive xanthomatosis is described as the sudden eruption of erythematous yellow papules in the presence of hypertriglyceridemia, often associated with serum triglyceride levels above 2000 mg/dl. Severe hypertriglyceridemia can be caused by primary genetic mutations, secondary chronic diseases, or a combination of both. Uncontrolled diabetes mellitus is a known risk factor. It is imperative for physicians to be aware of eruptive xanthomatosis as a warning sign for severe hypertriglyceridemia due to the underlying risk for the potentially fatal complication of acute pancreatitis. Herein, we discuss a case of a 52-year-old man with uncontrolled diabetes mellitus who presented with eruptive xanthomata and a triglyceride level of 7157 mg/dl, the highest recorded value in the absence of acute pancreatitis, with a remarkable response to drug therapy. A review of the literature is included to discuss the clinical relevance and appropriate treatment of this disease entity.

  5. Development of tsunami early warning systems and future challenges

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    J. Wächter

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Fostered by and embedded in the general development of information and communications technology (ICT, the evolution of tsunami warning systems (TWS shows a significant development from seismic-centred to multi-sensor system architectures using additional sensors (e.g. tide gauges and buoys for the detection of tsunami waves in the ocean.

    Currently, the beginning implementation of regional tsunami warning infrastructures indicates a new phase in the development of TWS. A new generation of TWS should not only be able to realise multi-sensor monitoring for tsunami detection. Moreover, these systems have to be capable to form a collaborative communication infrastructure of distributed tsunami warning systems in order to implement regional, ocean-wide monitoring and warning strategies.

    In the context of the development of the German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS and in the EU-funded FP6 project Distant Early Warning System (DEWS, a service platform for both sensor integration and warning dissemination has been newly developed and demonstrated. In particular, standards of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS have been successfully incorporated.

    In the FP7 project Collaborative, Complex and Critical Decision-Support in Evolving Crises (TRIDEC, new developments in ICT (e.g. complex event processing (CEP and event-driven architecture (EDA are used to extend the existing platform to realise a component-based technology framework for building distributed tsunami warning systems.

  6. Quantitative assessment of the effectiveness of a rockfall warning system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bründl, Michael; Sättele, Martina; Krautblatter, Michael; Straub, Daniel

    2016-04-01

    Rockslides and rockfalls can pose high risk to human settlements and traffic infrastructure. In addition to structural mitigation measures like rockfall nets, warning systems are increasingly installed to reduce rockfall risks. Whereas for structural mitigation measures with reducing effects on the spatial extent a structured evaluation method is existing, no or only few approaches to assess the effectiveness for warning systems are known. Especially for higher magnitude rockfalls structural mitigation measures are not effective, and reliable early warning systems will be essential in future. In response to that, we developed a classification and a framework to assess the reliability and effectiveness of early warning systems (Sättele et al, 2015a; 2016). Here, we demonstrate an application for the rockfall warning system installed in Preonzo prior to a major rockfall in May 2012 (Sättele et al., 2015b). We show that it is necessary to design such a warning system as fail-safe construction, which has to incorporate components with low failure probabilities, high redundancy, low warning thresholds, and additional control systems. With a hypothetical probabilistic analysis, we investigate the effect of the risk attitude of decision makers and of the number of sensors on the probability of detecting an event and on initiating a timely evacuation, as well as on related intervention cost. We conclude that it is possible to quantitatively assess the effectiveness of warning systems, which helps to optimize mitigation strategies against rockfall events. References Sättele, M., Bründl, M., and Straub, D.: Reliability and effectiveness of warning systems for natural hazards: concept and application to debris flow warning, Rel. Eng. Syst. Safety, 142, 192-202, 2015a. Sättele, M., Krautblatter, M., Bründl, M., and Straub, D.: Forecasting rock slope failure: How reliable and effective are warning systems?, Landslides, 605, 1-14, 2015b. Sättele, M., Bründl, M., and

  7. Can we develop an effective early warning system for volcanic eruptions using `off the shelf' webcams and low-light cameras?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harrild, M.; Webley, P. W.; Dehn, J.

    2016-12-01

    An effective early warning system to detect volcanic activity is an invaluable tool, but often very expensive. Detecting and monitoring precursory events, thermal signatures, and ongoing eruptions in near real-time is essential, but conventional methods are often logistically challenging, expensive, and difficult to maintain. Our investigation explores the use of `off the shelf' webcams and low-light cameras, operating in the visible to near-infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, to detect and monitor volcanic incandescent activity. Large databases of webcam imagery already exist at institutions around the world, but are often extremely underutilised and we aim to change this. We focus on the early detection of thermal signatures at volcanoes, using automated scripts to analyse individual images for changes in pixel brightness, allowing us to detect relative changes in thermally incandescent activity. Primarily, our work focuses on freely available streams of webcam images from around the world, which we can download and analyse in near real-time. When changes in activity are detected, an alert is sent to the users informing them of the changes in activity and a need for further investigation. Although relatively rudimentary, this technique provides constant monitoring for volcanoes in remote locations and developing nations, where it is not financially viable to deploy expensive equipment. We also purchased several of our own cameras, which were extensively tested in controlled laboratory settings with a black body source to determine their individual spectral response. Our aim is to deploy these cameras at active volcanoes knowing exactly how they will respond to varying levels of incandescence. They are ideal for field deployments as they are cheap (0-1,000), consume little power, are easily replaced, and can provide telemetered near real-time data. Data from Shiveluch volcano, Russia and our spectral response lab experiments are presented here.

  8. Radiation warning system in Slovenia (ROSS)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Arh, S.

    1996-01-01

    Recognizing that a radiological accident may have a widespread effect, the Slovenian government has decided to establish an early warning system. The aim of it is to detect any incident (domestic or foreign) involving radioactivity as fast as possible, to initiate appropriate measures, and to give immediate warning to the population

  9. Time-to-impact estimation in passive missile warning systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Şahıngıl, Mehmet Cihan

    2017-05-01

    A missile warning system can detect the incoming missile threat(s) and automatically cue the other Electronic Attack (EA) systems in the suit, such as Directed Infrared Counter Measure (DIRCM) system and/or Counter Measure Dispensing System (CMDS). Most missile warning systems are currently based on passive sensor technology operating in either Solar Blind Ultraviolet (SBUV) or Midwave Infrared (MWIR) bands on which there is an intensive emission from the exhaust plume of the threatening missile. Although passive missile warning systems have some clear advantages over pulse-Doppler radar (PDR) based active missile warning systems, they show poorer performance in terms of time-to-impact (TTI) estimation which is critical for optimizing the countermeasures and also "passive kill assessment". In this paper, we consider this problem, namely, TTI estimation from passive measurements and present a TTI estimation scheme which can be used in passive missile warning systems. Our problem formulation is based on Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). The algorithm uses the area parameter of the threat plume which is derived from the used image frame.

  10. Special issue “The phreatic eruption of Mt. Ontake volcano in 2014”

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yamaoka, Koshun; Geshi, Nobuo; Hashimoto, Tasheki; Ingebritsen, Steven E.; Oikawa, Teruki

    2016-01-01

    Mt. Ontake volcano erupted at 11:52 on September 27, 2014, claiming the lives of at least 58 hikers. This eruption was the worst volcanic disaster in Japan since the 1926 phreatic eruption of Mt. Tokachidake claimed 144 lives (Table 1). The timing of the eruption contributed greatly to the heavy death toll: near midday, when many hikers were near the summit, and during a weekend of clear weather conditions following several rainy weekends. The importance of this timing is reflected by the fact that a somewhat larger eruption of Mt. Ontake in 1979 resulted in injuries but no deaths. In 2014, immediate precursors were detected with seismometers and tiltmeters about 10 min before the eruption, but the eruption started before a warning was issued.

  11. Monitoring a restless volcano: The 2004 eruption of Mount St. Helens

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gardner, C.

    2005-01-01

    Although the precise course of volcanic activity is difficult to predict, volcanologists are pretty adept at interpreting volcanic signals from well-monitored volcanoes in order to make short-term forecasts. Various monitoring tools record effects to give us warning before eruptions, changes in eruptive behavior during eruptions, or signals that an eruption is ending. Foremost among these tools is seismic monitoring. The character, size, depth and rate of earthquakes are all important to the interpretation of what is happening belowground. The first inkling of renewed activity at Mount St. Helens began in the early hours of Sept. 23, when a seismic swarm - tens to hundreds of earthquakes over days to a week - began beneath the volcano. This article details the obervations made during the eruptive sequence.

  12. Spatial and temporal variations of diffuse CO2 degassing at El Hierro volcanic system: Relation to the 2011-2012 submarine eruption

    Science.gov (United States)

    Melián, Gladys; Hernández, Pedro A.; Padrón, Eleazar; Pérez, Nemesio M.; Barrancos, José; Padilla, Germán.; Dionis, Samara; Rodríguez, Fátima; Calvo, David; Nolasco, Dacil

    2014-09-01

    We report herein the results of extensive diffuse CO2 emission surveys performed on El Hierro Island in the period 1998-2012. More than 17,000 measurements of the diffuse CO2 efflux were carried out, most of them during the volcanic unrest period that started in July 2011. Two significant precursory signals based on geochemical and geodetical studies suggest that a magma intrusion processes might have started before 2011 in El Hierro Island. During the preeruptive and eruptive periods, the time series of the diffuse CO2 emission released by the whole island experienced two significant increases. The first started almost 2 weeks before the onset of the submarine eruption, reflecting a clear geochemical anomaly in CO2 emission, most likely due to increasing release of deep-seated magmatic gases to the surface. The second one, between 24 October and 27 November 2011, started before the most energetic seismic events of the volcanic-seismic unrest. The data presented here demonstrate that combined continuous monitoring studies and discrete surveys of diffuse CO2 emission provide important information to optimize the early warning system in volcano monitoring programs and to monitor the evolution of an ongoing volcanic eruption, even though it is a submarine eruption.

  13. The new Euskalmet coastal-maritime warning system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gaztelumendi, Santiago; Egaña, Joseba; Liria, Pedro; Gonzalez, Manuel; Aranda, José Antonio; Anitua, Pedro

    2016-06-01

    This work presents the main characteristics of the Basque Meteorology Agency (Euskalmet) maritime-coastal risk warning system, with special emphasis on the latest updates, including a clear differentiation on specific warning messages addressing sea conditions for navigation purposes in the first 2 nautical miles, and expected coastal impacts. Some details of the warning bulletin for maritime and coastal risk situations are also presented, together with other communication products and strategies used in coastal and maritime severe episodes at the Basque coast. Today, three different aspects are included in the coastal-maritime risk warning system in Basque Country, related to the main potential severe events that affecting coastal activities. - "Galerna" risk relates to a sudden wind reversal that can severely affect coastal navigation and recreational activities. - "Navigation" risk relates to severe sea state conditions for 0-2 miles, affecting different navigation activities. - "Coastal impact" risk relates to adverse wave characteristics and tidal surges that induce flooding events and different impacts in littoral areas.

  14. 49 CFR 234.211 - Security of warning system apparatus.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 49 Transportation 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Security of warning system apparatus. 234.211... ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION GRADE CROSSING SIGNAL SYSTEM SAFETY AND STATE ACTION PLANS Maintenance, Inspection, and Testing Maintenance Standards § 234.211 Security of warning system apparatus...

  15. An organizational early-warning system for safety, health, and environmental crises

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shrivastava, P.

    1992-01-01

    Early-warning systems have played an important role in preventing major industrial accidents and technological disasters. These systems record critical operating and performance parameters and raise warnings or alarms if these parameters cross acceptable limits. Most early-warning systems used in hazardous industries focus on the technological system and to a lesser extent on their human operators. However, industrial disasters are caused not only by technological and human failure, but also by organizational, regulatory, infrastructural, and community preparedness failures. Hazardous industries can benefit from the development of early-warning systems that have a broader scope than the core technology. These systems could cover financial, human resource, organizational policies, regulatory, infrastructural, and community-related variables. This paper develops some basic concepts that can help build managerially useful early-warning systems for safety, health, and environmental (SHE) incidents. It identifies variables that should be tracked, the threshold levels for these variables, and possible managerial reactions to warnings

  16. Towards a certification process for tsunami early warning systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Löwe, Peter; Wächter, Jochen; Hammitzsch, Martin

    2013-04-01

    The natural disaster of the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 was followed by an information catastrophe. Crucial early warning information could not be delivered to the communities under imminent threat, resulting in over 240,000 casualties in 14 countries. This tragedy sparked the development of a new generation of integrated modular Tsunami Early Warning Systems (TEWS). While significant advances were accomplished in the past years, recent events, like the Chile 2010 and the Tohoku 2011 tsunami demonstrate that the key technical challenge for Tsunami Early Warning research on the supranational scale still lies in the timely issuing of status information and reliable early warning messages in a proven workflow. A second challenge stems from the main objective of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC) Tsunami Programme, the integration of national TEWS towards ocean-wide networks: Each of the increasing number of integrated Tsunami Early Warning Centres has to cope with the continuing evolution of sensors, hardware and software while having to maintain reliable inter-center information exchange services. To avoid future information catastrophes, the performance of all components, ranging from individual sensors, to Warning Centers within their particular end-to-end Warning System Environments, and up to federated Systems of Tsunami Warning Systems has to be regularly validated against defined criteria. Since 2004, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) has built up expertise in the field of TEWS. Within GFZ, the Centre for GeoInformation Technology (CeGIT) has focused its work on the geoinformatics aspects of TEWS in two projects already, being the German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) and the Distant Early Warning System (DEWS). This activity is continued in the TRIDEC project (Collaborative, Complex, and Critical Decision Processes in Evolving Crises) funded under the European Union's seventh Framework Programme (FP7

  17. The Run-up to Volcanic Eruption Unveiled by Forensic Petrology and Geophysical Observations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rasmussen, D. J.; Plank, T. A.; Roman, D. C.

    2017-12-01

    Volcanoes often warn of impending eruptions. However, one of the greatest challenges in volcano research is translating precursory geophysical signals into physical magmatic processes. Petrology offers powerful tools to study eruption run-up that benefit from direct response to magmatic forcings. Developing these tools, and tying them to geophysical observations, will help us identify eruption triggers (e.g., magmatic recharge, gas build-up, tectonic events) and understand the significance of monitored signals of unrest. We present an overview of petrologic tools used for studying eruption run-up, highlighting results from our study of the 1999 eruption of Shishaldin volcano. Olivine crystals contain chemical gradients, the consequence of diffusion following magma mixing events, which is modeled to determine mixing timescales. Modeled timescales provide strong evidence for at least three mixing events, which were triggered by magmatic recharge. Petrologic barometers indicate these events occurred at very shallow depths (within the volcanic edifice). The first mixing event occurred nine months before eruption, which was signaled by a swarm of deep-long period earthquake. Minor recharge events followed over two months, which are indicated by a second deep-long period earthquake swarm and a change in the local stress orientation measured by shear-wave splitting. Following these events, the system was relatively quiet until a large mixing event occurred 45 days prior to eruption, which was heralded by a large earthquake (M5.2). Following this event, geophysical signals of unrest intensified and became continuous. The final mixing event, beginning roughly a week before eruption, represents the final perturbation to the system before eruption. Our findings point to a relatively long run-up, which was subtle at first and intensified several weeks before eruption. This study highlights the strong link between geophysical signals of volcanic unrest and magmatic events, and

  18. The Global Emergency Observation and Warning System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bukley, Angelia P.; Mulqueen, John A.

    1994-01-01

    Based on an extensive characterization of natural hazards, and an evaluation of their impacts on humanity, a set of functional technical requirements for a global warning and relief system was developed. Since no technological breakthroughs are required to implement a global system capable of performing the functions required to provide sufficient information for prevention, preparedness, warning, and relief from natural disaster effects, a system is proposed which would combine the elements of remote sensing, data processing, information distribution, and communications support on a global scale for disaster mitigation.

  19. Design and evaluation of warning systems: application to nuclear power plants

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pe Benito-Claudio, C.

    1986-01-01

    This study starts by defining and explaining key concepts about warning, both as a process and a system. Thereafter, it presents a quantitative, probabilistic, and decision-oriented methodology for designing and evaluating a warning system. It illustrates the methodology for the case of rare, controllable, and potentially disastrous technological events, such as accidents in nuclear power plants. The methodology covers and links the three principal components of a warning system - signal (which is mainly technical), warning dissemination, and warning response (which are mainly social) - thereby allowing the relative evaluation of technological and social measures for reducing risks. Analytical principles and techniques of risk and decision analyses are applied. It defines a probabilistic performance measure to characterize each component of a warning system, and a value measure to assess the overall effectiveness of the system. An important aspect of this work is the integration, into one analytical model, of the results of engineering studies, such as probabilistic risk assessments of nuclear power plants, and of empirical findings on human response to warning in sociological research. The models, calculations, and sensitivity analyses are done with influence diagrams that are both intuitive and mathematical. This work puts particular emphasis on the study of behavioral response of individuals to warning

  20. 49 CFR 234.205 - Operating characteristics of warning system apparatus.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 49 Transportation 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Operating characteristics of warning system... characteristics of warning system apparatus. Operating characteristics of electromagnetic, electronic, or... limits within which the system is designed to operate. ...

  1. Petrology of the 2004-2006 Mount St. Helens lava dome -- implications for magmatic plumbing and eruption triggering: Chapter 30 in A volcano rekindled: the renewed eruption of Mount St. Helens, 2004-2006

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pallister, John S.; Thornber, Carl R.; Cashman, Katharine V.; Clynne, Michael A.; Lowers, Heather; Mandeville, Charles W.; Brownfield, Isabelle K.; Meeker, Gregory P.; Sherrod, David R.; Scott, William E.; Stauffer, Peter H.

    2008-01-01

    Eighteen years after dome-forming eruptions ended in 1986, and with little warning, Mount St. Helens began to erupt again in October 2004. During the ensuing two years, the volcano extruded more than 80×106 m3 of gas-poor, crystal-rich dacite lava. The 2004-6 dacite is remarkably uniform in bulk-rock composition and, at 65 percent SiO2

  2. A scheme for evaluating a local queue warning system.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Botma, H. & Oei, H.-L.

    2018-01-01

    This article outlines a method of evaluating a 'local queue warning system', in principle intended only to warn drivers of unexpected congestion at known discontinuities of the road geomctry (bottleneck) and give them advisory speed indications. A prerequisite for installing this system is therefore

  3. The 2008 Eruption of Chaitén Volcano, Chile and National Volcano-Monitoring Programs in the U.S. and Chile

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ewert, J. W.; Lara, L. E.; Moreno, H.

    2008-12-01

    Chaitén volcano, southern Chile, began erupting on 2 May 2008. The eruption produced 3 Plinian eruption pulses between May 2 and 8. Between Plinian phases the volcano emitted a constant column of ash to approximately 10 km, gradually diminishing to approximately 3 km by the end of June. The eruption of Chaitén was remarkable on several counts--it was the first rhyolite eruption on the planet since Novarupta (Katmai) erupted in 1912, and Chaitén had apparently lain dormant for approximately 9300 years. Though Chaitén is located in a generally sparsely populated region, the eruption had widespread impacts. More than 5000 people had to be quickly evacuated from proximal areas and aviation in southern South America was disrupted for weeks. Within 10 days secondary lahars had overrun much of the town of Chaitén complicating the prospects of the townspeople to return to their homes. Prior to the eruption onset, the nearest real-time seismic station was 300 km distant, and earthquakes were not felt by local citizens until approximately 30 hours before the eruption onset. No other signs of unrest were noted. Owing to the lack of near-field monitoring, and the nighttime eruption onset, there was initial confusion about which volcano was erupting: Chaitén or nearby Michinmahuida. Lack of monitoring systems at Chaitén meant that warning time for the public at risk was extremely short, and owing to the nature of the eruption and the physical geography of the area, it was very difficult to install monitoring instruments to track its progress after the eruption started. The lack of geophysical monitoring also means that an important data set on precursory behavior for silicic systems was not collected. With more than 120 Pleistocene to Holocene-age volcanoes within its continental territory, Chile is one of the more volcanically active countries in the world. The eruption of Chaitén has catalyzed the creation of a new program within the Servicio Nacional de Geología y

  4. The Trend of Voluntary Warnings in Electronic Nicotine Delivery System Magazine Advertisements

    OpenAIRE

    Shang, Ce; Chaloupka, Frank J.

    2017-01-01

    Some manufacturers of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) voluntarily carried health warnings in their advertisements. This study examined these voluntary warnings in magazine ads and plotted their trends between 2012 and early 2015. ENDS magazine ads were obtained through Kantar media and warnings were collected from the Chicago Public Library or the Trinkets and Trash surveillance system. The prevalence of voluntary warnings, warnings with the specific capitalized word “WARNING”, an...

  5. Impact of social preparedness on flood early warning systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Girons Lopez, M.; Di Baldassarre, G.; Seibert, J.

    2017-01-01

    Flood early warning systems play a major role in the disaster risk reduction paradigm as cost-effective methods to mitigate flood disaster damage. The connections and feedbacks between the hydrological and social spheres of early warning systems are increasingly being considered as key aspects for successful flood mitigation. The behavior of the public and first responders during flood situations, determined by their preparedness, is heavily influenced by many behavioral traits such as perceived benefits, risk awareness, or even denial. In this study, we use the recency of flood experiences as a proxy for social preparedness to assess its impact on the efficiency of flood early warning systems through a simple stylized model and implemented this model using a simple mathematical description. The main findings, which are based on synthetic data, point to the importance of social preparedness for flood loss mitigation, especially in circumstances where the technical forecasting and warning capabilities are limited. Furthermore, we found that efforts to promote and preserve social preparedness may help to reduce disaster-induced losses by almost one half. The findings provide important insights into the role of social preparedness that may help guide decision-making in the field of flood early warning systems.

  6. The Eruption Forecasting Information System (EFIS) database project

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ogburn, Sarah; Harpel, Chris; Pesicek, Jeremy; Wellik, Jay; Pallister, John; Wright, Heather

    2016-04-01

    The Eruption Forecasting Information System (EFIS) project is a new initiative of the U.S. Geological Survey-USAID Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP) with the goal of enhancing VDAP's ability to forecast the outcome of volcanic unrest. The EFIS project seeks to: (1) Move away from relying on the collective memory to probability estimation using databases (2) Create databases useful for pattern recognition and for answering common VDAP questions; e.g. how commonly does unrest lead to eruption? how commonly do phreatic eruptions portend magmatic eruptions and what is the range of antecedence times? (3) Create generic probabilistic event trees using global data for different volcano 'types' (4) Create background, volcano-specific, probabilistic event trees for frequently active or particularly hazardous volcanoes in advance of a crisis (5) Quantify and communicate uncertainty in probabilities A major component of the project is the global EFIS relational database, which contains multiple modules designed to aid in the construction of probabilistic event trees and to answer common questions that arise during volcanic crises. The primary module contains chronologies of volcanic unrest, including the timing of phreatic eruptions, column heights, eruptive products, etc. and will be initially populated using chronicles of eruptive activity from Alaskan volcanic eruptions in the GeoDIVA database (Cameron et al. 2013). This database module allows us to query across other global databases such as the WOVOdat database of monitoring data and the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program (GVP) database of eruptive histories and volcano information. The EFIS database is in the early stages of development and population; thus, this contribution also serves as a request for feedback from the community.

  7. A review of studies on community based early warning systems

    OpenAIRE

    Margaret Macherera; Moses J. Chimbari

    2016-01-01

    Community-based early warning systems involve community driven collection and analysis of information that enable warning messages to help a community to react to a hazard and reduce the resulting loss or harm. Most early warning systems are designed at the national or global level. Local communities’ capacity to predict weather conditions using indigenous knowledge has been demonstrated in studies focusing on climate change and agriculture in some African countries. This review was motivated...

  8. Designing Fatigue Warning Systems: The perspective of professional drivers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meng, Fanxing; Li, Shuling; Cao, Lingzhi; Peng, Qijia; Li, Musen; Wang, Chunhui; Zhang, Wei

    2016-03-01

    Professional drivers have been characterized as experiencing heavy fatigue resulting from long driving time in their daily work. This study aimed to explore the potential demand of Fatigue Warning Systems (FWSs) among professional drivers as a means of reducing the danger of fatigue driving and to examine their opinions regarding the design of FWSs. Six focus groups with 35 participants and a questionnaire survey with 600 respondents were conducted among Chinese truck and taxi drivers to collect qualitative and quantitative data concerning the current situation of fatigue driving and opinions regarding the design of FWSs. The results revealed that both truck and taxi drivers had a positive attitude toward FWSs, and they hoped this system could not only monitor and warn them regarding their fatigue but also somewhat relieve their fatigue before they could stop and rest. As for warning signals, participants preferred auditory warnings, as opposed to visual, vibrotactile or electric stimuli. Interestingly, it was proposed that verbal warnings involving the information regarding consequences of fatigue driving or the wishes of drivers' family members would be more effective. Additionally, different warning patterns, including graded, single and continuous warnings, were discussed in the focus group. Finally, the participants proposed many other suggestions, as well as their concerns regarding FWSs, which will provide valuable information for companies who wish to develop FWSs for professional drivers. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  9. People-centred landslide early warning systems in the context of risk management

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haß, S.; Asch, K.; Fernandez-Steeger, T.; Arnhardt, C.

    2009-04-01

    In the current hazard research people-centred warning becomes more and more important, because different types of organizations and groups have to be involved in the warning process. This fact has to be taken into account when developing early warning systems. The effectiveness of early warning depends not only on technical capabilities but also on the preparedness of decision makers and their immediate response on how to act in case of emergency. Hence early warning systems have to be regarded in the context of an integrated and holistic risk management. Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) measures include people-centred, timely and understandable warning. Further responsible authorities have to be identified in advance and standards for risk communication have to be established. Up to now, hazard and risk assessment for geohazards focuses on the development of inventory, susceptibility, hazard and risk maps. But often, especially in Europe, there are no institutional structures for managing geohazards and in addition there is a lack of an authority that is legally obliged to alarm on landslides at national or regional level. One of the main characteristics within the warning process for natural hazards e.g. in Germany is the split of responsibility between scientific authorities (wissenschaftliche Fachbehörde) and enforcement authorities (Vollzugsbehörde). The scientific authority provides the experts who define the methods and measures for monitoring and evaluate the hazard level. The main focus is the acquisition and evaluation of data and subsequently the distribution of information. The enforcement authority issues official warnings about dangerous natural phenomena. Hence the information chain in the context of early warning ranges over two different institutions, the forecast service and the warning service. But there doesn't exist a framework for warning processes in terms of landslides as yet. The concept for managing natural disasters is often reduced to

  10. Analysis and design of the ultraviolet warning optical system based on interference imaging

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Wen-cong; Hu, Hui-jun; Jin, Dong-dong; Chu, Xin-bo; Shi, Yu-feng; Song, Juan; Liu, Jin-sheng; Xiao, Ting; Shao, Si-pei

    2017-10-01

    Ultraviolet warning technology is one of the important methods for missile warning. It provides a very effective way to detect the target for missile approaching alarm. With the development of modern technology, especially the development of information technology at high speed, the ultraviolet early warning system plays an increasingly important role. Compared to infrared warning, the ultraviolet warning has high efficiency and low false alarm rate. In the modern warfare, how to detect the threats earlier, prevent and reduce the attack of precision-guided missile has become a new challenge of missile warning technology. Because the ultraviolet warning technology has high environmental adaptability, the low false alarm rate, small volume and other advantages, in the military field applications it has been developed rapidly. For the ultraviolet warning system, the optimal working waveband is 250 nm 280 nm (Solar Blind UV) due to the strong absorption of ozone layer. According to current application demands for solar blind ultraviolet detection and warning, this paper proposes ultraviolet warning optical system based on interference imaging, which covers solar blind ultraviolet (250nm-280nm) and dual field. This structure includes a primary optical system, an ultraviolet reflector array, an ultraviolet imaging system and an ultraviolet interference imaging system. It makes use of an ultraviolet beam-splitter to achieve the separation of two optical systems. According to the detector and the corresponding application needs of two visual field of the optical system, the calculation and optical system design were completed. After the design, the MTF of the two optical system is more than 0.8@39lp/mm.A single pixel energy concentration is greater than 80%.

  11. The Trend of Voluntary Warnings in Electronic Nicotine Delivery System Magazine Advertisements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shang, Ce; Chaloupka, Frank J

    2017-01-10

    Some manufacturers of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) voluntarily carried health warnings in their advertisements. This study examined these voluntary warnings in magazine ads and plotted their trends between 2012 and early 2015. ENDS magazine ads were obtained through Kantar media and warnings were collected from the Chicago Public Library or the Trinkets and Trash surveillance system. The prevalence of voluntary warnings, warnings with the specific capitalized word "WARNING", and MarkTen warnings were examined after being weighted using factors related to exposure between January 2012 and March 2015. Five brands (MarkTen, NJOY, MISTIC, and some Blu) carried warnings during the study period. The prevalence of warnings post 2012 that contained a description of nicotine did not significantly increase until the launch of MarkTen, which also happened several months before April 2014 when the U.S. food and drug administration (FDA) published its proposed deeming rule. In addition, none of these warnings met the criteria required by the FDA in the final rules. Voluntary warnings, particularly MarkTen warnings, significantly increased in ENDS magazine ads between 2014 and 2015. It is important to monitor how ENDS manufacturers will comply with the FDA regulation related to warnings and how this regulation will ultimately impact ENDS risk perceptions and use.

  12. ATTACK WARNING: Costs to Modernize NORAD's Computer System Significantly Understated

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Cross, F

    1991-01-01

    ...) Integrated Tactical Warning and Attack Assessment (ITW/AA) system. These subsystems provide critical strategic surveillance and attack warning and assessment information to United States and Canadian leaders...

  13. A Walk through TRIDEC's intermediate Tsunami Early Warning System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hammitzsch, M.; Reißland, S.; Lendholt, M.

    2012-04-01

    The management of natural crises is an important application field of the technology developed in the project Collaborative, Complex, and Critical Decision-Support in Evolving Crises (TRIDEC), co-funded by the European Commission in its Seventh Framework Programme. TRIDEC is based on the development of the German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) and the Distant Early Warning System (DEWS) providing a service platform for both sensor integration and warning dissemination. In TRIDEC new developments in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are used to extend the existing platform realising a component-based technology framework for building distributed tsunami warning systems for deployment, e.g. in the North-eastern Atlantic, the Mediterranean and Connected Seas (NEAM) region. The TRIDEC system will be implemented in three phases, each with a demonstrator. Successively, the demonstrators are addressing challenges, such as the design and implementation of a robust and scalable service infrastructure supporting the integration and utilisation of existing resources with accelerated generation of large volumes of data. These include sensor systems, geo-information repositories, simulation tools and data fusion tools. In addition to conventional sensors also unconventional sensors and sensor networks play an important role in TRIDEC. The system version presented is based on service-oriented architecture (SOA) concepts and on relevant standards of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). In this way the system continuously gathers, processes and displays events and data coming from open sensor platforms to enable operators to quickly decide whether an early warning is necessary and to send personalized warning messages to the authorities and the population at large through a wide range of communication channels. The system

  14. The Trend of Voluntary Warnings in Electronic Nicotine Delivery System Magazine Advertisements

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ce Shang

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Some manufacturers of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS voluntarily carried health warnings in their advertisements. This study examined these voluntary warnings in magazine ads and plotted their trends between 2012 and early 2015. ENDS magazine ads were obtained through Kantar media and warnings were collected from the Chicago Public Library or the Trinkets and Trash surveillance system. The prevalence of voluntary warnings, warnings with the specific capitalized word “WARNING”, and MarkTen warnings were examined after being weighted using factors related to exposure between January 2012 and March 2015. Five brands (MarkTen, NJOY, MISTIC, and some Blu carried warnings during the study period. The prevalence of warnings post 2012 that contained a description of nicotine did not significantly increase until the launch of MarkTen, which also happened several months before April 2014 when the U.S. food and drug administration (FDA published its proposed deeming rule. In addition, none of these warnings met the criteria required by the FDA in the final rules. Voluntary warnings, particularly MarkTen warnings, significantly increased in ENDS magazine ads between 2014 and 2015. It is important to monitor how ENDS manufacturers will comply with the FDA regulation related to warnings and how this regulation will ultimately impact ENDS risk perceptions and use.

  15. Advanced driver assistance systems: Using multimodal redundant warnings to enhance road safety.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Biondi, Francesco; Strayer, David L; Rossi, Riccardo; Gastaldi, Massimiliano; Mulatti, Claudio

    2017-01-01

    This study investigated whether multimodal redundant warnings presented by advanced assistance systems reduce brake response times. Warnings presented by assistance systems are designed to assist drivers by informing them that evasive driving maneuvers are needed in order to avoid a potential accident. If these warnings are poorly designed, they may distract drivers, slow their responses, and reduce road safety. In two experiments, participants drove a simulated vehicle equipped with a forward collision avoidance system. Auditory, vibrotactile, and multimodal warnings were presented when the time to collision was shorter than five seconds. The effects of these warnings were investigated with participants performing a concurrent cell phone conversation (Exp. 1) or driving in high-density traffic (Exp. 2). Braking times and subjective workload were measured. Multimodal redundant warnings elicited faster braking reaction times. These warnings were found to be effective even when talking on a cell phone (Exp. 1) or driving in dense traffic (Exp. 2). Multimodal warnings produced higher ratings of urgency, but ratings of frustration did not increase compared to other warnings. Findings obtained in these two experiments are important given that faster braking responses may reduce the potential for a collision. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  16. LED-Based High-Voltage Lines Warning System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Eldar MUSA

    2013-04-01

    Full Text Available LED-based system, running with the current of high-voltage lines and converting the current flowing through the line into the light by using a toroid transformer, has been developed. The transformer’s primary winding is constituted by the high voltage power line. Toroidal core consists of two equal parts and the secondary windings are evenly placed on these two parts. The system is mounted on the high-voltage lines as a clamp. The secondary winding ends are connected in series by the connector on the clamp. LEDs are supplied by the voltage at the ends of secondary. Current flowing through highvoltage transmission lines is converted to voltage by the toroidal transformer and the light emitting LEDs are supplied with this voltage. The theory of the conversion of the current flowing through the line into the light is given. The system, running with the current of the line and converting the current into the light, has been developed. System has many application areas such as warning high voltage lines (warning winches to not hinder the high-voltage lines when working under the lines, warning planes to not touch the high-voltage lines, remote measurement of high-voltage line currents, and local illumination of the line area

  17. Real-Time Target Motion Animation for Missile Warning System Testing

    Science.gov (United States)

    2006-04-01

    T. Perkins, R. Sundberg, J. Cordell, Z. Tun , and M. Owen, Real-time Target Motion Animation for Missile Warning System Testing, Proc. SPIE Vol 6208...Z39-18 Real-time target motion animation for missile warning system testing Timothy Perkins*a, Robert Sundberga, John Cordellb, Zaw Tunb, Mark

  18. An Infrastructure for a Traffic Warning System

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Brønsted, Jeppe; Hansen, Klaus Marius; Kristensen, Lars Michael

    2005-01-01

    The LIWAS Trafc Warning System aims at providingearly warning to vehicles about road conditions, such aswhether the road is slippery. The LIWAS system is currentlybeing developed and consists of two main parts:sensors for determining the state of the road and a communicationinfrastructure...... supporting inter-vehicle communication.This paper presents our results on requirementsidentication, design, and prototyping of the infrastructure.The infrastructure combines communication via mobilephones with communication based on the principles ofad-hoc networking, and it supports units in being...... updatedduring operation. The presented prototypes and associatedexperimental results demonstrate the main functionalitiesof the communication infrastructure, and have led to theinitial deployment of LIWAS units....

  19. Development of structural health monitoring and early warning system for reinforced concrete system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Iranata, Data; Wahyuni, Endah; Murtiadi, Suryawan; Widodo, Amien; Riksakomara, Edwin; Sani, Nisfu Asrul

    2015-01-01

    Many buildings have been damaged due to earthquakes that occurred recently in Indonesia. The main cause of the damage is the large deformation of the building structural component cannot accommodate properly. Therefore, it is necessary to develop the Structural Health Monitoring System (SHMS) to measure precisely the deformation of the building structural component in the real time conditions. This paper presents the development of SHMS for reinforced concrete structural system. This monitoring system is based on deformation component such as strain of reinforcement bar, concrete strain, and displacement of reinforced concrete component. Since the deformation component has exceeded the limit value, the warning message can be sent to the building occupies. This warning message has also can be performed as early warning system of the reinforced concrete structural system. The warning message can also be sent via Short Message Service (SMS) through the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) network. Hence, the SHMS should be integrated with internet modem to connect with GSM network. Additionally, the SHMS program is verified with experimental study of simply supported reinforced concrete beam. Verification results show that the SHMS has good agreement with experimental results

  20. Automatic early warning systems for the environment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lesjak Martin

    2003-01-01

    Full Text Available Computerized, continuous monitoring environmental early warning systems are complex networks that merge measurements with the information technology. Accuracy, consistency, reliability and data quality are their most important features. Several effects may disturb their characteristics: hostile environment, unreliable communications, poor quality of equipment nonqualified users or service personnel. According to our experiences, a number of measures should be taken to enhance system performances and to maintain them at the desired level. In the paper, we are presenting an analysis of system requirements, possible disturbances and corrective measures that give the main directives for the design, construction and exploitation of the environmental early warning systems. Procedures which ensure data integrity and quality are mentioned. Finally, the contemporary system approach based on the LAN/WAN network topology with Intranet/Internet software is proposed, together with case descriptions of two already operating systems, based on computer-network principle.

  1. CONCEPTUAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE PACIFIC, ATLANTIC AND ARCTIC TSUNAMI WARNING SYSTEMS FOR CANADA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    T.S. Murty

    2005-01-01

    Full Text Available Canada has coastlines on three of the four oceans on the globe, namely, the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans. The Pacific and Atlantic oceans are connected to the Arctic Ocean in the north, but still they are three distinct oceans, and need three individual tsunami warning systems. Tsunamis in the Arctic Ocean are not as well documented as in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. From what is known, tsunamis in the Arctic Ocean are rare and probably are small in amplitude. Because of very low population density, around the Canadian Arctic, at present, there is no priority for a tsunami warning system for Arctic Canada. For the Pacific Ocean, a tsunami warning system is in existence since 1948. In at least one sense, the warning aspects of the tsunami warning system for the Pacific coast of Canada, is relatively simple and straight forward, because it involves only the federal government (PSEPC and the provincial government of British Columbia (PEP. For the Atlantic Ocean, A tsunami warning system is now being established. The warning aspects will be some what more complex for eastern Canada, since it not only involves the federal government, but also five provinces, namely, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Quebec. The Alaska tsunami warning center (ATWC in Palmer, Alaska, provides tsunami warnings for both Pacific and Atlantic Canada.

  2. Seismo-acoustic evidence for an avalanche driven phreatic eruption through a beheaded hydrothermal system: An example from the 2012 Tongariro eruption

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jolly, A.D.; Jousset, P.; Lyons, J.J.; Carniel, R.; Fournier, R.; Fry, B.; Miller, C.

    2016-01-01

    The 6 August 2012 Te Maari eruption comprises a complex eruption sequence including multiple eruption pulses, a debris avalanche that propagated ~ 2 km from the vent, and the formation of a 500 m long, arcuate chasm, located ~ 300 m from the main eruption vent. The eruption included 6 distinct impulses that were coherent across a local infrasound network marking the eruption onset at 11:52:18 (all times UTC). An eruption energy release of ~ 3 × 1012 J was calculated using a body wave equation for radiated seismic energy. A similar calculation based on the infrasound record, shows that ~ 90% of the acoustic energy was released from three impulses at onset times 11:52:20 (~ 20% of total eruption energy), 11:52:27 (~ 50%), and 11:52:31 (~ 20%). These energy impulses may coincide with eyewitness accounts describing an initial eastward directed blast, followed by a westward directed blast, and a final vertical blast. Pre-eruption seismic activity includes numerous small unlocatable micro-earthquakes that began at 11:46:50. Two larger high frequency earthquakes were recorded at 11:49:06 and 11:49:21 followed directly by a third earthquake at 11:50:17. The first event was located within the scarp based on an arrival time location from good first P arrival times and probably represents the onset of the debris avalanche. The third event was a tornillo, characterised by a 0.8 Hz single frequency resonance, and has a resonator attenuation factor of Q ~ 40, consistent with a bubbly fluid filled resonator. This contrasts with a similar tornillo event occurring 2.5 weeks earlier having Q ~ 250–1000, consistent with a dusty gas charged resonator. We surmise from pre-eruption seismicity, and the observed attenuation change, that the debris avalanche resulted from the influx of fluids into the hydrothermal system, causing destabilisation and failure. The beheaded hydrothermal system may have then caused depressurisation frothing of the remaining gas charged system leading to the

  3. Caltrans fog detection and warning system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2009-01-01

    The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has implemented a fog detection and warning system on Highway 99 near Fresno. The entire central valley region is susceptible to Tule fog, which can reduce visibility tremendously, sometimes to n...

  4. Remote Monitoring of Post-eruption Volcano Environment Based-On Wireless Sensor Network (WSN): The Mount Sinabung Case

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soeharwinto; Sinulingga, Emerson; Siregar, Baihaqi

    2017-01-01

    An accurate information can be useful for authorities to make good policies for preventive and mitigation after volcano eruption disaster. Monitoring of environmental parameters of post-eruption volcano provides an important information for authorities. Such monitoring system can be develop using the Wireless Network Sensor technology. Many application has been developed using the Wireless Sensor Network technology, such as floods early warning system, sun radiation mapping, and watershed monitoring. This paper describes the implementation of a remote environment monitoring system of mount Sinabung post-eruption. The system monitor three environmental parameters: soil condition, water quality and air quality (outdoor). Motes equipped with proper sensors, as components of the monitoring system placed in sample locations. The measured value from the sensors periodically sends to data server using 3G/GPRS communication module. The data can be downloaded by the user for further analysis.The measurement and data analysis results generally indicate that the environmental parameters in the range of normal/standard condition. The sample locations are safe for living and suitable for cultivation, but awareness is strictly required due to the uncertainty of Sinabung status.

  5. Progressive approach to eruption at Campi Flegrei caldera in southern Italy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kilburn, Christopher R J; De Natale, Giuseppe; Carlino, Stefano

    2017-05-15

    Unrest at large calderas rarely ends in eruption, encouraging vulnerable communities to perceive emergency warnings of volcanic activity as false alarms. A classic example is the Campi Flegrei caldera in southern Italy, where three episodes of major uplift since 1950 have raised its central district by about 3 m without an eruption. Individual episodes have conventionally been treated as independent events, so that only data from an ongoing episode are considered pertinent to evaluating eruptive potential. An implicit assumption is that the crust relaxes accumulated stress after each episode. Here we apply a new model of elastic-brittle failure to test the alternative view that successive episodes promote a long-term accumulation of stress in the crust. The results provide the first quantitative evidence that Campi Flegrei is evolving towards conditions more favourable to eruption and identify field tests for predictions on how the caldera will behave during future unrest.

  6. Earthquake early warning system using real-time signal processing

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Leach, R.R. Jr.; Dowla, F.U.

    1996-02-01

    An earthquake warning system has been developed to provide a time series profile from which vital parameters such as the time until strong shaking begins, the intensity of the shaking, and the duration of the shaking, can be derived. Interaction of different types of ground motion and changes in the elastic properties of geological media throughout the propagation path result in a highly nonlinear function. We use neural networks to model these nonlinearities and develop learning techniques for the analysis of temporal precursors occurring in the emerging earthquake seismic signal. The warning system is designed to analyze the first-arrival from the three components of an earthquake signal and instantaneously provide a profile of impending ground motion, in as little as 0.3 sec after first ground motion is felt at the sensors. For each new data sample, at a rate of 25 samples per second, the complete profile of the earthquake is updated. The profile consists of a magnitude-related estimate as well as an estimate of the envelope of the complete earthquake signal. The envelope provides estimates of damage parameters, such as time until peak ground acceleration (PGA) and duration. The neural network based system is trained using seismogram data from more than 400 earthquakes recorded in southern California. The system has been implemented in hardware using silicon accelerometers and a standard microprocessor. The proposed warning units can be used for site-specific applications, distributed networks, or to enhance existing distributed networks. By producing accurate, and informative warnings, the system has the potential to significantly minimize the hazards of catastrophic ground motion. Detailed system design and performance issues, including error measurement in a simple warning scenario are discussed in detail.

  7. 14 CFR 91.223 - Terrain awareness and warning system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... to the terrain awareness and warning system audio and visual warnings. (d) Exceptions. Paragraphs (a... after March 29, 2002. Except as provided in paragraph (d) of this section, no person may operate a... minimum meets the requirements for Class B equipment in Technical Standard Order (TSO)-C151. (b) Airplanes...

  8. Early warning signal for interior crises in excitable systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karnatak, Rajat; Kantz, Holger; Bialonski, Stephan

    2017-10-01

    The ability to reliably predict critical transitions in dynamical systems is a long-standing goal of diverse scientific communities. Previous work focused on early warning signals related to local bifurcations (critical slowing down) and nonbifurcation-type transitions. We extend this toolbox and report on a characteristic scaling behavior (critical attractor growth) which is indicative of an impending global bifurcation, an interior crisis in excitable systems. We demonstrate our early warning signal in a conceptual climate model as well as in a model of coupled neurons known to exhibit extreme events. We observed critical attractor growth prior to interior crises of chaotic as well as strange-nonchaotic attractors. These observations promise to extend the classes of transitions that can be predicted via early warning signals.

  9. Criteria for evaluating the condition of a tropical cyclone warning system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parker, D

    1999-09-01

    This paper evaluates the condition (i.e. health) of a tropical cyclone warning system (TCWS) during a 'quiet period' between infrequent intense cyclones. Capacity to make pre-disaster evaluations is important--disaster warning systems need to be in sound condition before, not after, disaster. The research--part of the UK's International Decade of Natural Disaster Reduction Flagship Programme--focuses upon an evaluatory method first used on flood warning systems. The Criteria-development Matrix comprises social, organisational and institutional criteria by which a TCWS may be assessed using a five-stage development scale. This method is used to evaluate Mauritius's TCWS using in-depth interview data. Ways to enhance the method and apply it to other disaster warning systems are discussed. The TCWS in Mauritius is a relatively sound one from which others can learn. Weaknesses requiring attention for Mauritius's TCWS to progress to an advanced level of development are identified.

  10. Research on Vegetable Pest Warning System Based on Multidimensional Big Data

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Changzhen Zhang

    2018-06-01

    Full Text Available Pest early warning technology is part of the prerequisite for the timely and effective control of pest outbreaks. Traditional pest warning system with artificial mathematical statistics, radar, and remote sensing has some deficiency in many aspects, such as higher cost, weakness of accuracy, low efficiency, and so on. In this study, Pest image data was collected and information about four major vegetable pests (Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius, Phyllotreta striolata (Fabricius, Plutella xylostella (Linnaeus, and Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande (Thysanoptera, Thripidae in southern China was extracted. A multi-sensor network system was constructed to collect small-scale environmental data on vegetable production sites. The key factors affecting the distribution of pests were discovered by multi-dimensional information, such as soil, environment, eco-climate, and meteorology of vegetable fields, and finally, the vegetable pest warning system that is based on multidimensional big data (VPWS-MBD was implemented. Pest and environmental data from Guangzhou Dongsheng Bio-Park were collected from June 2017 to February 2018. The number of pests is classified as level I (0–56, level II (57–131, level III (132–299, and level IV (above 300 by K-Means algorithm. The Pearson correlation coefficient and the grey relational analysis algorithm were used to calculate the five key influence factors of rainfall, soil temperature, air temperature, leaf surface humidity, and soil moisture. Finally, Back Propagation (BP Neural Network was used for classification prediction. The result shows: I-level warning accuracy was 96.14%, recall rate was 97.56%; II-level pest warning accuracy was 95.34%, the recall rate was 96.45%; III-level pest warning accuracy of 100%, the recall rate was 96.28%; IV-level pest warning accuracy of 100%, recall rate was 100%. It proves that the early warning system can effectively predict vegetable pests and achieve the early warning of

  11. Evolution of the magma feeding system during a Plinian eruption: The case of Pomici di Avellino eruption of Somma-Vesuvius, Italy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Massaro, S.; Costa, A.; Sulpizio, R.

    2018-01-01

    The current paradigm for volcanic eruptions is that magma erupts from a deep magma reservoir through a volcanic conduit, typically modelled with fixed rigid geometries such as cylinders. This simplistic view of a volcanic eruption does not account for the complex dynamics that usually characterise a large explosive event. Numerical simulations of magma flow in a conduit combined with volcanological and geological data, allow for the first description of a physics-based model of the feeding system evolution during a sustained phase of an explosive eruption. The method was applied to the Plinian phase of the Pomici di Avellino eruption (PdA, 3945 ±10 cal yr BP) from Somma-Vesuvius (Italy). Information available from volcanology, petrology, and lithology studies was used as input data and as constraints for the model. In particular, Mass Discharge Rates (MDRs) assessed from volcanological methods were used as target values for numerical simulations. The model solutions, which are non-unique, were constrained using geological and volcanological data, such as volume estimates and types of lithic components in the fall deposits. Three stable geometric configurations of the feeding system (described assuming elliptical cross-section of variable dimensions) were assessed for the Eruptive Units 2 and 3 (EU2, EU3), which form the magmatic Plinian phase of PdA eruption. They describe the conduit system geometry at time of deposition of EU2 base, EU2 top, and EU3. A 7-km deep dyke (length 2 a = 200-4 00 m, width 2 b = 10- 12 m), connecting the magma chamber to the surface, characterised the feeding system at the onset of the Plinian phase (EU2 base). The feeding system rapidly evolved into hybrid geometric configuration, with a deeper dyke (length 2 a = 600- 800 m, width 2 b = 50 m) and a shallower cylindrical conduit (diameter D = 50 m, dyke-to-cylinder transition depth ∼2100 m), during the eruption of the EU2 top. The deeper dyke reached the dimensions of 2 a = 2000 m and

  12. Practical Application of Site-Specific Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) System

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kanda, Katsuhisa

    2014-01-01

    The development of an on-site warning system was reported. This system improves the timing of warnings and reduces the number of false alarms by improving the method of estimating the JMA seismic intensity using earthquake early warning system information based on site-specific data. Moreover, the development of an application for practical use in a construction company and an integrated system for realizing system shutdown was also reported. The concept of this system is based on the following. Seismic intensity is not distributed concentrically, and the attenuation relationship cannot explain the distribution of seismic intensity precisely. The standard method of seismic intensity prediction is construed as 'attenuation relationship + soil amplification factor', but this may be improved in the reformulation 'original attenuation relationship for each site + correction factors dependent on the epicenter location and depth' using a seismic intensity database that includes data on recent and historical earthquakes. (authors)

  13. Toward a cross-border early-warning system for Central Asia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jacek Stankiewicz

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Rapidly expanding urban areas in Central Asia are increasingly vulnerable to seismic risk; but at present, no earthquake early warning (EEW systems exist in the region despite their successful implementation in other earthquake-prone areas. Such systems aim to provide short (seconds to tens of seconds warnings of impending disaster, enabling the first risk mitigation and damage control steps to be taken. This study presents the feasibility of a large scale cross-border regional system for Central Asian countries. Genetic algorithms are used to design efficient EEW networks, computing optimal station locations and trigger thresholds in recorded ground acceleration. Installation of such systems within 3 years aims to both reducing the endemic lack of strong motion data in Central Asia that is limiting the possibility of improving seismic hazard assessment, and at providing the first regional earthquake early warning system in the area.

  14. Information systems in a changing climate: Early warnings and drought risk management

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roger S. Pulwarty

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available Drought is among the most damaging, and least understood, of all “natural” hazards. Although some droughts last a single season and affect only small areas, the instrumental and paleoclimate records show that droughts have sometimes continued for decades and have impacted millions of square kilometers in North America, West Africa, and East Asia. To cross the spectrum of potential drivers and impacts, drought information systems have multiple sub-systems which include an integrated risk assessment, communication and decision support system of which early warning is a central component and output. An early warning system is much more than a forecast – it is a linked risk information (including people׳s perception of risk and communication system that actively engages communities involved in preparedness. There are numerous drought systems warning systems being implemented at different scales of governance. We draw on the lessons of over 21 drought early warning systems around the world, in both developing and developed countries and at regional, national and community levels. The successes illustrate that effective early warning depends upon a multi-sectoral and interdisciplinary collaboration among all concerned actors at each stage in the warning process from monitoring to response and evaluation. However, the links between the community-based approach and the national and global EWSs are relatively weak. Using the rich experience of information systems across the globe, this paper identifies pathways for knowledge management and action at the relevant scales for decision-making in response to a changing climate.

  15. Merapi 2010 eruption—Chronology and extrusion rates monitored with satellite radar and used in eruption forecasting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pallister, John S.; Schneider, David; Griswold, Julia P.; Keeler, Ronald H.; Burton, William C.; Noyles, Christopher; Newhall, Christopher G.; Ratdomopurbo, Antonius

    2013-01-01

    Despite dense cloud cover, satellite-borne commercial Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) enabled frequent monitoring of Merapi volcano's 2010 eruption. Near-real-time interpretation of images derived from the amplitude of the SAR signals and timely delivery of these interpretations to those responsible for warnings, allowed satellite remote sensing for the first time to play an equal role with in situ seismic, geodetic and gas monitoring in guiding life-saving decisions during a major volcanic crisis. Our remotely sensed data provide an observational chronology for the main phase of the 2010 eruption, which lasted 12 days (26 October–7 November, 2010). Unlike the prolonged low-rate and relatively low explosivity dome-forming and collapse eruptions of recent decades at Merapi, the eruption began with an explosive eruption that produced a new summit crater on 26 October and was accompanied by an ash column and pyroclastic flows that extended 8 km down the flanks. This initial explosive event was followed by smaller explosive eruptions on 29 October–1 November, then by a period of rapid dome growth on 1–4 November, which produced a summit lava dome with a volume of ~ 5 × 106 m3. A paroxysmal VEI 4 magmatic eruption (with ash column to 17 km altitude) destroyed this dome, greatly enlarged the new summit crater and produced extensive pyroclastic flows (to ~ 16 km radial distance in the Gendol drainage) and surges during the night of 4–5 November. The paroxysmal eruption was followed by a period of jetting of gas and tephra and by a second short period (12 h) of rapid dome growth on 6 November. The eruption ended with low-level ash and steam emissions that buried the 6 November dome with tephra and continued at low levels until seismicity decreased to background levels by about 23 November. Our near-real-time commercial SAR documented the explosive events on 26 October and 4–5 November and high rates of dome growth (> 25 m3 s− 1). An event tree

  16. Main components and characteristics of landslide early warning systems operational worldwide

    Science.gov (United States)

    Piciullo, Luca; Cepeda, José

    2017-04-01

    During the last decades the number of victims and economic losses due to natural hazards are dramatically increased worldwide. The reason can be mainly ascribed to climate changes and urbanization in areas exposed at high level of risk. Among the many mitigation measures available for reducing the risk to life related to natural hazards, early warning systems certainly constitute a significant cost-effective option available to the authorities in charge of risk management and governance. The aim is to help and protect populations exposed to natural hazards, reducing fatalities when major events occur. Landslide is one of the natural hazards addressed by early warning systems. Landslide early warning systems (LEWSs) are mainly composed by the following four components: set-up, correlation laws, decisional algorithm and warning management. Within this framework, the set-up includes all the preliminary actions and choices necessary for designing a LEWS, such as: the area covered by the system, the types of landslides and the monitoring instruments. The monitoring phase provides a series of important information on different variables, considered as triggering factors for landslides, in order to define correlation laws and thresholds. Then, a decisional algorithm is necessary for defining the: number of warning levels to be employed in the system, decision making procedures, and everything else system managers may need for issuing warnings in different warning zones. Finally the warning management is composed by: monitoring and warning strategy; communication strategy; emergency plan and, everything connected to the social sphere. Among LEWSs operational worldwide, two categories can be defined as a function of the scale of analysis: "local" and "territorial" systems. The scale of analysis influences several actions and aspects connected to the design and employment of the system, such as: the actors involved, the monitoring systems, type of landslide phenomena

  17. Early Warning Models for Systemic Banking Crises in Montenegro

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Željka Asanović

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of this research is to create an adequate early warning model for systemic banking crises in Montenegro. The probability of banking crisis occurrence is calculated using discrete dependent variable models, more precisely, estimating logit regression. Afterwards, seven simple logit regressions that individually have two explanatory variables are estimated. Adequate weights have been assigned to all seven regressions using the technique of Bayesian model averaging. The advantage of this technique is that it takes into account the model uncertainty by considering various combinations of models in order to minimize the author’s subjective judgment when determining reliable early warning indicators. The results of Bayesian model averaging largely coincide with the results of a previously estimated dynamic logit model. Indicators of credit expansion, thanks to their performances, have a dominant role in early warning models for systemic banking crises in Montenegro. The results have also shown that the Montenegrin banking system is significantly exposed to trends on the global level.

  18. Brake reactions of distracted drivers to pedestrian Forward Collision Warning systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lubbe, Nils

    2017-06-01

    Forward Collision Warning (FCW) can be effective in directing driver attention towards a conflict and thereby aid in preventing or mitigating collisions. FCW systems aiming at pedestrian protection have been introduced onto the market, yet an assessment of their safety benefits depends on the accurate modeling of driver reactions when the system is activated. This study contributes by quantifying brake reaction time and brake behavior (deceleration levels and jerk) to compare the effectiveness of an audio-visual warning only, an added haptic brake pulse warning, and an added Head-Up Display in reducing the frequency of collisions with pedestrians. Further, this study provides a detailed data set suited for the design of assessment methods for car-to-pedestrian FCW systems. Brake response characteristics were measured for heavily distracted drivers who were subjected to a single FCW event in a high-fidelity driving simulator. The drivers maintained a self-regulated speed of 30km/h in an urban area, with gaze direction diverted from the forward roadway by a secondary task. Collision rates and brake reaction times differed significantly across FCW settings. Brake pulse warnings resulted in the lowest number of collisions and the shortest brake reaction times (mean 0.8s, SD 0.29s). Brake jerk and deceleration were independent of warning type. Ninety percent of drivers exceeded a maximum deceleration of 3.6m/s 2 and a jerk of 5.3m/s 3 . Brake pulse warning was the most effective FCW interface for preventing collisions. In addition, this study presents the data required for driver modeling for car-to-pedestrian FCW similar to Euro NCAP's 2015 car-to-car FCW assessment. Practical applications: Vehicle manufacturers should consider the introduction of brake pulse warnings to their FCW systems. Euro NCAP could introduce an assessment that quantifies the safety benefits of pedestrian FCW systems and thereby aid the proliferation of effective systems. Copyright © 2017

  19. The Build-Up to Eruptive Solar Events Viewed as the Development of Chiral Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martin, S. F.; Panasenco, O.; Berger, M. A.; Engvold, O.; Lin, Y.; Pevtsov, A. A.; Srivastava, N.

    2012-12-01

    When we examine the chirality or observed handedness of the chromospheric and coronal structures involved in the long-term build-up to eruptive events, we find that they evolve in very specific ways to form two and only two sets of large-scale chiral systems. Each system contains spatially separated components with both signs of chirality, the upper portion having negative (positive) chirality and the lower part possessing positive (negative) chirality. The components within a system are a filament channel (represented partially by sets of chromospheric fibrils), a filament (if present), a filament cavity, sometimes a sigmoid, and always an overlying arcade of coronal loops. When we view these components as parts of large-scale chiral systems, we more clearly see that it is not the individual components of chiral systems that erupt but rather it is the approximate upper parts of an entire evolving chiral system that erupts. We illustrate the typical pattern of build-up to eruptive solar events first without and then including the chirality in each stage of the build-up. We argue that a complete chiral system has one sign of handedness above the filament spine and the opposite handedness in the barbs and filament channel below the filament spine. If the spine has handedness, the observations favor its having the handedness of the filament cavity and coronal loops above. As the separate components of a chiral system form, we show that the system appears to maintain a balance of right-handed and left-handed features, thus preserving an initial near-zero net helicity. We further argue that the chiral systems allow us to identify key sites of energy transformation and stored energy later dissipated in the form of concurrent CMEs, erupting filaments and solar flares. Each individual chiral system may produce many successive eruptive events above a single filament channel. Because major eruptive events apparently do not occur independent of, or outside of, these unique

  20. Experiences integrating autonomous components and legacy systems into tsunami early warning systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reißland, S.; Herrnkind, S.; Guenther, M.; Babeyko, A.; Comoglu, M.; Hammitzsch, M.

    2012-04-01

    Fostered by and embedded in the general development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) the evolution of Tsunami Early Warning Systems (TEWS) shows a significant development from seismic-centred to multi-sensor system architectures using additional sensors, e.g. sea level stations for the detection of tsunami waves and GPS stations for the detection of ground displacements. Furthermore, the design and implementation of a robust and scalable service infrastructure supporting the integration and utilisation of existing resources serving near real-time data not only includes sensors but also other components and systems offering services such as the delivery of feasible simulations used for forecasting in an imminent tsunami threat. In the context of the development of the German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) and the project Distant Early Warning System (DEWS) a service platform for both sensor integration and warning dissemination has been newly developed and demonstrated. In particular, standards of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) have been successfully incorporated. In the project Collaborative, Complex, and Critical Decision-Support in Evolving Crises (TRIDEC) new developments are used to extend the existing platform to realise a component-based technology framework for building distributed TEWS. This talk will describe experiences made in GITEWS, DEWS and TRIDEC while integrating legacy stand-alone systems and newly developed special-purpose software components into TEWS using different software adapters and communication strategies to make the systems work together in a corporate infrastructure. The talk will also cover task management and data conversion between the different systems. Practical approaches and software solutions for the integration of sensors, e.g. providing seismic and sea level data, and utilisation of special

  1. False alarms and missed events: the impact and origins of perceived inaccuracy in tornado warning systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ripberger, Joseph T; Silva, Carol L; Jenkins-Smith, Hank C; Carlson, Deven E; James, Mark; Herron, Kerry G

    2015-01-01

    Theory and conventional wisdom suggest that errors undermine the credibility of tornado warning systems and thus decrease the probability that individuals will comply (i.e., engage in protective action) when future warnings are issued. Unfortunately, empirical research on the influence of warning system accuracy on public responses to tornado warnings is incomplete and inconclusive. This study adds to existing research by analyzing two sets of relationships. First, we assess the relationship between perceptions of accuracy, credibility, and warning response. Using data collected via a large regional survey, we find that trust in the National Weather Service (NWS; the agency responsible for issuing tornado warnings) increases the likelihood that an individual will opt for protective action when responding to a hypothetical warning. More importantly, we find that subjective perceptions of warning system accuracy are, as theory suggests, systematically related to trust in the NWS and (by extension) stated responses to future warnings. The second half of the study matches survey data against NWS warning and event archives to investigate a critical follow-up question--Why do some people perceive that their warning system is accurate, whereas others perceive that their system is error prone? We find that subjective perceptions are--in part-a function of objective experience, knowledge, and demographic characteristics. When considered in tandem, these findings support the proposition that errors influence perceptions about the accuracy of warning systems, which in turn impact the credibility that people assign to information provided by systems and, ultimately, public decisions about how to respond when warnings are issued. © 2014 Society for Risk Analysis.

  2. Is More Better? - Night Vision Enhancement System's Pedestrian Warning Modes and Older Drivers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brown, Timothy; He, Yefei; Roe, Cheryl; Schnell, Thomas

    2010-01-01

    Pedestrian fatalities as a result of vehicle collisions are much more likely to happen at night than during day time. Poor visibility due to darkness is believed to be one of the causes for the higher vehicle collision rate at night. Existing studies have shown that night vision enhancement systems (NVES) may improve recognition distance, but may increase drivers' workload. The use of automatic warnings (AW) may help minimize workload, improve performance, and increase safety. In this study, we used a driving simulator to examine performance differences of a NVES with six different configurations of warning cues, including: visual, auditory, tactile, auditory and visual, tactile and visual, and no warning. Older drivers between the ages of 65 and 74 participated in the study. An analysis based on the distance to pedestrian threat at the onset of braking response revealed that tactile and auditory warnings performed the best, while visual warnings performed the worst. When tactile or auditory warnings were presented in combination with visual warning, their effectiveness decreased. This result demonstrated that, contrary to general sense regarding warning systems, multi-modal warnings involving visual cues degraded the effectiveness of NVES for older drivers.

  3. On the importance of risk knowledge for an end-to-end tsunami early warning system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Post, Joachim; Strunz, Günter; Riedlinger, Torsten; Mück, Matthias; Wegscheider, Stephanie; Zosseder, Kai; Steinmetz, Tilmann; Gebert, Niklas; Anwar, Herryal

    2010-05-01

    Warning systems commonly use information provided by networks of sensors able to monitor and detect impending disasters, aggregate and condense these information to provide reliable information to a decision maker whether to warn or not, disseminates the warning message and provide this information to people at risk. Ultimate aim is to enable those in danger to make decisions (e.g. initiate protective actions for buildings) and to take action to safe their lives. This involves very complex issues when considering all four elements of early warning systems (UNISDR-PPEW), namely (1) risk knowledge, (2) monitoring and warning service, (3) dissemination and communication, (4) response capability with the ultimate aim to gain as much time as possible to empower individuals and communities to act in an appropriate manner to reduce injury, loss of life, damage to property and the environment and loss of livelihoods. Commonly most warning systems feature strengths and main attention on the technical/structural dimension (monitoring & warning service, dissemination tools) with weaknesses and less attention on social/cultural dimension (e.g. human response capabilities, defined warning chain to and knowing what to do by the people). Also, the use of risk knowledge in early warning most often is treated in a theoretical manner (knowing that it is somehow important), yet less in an operational, practical sense. Risk assessments and risk maps help to motivate people, prioritise early warning system needs and guide preparations for response and disaster prevention activities. Beyond this risk knowledge can be seen as a tie between national level early warning and community level reaction schemes. This presentation focuses on results, key findings and lessons-learnt related to tsunami risk assessment in the context of early warning within the GITEWS (German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning) project. Here a novel methodology reflecting risk information needs in the early warning

  4. Forests and Phenology: Designing the Early Warning System to Understand Forest Change

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pierce, T.; Phillips, M. B.; Hargrove, W. W.; Dobson, G.; Hicks, J.; Hutchins, M.; Lichtenstein, K.

    2010-12-01

    Vegetative phenology is the study of plant development and changes with the seasons, such as the greening-up and browning-down of forests, and how these events are influenced by variations in climate. A National Phenology Data Set, based on Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer satellite images covering 2002 through 2009, is now available from work by NASA, the US Forest Service, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This new data set provides an easily interpretable product useful for detecting changes to the landscape due to long-term factors such as climate change, as well as finding areas affected by short-term forest threats such as insects or disease. The Early Warning System (EWS) is a toolset being developed by the US Forest Service and the University of North Carolina-Asheville to support distribution and use of the National Phenology Data Set. The Early Warning System will help research scientists, US Forest Service personnel, forest and natural resources managers, decision makers, and the public in the use of phenology data to better understand unexpected change within our nation’s forests. These changes could have multiple natural sources such as insects, disease, or storm damage, or may be due to human-induced events, like thinning, harvest, forest conversion to agriculture, or residential and commercial use. The primary goal of the Early Warning System is to provide a seamless integration between monitoring, detection, early warning and prediction of these forest disturbances as observed through phenological data. The system consists of PC and web-based components that are structured to support four user stages of increasing knowledge and data sophistication. Building Literacy: This stage of the Early Warning System educates potential users about the system, why the system should be used, and the fundamentals about the data the system uses. The channels for this education include a website, interactive tutorials, pamphlets, and other technology

  5. Flood and landslide warning based on rainfall thresholds and soil moisture indexes: the HEWS (Hydrohazards Early Warning System) for Sicily

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brigandì, Giuseppina; Tito Aronica, Giuseppe; Bonaccorso, Brunella; Gueli, Roberto; Basile, Giuseppe

    2017-09-01

    The main focus of the paper is to present a flood and landslide early warning system, named HEWS (Hydrohazards Early Warning System), specifically developed for the Civil Protection Department of Sicily, based on the combined use of rainfall thresholds, soil moisture modelling and quantitative precipitation forecast (QPF). The warning system is referred to 9 different Alert Zones in which Sicily has been divided into and based on a threshold system of three different increasing critical levels: ordinary, moderate and high. In this system, for early flood warning, a Soil Moisture Accounting (SMA) model provides daily soil moisture conditions, which allow to select a specific set of three rainfall thresholds, one for each critical level considered, to be used for issue the alert bulletin. Wetness indexes, representative of the soil moisture conditions of a catchment, are calculated using a simple, spatially-lumped rainfall-streamflow model, based on the SCS-CN method, and on the unit hydrograph approach, that require daily observed and/or predicted rainfall, and temperature data as input. For the calibration of this model daily continuous time series of rainfall, streamflow and air temperature data are used. An event based lumped rainfall-runoff model has been, instead, used for the derivation of the rainfall thresholds for each catchment in Sicily characterised by an area larger than 50 km2. In particular, a Kinematic Instantaneous Unit Hydrograph based lumped rainfall-runoff model with the SCS-CN routine for net rainfall was developed for this purpose. For rainfall-induced shallow landslide warning, empirical rainfall thresholds provided by Gariano et al. (2015) have been included in the system. They were derived on an empirical basis starting from a catalogue of 265 shallow landslides in Sicily in the period 2002-2012. Finally, Delft-FEWS operational forecasting platform has been applied to link input data, SMA model and rainfall threshold models to produce

  6. Flood and landslide warning based on rainfall thresholds and soil moisture indexes: the HEWS (Hydrohazards Early Warning System for Sicily

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    G. Brigandì

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available The main focus of the paper is to present a flood and landslide early warning system, named HEWS (Hydrohazards Early Warning System, specifically developed for the Civil Protection Department of Sicily, based on the combined use of rainfall thresholds, soil moisture modelling and quantitative precipitation forecast (QPF. The warning system is referred to 9 different Alert Zones in which Sicily has been divided into and based on a threshold system of three different increasing critical levels: ordinary, moderate and high. In this system, for early flood warning, a Soil Moisture Accounting (SMA model provides daily soil moisture conditions, which allow to select a specific set of three rainfall thresholds, one for each critical level considered, to be used for issue the alert bulletin. Wetness indexes, representative of the soil moisture conditions of a catchment, are calculated using a simple, spatially-lumped rainfall–streamflow model, based on the SCS-CN method, and on the unit hydrograph approach, that require daily observed and/or predicted rainfall, and temperature data as input. For the calibration of this model daily continuous time series of rainfall, streamflow and air temperature data are used. An event based lumped rainfall–runoff model has been, instead, used for the derivation of the rainfall thresholds for each catchment in Sicily characterised by an area larger than 50 km2. In particular, a Kinematic Instantaneous Unit Hydrograph based lumped rainfall–runoff model with the SCS-CN routine for net rainfall was developed for this purpose. For rainfall-induced shallow landslide warning, empirical rainfall thresholds provided by Gariano et al. (2015 have been included in the system. They were derived on an empirical basis starting from a catalogue of 265 shallow landslides in Sicily in the period 2002–2012. Finally, Delft-FEWS operational forecasting platform has been applied to link input data, SMA model and rainfall

  7. An Experimental Seismic Data and Parameter Exchange System for Tsunami Warning Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hoffmann, T. L.; Hanka, W.; Saul, J.; Weber, B.; Becker, J.; Heinloo, A.; Hoffmann, M.

    2009-12-01

    For several years GFZ Potsdam is operating a global earthquake monitoring system. Since the beginning of 2008, this system is also used as an experimental seismic background data center for two different regional Tsunami Warning Systems (TWS), the IOTWS (Indian Ocean) and the interim NEAMTWS (NE Atlantic and Mediterranean). The SeisComP3 (SC3) software, developed within the GITEWS (German Indian Ocean Tsunami Early Warning System) project, capable to acquire, archive and process real-time data feeds, was extended for export and import of individual processing results within the two clusters of connected SC3 systems. Therefore not only real-time waveform data are routed to the attached warning centers through GFZ but also processing results. While the current experimental NEAMTWS cluster consists of SC3 systems in six designated national warning centers in Europe, the IOTWS cluster presently includes seven centers, with another three likely to join in 2009/10. For NEAMTWS purposes, the GFZ virtual real-time seismic network (GEOFON Extended Virtual Network -GEVN) in Europe was substantially extended by adding many stations from Western European countries optimizing the station distribution. In parallel to the data collection over the Internet, a GFZ VSAT hub for secured data collection of the EuroMED GEOFON and NEAMTWS backbone network stations became operational and first data links were established through this backbone. For the Southeast Asia region, a VSAT hub has been established in Jakarta already in 2006, with some other partner networks connecting to this backbone via the Internet. Since its establishment, the experimental system has had the opportunity to prove its performance in a number of relevant earthquakes. Reliable solutions derived from a minimum of 25 stations were very promising in terms of speed. For important events, automatic alerts were released and disseminated by emails and SMS. Manually verified solutions are added as soon as they become

  8. Radar-based Flood Warning System for Houston, Texas and Its Performance Evaluation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fang, N.; Bedient, P.

    2009-12-01

    Houston has a long history of flooding problems as a serious nature. For instance, Houstonians suffered from severe flood inundation during Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 and Hurricane Ike in 2008. Radar-based flood warning systems as non-structural tools to provide accurate and timely warnings to the public and private entities are greatly needed for urban areas prone to flash floods. Fortunately, the advent of GIS, radar-based rainfall estimation using NEXRAD, and real-time delivery systems on the internet have allowed flood alert systems to provide important advanced warning of impending flood conditions. Thus, emergency personnel can take proper steps to mitigate against catastrophic losses. The Rice and Texas Medical Center (TMC) Flood Alert System (FAS2) has been delivering warning information with 2 to 3 hours of lead time to facility personnel in a readily understood format for more than 40 events since 1997. The system performed well during these major rainfall events with R square value of 93%. The current system has been improved by incorporating a new hydraulic prediction tool - FloodPlain Map Library (FPML). The FPML module aims to provide visualized information such as floodplain maps and water surface elevations instead of just showing hydrographs in real time based on NEXRAD radar rainfall data. During Hurricane Ike (September, 2008), FAS2 successfully provided precise and timely flood warning information to TMC with the peak flow difference of 3.6% and the volume difference of 5.6%; timing was excellent for this double-peaked event. With the funding from the Texas Department of Transportation, a similar flood warning system has been developed at a critical transportation pass along Highway 288 in Houston, Texas. In order to enable emergency personnel to begin flood preparation with as much lead time as possible, FAS2 is being used as a prototype to develop warning system for other flood-prone areas such as City of Sugar Land.

  9. An operational integrated short-term warning solution for solar radiation storms: introducing the Forecasting Solar Particle Events and Flares (FORSPEF) system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anastasiadis, Anastasios; Sandberg, Ingmar; Papaioannou, Athanasios; Georgoulis, Manolis; Tziotziou, Kostas; Jiggens, Piers; Hilgers, Alain

    2015-04-01

    We present a novel integrated prediction system, of both solar flares and solar energetic particle (SEP) events, which is in place to provide short-term warnings for hazardous solar radiation storms. FORSPEF system provides forecasting of solar eruptive events, such as solar flares with a projection to coronal mass ejections (CMEs) (occurrence and velocity) and the likelihood of occurrence of a SEP event. It also provides nowcasting of SEP events based on actual solar flare and CME near real-time alerts, as well as SEP characteristics (peak flux, fluence, rise time, duration) per parent solar event. The prediction of solar flares relies on a morphological method which is based on the sophisticated derivation of the effective connected magnetic field strength (Beff) of potentially flaring active-region (AR) magnetic configurations and it utilizes analysis of a large number of AR magnetograms. For the prediction of SEP events a new reductive statistical method has been implemented based on a newly constructed database of solar flares, CMEs and SEP events that covers a large time span from 1984-2013. The method is based on flare location (longitude), flare size (maximum soft X-ray intensity), and the occurrence (or not) of a CME. Warnings are issued for all > C1.0 soft X-ray flares. The warning time in the forecasting scheme extends to 24 hours with a refresh rate of 3 hours while the respective warning time for the nowcasting scheme depends on the availability of the near real-time data and falls between 15-20 minutes. We discuss the modules of the FORSPEF system, their interconnection and the operational set up. The dual approach in the development of FORPSEF (i.e. forecasting and nowcasting scheme) permits the refinement of predictions upon the availability of new data that characterize changes on the Sun and the interplanetary space, while the combined usage of solar flare and SEP forecasting methods upgrades FORSPEF to an integrated forecasting solution. This

  10. Volcanic Ash Impacts on Air Traffic from the 2009 Mt. Redoubt Eruption

    Science.gov (United States)

    Murray, J. J.; Matus, A. V.; Hudnall, L. A.; Krueger, A. J.; Haynes, J. A.; Pippin, M. R.

    2009-12-01

    The dispersion of volcanic ash during the March 2009 eruption of Mt. Redoubt created the potential for major problems for aviation. Mt. Redoubt is located 110 km west-southwest of Alaska Airlines hub in Anchorage. It last erupted in 1990 and caused an estimated $101 million cost to the aviation industry (Waythomas, 1998). This study was conducted to assist in improving warning systems, policy and procedures for addressing the impact of volcanic ash on aviation. The study had two primary components. First, the altitude and extent of SO2 dispersion was determined through analysis of synoptic meteorological conditions and satellite imagery. Second, impacts on aviation from the volcanic ash dispersion were investigated. OMI SO2 column measurements were employed to assess the altitude and extent of SO2 dispersion of volcanic ash. To accomplish this, OMI data were assimilated with CALIPSO backscatter profiles, geopotential height plots, and HYSPLIT forward model trajectories. Volcanic Ash Advisories were compared to airport and pilot reports to assess aviation impacts. The eruption produced a complex dispersion of volcanic ash. Volcanic ash altitudes estimated for 23 March 2009 indicate that the majority of the plume remained at approximately 8 km, although reports indicate that the initial plume may have reached as high as18 km (60,000 ft). A low pressure system which passed over the eruption area appears to have entrained most of the ash at approximately 8 km, however the CALIPSO satellite indicates that dispersion also extended to 10 km and 16 km. Atmospheric patterns suggest dispersion at approximately 3 km near Hudson Bay. Analysis of 25 March 2009 indicates that much of the ash plume was dispersed at higher altitudes, where CALIPSO data locates the stratospheric ash plume at approximately 14 km above mean sea level. By the time the eruptions had subsided in April, Alaska Airlines had cancelled 295 flights and disrupted the flights of over 20,000 passengers. This

  11. Development of a Global Agricultural Hotspot Detection and Early Warning System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lemoine, G.; Rembold, F.; Urbano, F.; Csak, G.

    2015-12-01

    The number of web based platforms for crop monitoring has grown rapidly over the last years and anomaly maps and time profiles of remote sensing derived indicators can be accessed online thanks to a number of web based portals. However, while these systems make available a large amount of crop monitoring data to the agriculture and food security analysts, there is no global platform which provides agricultural production hotspot warning in a highly automatic and timely manner. Therefore a web based system providing timely warning evidence as maps and short narratives is currently under development by the Joint Research Centre. The system (called "HotSpot Detection System of Agriculture Production Anomalies", HSDS) will focus on water limited agricultural systems worldwide. The automatic analysis of relevant meteorological and vegetation indicators at selected administrative units (Gaul 1 level) will trigger warning messages for the areas where anomalous conditions are observed. The level of warning (ranging from "watch" to "alert") will depend on the nature and number of indicators for which an anomaly is detected. Information regarding the extent of the agricultural areas concerned by the anomaly and the progress of the agricultural season will complement the warning label. In addition, we are testing supplementary detailed information from other sources for the areas triggering a warning. These regard the automatic web-based and food security-tailored analysis of media (using the JRC Media Monitor semantic search engine) and the automatic detection of active crop area using Sentinel 1, upcoming Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8 imagery processed in Google Earth Engine. The basic processing will be fully automated and updated every 10 days exploiting low resolution rainfall estimates and satellite vegetation indices. Maps, trend graphs and statistics accompanied by short narratives edited by a team of crop monitoring experts, will be made available on the website on a

  12. An automatic tsunami warning system: TREMORS application in Europe

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reymond, D.; Robert, S.; Thomas, Y.; Schindelé, F.

    1996-03-01

    An integrated system named TREMORS (Tsunami Risk Evaluation through seismic Moment of a Real-time System) has been installed in EVORA station, in Portugal which has been affected by historical tsunamis. The system is based on a three component long period seismic station linked to a compatible IBM_PC with a specific software. The goals of this system are the followings: detect earthquake, locate them, compute their seismic moment, give a seismic warning. The warnings are based on the seismic moment estimation and all the processing are made automatically. The finality of this study is to check the quality of estimation of the main parameters of interest in a goal of tsunami warning: the location which depends of azimuth and distance, and at last the seismic moment, M 0, which controls the earthquake size. The sine qua non condition for obtaining an automatic location is that the 3 main seismic phases P, S, R must be visible. This study gives satisfying results (automatic analysis): ± 5° errors in azimuth and epicentral distance, and a standard deviation of less than a factor 2 for the seismic moment M 0.

  13. Near real-time GPS applications for tsunami early warning systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    C. Falck

    2010-02-01

    Full Text Available GPS (Global Positioning System technology is widely used for positioning applications. Many of them have high requirements with respect to precision, reliability or fast product delivery, but usually not all at the same time as it is the case for early warning applications. The tasks for the GPS-based components within the GITEWS project (German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System, Rudloff et al., 2009 are to support the determination of sea levels (measured onshore and offshore and to detect co-seismic land mass displacements with the lowest possible latency (design goal: first reliable results after 5 min. The completed system was designed to fulfil these tasks in near real-time, rather than for scientific research requirements. The obtained data products (movements of GPS antennas are supporting the warning process in different ways. The measurements from GPS instruments on buoys allow the earliest possible detection or confirmation of tsunami waves on the ocean. Onshore GPS measurements are made collocated with tide gauges or seismological stations and give information about co-seismic land mass movements as recorded, e.g., during the great Sumatra-Andaman earthquake of 2004 (Subarya et al., 2006. This information is important to separate tsunami-caused sea height movements from apparent sea height changes at tide gauge locations (sensor station movement and also as additional information about earthquakes' mechanisms, as this is an essential information to predict a tsunami (Sobolev et al., 2007.

    This article gives an end-to-end overview of the GITEWS GPS-component system, from the GPS sensors (GPS receiver with GPS antenna and auxiliary systems, either onshore or offshore to the early warning centre displays. We describe how the GPS sensors have been installed, how they are operated and the methods used to collect, transfer and process the GPS data in near real-time. This includes the sensor system design, the communication

  14. ShakeAlert—An earthquake early warning system for the United States west coast

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burkett, Erin R.; Given, Douglas D.; Jones, Lucile M.

    2014-08-29

    Earthquake early warning systems use earthquake science and the technology of monitoring systems to alert devices and people when shaking waves generated by an earthquake are expected to arrive at their location. The seconds to minutes of advance warning can allow people and systems to take actions to protect life and property from destructive shaking. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), in collaboration with several partners, has been working to develop an early warning system for the United States. ShakeAlert, a system currently under development, is designed to cover the West Coast States of California, Oregon, and Washington.

  15. Drunk driving warning system (DDWS). Volume 1, System concept and description

    Science.gov (United States)

    1983-11-01

    The Drunk Driving Warning System (DDWS) is a vehicle-mounted device for testing driver impairment and activating alarms. The driver must pass a steering competency test in order to drive the car in a normal manner. The emergency flasher system operat...

  16. An Envelope Based Feedback Control System for Earthquake Early Warning: Reality Check Algorithm

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heaton, T. H.; Karakus, G.; Beck, J. L.

    2016-12-01

    Earthquake early warning systems are, in general, designed to be open loop control systems in such a way that the output, i.e., the warning messages, only depend on the input, i.e., recorded ground motions, up to the moment when the message is issued in real-time. We propose an algorithm, which is called Reality Check Algorithm (RCA), which would assess the accuracy of issued warning messages, and then feed the outcome of the assessment back into the system. Then, the system would modify its messages if necessary. That is, we are proposing to convert earthquake early warning systems into feedback control systems by integrating them with RCA. RCA works by continuously monitoring and comparing the observed ground motions' envelopes to the predicted envelopes of Virtual Seismologist (Cua 2005). Accuracy of magnitude and location (both spatial and temporal) estimations of the system are assessed separately by probabilistic classification models, which are trained by a Sparse Bayesian Learning technique called Automatic Relevance Determination prior.

  17. EARLY WARNING SYSTEM DAN PERTUMBUHAN PENDAPATAN KONTRIBUSI PADA PERUSAHAAN ASURANSI JIWA SYARIAH DI INDONESIA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Maria Oktaviani

    2017-03-01

    Full Text Available The background of this study was the lack of awareness Indonesian society toward syariah life insurance andit needed to be investigated whether there was a problem on its financial instruments by using Early WarningSystem ratio. The purpose of this study was to prove the influence of Early Warning System ratio for contributionrevenue growth syariah life insurance companies in Indonesia period 2010-2013. The sampling techniqueused was purposive sampling. Samples that acquired the criteria were 10 companies. Data were analyzedusing multiple linear regression. The ratio of the Early Warning System consisted of 6 solvencies: solvencymargin ratio, change in surplus ratio, return on investment ratio, liquidity ratio, agent’s balance to surplusratio and technical ratio. The result of this study was Early Warning System ratio influenced simultaneouslyon contribution revenue growth ratio and partial contribution of technical ratio influenced positively tocontribution revenue growth ratio. So, Early Warning System ratio could be applied in order to increasecontribution revenue growth of life insurance syariah units companies.

  18. Earthquake Early Warning ShakeAlert System: Testing and certification platform

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cochran, Elizabeth S.; Kohler, Monica D.; Given, Douglas; Guiwits, Stephen; Andrews, Jennifer; Meier, Men-Andrin; Ahmad, Mohammad; Henson, Ivan; Hartog, Renate; Smith, Deborah

    2017-01-01

    Earthquake early warning systems provide warnings to end users of incoming moderate to strong ground shaking from earthquakes. An earthquake early warning system, ShakeAlert, is providing alerts to beta end users in the western United States, specifically California, Oregon, and Washington. An essential aspect of the earthquake early warning system is the development of a framework to test modifications to code to ensure functionality and assess performance. In 2016, a Testing and Certification Platform (TCP) was included in the development of the Production Prototype version of ShakeAlert. The purpose of the TCP is to evaluate the robustness of candidate code that is proposed for deployment on ShakeAlert Production Prototype servers. TCP consists of two main components: a real‐time in situ test that replicates the real‐time production system and an offline playback system to replay test suites. The real‐time tests of system performance assess code optimization and stability. The offline tests comprise a stress test of candidate code to assess if the code is production ready. The test suite includes over 120 events including local, regional, and teleseismic historic earthquakes, recentering and calibration events, and other anomalous and potentially problematic signals. Two assessments of alert performance are conducted. First, point‐source assessments are undertaken to compare magnitude, epicentral location, and origin time with the Advanced National Seismic System Comprehensive Catalog, as well as to evaluate alert latency. Second, we describe assessment of the quality of ground‐motion predictions at end‐user sites by comparing predicted shaking intensities to ShakeMaps for historic events and implement a threshold‐based approach that assesses how often end users initiate the appropriate action, based on their ground‐shaking threshold. TCP has been developed to be a convenient streamlined procedure for objectively testing algorithms, and it has

  19. Flood early warning system: sensors and internet

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Pengel, B.E.; Krzhizhanovskaya, V.V.; Melnikova, N.B.; Shirshov, G.S.; Koelewijn, A.R.; Pyayt, A.L.; Mokhov, I.I.; Chavoshian, A.; Takeuchi, K.

    2013-01-01

    The UrbanFlood early warning system (EWS) is designed to monitor data from very large sensornetworks in flood defences such as embankments, dikes, levees, and dams. The EWS, based on the internet, uses real-time sensor information and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to immediately calculate the

  20. Evaluating the effectiveness of warning systems for nuclear power plant emergencies: criteria and application

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sorensen, J.H.

    1984-01-01

    The accident at Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant in 1979 was an emergency management disaster. Chief among the problems was ineffective public warning and communications. While it is difficult to assign blame for that condition to any given party or determine if it was due to unique situational factors, the failure led to fairly significant regulatory changes in the arena of public warning and notification. These changes are intended to avoid the problems that arose during the TMI accident. This chapter reviews these regulations and suggests an alternative set of criteria for evaluating warning systems. The criteria are used to assess the effectiveness of the warning system at the Ft. St. Vrain nuclear power plant in Colorado. The paper concludes with some discussion of the lessons learned from the TMI experience as they apply to warning systems for all nuclear generating stations

  1. 49 CFR 234.259 - Warning time.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ... 49 Transportation 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Warning time. 234.259 Section 234.259..., Inspection, and Testing Inspections and Tests § 234.259 Warning time. Each crossing warning system shall be tested for the prescribed warning time at least once every 12 months and when the warning system is...

  2. Warning systems in a computerized nursing process for Intensive Care Units

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Daniela Couto Carvalho Barra

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available A hybrid study combining technological production and methodological research aiming to establish associations between the data and information that are part of a Computerized Nursing Process according to the ICNP® Version 1.0, indicators of patient safety and quality of care. Based on the guidelines of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the American Association of Critical Care Nurses for the expansion of warning systems, five warning systems were developed: potential for iatrogenic pneumothorax, potential for care-related infections, potential for suture dehiscence in patients after abdominal or pelvic surgery, potential for loss of vascular access, and potential for endotracheal extubation. The warning systems are a continuous computerized resource of essential situations that promote patient safety and enable the construction of a way to stimulate clinical reasoning and support clinical decision making of nurses in intensive care.

  3. Meteotsunamis, destructive tsunami-like waves: from observations and simulations towards a warning system (MESSI)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sepic, Jadranka; Vilibic, Ivica

    2016-04-01

    Atmospherically-generated tsunami-like waves, also known as meteotsunamis, pose a severe threat for exposed coastlines. Although not as destructive as ordinary tsunamis, several meters high meteotsunami waves can bring destruction, cause loss of human lives and raise panic. For that reason, MESSI, an integrative meteotsunami research & warning project, has been developed and will be presented herein. The project has a threefold base: (1) research of atmosphere-ocean interaction with focus on (i) source processes in the atmosphere, (ii) energy transfer to the ocean and (iii) along-propagation growth of meteotsunami waves; (2) estimation of meteotsunami occurrence rates in past, present and future climate, and mapping of meteotsunami hazard; (3) construction of a meteotsunami warning system prototype, with the latter being the main objective of the project. Due to a great frequency of meteotsunamis and its complex bathymetry which varies from the shallow shelf in the north towards deep pits in the south, with a number of funnel-shaped bays and harbours substantially amplifying incoming tsunami-like waves, the Adriatic, northernmost of the Mediterranean seas, has been chosen as an ideal area for realization of the MESSI project and implementation of the warning system. This warning system will however be designed to allow for a wider applicability and easy-to-accomplish transfer to other endangered locations. The architecture of the warning system will integrate several components: (1) real-time measurements of key oceanographic and atmospheric parameters, (2) coupled atmospheric-ocean models run in real time (warning) mode, and (3) semi-automatic procedures and protocols for warning of civil protection, local authorities and public. The effectiveness of the warning system will be tested over the historic events.

  4. Implementing drought early warning systems: policy lessons and future needs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Iglesias, Ana; Werner, Micha; Maia, Rodrigo; Garrote, Luis; Nyabeze, Washington

    2014-05-01

    Drought forecasting and Warning provides the potential of reducing impacts to society due to drought events. The implementation of effective drought forecasting and warning, however, requires not only science to support reliable forecasting, but also adequate policy and societal response. Here we propose a protocol to develop drought forecasting and early warning based in the international cooperation of African and European institutions in the DEWFORA project (EC, 7th Framework Programme). The protocol includes four major phases that address the scientific knowledge and the social capacity to use the knowledge: (a) What is the science available? Evaluating how signs of impending drought can be detected and predicted, defining risk levels, and analysing of the signs of drought in an integrated vulnerability approach. (b) What are the societal capacities? In this the institutional framework that enables policy development is evaluated. The protocol gathers information on vulnerability and pending hazard in advance so that early warnings can be declared at sufficient lead time and drought mitigation planning can be implemented at an early stage. (c) How can science be translated into policy? Linking science indicators into the actions/interventions that society needs to implement, and evaluating how policy is implemented. Key limitations to planning for drought are the social capacities to implement early warning systems. Vulnerability assessment contributes to identify these limitations and therefore provides crucial information to policy development. Based on the assessment of vulnerability we suggest thresholds for management actions to respond to drought forecasts and link predictive indicators to relevant potential mitigation strategies. Vulnerability assessment is crucial to identify relief, coping and management responses that contribute to a more resilient society. (d) How can society benefit from the forecast? Evaluating how information is provided to

  5. Scientific and public responses to the ongoing volcanic crisis at Popocatépetl Volcano, Mexico: Importance of an effective hazards-warning system

    Science.gov (United States)

    De la Cruz-Reyna, Servando; Tilling, Robert I.

    2008-01-01

    Volcanic eruptions and other potentially hazardous natural phenomena occur independently of any human actions. However, such phenomena can cause disasters when a society fails to foresee the hazardous manifestations and adopt adequate measures to reduce its vulnerability. One of the causes of such a failure is the lack of a consistent perception of the changing hazards posed by an ongoing eruption, i.e., with members of the scientific community, the Civil Protection authorities and the general public having diverging notions about what is occurring and what may happen. The problem of attaining a perception of risk as uniform as possible in a population measured in millions during an evolving eruption requires searching for communication tools that can describe—as simply as possible—the relations between the level of threat posed by the volcano, and the level of response of the authorities and the public. The hazards-warning system adopted at Popocatépetl Volcano, called the Volcanic Traffic Light Alert System(VTLAS), is a basic communications protocol that translates volcano threat into seven levels of preparedness for the emergency-management authorities, but only three levels of alert for the public (color coded green–yellow–red). The changing status of the volcano threat is represented as the most likely scenarios according to the opinions of an official scientific committee analyzing all available data. The implementation of the VTLAS was intended to reduce the possibility of ambiguous interpretations of intermediate levels by the endangered population. Although the VTLAS is imperfect and has not solved all problems involved in mass communication and decision-making during a volcanic crisis, it marks a significant advance in the management of volcanic crises in Mexico.

  6. Impact of a warning CPOE system on the inappropriate pill splitting of prescribed medications in outpatients.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chia-Chen Hsu

    Full Text Available Prescribing inappropriate pill splitting is not rare in clinical practice. To reduce inappropriate pill splitting, we developed an automatic warning system linked to a computerized physician order entry (CPOE system for special oral formulation drugs in outpatient settings. We examined the impact of the warning system on inappropriate prescribing of pill splitting and assess prescribers' responses to the warnings.Drugs with extended-release or enteric-coated formulations that were not originally intended to be split were recognized as "special oral formulations". A hard-stop system which could examine non-integer doses of drugs with special oral formulations, provide warnings to interrupt inappropriate prescriptions was integrated in CPOE in a medical center since June 2010. We designed an intervention study to compare the inappropriate splitting before and after the implementation of the warning system (baseline period 2010 January to May vs. intervention period 2010 June to 2011 August. During the intervention period, prescription changes in response to a warning were logged and analyzed.A total of 470,611 prescribed drug items with 34 different drugs with special oral formulations were prescribed in the study period. During the 15-month intervention period, 909 warnings for 26 different drugs were triggered among 354,523 prescribed drug items with special oral formulations. The warning rate of inappropriate splitting in the late intervention period was lower than those in baseline period (0.16% vs. 0.61%, incidence rate ratio 0.27, 95% CI 0.23-0.31, P<0.001. In respond to warnings, physicians had to make adjustments, of which the majority was changing to an unsplit pill (72.9%.The interruptive warning system could avoid the prescriptions with inappropriate pill splitting. Accordingly, physicians changed their behavior of prescribing special oral formulations regarding inappropriate pill splitting. We suggest the establishment of such system

  7. Evolution of an Early Illness Warning System to Monitor Frail Elders in Independent Living

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gregory L. Alexander

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper describes the evolution of an early illness warning system used by an interdisciplinary team composed of clinicians and engineers in an independent living facility. The early illness warning system consists of algorithms which analyze resident activity patterns obtained from sensors embedded in residents' apartments. The engineers designed an automated reasoning system to generate clinically relevant alerts which are sent to clinicians when significant changes occur in the sensor data, for example declining activity levels. During January 2010 through July 2010, clinicians and engineers conducted weekly iterative review cycles of the early illness warning system to discuss concerns about the functionality of the warning system, to recommend solutions for the concerns, and to evaluate the implementation of the solutions. A total of 45 concerns were reviewed during this period. Iterative reviews resulted in greater efficiencies and satisfaction for clinician users who were monitoring elder activity patterns.

  8. Flood early warning system : Design, implementation and computational modules

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Krzhizhanovskaya, V.V.; Shirshov, G.S.; Melnikova, N.B.; Belleman, R.G.; Rusadi, F.I.; Broekhuijsen, B.J.; Gouldby, B.P.; Lhomme, J.; Balis, B.; Bubak, M.; Pyayt, A.L.; Mokhov, I.I.; Ozhigin, A.V.; Lang, B.; Meijer, R.J.

    2011-01-01

    We present a prototype of the flood early warning system (EWS) developed within the UrbanFlood FP7 project. The system monitors sensor networks installed in flood defenses (dikes, dams, embankments, etc.), detects sensor signal abnormalities, calculates dike failure probability, and simulates

  9. Performance Analysis of a Citywide Real-time Landslide Early Warning System in Korea

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, Joon-Young; Lee, Seung-Rae; Kang, Sinhang; Lee, Deuk-hwan; Nedumpallile Vasu, Nikhil

    2017-04-01

    Rainfall-induced landslide has been one of the major disasters in Korea since the beginning of 21st century when the global climate change started to give rise to the growth of the magnitude and frequency of extreme precipitation events. In order to mitigate the increasing damage to properties and loss of lives and to provide an effective tool for public officials to manage the landslide disasters, a real-time landslide early warning system with an advanced concept has been developed by taking into account for Busan, the second largest metropolitan city in Korea, as an operational test-bed. The system provides with warning information based on a five-level alert scheme (Normal, Attention, Watch, Alert, and Emergency) using the forecasted/observed rainfall data or the data obtained from ground monitoring (volumetric water content and matric suction). The alert levels are determined by applying seven different thresholds in a step-wise manner following a decision tree. In the pursuit of improved reliability of an early warning level assigned to a specific area, the system makes assessments repetitively using the thresholds of different theoretical backgrounds including statistical(empirical), physically-based, and mathematical analyses as well as direct measurement-based approaches. By mapping the distribution of the five early warning levels determined independently for each of tens of millions grids covering the entire mountainous area of Busan, the regional-scale system can also provide with the early warning information for a specific local area. The fact that the highest warning level is determined by using a concept of a numerically-modelled potential debris-flow risk is another distinctive feature of the system. This study tested the system performance by applying it for four previous rainy seasons in order to validate the operational applicability. During the rainy seasons of 2009, 2011, and 2014, the number of landslides recorded throughout Busan's territory

  10. Design of flood early warning system with wifi network based on smartphone

    Science.gov (United States)

    Supani, Ahyar; Andriani, Yuli; Taqwa, Ahmad

    2017-11-01

    Today, the development using internet of things enables activities surrounding us to be monitored, controlled, predicted and calculated remotely through connections to the internet network such as monitoring activities of long-distance flood warning with information technology. Applying an information technology in the field of flood early warning has been developed in the world, either connected to internet network or not. The internet network that has been done in this paper is the design of WiFi network to access data of rainfall, water level and flood status at any time with a smartphone coming from flood early warning system. The results obtained when test of data accessing with smartphone are in form of rainfall and water level graphs against time and flood status indicators consisting of 3 flood states: Standby 2, Standby 1 and Flood. It is concluded that data are from flood early warning system has been able to accessed and displayed on smartphone via WiFi network in any time and real time.

  11. Pre-eruptive volatile and erupted gas phase characterization of the 2014 basalt of Bárðarbunga volcanic system, Iceland.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Haddadi, Baptiste; Moune, Séverine; Sigmarsson, Olgeir; Gauthier, Pierre-Jean; Gouhier, Mathieu

    2015-04-01

    The 2014 Holuhraun eruption on the Bárðarbunga Volcanic System is the largest fissure eruption in Iceland since the 1783 Laki eruption. The eruption started end of August 2014 and has been characterized by large emission of SO2 into the atmosphere. It provides a rare opportunity to study in details magmatic and degassing processes during a large-volume fissure eruption. In order to characterize the pre-eruptive magmatic composition and to assess the plume chemistry at the eruption site, lava and tephra were sampled together with the eruption plume. The basalt composition is olivine tholeiite with MgO close to 7 wt%. It is phenocryst-poor with plagioclase as the dominant mineral phase but olivine and clinopyroxene are also present together with sulphide globules composed principally of pyrite and chalcopyrite. The volatile (S, Cl and F) and major element concentrations were measured by the electron microprobe in melt inclusions (MIs) trapped in plagioclase and clinopyroxene and groundmass glass. The MIs composition ranges from fairly primitive basaltic compositions (MgO: 9.03 wt%) down to evolved qz-tholeiites (MgO: 5.57 wt%), with estimated pre-eruptive S concentrations of 1500 ppm. Tephra groundmass glass contains 400 ppm S, whereas Cl and F concentrations are respectively slightly lower and indistinguishable from those in the MIs. This implies limited exsolution of halogens but 75% of the initial sulphur content. Relatively to their total iron content, MIs are sulphur saturated, and their oxygen fugacity close to the FMQ buffer. The difference between the estimated initial volatile concentrations measured in the MIs and in the tephra groundmass (i.e. the so-called petrological method) yields 7.2 Mt SO2, limited HCl and no HF atmospheric mass loading from the Holuhraun 2014 eruption. The SO2/HCl molar ratio of the gas phase, calculated from the MIs, is 13 and 14, respectively, using average and estimated pre-eruptive S and Cl concentrations in the MIs. Filter

  12. REWSET: A prototype seismic and tsunami early warning system in Rhodes island, Greece

    Science.gov (United States)

    Papadopoulos, Gerasimos; Argyris, Ilias; Aggelou, Savvas; Karastathis, Vasilis

    2014-05-01

    Tsunami warning in near-field conditions is a critical issue in the Mediterranean Sea since the most important tsunami sources are situated within tsunami wave travel times starting from about five minutes. The project NEARTOWARN (2012-2013) supported by the EU-DG ECHO contributed substantially to the development of new tools for the near-field tsunami early warning in the Mediterranean. One of the main achievements is the development of a local warning system in the test-site of Rhodes island (Rhodes Early Warning System for Earthquakes and Tsunamis - REWSET). The system is composed by three main subsystems: (1) a network of eight seismic early warning devices installed in four different localities of the island, one in the civil protection, another in the Fire Brigade and another two in municipality buildings; (2) two radar-type (ultrasonic) tide-gauges installed in the eastern coastal zine of the island which was selected since research on the historical earthquake and tsunami activity has indicated that the most important, near-field tsunami sources are situated offshore to the east of Rhodes; (3) a crisis Geographic Management System (GMS), which is a web-based and GIS-based application incorporating a variety of thematic maps and other information types. The seismic early warning devices activate by strong (magnitude around 6 or more) earthquakes occurring at distances up to about 100 km from Rhodes, thus providing immediate mobilization of the civil protection. The tide-gauges transmit sea level data, while during the crisis the GMS supports decisions to be made by civil protection. In the near future it is planned the REWSET system to be integrated with national and international systems. REWSET is a prototype which certainly could be developed in other coastal areas of the Mediterranean and beyond.

  13. Addressing the Safety of Transportation Cyber-Physical Systems: Development and Validation of a Verbal Warning Utility Scale for Intelligent Transportation Systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yiqi Zhang

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available As an important application of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS, advances in intelligent transportation systems (ITS improve driving safety by informing drivers of hazards with warnings in advance. The evaluation of the warning effectiveness is an important issue in facilitating communication of ITS. The goal of the present study was to develop a scale to evaluate the warning utility, namely, the effectiveness of a warning in preventing accidents in general. A driving simulator study was conducted to validate the Verbal Warning Utility Scale (VWUS in a simulated driving environment. The reliability analysis indicated a good split-half reliability for the VWUS with a Spearman-Brown Coefficient of 0.873. The predictive validity of VWUS in measuring the effectiveness of the verbal warnings was verified by the significant prediction of safety benefits indicated by variables, including reduced kinetic energy and collision rate. Compared to conducting experimental studies, this scale provides a simpler way to evaluate overall utility of verbal warnings in communicating associated hazards in intelligent transportation systems. This scale can be further applied to improve the design of warnings of ITS in order to improve transportation safety. The applications of the scale in nonverbal warning situations and limitations of the current scale are also discussed.

  14. An archival analysis of stall warning system effectiveness during airborne icing encounters

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maris, John Michael

    An archival study was conducted to determine the influence of stall warning system performance on aircrew decision-making outcomes during airborne icing encounters. A Conservative Icing Response Bias (CIRB) model was developed to explain the historical variability in aircrew performance in the face of airframe icing. The model combined Bayes' Theorem with Signal Detection Theory (SDT) concepts to yield testable predictions that were evaluated using a Binary Logistic Regression (BLR) multivariate technique applied to two archives: the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) incident database, and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) accident databases, both covering the period January 1, 1988 to October 2, 2015. The CIRB model predicted that aircrew would experience more incorrect response outcomes in the face of missed stall warnings than with stall warning False Alarms. These predicted outcomes were observed at high significance levels in the final sample of 132 NASA/NTSB cases. The CIRB model had high sensitivity and specificity, and explained 71.5% (Nagelkerke R2) of the variance of aircrew decision-making outcomes during the icing encounters. The reliability and validity metrics derived from this study suggest indicate that the findings are generalizable to the population of U.S. registered turbine-powered aircraft. These findings suggest that icing-related stall events could be reduced if the incidence of stall warning Misses could be minimized. Observed stall warning Misses stemmed from three principal causes: aerodynamic icing effects, which reduced the stall angle-of-attack (AoA) to below the stall warning calibration threshold; tail stalls, which are not monitored by contemporary protection systems; and icing-induced system issues (such as frozen pitot tubes), which compromised stall warning system effectiveness and airframe envelope protections. Each of these sources of missed stall warnings could be addressed by Aerodynamic Performance

  15. Flood Monitoring and Early Warning System Using Ultrasonic Sensor

    Science.gov (United States)

    Natividad, J. G.; Mendez, J. M.

    2018-03-01

    The purpose of this study is to develop a real-time flood monitoring and early warning system in the northern portion of the province of Isabela, particularly the municipalities near Cagayan River. Ultrasonic sensing techniques have become mature and are widely used in the various fields of engineering and basic science. One of advantage of ultrasonic sensing is its outstanding capability to probe inside objective non-destructively because ultrasound can propagate through any kinds of media including solids, liquids and gases. This study focuses only on the water level detection and early warning system (via website and/or SMS) that alerts concern agencies and individuals for a potential flood event. Furthermore, inquiry system is also included in this study to become more interactive wherein individuals in the community could inquire the actual water level and status of the desired area or location affected by flood thru SMS keyword. The study aims in helping citizens to be prepared and knowledgeable whenever there is a flood. The novelty of this work falls under the utilization of the Arduino, ultrasonic sensors, GSM module, web-monitoring and SMS early warning system in helping stakeholders to mitigate casualties related to flood. The paper envisions helping flood-prone areas which are common in the Philippines particularly to the local communities in the province. Indeed, it is relevant and important as per needs for safety and welfare of the community.

  16. Vrancea early warning system for Bucharest and industrial objectives

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ionescu, C.; Marmureanu, A.; Grigore, A.; Tataru, D.

    2005-01-01

    Romania is an earthquake prone area and it is of crucial importance to obtain quantitative information needed for seismic risk mitigation and related public policies and seismic safety measures. The most damaging earthquakes in Romania concentrate in the Vrancea region, located at the sharp bend of the Eastern Carpathians Arc, in a well confined focal volume at intermediate depths between 60 km and 200 km.Vrancea earthquakes are documented for at least a millennium (since 985 a.c.) and represent very peculiar characteristics. They are a permanent threat for large urban areas on the Romanian territory and extended areas in Europe. Bucharest is among the cities mostly affected by destructive earthquakes. The early warning system in Romania is to provide individuals and communities exposed to disaster risk given by strong Vrancea earthquakes, with accurate information about an impending hazard as early as possible, to act in a timely and appropriate manner to reduce probability of suffering, personal damage, death and property losses. The purpose of this early system is to issue messages at sites of interest before the destructive seismic energy arrives. Early warning system is a technological instrument to detect, monitor and submit warnings/alerts. It needs to become part of a management information system for decision - making in the context of national institutional frameworks for disaster management and as a part of national and local strategies for disaster risk reduction. (authors)

  17. Vrancea early warning system for Bucharest and industrial objectives

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ionescu, Constantin; Marmureanu, Alexandru; Wenzel, Friedemann; Bonjer, K. P.

    2004-01-01

    Romania is an earthquake prone area and it is of crucial importance to obtain quantitative information needed for seismic risk mitigation and related public policies and seismic safety measures. The most damaging earthquakes in Romania concentrate in the Vrancea region, located at the sharp bend of the Eastern Carpathians Arc, in a well confined focal volume at intermediate depths between 60 km and 200 km. Vrancea earthquakes are documented for at least a millennium (since 985 a.c.) and represent very peculiar characteristics. They are a permanent threat for large urban areas on the Romanian territory and extended areas in Europe. Bucharest is among the mega cities mostly affected by destructive earthquakes. The early warning system in Romania is to provide individuals and communities exposed to disaster risk due to strong Vrancea earthquakes, with accurate information about an impending hazard as early as possible, to act in a timely and appropriate manner to reduce probability of suffering, personal damage, death and property losses. The purpose of this early system is to issue messages at sites of interest before the destructive seismic energy arrives. Early warning system is a technological instrument to detect, monitor and issue warnings/alerts. It needs to become part of a management information system for decision - making in the context of national institutional frameworks for disaster management and as a part of national and local strategies for disaster risk reduction. (authors)

  18. Signal Processing Methods for Flood Early Warning Systems

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Pyayt, A.L.; Mokhov, I.I.; Kozionov, A.P.; Kusherbaeva, V.T.; Krzhizhanovskaya, V.V.; Broekhuijsen, B.J.; Meijer, R.J.; Hinkelmann, R.; Nasermoaddeli, M.H.; Liong, S.Y.; Savic, D.; Fröhle, P.; Daemrich, K.F.

    2012-01-01

    We present in a data-driven approach for detection of anomalies in earthen dam (dike) behaviour that can indicate the onset of flood defence structure failure. This approach is implemented in the UrbanFlood early warning system's Artificial Intelligence component that processes dike measurements in

  19. Disaster warning system: Satellite feasibility and comparison with terrestrial systems. Volume 1: Executive summary

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spoor, J. H.; Hodge, W. H.; Fluk, M. J.; Bamford, T. F.

    1974-01-01

    The Disaster Warning System (DWS) is a conceptual system which will provide the National Weather Service (NWS) with communication services in the 1980s to help minimize losses caused by natural disasters. The object of this study is a comparative analysis between a terrestrial DWS and a satellite DWS. Baseline systems satisfying the NOAA requirements were synthesized in sufficient detail so that a comparison could be made in terms of performance and cost. The cost of both baseline systems is dominated by the disaster warning and spotter reporting functions. An effort was undertaken to reduce system cost through lower-capacity alternative systems generated by modifying the baseline systems. By reducing the number of required channels and modifying the spotter reporting techniques, alternative satellite systems were synthesized. A terrestrial alternative with the coverage reduced to an estimated 95 percent of the population was considered.

  20. Flexible Early Warning Systems with Workflows and Decision Tables

    Science.gov (United States)

    Riedel, F.; Chaves, F.; Zeiner, H.

    2012-04-01

    An essential part of early warning systems and systems for crisis management are decision support systems that facilitate communication and collaboration. Often official policies specify how different organizations collaborate and what information is communicated to whom. For early warning systems it is crucial that information is exchanged dynamically in a timely manner and all participants get exactly the information they need to fulfil their role in the crisis management process. Information technology obviously lends itself to automate parts of the process. We have experienced however that in current operational systems the information logistics processes are hard-coded, even though they are subject to change. In addition, systems are tailored to the policies and requirements of a certain organization and changes can require major software refactoring. We seek to develop a system that can be deployed and adapted to multiple organizations with different dynamic runtime policies. A major requirement for such a system is that changes can be applied locally without affecting larger parts of the system. In addition to the flexibility regarding changes in policies and processes, the system needs to be able to evolve; when new information sources become available, it should be possible to integrate and use these in the decision process. In general, this kind of flexibility comes with a significant increase in complexity. This implies that only IT professionals can maintain a system that can be reconfigured and adapted; end-users are unable to utilise the provided flexibility. In the business world similar problems arise and previous work suggested using business process management systems (BPMS) or workflow management systems (WfMS) to guide and automate early warning processes or crisis management plans. However, the usability and flexibility of current WfMS are limited, because current notations and user interfaces are still not suitable for end-users, and workflows

  1. Establishing the fundamentals for an elephant early warning and monitoring system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zeppelzauer, Matthias; Stoeger, Angela S

    2015-09-04

    The decline of habitat for elephants due to expanding human activity is a serious conservation problem. This has continuously escalated the human-elephant conflict in Africa and Asia. Elephants make extensive use of powerful infrasonic calls (rumbles) that travel distances of up to several kilometers. This makes elephants well-suited for acoustic monitoring because it enables detecting elephants even if they are out of sight. In sight, their distinct visual appearance makes them a good candidate for visual monitoring. We provide an integrated overview of our interdisciplinary project that established the scientific fundamentals for a future early warning and monitoring system for humans who regularly experience serious conflict with elephants. We first draw the big picture of an early warning and monitoring system, then review the developed solutions for automatic acoustic and visual detection, discuss specific challenges and present open future work necessary to build a robust and reliable early warning and monitoring system that is able to operate in situ. We present a method for the automated detection of elephant rumbles that is robust to the diverse noise sources present in situ. We evaluated the method on an extensive set of audio data recorded under natural field conditions. Results show that the proposed method outperforms existing approaches and accurately detects elephant rumbles. Our visual detection method shows that tracking elephants in wildlife videos (of different sizes and postures) is feasible and particularly robust at near distances. From our project results we draw a number of conclusions that are discussed and summarized. We clearly identified the most critical challenges and necessary improvements of the proposed detection methods and conclude that our findings have the potential to form the basis for a future automated early warning system for elephants. We discuss challenges that need to be solved and summarize open topics in the context of

  2. Flood forecasting and early warning system for Dungun River Basin

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hafiz, I; Sidek, L M; Basri, H; Fukami, K; Hanapi, M N; Livia, L; Nor, M D

    2013-01-01

    Floods can bring such disasters to the affected dweller due to loss of properties, crops and even deaths. The damages to properties and crops by the severe flooding are occurred due to the increase in the economic value of the properties as well as the extent of the flood. Flood forecasting and warning system is one of the examples of the non-structural measures which can give early warning to the affected people. People who live near the flood-prone areas will be warned so that they can evacuate themselves and their belongings before the arrival of the flood. This can considerably reduce flood loss and damage and above all, the loss of human lives. Integrated Flood Analysis System (IFAS) model is a runoff analysis model converting rainfall into runoff for a given river basin. The simulation can be done using either ground or satellite-based rainfall to produce calculated discharge within the river. The calculated discharge is used to generate the flood inundation map within the catchment area for the selected flood event using Infowork RS.

  3. Upgrade of the early warning system in Slovenia

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sarvari, A.; Cindro, M.; Krizman, M.; Mitic, D.

    2003-01-01

    The main task of the Early Warning System in Slovenia is to warn the competent authorities of the increase of external radiation. Only an efficient Ewes can cope with the situation that we have in case of nuclear or radiation accident. For such purposes the measuring locations have to fulfil some basic radiation monitoring criteria (population density, distance from NPP, precipitation, land use). In this article the results of each criterion as well as the total set is described. The results of the applied criteria are presented with colour contour images. The purpose of this article is to allocate the critical areas on the territory of Slovenia that have to be considered in final determination of the appropriate measuring locations. (author)

  4. Development of a hybrid earthquake early warning system based on single sensor technique

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gravirov, V.V.; Kislov, K.V.

    2012-01-01

    There are two methods to earthquake early warning system: the method based on a network of seismic stations and the single-sensor method. Both have advantages and drawbacks. The current systems rely on high density seismic networks. Attempts at implementing techniques based on the single-station principle encounter difficulties in the identification of earthquake in noise. The noise may be very diverse, from stationary to impulsive. It seems a promising line of research to develop hybrid warning systems with single-sensors being incorporated in the overall early warning network. This will permit using all advantages and will help reduce the radius of the hazardous zone where no earthquake warning can be produced. The main problems are highlighted and the solutions of these are discussed. The system is implemented to include three detection processes in parallel. The first is based on the study of the co-occurrence matrix of the signal wavelet transform. The second consists in using the method of a change point in a random process and signal detection in a moving time window. The third uses artificial neural networks. Further, applying a decision rule out the final earthquake detection is carried out and estimate its reliability. (author)

  5. Design of Early Warning System Based on Wireless Sensor Network

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gan Bo

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available In order to solve the shortcomings of the landslide monitoring technology method, a set of landslides monitoring and early warning system is designed. It can achieve real-time sensor data acquisition, remote transmission and query display. In addition, aiming at the harsh environment of landslide monitoring and the performance requirements of the monitoring system, an improved minimum hop routing protocol is proposed. It can reduce network energy consumption, enhance network robustness, and improve node layout and networking flexibility. In order to realize the remote transmission of data, GPRS wireless communication is used to transmit monitoring data. Combined with remote monitoring center, real-time data display, query, preservation and landslide warning and prediction are realized. The results show that the sensor data acquisition system is accurate, the system is stable, and the node network is flexible. Therefore, the monitoring system has a good use value.

  6. The Food Early Warning System Project in Somalia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Leblanc, M.

    1992-01-01

    Full Text Available The article describes shortly the objectives of a Food Early Warning System (FEWS project, as well as its organisation. The specifie case of Somalia, where the project had to evolve in increasingly difficult situations, and the solutions used so as to preserve the output, are described.

  7. Effectiveness of a Forward Collision Warning System in simple and in dual task from an electrophysiological perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bueno, Mercedes; Fort, Alexandra; Francois, Mathilde; Ndiaye, Daniel; Deleurence, Philippe; Fabrigoule, Colette

    2013-04-29

    Forward Collision Warning Systems (FCWS) are expected to assist drivers; however, it is not completely clear whether these systems are of benefit to distracted drivers as much as they are to undistracted drivers. This study aims at investigating further the analysis of the effectiveness of a surrogate FCWS according to the attentional state of participants. In this experiment electrophysiological and behavioural data were recording while participants were required to drive in a simple car simulator and to react to the braking of the lead vehicle which could be announced by a warning system. The effectiveness of this warning system was evaluated when drivers were distracted or not by a secondary cognitive task. In a previous study, the warning signal was not completely effective likely due to the presence of another predictor of the forthcoming braking which competes with the warning. By eliminating this secondary predictor in the present study, the results confirmed the negative effect of the secondary task and revealed the expected effectiveness of the warning system at behavioural and electrophysiological levels. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. Eruption and degassing dynamics of the major August 2015 Piton de la Fournaise eruption

    Science.gov (United States)

    Di Muro, Andrea; Arellano, Santiago; Aiuppa, Alessandro; Bachelery, Patrick; Boudoire, Guillaume; Coppola, Diego; Ferrazzini, Valerie; Galle, Bo; Giudice, Gaetano; Gurioli, Lucia; Harris, Andy; Liuzzo, Marco; Metrich, Nicole; Moune, Severine; Peltier, Aline; Villeneuve, Nicolas; Vlastelic, Ivan

    2016-04-01

    Piton de la Fournaise (PdF) shield volcano is one of the most active basaltic volcanoes in the World with one eruption every nine months, on average. This frequent volcanic activity is broadly bimodal, with frequent small volume, short lived eruptions (de la Fournaise volcanological observatory (DOAS, MultiGaS, diffuse CO2 soil emissions). Regular lava and tephra sampling was also performed for geochemical and petrological analysis. The eruption was preceded by a significant increase in CO2 soil emissions at distal soil stations (ca. 15 km from the summit), with CO2 enrichment also being recorded at summit low temperature fumaroles. Eruptive products were spectacularly zoned, with plagioclase and pyroxene being abundant in the early erupted products and olivine being the main phase in the late-erupted lavas. Total gas emissions at the eruptive vent underwent a decrease during the first half of the eruption and then an increase, mirroring the time evolution of magma discharge rate (from 5-10 m3/s in September to 15-30 m3/s in late-October) and the progressive change in magma composition. In spite of significant evolution in magma and gas output, CO2/SO2 ratios in high temperature gases remained quite low (< 0.3) and with little temporal change. Geochemical data indicated that this relatively long-lived eruption corresponded to the progressive drainage of most of the shallow part of PdF plumbing system, triggered by a new pulse of deep magma. While erupted magma and high temperature gases were mostly provided by the shallow part of the system, distal sites and summit low temperature fumaroles recorded a deeper triggering mechanism.

  9. GPS water level measurements for Indonesia's Tsunami Early Warning System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    T. Schöne

    2011-03-01

    Full Text Available On Boxing Day 2004, a severe tsunami was generated by a strong earthquake in Northern Sumatra causing a large number of casualties. At this time, neither an offshore buoy network was in place to measure tsunami waves, nor a system to disseminate tsunami warnings to local governmental entities. Since then, buoys have been developed by Indonesia and Germany, complemented by NOAA's Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART buoys, and have been moored offshore Sumatra and Java. The suite of sensors for offshore tsunami detection in Indonesia has been advanced by adding GPS technology for water level measurements.

    The usage of GPS buoys in tsunami warning systems is a relatively new approach. The concept of the German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS (Rudloff et al., 2009 combines GPS technology and ocean bottom pressure (OBP measurements. Especially for near-field installations where the seismic noise may deteriorate the OBP data, GPS-derived sea level heights provide additional information.

    The GPS buoy technology is precise enough to detect medium to large tsunamis of amplitudes larger than 10 cm. The analysis presented here suggests that for about 68% of the time, tsunamis larger than 5 cm may be detectable.

  10. Recommendations to harmonize European early warning dosimetry network systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dombrowski, H.; Bleher, M.; De Cort, M.; Dabrowski, R.; Neumaier, S.; Stöhlker, U.

    2017-12-01

    After the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident in 1986, followed by the Fukushima Nuclear power plant accident 25 years later, it became obvious that real-time information is required to quickly gain radiological information. As a consequence, the European countries established early warning network systems with the aim to provide an immediate warning in case of a major radiological emergency, to supply reliable information on area dose rates, contamination levels, radioactivity concentrations in air and finally to assess public exposure. This is relevant for governmental decisions on intervention measures in an emergency situation. Since different methods are used by national environmental monitoring systems to measure area dose rate values and activity concentrations, there are significant differences in the results provided by different countries. Because European and neighboring countries report area dose rate data to a central data base operated on behalf of the European Commission, the comparability of the data is crucial for its meaningful interpretation, especially in the case of a nuclear accident with transboundary implications. Only by harmonizing measuring methods and data evaluation, is the comparability of the dose rate data ensured. This publication concentrates on technical requirements and methods with the goal to effectively harmonize area dose rate monitoring data provided by automatic early warning network systems. The requirements and procedures laid down in this publication are based on studies within the MetroERM project, taking into account realistic technical approaches and tested procedures.

  11. Development of a Low Cost Earthquake Early Warning System in Taiwan

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Y. M.

    2017-12-01

    The National Taiwan University (NTU) developed an earthquake early warning (EEW) system for research purposes using low-cost accelerometers (P-Alert) since 2010. As of 2017, a total of 650 stations have been deployed and configured. The NTU system can provide earthquake information within 15 s of an earthquake occurrence. Thus, this system may provide early warnings for cities located more than 50 km from the epicenter. Additionally, the NTU system also has an onsite alert function that triggers a warning for incoming P-waves greater than a certain magnitude threshold, thus providing a 2-3 s lead time before peak ground acceleration (PGA) for regions close to an epicenter. Detailed shaking maps are produced by the NTU system within one or two minutes after an earthquake. Recently, a new module named ShakeAlarm has been developed. Equipped with real-time acceleration signals and the time-dependent anisotropic attenuation relationship of the PGA, ShakingAlarm can provide an accurate PGA estimation immediately before the arrival of the observed PGA. This unique advantage produces sufficient lead time for hazard assessment and emergency response, which is unavailable for traditional shakemap, which are based on only the PGA observed in real time. The performance of ShakingAlarm was tested with six M > 5.5 inland earthquakes from 2013 to 2016. Taking the 2016 M6.4 Meinong earthquake simulation as an example, the predicted PGA converges to a stable value and produces a predicted shake map and an isocontour map of the predicted PGA within 16 seconds of earthquake occurrence. Compared with traditional regional EEW system, ShakingAlarm can effectively identify possible damage regions and provide valuable early warning information (magnitude and PGA) for risk mitigation.

  12. Multi-disciplinary Monitoring of the 2014 Eruption of Fogo Volcano, Cape Verde

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fernandes, R. M. S.; Faria, B. V. E.

    2015-12-01

    The Fogo volcano, located in the Cape Verde Archipelago (offshore Western Africa), is a complete stratovolcano system. It is the most recent expression of the Cape Verde hotspot, that has formed the archipelago. The summit reaches ~2830m above sea level, and raises 1100m above Chã das Caldeiras, an almost flat circular area. The last eruption of Fogo started on November 23, 2014 (~10:00UTC), after 19 years of inactivity. C4G, a distributed research infrastructure created in 2014 in the framework of the Portuguese Roadmap for Strategic Research Infrastructures, collaborated immediately with INMG, the Cape Verdean Meteorological and Geophysical Institut with the goal of complementing the permanent geophysical monitoring network in operation on Fogo island. The INMG permanent network is composed of seven seismographic stations and three tiltmeter stations, with real-time data transmitted. On the basis of increased pre-event activity (which started in October 2014), INMG issued a formal alert of an impending eruption to the Civil Protection Agency, about 24 hours before the onset of the eruption. Although the eruption caused no casualties or personal injuries due to the warnings issued, the lava expelled by the eruption (which last until the end of January) destroyed the two main villages in the caldera (~1000 inhabitants) and covered vast areas of agricultural land, causing very large economic losses and an uncertain future of the local populations. The C4G team installed a network of seven GNSS receivers and nine seismometers, distributed by the entire island. The data collection started on 28th November 2014, and continued until the end of January 2015. The mission also included a new detailed gravimetric survey of the island, the acquisition of geological samples, and the analysis of the air quality during the eruption. We present here a detailed description of the monitoring efforts carried out during the eruption as well as initial results of the analysis of the

  13. A Method to Increase Drivers' Trust in Collision Warning Systems Based on Reliability Information of Sensor

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tsutsumi, Shigeyoshi; Wada, Takahiro; Akita, Tokihiko; Doi, Shun'ichi

    Driver's workload tends to be increased during driving under complicated traffic environments like a lane change. In such cases, rear collision warning is effective for reduction of cognitive workload. On the other hand, it is pointed out that false alarm or missing alarm caused by sensor errors leads to decrease of driver' s trust in the warning system and it can result in low efficiency of the system. Suppose that reliability information of the sensor is provided in real-time. In this paper, we propose a new warning method to increase driver' s trust in the system even with low sensor reliability utilizing the sensor reliability information. The effectiveness of the warning methods is shown by driving simulator experiments.

  14. Security warning method and system for worker safety during live-line working

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiang, Chilong; Zou, Dehua; Long, Chenhai; Yang, Miao; Zhang, Zhanlong; Mei, Daojun

    2017-09-01

    Live-line working is an essential part in the operations in an electric power system. Live-line workers are required to wear shielding clothing. Shielding clothing, however, acts as a closed environment for the human body. Working in a closed environment for a long time can change the physiological responses of the body and even endanger personal safety. According to the typical conditions of live-line working, this study synthesizes environmental factors related to shielding clothing and the physiological factors of the body to establish the heart rate variability index RMSSD and the comprehensive security warning index SWI. On the basis of both indices, this paper proposes a security warning method and system for the safety live-line workers. The system can monitor the real-time status of workers during live-line working to provide security warning and facilitate the effective safety supervision by the live operation center during actual live-line working.

  15. Global early warning systems for natural hazards: systematic and people-centred.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Basher, Reid

    2006-08-15

    To be effective, early warning systems for natural hazards need to have not only a sound scientific and technical basis, but also a strong focus on the people exposed to risk, and with a systems approach that incorporates all of the relevant factors in that risk, whether arising from the natural hazards or social vulnerabilities, and from short-term or long-term processes. Disasters are increasing in number and severity and international institutional frameworks to reduce disasters are being strengthened under United Nations oversight. Since the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004, there has been a surge of interest in developing early warning systems to cater to the needs of all countries and all hazards.

  16. Sensing the danger. Can tsunami early warning systems benefit from test ban monitoring?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zerbo, L.

    2005-01-01

    An editorial in the February 2005 edition of the Magazine for European Research pointed to the very issue of responsibility: Improvements are always possible, of course, but the very nature of a 'natural disaster' is that while not entirely absolving humans of responsibility it surpasses our means to deal with and even understand the forces at work. But science can help enhance our knowledge. For if there is one subject that the Asian tragedy has highlighted, it is the importance of putting in place coordinated early warning systems for earthquakes and, in particular, the absence of effective monitoring of tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. A concerted effort is now being made to develop a coordinated system of systems - bringing together organizations and initiatives that together can put in place an early warning system. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), set-up to monitor adherence to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, is one organization seen to contribute to a coordinated early warning system

  17. Availability and Reliability of Disaster Early Warning Systems and the IT Infrastructure Library

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wächter, J.; Loewe, P.

    2012-12-01

    The Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 caused an information catastrophy. Crucial early warning information could not be delivered to the communities under imminent threat, resulting in over 240,000 casualties in 14 countries. This tragedy sparked the development of a new generation of integrated modular Tsunami Early Warning Systems (TEWS). While significant advances were accomplished in the past years, recent events, like the Chile 2010 and the Tohoku 2011 tsunami demonstrate that the key technical challenge for Tsunami Early Warning research on the supranational scale still lies in the timely issuing of status information and reliable early warning messages. A key challenge stems from the main objective of the IOC Tsunami Programme, the integration of national TEWS towards ocean-wide networks: Each of the increasing number of integrated Tsunami Early Warning Centres has to cope with the continuing evolution of sensors, hardware and software while having to maintain reliable inter-center information exchange services. To avoid future information catastrophes, the performance of all components, ranging from sensors to Warning Centers, has to be regularly validated against defined criteria. This task is complicated by the fact that in term of ICT system life cycles tsunami are very rare event resulting in very difficult framing conditions to safeguard the availability and reliability of TWS. Since 2004, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) has built up expertise in the field of TEWS. Within GFZ, the Centre for GeoInformation Technology (CEGIT) has focused its work on the geoinformatics aspects of TEWS in two projects already: The German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Distant Early Warning System (DEWS), a European project funded under the sixth Framework Programme (FP6). These developments are continued in the TRIDEC project (Collaborative, Complex, and Critical

  18. PRESSCA: A regional operative Early Warning System for landslides risk scenario assessment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ponziani, Francesco; Stelluti, Marco; Berni, Nicola; Brocca, Luca; Moramarco, Tommaso

    2013-04-01

    The Italian national alert system for the hydraulic and hydrogeological risk is ensured by the National Civil Protection Department, through the "Functional Centres" Network, together with scientific/technical Support Centres, named "Competence Centres". The role of the Functional Centres is to alert regional/national civil protection network, to manage the prediction and the monitoring phases, thus ensuring the flow of data for the management of the emergency. The Umbria regional alerting procedure is based on three increasing warning levels of criticality for 6 sub-areas (~1200 km²). Specifically, for each duration (from 1 to 48 hours), three criticality levels are assigned to the rainfall values corresponding to a recurrence interval of 2, 5, and 10 years. In order to improve confidence on the daily work for hydrogeological risk assessment and management, a simple and operational early warning system for the prediction of shallow landslide triggering on regional scale was implemented. The system is primarily based on rainfall thresholds, which represent the main element of evaluation for the early-warning procedures of the Italian Civil Protection system. Following previous studies highlighting that soil moisture conditions play a key role on landslide triggering, a continuous physically-based soil water balance model was implemented for the estimation of soil moisture conditions over the whole regional territory. In fact, a decreasing trend between the cumulated rainfall values over 24, 36 and 48 hours and the soil moisture conditions prior to past landslide events was observed. This trend provides an easy-to-use tool to dynamically adjust the operational rainfall thresholds with the soil moisture conditions simulated by the soil water balance model prior to rainfall events. The application of this procedure allowed decreasing the uncertainties tied to the application of the rainfall thresholds only. The system is actually operational in real-time and it was

  19. Observed activation status of lane departure warning and forward collision warning of Honda vehicles at dealership service centers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reagan, Ian J; McCartt, Anne T

    2016-11-16

    There are little objective data on whether drivers with lane departure warning and forward collision warning systems actually use them, but self-report data indicate that lane departure warning may be used less and viewed less favorably than forward collision warning. The current study assessed whether the systems were turned on when drivers brought their vehicles to dealership service stations and whether the observational protocol is a feasible method for collecting similar data on various manufacturers' systems. Observations of 2013-2015 Honda Accords, 2014-2015 Odysseys, and 2015 CR-Vs occurred at 2 U.S. Honda dealerships for approximately 4 weeks during Summer 2015. Of the 265 vehicles observed to have the 2 systems, 87 (32.8%) had lane departure warning turned on. Accords were associated with a 66% increase in the likelihood that lane departure warning was turned on compared with Odysseys, but the rate was still only about 40% in Accords. In contrast, forward collision warning was turned on in all but one of the observed vehicles. Observations found that the activation rate was much higher for forward collision warning than lane departure warning. The observation method worked well and appears feasible for extending to other manufacturers.

  20. Magmatic densities control erupted volumes in Icelandic volcanic systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hartley, Margaret; Maclennan, John

    2018-04-01

    Magmatic density and viscosity exert fundamental controls on the eruptibility of magmas. In this study, we investigate the extent to which magmatic physical properties control the eruptibility of magmas from Iceland's Northern Volcanic Zone (NVZ). By studying subaerial flows of known age and volume, we are able to directly relate erupted volumes to magmatic physical properties, a task that has been near-impossible when dealing with submarine samples dredged from mid-ocean ridges. We find a strong correlation between magmatic density and observed erupted volumes on the NVZ. Over 85% of the total volume of erupted material lies close to a density and viscosity minimum that corresponds to the composition of basalts at the arrival of plagioclase on the liquidus. These magmas are buoyant with respect to the Icelandic upper crust. However, a number of small-volume eruptions with densities greater than typical Icelandic upper crust are also found in Iceland's neovolcanic zones. We use a simple numerical model to demonstrate that the eruption of magmas with higher densities and viscosities is facilitated by the generation of overpressure in magma chambers in the lower crust and uppermost mantle. This conclusion is in agreement with petrological constraints on the depths of crystallisation under Iceland.

  1. Magmatic Densities Control Erupted Volumes in Icelandic Volcanic Systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Margaret Hartley

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Magmatic density and viscosity exert fundamental controls on the eruptibility of magmas. In this study, we investigate the extent to which magmatic physical properties control the eruptibility of magmas from Iceland's Northern Volcanic Zone (NVZ. By studying subaerial flows of known age and volume, we are able to directly relate erupted volumes to magmatic physical properties, a task that has been near-impossible when dealing with submarine samples dredged from mid-ocean ridges. We find a strong correlation between magmatic density and observed erupted volumes on the NVZ. Over 85% of the total volume of erupted material lies close to a density and viscosity minimum that corresponds to the composition of basalts at the arrival of plagioclase on the liquidus. These magmas are buoyant with respect to the Icelandic upper crust. However, a number of small-volume eruptions with densities greater than typical Icelandic upper crust are also found in Iceland's neovolcanic zones. We use a simple numerical model to demonstrate that the eruption of magmas with higher densities and viscosities is facilitated by the generation of overpressure in magma chambers in the lower crust and uppermost mantle. This conclusion is in agreement with petrological constraints on the depths of crystallization under Iceland.

  2. Software for ASS-500 based early warning system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lipinski, P.; Isajenko, K.

    1998-01-01

    The article describes the software for the management of early warning system based on ASS-500 station. The software can communicate with the central computer using TCP/IP protocol. This allows remote control of the station through modem or local area network connection. The article describes Windows based user interface of the program

  3. Hybrid Intelligent Warning System for Boiler tube Leak Trips

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Singh Deshvin

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Repeated boiler tube leak trips in coal fired power plants can increase operating cost significantly. An early detection and diagnosis of boiler trips is essential for continuous safe operations in the plant. In this study two artificial intelligent monitoring systems specialized in boiler tube leak trips have been proposed. The first intelligent warning system (IWS-1 represents the use of pure artificial neural network system whereas the second intelligent warning system (IWS-2 represents merging of genetic algorithms and artificial neural networks as a hybrid intelligent system. The Extreme Learning Machine (ELM methodology was also adopted in IWS-1 and compared with traditional training algorithms. Genetic algorithm (GA was adopted in IWS-2 to optimize the ANN topology and the boiler parameters. An integrated data preparation framework was established for 3 real cases of boiler tube leak trip based on a thermal power plant in Malaysia. Both the IWSs were developed using MATLAB coding for training and validation. The hybrid IWS-2 performed better than IWS-1.The developed system was validated to be able to predict trips before the plant monitoring system. The proposed artificial intelligent system could be adopted as a reliable monitoring system of the thermal power plant boilers.

  4. The Ongoing 2011 Eruption of Cordón Caulle (Southern Andes) and its Related Hazards

    Science.gov (United States)

    Amigo, A.; Lara, L. E.; Silva, C.; Orozco, G.; Bertin, D.

    2011-12-01

    On June 4, 2011, at 18:45 UTC, Cordón Caulle volcano (Southern Andes, 40.52S, 72.14W) erupted explosively after 51 years of quiescence. The last eruption occurred in 1960 and was triggered by the great Mw 9.5 Chile earthquake. The ongoing eruption started after 2 months of increased shallow seismicity as recorded by OVDAS (the volcano observatory at Sernageomin). This close monitoring effort allowed a timely eruption forecast with at least 3 hours of warning, which facilitated the crisis response. In addition to this successful performance, for the first time in Chile volcanic hazards were assessed in advance supporting the emergency management. In particular, tephra dispersal was daily forecasted using the ASHFALL advection-diffusion model and potential lahars and PDC impact zones were delineated according to numerical approaches. The first eruptive stage lasted 27 hours. It was characterized by ca. 15-km strong Plinian-like column, associated with the emission of 0.2 - 0.4 km3 of magma (DRE). Tephra fallout mostly occurred in Chile and Argentina, although fine particles and aerosols circumnavigated the globe twice, causing disruptions on air navigation across the Southern Hemisphere. The second ongoing eruptive stage has been characterized by persistent weak plumes and lava emission at effusion rates in the range of 20 and 60 m3/s, which total volume is estimated case of successful eruption forecast and hazards assessment but it is also an important case-study of silicic eruptions in an arc segment where mostly mafic magmas have been erupted during the Holocene.

  5. Influence of volatile degassing on the eruptibility of large igneous province magmatic systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mittal, T.; Richards, M. A.

    2017-12-01

    Magmatic volatiles, in particular their buoyancy, may play a critical role in determining whether a magma reservoir can build up enough overpressure leading to drive flood basalt eruptions (Black & Manga 2017). Thus, it is important to understand the extent to which volatiles can remain trapped in a magmatic system and how they influence the eruptibility. Although the high-temperature metamorphic aureloe around a magma chamber is typically considered to have low permeability due to ductile creep, recent theoretical, experimental, and field work (e.g. Noriaki et al. 2017) have highlighted the role of dynamic permeability in magmatic systems. Consequently, the effective permeability of the crust when magma is present in the system can be orders of magnitude larger than that of exhumed rock samples. We model dynamic permeability changes as a competition between hydro-fracturing (increased porosity) and fracture closure by ductile creep and hydrothermal mineral precipitation (reduced porosity) and find yearly-to-decadal time-scales for periodic fracturing and fluid loss events and an increase in average permeability. We then use a fully coupled poro-thermo-elastic framework to model to explore the macroscopic influence of volatile loss on the stress state of the crust in this higher time-averaged permeability setting. We derive new semi-analytical solutions and combine them with a magma chamber box model (modified from Degruyter & Huber 2014) to analyze system-scale dynamics for both basaltic and silicic magmatic systems. We find that passive degassing likely has a substantial temporal influence on the stress distribution in the crust and the highly crystalline mush zone immediately surrounding a magma reservoir, and find an additional scale : pore-pressure diffusion timescale that exerts a first-order control on the magnitude and frequency of volcanic eruptions. We also explore how disconnected magma batches interact indirectly with each other and its implications for

  6. The Telemetric Early Warning Environmental Radiation Monitoring System of Cyprus

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Christofides, S [Medical Physics Department, Nicosia General Hospital, Nicosia (Cyprus)

    1998-12-31

    This paper presents the hardware design, the development of the software and the use of the Telemetric Early Warning Environmental Radiation Monitoring System (TEWERMS) of Cyprus. (author). 3 refs, 6 figs.

  7. An intelligent IoT emergency vehicle warning system using RFID and Wi-Fi technologies for emergency medical services.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lai, Yeong-Lin; Chou, Yung-Hua; Chang, Li-Chih

    2018-01-01

    Collisions between emergency vehicles for emergency medical services (EMS) and public road users have been a serious problem, impacting on the safety of road users, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), and the patients on board. The aim of this study is to develop a novel intelligent emergency vehicle warning system for EMS applications. The intelligent emergency vehicle warning system is developed by Internet of Things (IoT), radio-frequency identification (RFID), and Wi-Fi technologies. The system consists of three major parts: a system trigger tag, an RFID system in an emergency vehicle, and an RFID system at an intersection. The RFID system either in an emergency vehicle or at an intersection contains a controller, an ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID reader module, a Wi-Fi module, and a 2.4-GHz antenna. In addition, a UHF ID antenna is especially designed for the RFID system in an emergency vehicle. The IoT system provides real-time visual warning at an intersection and siren warning from an emergency vehicle in order to effectively inform road users about an emergency vehicle approaching. The developed intelligent IoT emergency vehicle warning system demonstrates the capabilities of real-time visual and siren warnings for EMS safety.

  8. Automation warning system against driver falling asleep in-traffic

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dymov I. S.

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available The paper is devoted to the development of a new automation recognition and warning system against driver falling asleep in-traffic. The issue of the physical condition control of professional drivers on the voyage has been considered both on the part of efficiency and quality of its determination, and in terms of improving overall road safety. The existing and widely used devices for determining the transition to the stage of sleep of drivers being in-traffic have been analyzed. Their advantages and disadvantages have been detected. It has been established that the main negative factor preventing the mass introduction of pre-existing warning systems is the need to wear one or another monitoring device before starting the movement. Carried out project research work has proposed a complex monitoring of the physical and physiological condition of driving person as a new warning method against falling asleep in-traffic. The proposed variations of algorithmic implementations can be used in long-distance trucks and passenger vehicles. Two different versions of the automatic control status of the driver physical condition have been considered. The first approach has proposed the use of sensors of the biometric parameters of body, pulsus, body temperature, and hands on wheel pressure sensors. The second one has proposed using the tracking cameras. Both for the first and second versions of the automation system a toolset of control devices is being installed inside the vehicle and have no physical, so irritating action on the driver. Software approach for the false operation rejection of the devices has been developed. The paper considers the flow diagrams of the automatic systems and logical structure of analysis and decision-making. The set of impacts intended for driver's awakening has been proposed. The conclusion about the engineering perspectives of the proposed approach of projected automation systems has been made.

  9. Climate change implications and use of early warning systems for global dust storms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harriman, Lindsey M.

    2014-01-01

    With increased changes in land cover and global climate, early detection and warning of dust storms in conjunction with effective and widespread information broadcasts will be essential to the prevention and mitigation of future risks and impacts. Human activities, seasonal variations and long-term climatic patterns influence dust storms. More research is needed to analyse these factors of dust mobilisation to create more certainty for the fate of vulnerable populations and ecosystems in the future. Early warning and communication systems, when in place and effectively implemented, can offer some relief to these vulnerable areas. As an issue that affects many regions of the world, there is a profound need to understand the potential changes and ultimately create better early warning systems for dust storms.

  10. Communicating likelihoods and probabilities in forecasts of volcanic eruptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Doyle, Emma E. H.; McClure, John; Johnston, David M.; Paton, Douglas

    2014-02-01

    The issuing of forecasts and warnings of natural hazard events, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquake aftershock sequences and extreme weather often involves the use of probabilistic terms, particularly when communicated by scientific advisory groups to key decision-makers, who can differ greatly in relative expertise and function in the decision making process. Recipients may also differ in their perception of relative importance of political and economic influences on interpretation. Consequently, the interpretation of these probabilistic terms can vary greatly due to the framing of the statements, and whether verbal or numerical terms are used. We present a review from the psychology literature on how the framing of information influences communication of these probability terms. It is also unclear as to how people rate their perception of an event's likelihood throughout a time frame when a forecast time window is stated. Previous research has identified that, when presented with a 10-year time window forecast, participants viewed the likelihood of an event occurring ‘today’ as being of less than that in year 10. Here we show that this skew in perception also occurs for short-term time windows (under one week) that are of most relevance for emergency warnings. In addition, unlike the long-time window statements, the use of the phrasing “within the next…” instead of “in the next…” does not mitigate this skew, nor do we observe significant differences between the perceived likelihoods of scientists and non-scientists. This finding suggests that effects occurring due to the shorter time window may be ‘masking’ any differences in perception due to wording or career background observed for long-time window forecasts. These results have implications for scientific advice, warning forecasts, emergency management decision-making, and public information as any skew in perceived event likelihood towards the end of a forecast time window may result in

  11. Asia-Pacific Region Global Earthquake and Volcanic Eruption Risk Management (G-EVER) project and a next-generation real-time volcano hazard assessment system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Takarada, S.

    2012-12-01

    The first Workshop of Asia-Pacific Region Global Earthquake and Volcanic Eruption Risk Management (G-EVER1) was held in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan from February 23 to 24, 2012. The workshop focused on the formulation of strategies to reduce the risks of disasters worldwide caused by the occurrence of earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. More than 150 participants attended the workshop. During the workshop, the G-EVER1 accord was approved by the participants. The Accord consists of 10 recommendations like enhancing collaboration, sharing of resources, and making information about the risks of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions freely available and understandable. The G-EVER Hub website (http://g-ever.org) was established to promote the exchange of information and knowledge among the Asia-Pacific countries. Several G-EVER Working Groups and Task Forces were proposed. One of the working groups was tasked to make the next-generation real-time volcano hazard assessment system. The next-generation volcano hazard assessment system is useful for volcanic eruption prediction, risk assessment, and evacuation at various eruption stages. The assessment system is planned to be developed based on volcanic eruption scenario datasets, volcanic eruption database, and numerical simulations. Defining volcanic eruption scenarios based on precursor phenomena leading up to major eruptions of active volcanoes is quite important for the future prediction of volcanic eruptions. Compiling volcanic eruption scenarios after a major eruption is also important. A high quality volcanic eruption database, which contains compilations of eruption dates, volumes, and styles, is important for the next-generation volcano hazard assessment system. The volcanic eruption database is developed based on past eruption results, which only represent a subset of possible future scenarios. Hence, different distributions from the previous deposits are mainly observed due to the differences in

  12. Connected motorcycle crash warning interfaces.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2016-01-15

    Crash warning systems have been deployed in the high-end vehicle market segment for some time and are trickling down to additional motor vehicle industry segments each year. The motorcycle segment, however, has no deployed crash warning system to dat...

  13. Implementing the national AIGA flash flood warning system in France

    Science.gov (United States)

    Organde, Didier; Javelle, Pierre; Demargne, Julie; Arnaud, Patrick; Caseri, Angelica; Fine, Jean-Alain; de Saint Aubin, Céline

    2015-04-01

    The French national hydro-meteorological and flood forecasting centre (SCHAPI) aims to implement a national flash flood warning system to improve flood alerts for small-to-medium (up to 1000 km2) ungauged basins. This system is based on the AIGA method, co-developed by IRSTEA these last 10 years. The method, initially set up for the Mediterranean area, is based on a simple event-based hourly hydrologic distributed model run every 15 minutes (Javelle et al. 2014). The hydrologic model ingests operational radar-gauge rainfall grids from Météo-France at a 1-km² resolution to produce discharges for successive outlets along the river network. Discharges are then compared to regionalized flood quantiles of given return periods and warnings (expressed as the range of the return period estimated in real-time) are provided on a river network map. The main interest of the method is to provide forecasters and emergency services with a synthetic view in real time of the ongoing flood situation, information that is especially critical in ungauged flood prone areas. In its enhanced national version, the hourly event-based distributed model is coupled to a continuous daily rainfall-runoff model which provides baseflow and a soil moisture index (for each 1-km² pixel) at the beginning of the hourly simulation. The rainfall-runoff models were calibrated on a selection of 700 French hydrometric stations with Météo-France radar-gauge reanalysis dataset for the 2002-2006 period. To estimate model parameters for ungauged basins, the 2 hydrologic models were regionalised by testing both regressions (using different catchment attributes, such as catchment area, soil type, and climate characteristic) and spatial proximity techniques (transposing parameters from neighbouring donor catchments), as well as different homogeneous hydrological areas. The most valuable regionalisation method was determined for each model through jack-knife cross-validation. The system performance was then

  14. Investigating the Watukosek fault system using combined geophysical methods around Lusi eruption site

    Science.gov (United States)

    Husein, Alwi; Mazzini, Adriano; Lupi, Matteo; Mauri, Guillaume; Kemna, Andreas; Santosa, Bagus; Hadi, Soffian

    2017-04-01

    The Lusi mud eruption is located in the Sidoarjo area, Indonesia and is continuously erupting hot mud since its birth in May 2006. Lusi sits upon the Watukosek fault system that originates from the neighboring Arjuno-Welirang volcanic complex and develops in back-arc basin extending towards the NE of Java. After the 27-06-2006 M 6.3 earthquake this fault system was reactivated and hosted numerous hot mud eruptions in the Sidoarjo area. Until now, no targeted investigations have been conducted to understand the geometry of the faults system crossing the Lusi eruption site. A comprehensive combined electrical resistivity and self-potential (SP) survey was performed in the 7 km2 area inside the Lusi embankment that was built to contain the erupted mud and to prevent flooding of the surrounding roads and settlements. Additional profiles were also acquired outside the SW part of the embankment towards the Watukosek escarpment and on the west of Lusi. The goal of the geophysical survey is to map the near-surface occurrence of the Watukosek fault system, delineate its spatial pattern, and monitor its development. In total nine lines of resistivity measurements using Wenner and Wenner-Schlumberger configuration and SP measurements using roll-along technique were completed. The resistivity data were inverted into 2-D resistivity images with a maximum penetration depth of almost 200 m. The profiles collected in the region inside the Lusi embankment consistently reveal the presence of a region of 300 m in width (between 30-90 m depth) characterized by anomalous resistivities, which are lower than the values observed in the surrounding area. The profiles outside the embankment show consistent results. Here the contrast between anomalous low resistivity zones (perceived as the fault system) and the surrounding area with higher resistivity value is more pronounced. The profiles also shows that the distance between the main crater and the boundary of mud body observed on the

  15. An Early Warning System for Oil Security in China

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Qingsong Wang

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available The oil system security in a country or region will affect its sustainable development ability. China’s oil security has risen to the national strategic level. It is urgent to construct an early warning indicator system to reflect the oil security level accurately, as well as to diagnose and assess the oil system status effectively and put forward the corresponding proposals for ensuring oil security. An early warning indicator system of China’s oil system covering 23 sub-indicators from three aspects, i.e., resource security, market security and consumption security, was constructed using the SPSS (Statistical Product and Service Solutions factor analysis method. It shows that China’s oil system safety level has been seriously threatened and is generally declining. However, due to the strong introduction of energy policies and increasing energy utilization technology in recent years, the increasing proportion of new energy, renewable energy and oil substitutes eases the energy security threats. In response to complex oil security issues, the Chinese government needs to strengthen macroeconomic regulation and control at the policy level continuously, increase efforts to explore resource reserves, upgrade energy conservation and emission reduction technologies, develop new alternatives for oil products, and reduce the dependence on international oil imports.

  16. Global Drought Services: Collaborations Toward an Information System for Early Warning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hayes, M. J.; Pulwarty, R. S.; Svoboda, M.

    2014-12-01

    Drought is a hazard that lends itself well to diligent, sustained monitoring and early warning. However, unlike most hazards, the fact that droughts typically evolve slowly, can last for months or years and cover vast areas spanning multiple political boundaries/jurisdictions and economic sectors can make it a daunting task to monitor, develop plans for, and identify appropriate, proactive mitigation strategies. The National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) and National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) have been working together to reduce societal vulnerability to drought by helping decision makers at all levels to: 1) implement drought early warning/forecasting and decision support systems; 2) support and advocate for better collection of, and understanding of drought impacts; and 3) increase long-term resilience to drought through proactive planning. The NDMC and NIDIS risk management approach has been the basis from which many partners around the world are developing a collaboration and coordination nexus with an ultimate goal of building comprehensive global drought early warning information systems (GDEWIS). The core emphasis of this model is on developing and applying useful and usable information that can be integrated and transferred freely to other regions around the globe. The High-Level Ministerial Declaration on Drought, the Integrated Drought Management Programme (IDMP) co-led by the WMO and the Global Water Partnership (GWP), and the Global Framework for Climate Services are drawing extensively from the integrated NDMC-NIDIS risk management framework. This presentation will describe, in detail, the various drought resources, tools, services, and collaborations already being provided and undertaken at the national and regional scales by the NDMC, NIDIS, and their partners. The presentation will be forward-looking, identifying improvements in existing and proposed mechanisms to help strengthen national and international drought early

  17. The 2012-2014 eruptive cycle of Copahue Volcano, Southern Andes. Magmatic-Hydrothermal system interaction and manifestations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morales, Sergio; Alarcón, Alex; Basualto, Daniel; Bengoa, Cintia; Bertín, Daniel; Cardona, Carlos; Córdova, Maria; Franco, Luis; Gil, Fernando; Hernandez, Erasmo; Lara, Luis; Lazo, Jonathan; Mardones, Cristian; Medina, Roxana; Peña, Paola; Quijada, Jonathan; San Martín, Juan; Valderrama, Oscar

    2015-04-01

    Copahue Volcano (COPV), in Southern Andes of Chile, is an andesitic-basaltic stratovolcano, which is located on the western margin of Caviahue Caldera. The COPV have a NE-trending fissure with 9 aligned vents, being El Agrio the main currently active vent, with ca. 400 m in diameter. The COPV is placed into an extensive hydrothermal system which has modulated its recent 2012-2014 eruptive activity, with small phreatic to phreatomagmatic eruptions and isolated weak strombolian episodes and formation of crater lakes inside the main crater. Since 2012, the Southern Andes Volcano Observatory (OVDAS) carried out the real-time monitoring with seismic broadband stations, GPS, infrasound sensors and webcams. In this work, we report pre, sin, and post-eruptive seismic activity of the last two main eruptions (Dec, 2012 and Oct, 2014) both with different seismic precursors and superficial activity, showing the second one a particularly appearance of seismic quiescence episodes preceding explosive activity, as an indicator of interaction between magmatic-hydrothermal systems. The first episode, in late 2012, was characterized by a low frequency (0.3-0.4 Hz and 1.0-1.5 Hz) continuous tremor which increased gradually from background noise level amplitude to values of reduced displacement (DR), close to 50 cm2 at the peak of the eruption, reaching an eruptive column of ~1.5 km height. After few months of recording low energy seismicity, a sequence of low frequency, repetitive and low energy seismic events arose, with a frequency of occurrence up to 300 events/hour. Also, the VLP earthquakes were added to the record probably associated with magma intrusion into a deep magmatic chamber during all stages of eruptive process, joined to the record of VT seismicity during the same period, which is located throughout the Caviahue Caldera area. Both kind of seismic patterns were again recorded in October 2014, being the precursor of the new eruptive cycle at this time as well as the

  18. Tsunami early warning and decision support

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    T. Steinmetz

    2010-09-01

    Full Text Available An innovative newly developed modular and standards based Decision Support System (DSS is presented which forms part of the German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS. The GITEWS project stems from the effort to implement an effective and efficient Tsunami Early Warning and Mitigation System for the coast of Indonesia facing the Sunda Arc along the islands of Sumatra, Java and Bali. The geological setting along an active continental margin which is very close to densely populated areas is a particularly difficult one to cope with, because potential tsunamis' travel times are thus inherently short. National policies require an initial warning to be issued within the first five minutes after an earthquake has occurred. There is an urgent requirement for an end-to-end solution where the decision support takes the entire warning chain into account. The system of choice is based on pre-computed scenario simulations and rule-based decision support which is delivered to the decision maker through a sophisticated graphical user interface (GUI using information fusion and fast information aggregation to create situational awareness in the shortest time possible. The system also contains risk and vulnerability information which was designed with the far end of the warning chain in mind – it enables the decision maker to base his acceptance (or refusal of the supported decision also on regionally differentiated risk and vulnerability information (see Strunz et al., 2010. While the system strives to provide a warning as quickly as possible, it is not in its proper responsibility to send and disseminate the warning to the recipients. The DSS only broadcasts its messages to a dissemination system (and possibly any other dissemination system which is operated under the responsibility of BMKG – the meteorological, climatological and geophysical service of Indonesia – which also hosts the tsunami early warning center. The system is to be seen

  19. Volcanic Eruptions and Climate

    Science.gov (United States)

    LeGrande, Allegra N.; Anchukaitis, Kevin J.

    2015-01-01

    Volcanic eruptions represent some of the most climatically important and societally disruptive short-term events in human history. Large eruptions inject ash, dust, sulfurous gases (e.g. SO2, H2S), halogens (e.g. Hcl and Hbr), and water vapor into the Earth's atmosphere. Sulfurous emissions principally interact with the climate by converting into sulfate aerosols that reduce incoming solar radiation, warming the stratosphere and altering ozone creation, reducing global mean surface temperature, and suppressing the hydrological cycle. In this issue, we focus on the history, processes, and consequences of these large eruptions that inject enough material into the stratosphere to significantly affect the climate system. In terms of the changes wrought on the energy balance of the Earth System, these transient events can temporarily have a radiative forcing magnitude larger than the range of solar, greenhouse gas, and land use variability over the last millennium. In simulations as well as modern and paleoclimate observations, volcanic eruptions cause large inter-annual to decadal-scale changes in climate. Active debates persist concerning their role in longer-term (multi-decadal to centennial) modification of the Earth System, however.

  20. An electrophysiological study of the impact of a Forward Collision Warning System in a simulator driving task.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bueno, Mercedes; Fabrigoule, Colette; Deleurence, Philippe; Ndiaye, Daniel; Fort, Alexandra

    2012-08-27

    Driver distraction has been identified as the most important contributing factor in rear-end collisions. In this context, Forward Collision Warning Systems (FCWS) have been developed specifically to warn drivers of potential rear-end collisions. The main objective of this work is to evaluate the impact of a surrogate FCWS and of its reliability according to the driver's attentional state by recording both behavioral and electrophysiological data. Participants drove following a lead motorcycle in a simplified simulator with or without a warning system which gave forewarning of the preceding vehicle braking. Participants had to perform this driving task either alone (simple task) or simultaneously with a secondary cognitive task (dual task). Behavioral and electrophysiological data contributed to revealing a positive effect of the warning system. Participants were faster in detecting the brake light when the system was perfect or imperfect, and the time and attentional resources allocation required for processing the target at higher cognitive level were reduced when the system was completely reliable. When both tasks were performed simultaneously, warning effectiveness was considerably affected at both performance and neural levels; however, the analysis of the brain activity revealed fewer differences between distracted and undistracted drivers when using the warning system. These results show that electrophysiological data could be a valuable tool to complement behavioral data and to have a better understanding of how these systems impact the driver. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  1. Landslide early warning system prototype with GIS analysis indicates by soil movement and rainfall

    Science.gov (United States)

    Artha, Y.; Julian, E. S.

    2018-01-01

    The aim of this paper is developing and testing of landslide early warning system. The early warning system uses accelerometersas ground movement and tilt-sensing device and a water flow sensor. A microcentroller is used to process the input signal and activate the alarm. An LCD is used to display the acceleration in x,y and z axis. When the soil moved or shifted and rainfall reached 100 mm/day, the alarm rang and signal were sentto the monitoring center via a telemetry system.Data logging information and GIS spatial data can be monitored remotely as tables and graphics as well as in the form of geographical map with the help of web-GIS interface. The system were tested at Kampung Gerendong, Desa Putat Nutug, Kecamatan Ciseeng, Kabupaten Bogor. This area has 3.15 cumulative score, which mean vulnerable to landslide. The results show that the early warning system worked as planned.

  2. Building regional early flood warning systems by AI techniques

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, F. J.; Chang, L. C.; Amin, M. Z. B. M.

    2017-12-01

    Building early flood warning system is essential for the protection of the residents against flood hazards and make actions to mitigate the losses. This study implements AI technology for forecasting multi-step-ahead regional flood inundation maps during storm events. The methodology includes three major schemes: (1) configuring the self-organizing map (SOM) to categorize a large number of regional inundation maps into a meaningful topology; (2) building dynamic neural networks to forecast multi-step-ahead average inundated depths (AID); and (3) adjusting the weights of the selected neuron in the constructed SOM based on the forecasted AID to obtain real-time regional inundation maps. The proposed models are trained, and tested based on a large number of inundation data sets collected in regions with the most frequent and serious flooding in the river basin. The results appear that the SOM topological relationships between individual neurons and their neighbouring neurons are visible and clearly distinguishable, and the hybrid model can continuously provide multistep-ahead visible regional inundation maps with high resolution during storm events, which have relatively small RMSE values and high R2 as compared with numerical simulation data sets. The computing time is only few seconds, and thereby leads to real-time regional flood inundation forecasting and make early flood inundation warning system. We demonstrate that the proposed hybrid ANN-based model has a robust and reliable predictive ability and can be used for early warning to mitigate flood disasters.

  3. Debris flow early warning systems in Norway: organization and tools

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kleivane, I.; Colleuille, H.; Haugen, L. E.; Alve Glad, P.; Devoli, G.

    2012-04-01

    In Norway, shallow slides and debris flows occur as a combination of high-intensity precipitation, snowmelt, high groundwater level and saturated soil. Many events have occurred in the last decades and are often associated with (or related to) floods events, especially in the Southern of Norway, causing significant damages to roads, railway lines, buildings, and other infrastructures (i.e November 2000; August 2003; September 2005; November 2005; Mai 2008; June and Desember 2011). Since 1989 the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) has had an operational 24 hour flood forecasting system for the entire country. From 2009 NVE is also responsible to assist regions and municipalities in the prevention of disasters posed by landslides and snow avalanches. Besides assisting the municipalities through implementation of digital landslides inventories, susceptibility and hazard mapping, areal planning, preparation of guidelines, realization of mitigation measures and helping during emergencies, NVE is developing a regional scale debris flow warning system that use hydrological models that are already available in the flood warning systems. It is well known that the application of rainfall thresholds is not sufficient to evaluate the hazard for debris flows and shallow slides, and soil moisture conditions play a crucial role in the triggering conditions. The information on simulated soil and groundwater conditions and water supply (rain and snowmelt) based on weather forecast, have proved to be useful variables that indicate the potential occurrence of debris flows and shallow slides. Forecasts of runoff and freezing-thawing are also valuable information. The early warning system is using real-time measurements (Discharge; Groundwater level; Soil water content and soil temperature; Snow water equivalent; Meteorological data) and model simulations (a spatially distributed version of the HBV-model and an adapted version of 1-D soil water and energy balance

  4. Web-based Tsunami Early Warning System with instant Tsunami Propagation Calculations in the GPU Cloud

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hammitzsch, M.; Spazier, J.; Reißland, S.

    2014-12-01

    Usually, tsunami early warning and mitigation systems (TWS or TEWS) are based on several software components deployed in a client-server based infrastructure. The vast majority of systems importantly include desktop-based clients with a graphical user interface (GUI) for the operators in early warning centers. However, in times of cloud computing and ubiquitous computing the use of concepts and paradigms, introduced by continuously evolving approaches in information and communications technology (ICT), have to be considered even for early warning systems (EWS). Based on the experiences and the knowledge gained in three research projects - 'German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System' (GITEWS), 'Distant Early Warning System' (DEWS), and 'Collaborative, Complex, and Critical Decision-Support in Evolving Crises' (TRIDEC) - new technologies are exploited to implement a cloud-based and web-based prototype to open up new prospects for EWS. This prototype, named 'TRIDEC Cloud', merges several complementary external and in-house cloud-based services into one platform for automated background computation with graphics processing units (GPU), for web-mapping of hazard specific geospatial data, and for serving relevant functionality to handle, share, and communicate threat specific information in a collaborative and distributed environment. The prototype in its current version addresses tsunami early warning and mitigation. The integration of GPU accelerated tsunami simulation computations have been an integral part of this prototype to foster early warning with on-demand tsunami predictions based on actual source parameters. However, the platform is meant for researchers around the world to make use of the cloud-based GPU computation to analyze other types of geohazards and natural hazards and react upon the computed situation picture with a web-based GUI in a web browser at remote sites. The current website is an early alpha version for demonstration purposes to give the

  5. Development of Early Warning Methods for Electric Power Systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jóhannsson, Hjörtur

    This thesis concerns the development of methods that can provide, in realtime, an early warning for an emerging blackout in electric power systems. The blackout in E-Denmark and S-Sweden on September 23, 2003 is the main motivation for the method development. The blackout was caused by occurrence...

  6. Near Real Time Flood Warning System for National Capital Territory of Delhi

    Science.gov (United States)

    Goyal, A.; Yadav, H.; Tyagi, H.; Gosain, A. K.

    2017-12-01

    Extreme floods are common phenomena during Indian Monsoons. The National Capital Territory area of India, Delhi, frequently experiences fluvial as well as pluvial inundation due to its proximity to river Yamuna and poor functioning of its stormwater drainage system. The urban floods result in severe waterlogging and heavy traffic snarls, bringing life in this megapolis to a halt. The city has witnessed six major floods since 1900 and thus its residents are well conscious of potential flood risks but the city still lacks a flood warning system. The flood related risks can be considerably reduced, if not eliminated, by issuing timely warnings and implementing adaptive measures. Therefore, the present study attempts to develop a web based platform that integrates Web-GIS technology and mathematical simulation modelling to provide an effective and reliable early flood warning service for Delhi. The study makes use of India Metorological Department's Doppler radar-derived near real time rainfall estimates of 15 minutes time step. The developed SWMM model has been validated using information from gauges, monitoring sensors and crowd sourcing techniques and utilises capabilities of cloud computing on server side for fast processing. This study also recommends safe evacuation policy and remedial measures for flooding hotspots as part of flood risk management plan. With heightened risk of floods in fast urbanizing areas, this work becomes highly pertinent as flood warning system with adequate lead time can not only save precious lives but can also substantially reduce flood damages.

  7. Understanding the eruption mechanisms of the explosive Bellecombe Eruptions on Piton de la Fournaise, La Réunion

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morgan, K.; Ort, M. H.; Di Muro, A.; Parnell, R. A.; Huff, W. D.

    2017-12-01

    Piton de la Fournaise (PdF) is an active basaltic volcano on La Réunion island. The Bellecombe Tephra was deposited from at least three unusually explosive eruptions between 3000-5000 ka. The Bellecombe eruptions were interpreted recently to have been due to rapid depressurization of the hydrothermal system when a deep fracture opened after lateral, seaward-directed sliding of the eastern flank, late in a large effusive eruption. This project tests this hypothesis by physically, mineralogically, and chemically characterizing the Bellecombe Tephra to look for evidence of the involvement of the PdF hydrothermal system in the eruptions and understand where the eruptions initiated. The Bellecombe tephra consists of three units separated by incipient soils. Both the Upper and Lower Bellecombe deposits are mostly medium to very fine ash. Lower Bellecombe deposits, from the first two eruptions, are mostly beds of glassy ash containing minor lithic grains and olivine crystals. Hydrothermal minerals, mostly smectite, are present in a few Lower Bellecombe beds. Since these minerals are only present in some beds, the smectite formed before deposition rather than as a product of surficial alteration. The Upper Bellecombe deposits record a third eruption and vary between clast-supported crystal- and lithic-rich lapilli beds and ash beds with abundant ash pellets. The crystals are mostly olivine, with lesser pyroxene and plagioclase and sparse hydrothermal quartz. Gabbro and oceanite clasts are abundant and trachytic pumice rare in these deposits. Hydrothermal minerals are common in most Upper Bellecombe beds. The presence of smectite in some of the Lower Bellecombe beds suggests these deposits came from a system below 200 ºC. Clays in the Upper Bellecombe beds - smectite and mixed layer R0 illite/smectite - imply a system at 40-140 ºC. The hydrothermal system was involved, but might not have been the primary impetus for these eruptions, since hydrothermal minerals are not

  8. Eruption cycles in a basaltic andesite system: insights from numerical modeling

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smekens, J. F.; Clarke, A. B.; De'Michieli Vitturi, M.

    2015-12-01

    Persistently active explosive volcanoes are characterized by short explosive bursts, which often occur at periodic intervals numerous times per day, spanning years to decades. Many of these systems present relatively evolved compositions (andesite to rhyolite), and their cyclic activity has been the subject of extensive work (e.g., Soufriere Hills Volcano, Montserrat). However, the same periodic behavior can also be observed at open systems of more mafic compositions, such as Semeru in Indonesia or Karymsky in Kamchatka for example. In this work, we use DOMEFLOW, a 1D transient numerical model of magma ascent, to identify the conditions that lead to and control periodic eruptions in basaltic andesite systems, where the viscosity of the liquid phase can be drastically lower. Periodic behavior occurs for a very narrow range of conditions, for which the mass balance between magma flux and open-system gas escape repeatedly generates a viscous plug, pressurizes the magma beneath the plug, and then explosively disrupts it. The characteristic timescale and magnitude of the eruptive cycles are controlled by the overall viscosity of the magmatic mixture, with higher viscosities leading to longer cycles and lower flow rates at the top of the conduit. Cyclic eruptions in basaltic andesite systems are observed for higher crystal contents, smaller conduit radii, and over a wider range of chamber pressures than the andesitic system, all of which are the direct consequence of a decrease in viscosity of the melt phase, and in turn in the intensity of the viscous forces generated by the system. Results suggest that periodicity can exist in more mafic systems with relatively lower chamber pressures than andesite and rhyolite systems, and may explain why more mafic magmas sometimes remain active for decades.

  9. Utility of temporary aftershock warning system in the immediate aftermath of large damaging earthquakes

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Harben, P.E.; Jarpe, S.P.; Hunter, S.; Johnston, C.A.

    1993-01-01

    An aftershock warning system (AWS) is a real-time warning system that is deployed immediately after a large damaging earthquake in the epicentral region of the main shock. The primary purpose of such a system is to warn rescue teams and workers within damaged structures of imminent destructive shaking. The authors have examined the utility of such a system (1) by evaluating historical data, and (2) by developing and testing a prototype system during the 1992 Landers, California, aftershock sequence. Analyzing historical data is important in determining when and where damaging aftershocks are likely to occur and the probable usefulness of an AWS in a particular region. As part of this study, they analyzed the spatial and temporal distribution of large (magnitude >5.0) aftershocks from earthquakes with magnitudes >6.0 that took place between 1942 and 1991 in California and Nevada. They found that one-quarter of these large aftershocks occurred from 2 days-2 months after the main event, nearly one-half occurred within the first two days of the main event, and greater than one-half occurred within 20 km of the main shock's epicenter. They also reviewed a case study of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, which showed that an AWS could have given Mexico City a warning of ∼60 sec before the magnitude 7.6 aftershock that occurred 36 hr. after the main event. They deployed a four-station prototype AWS near Landers after a magnitude 7.4 earthquake occurred on June 28, 1992. The aftershock data, collected from July 3-10, showed that the aftershocks in the vicinity of the four stations varied in magnitude from 3.0-4.4. Using a two-station detection criterion to minimize false alarms, this AWS reliably discriminated between smaller and larger aftershocks within 3 sec of the origin time of the events. This prototype could have provided 6 sec of warning to Palm Springs and 20 sec of warning to San Bernardino of aftershocks occurring in the main-shock epicentral region

  10. Operation of a real-time warning system for debris flows in the San Francisco bay area, California

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wilson, Raymond C.; Mark, Robert K.; Barbato, Gary; ,

    1993-01-01

    The United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Weather Service (NWS) have developed an operational warning system for debris flows during severe rainstorms in the San Francisco Bay region. The NWS makes quantitative forecasts of precipitation from storm systems approaching the Bay area and coordinates a regional network of radio-telemetered rain gages. The USGS has formulated thresholds for the intensity and duration of rainfall required to initiate debris flows. The first successful public warnings were issued during a severe storm sequence in February 1986. Continued operation of the warning system since 1986 has provided valuable working experience in rainfall forecasting and monitoring, refined rainfall thresholds, and streamlined procedures for issuing public warnings. Advisory statements issued since 1986 are summarized.

  11. Reduced cooling following future volcanic eruptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hopcroft, Peter O.; Kandlbauer, Jessy; Valdes, Paul J.; Sparks, R. Stephen J.

    2017-11-01

    Volcanic eruptions are an important influence on decadal to centennial climate variability. Large eruptions lead to the formation of a stratospheric sulphate aerosol layer which can cause short-term global cooling. This response is modulated by feedback processes in the earth system, but the influence from future warming has not been assessed before. Using earth system model simulations we find that the eruption-induced cooling is significantly weaker in the future state. This is predominantly due to an increase in planetary albedo caused by increased tropospheric aerosol loading with a contribution from associated changes in cloud properties. The increased albedo of the troposphere reduces the effective volcanic aerosol radiative forcing. Reduced sea-ice coverage and hence feedbacks also contribute over high-latitudes, and an enhanced winter warming signal emerges in the future eruption ensemble. These findings show that the eruption response is a complex function of the environmental conditions, which has implications for the role of eruptions in climate variability in the future and potentially in the past.

  12. Big data managing in a landslide early warning system: experience from a ground-based interferometric radar application

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    E. Intrieri

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available A big challenge in terms or landslide risk mitigation is represented by increasing the resiliency of society exposed to the risk. Among the possible strategies with which to reach this goal, there is the implementation of early warning systems. This paper describes a procedure to improve early warning activities in areas affected by high landslide risk, such as those classified as critical infrastructures for their central role in society. This research is part of the project LEWIS (Landslides Early Warning Integrated System: An Integrated System for Landslide Monitoring, Early Warning and Risk Mitigation along Lifelines. LEWIS is composed of a susceptibility assessment methodology providing information for single points and areal monitoring systems, a data transmission network and a data collecting and processing center (DCPC, where readings from all monitoring systems and mathematical models converge and which sets the basis for warning and intervention activities. The aim of this paper is to show how logistic issues linked to advanced monitoring techniques, such as big data transfer and storing, can be dealt with compatibly with an early warning system. Therefore, we focus on the interaction between an areal monitoring tool (a ground-based interferometric radar and the DCPC. By converting complex data into ASCII strings and through appropriate data cropping and average, and by implementing an algorithm for line-of-sight correction, we managed to reduce the data daily output without compromising the capability for performing.

  13. Big data managing in a landslide early warning system: experience from a ground-based interferometric radar application

    Science.gov (United States)

    Intrieri, Emanuele; Bardi, Federica; Fanti, Riccardo; Gigli, Giovanni; Fidolini, Francesco; Casagli, Nicola; Costanzo, Sandra; Raffo, Antonio; Di Massa, Giuseppe; Capparelli, Giovanna; Versace, Pasquale

    2017-10-01

    A big challenge in terms or landslide risk mitigation is represented by increasing the resiliency of society exposed to the risk. Among the possible strategies with which to reach this goal, there is the implementation of early warning systems. This paper describes a procedure to improve early warning activities in areas affected by high landslide risk, such as those classified as critical infrastructures for their central role in society. This research is part of the project LEWIS (Landslides Early Warning Integrated System): An Integrated System for Landslide Monitoring, Early Warning and Risk Mitigation along Lifelines. LEWIS is composed of a susceptibility assessment methodology providing information for single points and areal monitoring systems, a data transmission network and a data collecting and processing center (DCPC), where readings from all monitoring systems and mathematical models converge and which sets the basis for warning and intervention activities. The aim of this paper is to show how logistic issues linked to advanced monitoring techniques, such as big data transfer and storing, can be dealt with compatibly with an early warning system. Therefore, we focus on the interaction between an areal monitoring tool (a ground-based interferometric radar) and the DCPC. By converting complex data into ASCII strings and through appropriate data cropping and average, and by implementing an algorithm for line-of-sight correction, we managed to reduce the data daily output without compromising the capability for performing.

  14. Holocene eruption history in Iceland - Eruption frequency vs. Tephra layer frequency

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oladottir, B. A.; Larsen, G.

    2012-12-01

    Volcanic deposits of all kinds are used to reconstruct eruption history of volcanoes and volcanic zones. In Iceland tephra is the ideal volcanic deposit to study eruption history as two out of every three eruptions taking place there during the last 11 centuries have been explosive, leaving tephra as their only product. If eruptions producing both lava and tephra are included three out of every four eruptions have produced tephra. Tephra dispersal and deposition depends on factors such as eruption magnitude, eruption cloud height, duration of eruption and prevailing wind directions at the time of eruption. Several outcrops around a particular volcano must therefore be measured to obtain optimal information of its eruption history. Vegetation in the area of deposition is also of great importance for its preservation. Tephra deposited on un-vegetated land is rapidly eroded by wind and water, and deposits up to few tens of cm thickness may be lost from the record. Such tephra deposited on grassy or forested land is at least partly sheltered from the wind after deposition. Soon after tephra deposition (how soon depends on tephra thickness) the root system of the vegetation creates an even better shelter for the tephra and when this stage is reached the tephra is preserved in the soil for millennia, given that no soil erosion takes place. Vegetation is often boosted in the first years after tephra deposition which in turn helps tephra preservation. A setback of using soil sections for reconstructing Holocene eruption history is the lack of soil at the beginning of the era but for that time period tephra records in lake and marine sediments can be used. When tephra stratigraphy in soil sections is measured to study eruption history and eruption frequency of a volcano it must be kept in mind that what is seen is in fact the tephra layer frequency. One section only shows tephra layers deposited in that location and more importantly only the layers preserved there. The

  15. Silent Warning: Understanding the National Terrorism Advisory System

    Science.gov (United States)

    2014-12-01

    NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA THESIS Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited SILENT WARNING...PERFORMING OR GANIZATION NA:i\\ti E (S) AND ADDRESS(ES) Naval Postgraduate School Monterey, CA 93943-5000 9. SP ONSORING /MONIT ORING AGENCY NAME(S) AND...Homeland Sectu’ity Advisory System, Boston Marathon bombing, Christmas Day bomber, tmderwear bomber, hum cane , cotmteiteiTO!’ism, CT AB

  16. Emergency Communications: The Emergency Alert System (EAS) and All-Hazard Warnings

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Moore, Linda K; Reese, Shawn

    2005-01-01

    ... tested. Much has been accomplished in recent years but the current hodgepodge of warning and alert systems is inadequate for fully alerting the public about terrorist attacks or natural disasters...

  17. Setting up a French national flash flood warning system for ungauged catchments based on the AIGA method

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Javelle Pierre

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Occurring at small temporal and spatial scales, flash floods (FF can cause severe economic damages and human losses. To better anticipate such events and mitigate their impacts, the French Ministry in charge of Ecology has decided to set up a national FF warning system over the French territory. This automated system will be run by the SCHAPI, the French national service in charge of flood forecasting, providing warnings for fast-responding ungauged catchments (area ranging from ~10 to ~1000 km2. It will therefore be complementary to the SCHAPI’s national “vigilance” system which concerns only gauged catchments. The FF warning system to be implemented in 2017 will be based on a discharge-threshold flood warning method called AIGA (Javelle et al. 2014. This method has been experimented in real time in the south of France in the RHYTMME project (http://rhytmme.irstea.fr. It consists in comparing discharges generated by a simple conceptual hourly hydrologic model run at a 1-km2 resolution to reference flood quantiles of different (e.g., 2-, 10- and 50-year return periods. Therefore the system characterizes in real time the severity of ongoing events by the range of the return period estimated by AIGA at any point along the river network. The hydrologic model ingests operational rainfall radar-gauge products from Météo-France and takes into account the baseflow and the initial soil humidity conditions to better estimate the basin response to rainfall inputs. To meet the requirements of the future FF warning system, the AIGA method has been extended to the whole French territory (except Corsica and overseas French territories. The calibration, regionalization and validation procedures of the hydrologic model were carried out using data for ~700 hydrometric stations from the 2002-2015 period. Performance of the warning system was evaluated with various contingency criteria (e.g., probability of detection and success rate. Furthermore, specific

  18. Mass transfer processes in a post eruption hydrothermal system: Parameterisation of microgravity changes at Te Maari craters, New Zealand

    Science.gov (United States)

    Miller, Craig A.; Currenti, Gilda; Hamling, Ian; Williams-Jones, Glyn

    2018-05-01

    Fluid transfer and ground deformation at hydrothermal systems occur both as a precursor to, or as a result of, an eruption. Typically studies focus on pre-eruption changes to understand the likelihood of unrest leading to eruption; however, monitoring post-eruption changes is important for tracking the return of the system towards background activity. Here we describe processes occurring in a hydrothermal system following the 2012 eruption of Upper Te Maari crater on Mt Tongariro, New Zealand, from observations of microgravity change and deformation. Our aim is to assess the post-eruption recovery of the system, to provide a baseline for long-term monitoring. Residual microgravity anomalies of up to 92 ± 11 μGal per year are accompanied by up to 0.037 ± 0.01 m subsidence. We model microgravity changes using analytic solutions to determine the most likely geometry and source location. A multiobjective inversion tests whether the gravity change models are consistent with the observed deformation. We conclude that the source of subsidence is separate from the location of mass addition. From this unusual combination of observations, we develop a conceptual model of fluid transfer within a condensate layer, occurring in response to eruption-driven pressure changes. We find that depressurisation drives the evacuation of pore fluid, either exiting the system completely as vapour through newly created vents and fumaroles, or migrating to shallower levels where it accumulates in empty pore space, resulting in positive gravity changes. Evacuated pores then collapse, causing subsidence. In addition we find that significant mass addition occurs from influx of meteoric fluids through the fractured hydrothermal seal. Long-term combined microgravity and deformation monitoring will allow us to track the resealing and re-pressurisation of the hydrothermal system and assess what hazard it presents to thousands of hikers who annually traverse the volcano, within 2 km of the

  19. A WebGIS-Based Information System for Monitoring and Warning of Geological Disasters for Lanzhou City, China

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fang Miao

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Monitoring and warning of geological disasters accurately and in a timely fashion would dramatically mitigate casualties and economic losses. This paper takes Lanzhou city as an example and designs a Web-based system, namely the information system for geological disaster monitoring and warning (ISGDMW. Presented are its framework, key developing technologies, database, and working flow. The information system adopts a Browser/Server (B/S structure and has three-tier architecture, combining in-situ monitoring instruments, the wireless sensor network, WebGIS techniques and the grey system theory. The framework of the ISGDMW can be divided into three categories: (1 in-situ monitoring system, it aims to monitor geological disaster sites and get state information of geological disaster sites; (2 database, manage in-situ monitoring data, antecedent field investigating data and basic data; (3 analyzing and warning system, analyze in-situ monitoring data, understand the deformation trend of the potential geological disaster, and release disaster warning information to the public. The ISGDMW allow the processes of geological disaster monitoring, in-situ monitoring data analysis, geological disaster warning to be implemented in an efficient and quick way, and can provide scientific suggestions to commanders for quick response to the possibility of geological disaster.

  20. Improvements of existing early warning system in Croatia

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tomisa, T.

    2000-01-01

    The gamma radiation early warning system in Croatia was established in 1993. The first configuration contained 3 measuring stations connected to the monitoring center and up today the system is expanded with 5 additional locations. Each location is equipped with the MFM202 gamma-monitor and additional equipment that is not unique for all locations. This difference in remote equipment configuration caused by different communication medium used, is the reason to improve existing system trough equipment unification introducing PLC unit in the standard configuration. Such configuration enables additional functions such as automatic alerting and collecting meteorological data. (author)

  1. Flood early warning system in I.R. of Iran

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Samadi, Slina; Jamali, Javad B.; Javanmard, Soheila

    2004-01-01

    At the close of the twentieth century, natural hazards and disasters are one of the most common forms of disasters around the world. Natural disasters cause in significant loss of life and serious economic, environmental and social impacts that greatly retard the development process. Careful hazard assessment and planning, and a range of social, economic and political measures, can significantly contain these threats. Risk is defined as the potential for loss or damage as the result of a particular action or decision and Risk Management is a process consisting of well-defined steps which, when taken in sequence, support better decision making by contributing to a greater insight into risks and their impacts. Most commonly, there are three components in a natural disaster plan: monitoring and early warning; risk assessment; and mitigation and response. Given the improved tools and technologies available today, it is possible to provide disaster information and minimize the potential damage of disasters. In the following parts of the report, the national early warning systems for flood would be discussed, as one of the important component of natural disaster risk management. In 1. R. of Iran, also, different types of natural disasters occur, such as drought, flood, earthquake, sea-level rise, dust storm, hail, freezing and etc, but Flood hazard and disaster is one of the most frequent and damaging types of natural disasters. They have been the most common type of geophysical disaster in the latter half of the twentieth century in Iran, generating an estimated more than 20 percent of all disasters from 1950 to 2003. One of the hazardous floods of Iran occurred in Golestan and north of Khorasan provinces, located in north-east of the country, on August 2001 and 2002. In this regard, according to the responsibility of I. R. of Iran Meteorological Organization (IRIMO) on the flood forecasting, the early warning issue of the mentioned flood, issued within 48 hour's in

  2. Open Source Seismic Software in NOAA's Next Generation Tsunami Warning System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hellman, S. B.; Baker, B. I.; Hagerty, M. T.; Leifer, J. M.; Lisowski, S.; Thies, D. A.; Donnelly, B. K.; Griffith, F. P.

    2014-12-01

    The Tsunami Information technology Modernization (TIM) is a project spearheaded by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to update the United States' Tsunami Warning System software currently employed at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (Eva Beach, Hawaii) and the National Tsunami Warning Center (Palmer, Alaska). This entirely open source software project will integrate various seismic processing utilities with the National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office's core software, AWIPS2. For the real-time and near real-time seismic processing aspect of this project, NOAA has elected to integrate the open source portions of GFZ's SeisComP 3 (SC3) processing system into AWIPS2. To provide for better tsunami threat assessments we are developing open source tools for magnitude estimations (e.g., moment magnitude, energy magnitude, surface wave magnitude), detection of slow earthquakes with the Theta discriminant, moment tensor inversions (e.g. W-phase and teleseismic body waves), finite fault inversions, and array processing. With our reliance on common data formats such as QuakeML and seismic community standard messaging systems, all new facilities introduced into AWIPS2 and SC3 will be available as stand-alone tools or could be easily integrated into other real time seismic monitoring systems such as Earthworm, Antelope, etc. Additionally, we have developed a template based design paradigm so that the developer or scientist can efficiently create upgrades, replacements, and/or new metrics to the seismic data processing with only a cursory knowledge of the underlying SC3.

  3. Drunk driving warning system (DDWS). Volume 2, Field test evaluation

    Science.gov (United States)

    1983-12-01

    The Drunk Driving Warning System (DDWS) is a vehicle-mounted device for testing driver impairment and activating alarms. The driver must pass a steering competency test (the Critical Tracking Task or CTT) in order to drive the car in a normal manner....

  4. Strategic framework for socioeconomic viability of community-based early warning system

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Homberg, M.J.C. van den; Posthumus, A.L.

    2014-01-01

    Christian Aid, Cordaid, PVGS and Practical Action established a community-based early warning system for cross-border floods between India and Nepal in 45 Indian villages. The project will scale to 95 villages early 2016. The number of stakeholders and organizational levels of this system with four

  5. Collision warning system based on probability density functions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Broek, T.H.A. van den; Ploeg, J.

    2010-01-01

    In this paper, a collision warning method between the host vehicle and target object(s) is studied. A probabilistic collision warning method is proposed, which is, in particular, useful for objects, e.g. vulnerable road users, which trajectories can rapidly change heading and/or velocity with

  6. The Effect of Sonic Booms on Earthquake Warning Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wurman, Gilead; Haering, Edward A, Jr.; Price, Michael J.

    2011-01-01

    Several aerospace companies are designing quiet supersonic business jets for service over the United States. These aircraft have the potential to increase the occurrence of mild sonic booms across the country. This leads to interest among earthquake warning (EQW) developers and the general seismological community in characterizing the effect of sonic booms on seismic sensors in the field, their potential impact on EQW systems, and means of discriminating their signatures from those of earthquakes. The SonicBREWS project (Sonic Boom Resistant Earthquake Warning Systems) is a collaborative effort between Seismic Warning Systems, Inc. (SWS) and NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. This project aims to evaluate the effects of sonic booms on EQW sensors. The study consists of exposing high-sample-rate (1000 sps) triaxial accelerometers to sonic booms with overpressures ranging from 10 to 600 Pa in the free field and the built environment. The accelerometers record the coupling of the sonic boom to the ground and surrounding structures, while microphones record the acoustic wave above ground near the sensor. Sonic booms are broadband signals with more high-frequency content than earthquakes. Even a 1000 sps accelerometer will produce a significantly aliased record. Thus the observed peak ground velocity is strongly dependent on the sampling rate, and increases as the sampling rate is reduced. At 1000 sps we observe ground velocities that exceed those of P-waves from ML 3 earthquakes at local distances, suggesting that sonic booms are not negligible for EQW applications. We present the results of several experiments conducted under SonicBREWS showing the effects of typical-case low amplitude sonic booms and worst-case high amplitude booms. We show the effects of various sensor placements and sensor array geometries. Finally, we suggest possible avenues for discriminating sonic booms from earthquakes for the purposes of EQW.

  7. [Evaluation and analysis of monitoring and early warning functions of the occupational disease reporting system in China].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhu, Xiaojun; Li, Tao; Liu, Mengxuan

    2015-06-01

    To evaluate the monitoring and early warning functions of the occupational disease reporting system right now in China, and to analyze their influencing factors. An improved audit tool (ODIT) was used to score the monitoring and early warning functions with a total score of 10. The nine indices were completeness of information on the reporting form, coverage of the reporting system, accessibility of criteria or guidelines for diagnosis, education and training for physicians, completeness of the reporting system, statistical methods, investigation of special cases, release of monitoring information, and release of early warning information. According to the evaluation, the occupational disease reporting system in China had a score of 5.5 in monitoring existing occupational diseases with a low score for release of monitoring information; the reporting system had a score of 6.5 in early warning of newly occurring occupational diseases with low scores for education and training for physicians as well as completeness of the reporting system. The occupational disease reporting system in China still does not have full function in monitoring and early warning. It is the education and participation of physicians from general hospitals in the diagnosis and treatment of occupational diseases and suspected occupational diseases that need to be enhanced. In addition, the problem of monitoring the incidence of occupational diseases needs to be solved as soon as possible.

  8. Comparison of Expected Crash and Injury Reduction from Production Forward Collision and Lane Departure Warning Systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kusano, Kristofer D; Gabler, Hampton C

    2015-01-01

    The U.S. New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) now tests for forward collision warning (FCW) and lane departure warning (LDW). The design of these warnings differs greatly between vehicles and can result in different real-world field performance in preventing or mitigating the effects of collisions. The objective of this study was to compare the expected number of crashes and injured drivers that could be prevented if all vehicles in the fleet were equipped with the FCW and LDW systems tested under the U.S. NCAP. To predict the potential crashes and serious injury that could be prevented, our approach was to computationally model the U.S. crash population. The models simulated all rear-end and single-vehicle road departure collisions that occurred in a nationally representative crash database (NASS-CDS). A sample of 478 single-vehicle crashes from NASS-CDS 2012 was the basis for 24,822 simulations for LDW. A sample of 1,042 rear-end collisions from NASS-CDS years 1997-2013 was the basis for 7,616 simulations for FCW. For each crash, 2 simulations were performed: (1) without the system present and (2) with the system present. Models of each production safety system were based on 54 model year 2010-2014 vehicles that were evaluated under the NCAP confirmation procedure for LDW and/or FCW. NCAP performed 40 LDW and 45 FCW tests of these vehicles. The design of the FCW systems had a dramatic impact on their potential to prevent crashes and injuries. Between 0 and 67% of crashes and 2 and 69% of moderately to fatally injured drivers in rear-end impacts could have been prevented if all vehicles were equipped with the FCW systems. Earlier warning times resulted in increased benefits. The largest effect on benefits, however, was the lower operating speed threshold of the systems. Systems that only operated at speeds above 20 mph were less than half as effective as those that operated above 5 mph with similar warning times. The production LDW systems could have prevented

  9. Earthquake Prediction Research In Iceland, Applications For Hazard Assessments and Warnings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stefansson, R.

    Earthquake prediction research in Iceland, applications for hazard assessments and warnings. The first multinational earthquake prediction research project in Iceland was the Eu- ropean Council encouraged SIL project of the Nordic countries, 1988-1995. The path selected for this research was to study the physics of crustal processes leading to earth- quakes. It was considered that small earthquakes, down to magnitude zero, were the most significant for this purpose, because of the detailed information which they pro- vide both in time and space. The test area for the project was the earthquake prone region of the South Iceland seismic zone (SISZ). The PRENLAB and PRENLAB-2 projects, 1996-2000 supported by the European Union were a direct continuation of the SIL project, but with a more multidisciplinary approach. PRENLAB stands for "Earthquake prediction research in a natural labo- ratory". The basic objective was to advance our understanding in general on where, when and how dangerous NH10earthquake motion might strike. Methods were devel- oped to study crustal processes and conditions, by microearthquake information, by continuous GPS, InSAR, theoretical modelling, fault mapping and paleoseismology. New algorithms were developed for short term warnings. A very useful short term warning was issued twice in the year 2000, one for a sudden start of an eruption in Volcano Hekla February 26, and the other 25 hours before a second (in a sequence of two) magnitude 6.6 (Ms) earthquake in the South Iceland seismic zone in June 21, with the correct location and approximate size. A formal short term warning, although not going to the public, was also issued before a magnitude 5 earthquake in November 1998. In the presentation it will be shortly described what these warnings were based on. A general hazard assessmnets was presented in scientific journals 10-15 years ago assessing within a few kilometers the location of the faults of the two 2000 earthquakes and suggesting

  10. Assessing the accuracy of forecasting: applying standard diagnostic assessment tools to a health technology early warning system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Simpson, Sue; Hyde, Chris; Cook, Alison; Packer, Claire; Stevens, Andrew

    2004-01-01

    Early warning systems are an integral part of many health technology assessment programs. Despite this finding, to date, there have been no quantitative evaluations of the accuracy of predictions made by these systems. We report a study evaluating the accuracy of predictions made by the main United Kingdom early warning system. As prediction of impact is analogous to diagnosis, a method normally applied to determine the accuracy of diagnostic tests was used. The sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values of the National Horizon Scanning Centre's prediction methods were estimated with reference to an (imperfect) gold standard, that is, expert opinion of impact 3 to 5 years after prediction. The sensitivity of predictions was 71 percent (95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.36-0.92), and the specificity was 73 percent (95 percent CI, 0.64-0.8). The negative predictive value was 98 percent (95 percent CI, 0.92-0.99), and the positive predictive value was 14 percent (95 percent CI, 0.06-0.3). Forecasting is difficult, but the results suggest that this early warning system's predictions have an acceptable level of accuracy. However, there are caveats. The first is that early warning systems may themselves reduce the impact of a technology, as helping to control adoption and diffusion is their main purpose. The second is that the use of an imperfect gold standard may bias the results. As early warning systems are viewed as an increasingly important component of health technology assessment and decision making, their outcomes must be evaluated. The method used here should be investigated further and the accuracy of other early warning systems explored.

  11. Early Warning System for reducing disaster risk: the technological platform DEWETRA for the Republic of Serbia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Massabo, Marco; Molini, Luca; Kostic, Bojan; Campanella, Paolo; Stevanovic, Slavimir

    2015-04-01

    Disaster risk reduction has long been recognized for its role in mitigating the negative environmental, social and economic impacts of natural hazards. Flood Early Warning System is a disaster risk reduction measure based on the capacities of institutions to observe and predict extreme hydro-meteorological events and to disseminate timely and meaningful warning information; it is furthermore based on the capacities of individuals, communities and organizations to prepare and to act appropriately and in sufficient time to reduce the possibility of harm or loss. An operational definition of an Early Warning System has been suggested by ISDR - UN Office for DRR [15 January 2009]: "EWS is the set of capacities needed to generate and disseminate timely and meaningful warning information to enable individuals, communities and organizations threatened by a hazard to prepare and to act appropriately and in sufficient time to reduce the possibility of harm or loss.". ISDR continues by commenting that a people-centered early warning system necessarily comprises four key elements: 1-knowledge of the risks; 2-monitoring, analysis and forecasting of the hazards; 3-communication or dissemination of alerts and warnings; and 4- local capabilities to respond to the warnings received." The technological platform DEWETRA supports the strengthening of the first three key elements of EWS suggested by ISDR definition, hence to improve the capacities to build real-time risk scenarios and to inform and warn the population in advance The technological platform DEWETRA has been implemented for the Republic of Serbia. DEWETRA is a real time-integrate system that supports decision makers for risk forecasting and monitoring and for distributing warnings to end-user and to the general public. The system is based on the rapid availability of different data that helps to establish up-to-date and reliable risk scenarios. The integration of all relevant data for risk management significantly

  12. Detection of volcanic eruptions from space by their sulfur dioxide clouds

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krueger, A. J.

    1985-01-01

    The capabilities of the total ozone mapping spectrometer (TOMS) on the Nimbus 7 satellite for tracking volcano plumes are assessed. TOMS was installed on the sun-synchronous polar orbiting satellite to measure spatial variations in the global total ozone field. Radiance absorption coefficients of the atmosphere for four near-UV wavelengths from 312.5-380.0 are measured. Data from the El Chichon eruption in March-April 1982 revealed that SO2 was an absorbing species at 312.5 and 317.5 nm. The near-UV absorption level differences between SO2 and O3 permit discriminating the atmospheric densities of each species. An examination of the data base generated by TOMS since 1978 showed the perceptible tracks of all known major eruptions in the 1978-1982 time period. A constellation of three of the polar orbiting TOMS would be sufficient to provide near-real time alerts of plumes to warn aircraft of the hazards.

  13. Salt shell fallout during the ash eruption at the Nakadake crater, Aso volcano, Japan: evidence of an underground hydrothermal system surrounding the erupting vent

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shinohara, Hiroshi; Geshi, Nobuo; Yokoo, Akihiko; Ohkura, Takahiro; Terada, Akihiko

    2018-03-01

    A hot and acid crater lake is located in the Nakadake crater, Aso volcano, Japan. The volume of water in the lake decreases with increasing activity, drying out prior to the magmatic eruptions. Salt-rich materials of various shapes were observed, falling from the volcanic plume during the active periods. In May 2011, salt flakes fell from the gas plume emitted from an intense fumarole when the acid crater lake was almost dry. The chemical composition of these salt flakes was similar to those of the salts formed by the drying of the crater lake waters, suggesting that they originated from the crater lake water. The salt flakes are likely formed by the drying up of the crater lake water droplets sprayed into the plume by the fumarolic gas jet. In late 2014, the crater lake dried completely, followed by the magmatic eruptions with continuous ash eruptions and intermittent Strombolian explosions. Spherical hollow salt shells were observed on several occasions during and shortly after the weak ash eruptions. The chemical composition of the salt shells was similar to the salts formed by the drying of the crater lake water. The hollow structure of the shells suggests that they were formed by the heating of hydrothermal solution droplets suspended by a mixed stream of gas and ash in the plume. The salt shells suggest the existence of a hydrothermal system beneath the crater floor, even during the course of magmatic eruptions. Instability of the magmatic-hydrothermal interface can cause phreatomagmatic explosions, which often occur at the end of the eruptive phase of this volcano.

  14. 77 FR 5616 - Proposed Technical Standard Order (TSO)-C151c, Terrain Awareness and Warning System (TAWS)

    Science.gov (United States)

    2012-02-03

    ... (TSO)-C151c, Terrain Awareness and Warning System (TAWS) ACTION: Notice of availability and request for... second draft of Technical Standard Order (TSO)- C151c, Terrain Awareness and Warning System. Comments.... b. Addition of Localizer Performance with Vertical guidance (LPV) and Global Navigation Satellite...

  15. Surveillance and early warning systems of infectious disease in China: From 2012 to 2014.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Honglong; Wang, Liping; Lai, Shengjie; Li, Zhongjie; Sun, Qiao; Zhang, Peng

    2017-07-01

    Appropriate surveillance and early warning of infectious diseases have very useful roles in disease control and prevention. In 2004, China established the National Notifiable Infectious Disease Surveillance System and the Public Health Emergency Event Surveillance System to report disease surveillance and events on the basis of data sources from the National Notifiable Infectious Disease Surveillance System, China Infectious Disease Automated-alert and Response System in this country. This study provided a descriptive summary and a data analysis, from 2012 to 2014, of these 3 key surveillance and early warning systems of infectious disease in China with the intent to provide suggestions for system improvement and perfection. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  16. Environmental Warning System Based on the DPSIR Model: A Practical and Concise Method for Environmental Assessment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wenqi Wang

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available Though we are in urgent need of environmental warnings to slow environmental deterioration, currently, there is no internationally concise method for environmental warnings. In addition, the existing approaches do not combine the three aspects of ecology, resources, and environment. At the same time, the three elements of the environment (air, water, and soil are separated in most environmental warning systems. Thus, the method this paper gives is an innovative attempt and aims to make environmental assessment more practical. This paper establishes the index system of an environmental early warning based on the Driving–Pressure–State–Influence–Response (DPSIR model. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP method was used to determine the weights. Next, single and integrated index methods further assess the environmental warning state, in which the weighted summation method is used to summarize the data and results. The case of Tianjin is used to confirm the applicability of this method. In conclusion, the method in this paper is more well-behaved and, therefore, more suitable to assist cities in their environmental assessment.

  17. Enhancing Famine Early Warning Systems with Improved Forecasts, Satellite Observations and Hydrologic Simulations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Funk, C. C.; Verdin, J.; Thiaw, W. M.; Hoell, A.; Korecha, D.; McNally, A.; Shukla, S.; Arsenault, K. R.; Magadzire, T.; Novella, N.; Peters-Lidard, C. D.; Robjohn, M.; Pomposi, C.; Galu, G.; Rowland, J.; Budde, M. E.; Landsfeld, M. F.; Harrison, L.; Davenport, F.; Husak, G. J.; Endalkachew, E.

    2017-12-01

    Drought early warning science, in support of famine prevention, is a rapidly advancing field that is helping to save lives and livelihoods. In 2015-2017, a series of extreme droughts afflicted Ethiopia, Southern Africa, Eastern Africa in OND and Eastern Africa in MAM, pushing more than 50 million people into severe food insecurity. Improved drought forecasts and monitoring tools, however, helped motivate and target large and effective humanitarian responses. Here we describe new science being developed by a long-established early warning system - the USAID Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). FEWS NET is a leading provider of early warning and analysis on food insecurity. FEWS NET research is advancing rapidly on several fronts, providing better climate forecasts and more effective drought monitoring tools that are being used to support enhanced famine early warning. We explore the philosophy and science underlying these successes, suggesting that a modal view of climate change can support enhanced seasonal prediction. Under this modal perspective, warming of the tropical oceans may interact with natural modes of variability, like the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, to enhance Indo-Pacific sea surface temperature gradients during both El Niño and La Niña-like climate states. Using empirical data and climate change simulations, we suggest that a sequence of droughts may commence in northern Ethiopia and Southern Africa with the advent of a moderate-to-strong El Niño, and then continue with La Niña/West Pacific related droughts in equatorial eastern East Africa. Scientifically, we show that a new hybrid statistical-dynamic precipitation forecast system, the FEWS NET Integrated Forecast System (FIFS), based on reformulations of the Global Ensemble Forecast System weather forecasts and National Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) seasonal climate predictions, can effectively anticipate recent East and Southern African drought events. Using cross-validation, we

  18. 14 CFR 121.360 - Ground proximity warning-glide slope deviation alerting system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-01

    ... deviation alerting system. 121.360 Section 121.360 Aeronautics and Space FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION... Equipment Requirements § 121.360 Ground proximity warning-glide slope deviation alerting system. (a) No... system that meets the performance and environmental standards of TSO-C92 (available from the FAA, 800...

  19. A tsunami early warning system for the coastal area modeling

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soebroto, Arief Andy; Sunaryo, Suhartanto, Ery

    2015-04-01

    The tsunami disaster is a potential disaster in the territory of Indonesia. Indonesia is an archipelago country and close to the ocean deep. The tsunami occurred in Aceh province in 2004. Early prevention efforts have been carried out. One of them is making "tsunami buoy" which has been developed by BPPT. The tool puts sensors on the ocean floor near the coast to detect earthquakes on the ocean floor. Detection results are transmitted via satellite by a transmitter placed floating on the sea surface. The tool will cost billions of dollars for each system. Another constraint was the transmitter theft "tsunami buoy" in the absence of guard. In this study of the system has a transmission system using radio frequency and focused on coastal areas where costs are cheaper, so that it can be applied at many beaches in Indonesia are potentially affected by the tsunami. The monitoring system sends the detection results to the warning system using a radio frequency with a capability within 3 Km. Test results on the sub module sensor monitoring system generates an error of 0.63% was taken 10% showed a good quality sensing. The test results of data transmission from the transceiver of monitoring system to the receiver of warning system produces 100% successful delivery and reception of data. The test results on the whole system to function 100% properly.

  20. Io - One of at Least Four Simultaneous Erupting Volcanic Eruptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    1979-01-01

    This photo of an active volcanic eruption on Jupiter's satellite Io was taken 1 hour, 52 minutes after the accompanying picture, late in the evening of March 4, 1979, Pacific time. On the limb of the satellite can be seen one of at least four simultaneous volcanic eruptions -- the first such activity ever observed on another celestial body. Seen against the limb are plume-like structures rising more than 60 miles (100 kilometers) above the surface. Several eruptions have been identified with volcanic structures on the surface of Io, which have also been identified by Voyager 1's infrared instrument as being abnormally hot -- several hundred degrees warmer than surrounding terrain. The fact that several eruptions appear to be occurring at the same time suggests that Io has the most active surface in the solar system and that volcanism is going on there essentially continuously. Another characteristic of the observed volcanism is that it appears to be extremely explosive, with velocities more than 2,000 miles an hour (at least 1 kilometer per second). That is more violent than terrestrial volcanoes like Etna, Vesuvius or Krakatoa.

  1. Strengthening flood warning systems: the benefits of encouraging social preparedness

    Science.gov (United States)

    Girons Lopez, Marc; Di Baldassarre, Giuliano; Seibert, Jan

    2017-04-01

    Flood warning and response have normally been focused on the technical aspects and disregarded the connections and feedbacks between the hydrological and social dimensions. An increasing body of research, however, points at the importance of considering socio-hydrological aspects to improve flood damage mitigation. One of the key factors is the preparedness of the public and first responders during flood situations, which is influenced by many behavioural traits such as perceived benefits, risk awareness, or denial. In this study, we investigate the impact of social preparedness on the efficiency of flood early warning systems by using the recency of flood experience as a proxy for social preparedness. To this end, we developed a stylised model and a synthetic data-set to perform a hypothetical analysis. The main findings point to the importance of social preparedness for flood loss mitigation, especially when the technical forecasting and warning capabilities are limited. More specifically, efforts to promote and preserve social preparedness may help to reduce disaster-induced losses by almost one half. The findings from this study provide insights into the importance of considering social preparedness in decision-making for disaster risk reduction.

  2. Proposal of secure camera-based radiation warning system for nuclear detection

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tsuchiya, Ken'ichi; Kurosawa, Kenji; Akiba, Norimitsu; Kakuda, Hidetoshi; Imoto, Daisuke; Hirabayashi, Manato; Kuroki, Kenro

    2016-01-01

    Counter-terrorisms against radiological and nuclear threat are significant issues toward Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. In terms of cost benefit, it is not easy to build a warning system for nuclear detection to prevent a Dirty Bomb attack (dispersion of radioactive materials using a conventional explosive) or a Silent Source attack (hidden radioactive materials) from occurring. We propose a nuclear detection system using the installed secure cameras. We describe a method to estimate radiation dose from noise pattern in CCD images caused by radiation. Some dosimeters under neutron and gamma-ray irradiations (0.1mSv-100mSv) were taken in CCD video camera. We confirmed amount of noise in CCD images increased in radiation exposure. The radiation detection using CMOS in secure cameras or cell phones has been implemented. However, in this presentation, we propose a warning system including neutron detection to search shielded nuclear materials or radiation exposure devices using criticality. (author)

  3. Implementing an Inpatient Social Early Warning System for Child Maltreatment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Atabaki, Armita; Heddaeus, Daniela; Metzner, Franka; Schulz, Holger; Siefert, Sonke; Pawils, Silke

    2013-01-01

    Objectives: The current article describes the process evaluation of a social early warning system (SEWS) for the prevention of child maltreatment in the federal state of Hamburg. This prevention initiative targets expectant mothers and their partners including an initial screening of risk factors for child maltreatment, a subsequent structured…

  4. Design Principles for resilient cyber-physical Early Warning Systems - Challenges, Experiences, Design Patterns, and Best Practices

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gensch, S.; Wächter, J.; Schnor, B.

    2014-12-01

    Early warning systems (EWS) are safety-critical IT-infrastructures that serve the purpose of potentially saving lives or assets by observing real-world phenomena and issuing timely warning products to authorities and communities. An EWS consists of sensors, communication networks, data centers, simulation platforms, and dissemination channels. The components of this cyber-physical system may all be affected by both natural hazards and malfunctions of components alike. Resilience engineering so far has mostly been applied to safety-critical systems and processes in transportation (aviation, automobile), construction and medicine. Early warning systems need equivalent techniques to compensate for failures, and furthermore means to adapt to changing threats, emerging technology and research findings. We present threats and pitfalls from our experiences with the German and Indonesian tsunami early warning system, as well as architectural, technological and organizational concepts employed that can enhance an EWS' resilience. The current EWS is comprised of a multi-type sensor data upstream part, different processing and analysis engines, a decision support system, and various warning dissemination channels. Each subsystem requires a set of approaches towards ensuring stable functionality across system layer boundaries, including also institutional borders. Not only must services be available, but also produce correct results. Most sensors are distributed components with restricted resources, communication channels and power supply. An example for successful resilience engineering is the power capacity based functional management for buoy and tide gauge stations. We discuss various fault-models like cause and effect models on linear pathways, interaction of multiple events, complex and non-linear interaction of assumedly reliable subsystems and fault tolerance means implemented to tackle these threats.

  5. Regional early flood warning system: design and implementation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, L. C.; Yang, S. N.; Kuo, C. L.; Wang, Y. F.

    2017-12-01

    This study proposes a prototype of the regional early flood inundation warning system in Tainan City, Taiwan. The AI technology is used to forecast multi-step-ahead regional flood inundation maps during storm events. The computing time is only few seconds that leads to real-time regional flood inundation forecasting. A database is built to organize data and information for building real-time forecasting models, maintaining the relations of forecasted points, and displaying forecasted results, while real-time data acquisition is another key task where the model requires immediately accessing rain gauge information to provide forecast services. All programs related database are constructed in Microsoft SQL Server by using Visual C# to extracting real-time hydrological data, managing data, storing the forecasted data and providing the information to the visual map-based display. The regional early flood inundation warning system use the up-to-date Web technologies driven by the database and real-time data acquisition to display the on-line forecasting flood inundation depths in the study area. The friendly interface includes on-line sequentially showing inundation area by Google Map, maximum inundation depth and its location, and providing KMZ file download of the results which can be watched on Google Earth. The developed system can provide all the relevant information and on-line forecast results that helps city authorities to make decisions during typhoon events and make actions to mitigate the losses.

  6. Volcanic Eruptions and Climate: Outstanding Research Issues

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robock, Alan

    2016-04-01

    Large volcanic eruptions inject sulfur gases into the stratosphere, which convert to sulfate aerosols with an e-folding residence time of about one year. The radiative and chemical effects of this aerosol cloud produce responses in the climate system. Based on observations after major eruptions of the past and experiments with numerical models of the climate system, we understand much about their climatic impact, but there are also a number of unanswered questions. Volcanic eruptions produce global cooling, and are an important natural cause of interannual, interdecadal, and even centennial-scale climate change. One of the most interesting volcanic effects is the "winter warming" of Northern Hemisphere continents following major tropical eruptions. During the winter in the Northern Hemisphere following every large tropical eruption of the past century, surface air temperatures over North America, Europe, and East Asia were warmer than normal, while they were colder over Greenland and the Middle East. This pattern and the coincident atmospheric circulation correspond to the positive phase of the Arctic Oscillation. While this response is observed after recent major eruptions, most state-of-the-art climate models have trouble simulating winter warming. Why? High latitude eruptions in the Northern Hemisphere, while also producing global cooling, do not have the same impact on atmospheric dynamics. Both tropical and high latitude eruptions can weaken the Indian and African summer monsoon, and the effects can be seen in past records of flow in the Nile and Niger Rivers. Since the Mt. Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines in 1991, there have been no large eruptions that affected climate, but the cumulative effects of small eruptions over the past decade have had a small effect on global temperature trends. Some important outstanding research questions include: How much seasonal, annual, and decadal predictability is possible following a large volcanic eruption? Do

  7. Earthquake Early Warning Systems

    OpenAIRE

    Pei-Yang Lin

    2011-01-01

    Because of Taiwan’s unique geographical environment, earthquake disasters occur frequently in Taiwan. The Central Weather Bureau collated earthquake data from between 1901 and 2006 (Central Weather Bureau, 2007) and found that 97 earthquakes had occurred, of which, 52 resulted in casualties. The 921 Chichi Earthquake had the most profound impact. Because earthquakes have instant destructive power and current scientific technologies cannot provide precise early warnings in advance, earthquake ...

  8. Bi-decadal variability excited in the coupled ocean-atmosphere system by strong tropical volcanic eruptions

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zanchettin, D.; Lorenz, S.; Lohmann, K.; Jungclaus, J.H. [Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Ocean in the Earth System Department, Hamburg (Germany); Timmreck, C. [Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Atmosphere in the Earth System Department, Hamburg (Germany); Graf, H.-F. [University of Cambridge, Centre for Atmospheric Science, Cambridge (United Kingdom); Rubino, A. [Ca' Foscari University, Department of Environmental Sciences, Venice (Italy); Krueger, K. [Leibniz-Institute of Marine Sciences, IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel (Germany)

    2012-07-15

    Decadal and bi-decadal climate responses to tropical strong volcanic eruptions (SVEs) are inspected in an ensemble simulation covering the last millennium based on the Max Planck Institute - Earth system model. An unprecedentedly large collection of pre-industrial SVEs (up to 45) producing a peak annual-average top-of-atmosphere radiative perturbation larger than -1.5 Wm{sup -2} is investigated by composite analysis. Post-eruption oceanic and atmospheric anomalies coherently describe a fluctuation in the coupled ocean-atmosphere system with an average length of 20-25 years. The study provides a new physically consistent theoretical framework to interpret decadal Northern Hemisphere (NH) regional winter climates variability during the last millennium. The fluctuation particularly involves interactions between the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation and the North Atlantic gyre circulation closely linked to the state of the winter North Atlantic Oscillation. It is characterized by major distinctive details. Among them, the most prominent are: (a) a strong signal amplification in the Arctic region which allows for a sustained strengthened teleconnection between the North Pacific and the North Atlantic during the first post-eruption decade and which entails important implications from oceanic heat transport and from post-eruption sea ice dynamics, and (b) an anomalous surface winter warming emerging over the Scandinavian/Western Russian region around 10-12 years after a major eruption. The simulated long-term climate response to SVEs depends, to some extent, on background conditions. Consequently, ensemble simulations spanning different phases of background multidecadal and longer climate variability are necessary to constrain the range of possible post-eruption decadal evolution of NH regional winter climates. (orig.)

  9. A volcanic activity alert-level system for aviation: review of its development and application in Alaska

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guffanti, Marianne; Miller, Thomas P.

    2013-01-01

    An alert-level system for communicating volcano hazard information to the aviation industry was devised by the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) during the 1989–1990 eruption of Redoubt Volcano. The system uses a simple, color-coded ranking that focuses on volcanic ash emissions: Green—normal background; Yellow—signs of unrest; Orange—precursory unrest or minor ash eruption; Red—major ash eruption imminent or underway. The color code has been successfully applied on a regional scale in Alaska for a sustained period. During 2002–2011, elevated color codes were assigned by AVO to 13 volcanoes, eight of which erupted; for that decade, one or more Alaskan volcanoes were at Yellow on 67 % of days and at Orange or Red on 12 % of days. As evidence of its utility, the color code system is integrated into procedures of agencies responsible for air-traffic management and aviation meteorology in Alaska. Furthermore, it is endorsed as a key part of globally coordinated protocols established by the International Civil Aviation Organization to provide warnings of ash hazards to aviation worldwide. The color code and accompanying structured message (called a Volcano Observatory Notice for Aviation) comprise an effective early-warning message system according to the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. The aviation color code system currently is used in the United States, Russia, New Zealand, Iceland, and partially in the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, and Indonesia. Although there are some barriers to implementation, with continued education and outreach to Volcano Observatories worldwide, greater use of the aviation color code system is achievable.

  10. Geoethical issues involved in Tsunami Warning System concepts and operations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Charalampakis, Marinos; Papadopoulos, Gerassimos A.; Tinti, Stefano

    2016-04-01

    The main goal of a Tsunami Warning System (TWS) is to mitigate the effect of an incoming tsunami by alerting coastal population early enough to allow people to evacuate safely from inundation zones. Though this representation might seem oversimplified, nonetheless, achieving successfully this goal requires a positive synergy of geoscience, communication, emergency management, technology, education, social sciences, politics. Geoethical issues arise always when there is an interaction between geoscience and society, and TWS is a paradigmatic case where interaction is very strong and is made critical because a) the formulation of the tsunami alert has to be made in a time as short as possible and therefore on uncertain data, and b) any evaluation error (underestimation or overestimation) can lead to serious (and sometimes catastrophic) consequences involving wide areas and a large amount of population. From the geoethical point of view three issues are critical: how to (i) combine forecasts and uncertainties reasonably and usefully, (ii) cope and possibly solve the dilemma whether it is better over-alerting or under-alerting population and (iii) deal with responsibility and liability of geoscientists, TWS operators, emergency operators and coastal population. The discussion will be based on the experience of the Hellenic National Tsunami Warning Center (HL-NTWC, Greece), which operates on 24/7 basis as a special unit of the Institute of Geodynamics, National Observatory of Athens, and acts also 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. Since August 2012, when HL-NTWC was officially declared as operational, 14 tsunami warning messages have been disseminated to a large number of subscribers after strong submarine earthquakes occurring in Greece and elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean. It is recognized that the alerting process

  11. Implementing paediatric early warning scores systems in the Netherlands: future implications.

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Groot, J.F. de; Damen, N.; Loos, E. de; Steeg, L. van de; Rosias, P.; Bruijn, M.; Goorhuis, J.; Wagner, C.

    2018-01-01

    Background: Paediatric Early Warning Scores (PEWS) are increasingly being used for early identification and management of clinical deterioration in paediatric patients. A PEWS system includes scores, cut-off points and appropriate early intervention. In 2011, The Dutch Ministry of Health advised

  12. Vulnerability analysis for a drought Early Warning System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Angeluccetti, Irene; Demarchi, Alessandro; Perez, Francesca

    2014-05-01

    Early Warning Systems (EWS) for drought are often based on risk models that do not, or marginally, take into account the vulnerability factor. The multifaceted nature of drought (hydrological, meteorological, and agricultural) is source of coexistence for different ways to measure this phenomenon and its effects. The latter, together with the complexity of impacts generated by this hazard, causes the current underdevelopment of drought EWS compared to other hazards. In Least Developed Countries, where drought events causes the highest numbers of affected people, the importance of correct monitoring and forecasting is considered essential. Existing early warning and monitoring systems for drought produced at different geographic levels, provide only in a few cases an actual spatial model that tries to describe the cause-effect link between where the hazard is detected and where impacts occur. Integrate vulnerability information in such systems would permit to better estimate affected zones and livelihoods, improving the effectiveness of produced hazard-related datasets and maps. In fact, the need of simplification and, in general, of a direct applicability of scientific outputs is still a matter of concern for field experts and early warning products end-users. Even if the surplus of hazard related information produced right after catastrophic events has, in some cases, led to the creation of specific data-sharing platforms, the conveyed meaning and usefulness of each product has not yet been addressed. The present work is an attempt to fill this gap which is still an open issue for the scientific community as well as for the humanitarian aid world. The study aims at conceiving a simplified vulnerability model to embed into an existing EWS for drought, which is based on the monitoring of vegetation phenological parameters and the Standardized Precipitation Index, both produced using free satellite derived datasets. The proposed vulnerability model includes (i) a

  13. Early warning system realized by ENVINET a.s., domestic and abroad

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sury, J.; Skala, L.; Holcak, P.; Matousek, P.

    2014-01-01

    Within recent years, research and development has expanded the portfolio of applied results in the field of early warning systems - both stationary and mobile standalone. Their implementation in different areas all over the world in different climatic conditions and their coincidence of possible communication interface software, databases, data collection and assessment of the radiation situations allow the users to respond to possible events and thus significantly affect the decision-making level for the preventive countermeasures including their utilization during radiation accidents. Some of the results will be presented during the presentation: - Implementation of monitoring stations in Varazdin, Velika Gorica, Sisak, Virovitica, Beli Manastir, Zadar, Knin and Ploce in Croatia 2014. Other locations such as Plitvice, Sibenik and Koprivnica are also considered. Radiometric monitoring station NuEM RAMS, dose rate from 10 nSv h -1 to 1 Sv h -1 . - Implementation of radiation monitoring stations in Warszawa, Zagan, Wroclaw, Szczecin, Krakow, Lublin, Gdynia, Bydgoszcz, Rzeszow, Bartoszyce, Srem, Swinoujscie, and Ustka in Poland 2014-2015. Radiometric monitoring station NuEM RAMS, dose rate from 10 nSv h -1 to 9 Sv h -1 . Purpose of stations - for a radiation monitoring network in a given area and for integration into the networks of early warning system. Measurement by using smart probe with 2 (3) GM tubes according to a measuring range. Power supply from photo-voltaic panel for the standalone mode. Transmission of measured data is done by using a GSM network. Data are stored into database at a web server. - Early warning system in Latvia 2013-2014. 20 pcs of stationary spectrometric AGR or IGS type or equivalent stations, NaI (Tl) or LaBr detector for on-line identification of radionuclides based on integrated isotope base with at least 10 indicated radionuclides (K-40, Mo-99, Ru-103, Rh -106, Te-129, I-131, Te-132, I-133, Cs-134, Cs-137, and Ba-140). Objective

  14. FOGO-2014: Monitoring the Fogo 2014 Eruption, Cape Verde

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fernandes, Rui; Faria, Bruno

    2015-04-01

    Fogo volcano, located in the Cape Verde Archipelago offshore Western Africa, is a complete stratovolcano system that was created by the Cape Verde hotspot, forming the island of Fogo. The top (Pico do Fogo) reaches ~2830m above sea level, and raises ~1100m above Chã das Caldeiras, an almost flat circular area with approximately 10 kilometres in the north-south direction and 7 kilometres in the east-west direction. Chã das Caldeiras, surrounded towards the West by the ~1000m high Bordeira rampart, has been inhabited since the early 20th Century, because it is one of the most productive agricultural areas in this semi-arid country. Fogo volcano erupted on November 23, 2014 (~10:00UTC) on a subsidiary vent of the main cone, after 19 years of inactivity. C4G (Collaboratory for Geosciences), a distributed research infrastructure created in 2014 in the framework of the Portuguese Roadmap for Strategic Research Infrastructures, immediately offered support to the Cape Verdean authorities, with the goal of complementing the permanent geophysical monitoring network operated in Fogo island by INMG, the Cape Verdean Meteorological and Geophysical Institute. This permanent network is composed of seven seismographic stations and three tiltmeter stations, and the data is transmitted in real time to the INMG geophysical laboratory in São Vicente Island, where it is analysed on a routine basis. Pre-eruptive activity started to be detected by the permanent monitoring network on October 2014, with earthquakes occurring at depths larger than 15 km. These events led to a first volcanic warning to the Cape Verdean Civil Protection Agency. On November 22 several volcano-tectonic earthquakes were recorded at shallow depths, indicating shallow fracturing. On the basis of this activity, INMG issued a formal alert of an impending eruption to the Civil Protection Agency, ~24 hours before the onset of the eruption. Volcanic tremor and clear tiltmeter signals were recorded about one hour

  15. Volcanic eruption plumes on Io

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Strom, R.G.; Terrile, R.J.; Masursky, H.; Hansen, C.

    1979-01-01

    The detection of an umbrella-shaped plume extending about 280 km above the bright limb of Io was one of the most important discoveries made during the Voyager 1 encounter with the jovian system. This discovery proves that Io is volcanically active at present, and the number and magnitude of these eruptions indicate that Io is the most volcanically active body so far discovered in the Solar System. Preliminary analyses of these eruptive plumes are presented. (U.K.)

  16. Radiation early warning system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Schmitzer, C.; Kloesch, W.; Stadtmann, H.

    1993-01-01

    A prototype station for a Radiation Early Warning Network has been designed and set up at the Austrian Research Centre Seibersdorf. This unit was developed to measure all relevant parameters necessary to detect and track radioactive contamination at an early stage. The station consists of the following components: Radiation measuring channel for ambient gamma dose rate. Meteorological measurement channels for air temperature and humidity, wind direction and wind speed, and precipitation. Data processing and storage unit. The system is capable of unattended operation and data acquisition even under adverse environmental conditions. Connection to a central processing platform may be achieved via leased line, dial up over public switched telephone network (PSTN), or radio-frequency transmission. The remote station will continue acquiring and storing data for at least a month, even if the communications link is broken. Multiple stations can be combined to form a network, providing detailed information about radiological and meteorological data at each site. Thus increased ambient radiation levels may be discovered, tracked, and forecasted based on calculations using current and local weather data

  17. EVALUATING EFFECTIVENESS OF MOBILE BROWSER SECURITY WARNINGS

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ronak Shah

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available This work precisely evaluates whether browser security warnings are as ineffective as proposed by popular sentiments and past writings. This research used different kinds of Android mobile browsers as well as desktop browsers to evaluate security warnings. Security experts and developers should give emphasis on making a user aware of security warnings and should not neglect aim of communicating this to users. Security experts and system architects should emphasis the goal of communicating security information to end users. In most of the browsers, security warnings are not emphasized, and browsers simply do not show warnings, or there are a number of ways to hide those warnings of malicious sites. This work precisely finds that how inconsistent browsers really are in prompting security warnings. In particular, majority of the modern mobile web browsers are vulnerable to these security threats. We find inconsistency in SSL warnings among web browsers. Based on this work, we make recommendations for warning designers and researchers.

  18. Development and validation of a weather-based warning system to advise fungicide applications to control dollar spot on turfgrass

    Science.gov (United States)

    Smith, D. L.; Kerns, J. P.; Walker, N. R.; Payne, A. F.; Horvath, B.; Inguagiato, J. C.; Kaminski, J. E.; Tomaso-Peterson, M.

    2018-01-01

    Dollar spot is one of the most common diseases of golf course turfgrass and numerous fungicide applications are often required to provide adequate control. Weather-based disease warning systems have been developed to more accurately time fungicide applications; however, they tend to be ineffective and are not currently in widespread use. The primary objective of this research was to develop a new weather-based disease warning system to more accurately advise fungicide applications to control dollar spot activity across a broad geographic and climactic range. The new dollar spot warning system was developed from data collected at field sites in Madison, WI and Stillwater, OK in 2008 and warning system validation sites were established in Madison, WI, Stillwater, OK, Knoxville, TN, State College, PA, Starkville, MS, and Storrs, CT between 2011 and 2016. A meta-analysis of all site-years was conducted and the most effective warning system for dollar spot development consisted of a five-day moving average of relative humidity and average daily temperature. Using this model the highest effective probability that provided dollar spot control similar to that of a calendar-based program across the numerous sites and years was 20%. Additional analysis found that the 20% spray threshold provided comparable control to the calendar-based program while reducing fungicide usage by up to 30%, though further refinement may be needed as practitioners implement this warning system in a range of environments not tested here. The weather-based dollar spot warning system presented here will likely become an important tool for implementing precision disease management strategies for future turfgrass managers, especially as financial and regulatory pressures increase the need to reduce pesticide usage on golf course turfgrass. PMID:29522560

  19. Hybrid Intrusion Forecasting Framework for Early Warning System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Sehun; Shin, Seong-Jun; Kim, Hyunwoo; Kwon, Ki Hoon; Han, Younggoo

    Recently, cyber attacks have become a serious hindrance to the stability of Internet. These attacks exploit interconnectivity of networks, propagate in an instant, and have become more sophisticated and evolutionary. Traditional Internet security systems such as firewalls, IDS and IPS are limited in terms of detecting recent cyber attacks in advance as these systems respond to Internet attacks only after the attacks inflict serious damage. In this paper, we propose a hybrid intrusion forecasting system framework for an early warning system. The proposed system utilizes three types of forecasting methods: time-series analysis, probabilistic modeling, and data mining method. By combining these methods, it is possible to take advantage of the forecasting technique of each while overcoming their drawbacks. Experimental results show that the hybrid intrusion forecasting method outperforms each of three forecasting methods.

  20. A Steady-State Visual Evoked Potential Brain-Computer Interface System Evaluation as an In-Vehicle Warning Device

    Science.gov (United States)

    Riyahi, Pouria

    This thesis is part of current research at Center for Intelligence Systems Research (CISR) at The George Washington University for developing new in-vehicle warning systems via Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs). The purpose of conducting this research is to contribute to the current gap between BCI and in-vehicle safety studies. It is based on the premise that accurate and timely monitoring of human (driver) brain's signal to external stimuli could significantly aide in detection of driver's intentions and development of effective warning systems. The thesis starts with introducing the concept of BCI and its development history while it provides a literature review on the nature of brain signals. The current advancement and increasing demand for commercial and non-medical BCI products are described. In addition, the recent research attempts in transportation safety to study drivers' behavior or responses through brain signals are reviewed. The safety studies, which are focused on employing a reliable and practical BCI system as an in-vehicle assistive device, are also introduced. A major focus of this thesis research has been on the evaluation and development of the signal processing algorithms which can effectively filter and process brain signals when the human subject is subjected to Visual LED (Light Emitting Diodes) stimuli at different frequencies. The stimulated brain generates a voltage potential, referred to as Steady-State Visual Evoked Potential (SSVEP). Therefore, a newly modified analysis algorithm for detecting the brain visual signals is proposed. These algorithms are designed to reach a satisfactory accuracy rate without preliminary trainings, hence focusing on eliminating the need for lengthy training of human subjects. Another important concern is the ability of the algorithms to find correlation of brain signals with external visual stimuli in real-time. The developed analysis models are based on algorithms which are capable of generating results

  1. An early warning system for flash floods in Egypt

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cools, J.; Abdelkhalek, A.; El Sammany, M.; Fahmi, A. H.; Bauwens, W.; Huygens, M.

    2009-09-01

    This paper describes the development of the Flash Flood Manager, abbreviated as FlaFloM. The Flash Flood Manager is an early warning system for flash floods which is developed under the EU LIFE project FlaFloM. It is applied to Wadi Watier located in the Sinai peninsula (Egypt) and discharges in the Red Sea at the local economic and tourist hub of Nuweiba city. FlaFloM consists of a chain of four modules: 1) Data gathering module, 2) Forecasting module, 3) Decision support module or DSS and 4) Warning module. Each module processes input data and consequently send the output to the following module. In case of a flash flood emergency, the final outcome of FlaFloM is a flood warning which is sent out to decision-makers. The ‘data gathering module’ collects input data from different sources, validates the input, visualise data and exports it to other modules. Input data is provided ideally as water stage (h), discharge (Q) and rainfall (R) through real-time field measurements and external forecasts. This project, however, as occurs in many arid flash flood prone areas, was confronted with a scarcity of data, and insufficient insight in the characteristics that release a flash flood. Hence, discharge and water stage data were not available. Although rainfall measurements are available through classical off line rain gauges, the sparse rain gauges network couldn’t catch the spatial and temporal characteristics of rainfall events. To overcome this bottleneck, we developed rainfall intensity raster maps (mm/hr) with an hourly time step and raster cell of 1*1km. These maps are derived through downscaling from two sources of global instruments: the weather research and forecasting model (WRF) and satellite estimates from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). The ‘forecast module’ comprises three numerical models that, using data from the gathering module performs simulations on command: a rainfall-runoff model, a river flow model, and a flood model. A

  2. Development of SNS Stream Analysis Based on Forest Disaster Warning Information Service System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Oh, J.; KIM, D.; Kang, M.; Woo, C.; Kim, D.; Seo, J.; Lee, C.; Yoon, H.; Heon, S.

    2017-12-01

    Forest disasters, such as landslides and wildfires, cause huge economic losses and casualties, and the cost of recovery is increasing every year. While forest disaster mitigation technologies have been focused on the development of prevention and response technologies, they are now required to evolve into evacuation and border evacuation, and to develop technologies fused with ICT. In this study, we analyze the SNS (Social Network Service) stream and implement a system to detect the message that the forest disaster occurred or the forest disaster, and search the keyword related to the forest disaster in advance in real time. It is possible to detect more accurate forest disaster messages by repeatedly learning the retrieved results using machine learning techniques. To do this, we designed and implemented a system based on Hadoop and Spark, a distributed parallel processing platform, to handle Twitter stream messages that open SNS. In order to develop the technology to notify the information of forest disaster risk, a linkage of technology such as CBS (Cell Broadcasting System) based on mobile communication, internet-based civil defense siren, SNS and the legal and institutional issues for applying these technologies are examined. And the protocol of the forest disaster warning information service system that can deliver the SNS analysis result was developed. As a result, it was possible to grasp real-time forest disaster situation by real-time big data analysis of SNS that occurred during forest disasters. In addition, we confirmed that it is possible to rapidly propagate alarm or warning according to the disaster situation by using the function of the forest disaster warning information notification service. However, the limitation of system application due to the restriction of opening and sharing of SNS data currently in service and the disclosure of personal information remains a problem to be solved in the future. Keyword : SNS stream, Big data, Machine

  3. Warning Triggers in Environmental Hazards: Who Should Be Warned to Do What and When?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cova, Thomas J; Dennison, Philip E; Li, Dapeng; Drews, Frank A; Siebeneck, Laura K; Lindell, Michael K

    2017-04-01

    Determining the most effective public warnings to issue during a hazardous environmental event is a complex problem. Three primary questions need to be answered: Who should take protective action? What is the best action? and When should this action be initiated? Warning triggers provide a proactive means for emergency managers to simultaneously answer these questions by recommending that a target group take a specified protective action if a preset environmental trigger condition occurs (e.g., warn a community to evacuate if a wildfire crosses a proximal ridgeline). Triggers are used to warn the public across a wide variety of environmental hazards, and an improved understanding of their nature and role promises to: (1) advance protective action theory by unifying the natural, built, and social themes in hazards research into one framework, (2) reveal important information about emergency managers' risk perception, situational awareness, and threat assessment regarding threat behavior and public response, and (3) advance spatiotemporal models for representing the geography and timing of disaster warning and response (i.e., a coupled natural-built-social system). We provide an overview and research agenda designed to advance our understanding and modeling of warning triggers. © 2016 Society for Risk Analysis.

  4. Risk-Based Evaluation of Flood Warning and Preparedness Systems. Volume 2 - Technical

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Haimes, Yacov Y

    1996-01-01

    ... for both structural and nonstructural measures. The unifing theme of these results is that the design and evaluation of structural and nonstructural measures for flood mitigation, including flood warning and preparedness systems, is an integrative...

  5. Technical implementation plan for the ShakeAlert production system: an Earthquake Early Warning system for the West Coast of the United States

    Science.gov (United States)

    Given, Douglas D.; Cochran, Elizabeth S.; Heaton, Thomas; Hauksson, Egill; Allen, Richard; Hellweg, Peggy; Vidale, John; Bodin, Paul

    2014-01-01

    Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) systems can provide as much as tens of seconds of warning to people and automated systems before strong shaking arrives. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) and its partners are developing such an EEW system, called ShakeAlert, for the West Coast of the United States. This document describes the technical implementation of that system, which leverages existing stations and infrastructure of the Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS) regional networks to achieve this new capability. While significant progress has been made in developing the ShakeAlert early warning system, improved robustness of each component of the system and additional testing and certification are needed for the system to be reliable enough to issue public alerts. Major components of the system include dense networks of ground motion sensors, telecommunications from those sensors to central processing systems, algorithms for event detection and alert creation, and distribution systems to alert users. Capital investment costs for a West Coast EEW system are projected to be $38.3M, with additional annual maintenance and operations totaling $16.1M—in addition to current ANSS expenditures for earthquake monitoring. An EEW system is complementary to, but does not replace, other strategies to mitigate earthquake losses. The system has limitations: false and missed alerts are possible, and the area very near to an earthquake epicenter may receive little or no warning. However, such an EEW system would save lives, reduce injuries and damage, and improve community resilience by reducing longer-term economic losses for both public and private entities.

  6. Effects of stressor characteristics on early warning signs of critical transitions and "critical coupling" in complex dynamical systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blume, Steffen O P; Sansavini, Giovanni

    2017-12-01

    Complex dynamical systems face abrupt transitions into unstable and catastrophic regimes. These critical transitions are triggered by gradual modifications in stressors, which push the dynamical system towards unstable regimes. Bifurcation analysis can characterize such critical thresholds, beyond which systems become unstable. Moreover, the stochasticity of the external stressors causes small-scale fluctuations in the system response. In some systems, the decomposition of these signal fluctuations into precursor signals can reveal early warning signs prior to the critical transition. Here, we present a dynamical analysis of a power system subjected to an increasing load level and small-scale stochastic load perturbations. We show that the auto- and cross-correlations of bus voltage magnitudes increase, leading up to a Hopf bifurcation point, and further grow until the system collapses. This evidences a gradual transition into a state of "critical coupling," which is complementary to the established concept of "critical slowing down." Furthermore, we analyze the effects of the type of load perturbation and load characteristics on early warning signs and find that gradient changes in the autocorrelation provide early warning signs of the imminent critical transition under white-noise but not for auto-correlated load perturbations. Furthermore, the cross-correlation between all voltage magnitude pairs generally increases prior to and beyond the Hopf bifurcation point, indicating "critical coupling," but cannot provide early warning indications. Finally, we show that the established early warning indicators are oblivious to limit-induced bifurcations and, in the case of the power system model considered here, only react to an approaching Hopf bifurcation.

  7. Systemic provocation in doxycycline induced fixed drug eruption: a case report

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anik Murwaningsih Rosmarini Estri Sih Hananti Niken Indrastuti

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available Fixed drug eruption (FDE is recurrent lesions that upon repeated uptake of causative drug, always appears at the same skin and mucosal site. Determination of causal relationship in drug allergy is very important. In this case report, cases of doxycycline-induced FDE was reported. The subject of the research was a 29-year-old male, referred by dermatologist, with history of reccurent FDE. Physical examination revealed an oval well demarcated patch hyperpigmentation. Patch test was perfomed on previous involved and uninvolved site. The result of the patch test was irrelevant. Retesting patch test gave similar result. Systemic provocation test or drug provocation test (DPT  with doxcycline were done with suspected drug under ambulatory survelance and gave positive result. In this case, the DPT succeeded to identify doxycycline as the causal agent of FDE. The work-up of a suspected drug hypersensitivity includes a detailed clinical history, physical examination, skin tests, and provocation tests. The DPT is recommended to confirm drug’s hypersensitivity reactions. Systemic provocation test is considered as the gold standard for diagnosing FDE. Keywords:   fixed drug eruption - doxycycline - causal relationship - patch test - systemic provocation test

  8. Assessment of early warning system performance and improvements since it is in operational phase in Romania

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ionescu, Constantin; Marmureanu, Alexandru; Marmureanu, Gheorghe; Ortansa Cioflan, Carmen

    2017-04-01

    Earthquake represents a major natural disaster for Romanian territory. The main goal following the occurrence of a strong earthquake is to minimize the total number of fatalities. A rapid early warning system (REWS) was developed in Romania in order to provide 25-35 seconds warning time to Bucharest facilities for the earthquakes with M>5.0. The system consists of four components: a network of strong motion sensors installed in the epicentral area, a redundant communication network, an automatic analyzing system located in the Romanian Data Centre and an alert distribution system. The detection algorithm is based on the magnitude computation using strong motion data and rapid evaluation and scaling relation between the maximum P-wave acceleration measured in the epicentral area and the higher ground motion amplitude recorded in Bucharest. In order to reduce the damages caused by earthquakes, the exploitation of the up to date technology is very important. The information is the key point in the disaster management, and the internet is one of the most used instrument, implying also low costs. The Rapid Early Warning System was expanded to cover all countries affected by major earthquakes originating in the Vrancea seismic area and reduce their impact on existing installations of national interest in neighbouring Romania and elsewhere. REWS provides an efficient instrument for prevention and reaction based on the integrated system for seismic detection in South-Eastern Europe. REWS has been operational since 2013 and sends alert the authorities, hazardous facilities in Romania and Bulgaria (NPP, emergency response agencies etc.) and to public via twitter and some smartphone applications developed in the house. Also, NIEP is part of the UNESCO initiative case on developing a platform on earthquake early warning systems (IP-MEP) that aims to promote and strengthen the development of earthquake early warning systems in earthquake-prone regions of the world by sharing

  9. 1984 Mauna Loa eruption and planetary geolgoy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Moore, H.J.

    1987-01-01

    In planetary geology, lava flows on the Moon and Mars are commonly treated as relatively simple systems. Some of the complexities of actual lava flows are illustrated using the main flow system of the 1984 Mauna Loa eruption. The outline, brief narrative, and results given are based on a number of sources. The implications of the results to planetary geology are clear. Volume flow rates during an eruption depend, in part, on the volatile content of the lava. These differ from the volume flow rates calculated from post eruption flow dimensions and the duration of the eruption and from those using models that assume a constant density. Mass flow rates might be more appropriate because the masses of volatiles in lavas are usually small, but variable and sometimes unknown densities impose severe restrictions on mass estimates

  10. Non-invasive, home-based electroencephalography hypoglycaemia warning system for personal monitoring using skin surface electrodes: a single-case feasibility study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Clewett, Christopher J; Langley, Phillip; Bateson, Anthony D; Asghar, Aziz; Wilkinson, Antony J

    2016-03-01

    Hypoglycaemia unawareness is a common condition associated with increased risk of severe hypoglycaemia. The purpose of the authors' study was to develop a simple to use, home-based and non-invasive hypoglycaemia warning system based on electroencephalography (EEG), and to demonstrate its use in a single-case feasibility study. A participant with type 1 diabetes forms a single-person case study where blood sugar levels and EEG were recorded. EEG was recorded using skin surface electrodes placed behind the ear located within the T3 region by the participant in the home. EEG was analysed retrospectively to develop an algorithm which would trigger a warning if EEG changes associated with hypoglycaemia onset were detected. All hypoglycaemia events were detected by the EEG hypoglycaemia warning algorithm. Warnings were triggered with blood glucose concentration levels at or below 4.2 mmol/l in this participant and no warnings were issued when in euglycaemia. The feasibility of a non-invasive EEG-based hypoglycaemia warning system for personal monitoring in the home has been demonstrated in a single case study. The results suggest that further studies are warranted to evaluate the system prospectively in a larger group of participants.

  11. Perancangan Prototype Early Warning System pada Kontrol On/Off Belt Conveyor Menggunakan PLC Siemens S7-300

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Taufik Taufik

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available Nowadays, automation system become an important aspect of the manufacturing process because could make integration manufacturing process on it more effective and more efficient. PLC or Programmable Logic Controller is one kind of automation system. Many industries use PLC as automation control device in the manufacturing process to control all kind of process. For example at transportation process of coals in generator industry. Coals could be burned because main elements of coals are carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Base on this prototype early warning system design, we get the result if sensor thermocouple detects temperature larger than setpoint temperature (it is 2000C, then PLC will give an order to shut down the output, that is a belt conveyor. The result of this prototype design could use at coals transportation as an early warning system. The design of prototype early warning system could detect and prevent fire because of the consequence of burned coals until spreading of fire could be avoided.

  12. An early warning system for groundwater pollution based on the assessment of groundwater pollution risks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Weihong.; Zhao, Yongsheng; Hong, Mei; Guo, Xiaodong

    2009-04-01

    Groundwater pollution usually is complex and concealed, remediation of which is difficult, high cost, time-consuming, and ineffective. An early warning system for groundwater pollution is needed that detects groundwater quality problems and gets the information necessary to make sound decisions before massive groundwater quality degradation occurs. Groundwater pollution early warning were performed by considering comprehensively the current groundwater quality, groundwater quality varying trend and groundwater pollution risk . The map of the basic quality of the groundwater was obtained by fuzzy comprehensive evaluation or BP neural network evaluation. Based on multi-annual groundwater monitoring datasets, Water quality state in sometime of the future was forecasted using time-sequenced analyzing methods. Water quality varying trend was analyzed by Spearman's rank correlative coefficient.The relative risk map of groundwater pollution was estimated through a procedure that identifies, cell by cell,the values of three factors, that is inherent vulnerability, load risk of pollution source and contamination hazard. DRASTIC method was used to assess inherent vulnerability of aquifer. Load risk of pollution source was analyzed based on the potential of contamination and pollution degree. Assessment index of load risk of pollution source which involves the variety of pollution source, quantity of contaminants, releasing potential of pollutants, and distance were determined. The load risks of all sources considered by GIS overlay technology. Early warning model of groundwater pollution combined with ComGIS technology organically, the regional groundwater pollution early-warning information system was developed, and applied it into Qiqiha'er groundwater early warning. It can be used to evaluate current water quality, to forecast water quality changing trend, and to analyze space-time influencing range of groundwater quality by natural process and human activities. Keywords

  13. The challenge of installing a tsunami early warning system in the vicinity of the Sunda Arc, Indonesia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    J. Lauterjung

    2010-04-01

    Full Text Available Indonesia is located along the most prominent active continental margin in the Indian Ocean, the so-called Sunda Arc and, therefore, is one of the most threatened regions of the world in terms of natural hazards such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis. On 26 December 2004 the third largest earthquake ever instrumentally recorded (magnitude 9.3, Stein and Okal, 2005 occurred off-shore northern Sumatra and triggered a mega-tsunami affecting the whole Indian Ocean. Almost a quarter of a million people were killed, as the region was not prepared either in terms of early-warning or in terms of disaster response.

    In order to be able to provide, in future, a fast and reliable warning procedure for the population, Germany, immediately after the catastrophe, offered during the UN World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Hyogo/Japan in January 2005 technical support for the development and installation of a tsunami early warning system for the Indian Ocean in addition to assistance in capacity building in particular for local communities. This offer was accepted by Indonesia but also by other countries like Sri Lanka, the Maldives and some East-African countries. Anyhow the main focus of our activities has been carried out in Indonesia as the main source of tsunami threat for the entire Indian Ocean. Challenging for the technical concept of this warning system are the extremely short warning times for Indonesia, due to its vicinity to the Sunda Arc. For this reason the German Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS integrates different modern and new scientific monitoring technologies and analysis methods.

  14. Emergency warning for people with disabilities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Putkovich, Kenneth

    2013-01-01

    The intent of this article is to assess the current state of Emergency Warning capabilities in the United States and make recommendations on what needs to be done to cost effectively establish a National Emergency Warning System to best serve the people of the United States, including those with disabilities. As part of this assessment, terminology will be defined, existing systems will be examined, critical needs and functions will be explained, and recommendations made for a system to deliver emergency messages to those people immediately at risk from natural and human-caused disasters in a timely and effective manner, regardless of location or situational circumstance. The assessment will include the needs and available technologies for delivering emergency warnings to people with disabilities, which are generally little understood, poorly addressed, and often ignored.

  15. Characterize Eruptive Processes at Yucca Mountain, Nevada

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Valentine, G.

    2001-01-01

    This Analysis/Model Report (AMR), ''Characterize Eruptive Processes at Yucca Mountain, Nevada'', presents information about natural volcanic systems and the parameters that can be used to model their behavior. This information is used to develop parameter-value distributions appropriate for analysis of the consequences of volcanic eruptions through a potential repository at Yucca Mountain. Many aspects of this work are aimed at resolution of the Igneous Activity Key Technical Issue (KTI) as identified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC 1998, p. 3), Subissues 1 and 2, which address the probability and consequence of igneous activity at the proposed repository site, respectively. Within the framework of the Disruptive Events Process Model Report (PMR), this AMR provides information for the calculations in two other AMRs ; parameters described herein are directly used in calculations in these reports and will be used in Total System Performance Assessment (TSPA). Compilation of this AMR was conducted as defined in the Development Plan, except as noted. The report begins with considerations of the geometry of volcanic feeder systems, which are of primary importance in predicting how much of a potential repository would be affected by an eruption. This discussion is followed by one of the physical and chemical properties of the magmas, which influences both eruptive styles and mechanisms for interaction with radioactive waste packages. Eruptive processes including the ascent velocity of magma at depth, the onset of bubble nucleation and growth in the rising magmas, magma fragmentation, and velocity of the resulting gas-particle mixture are then discussed. The duration of eruptions, their power output, and mass discharge rates are also described. The next section summarizes geologic constraints regarding the interaction between magma and waste packages. Finally, they discuss bulk grain size produced by relevant explosive eruptions and grain shapes

  16. Characterize Eruptive Processes at Yucca Mountain, Nevada

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    G. Valentine

    2001-12-20

    This Analysis/Model Report (AMR), ''Characterize Eruptive Processes at Yucca Mountain, Nevada'', presents information about natural volcanic systems and the parameters that can be used to model their behavior. This information is used to develop parameter-value distributions appropriate for analysis of the consequences of volcanic eruptions through a potential repository at Yucca Mountain. Many aspects of this work are aimed at resolution of the Igneous Activity Key Technical Issue (KTI) as identified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC 1998, p. 3), Subissues 1 and 2, which address the probability and consequence of igneous activity at the proposed repository site, respectively. Within the framework of the Disruptive Events Process Model Report (PMR), this AMR provides information for the calculations in two other AMRs ; parameters described herein are directly used in calculations in these reports and will be used in Total System Performance Assessment (TSPA). Compilation of this AMR was conducted as defined in the Development Plan, except as noted. The report begins with considerations of the geometry of volcanic feeder systems, which are of primary importance in predicting how much of a potential repository would be affected by an eruption. This discussion is followed by one of the physical and chemical properties of the magmas, which influences both eruptive styles and mechanisms for interaction with radioactive waste packages. Eruptive processes including the ascent velocity of magma at depth, the onset of bubble nucleation and growth in the rising magmas, magma fragmentation, and velocity of the resulting gas-particle mixture are then discussed. The duration of eruptions, their power output, and mass discharge rates are also described. The next section summarizes geologic constraints regarding the interaction between magma and waste packages. Finally, they discuss bulk grain size produced by relevant explosive eruptions and grain

  17. The International Platform on Earthquake Early Warning Systems (IP-EEWS)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Torres, Jair; Fanchiotti, Margherita

    2017-04-01

    The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 recognizes the need to "substantially increase the availability of and access to multi-hazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments to the people by 2030" as one of its global targets (target "g"). While considerable progress has been made in recent decades, early warning systems (EWSs) continue to be less developed for geo-hazards and significant challenges remain in advancing the development of EWSs for specific hazards, particularly for fastest onset hazards such as earthquakes. An earthquake early warning system (EEWS) helps in disseminating timely information about potentially catastrophic earthquake hazards to the public, emergency managers and the private sector to provide enough time to implement automatized emergency measures. At the same time, these systems help to reduce considerably the CO2 emissions produced by the catastrophic impacts and subsequent effects of earthquakes, such as those generated by fires, collapses, and pollution (among others), as well as those produced in the recovery and reconstruction processes. In recent years, EEWSs have been developed independently in few countries: EEWSs have shown operational in Japan and Mexico, while other regions in California (USA), Turkey, Italy, Canada, South Korea and China (including Taiwan) are in the development stages or under restricted applications. Many other countries in the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Middle East, Eastern Africa, Southeast Africa, as well as Central America, South America and the Caribbean, are located in some of the most seismically active regions in the world, or present moderate seismicity but high vulnerability, and would strongly benefit from the development of EEWSs. Given that, in many instances, the development of an EEWS still requires further testing, increased density coverage in seismic observation stations, regional coordination, and further scientific

  18. On a Possible Unified Scaling Law for Volcanic Eruption Durations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cannavò, Flavio; Nunnari, Giuseppe

    2016-03-01

    Volcanoes constitute dissipative systems with many degrees of freedom. Their eruptions are the result of complex processes that involve interacting chemical-physical systems. At present, due to the complexity of involved phenomena and to the lack of precise measurements, both analytical and numerical models are unable to simultaneously include the main processes involved in eruptions thus making forecasts of volcanic dynamics rather unreliable. On the other hand, accurate forecasts of some eruption parameters, such as the duration, could be a key factor in natural hazard estimation and mitigation. Analyzing a large database with most of all the known volcanic eruptions, we have determined that the duration of eruptions seems to be described by a universal distribution which characterizes eruption duration dynamics. In particular, this paper presents a plausible global power-law distribution of durations of volcanic eruptions that holds worldwide for different volcanic environments. We also introduce a new, simple and realistic pipe model that can follow the same found empirical distribution. Since the proposed model belongs to the family of the self-organized systems it may support the hypothesis that simple mechanisms can lead naturally to the emergent complexity in volcanic behaviour.

  19. Mechanism of human tooth eruption

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kjær, Inger

    2014-01-01

    Human eruption is a unique developmental process in the organism. The aetiology or the mechanism behind eruption has never been fully understood and the scientific literature in the field is extremely sparse. Human and animal tissues provide different possibilities for eruption analyses, briefly ...... keeps this new theory in mind. Understanding the aetiology of the eruption process is necessary for treating deviant eruption courses....... to insight into the aetiology behind eruption. A new theory on the eruption mechanism is presented. Accordingly, the mechanism of eruption depends on the correlation between space in the eruption course, created by the crown follicle, eruption pressure triggered by innervation in the apical root membrane......, and the ability of the periodontal ligament to adapt to eruptive movements. Animal studies and studies on normal and pathological eruption in humans can support and explain different aspects in the new theory. The eruption mechanism still needs elucidation and the paper recommends that future research on eruption...

  20. Assessing Eruption Column Height in Ancient Flood Basalt Eruptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Glaze, Lori S.; Self, Stephen; Schmidt, Anja; Hunter, Stephen J.

    2015-01-01

    A buoyant plume model is used to explore the ability of flood basalt eruptions to inject climate-relevant gases into the stratosphere. An example from the 1986 Izu-Oshima basaltic fissure eruption validates the model's ability to reproduce the observed maximum plume heights of 12-16 km above sea level, sustained above fire-fountains. The model predicts maximum plume heights of 13-17 km for source widths of between 4-16 m when 32% (by mass) of the erupted magma is fragmented and involved in the buoyant plume (effective volatile content of 6 wt%). Assuming that the Miocene-age Roza eruption (part of the Columbia River Basalt Group) sustained fire-fountains of similar height to Izu-Oshima (1.6 km above the vent), we show that the Roza eruption could have sustained buoyant ash and gas plumes that extended into the stratosphere at approximately 45 deg N. Assuming 5 km long active fissure segments and 9000 Mt of SO2 released during explosive phases over a 10-15 year duration, the approximately 180 km of known Roza fissure length could have supported approximately 36 explosive events/phases, each with a duration of 3-4 days. Each 5 km fissure segment could have emitted 62 Mt of SO2 per day into the stratosphere while actively fountaining, the equivalent of about three 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruptions per day. Each fissure segment could have had one to several vents, which subsequently produced lava without significant fountaining for a longer period within the decades-long eruption. Sensitivity of plume rise height to ancient atmospheric conditions is explored. Although eruptions in the Deccan Traps (approximately 66 Ma) may have generated buoyant plumes that rose to altitudes in excess of 18 km, they may not have reached the stratosphere because the tropopause was substantially higher in the late Cretaceous. Our results indicate that some flood basalt eruptions, such as Roza, were capable of repeatedly injecting large masses of SO2 into the stratosphere. Thus sustained

  1. Petrography and petrology of the Nornahraun eruption of the Bárðarbunga volcanic system, Iceland

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guðfinnsson, Guðmundur H.; Halldórsson, Sæmundur Ari; Bali, Enikő; Jakobsson, Sigurður; Sverrisdóttir, Guðrún; Höskuldssson, Ármann; Riishuus, Morten S.; Þórðarson, Þorvaldur; The 2014 Nornahraun Eruption Team

    2015-04-01

    The on-going fissure eruption north of Dyngjujökull is becoming the largest of its kind in Iceland since the 1783-84 Laki eruption. The erupted lava is olivine tholeiite, containing up to 5% normative olivine. It is relatively macrocryst-poor, initially containing less than 1% phenocrysts by volume, increasing to over 1% as the eruption has progressed. Plagioclase is the dominant macrocryst phase but olivine and augite are also present. In most of the samples, crystallization of the groundmass is substantial, with plagioclase and augite as the key groundmass minerals and minor olivine. It features subophitic texture, typical for olivine tholeiites, where the interstitial glass contains dendritic Fe-Ti oxide. During the first two months of the eruption, magma composition has been constant, displaying uniform major and trace element composition and nearly uniform isotopic compositions (Halldórsson et al. (a), this session). The major and trace element contents, in addition to the isotope ratios of lead, are indistinguishable from basalts in the Bárðarbunga volcanic system (Halldórsson et al. (b), this session). The compositional trends are consistent with crystallization along the ol-plag-cpx cotectic. Crystallization depth estimates, based on the pressure dependence of the cotectic (Yang et al., 1996), indicate that the magma equilibrated at a minimum depth between 6-9 km, consistent with depth estimates derived from CO2-bearing fluid inclusions trapped in plagioclase phenocrysts (Bali et al., this session). The bulk of the earthquakes associated with this volcano-tectonic episode are also in this range (e.g., Sigmundsson et al., 2015). Calculations with several different magma geothermometers suggest that the temperature of the magma as it rises to the surface is about 1170-1180°C, in good agreement with on-site measurements by thermal imaging cameras. The eruption has been characterized by steady, high emission of SO2. The sulfur-rich nature of the lava is

  2. The Early Warning System and the EU’s subsidiarity principle: the Basque Parliament’s application

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    José Luis de Castro Ruano

    2012-09-01

    Full Text Available This article analyses and evaluates the Basque Parliament’s participation in the EU’s Early Warning System (EWS for checking the application of the subsidiarity principle in the EU’s legislative process. The Early Warning System is an instrument created by the Lisbon Treaty (signed in 2007 and in force since 2009 to safeguard the subsidiarity principle. One of its most interesting innovations is that it facilitates the participation of regional parliaments in the control of the subsidiarity principle. Two years after its introduction, the Basque Parliament is one of the most active regional actors in this regard.

  3. An analysis of the early-warning system in emerging markets for reducing the financial crisis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shen, Xiangguang; Song, Xiaozhong

    2009-07-01

    The large number of financial crises in emerging markets over the past ten years has left many observers, both from academia and financial institutions, puzzled by an apparent lack of homogenous causal relations between endogenous economic variables and the bursting of large financial shocks. The frequency of financial crises in the last 20 years can be attributed to the lack of a comprehensive theory of financial regulation to guide policy makers. Existing theories fail to define the range of regulatory models, the causes of regulatory failure, and how to measure and prevent it. Faulty design of regulatory models, and the lack of ongoing performance monitoring incorporating early warning systems, is disrupting economic and social development. The main aim of this article is to propose an early warning system (EWS) which purposes issuing warning signal against the possible financial crisis in the emerging market, and makes the emerging market survived the first wave of the crisis be able to continue their operation in the following years.

  4. Disaster warning and promoting human welfare - the civil and scientific uses of CTBTO data

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    2011-12-01

    The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) bans all nuclear explosions. Its verification will be assured by the global alarm system currently being established by the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). The 337 facilities of the International Monitoring System (IMS), which span the entire globe, ensure that no nuclear explosion escapes detection. The IMS uses four technologies - radionuclide, seismic, infrasound and hydroacoustic. More than 85% of this system has already been established (as of December 2011). Apart from detecting nuclear explosions, this one billion dollar investment by the CTBTO's more than 180 Member States can be put to a wide range of civil and scientific uses, thereby contributing to sustainable development, knowledge expansion and saving lives. However, to a large extent, these benefits are still untapped. Examples of civil and scientific uses:Detection and real time warning of - Earthquakes and tsunamis, Radiation dispersal from nuclear accidents, Volcanic eruptions; Research on - The Earth's core, Climate change, Meteorology, Break-up of ice shelves and the creation of icebergs, Oceans and marine life, Worldwide background radiation.

  5. Feasibility Study of Earthquake Early Warning in Hawai`i For the Mauna Kea Thirty Meter Telescope

    Science.gov (United States)

    Okubo, P.; Hotovec-Ellis, A. J.; Thelen, W. A.; Bodin, P.; Vidale, J. E.

    2014-12-01

    Earthquakes, including large damaging events, are as central to the geologic evolution of the Island of Hawai`i as its more famous volcanic eruptions and lava flows. Increasing and expanding development of facilities and infrastructure on the island continues to increase exposure and risk associated with strong ground shaking resulting from future large local earthquakes. Damaging earthquakes over the last fifty years have shaken the most heavily developed areas and critical infrastructure of the island to levels corresponding to at least Modified Mercalli Intensity VII. Hawai`i's most recent damaging earthquakes, the M6.7 Kiholo Bay and M6.0 Mahukona earthquakes, struck within seven minutes of one another off of the northwest coast of the island in October 2006. These earthquakes resulted in damage at all thirteen of the telescopes near the summit of Mauna Kea that led to gaps in telescope operations ranging from days up to four months. With the experiences of 2006 and Hawai`i's history of damaging earthquakes, we have begun a study to explore the feasibility of implementing earthquake early warning systems to provide advanced warnings to the Thirty Meter Telescope of imminent strong ground shaking from future local earthquakes. One of the major challenges for earthquake early warning in Hawai`i is the variety of earthquake sources, from shallow crustal faults to deeper mantle sources, including the basal decollement separating the volcanic pile from the ancient oceanic crust. Infrastructure on the Island of Hawai`i may only be tens of kilometers from these sources, allowing warning times of only 20 s or less. We assess the capability of the current seismic network to produce alerts for major historic earthquakes, and we will provide recommendations for upgrades to improve performance.

  6. Food Security, Decision Making and the Use of Remote Sensing in Famine Early Warning Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brown, Molly E.

    2008-01-01

    Famine early warning systems use remote sensing in combination with socio-economic and household food economy analysis to provide timely and rigorous information on emerging food security crises. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) is the US Agency for International Development's decision support system in 20 African countries, as well as in Guatemala, Haiti and Afghanistan. FEWS NET provides early and actionable policy guidance for the US Government and its humanitarian aid partners. As we move into an era of climate change where weather hazards will become more frequent and severe, understanding how to provide quantitative and actionable scientific information for policy makers using biophysical data is critical for an appropriate and effective response.

  7. An Accurate Gaussian Process-Based Early Warning System for Dengue Fever

    OpenAIRE

    Albinati, Julio; Meira Jr, Wagner; Pappa, Gisele Lobo

    2016-01-01

    Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne disease present in all Brazilian territory. Brazilian government, however, lacks an accurate early warning system to quickly predict future dengue outbreaks. Such system would help health authorities to plan their actions and to reduce the impact of the disease in the country. However, most attempts to model dengue fever use parametric models which enforce a specific expected behaviour and fail to capture the inherent complexity of dengue dynamics. Therefore, ...

  8. Small volcanic eruptions and the stratospheric sulfate aerosol burden

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pyle, David M.

    2012-09-01

    (Rampino and Self 1984, Pyle et al 1996, Self and Rampino 2012). But as yet, there is little evidence for the consequences of this scale of eruption for the climate system (Miles et al 2004), and few data against which to test simulations of stratospheric sulfur-injection 'geoengineering' scenarios of a similar scale and frequency (e.g. English et al 2012). A hint of the new volcano-observing capability came during the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland. For a few days in April 2010 meteorological conditions, coupled with a dramatic increase in volcanic ash production, led to the wide dispersal of fine volcanic particles across northern Europe; an event which was widely tracked by ground-based and satellite-borne instruments, augmented by in situ measurements from balloons and aircraft (Bennett et al 2010, Flentje et al 2010, Harrison et al 2010, Stohl et al 2011). Despite the interest in Eyjafjallajökull at the time, this was, geologically, only a very modest eruption with limited sulfur emissions and an impact restricted mainly to the regional troposphere (e.g. Thomas and Prata 2011, Walker et al 2012). Then, in June 2011, a previously dormant volcano in north-east Africa began to erupt violently. Little is known about Nabro, which is a partially collapsed volcano that straddles the Eritrea-Ethiopia border, and has had no known historical activity (Wiart and Oppenheimer 2005). Despite the remote location, and lack of prior warning, the event and its aftermath were remarkably well captured by remote-sensing instruments, as demonstrated in the new letter by Sawamura et al (2012). Using both ground-based and satellite-borne laser-ranging (lidar) data, Sawamura et al (2012) were able to extract detailed information about the nature of the volcanic aerosol layer, and its spread around the globe. The eruption started strongly, with substantial ash plumes for the first 48 h, rising to 9-14 km altitude (Smithsonian Institution 2011, Bourassa et al 2012), that carried at

  9. Demonstration of the Cascadia G‐FAST geodetic earthquake early warning system for the Nisqually, Washington, earthquake

    Science.gov (United States)

    Crowell, Brendan; Schmidt, David; Bodin, Paul; Vidale, John; Gomberg, Joan S.; Hartog, Renate; Kress, Victor; Melbourne, Tim; Santillian, Marcelo; Minson, Sarah E.; Jamison, Dylan

    2016-01-01

    A prototype earthquake early warning (EEW) system is currently in development in the Pacific Northwest. We have taken a two‐stage approach to EEW: (1) detection and initial characterization using strong‐motion data with the Earthquake Alarm Systems (ElarmS) seismic early warning package and (2) the triggering of geodetic modeling modules using Global Navigation Satellite Systems data that help provide robust estimates of large‐magnitude earthquakes. In this article we demonstrate the performance of the latter, the Geodetic First Approximation of Size and Time (G‐FAST) geodetic early warning system, using simulated displacements for the 2001Mw 6.8 Nisqually earthquake. We test the timing and performance of the two G‐FAST source characterization modules, peak ground displacement scaling, and Centroid Moment Tensor‐driven finite‐fault‐slip modeling under ideal, latent, noisy, and incomplete data conditions. We show good agreement between source parameters computed by G‐FAST with previously published and postprocessed seismic and geodetic results for all test cases and modeling modules, and we discuss the challenges with integration into the U.S. Geological Survey’s ShakeAlert EEW system.

  10. The chemically zoned 1949 eruption on La Palma (Canary Islands): Petrologic evolution and magma supply dynamics of a rift zone eruption

    Science.gov (United States)

    Klügel, Andreas; Hoernle, Kaj A.; Schmincke, Hans-Ulrich; White, James D. L.

    2000-03-01

    The 1949 rift zone eruption along the Cumbre Vieja ridge on La Palma involved three eruptive centers, 3 km spaced apart, and was chemically and mineralogically zoned. Duraznero crater erupted tephrite for 14 days and shut down upon the opening of Llano del Banco, a fissure that issued first tephrite and, after 3 days, basanite. Hoyo Negro crater opened 4 days later and erupted basanite, tephrite, and phonotephrite, while Llano del Banco continued to issue basanite. The eruption ended with Duraznero erupting basanite with abundant crustal and mantle xenoliths. The tephrites and basanites from Duraznero and Llano del Banco show narrow compositional ranges and define a bimodal suite. Each batch ascended and evolved separately without significant intermixing, as did the Hoyo Negro basanite, which formed at lower degrees of melting. The magmas fractionated clinopyroxene +olivine±kaersutite±Ti-magnetite at 600-800 MPa and possibly 800-1100 MPa. Abundant reversely zoned phenocrysts reflect mixing with evolved melts at mantle depths. Probably as early as 1936, Hoyo Negro basanite entered the deep rift system at 200-350 MPa. Some shallower pockets of this basanite evolved to phonotephrite through differentiation and assimilation of wall rock. A few months prior to eruption, a mixing event in the mantle may have triggered the final ascent of the magmas. Most of the erupted tephrite and basanite ascended from mantle depths within hours to days without prolonged storage in crustal reservoirs. The Cumbre Vieja rift zone differs from the rift zones of Kilauea volcano (Hawaii) in lacking a summit caldera or a summit reservoir feeding the rift system and in being smaller and less active with most of the rift magma solidifying between eruptions.

  11. Design of early warning system for nuclear preparedness case study at Serpong

    Science.gov (United States)

    Farid, M. M.; Prawito, Susila, I. P.; Yuniarto, A.

    2017-07-01

    One effort to protect the environment from the increasing of potentially environmental radiation hazards as an impact of radiation discharge around nuclear facilities is by a continuous monitoring of the environmental radiation in real time It is important to disclose the dose rate information to public or authorities for radiological protection. In this research, we have designed a nuclear preparedness early warning system around the Serpong nuclear facility. The design is based on Arduino program, general packet radio service (GPRS) shield, and radio frequencies technology to transmit environmental radiation result of the measurement and meteorological data. Data was collected at a certain location at The Center for Informatics and Nuclear Strategic Zone Utilization BATAN Serpong. The system consistency models are defined by the quality of data and the level of radiation exposure in the deployed environment. Online users can access the website which displays the radiation dose on the environment marked on Google Map. This system is capable to issue an early warning emergency when the dose reaches three times of the background radiation exposure value, 250 nSv/hour.

  12. Early warning system of drought for risk assessment and risk management

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chub, V.E.; Agaltseva, N.A.; Myagkov, S.V.

    2004-01-01

    In Article 10 point 2 of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification and Drought it is pointed out that the National Action Plans 'envisage the strengthening of the national basis of the climatic, meteorological and hydrological studies and the extending the possibilities for the creation of the system of the early drought forecasting'. The Pilot Project << Early warning system of Drought,, was executed in Uzbekistan at support of Germany project on Convention to combat Desertification (GTZ-CCD). The objective of the project is the creation of the regional automated information system for the early drought warning (AISEWS). In the framework of the project it is proposed to fulfil the main following tasks: - development of concepts of preparing the databases on drought factors and keeping on the databank of drought conditions on territory of Republic Uzbekistan; - the creation of the regional informational basis of the hydro meteorological and agrometeorological information and the system of its keeping on the basis of GIS technique; - analysis of hydro meteorological situations causing the drought in the Aral sea basin; - experimental agrometeorological (in the course of the field studies) and numerical estimation of the parameters of the model of the runoff formation and soil drought; - adaptation of the models complex set of the runoff formation for hydrological objects; - development of out the technique for the long-term drought forecasting basing on the mathematical models of the runoff formation in the river basin; -development of the computer information system for the early drought forecasting with the elements of the operational information transfer to the users. For the Central Asian region the drought means, first of all, the deficit of the water resources that is why the forecasting of the water availability in rivers in the years with the water deficit is of the utmost importance. The following tasks should be fulfilled for the achieving the designed

  13. Monitoring Regional Forest Disturbances across the US with Near Real Time MODIS NDVI Products included in the ForWarn Forest Threat Early Warning System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spruce, Joseph; Hargrove, William W.; Gasser, Gerald; Norman, Steve

    2013-01-01

    U.S. forests occupy approx.1/3 of total land area (approx. 304 million ha). Since 2000, a growing number of regionally evident forest disturbances have occurred due to abiotic and biotic agents. Regional forest disturbances can threaten human life and property, bio-diversity and water supplies. Timely regional forest disturbance monitoring products are needed to aid forest health management work. Near Real Time (NRT) twice daily MODIS NDVI data provide a means to monitor U.S. regional forest disturbances every 8 days. Since 2010, these NRT forest change products have been produced and posted on the US Forest Service ForWarn Early Warning System for Forest Threats.

  14. Toward an integrative spatiotemporal architecture of the magma plumbing system leading to systematic Plinian eruption at Montagne Pelée Martinique (Lesser Antilles)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boudon, G.; Balcone-Boissard, H.; Lyonnet, E.; Morgan, D. J.

    2017-12-01

    The dynamic of crustal magma reservoir may be at the origin of pressure/temperature variations that may trigger magma ascent and eruption. These changes can be registered during crystal growth and can probably produce at the surface geophysical or/and geochemical signals that could be registered by monitoring network, constituting precursory signals. For volcanoes where the plumbing system is well established in terms of volume and depth for a given cycle, repetitive eruptions of the same order of magnitude and involving similar magma composition may occur. It was the case for Montagne Pelée (Martinique, Lesser Antilles), sadly known for the 1902 lava dome-forming eruption that killed 30 000 inhabitants, and that produce repetitive Plinian eruptions in the last 15 ky. Are the perturbations in the dynamic of the magma storage identical for all these eruptions and is the timescale between these perturbations and the eruptions in the same order of magnitude? In the last decade, intracristalline diffusion modelling has been increasingly used to constrain timescale of magmatic processes. Recently this kind of investigations has been coupled to a petrological model of the magma storage region to better wholly describe its behaviour through a Crystal System Analysis (CSA) approach. Here we aim at constraining the pre-eruptive dynamic of the reservoir giving birth to the Plinian eruptions at Montagne Pelée. Precisely we attempt to identify the processes at the origin of the eruptions and the timescale between this process and the eruption. By studying the last five Plinian eruptions of this volcano the question of the systematic occurrence of one process at the same time prior eruption will be discussed. To achieve this goal we performed a detailed petrological description of the eruptive products of the first Plinian phase of these eruptions to build a CSA tree through EPMA and SEM analyses, coupled to Fe-Mg diffusion modelling in orthopyroxenes to retrieve timescale

  15. Famine Early Warning Systems and Their Use of Satellite Remote Sensing Data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brown, Molly E.; Essam, Timothy; Leonard, Kenneth

    2011-01-01

    Famine early warning organizations have experience that has much to contribute to efforts to incorporate climate and weather information into economic and political systems. Food security crises are now caused almost exclusively by problems of food access, not absolute food availability, but the role of monitoring agricultural production both locally and globally remains central. The price of food important to the understanding of food security in any region, but it needs to be understood in the context of local production. Thus remote sensing is still at the center of much food security analysis, along with an examination of markets, trade and economic policies during food security analyses. Technology including satellite remote sensing, earth science models, databases of food production and yield, and modem telecommunication systems contributed to improved food production information. Here we present an econometric approach focused on bringing together satellite remote sensing and market analysis into food security assessment in the context of early warning.

  16. LDAR, A Three-Dimensional Lightning Warning System: Its Development and Use by the Government, and Transition to Public Availability

    Science.gov (United States)

    Starr, Stan; Sharp, David; Merceret, Francis; Madura, John; Murphy, Martin

    1998-01-01

    NASA, at the John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC), developed and operates a unique high precision lightning location system to provide lightning related weather warnings. These warnings are used to stop lightning-sensitive operations such as space vehicle launches and ground operations where equipment and personnel are at risk. The data is provided to the Range Weather Operations [45th Weather Squadron, U. S. Air Force (USAF)] where it is used with other meteorological data to issue weather advisories and warnings for Cape Canaveral Air Station (CCAS) and KSC operations. This system, called Lightning Detection and Ranging (LDAR), provides users with a graphical display in three dimensions of 66 MHz radio frequency events generated by lightning processes. The locations of these events provide a sound basis for the prediction of lightning hazards. NASA and Global Atmospherics, Inc. are developing a new system that will replace the unique LDAR components with commercially available and maintainable components having improved capabilities. These components will be phased in to ensure full continuity and access to this important warning technology. These LDAR systems are expected to eventually be available for installation and use by the public at specialized facilities, such as airports, and for general weather warnings via the National Weather Service (NWS) or television broadcast. The NWS in Melbourne has had access to real-time LDAR data since 1993 on an experimental basis. This use of LDAR has shown promise for the improvement of aviation forecasts and severe weather warnings. More so, it has opened the door to investigate the feasibility of issuing lightning-related public advisories. The success of its early use suggests that this technology may improve safety and potentially save lives, therefore constituting a significant benefit to the public. This paper describes the LDR system, the plans and progress of these upgrades, and the potential benefits of its use.

  17. Investigation on forecasting and warning systems, experience from a project in Denmark

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Axelsen, Jørgen Aagaard; Munk, Lisa; Ørum, Jens Erik

    2011-01-01

    This paper is dealing with the results of a knowledge synthesis on monitoring, warning and decision systems made for the Danish environmental protection agency during 2011. The knowledge synthesis document is a volume of about 160 pages written in Danish and the present paper is the English versi...

  18. Global time-size distribution of volcanic eruptions on Earth.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Papale, Paolo

    2018-05-01

    Volcanic eruptions differ enormously in their size and impacts, ranging from quiet lava flow effusions along the volcano flanks to colossal events with the potential to affect our entire civilization. Knowledge of the time and size distribution of volcanic eruptions is of obvious relevance for understanding the dynamics and behavior of the Earth system, as well as for defining global volcanic risk. From the analysis of recent global databases of volcanic eruptions extending back to more than 2 million years, I show here that the return times of eruptions with similar magnitude follow an exponential distribution. The associated relative frequency of eruptions with different magnitude displays a power law, scale-invariant distribution over at least six orders of magnitude. These results suggest that similar mechanisms subtend to explosive eruptions from small to colossal, raising concerns on the theoretical possibility to predict the magnitude and impact of impending volcanic eruptions.

  19. Volcano-tectonic earthquakes: A new tool for estimating intrusive volumes and forecasting eruptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    White, Randall; McCausland, Wendy

    2016-01-01

    , the intruded magma volume can be quickly and easily estimated with few short-period seismic stations. Notable cases in which distal VT events preceded eruptions at long-dormant volcanoes include: Nevado del Ruiz (1984-1985), Pinatubo (1991), Unzen (1989-1995), Soufriere Hills (1995), Shishaldin (1989-1999), Tacana' (1985-1986), Pacaya (1980-1984), Rabaul (1994), and Cotopaxi (2001). Additional cases are recognized at frequently active volcanoes including Popocateptl (2001-2003) and Mauna Loa (1984). We present four case studies (Pinatubo, Soufriere Hills, Unzen, and Tacana') in which we demonstrate the above mentioned VT characteristics prior to eruptions. Using regional data recorded by NEIC, we recognized in near-real time that a huge distal VT swarm was occurring, deduced that a proportionately huge magmatic intrusion was taking place beneath the long dormant Sulu Range, New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea, that it was likely to lead to eruptive activity, and warned Rabaul Volcano Observatory days before a phreatic eruption occurred. This confirms the value of this technique for eruption forecasting. We also present a counter-example where we deduced that a VT swarm at Volcan Cosiguina, Nicaragua, indicated a small intrusion, insufficient to reach the surface and erupt. Finally, we discuss limitations of the method and propose a mechanism by which this distal VT seismicity is triggered by magmatic intrusion.

  20. Changes in shear-wave splitting before volcanic eruptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Sha; Crampin, Stuart

    2015-04-01

    We have shown that observations of shear-wave splitting (SWS) monitor stress-accumulation and stress-relaxation before earthquakes which allows the time, magnitude, and in some circumstances fault-plane of impending earthquakes to be stress-forecast. (We call this procedure stress-forecasting rather than predicting or forecasting to emphasise the different formalism.) We have stress-forecast these parameters successfully three-days before a 1988 M5 earthquake in SW Iceland, and identified characteristic anomalies retrospectively before ~16 other earthquakes in Iceland and elsewhere. SWS monitors microcrack geometry and shows that microcracks are so closely spaced that they verge on fracturing and earthquakes. Phenomena verging on failure in this way are critical-systems with 'butterfly wings' sensitivity. Such critical-systems are very common. The Earth is an archetypal complex heterogeneous interactive phenomenon and must be expected to be a critical-system. We claim this critical system as a New Geophysics of a critically-microcracked rock mass. Such critical systems impose a range of fundamentally-new properties on conventional sub-critical physics/geophysics, one of which is universality. Consequently it is expected that we observe similar stress-accumulation and stress-relaxation before volcanic eruptions to those before earthquakes. There are three eruptions where appropriate changes in SWS have been observed similar to those observed before earthquakes. These are: the 1996 Gjálp fissure eruption, Vatnajökull, Iceland; a 2001 flank eruption on Mount Etna, Sicily (reported by Francesca Bianco, INGV, Naples); and the 2010 Eyjafjajökull ash-cloud eruption, SW Iceland. These will be presented in the same normalised format as is used before earthquakes. The 1996 Gjálp eruption showed a 2½-month stress-accumulation, and a ~1-year stress-relaxation (attributed to the North Atlantic Ridge adjusting to the magma injection beneath the Vatnajökull Ice Cap). The

  1. Technical Note: An operational landslide early warning system at regional scale based on space-time-variable rainfall thresholds

    Science.gov (United States)

    Segoni, S.; Battistini, A.; Rossi, G.; Rosi, A.; Lagomarsino, D.; Catani, F.; Moretti, S.; Casagli, N.

    2015-04-01

    We set up an early warning system for rainfall-induced landslides in Tuscany (23 000 km2). The system is based on a set of state-of-the-art intensity-duration rainfall thresholds (Segoni et al., 2014b) and makes use of LAMI (Limited Area Model Italy) rainfall forecasts and real-time rainfall data provided by an automated network of more than 300 rain gauges. The system was implemented in a WebGIS to ease the operational use in civil protection procedures: it is simple and intuitive to consult, and it provides different outputs. When switching among different views, the system is able to focus both on monitoring of real-time data and on forecasting at different lead times up to 48 h. Moreover, the system can switch between a basic data view where a synoptic scenario of the hazard can be shown all over the region and a more in-depth view were the rainfall path of rain gauges can be displayed and constantly compared with rainfall thresholds. To better account for the variability of the geomorphological and meteorological settings encountered in Tuscany, the region is subdivided into 25 alert zones, each provided with a specific threshold. The warning system reflects this subdivision: using a network of more than 300 rain gauges, it allows for the monitoring of each alert zone separately so that warnings can be issued independently. An important feature of the warning system is that the visualization of the thresholds in the WebGIS interface may vary in time depending on when the starting time of the rainfall event is set. The starting time of the rainfall event is considered as a variable by the early warning system: whenever new rainfall data are available, a recursive algorithm identifies the starting time for which the rainfall path is closest to or overcomes the threshold. This is considered the most hazardous condition, and it is displayed by the WebGIS interface. The early warning system is used to forecast and monitor the landslide hazard in the whole region

  2. An online operational rainfall-monitoring resource for epidemic malaria early warning systems in Africa

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grover-Kopec, Emily; Kawano, Mika; Klaver, Robert W.; Blumenthal, Benno; Ceccato, Pietro; Connor, Stephen J.

    2005-01-01

    Periodic epidemics of malaria are a major public health problem for many sub-Saharan African countries. Populations in epidemic prone areas have a poorly developed immunity to malaria and the disease remains life threatening to all age groups. The impact of epidemics could be minimized by prediction and improved prevention through timely vector control and deployment of appropriate drugs. Malaria Early Warning Systems are advocated as a means of improving the opportunity for preparedness and timely response.Rainfall is one of the major factors triggering epidemics in warm semi-arid and desert-fringe areas. Explosive epidemics often occur in these regions after excessive rains and, where these follow periods of drought and poor food security, can be especially severe. Consequently, rainfall monitoring forms one of the essential elements for the development of integrated Malaria Early Warning Systems for sub-Saharan Africa, as outlined by the World Health Organization.The Roll Back Malaria Technical Resource Network on Prevention and Control of Epidemics recommended that a simple indicator of changes in epidemic risk in regions of marginal transmission, consisting primarily of rainfall anomaly maps, could provide immediate benefit to early warning efforts. In response to these recommendations, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network produced maps that combine information about dekadal rainfall anomalies, and epidemic malaria risk, available via their Africa Data Dissemination Service. These maps were later made available in a format that is directly compatible with HealthMapper, the mapping and surveillance software developed by the WHO's Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response Department. A new monitoring interface has recently been developed at the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI) that enables the user to gain a more contextual perspective of the current rainfall estimates by comparing them to previous seasons and climatological

  3. Monitoring Regional Forest Disturbances across the US with near Real Time MODIS NDVI Products Resident to the ForWarn Forest Threat Early Warning System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spruce, Joseph P.; Hargrove, William W.; Gasser, Gerald

    2013-01-01

    Forest threats across the US have become increasingly evident in recent years. Sometimes these have resulted in regionally evident disturbance progressions (e.g., from drought, bark beetle outbreaks, and wildfires) that can occur across multiyear durations and have resulted in extensive forest overstory mortality. In addition to stand replacement disturbances, other forests are subject to ephemeral, sometimes yearly defoliation from various insects and varying types and intensities of ephemeral damage from storms. Sometimes, after prolonged severe disturbance, signs of recovery in terms of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) can occur. The growing prominence and threat of forest disturbances in part have led to the formation and implementation of the 2003 Healthy Forest Restoration Act which mandated that national forest threat early warning system be developed and deployed. In response, the US Forest Service collaborated with NASA, DOE Oakridge National Laboratory, and the USGS Eros Data Center to build and roll-out the near real time ForWarn early warning system for monitoring regionally evident forest disturbances. Given the diversity of disturbance types, severities, and durations, ForWarn employs multiple historical baselines that are used with current NDVI to derive a suite of six forest change products that are refreshed every 8 days. ForWarn employs daily quarter kilometer MODIS NDVI data from the Aqua and Terra satellites, including MOD13 data for deriving historical baseline NDVIs and eMODIS 7 NDVI for compiling current NDVI. In doing so, the Time Series Product Tool and the Phenological Parameters Estimation Tool are used to temporally de-noise, fuse, and aggregate current and historical MODIS NDVIs into 24 day composites refreshed every 8 days with 46 dates of products per year. The 24 day compositing interval enables disturbances to be detected, while minimizing the frequency of residual atmospheric contamination. Forest change products are

  4. Development of Water Resources Drought Early Warning System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, B. P. T.; Chen, C. H.

    2017-12-01

    Signs of impending drought are often vague and result from hydrologic uncertainty. Because of this, determining the appropriate time to enforce water supply restrictions is difficult. This study proposes a drought early warning index (DEWI) that can help water resource managers to anticipate droughts so that preparations can be made to mitigate the impact of water shortages. This study employs the expected-deficit-rate of normal water supply conditions as the drought early warning index. An annual-use-reservoir-based water supply system in southern Taiwan was selected as the case study. The water supply simulation was based on reservoir storage at the evaluation time and the reservoir inflow series to cope with the actual water supply process until the end of the hydrologic year. A variety of deficits could be realized during different hydrologic years of records and assumptions of initial reservoir storage. These deficits are illustrated using the Average Shortage Rate (ASR) and the value of the ASR, namely the DEWI. The ASR is divided into 5 levels according to 5 deficit-tolerance combinations of each kind of annual demand. A linear regression model and a Neuro-Fuzzy Computing Technique model were employed to estimate the DEWI using selected factors deduced from supply-demand traits and available information, including: rainfall, reservoir inflow and storage data. The chosen methods mentioned above are used to explain a significant index is useful for both model development and decision making. Tests in the Tsengwen-Wushantou reservoir system showed this DEWI to perform very well in adopting the proper mitigation policy at the end of the wet season.

  5. Study on integrated approach of Nuclear Accident Hazard Predicting, Warning, and Optimized Controlling System based on GIS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tang Lijuan; Huang Shunxiang; Wang Xinming

    2012-01-01

    The issue of nuclear safety becomes the attention focus of international society after the nuclear accident happened in Fukushima. Aiming at the requirements of the prevention and controlling of Nuclear Accident establishment of Nuclear Accident Hazard Predicting, Warning and optimized Controlling System (NAPWS) is a imperative project that our country and army are desiderating, which includes multiple fields of subject as nuclear physics, atmospheric science, security science, computer science and geographical information technology, etc. Multiplatform, multi-system and multi-mode are integrated effectively based on GIS, accordingly the Predicting, Warning, and Optimized Controlling technology System of Nuclear Accident Hazard is established. (authors)

  6. Web3DGIS-Based System for Reservoir Landslide Monitoring and Early Warning

    OpenAIRE

    Huang Huang; Jianhua Ni; Yu Zhang; Tianlu Qian; Dingtao Shen; Jiechen Wang

    2016-01-01

    Landslides are the most frequent type of natural disaster, and they bring about large-scale damage and are a threat to human lives and infrastructure; therefore, the ability to conduct real-time monitoring and early warning is important. In this study, a Web3DGIS (Web3D geographic information systems) system for monitoring and forecasting landslides was developed using the Danjiangkou Reservoir area as a case study. The development of this technique involved system construction, functional de...

  7. Developing a drought early warning information system for coastal ecosystems in the Carolinas

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kirsten Lackstrom; Amanda Brennan; Paul Conrads; Lisa Darby; Kirstin Dow; Daniel Tuford

    2016-01-01

    The National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) and the Carolinas Integrated Sciences and Assessments (CISA), a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)- funded Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) program, are partnering to develop and support a Carolinas Drought Early Warning System pilot program. Research and projects focus on...

  8. Early warning scores: a sign of deterioration in patients and systems

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    Fox, A

    2015-02-01

    The early warning score is a decision-making tool that has a simple design, yet its implementation in healthcare organisations is proving complex. This article reports the results of a survey that evaluated the nurses’ experiences of using the NEWS (National Early Warning Score) in an acute hospital in Ireland. Staff reported that the NEWS was easy to use, did not increase workload and enhanced their ability to identify deteriorating patients. However, they also identified problems related to doctors’ delayed response times, doctors lack of training in the use of the tool, and a failure by doctors to modify parameters for patients with chronic conditions. NEWS enhances nurses’ role in early detection of patient deterioration but delays in response times by doctors, exposes systematic flaws in healthcare. This suggests that it is not only an indicator of patient deterioration but also of deteriorating healthcare systems.

  9. A Conceptual Flash Flood Early Warning System for Africa, Based on Terrestrial Microwave Links and Flash Flood Guidance

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Joost C. B. Hoedjes

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available A conceptual flash flood early warning system for developing countries is described. The system uses rainfall intensity data from terrestrial microwave communication links and the geostationary Meteosat Second Generation satellite, i.e., two systems that are already in place and operational. Flash flood early warnings are based on a combination of the Flash Flood Guidance method and a hydrological model. The system will be maintained and operated through a public-private partnership, which includes a mobile telephone operator, a national meteorological service and an emergency relief service. The mobile telephone operator acts as both the supplier of raw input data and the disseminator of early warnings. The early warning system could significantly reduce the number of fatalities due to flash floods, improve the efficiency of disaster risk reduction efforts and play an important role in strengthening the resilience to climate change of developing countries in Africa. This paper describes the system that is currently being developed for Kenya.

  10. High-resolution Observations of Sympathetic Filament Eruptions by NVST

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Li, Shangwei; Su, Yingna; Zhou, Tuanhui; Ji, Haisheng [Key Laboratory for Dark Matter and Space Science, Purple Mountain Observatory, CAS, Nanjing 210008 (China); Van Ballegooijen, Adriaan [5001 Riverwood Avenue, Sarasota, FL 34231 (United States); Sun, Xudong, E-mail: ynsu@pmo.ac.cn [W. W. Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 (United States)

    2017-07-20

    We investigate two sympathetic filament eruptions observed by the New Vacuum Solar Telescope on 2015 October 15. The full picture of the eruptions is obtained from the corresponding Solar Dynamics Observatory ( SDO )/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) observations. The two filaments start from active region NOAA 12434 in the north and end in one large quiescent filament channel in the south. The left filament erupts first, followed by the right filament eruption about 10 minutes later. Clear twist structure and rotating motion are observed in both filaments during the eruption. Both eruptions failed, since the filaments first rise up, then flow toward the south and merge into the southern large quiescent filament. We also observe repeated activations of mini filaments below the right filament after its eruption. Using magnetic field models constructed based on SDO /HMI magnetograms via the flux rope insertion method, we find that the left filament eruption is likely to be triggered by kink instability, while the weakening of overlying magnetic fields due to magnetic reconnection at an X-point between the two filament systems might play an important role in the onset of the right filament eruption.

  11. How does a collision warning system shape driver's brake response time? The influence of expectancy and automation complacency on real-life emergency braking.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ruscio, Daniele; Ciceri, Maria Rita; Biassoni, Federica

    2015-04-01

    Brake Reaction Time (BRT) is an important parameter for road safety. Previous research has shown that drivers' expectations can impact RT when facing hazardous situations, but driving with advanced driver assistance systems, can change the way BRT are considered. The interaction with a collision warning system can help faster more efficient responses, but at the same time can require a monitoring task and evaluation process that may lead to automation complacency. The aims of the present study are to test in a real-life setting whether automation compliancy can be generated by a collision warning system and what component of expectancy can impact the different tasks involved in an assisted BRT process. More specifically four component of expectancy were investigated: presence/absence of anticipatory information, previous direct experience, reliability of the device, and predictability of the hazard determined by repeated use of the warning system. Results supply indication on perception time and mental elaboration of the collision warning system alerts. In particular reliable warning quickened the decision making process, misleading warnings generated automation complacency slowing visual search for hazard detection, lack of directed experienced slowed the overall response while unexpected failure of the device lead to inattentional blindness and potential pseudo-accidents with surprise obstacle intrusion. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. Large explosive basaltic eruptions at Katla volcano, Iceland: Fragmentation, grain size and eruption dynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schmith, Johanne; Höskuldsson, Ármann; Holm, Paul Martin; Larsen, Guðrún

    2018-04-01

    Katla volcano in Iceland produces hazardous large explosive basaltic eruptions on a regular basis, but very little quantitative data for future hazard assessments exist. Here details on fragmentation mechanism and eruption dynamics are derived from a study of deposit stratigraphy with detailed granulometry and grain morphology analysis, granulometric modeling, componentry and the new quantitative regularity index model of fragmentation mechanism. We show that magma/water interaction is important in the ash generation process, but to a variable extent. By investigating the large explosive basaltic eruptions from 1755 and 1625, we document that eruptions of similar size and magma geochemistry can have very different fragmentation dynamics. Our models show that fragmentation in the 1755 eruption was a combination of magmatic degassing and magma/water-interaction with the most magma/water-interaction at the beginning of the eruption. The fragmentation of the 1625 eruption was initially also a combination of both magmatic and phreatomagmatic processes, but magma/water-interaction diminished progressively during the later stages of the eruption. However, intense magma/water interaction was reintroduced during the final stages of the eruption dominating the fine fragmentation at the end. This detailed study of fragmentation changes documents that subglacial eruptions have highly variable interaction with the melt water showing that the amount and access to melt water changes significantly during eruptions. While it is often difficult to reconstruct the progression of eruptions that have no quantitative observational record, this study shows that integrating field observations and granulometry with the new regularity index can form a coherent model of eruption evolution.

  13. The 2006 Eruption of Raoul Volcano (Kermadecs): A Phreato-magmatic Event From a Hydrothermally-Sealed Volcanic Conduit System.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Christenson, B. W.; Reyes, A. G.; Werner, C. A.

    2006-12-01

    The March 17, 2006 eruption from Raoul volcano (Kermadec Islands, NZ), which tragically claimed the life of NZ Department of Conservation staff member Mark Kearney, is being interpreted as a magmatic-hydrothermal event triggered by shaking associated with regional earthquake swarm activity. Although the eruption released ca. 200 T of SO2, thus confirming its magmatic nature, it occurred without significant precursory volcanic seismicity, and without any of the precursory responses of the volcanic hydrothermal system which were observed prior to the last eruption in 1964. Raoul Island has a long and varied eruption history dating back > 1.4 ma, and has been hydrothermally active throughout historic time. Present day fumarolic and hotspring discharges within Raoul caldera point to the existence of a small but well established, mixed meteoric - seawater hydrothermal system within the volcano. Magmatic signatures are apparent in fumarolic gas discharges, but are heavily masked by their interaction with hydrothermal system fluids (eg. near complete scrubbing of sulphur and halogen gases from the boiling point fumarolic discharges). A diffuse degassing study conducted in 2004 revealed that ca. 80 T/d CO2 is passively discharged from the volcano, suggesting that ongoing (albeit low level) convective degassing of magma occurs at depth. Interestingly, vent locations from the 2006 eruption correspond to areas of relatively low CO2 discharge on the crater floor in 2004. This, in conjunction with the preliminary findings of abundant hydrothermal mineralisation (calcite, anhydrite, quartz) in eruption ejecta, suggests that the main volcanic conduits had become effectively sealed during the interval since the last eruption. Calcite-hosted fluid inclusions are CO2 clathrate-bearing, and have relatively low homogenisation temperatures (165-180 °C), suggesting that the seal environment was both gas-charged and shallowly seated (< 200 m). Shaking associated with the regional

  14. A test-based method for the assessment of pre-crash warning and braking systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bálint, András; Fagerlind, Helen; Kullgren, Anders

    2013-10-01

    In this paper, a test-based assessment method for pre-crash warning and braking systems is presented where the effectiveness of a system is measured by its ability to reduce the number of injuries of a given type or severity in car-to-car rear-end collisions. Injuries with whiplash symptoms lasting longer than 1 month and MAIS2+ injuries in both vehicles involved in the crash are considered in the assessment. The injury reduction resulting from the impact speed reduction due to a pre-crash system is estimated using a method which has its roots in the dose-response model. Human-machine interaction is also taken into account in the assessment. The results reflect the self-protection as well as the partner-protection performance of a pre-crash system in the striking vehicle in rear-end collisions and enable a comparison between two or more systems. It is also shown how the method may be used to assess the importance of warning as part of a pre-crash system. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  15. Landslide monitoring and early warning systems in Lower Austria - current situation and new developments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thiebes, Benni; Glade, Thomas; Schweigl, Joachim; Jäger, Stefan; Canli, Ekrem

    2014-05-01

    Landslides represent significant hazards in the mountainous areas of Austria. The Regional Geological Surveys are responsible to inform and protect the population, and to mitigate damage to infrastructure. Efforts of the Regional Geological Survey of Lower Austria include detailed site investigations, the planning and installation of protective structures (e.g. rock fall nets) as well as preventive measures such as regional scale landslide susceptibility assessments. For potentially endangered areas, where protection works are not feasible or would simply be too costly, monitoring systems have been installed. However, these systems are dominantly not automatic and require regular field visits to take measurements. Therefore, it is difficult to establish any relation between initiating and controlling factors, thus to fully understand the underlying process mechanism which is essential for any early warning system. Consequently, the implementation of new state-of-the-art monitoring and early warning systems has been started. In this presentation, the design of four landslide monitoring and early warning systems is introduced. The investigated landslide process types include a deep-seated landslide, a rock fall site, a complex earth flow, and a debris flow catchment. The monitoring equipment was chosen depending on the landslide processes and their activity. It aims to allow for a detailed investigation of process mechanisms in relation to its triggers and for reliable prediction of future landslide activities. The deep-seated landslide will be investigated by manual and automatic inclinometers to get detailed insights into subsurface displacements. In addition, TDR sensors and a weather station will be employed to get a better understanding on the influence of rainfall on sub-surface hydrology. For the rockfall site, a wireless sensor network will be installed to get real-time information on acceleration and inclination of potentially unstable blocks. The movement

  16. Spatial analysis of the impacts of the Chaitén volcano eruption (Chile) in three fluvial systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ulloa, H.; Iroumé, A.; Picco, L.; Mohr, C. H.; Mazzorana, B.; Lenzi, M. A.; Mao, L.

    2016-08-01

    The eruption of the Chaitén volcano in May 2008 generated morphological and ecological disturbances in adjacent river basins, and the magnitude of these disturbances depended on the type of dominant volcanic process affecting each of them. The aim of this study is to analyse the morphological changes in different periods in river segments of the Blanco, El Amarillo and Rayas river basins located near the Chaitén volcano. These basins suffered disturbances of different intensity and spatial distribution caused by tephra fall, dome collapses and pyroclastic density currents that damaged hillslope forests, widened channels and destroyed island and floodplain vegetation. Changes continued to occur in the fluvial systems in the years following the eruption, as a consequence of the geomorphic processes indirectly induced by the eruption. Channel changes were analyzed by comparing remote images of pre and post-eruption conditions. Two periods were considered: the first from 2008 to 2009-2010 associated with the explosive and effusive phases of the eruption and the second that correspond to the post-eruption stage from 2009-2010 to 2013. Following the first phases channel segments widened 91% (38 m/yr), 6% (7 m/yr) and 7% (22 m/yr) for Blanco, Rayas and El Amarillo Rivers, respectively, compared to pre-eruption condition. In the second period, channel segments additionally widened 42% (8 m/yr), 2% (2 m/yr) and 5% (4 m/yr) for Blanco, Rayas and El Amarillo Rivers, respectively. In the Blanco River 62 and 82% of the islands disappeared in the first and second period, respectively, which is 6-8 times higher than in the El Amarillo approximately twice the Rayas. Sinuosity increased after the eruption only in the Blanco River but the three study channels showed a high braiding intensity mainly during the first post-eruption period. The major disturbances occurred during the eruptive and effusive phases of Chaitén volcano, and the intensity of these disturbances reflects the

  17. Setting of the Father's Day Eruption at Kilauea

    Science.gov (United States)

    Swanson, D. A.

    2007-12-01

    the zone. The Koa`e fault system joins the east rift zone at the curve. The complex structural setting likely affects the frequency of magmatic activity in the segment. All of the eruptive and intrusive activity results in storage of isolated magma bodies. Not surprisingly, petrologists find evidence that summit magma mixes with stored, fractionated magma. The area near Makaopuhi Crater and Kane Nui o Hamo is a particular focus, inferred since the mid-1960s to harbor a shallow magma reservoir. All of the eruptions and intrusions are accompanied by sharp deflation and shallow seismicity at the summit and shallow seismicity and uplift along the intrusion or eruptive fissures. Most often, no seismicity occurs between the summit and the area of intrusion or eruption. Within that area, seismicity commonly migrates downrift but occasionally uprift. Similarly, crack opening generally progresses downrift, with a few exceptions. Cracks generally trend about 65 degrees and can be either left- or right-stepping. Cracks open along azimuths of 155-175, with local exceptions. There is no structural difference between eruptive cracks (fissures) and non- eruptive cracks. Single eruptive fissures rarely exceed 200 m in length, instead stepping within en echelon zones above a presumably linear dike. Since the late 1960s, widening has been measured across the active area during eruptions and intrusions, first by EDM and then by satellite-based systems. The opening is nearly symmetrical within the rift zone, but farther out the north flank barely responds whereas the south flank moves seaward. Available leveling data show uplift on either side of the dike and subsidence along the crest. Examples of deformation in the 1960s and 1970s will be presented, and bibliographic references to past activity will be available.

  18. Development of a national Flash flood warning system in France using the AIGA method: first results and main issues

    Science.gov (United States)

    Javelle, Pierre; Organde, Didier; Demargne, Julie; de Saint-Aubin, Céline; Garandeau, Léa; Janet, Bruno; Saint-Martin, Clotilde; Fouchier, Catherine

    2016-04-01

    Developing a national flash flood (FF) warning system is an ambitious and difficult task. On one hand it rises huge expectations from exposed populations and authorities since induced damages are considerable (ie 20 casualties in the recent October 2015 flood at the French Riviera). But on the other hand, many practical and scientific issues have to be addressed and limitations should be clearly stated. The FF warning system to be implemented by 2016 in France by the SCHAPI (French national service in charge of flood forecasting) will be based on a discharge-threshold flood warning method called AIGA (Javelle et al. 2014). The AIGA method has been experimented in real time in the south of France in the RHYTMME project (http://rhytmme.irstea.fr). It consists in comparing discharges generated by a simple conceptual hourly hydrologic model run at a 1-km² resolution to reference flood quantiles of different return periods, at any point along the river network. The hydrologic model ingests operational rainfall radar-gauge products from Météo-France. Model calibration was based on ~700 hydrometric stations over the 2002-2015 period and then hourly discharges were computed at ~76 000 catchment outlets, with areas ranging from 10 to 3 500 km², over the last 19 years. This product makes it possible to calculate reference flood quantiles at each outlet. The on-going evaluation of the FF warnings is currently made at two levels: in a 'classical' way, using discharges available at the hydrometric stations, but also in a more 'exploratory' way, by comparing past flood reports and warnings issued by the system over the 76 000 catchment outlets. The interest of the last method is that it better fit the system objectives since it is designed to monitor small ungauged catchments. Javelle, P., Demargne, J., Defrance, D, .Pansu, J, .Arnaud, P. (2014). Evaluating flash-flood warnings at ungauged locations using post-event surveys: a case study with the AIGA warning system

  19. Exploring the Potential Impacts of Historic Volcanic Eruptions on the Contemporary Global Food System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Puma, Michael J.; Chon, S.; Wada, Y.

    2015-01-01

    A better understanding of volcanic impacts on crops is urgently needed, as volcanic eruptions and the associated climate anomalies can cause unanticipated shocks to food production. Such shocks are a major concern given the fragility of the global food system.

  20. Development of an Earthquake Early Warning System Using Real-Time Strong Motion Signals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Yih-Min; Kanamori, Hiroo

    2008-01-09

    As urbanization progresses worldwide, earthquakes pose serious threat to livesand properties for urban areas near major active faults on land or subduction zonesoffshore. Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) can be a useful tool for reducing earthquakehazards, if the spatial relation between cities and earthquake sources is favorable for suchwarning and their citizens are properly trained to respond to earthquake warning messages.An EEW system forewarns an urban area of forthcoming strong shaking, normally with afew sec to a few tens of sec of warning time, i.e., before the arrival of the destructive Swavepart of the strong ground motion. Even a few second of advanced warning time willbe useful for pre-programmed emergency measures for various critical facilities, such asrapid-transit vehicles and high-speed trains to avoid potential derailment; it will be alsouseful for orderly shutoff of gas pipelines to minimize fire hazards, controlled shutdown ofhigh-technological manufacturing operations to reduce potential losses, and safe-guardingof computer facilities to avoid loss of vital databases. We explored a practical approach toEEW with the use of a ground-motion period parameter τc and a high-pass filtered verticaldisplacement amplitude parameter Pd from the initial 3 sec of the P waveforms. At a givensite, an earthquake magnitude could be determined from τ c and the peak ground-motionvelocity (PGV) could be estimated from Pd. In this method, incoming strong motion acceleration signals are recursively converted to ground velocity and displacement. A Pwavetrigger is constantly monitored. When a trigger occurs, τ c and Pd are computed. Theearthquake magnitude and the on-site ground-motion intensity could be estimated and thewarning could be issued. In an ideal situation, such warnings would be available within 10sec of the origin time of a large earthquake whose subsequent ground motion may last fortens of seconds.

  1. Indications and Warning Analysis Management System IWAMS. A Design Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    1980-03-01

    White Album by Joan Didion . Copyright © 1979 by Joan Didion . Reprinted with the permission of Simon and Schuster. "Indications, Warning, and Crisis...and the system. The chief symptom is memorably suggested in these passages by the writer, Joan Didion , on an illness she has suffered. Referring to...Science Review, Vol. 73, 1979, pp, 171-180. 210 IWAMS (40) "We tell ourselves": See Joan Didion , The White Album. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979, p. 11

  2. Evaluation of a radar-based proximity warning system for off-highway dump trucks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ruff, Todd

    2006-01-01

    A radar-based proximity warning system was evaluated by researchers at the Spokane Research Laboratory of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to determine if the system would be effective in detecting objects in the blind spots of an off-highway dump truck. An average of five fatalities occur each year in surface mines as a result of an equipment operator not being aware of a smaller vehicle, person or change in terrain near the equipment. Sensor technology that can detect such obstacles and that also is designed for surface mining applications is rare. Researchers worked closely with the radar system manufacturer to test and modify the system on large, off-highway dump trucks at a surface mine over a period of 2 years. The final system was thoroughly evaluated by recording video images from a camera on the rear of the truck and by recording all alarms from the rear-mounted radar. Data show that the system reliably detected small vehicles, berms, people and other equipment. However, alarms from objects that posed no immediate danger were common, supporting the assertion that sensor-based systems for proximity warning should be used in combination with other devices, such as cameras, that would allow the operator to check the source of any alarm.

  3. Early warning systems and rapid response to the deteriorating patient in hospital: A realist evaluation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McGaughey, Jennifer; O'Halloran, Peter; Porter, Sam; Trinder, John; Blackwood, Bronagh

    2017-12-01

    To test the Rapid Response Systems programme theory against actual practice components of the Rapid Response Systems implemented to identify those contexts and mechanisms which have an impact on the successful achievement of desired outcomes in practice. Rapid Response Systems allow deteriorating patients to be recognized using Early Warning Systems, referred early via escalation protocols and managed at the bedside by competent staff. Realist evaluation. The research design was an embedded multiple case study approach of four wards in two hospitals in Northern Ireland which followed the principles of Realist Evaluation. We used various mixed methods including individual and focus group interviews, observation of nursing practice between June-November 2010 and document analysis of Early Warning Systems audit data between May-October 2010 and hospital acute care training records over 4.5 years from 2003-2008. Data were analysed using NiVivo8 and SPPS. A cross-case analysis highlighted similar patterns of factors which enabled or constrained successful recognition, referral and response to deteriorating patients in practice. Key enabling factors were the use of clinical judgement by experienced nurses and the empowerment of nurses as a result of organizational change associated with implementation of Early Warning System protocols. Key constraining factors were low staffing and inappropriate skill mix levels, rigid implementation of protocols and culturally embedded suboptimal communication processes. Successful implementation of Rapid Response Systems was dependent on adopting organizational and cultural changes that facilitated staff empowerment, flexible implementation of protocols and ongoing experiential learning. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  4. Nature and Intensity of the 22-23 April 2015 Eruptions of Volcán Calbuco, Chile, from Satellite, Lightning, and Field Observations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van Eaton, A. R.; Amigo, A.; Bertin, D.; Mastin, L. G.; Giacosa, R.; Behnke, S. A.

    2015-12-01

    On 22 April 2015, Calbuco Volcano in southern Chile erupted for the first time in 43 years. The two primary phases of eruption, separated by a few hours, produced pyroclastic density currents, lahars, and spectacular vertical eruption columns that rose into the stratosphere. Clear weather conditions allowed the populated areas of Puerto Montt and Puerto Varas full view of the lightning-rich eruption, which was rapidly shared through social media. A wealth of remote-sensing data was also publically available in near real-time. We used this information to assess the eruption behavior by combining satellite-based umbrella growth rates, and the location and frequency of volcanic lightning. Umbrella expansion rates from GOES-13 satellite retrievals correspond to eruption rates of about 4x106 kg s-1 for the first eruptive phase and 6x106 kg s-1 for the second phase, following the approach of Pouget et al. (2013, JVGR, 258, 100-112). The location and timing of lightning flashes were obtained from the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) Global Volcanic Lightning Monitor, which is updated approximately every minute (Ewert et al., 2010, Fall AGU Abstract AE31A-04). Interestingly, the onset of detected flashes was delayed by ~30 min after the start of each eruptive phase. Lighting provided a useful proxy for the waxing or waning intensity of the eruption, and helped identify the end of significant ash emissions. Using the 1-D volcanic plume model Plumeria, we have also simulated the vertical distribution of ash and ice in the plumes to examine potential causes of the extraordinary amount of volcanic lightning (1,094 flashes detected). Our analysis provides information on eruption timing, duration, and mass flow rate, which are necessary for ash dispersal modeling within hours of eruption. Results are also consistent with the field-based measurements of total erupted volume. We suggest that the combination of satellite-detected umbrella expansion rates with lightning

  5. Beyond institutional capacity: political motivation and parliamentary behaviour in the early warning system

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gattermann, K.; Hefftler, C.

    2015-01-01

    The Early Warning System gives national parliaments the right to intervene in European Union policy-making. This article investigates their incentives to submit reasoned opinions. It analyses the reactions of 40 parliamentary chambers to 411 draft legislative acts between 1 January 2010 and 31

  6. SafeLand guidelines for landslide monitoring and early warning systems in Europe - Design and required technology

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bazin, S.

    2012-04-01

    Landslide monitoring means the comparison of landslide characteristics like areal extent, speed of movement, surface topography and soil humidity from different periods in order to assess landslide activity. An ultimate "universal" methodology for this purpose does not exist; every technology has its own advantages and disadvantages. End-users should carefully consider each one to select the methodologies that represent the best compromise between pros and cons, and are best suited for their needs. Besides monitoring technology, there are many factors governing the choice of an Early Warning System (EWS). A people-centred EWS necessarily comprises five key elements: (1) knowledge of the risks; (2) identification, monitoring, analysis and forecasting of the hazards; (3) operational centre; (4) communication or dissemination of alerts and warnings; and (5) local capabilities to respond to the warnings received. The expression "end-to-end warning system" is also used to emphasize that EWSs need to span all steps from hazard detection through to community response. The aim of the present work is to provide guidelines for establishing the different components for landslide EWSs. One of the main deliverables of the EC-FP7 SafeLand project addresses the technical and practical issues related to monitoring and early warning for landslides, and identifies the best technologies available in the context of both hazard assessment and design of EWSs. This deliverable targets the end-users and aims to facilitate the decision process by providing guidelines. For the purpose of sharing the globally accumulated expertise, a screening study was done on 14 EWSs from 8 different countries. On these bases, the report presents a synoptic view of existing monitoring methodologies and early-warning strategies and their applicability for different landslide types, scales and risk management steps. Several comprehensive checklists and toolboxes are also included to support informed

  7. Space systems for disaster warning, response, and recovery

    CERN Document Server

    Madry, Scott

    2015-01-01

    This SpringerBrief provides a general overview of the role of satellite applications for disaster mitigation, warning, planning, recovery and response. It covers both the overall role and perspective of the emergency management community as well as the various space applications that support their work. Key insights are provided as to how satellite telecommunications, remote sensing, navigation systems, GIS, and the emerging domain of social media are utilized in the context of emergency management needs and requirements. These systems are now critical in addressing major man-made and natural disasters. International policy and treaties are covered along with various case studies from around the world. These case studies indicate vital lessons that have been learned about how to use space systems more effectively in addressing the so-called “Disaster Cycle.” This book is appropriate for practicing emergency managers, Emergency Management (EM) courses, as well as for those involved in various space applica...

  8. The Variable Climate Impact of Volcanic Eruptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Graf, H.

    2011-12-01

    The main effect of big volcanic eruptions in the climate system is due to their efficient transport of condensable gases and their precursors into the stratosphere. There the formation of aerosols leads to effects on atmospheric radiation transfer inducing a reduction of incoming solar radiation by reflection (i.e. cooling of the Earth surface) and absorption of near infrared radiation (i.e. heating) in the aerosol laden layers. In the talk processes determining the climate effect of an eruption will be illustrated by examples, mainly from numerical modelling. The amount of gases released from a magma during an eruption and the efficiency of their transport into very high altitudes depends on the geological setting (magma type) and eruption style. While mid-sized eruption plumes of Plinian style quickly can develop buoyancy by entrainment of ambient air, very large eruptions with high magma flux rates often tend to collapsing plumes and co-ignimbrite style. These cover much bigger areas and are less efficient in entraining ambient air. Vertical transport in these plumes is chaotic and less efficient, leading to lower neutral buoyancy height and less gas and particles reaching high stratospheric altitudes. Explosive energy and amount of released condensable gases are not the only determinants for the climatic effect of an eruption. The effect on shortwave radiation is not linear with the amount of aerosols formed since according to the Lambert-Beer Law atmospheric optical depth reaches a saturation limit with increased absorber concentration. In addition, if more condensable gas is available for aerosol growth, particles become larger and this affects their optical properties to less reflection and more absorption. Larger particles settle out faster, thus reducing the life time of the aerosol disturbance. Especially for big tropical eruptions the strong heating of the stratosphere in low latitudes leads to changes in atmospheric wave propagation by strengthened

  9. Analysis on the Capacity Building Efforts for Mitigating Volcanic Risks during 2010 Eruption of Mount Merapi, Central Java, Indonesia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    SARI BAHAGIARTI KUSUMAYUDHA

    2012-12-01

    Full Text Available Mount Merapi is one of the most active volcanoes on the World erupted again during October to November 2010. Its climax activities happened on 5th November at 00.10 pm, with different type of eruption from Mount Merapi of last 50 years. Ordinary, Mount Merapi activity starts from lava dome development, followed by dome collapse to create pyroclastic flow. This specific character of eruption is called Merapi type. The pyroclastic flows at that time killed 341 people and buried many villages on the southeastern slope, while the secondary hazard of lahar destroyed many other human settlements and infrastructures on the western slope of the volcano. Actually, capacity building program in the areas of around Mount Merapi has been established since more than 15 years ago. In most villages, there are community associations that well trained on volcanic hazard mitigation and early warning system. The association name is Association of Mountains Belt of Merapi. Map of Mount Merapi hazards was also already set by the Center of Volcanology and Geologic Disaster Mitigation. Unfortunately, human are not able to order the nature. The character of Mount Merapi eruption in the year 2010 was inconsistent. There was much higher gas pressure, much longer distant of pyroclastic flow, and much greater volume of volcanic material poured from the crater. This made people and stake holders very astonished in handling the evacuation. However, a socio-cultural factor in this respect is that the local people and agriculturists view Mount Merapi as a God which gives them fertile soil and water for agriculture and are reluctant to move away even under an impending threat of a volcanic hazard. This mind-set of people is a challenge in capacity building as the people prefer in-situ protective measures rather than moving away.

  10. Infrasound reveals transition to oscillatory discharge regime during lava fountaining: Implication for early warning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ulivieri, Giacomo; Ripepe, Maurizio; Marchetti, Emanuele

    2013-06-01

    present the analysis of ~4 million infrasonic signals which include 39 episodes of lava fountains recorded at 5.5 km from the active vents. We show that each eruptive episode is characterized by a distinctive trend in the amplitude, waveform, and frequency content of the acoustic signals, reflecting different explosive levels. Lava fountain starts with an ~93 min long violent phase of acoustic transients at ~1.25 Hz repeating every 2-5 s. Infrasound suddenly evolves into a persistent low-frequency quasi-monochromatic pressure oscillation at ~0.4 Hz. We interpret this shift as induced by the transition from the slug (discrete Strombolian) to churn flow (sustained lava fountain) regime that is reflecting an increase in the gas discharge rate. We calculate that infrasonic transition can occur at a gas superficial velocity of ≤76 m/s and it can be used to define infrasonic-based thresholds for an efficient early warning system.

  11. Car Gestures - Advisory warning using additional steering wheel angles.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maag, Christian; Schneider, Norbert; Lübbeke, Thomas; Weisswange, Thomas H; Goerick, Christian

    2015-10-01

    Advisory warning systems (AWS) notify the driver about upcoming hazards. This is in contrast to the majority of currently deployed advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) that manage emergency situations. The target of this study is to investigate the effectiveness, acceptance, and controllability of a specific kind of AWS that uses the haptic information channel for warning the driver. This could be beneficial, as alternatives for using the visual modality can help to reduce the risk of visual overload. The driving simulator study (N=24) compared an AWS based on additional steering wheel angle control (Car Gestures) with a visual warning presented in a simulated head-up display (HUD). Both types of warning were activated 3.5s before the hazard object was reached. An additional condition of unassisted driving completed the experimental design. The subjects encountered potential hazards in a variety of urban situations (e.g. a pedestrian standing on the curbs). For the investigated situations, subjective ratings show that a majority of drivers prefer visual warnings over haptic information via gestures. An analysis of driving behavior indicates that both warning approaches guide the vehicle away from the potential hazard. Whereas gestures lead to a faster lateral driving reaction (compared to HUD warnings), the visual warnings result in a greater safety benefit (measured by the minimum distance to the hazard object). A controllability study with gestures in the wrong direction (i.e. leading toward the hazard object) shows that drivers are able to cope with wrong haptic warnings and safety is not reduced compared to unassisted driving as well as compared to (correct) haptic gestures and visual warnings. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  12. A Prototype Flood Early Warning SensorWeb System for Namibia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sohlberg, R. A.; Mandl, D.; Frye, S. W.; Cappelaere, P. G.; Szarzynski, J.; Policelli, F.; van Langenhove, G.

    2010-12-01

    During the past two years, there have been extensive floods in the country of Namibia, Africa which have affected up to a quarter of the population. Via a collaboration between a group funded by the Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) at NASA that has been performing various SensorWeb prototyping activities for disasters, the Department of Hydrology in Namibia and the United Nations Space-based Information for Disaster and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER) , experiments were conducted on how to apply various satellite resources integrated into a SensorWeb architecture along with in-situ sensors such as river gauges and rain gauges into a flood early warning system. The SensorWeb includes a global flood model and a higher resolution basin specific flood model. Furthermore, flood extent and status is monitored by optical and radar types of satellites and integrated via some automation. We have taken a practical approach to find out how to create a working system by selectively using the components that provide good results. The vision for the future is to combine this with the country side dwelling unit data base to create risk maps that provide specific warnings to houses within high risk areas based on near term predictions. This presentation will show some of the highlights of the effort thus far plus our future plans.

  13. A Plan to Develop a Red Tide Warning System for Seawater Desalination Process Management

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Tae Woo; Yun, Hong Sik

    2017-04-01

    The holt of the seawater desalination process for fifty five days due to the eight-month long red tide in 2008 in the Persian Gulf, the Middle East, had lost about 10 billion KRW. The POSCO Seawater Desalination facility, located in Gwangyang Bay Area in the Southern Sea, has produced 30,000 tons of fresh water per day since 2014. Since there has been an incident of red time in the area for three months in August, 2012, it is necessary to establish a warning system for red tide that threatens the stable operation of the seawater desalination facility. A red tide warning system can offer the seawater desalination facility manager customized services on red tide information and potential red tide inflow to the water intake. This study aimed to develop a red tide warning system in Gwangyang Bay Area by combining RS, modeling and monitoring technologies, which provides red tide forecasting information with which to effectively control the seawater desalination process. Using the proposed system, the seawater desalination facility manager can take phased measures to cope with the inflow of red tide. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research was supported by a grant(16IFIP-C088924-03) from Industrial Facilities & Infrastructure Research Program funded by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport(MOLIT) of the Korea government and the Korea Agency for Infrastructure Technology Advancement (KAIA). This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea(NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education(NRF-2014R1A1A2054975).

  14. Design and Validation of Affective Warning Pictorial on Cigarette Labels

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chanduen Pat-Arin

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The purpose of present study were to design and validate affective warning pictorials for cigarette label in Thailand. Brainstorming and survey techniques were used to collect the idea of possible warning pictorials. All ideas were grouped for finding candidated pictorials. Then, primary sixty warning pictorials were collected and equally classified into three affective warning pictorial groups as positive, neutral, and negative. Sixty Thai male engineering students participated in affective validation of warning pictorials using SAM rating. The International Affective Picture System (IAPS was used to manipulate the affective state of participants to neutral affective state before the experiments. The results revealed that all affective warning pictorials were successfully evoked target affective states on participants. After refining, thirty affective warning pictorials were provided as positive, neutral, and negative affective warning pictorials for using on cigarette labels. Implications on the affective warning pictorials design and validation.

  15. The influence of eruption season on the global aerosol evolution and radiative impact of tropical volcanic eruptions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M. Toohey

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available Simulations of tropical volcanic eruptions using a general circulation model with coupled aerosol microphysics are used to assess the influence of season of eruption on the aerosol evolution and radiative impacts at the Earth's surface. This analysis is presented for eruptions with SO2 injection magnitudes of 17 and 700 Tg, the former consistent with estimates of the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption, the later a near-"super eruption". For each eruption magnitude, simulations are performed with eruptions at 15° N, at four equally spaced times of year. Sensitivity to eruption season of aerosol optical depth (AOD, clear-sky and all-sky shortwave (SW radiative flux is quantified by first integrating each field for four years after the eruption, then calculating for each cumulative field the absolute or percent difference between the maximum and minimum response from the four eruption seasons. Eruption season has a significant influence on AOD and clear-sky SW radiative flux anomalies for both eruption magnitudes. The sensitivity to eruption season for both fields is generally weak in the tropics, but increases in the mid- and high latitudes, reaching maximum values of ~75 %. Global mean AOD and clear-sky SW anomalies show sensitivity to eruption season on the order of 15–20 %, which results from differences in aerosol effective radius for the different eruption seasons. Smallest aerosol size and largest cumulative impact result from a January eruption for Pinatubo-magnitude eruption, and from a July eruption for the near-super eruption. In contrast to AOD and clear-sky SW anomalies, all-sky SW anomalies are found to be insensitive to season of eruption for the Pinatubo-magnitude eruption experiment, due to the reflection of solar radiation by clouds in the mid- to high latitudes. However, differences in all-sky SW anomalies between eruptions in different seasons are significant for the larger eruption magnitude, and the ~15 % sensitivity to

  16. Designing the upgrade of the Early Warning System in Slovenia

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cindro, M.; Mitic, D.; Stritar, A.

    2004-01-01

    When designing an upgrade of early warning network for radiological emergencies one has to consider physical criteria as well as technical and financial possibilities, making the system the best possible compromise between the above mentioned aspects. In the case of the Slovenian Early Warning System (EWS) upgrade, the design was even harder because of the need to implement the existing measuring sites into the new scheme. We plan to add 35 new locations with external radiation and meteorology measurements to the 42 already existing sites. In the article we will describe the selection criteria for measuring sites and the requirements for the measuring equipment as well as a discussion of the physical quantities that need to be measured. In addition to gamma dose rate measurements, which are essential for radiological emergencies, meteorological measurements also provide vital information for the assessment of the situation. Especially we describe an additional necessary meteorological equipment which has to be installed. Today's communication technologies offer many possibilities for data transfer from the measuring site to the central data gathering unit and one has to choose the most appropriate one, primarily considering reliability but also cost effectiveness. For that reason new measuring sites will be at the locations already used for meteorological measurements by the Environmental Agency of the Republic of Slovenia. The Central Unit (CU) of such a network is the core of the system were all data have to be controlled, analysed and presented to the operator providing him with as much data as possible in a simple and clear fashion. (author)

  17. Earthquake magnitude estimation using the τ c and P d method for earthquake early warning systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jin, Xing; Zhang, Hongcai; Li, Jun; Wei, Yongxiang; Ma, Qiang

    2013-10-01

    Earthquake early warning (EEW) systems are one of the most effective ways to reduce earthquake disaster. Earthquake magnitude estimation is one of the most important and also the most difficult parts of the entire EEW system. In this paper, based on 142 earthquake events and 253 seismic records that were recorded by the KiK-net in Japan, and aftershocks of the large Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan, we obtained earthquake magnitude estimation relationships using the τ c and P d methods. The standard variances of magnitude calculation of these two formulas are ±0.65 and ±0.56, respectively. The P d value can also be used to estimate the peak ground motion of velocity, then warning information can be released to the public rapidly, according to the estimation results. In order to insure the stability and reliability of magnitude estimation results, we propose a compatibility test according to the natures of these two parameters. The reliability of the early warning information is significantly improved though this test.

  18. Emotional Eruptions, Volcanic Activity and Global Mobilities

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Ole B.

    2011-01-01

    The eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano in April 2010 set off a number of environmental, economic and cultural effects obstructing thousands of people in the midst of their global mobility flows. It halted, as well, the exchange of goods and commodities and exposed the vulnerability...... of the global aeromobility system. In this paper an account is given of how the event was experienced by a European academic attending a number of North American conferences at precisely the time of the eruption. The paper is an attempt to describe how people reacted emotionally as well as rationally......, attempting to find strategies for coping with the consequences of the eruption....

  19. The Financial Benefit of Early Flood Warnings in Europe

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pappenberger, Florian; Cloke, Hannah L.; Wetterhall, Fredrik; Parker, Dennis J.; Richardson, David; Thielen, Jutta

    2015-04-01

    Effective disaster risk management relies on science based solutions to close the gap between prevention and preparedness measures. The outcome of consultations on the UNIDSR post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction highlight the need for cross-border early warning systems to strengthen the preparedness phases of disaster risk management in order to save people's lives and property and reduce the overall impact of severe events. In particular, continental and global scale flood forecasting systems provide vital information to various decision makers with which early warnings of floods can be made. Here the potential monetary benefits of early flood warnings using the example of the European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) are calculated based on pan-European Flood damage data and calculations of potential flood damage reductions. The benefits are of the order of 400 Euro for every 1 Euro invested. Because of the uncertainties which accompany the calculation, a large sensitivity analysis is performed in order to develop an envelope of possible financial benefits. Current EFAS system skill is compared against perfect forecasts to demonstrate the importance of further improving the skill of the forecasts. Improving the response to warnings is also essential in reaping the benefits of flood early warnings.

  20. Multi-terminal remote monitoring and warning system using Micro Air Vehicle for dangerous environment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, Yanan; Wang, Xiaoxun; He, Chengcheng; Lai, Chenlong; Liu, Yuanchao

    2015-11-01

    For overcoming the problems such as remote operation and dangerous tasks, multi-terminal remote monitoring and warning system based on STC89C52 Micro Control Unit and wireless communication technique was proposed. The system with MCU as its core adopted multiple sets of sensor device to monitor environment parameters of different locations, such as temperature, humidity, smoke other harmful gas concentration. Data information collected was transmitted remotely by wireless transceiver module, and then multi-channel data parameter was processed and displayed through serial communication protocol between the module and PC. The results of system could be checked in the form of web pages within a local network which plays a wireless monitoring and warning role. In a remote operation, four-rotor micro air vehicle which fixed airborne data acquisition device was utilized as a middleware between collecting terminal and PC to increase monitoring scope. Whole test system has characteristics of simple construction, convenience, real time ability and high reliability, which could meet the requirements of actual use.

  1. Famines in Africa: is early warning early enough?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jeeyon Janet Kim

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Following the second Sahelian famine in 1984–1985, major investments were made to establish Early Warning Systems. These systems help to ensure that timely warnings and vulnerability information are available to decision makers to anticipate and avert food crises. In the recent crisis in the Horn of Africa, alarming levels of acute malnutrition were documented from March 2010, and by August 2010, an impending food crisis was forecast. Despite these measures, the situation remained unrecognised, and further deteriorated causing malnutrition levels to grow in severity and scope. By the time the United Nations officially declared famine on 20 July 2011, and the humanitarian community sluggishly went into response mode, levels of malnutrition and mortality exceeded catastrophic levels. At this time, an estimated 11 million people were in desperate and immediate need for food. With warnings of food crises in the Sahel, South Sudan, and forecast of the drought returning to the Horn, there is an immediate need to institutionalize change in the health response during humanitarian emergencies. Early warning systems are only effective if they trigger an early response.

  2. Eruptive history of Mammoth Mountain and its mafic periphery, California

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hildreth, Wes; Fierstein, Judy

    2016-07-13

    This report and accompanying geologic map portray the eruptive history of Mammoth Mountain and a surrounding array of contemporaneous volcanic units that erupted in its near periphery. The moderately alkaline Mammoth eruptive suite, basaltic to rhyodacitic, represents a discrete new magmatic system, less than 250,000 years old, that followed decline of the subalkaline rhyolitic system active beneath adjacent Long Valley Caldera since 2.2 Ma (Hildreth, 2004). The scattered vent array of the Mammoth system, 10 by 20 km wide, is unrelated to the rangefront fault zone, and its broad nonlinear footprint ignores both Long Valley Caldera and the younger Mono-Inyo rangefront vent alignment.

  3. An online operational rainfall-monitoring resource for epidemic malaria early warning systems in Africa

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ceccato Pietro

    2005-01-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Periodic epidemics of malaria are a major public health problem for many sub-Saharan African countries. Populations in epidemic prone areas have a poorly developed immunity to malaria and the disease remains life threatening to all age groups. The impact of epidemics could be minimized by prediction and improved prevention through timely vector control and deployment of appropriate drugs. Malaria Early Warning Systems are advocated as a means of improving the opportunity for preparedness and timely response. Rainfall is one of the major factors triggering epidemics in warm semi-arid and desert-fringe areas. Explosive epidemics often occur in these regions after excessive rains and, where these follow periods of drought and poor food security, can be especially severe. Consequently, rainfall monitoring forms one of the essential elements for the development of integrated Malaria Early Warning Systems for sub-Saharan Africa, as outlined by the World Health Organization. The Roll Back Malaria Technical Resource Network on Prevention and Control of Epidemics recommended that a simple indicator of changes in epidemic risk in regions of marginal transmission, consisting primarily of rainfall anomaly maps, could provide immediate benefit to early warning efforts. In response to these recommendations, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network produced maps that combine information about dekadal rainfall anomalies, and epidemic malaria risk, available via their Africa Data Dissemination Service. These maps were later made available in a format that is directly compatible with HealthMapper, the mapping and surveillance software developed by the WHO's Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response Department. A new monitoring interface has recently been developed at the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI that enables the user to gain a more contextual perspective of the current rainfall estimates by comparing them to

  4. The Effect of Activating Early Warning System on Motahari Hospital Preparedness

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Vahid Delshad

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available Background: One of the important aspects of hospital preparedness in disasters is its rapid early warning system. In this study, the activation of early warning system was evaluated under the monitoring of disasters workgroup of the Ministry of Health based on the national program of “hospitals preparedness in disasters” in Shahid Motahari Hospital.  Materials and Methods: The sample was composed of 801 adults exposed to the earthquake. Two months after the earthquake, all subjects were surveyed with measures administrated in a standard order as follows: demographic data sheet, disaster experiences scale (DES, general health questionnaire (GHQ, and symptom checklist 90-revised (SCL-90-R. Results: The results revealed that 23% of the survivors in the exposed group had ASD, 10% had anxiety symptoms, 7.5% depression, 4% MADD, 5% psychosomatic disorders, 10% phobia, 7% aggressive behavior, and 10% insomnia. Conclusion: This article has summarized the current status of information on mental disorders caused by experiencing or witnessing a life threatening severe earthquake. The experience of fear, helplessness, and panic during the earthquake, and the appraisal by the victims of serious psychological, social, as well as demographical consequences after the earthquake, were positively related to the subscale scores and the total score of GHQ, SCL-90-R, and DES.

  5. Experimental Constraints on Forecasting the Location of Volcanic Eruptions from Pre-eruptive Surface Deformation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Frank Guldstrand

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available Volcanic eruptions pose a threat to lives and property when volcano flanks and surroundings are densely populated. The local impact of an eruption depends firstly on its location, whether it occurs near a volcano summit, or down on the flanks. Then forecasting, with a defined accuracy, the location of a potential, imminent eruption would significantly improve the assessment and mitigation of volcanic hazards. Currently, the conventional volcano monitoring methods based on the analysis of surface deformation assesses whether a volcano may erupt but are not implemented to locate imminent eruptions in real time. Here we show how surface deformation induced by ascending eruptive feeders can be used to forecast the eruption location through a simple geometrical analysis. Our analysis builds on the results of 33 scaled laboratory experiments simulating the emplacement of viscous magma intrusions in a brittle, cohesive Coulomb crust under lithostatic stress conditions. The intrusion-induced surface deformation was systematically monitored at high spatial and temporal resolution. In all the experiments, surface deformation preceding the eruptions resulted in systematic uplift, regardless of the intrusion shape. The analysis of the surface deformation patterns leads to the definition of a vector between the center of the uplifted area and the point of maximum uplift, which systematically acted as a precursor to the eruption's location. The temporal evolution of this vector indicated the direction in which the subsequent eruption would occur and ultimately the location itself, irrespective of the feeder shapes. Our findings represent a new approach on how surface deformation on active volcanoes that are not in active rifts could be analysed and used prior to an eruption with a real potential to improve hazard mitigation.

  6. SYMPATHETIC SOLAR FILAMENT ERUPTIONS

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wang, Rui; Liu, Ying D.; Zimovets, Ivan; Hu, Huidong; Yang, Zhongwei [State Key Laboratory of Space Weather, National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190 (China); Dai, Xinghua, E-mail: liuxying@spaceweather.ac.cn [Key Laboratory of Solar Activity, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100012 (China)

    2016-08-10

    The 2015 March 15 coronal mass ejection as one of the two that together drove the largest geomagnetic storm of solar cycle 24 so far was associated with sympathetic filament eruptions. We investigate the relations between the different filaments involved in the eruption. A surge-like small-scale filament motion is confirmed as the trigger that initiated the erupting filament with multi-wavelength observations and using a forced magnetic field extrapolation method. When the erupting filament moved to an open magnetic field region, it experienced an obvious acceleration process and was accompanied by a C-class flare and the rise of another larger filament that eventually failed to erupt. We measure the decay index of the background magnetic field, which presents a critical height of 118 Mm. Combining with a potential field source surface extrapolation method, we analyze the distributions of the large-scale magnetic field, which indicates that the open magnetic field region may provide a favorable condition for F2 rapid acceleration and have some relation with the largest solar storm. The comparison between the successful and failed filament eruptions suggests that the confining magnetic field plays an important role in the preconditions for an eruption.

  7. Introduction of structural health and safety monitoring warning systems for Shenzhen-Hong Kong Western Corridor Shenzhen Bay Bridge

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, N.; Zhang, X. Y.; Zhou, X. T.; Leng, J.; Liang, Z.; Zheng, C.; Sun, X. F.

    2008-03-01

    Though the brief introduction of the completed structural health and safety monitoring warning systems for Shenzhen-Hongkong western corridor Shenzhen bay highway bridge (SZBHMS), the self-developed system frame, hardware and software scheme of this practical research project are systematically discussed in this paper. The data acquisition and transmission hardware and the basic software based on the NI (National Instruments) Company virtual instruments technology were selected in this system, which adopted GPS time service receiver technology and so on. The objectives are to establish the structural safety monitoring and status evaluation system to monitor the structural responses and working conditions in real time and to analyze the structural working statue using information obtained from the measured data. It will be also provided the scientific decision-making bases for the bridge management and maintenance. Potential technical approaches to the structural safety warning systems, status identification and evaluation method are presented. The result indicated that the performance of the system has achieved the desired objectives, ensure the longterm high reliability, real time concurrence and advanced technology of SZBHMS. The innovate achievement which is the first time to implement in domestic, provide the reference for long-span bridge structural health and safety monitoring warning systems design.

  8. DESTABILIZATION OF A SOLAR PROMINENCE/FILAMENT FIELD SYSTEM BY A SERIES OF EIGHT HOMOLOGOUS ERUPTIVE FLARES LEADING TO A CME

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Panesar, Navdeep K.; Moore, Ronald L. [Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research (CSPAR), UAH, Huntsville, AL 35805 (United States); Sterling, Alphonse C. [Heliophysics and Planetary Science Office, ZP13, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL 35812 (United States); Innes, Davina E., E-mail: navdeep.k.panesar@nasa.gov [Max Planck Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Justus-von-Liebig-Weg 3, D-37077 Göttingen (Germany)

    2015-09-20

    Homologous flares are flares that occur repetitively in the same active region, with similar structure and morphology. A series of at least eight homologous flares occurred in active region NOAA 11237 over 2011 June 16–17. A nearby prominence/filament was rooted in the active region, and situated near the bottom of a coronal cavity. The active region was on the southeast solar limb as seen from the Solar Dynamics Observatory/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, and on the disk as viewed from the Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory/EUVI-B. The dual perspective allows us to study in detail behavior of the prominence/filament material entrained in the magnetic field of the repeatedly erupting system. Each of the eruptions were mainly confined, but expelled hot material into the prominence/filament cavity system (PFCS). The field carrying and containing the ejected hot material interacted with the PFCS and caused it to inflate, resulting in a step-wise rise of the PFCS approximately in step with the homologous eruptions. The eighth eruption triggered the PFCS to move outward slowly, accompanied by a weak coronal dimming. As this slow PFCS eruption was underway, a final “ejective” flare occurred in the core of the active region, resulting in strong dimming in the EUVI-B images and expulsion of a coronal mass ejection (CME). A plausible scenario is that the repeated homologous flares could have gradually destabilized the PFCS, and its subsequent eruption removed field above the acitive region and in turn led to the ejective flare, strong dimming, and CME.

  9. Magma viscosity estimation based on analysis of erupted products. Potential assessment for large-scale pyroclastic eruptions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Takeuchi, Shingo

    2010-01-01

    After the formulation of guidelines for volcanic hazards in site evaluation for nuclear installations (e.g. JEAG4625-2009), it is required to establish appropriate methods to assess potential of large-scale pyroclastic eruptions at long-dormant volcanoes, which is one of the most hazardous volcanic phenomena on the safety of the installations. In considering the volcanic dormancy, magma eruptability is an important concept. The magma eruptability is dominantly controlled by magma viscosity, which can be estimated from petrological analysis of erupted materials. Therefore, viscosity estimation of magmas erupted in past eruptions should provide important information to assess future activities at hazardous volcanoes. In order to show the importance of magma viscosity in the concept of magma eruptability, this report overviews dike propagation processes from a magma chamber and nature of magma viscosity. Magma viscosity at pre-eruptive conditions of magma chambers were compiled based on previous petrological studies on past eruptions in Japan. There are only 16 examples of eruptions at 9 volcanoes satisfying data requirement for magma viscosity estimation. Estimated magma viscosities range from 10 2 to 10 7 Pa·s for basaltic to rhyolitic magmas. Most of examples fall below dike propagation limit of magma viscosity (ca. 10 6 Pa·s) estimated based on a dike propagation model. Highly viscous magmas (ca. 10 7 Pa·s) than the dike propagation limit are considered to lose eruptability which is the ability to form dikes and initiate eruptions. However, in some cases, small precursory eruptions of less viscous magmas commonly occurred just before climactic eruptions of the highly viscous magmas, suggesting that the precursory dike propagation by the less viscous magmas induced the following eruptions of highly viscous magmas (ca. 10 7 Pa·s). (author)

  10. The limits of earthquake early warning: Timeliness of ground motion estimates

    Science.gov (United States)

    Minson, Sarah E.; Meier, Men-Andrin; Baltay, Annemarie S.; Hanks, Thomas C.; Cochran, Elizabeth S.

    2018-01-01

    The basic physics of earthquakes is such that strong ground motion cannot be expected from an earthquake unless the earthquake itself is very close or has grown to be very large. We use simple seismological relationships to calculate the minimum time that must elapse before such ground motion can be expected at a distance from the earthquake, assuming that the earthquake magnitude is not predictable. Earthquake early warning (EEW) systems are in operation or development for many regions around the world, with the goal of providing enough warning of incoming ground shaking to allow people and automated systems to take protective actions to mitigate losses. However, the question of how much warning time is physically possible for specified levels of ground motion has not been addressed. We consider a zero-latency EEW system to determine possible warning times a user could receive in an ideal case. In this case, the only limitation on warning time is the time required for the earthquake to evolve and the time for strong ground motion to arrive at a user’s location. We find that users who wish to be alerted at lower ground motion thresholds will receive more robust warnings with longer average warning times than users who receive warnings for higher ground motion thresholds. EEW systems have the greatest potential benefit for users willing to take action at relatively low ground motion thresholds, whereas users who set relatively high thresholds for taking action are less likely to receive timely and actionable information.

  11. Development of Smart Grid for Community and Cyber based Landslide Hazard Monitoring and Early Warning System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karnawati, D.; Wilopo, W.; Fathani, T. F.; Fukuoka, H.; Andayani, B.

    2012-12-01

    A Smart Grid is a cyber-based tool to facilitate a network of sensors for monitoring and communicating the landslide hazard and providing the early warning. The sensor is designed as an electronic sensor installed in the existing monitoring and early warning instruments, and also as the human sensors which comprise selected committed-people at the local community, such as the local surveyor, local observer, member of the local task force for disaster risk reduction, and any person at the local community who has been registered to dedicate their commitments for sending reports related to the landslide symptoms observed at their living environment. This tool is designed to be capable to receive up to thousands of reports/information at the same time through the electronic sensors, text message (mobile phone), the on-line participatory web as well as various social media such as Twitter and Face book. The information that should be recorded/ reported by the sensors is related to the parameters of landslide symptoms, for example the progress of cracks occurrence, ground subsidence or ground deformation. Within 10 minutes, this tool will be able to automatically elaborate and analyse the reported symptoms to predict the landslide hazard and risk levels. The predicted level of hazard/ risk can be sent back to the network of electronic and human sensors as the early warning information. The key parameters indicating the symptoms of landslide hazard were recorded/ monitored by the electrical and the human sensors. Those parameters were identified based on the investigation on geological and geotechnical conditions, supported with the laboratory analysis. The cause and triggering mechanism of landslide in the study area was also analysed in order to define the critical condition to launch the early warning. However, not only the technical but also social system were developed to raise community awareness and commitments to serve the mission as the human sensors, which will

  12. The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) and Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) - Application in Early Warning Systems for Natural Hazard

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lendholt, Matthias; Hammitzsch, Martin; Wächter, Joachim

    2010-05-01

    The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) [1] is an XML-based data format for exchanging public warnings and emergencies between alerting technologies. In conjunction with the Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) Distribution Element (-DE) [2] these data formats can be used for warning message dissemination in early warning systems for natural hazards. Application took place in the DEWS (Distance Early Warning System) [3] project where CAP serves as central message format containing both human readable warnings and structured data for automatic processing by message receivers. In particular the spatial reference capabilities are of paramount importance both in CAP and EDXL. Affected areas are addressable via geo codes like HASC (Hierarchical Administrative Subdivision Codes) [4] or UN/LOCODE [5] but also with arbitrary polygons that can be directly generated out of GML [6]. For each affected area standardized criticality values (urgency, severity and certainty) have to be set but also application specific key-value-pairs like estimated time of arrival or maximum inundation height can be specified. This enables - together with multilingualism, message aggregation and message conversion for different dissemination channels - the generation of user-specific tailored warning messages. [1] CAP, http://www.oasis-emergency.org/cap [2] EDXL-DE, http://docs.oasis-open.org/emergency/edxl-de/v1.0/EDXL-DE_Spec_v1.0.pdf [3] DEWS, http://www.dews-online.org [4] HASC, "Administrative Subdivisions of Countries: A Comprehensive World Reference, 1900 Through 1998" ISBN 0-7864-0729-8 [5] UN/LOCODE, http://www.unece.org/cefact/codesfortrade/codes_index.htm [6] GML, http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/gml

  13. A holistic approach to SIM platform and its application to early-warning satellite system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sun, Fuyu; Zhou, Jianping; Xu, Zheyao

    2018-01-01

    This study proposes a new simulation platform named Simulation Integrated Management (SIM) for the analysis of parallel and distributed systems. The platform eases the process of designing and testing both applications and architectures. The main characteristics of SIM are flexibility, scalability, and expandability. To improve the efficiency of project development, new models of early-warning satellite system were designed based on the SIM platform. Finally, through a series of experiments, the correctness of SIM platform and the aforementioned early-warning satellite models was validated, and the systematical analyses for the orbital determination precision of the ballistic missile during its entire flight process were presented, as well as the deviation of the launch/landing point. Furthermore, the causes of deviation and prevention methods will be fully explained. The simulation platform and the models will lay the foundations for further validations of autonomy technology in space attack-defense architecture research.

  14. Experimental constraints on forecasting the location of volcanic eruptions from pre-eruptive surface deformation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guldstrand, Frank; Galland, Olivier; Hallot, Erwan; Burchardt, Steffi

    2018-02-01

    Volcanic eruptions pose a threat to lives and property when volcano flanks and surroundings are densely populated. The local impact of an eruption depends firstly on its location, whether it occurs near a volcano summit, or down on the flanks. Then forecasting, with a defined accuracy, the location of a potential, imminent eruption would significantly improve the assessment and mitigation of volcanic hazards. Currently, the conventional volcano monitoring methods based on the analysis of surface deformation assesses whether a volcano may erupt but are not implemented to locate imminent eruptions in real time. Here we show how surface deformation induced by ascending eruptive feeders can be used to forecast the eruption location through a simple geometrical analysis. Our analysis builds on the results of 33 scaled laboratory experiments simulating magma intrusions in a brittle crust, during which the intrusion-induced surface deformation was systematically monitored at high spatial and temporal resolution. In all the experiments, surface deformation preceding the eruptions resulted in systematic uplift, regardless of the intrusion shape. The analysis of the surface deformation patterns leads to the definition of a vector between the centre of the uplifted zone and the point of maximum uplift, which systematically acted as a precursor to the eruption’s location. The temporal evolution of this vector indicated the direction in which the subsequent eruption would occur and ultimately the location itself, irrespective of the feeder shapes. Our findings represent a new approach on how surface deformation on active volcanoes could be analysed and used prior to an eruption with a real potential to improve hazard mitigation.

  15. A novel approach to estimate the eruptive potential and probability in open conduit volcanoes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Gregorio, Sofia; Camarda, Marco

    2016-07-26

    In open conduit volcanoes, volatile-rich magma continuously enters into the feeding system nevertheless the eruptive activity occurs intermittently. From a practical perspective, the continuous steady input of magma in the feeding system is not able to produce eruptive events alone, but rather surplus of magma inputs are required to trigger the eruptive activity. The greater the amount of surplus of magma within the feeding system, the higher is the eruptive probability.Despite this observation, eruptive potential evaluations are commonly based on the regular magma supply, and in eruptive probability evaluations, generally any magma input has the same weight. Conversely, herein we present a novel approach based on the quantification of surplus of magma progressively intruded in the feeding system. To quantify the surplus of magma, we suggest to process temporal series of measurable parameters linked to the magma supply. We successfully performed a practical application on Mt Etna using the soil CO2 flux recorded over ten years.

  16. Estimation for aerial detection effectiveness with cooperation efficiency factors of early-warning aircraft in early-warning detection SoS under BSC framework

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhu, Feng; Hu, Xiaofeng; He, Xiaoyuan; Guo, Rui; Li, Kaiming; Yang, Lu

    2017-11-01

    In the military field, the performance evaluation of early-warning aircraft deployment or construction is always an important problem needing to be explored. As an effective approach of enterprise management and performance evaluation, Balanced Score Card (BSC) attracts more and more attentions and is studied more and more widely all over the world. It can also bring feasible ideas and technical approaches for studying the issue of the performance evaluation of the deployment or construction of early-warning aircraft which is the important component in early-warning detection system of systems (SoS). Therefore, the deep explored researches are carried out based on the previously research works. On the basis of the characteristics of space exploration and aerial detection effectiveness of early-warning detection SoS and the cardinal principle of BSC are analyzed simply, and the performance evaluation framework of the deployment or construction of early-warning aircraft is given, under this framework, aimed at the evaluation issue of aerial detection effectiveness of early-warning detection SoS with the cooperation efficiency factors of the early-warning aircraft and other land based radars, the evaluation indexes are further designed and the relative evaluation model is further established, especially the evaluation radar chart being also drawn to obtain the evaluation results from a direct sight angle. Finally, some practical computer simulations are launched to prove the validity and feasibility of the research thinking and technologic approaches which are proposed in the paper.

  17. Development of an Earthquake Early Warning System Using Real-Time Strong Motion Signals

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hiroo Kanamori

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available As urbanization progresses worldwide, earthquakes pose serious threat to livesand properties for urban areas near major active faults on land or subduction zonesoffshore. Earthquake Early Warning (EEW can be a useful tool for reducing earthquakehazards, if the spatial relation between cities and earthquake sources is favorable for suchwarning and their citizens are properly trained to respond to earthquake warning messages.An EEW system forewarns an urban area of forthcoming strong shaking, normally with afew sec to a few tens of sec of warning time, i.e., before the arrival of the destructive Swavepart of the strong ground motion. Even a few second of advanced warning time willbe useful for pre-programmed emergency measures for various critical facilities, such asrapid-transit vehicles and high-speed trains to avoid potential derailment; it will be alsouseful for orderly shutoff of gas pipelines to minimize fire hazards, controlled shutdown ofhigh-technological manufacturing operations to reduce potential losses, and safe-guardingof computer facilities to avoid loss of vital databases. We explored a practical approach toEEW with the use of a ground-motion period parameter τc and a high-pass filtered verticaldisplacement amplitude parameter Pd from the initial 3 sec of the P waveforms. At a givensite, an earthquake magnitude could be determined from τc and the peak ground-motionvelocity (PGV could be estimated from Pd. In this method, incoming strong motion acceleration signals are recursively converted to ground velocity and displacement. A Pwavetrigger is constantly monitored. When a trigger occurs, τc and Pd are computed. Theearthquake magnitude and the on-site ground-motion intensity could be estimated and thewarning could be issued. In an ideal situation, such warnings would be available within 10sec of the origin time of a large earthquake whose subsequent ground motion may last fortens of seconds.

  18. Enhancing Community Based Early Warning Systems in Nepal with Flood Forecasting Using Local and Global Models

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dugar, Sumit; Smith, Paul; Parajuli, Binod; Khanal, Sonu; Brown, Sarah; Gautam, Dilip; Bhandari, Dinanath; Gurung, Gehendra; Shakya, Puja; Kharbuja, RamGopal; Uprety, Madhab

    2017-04-01

    Operationalising effective Flood Early Warning Systems (EWS) in developing countries like Nepal poses numerous challenges, with complex topography and geology, sparse network of river and rainfall gauging stations and diverse socio-economic conditions. Despite these challenges, simple real-time monitoring based EWSs have been in place for the past decade. A key constraint of these simple systems is the very limited lead time for response - as little as 2-3 hours, especially for rivers originating from steep mountainous catchments. Efforts to increase lead time for early warning are focusing on imbedding forecasts into the existing early warning systems. In 2016, the Nepal Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM) piloted an operational Probabilistic Flood Forecasting Model in major river basins across Nepal. This comprised a low data approach to forecast water levels, developed jointly through a research/practitioner partnership with Lancaster University and WaterNumbers (UK) and the International NGO Practical Action. Using Data-Based Mechanistic Modelling (DBM) techniques, the model assimilated rainfall and water levels to generate localised hourly flood predictions, which are presented as probabilistic forecasts, increasing lead times from 2-3 hours to 7-8 hours. The Nepal DHM has simultaneously started utilizing forecasts from the Global Flood Awareness System (GLoFAS) that provides streamflow predictions at the global scale based upon distributed hydrological simulations using numerical ensemble weather forecasts from the ECMWF (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). The aforementioned global and local models have already affected the approach to early warning in Nepal, being operational during the 2016 monsoon in the West Rapti basin in Western Nepal. On 24 July 2016, GLoFAS hydrological forecasts for the West Rapti indicated a sharp rise in river discharge above 1500 m3/sec (equivalent to the river warning level at 5 meters) with 53

  19. Training warning flags

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Miller, Richard C.

    2003-01-01

    Problems in accredited training programmes at US nuclear stations have resulted in several programmes having their accreditation status designated as probationary. A limited probationary period allows time for problem resolution before the programmes are again reviewed by the National Nuclear Accrediting Board. A careful study of these problems has resulted in the identification of several 'Training Warning Flags' that singularly, or in concert, may indicate or predict degraded training programme effectiveness. These training warning flags have been used by several US nuclear stations as a framework for self-assessments, as a reference in making changes to training programmes, and as a tool in considering student and management feedback on training activities. Further analysis and consideration of the training warning flags has developed precursors for each of the training warning flags. Although more subjective than the training warning flags, the precursors may represent early indicators of factors that may lead to or contribute to degraded training programme effectiveness. Used as evaluative tools, the training warning flags and the precursors may help identify areas for improvements in training programmes and help prioritize training programme improvement efforts. (author)

  20. Human survival in volcanic eruptions: Thermal injuries in pyroclastic surges, their causes, prognosis and emergency management.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baxter, Peter J; Jenkins, Susanna; Seswandhana, Rosadi; Komorowski, Jean-Christophe; Dunn, Ken; Purser, David; Voight, Barry; Shelley, Ian

    2017-08-01

    This study of burns patients from two eruptions of Merapi volcano, Java, in 1994 and 2010, is the first detailed analysis to be reported of thermal injuries in a large series of hospitalised victims of pyroclastic surges, one of the most devastating phenomena in explosive eruptions. Emergency planners in volcanic crises in populated areas have to integrate the health sector into disaster management and be aware of the nature of the surge impacts and the types of burns victims to be expected in a worst scenario, potentially in numbers and in severity that would overwhelm normal treatment facilities. In our series, 106 patients from the two eruptions were treated in the same major hospital in Yogyakarta and a third of these survived. Seventy-eight per cent were admitted with over 40% TBSA (total body surface area) burns and around 80% of patients were suspected of having at least some degree of inhalation injury as well. Thirty five patients suffered over 80% TBSA burns and only one of these survived. Crucially, 45% of patients were in the 40-79% TBSA range, with most suspected of suffering from inhalation injury, for whom survival was most dependent on the hospital treatment they received. After reviewing the evidence from recent major eruptions and outlining the thermal hazards of surges, we relate the type and severity of the injuries of these patients to the temperatures and dynamics of the pyroclastic surges, as derived from the environmental impacts and associated eruption processes evaluated in our field surveys and interviews conducted by our multi-disciplinary team. Effective warnings, adequate evacuation measures, and political will are all essential in volcanic crises in populated areas to prevent future catastrophes on this scale. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd and ISBI. All rights reserved.

  1. Developing and testing an Early Warning System for Non Indigenous Species and Ballast Water Management

    Science.gov (United States)

    Magaletti, Erika; Garaventa, Francesca; David, Matej; Castriota, Luca; Kraus, Romina; Luna, Gian Marco; Silvestri, Cecilia; Forte, Cosmo; Bastianini, Mauro; Falautano, Manuela; Maggio, Teresa; Rak, Giulietta; Gollasch, Stephan

    2018-03-01

    This paper describes the methodological approach used for the development of an Early Warning System (EWS) for Non Indigenous Species (NIS) and ballast water management and summarizes the results obtained. The specific goals of the EWS are firstly to warn vessels to prevent loading of ballast water when critical biological conditions occur in ports and surrounding areas i.e. mass development or blooms of Harmful Aquatic Organisms and Pathogens (HAOP). Secondly, to warn environmental and health authorities when NIS or pathogens are present in ports or surrounding areas to enable an early response and an implementation of remediation measures. The EWS is designed to be used for implementing various parallel obligations, by taking into consideration different legal scopes, associated information and decision-making needs. The EWS was elaborated, tested in the Adriatic Sea and illustrated by two case studies. Although the EWS was developed with an Adriatic Sea focus, it is presented in a format so that it may be used as a model when establishing similar systems in other locations. The role of the various actors is discussed and recommendations on further developments of the EWS are presented. It was concluded that the EWS is a suitable tool to reduce the spread of potentially harmful and ballast water mediated species.

  2. The International Atomic Energy Agency shows keen interest. Innovative warning system for nuclear proliferation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Smet, S.; Van der Meer, K.

    2011-01-01

    In order to prevent nuclear proliferation, nuclear fuels and other strategic materials have to be responsibly managed. Non-proliferation aims to counteract the uncontrolled proliferation of nuclear materials worldwide. SCK-CEN is developing an innovative nuclear warning system based on political and economic indicators. Such a system should allow the early detection of the development of a nuclear weapons programme.

  3. Geomorphic consequences of volcanic eruptions in Alaska: A review

    Science.gov (United States)

    Waythomas, Christopher F.

    2015-01-01

    Eruptions of Alaska volcanoes have significant and sometimes profound geomorphic consequences on surrounding landscapes and ecosystems. The effects of eruptions on the landscape can range from complete burial of surface vegetation and preexisting topography to subtle, short-term perturbations of geomorphic and ecological systems. In some cases, an eruption will allow for new landscapes to form in response to the accumulation and erosion of recently deposited volcaniclastic material. In other cases, the geomorphic response to a major eruptive event may set in motion a series of landscape changes that could take centuries to millennia to be realized. The effects of volcanic eruptions on the landscape and how these effects influence surface processes has not been a specific focus of most studies concerned with the physical volcanology of Alaska volcanoes. Thus, what is needed is a review of eruptive activity in Alaska in the context of how this activity influences the geomorphology of affected areas. To illustrate the relationship between geomorphology and volcanic activity in Alaska, several eruptions and their geomorphic impacts will be reviewed. These eruptions include the 1912 Novarupta–Katmai eruption, the 1989–1990 and 2009 eruptions of Redoubt volcano, the 2008 eruption of Kasatochi volcano, and the recent historical eruptions of Pavlof volcano. The geomorphic consequences of eruptive activity associated with these eruptions are described, and where possible, information about surface processes, rates of landscape change, and the temporal and spatial scale of impacts are discussed.A common feature of volcanoes in Alaska is their extensive cover of glacier ice, seasonal snow, or both. As a result, the generation of meltwater and a variety of sediment–water mass flows, including debris-flow lahars, hyperconcentrated-flow lahars, and sediment-laden water floods, are typical outcomes of most types of eruptive activity. Occasionally, such flows can be quite

  4. Communication of emergency public warnings: A social science perspective and state-of-the-art assessment

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mileti, D.S. (Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO (USA)); Sorensen, J.H. (Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (USA))

    1990-08-01

    More than 200 studies of warning systems and warning response were reviewed for this social science perspective and state-of-the-art assessment of communication of emergency public warnings. The major findings are as follows. First, variations in the nature and content of warnings have a large impact on whether or not the public heeds the warning. Relevant factors include the warning source; warning channel; the consistency, credibility, accuracy, and understandability of the message; and the warning frequency. Second, characteristics of the population receiving the warning affect warning response. These include social characteristics such as gender, ethnicity and age, social setting characteristics such as stage of life or family context, psychological characteristics such as fatalism or risk perception, and knowledge characteristics such as experience or training. Third, many current myths about public response to emergency warning are at odds with knowledge derived from field investigations. Some of these myths include the keep it simple'' notion, the cry wolf'' syndrome, public panic and hysteria, and those concerning public willingness to respond to warnings. Finally, different methods of warning the public are not equally effective at providing an alert and notification in different physical and social settings. Most systems can provide a warning given three or more hours of available warning time. Special systems such as tone-alert radios are needed to provide rapid warning. 235 refs., 8 figs., 2 tabs.

  5. Development of earthquake early warning system using real time signal of broadband seismogram

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gunawan, Hendar; Puspito, Nanang T.; Ibrahim, Gunawan; Harjadi, Prih

    2012-01-01

    Earthquake pose serious threat of live and properties for urban area near subduction zone offshore and active fault on land. Jakarta and Bandung is an example of big city that no system of Earthquake early warning (EEW) event very high urbanization, and has many important infra structure in the area. The capital city is potentially high risk ground shaking. EEW can be usefull tool for reducing earthquake hazard, if spatial relation between cities and earthquake source is favorable for such warning and their citizens are properly trained to response early warning message. An EEW and rapid response system can provide the critical information needed to minimized lost of live and property and direct rescue. Earthquake ground shaking with magnitude M>6.0 from zone of Megathrust, southern of West Java should potentially damage in the area of west java especially Bandung and Jakarta City. This research development of EEW parameter such as amplitude displacement (Pd), rapid magnitude determination (M) and Peak ground Velocity (PGV). We explore the practical approach to EEW with the use of Broadband seismogram signal. Time effective EEW which epicenter from megathrust zone has potential to provide EEW in the area of west java such as Jakarta first ground shaking more or less 60 second later and strong shaking 118 second after EEW Alarm on CISI Station. EEW notification at potentially damage in the area of west java can be predicted from the characteristic of Pd > 0.5 cm, M> 6 and PGV > 10 cm/sec. GIS as a tool for presentation of hazard mapping in the affected area.

  6. An integrated methodology to develop a standard for landslide early warning systems

    OpenAIRE

    Fathani, Teuku Faisal; Karnawati, Dwikorita; Wilopo, Wahyu

    2016-01-01

    Landslides are one of the most widespread and commonly occurring natural hazards. In regions of high vulnerability, these complex hazards can cause significant negative social and economic impacts. Considering the worldwide susceptibility to landslides, it is necessary to establish a standard for early warning systems specific to landslide disaster risk reduction. This standard would provide guidance in conducting landslide detection, prediction, interpretation, and response...

  7. [Localized eruptive juvenile xanthogranuloma].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vanotti, S; Chiaverini, C; Rostain, G; Cardot-Leccia, N; Lacour, J-P

    2014-03-01

    Juvenile xanthogranuloma (JXG) is a non-Langerhans histiocytosis of young children characterized by solitary or multiple yellowish cutaneous nodules. Atypical skin lesions such as lichenoid eruptions, and pedunculated, maculopapular, plaque-like or linear lesions have been described. We report a case of eruptive XGJ en plaque in the left leg in an infant. A 13-month-old child presented asymptomatic eruptive, yellowish papules of the leg measuring 5 to 10mm since the age of 2months. There was no cutaneous infiltration between the lesions. Darier's sign was negative. Histological examination confirmed the diagnosis of JXG. The course of the disease comprised a gradual decrease in the number of active lesions with slight residual pigmentation. Our case was suggestive of JXG en plaque. Only 7 cases have been reported in the literature, all appearing before the age of 5months. The lesions corresponded mostly to an asymptomatic erythematous plaque studded with small yellowish/red nodules of variable localisation. Spontaneous involvement was noted in all cases. No systemic involvement was found. Herein we present a unique case of localised multiple JXG without evident clinical infiltrating plaque progressing with self-resolving flares. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

  8. Historic hydrovolcanism at Deception Island (Antarctica): implications for eruption hazards

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pedrazzi, Dario; Németh, Károly; Geyer, Adelina; Álvarez-Valero, Antonio M.; Aguirre-Díaz, Gerardo; Bartolini, Stefania

    2018-01-01

    Deception Island (Antarctica) is the southernmost island of the South Shetland Archipelago in the South Atlantic. Volcanic activity since the eighteenth century, along with the latest volcanic unrest episodes in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, demonstrates that the volcanic system is still active and that future eruptions are likely. Despite its remote location, the South Shetland Islands are an important touristic destination during the austral summer. In addition, they host several research stations and three summer field camps. Deception Island is characterised by a Quaternary caldera system with a post-caldera succession and is considered to be part of an active, dispersed (monogenetic), volcanic field. Historical post-caldera volcanism on Deception Island involves monogenetic small-volume (VEI 2-3) eruptions such forming cones and various types of hydrovolcanic edifices. The scientific stations on the island were destroyed, or severely damaged, during the eruptions in 1967, 1969, and 1970 mainly due to explosive activity triggered by the interaction of rising (or erupting) magma with surface water, shallow groundwater, and ice. We conducted a detailed revision (field petrology and geochemistry) of the historical hydrovolcanic post-caldera eruptions of Deception Island with the aim to understand the dynamics of magma-water interaction, as well as characterise the most likely eruptive scenarios from future eruptions. We specifically focused on the Crimson Hill (estimated age between 1825 and 1829), and Kroner Lake (estimated age between 1829 and 1912) eruptions and 1967, 1969, and 1970 events by describing the eruption mechanisms related to the island's hydrovolcanic activity. Data suggest that the main hazards posed by volcanism on the island are due to fallout, ballistic blocks and bombs, and subordinate, dilute PDCs. In addition, Deception Island can be divided into five areas of expected activity due to magma-water interaction, providing additional

  9. Driving-Simulator-Based Test on the Effectiveness of Auditory Red-Light Running Vehicle Warning System Based on Time-To-Collision Sensor

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xuedong Yan

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available The collision avoidance warning system is an emerging technology designed to assist drivers in avoiding red-light running (RLR collisions at intersections. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effect of auditory warning information on collision avoidance behaviors in the RLR pre-crash scenarios and further to examine the casual relationships among the relevant factors. A driving-simulator-based experiment was designed and conducted with 50 participants. The data from the experiments were analyzed by approaches of ANOVA and structural equation modeling (SEM. The collisions avoidance related variables were measured in terms of brake reaction time (BRT, maximum deceleration and lane deviation in this study. It was found that the collision avoidance warning system can result in smaller collision rates compared to the without-warning condition and lead to shorter reaction times, larger maximum deceleration and less lane deviation. Furthermore, the SEM analysis illustrate that the audio warning information in fact has both direct and indirect effect on occurrence of collisions, and the indirect effect plays a more important role on collision avoidance than the direct effect. Essentially, the auditory warning information can assist drivers in detecting the RLR vehicles in a timely manner, thus providing drivers more adequate time and space to decelerate to avoid collisions with the conflicting vehicles.

  10. A web based on-line radiation early warning system for emergency preparedness and response centre

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bhujbal, Vaibhav; Saindane, Shashank S.; Narasaiah, M.V.R.; Murali, S.

    2018-01-01

    The topography of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay site, where all major components of nuclear fuel cycle activities are located is very complex in nature. The assessment of the radiological impact, if any, due to atmospheric releases from these facilities within BARC site is being carried out by using a Local Area Network (LAN) based Radiation Early Warning System and meteorological parameters. The upgraded system is aimed at providing data during normal operation of the various facilities at site and for providing early warning to decision makers in case of any onset of an emergency. It is carried out by acquiring both on-line and off-line data on releases from the plants, the environmental radiation dose rate at selected locations and other related parameters. The monitors placed at these selected locations including strategic point around the BARC site can also help in detecting any attempt of unauthorized trafficking of the radioactive sources. This paper explains different aspects of the system operating at BARC

  11. Developing an early warning system for storm surge inundation in the Philippines

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tablazon, J.; Caro, C. V.; Lagmay, A. M. F.; Briones, J. B. L.; Dasallas, L.; Lapidez, J. P.; Santiago, J.; Suarez, J. K.; Ladiero, C.; Gonzalo, L. A.; Mungcal, M. T. F.; Malano, V.

    2014-10-01

    A storm surge is the sudden rise of sea water generated by an approaching storm, over and above the astronomical tides. This event imposes a major threat in the Philippine coastal areas, as manifested by Typhoon Haiyan on 8 November 2013 where more than 6000 people lost their lives. It has become evident that the need to develop an early warning system for storm surges is of utmost importance. To provide forecasts of the possible storm surge heights of an approaching typhoon, the Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards under the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-Project NOAH) simulated historical tropical cyclones that entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility. Bathymetric data, storm track, central atmospheric pressure, and maximum wind speed were used as parameters for the Japan Meteorological Agency Storm Surge Model. The researchers calculated the frequency distribution of maximum storm surge heights of all typhoons under a specific Public Storm Warning Signal (PSWS) that passed through a particular coastal area. This determines the storm surge height corresponding to a given probability of occurrence. The storm surge heights from the model were added to the maximum astronomical tide data from WXTide software. The team then created maps of probable area inundation and flood levels of storm surges along coastal areas for a specific PSWS using the results of the frequency distribution. These maps were developed from the time series data of the storm tide at 10 min intervals of all observation points in the Philippines. This information will be beneficial in developing early warnings systems, static maps, disaster mitigation and preparedness plans, vulnerability assessments, risk-sensitive land use plans, shoreline defense efforts, and coastal protection measures. Moreover, these will support the local government units' mandate to raise public awareness, disseminate information about storm surge hazards, and implement appropriate counter

  12. Driving with a partially autonomous forward collision warning system: how do drivers react?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Muhrer, Elke; Reinprecht, Klaus; Vollrath, Mark

    2012-10-01

    The effects of a forward collision warning (FCW) and braking system (FCW+) were examined in a driving simulator study analyzing driving and gaze behavior and the engagement in a secondary task. In-depth accident analyses indicate that a lack of appropriate expectations for possible critical situations and visual distraction may be the major causes of rear-end crashes. Studies with FCW systems have shown that a warning alone was not enough for a driver to be able to avoid the accident. Thus,an additional braking intervention by such systems could be necessary. In a driving simulator experiment, 30 drivers took part in a car-following scenario in an urban area. It was assumed that different lead car behaviors and environmental aspects would lead to different drivers' expectations of the future traffic situation. Driving with and without FCW+ was introduced as a between-subjects factor. Driving with FCW+ resulted in significantly fewer accidents in critical situations. This result was achieved by the system's earlier reaction time as compared with that of drivers. The analysis of the gaze behavior showed that driving with the system did not lead to a stronger involvement in secondary tasks. The study supports the hypotheses about the importance of missing expectations for the occurrence of accidents. These accidents can be prevented by an FCW+ that brakes autonomously. The results indicate that an autonomous braking intervention should be implemented in FCW systems to increase the effectiveness of these assistance systems.

  13. A comparison study of a solar active-region eruptive filament and a neighboring non-eruptive filament

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiang, Chao-Wei; Wu, Shi-Tsan; Feng, Xue-Shang; Hu, Qiang

    2016-01-01

    Solar active region (AR) 11283 is a very magnetically complex region and it has produced many eruptions. However, there exists a non-eruptive filament in the plage region just next to an eruptive one in the AR, which gives us an opportunity to perform a comparison analysis of these two filaments. The coronal magnetic field extrapolated using our CESE-MHD-NLFFF code reveals that two magnetic flux ropes (MFRs) exist in the same extrapolation box supporting these two filaments, respectively. Analysis of the magnetic field shows that the eruptive MFR contains a bald-patch separatrix surface (BPSS) cospatial very well with a pre-eruptive EUV sigmoid, which is consistent with the BPSS model for coronal sigmoids. The magnetic dips of the non-eruptive MFRs match Hα observation of the non-eruptive filament strikingly well, which strongly supports the MFR-dip model for filaments. Compared with the non-eruptive MFR/filament (with a length of about 200 Mm), the eruptive MFR/filament is much smaller (with a length of about 20 Mm), but it contains most of the magnetic free energy in the extrapolation box and holds a much higher free energy density than the non-eruptive one. Both the MFRs are weakly twisted and cannot trigger kink instability. The AR eruptive MFR is unstable because its axis reaches above a critical height for torus instability, at which the overlying closed arcades can no longer confine the MFR stably. On the contrary, the quiescent MFR is very firmly held by its overlying field, as its axis apex is far below the torus-instability threshold height. Overall, this comparison investigation supports that an MFR can exist prior to eruption and the ideal MHD instability can trigger an MFR eruption.

  14. A comparison study of a solar active-region eruptive filament and a neighboring non-eruptive filament

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jiang, Chao-Wei; Feng, Xue-Shang; Wu, Shi-Tsan; Hu, Qiang

    2016-01-01

    Solar active region (AR) 11283 is a very magnetically complex region and it has produced many eruptions. However, there exists a non-eruptive filament in the plage region just next to an eruptive one in the AR, which gives us an opportunity to perform a comparison analysis of these two filaments. The coronal magnetic field extrapolated using our CESE–MHD–NLFFF code reveals that two magnetic flux ropes (MFRs) exist in the same extrapolation box supporting these two filaments, respectively. Analysis of the magnetic field shows that the eruptive MFR contains a bald-patch separatrix surface (BPSS) cospatial very well with a pre-eruptive EUV sigmoid, which is consistent with the BPSS model for coronal sigmoids. The magnetic dips of the non-eruptive MFRs match Hα observation of the non-eruptive filament strikingly well, which strongly supports the MFR-dip model for filaments. Compared with the non-eruptive MFR/filament (with a length of about 200 Mm), the eruptive MFR/filament is much smaller (with a length of about 20 Mm), but it contains most of the magnetic free energy in the extrapolation box and holds a much higher free energy density than the non-eruptive one. Both the MFRs are weakly twisted and cannot trigger kink instability. The AR eruptive MFR is unstable because its axis reaches above a critical height for torus instability, at which the overlying closed arcades can no longer confine the MFR stably. On the contrary, the quiescent MFR is very firmly held by its overlying field, as its axis apex is far below the torus-instability threshold height. Overall, this comparison investigation supports that an MFR can exist prior to eruption and the ideal MHD instability can trigger an MFR eruption. (paper)

  15. Application of a Tsunami Warning Message Metric to refine NOAA NWS Tsunami Warning Messages

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gregg, C. E.; Johnston, D.; Sorensen, J.; Whitmore, P.

    2013-12-01

    In 2010, the U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) funded a three year project to integrate social science into their Tsunami Program. One of three primary requirements of the grant was to make improvements to tsunami warning messages of the NWS' two Tsunami Warning Centers- the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (WCATWC) in Palmer, Alaska and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) in Ewa Beach, Hawaii. We conducted focus group meetings with a purposive sample of local, state and Federal stakeholders and emergency managers in six states (AK, WA, OR, CA, HI and NC) and two US Territories (US Virgin Islands and American Samoa) to qualitatively asses information needs in tsunami warning messages using WCATWC tsunami messages for the March 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami event. We also reviewed research literature on behavioral response to warnings to develop a tsunami warning message metric that could be used to guide revisions to tsunami warning messages of both warning centers. The message metric is divided into categories of Message Content, Style, Order and Formatting and Receiver Characteristics. A message is evaluated by cross-referencing the message with the operational definitions of metric factors. Findings are then used to guide revisions of the message until the characteristics of each factor are met. Using findings from this project and findings from a parallel NWS Warning Tiger Team study led by T. Nicolini, the WCATWC implemented the first of two phases of revisions to their warning messages in November 2012. A second phase of additional changes, which will fully implement the redesign of messages based on the metric, is in progress. The resulting messages will reflect current state-of-the-art knowledge on warning message effectiveness. Here we present the message metric; evidence-based rational for message factors; and examples of previous, existing and proposed messages.

  16. United States Earthquake Early Warning System: How Theory and Analysis Can Save America Before the Big One Happens

    Science.gov (United States)

    2017-12-01

    Documentation for 201447 Spending more on ShakeAlert now and including sustainable operating costs can be justified. In a 2016 publication in...Seismological Research Letters, entitled “ Benefits and Costs of Earthquake Early Warning,” Strauss and Allen determine that “according to FEMA’s cost ...statistical life in the United States is USD 6.6 million.”48 As such, the benefits outweigh the costs as the earthquake early warning system alone would

  17. Research and Application of an Air Quality Early Warning System Based on a Modified Least Squares Support Vector Machine and a Cloud Model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Jianzhou; Niu, Tong; Wang, Rui

    2017-01-01

    The worsening atmospheric pollution increases the necessity of air quality early warning systems (EWSs). Despite the fact that a massive amount of investigation about EWS in theory and practicality has been conducted by numerous researchers, studies concerning the quantification of uncertain information and comprehensive evaluation are still lacking, which impedes further development in the area. In this paper, firstly a comprehensive warning system is proposed, which consists of two vital indispensable modules, namely effective forecasting and scientific evaluation, respectively. For the forecasting module, a novel hybrid model combining the theory of data preprocessing and numerical optimization is first developed to implement effective forecasting for air pollutant concentration. Especially, in order to further enhance the accuracy and robustness of the warning system, interval forecasting is implemented to quantify the uncertainties generated by forecasts, which can provide significant risk signals by using point forecasting for decision-makers. For the evaluation module, a cloud model, based on probability and fuzzy set theory, is developed to perform comprehensive evaluations of air quality, which can realize the transformation between qualitative concept and quantitative data. To verify the effectiveness and efficiency of the warning system, extensive simulations based on air pollutants data from Dalian in China were effectively implemented, which illustrate that the warning system is not only remarkably high-performance, but also widely applicable. PMID:28257122

  18. Towards the construction of a Drought Early Warning System in México

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neri, C.; Magaña, V. O.

    2011-12-01

    Droughts in Mexico are related to severe impacts in agricultural and livestock activities, water management and with the occurrence of wildfire. Droughts are recurrent, on time scales from years to decades. The impacts however, depend on the vulnerability. The negative impacts may be reduced by studying and monitoring the dynamical evolution of meteorological drought, and by identifying the factors that result in vulnerability, in the context of risk management. Considering the analysis of the vulnerability in the northern of Mexico, a semiarid region highly vulnerable to drought, a Drought Early Warning System was created based on the use of climate information. The first step was to identify the capacity to provide useful climate information to develop prevention actions. Results confirm that the drought in northern Mexico is a well-diagnosed phenomenon from the point of view of impacts in various sectors. However, the use of climate information is still very limited resulting in response to mitigate drought impacts rather than preparing for drought. Part of the problem is the limited capacity to interpret probabilistic forecasts to define actions. Therefore, a key element in a Drought Early Warning System is the development of reliable climate information and the use of indicators to determine of the onset, maximum intensity and duration of the event. The occurrence and severity of drought may be estimated using climate diagnosis and forecast. A preventive response to drought may be defined if the severity and duration surpass a threshold value after which a decision action should be made. In order to establish the relevance of indicators for drought risk management, retroactive analyses have been developed considering the case of northwestern Mexico. After a vulnerability analysis that considers the institutional capacity to make use of climate information, a Drought Early warning System has been designed that considers a number of actions that may be put

  19. Changing Weather Extremes Call for Early Warning of Potential for Catastrophic Fire

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boer, Matthias M.; Nolan, Rachael H.; Resco De Dios, Víctor; Clarke, Hamish; Price, Owen F.; Bradstock, Ross A.

    2017-12-01

    Changing frequencies of extreme weather events and shifting fire seasons call for enhanced capability to forecast where and when forested landscapes switch from a nonflammable (i.e., wet fuel) state to the highly flammable (i.e., dry fuel) state required for catastrophic forest fires. Current forest fire danger indices used in Europe, North America, and Australia rate potential fire behavior by combining numerical indices of fuel moisture content, potential rate of fire spread, and fire intensity. These numerical rating systems lack the physical basis required to reliably quantify forest flammability outside the environments of their development or under novel climate conditions. Here, we argue that exceedance of critical forest flammability thresholds is a prerequisite for major forest fires and therefore early warning systems should be based on a reliable prediction of fuel moisture content plus a regionally calibrated model of how forest fire activity responds to variation in fuel moisture content. We demonstrate the potential of this approach through a case study in Portugal. We use a physically based fuel moisture model with historical weather and fire records to identify critical fuel moisture thresholds for forest fire activity and then show that the catastrophic June 2017 forest fires in central Portugal erupted shortly after fuels in the region dried out to historically unprecedented levels.

  20. Probabilistic eruption forecasting at short and long time scales

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marzocchi, Warner; Bebbington, Mark S.

    2012-10-01

    Any effective volcanic risk mitigation strategy requires a scientific assessment of the future evolution of a volcanic system and its eruptive behavior. Some consider the onus should be on volcanologists to provide simple but emphatic deterministic forecasts. This traditional way of thinking, however, does not deal with the implications of inherent uncertainties, both aleatoric and epistemic, that are inevitably present in observations, monitoring data, and interpretation of any natural system. In contrast to deterministic predictions, probabilistic eruption forecasting attempts to quantify these inherent uncertainties utilizing all available information to the extent that it can be relied upon and is informative. As with many other natural hazards, probabilistic eruption forecasting is becoming established as the primary scientific basis for planning rational risk mitigation actions: at short-term (hours to weeks or months), it allows decision-makers to prioritize actions in a crisis; and at long-term (years to decades), it is the basic component for land use and emergency planning. Probabilistic eruption forecasting consists of estimating the probability of an eruption event and where it sits in a complex multidimensional time-space-magnitude framework. In this review, we discuss the key developments and features of models that have been used to address the problem.

  1. Indicators of financial crises do work! : an early-warning system for six Asian countries

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Lestano, [No Value; Jacobs, Jan; Kuper, Gerard H.

    2003-01-01

    Indicators of financial crisis generally do not have a good track record. This paper presents an early warning system for six countries in Asia, in which indicators do work.We distinguish three types of financial crises, currency crises, banking crises and debt crises, and extract four groups of

  2. Guided tooth eruption: Comparison of open and closed eruption techniques in labially impacted maxillary canines

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S M londhe

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Background: After third molars, the maxillary canines are the most commonly impacted permanent teeth and one-third of these are labial impactions. Impacted canines often require orthodontic guidance in the eruption. This study was conducted to assess the posttreatment results of surgically exposed and orthodontically aligned labially impacted maxillary canines comparing two different surgical techniques. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted in two phases, a surgical phase and an orthodontic phase. In surgical phase, events during surgical exposure and recovery of 31 patients with labially impacted maxillary canine were recorded. Patients were managed with open and closed eruption technique. The assessment included comparison of two techniques of surgical exposure, postoperative pain, mobility, vitality, periodontal health, level of impaction, and duration of orthodontic treatment. Results: The postoperative recovery was longer after open eruption than close eruption technique (P = 0.000. Postoperative pain experienced by patients was similar, but regression of pain was faster in closed eruption technique. The mean surgical time for open eruption technique was lesser when compared with closed eruption technique (P = 0.000. The total duration of orthodontic treatment was directly dependent upon the level of impaction, with deeper level of impaction having longer duration of orthodontic treatment. The mobility and vitality of guided canine was similar in both techniques. Conclusion: The closed eruption technique was a longer surgical procedure, but the postoperative pain regression was faster. The duration of orthodontic treatment was longer with deeper level of impaction. The closed eruption surgical techniques provide better periodontal tissues around the guided erupted teeth.

  3. Relationship between eruption plume heights and seismic source amplitudes of eruption tremors and explosion events

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mori, A.; Kumagai, H.

    2016-12-01

    It is crucial to analyze and interpret eruption tremors and explosion events for estimating eruption size and understanding eruption phenomena. Kumagai et al. (EPS, 2015) estimated the seismic source amplitudes (As) and cumulative source amplitudes (Is) for eruption tremors and explosion events at Tungurahua, Ecuador, by the amplitude source location (ASL) method based on the assumption of isotropic S-wave radiation in a high-frequency band (5-10 Hz). They found scaling relations between As and Is for eruption tremors and explosion events. However, the universality of these relations is yet to be verified, and the physical meanings of As and Is are not clear. In this study, we analyzed the relations between As and Is for eruption tremors and explosion events at active volcanoes in Japan, and estimated As and Is by the ASL method. We obtained power-law relations between As and Is, in which the powers were different between eruption tremors and explosion events. These relations were consistent with the scaling relations at Tungurahua volcano. Then, we compared As with maximum eruption plume heights (H) during eruption tremors analyzed in this study, and found that H was proportional to 0.21 power of As. This relation is similar to the plume height model based on the physical process of plume rise, which indicates that H is proportional to 0.25 power of volumetric flow rate for plinian eruptions. This suggests that As may correspond to volumetric flow rate. If we assume a seismic source with volume changes and far-field S-wave, As is proportional to the source volume rate. This proportional relation and the plume height model give rise to the relation that H is proportional to 0.25 power of As. These results suggest that we may be able to estimate plume heights in realtime by estimating As during eruptions from seismic observations.

  4. 75 FR 26269 - Draft Programmatic Environmental Assessment for the Integrated Public Alert and Warning Program's...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-05-11

    ... system to alert and warn the American people in situations of war, terrorist attack, natural disaster, or... Order 13407, Public Alert and Warning System, by providing robust and survivable power generation, fuel... of interoperable public alert and warning systems, to identify technologies and standards that...

  5. The Ex Hoc Infrastructure - Enhancing Traffic Safety through LIfe WArning Systems

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hansen, Klaus Marius; Kristensen, Lars Michael; Eskildsen, Toke

    2004-01-01

    New pervasive computing technologies for sensing and communication open up novel possibilities for enhancing traffic safety. We are currently designing and implementing the Ex Hoc infrastructure framework for communication among mobile and stationary units including vehicles. The infrastructure...... will connect sensing devices on vehicles with sensing devices on other vehicles and with stationary communication units placed alongside roads. The current application of Ex Hoc is to enable the collection and dissemination of information on road condition through LIfe Warning Systems (LIWAS) units....

  6. New technology for using meteorological information in forest insect pest forecast and warning systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Qin, Jiang-Lin; Yang, Xiu-Hao; Yang, Zhong-Wu; Luo, Ji-Tong; Lei, Xiu-Feng

    2017-12-01

    Near surface air temperature and rainfall are major weather factors affecting forest insect dynamics. The recent developments in remote sensing retrieval and geographic information system spatial analysis techniques enable the utilization of weather factors to significantly enhance forest pest forecasting and warning systems. The current study focused on building forest pest digital data structures as a platform of correlation analysis between weather conditions and forest pest dynamics for better pest forecasting and warning systems using the new technologies. The study dataset contained 3 353 425 small polygons with 174 defined attributes covering 95 counties of Guangxi province of China currently registering 292 forest pest species. Field data acquisition and information transfer systems were established with four software licences that provided 15-fold improvement compared to the systems currently used in China. Nine technical specifications were established including codes of forest districts, pest species and host tree species, and standard practices of forest pest monitoring and information management. Attributes can easily be searched using ArcGIS9.3 and/or the free QGIS2.16 software. Small polygons with pest relevant attributes are a new tool of precision farming and detailed forest insect pest management that are technologically advanced. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.

  7. An assessment of seismic monitoring in the United States; requirement for an Advanced National Seismic System

    Science.gov (United States)

    ,

    1999-01-01

    This report assesses the status, needs, and associated costs of seismic monitoring in the United States. It sets down the requirement for an effective, national seismic monitoring strategy and an advanced system linking national, regional, and urban monitoring networks. Modernized seismic monitoring can provide alerts of imminent strong earthquake shaking; rapid assessment of distribution and severity of earthquake shaking (for use in emergency response); warnings of a possible tsunami from an offshore earthquake; warnings of volcanic eruptions; information for correctly characterizing earthquake hazards and for improving building codes; and data on response of buildings and structures during earthquakes, for safe, cost-effective design, engineering, and construction practices in earthquake-prone regions.

  8. Probabilistic short-term forecasting of eruption rate at Kīlauea Volcano using a physics-based model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Anderson, K. R.

    2016-12-01

    Deterministic models of volcanic eruptions yield predictions of future activity conditioned on uncertainty in the current state of the system. Physics-based eruption models are well-suited for deterministic forecasting as they can relate magma physics with a wide range of observations. Yet, physics-based eruption forecasting is strongly limited by an inadequate understanding of volcanic systems, and the need for eruption models to be computationally tractable. At Kīlauea Volcano, Hawaii, episodic depressurization-pressurization cycles of the magma system generate correlated, quasi-exponential variations in ground deformation and surface height of the active summit lava lake. Deflations are associated with reductions in eruption rate, or even brief eruptive pauses, and thus partly control lava flow advance rates and associated hazard. Because of the relatively well-understood nature of Kīlauea's shallow magma plumbing system, and because more than 600 of these events have been recorded to date, they offer a unique opportunity to refine a physics-based effusive eruption forecasting approach and apply it to lava eruption rates over short (hours to days) time periods. A simple physical model of the volcano ascribes observed data to temporary reductions in magma supply to an elastic reservoir filled with compressible magma. This model can be used to predict the evolution of an ongoing event, but because the mechanism that triggers events is unknown, event durations are modeled stochastically from previous observations. A Bayesian approach incorporates diverse data sets and prior information to simultaneously estimate uncertain model parameters and future states of the system. Forecasts take the form of probability distributions for eruption rate or cumulative erupted volume at some future time. Results demonstrate the significant uncertainties that still remain even for short-term eruption forecasting at a well-monitored volcano - but also the value of a physics

  9. Massachusetts Early Warning Indicator System (EWIS). "Technical Descriptions of Risk Model Development": Middle and High School Age Groupings (Grades 7-12)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2013

    2013-01-01

    The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (Department) created the grades 1-12 Early Warning Indicator System (EWIS) in response to district interest in the Early Warning Indicator Index (EWII) that the Department previously created for rising grade 9 students. Districts shared that the EWII data were helpful, but also…

  10. Massachusetts Early Warning Indicator System (EWIS). "Technical Descriptions of Risk Model Development": Early and Late Elementary Age Groupings (Grades 1-6)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 2013

    2013-01-01

    The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (Department) created the grades 1-12 Early Warning Indicator System (EWIS) in response to district interest in the Early Warning Indicator Index (EWII) that the Department previously created for rising grade 9 students. Districts shared that the EWII data were helpful, but also…

  11. Co-eruptive subsidence and post-eruptive uplift associated with the 2011-2012 eruption of Puyehue-Cordón Caulle, Chile, revealed by DInSAR

    Science.gov (United States)

    Euillades, Pablo Andrés; Euillades, Leonardo Daniel; Blanco, Mauro Hugo; Velez, María Laura; Grosse, Pablo; Sosa, Gustavo Javier

    2017-09-01

    The 2011-2012 eruption of the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcanic complex, southern Andes (Chile), was associated with complex surface deformation affecting an area of roughly 50 by 50 km. We report here differential SAR interferometry (DInSAR) results of pre-, co- and post-eruptive deformation from ENVISAT ASAR, COSMO-Skymed, and ALOS-2/PALSAR scenes acquired between early 2011 and early 2017. No clear pre-eruptive deformation is observed during five months before the eruption, although some patterns could be interpreted as showing inflation occurring between April and May 2011. Co-eruptive interferograms show a complex deformation pattern consisting in a major deflation lobe (120 cm LOS lengthening) centered 10 km NW of the eruption vent accompanied by smaller uplift and subsidence regions in the vicinity of the vent. Re-inflation began immediately after the end of the eruption. A first pulse lasted 3 years between 2012 and 2015, accumulating 70 cm uplift. We detect here a second pulse, beginning in June 2016 and still ongoing in February 2017, reaching 12 cm in half a year. Inverse modeling with spherical cavity and spheroidal sources locates re-inflation sources at a depth ranging between 8 and 11 km under the surface. It suggests re-filling of the reservoir occurring after the draining of a shallow magma chamber during the 2011-2012 eruption.

  12. Community Based Warning and Evacuation System against Debris Flow in the Upper Jeneberang River, Gowa, South Sulawesi

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sutikno Hardjosuwarno

    2008-07-01

    Full Text Available Gigantic collapse of the Caldera wall of Mt. Bawakaraeng (2,830 m in March 2004 had supplied the sediment volume of 230 million to the most upper stream of Jeneberang River, which flowed down to the lower reach in the form of debris flow which is triggered by rainfall. The purpose of the research is to provide a system which is able to forecast the occurrence of debris flow, to identify the weak points along the river course, to identify the hazard areas and how to inform effectively and efficiently the warning messages to the inhabitants in the dangerous area by using the existing modern equipment combined with the traditional one. The standard rainfall which is used to judge the occurrence of debris flow was established by Yano method. It is based on the historical data of rainfall that trigger and not trigger to the occurrence of debris flow which is widely used in Japan so far. The hazard area was estimated by Two-Dimensional Simulation Model for debris flow, the debris flow arrival time at each point in the river were estimated by dividing their distance from reference point by debris flow velocity, where the check dam no. 7-1 in Manimbahoi was designated as reference point. The existing evacuation routes were checked by field survey, the strength and coverage of sound for kentongan and manual siren were examined using sound pressure level at the location of the existing monitoring post and the effectiveness of warning and evacuation were evaluated by comparing the warning and evacuation time against the debris flow arrival time. It was resulted that debris flow occurrence was triggered by short duration of high rainfall intensity, long duration of low rainfall intensity and the outbreak of natural dam which is formed by land slide or bank collapses. The hazard area of upper Jeneberang River are mostly located on the river terraces where the local inhabitants earn their living through cultivating the river terraces as paddy fields, dry

  13. An Online Fault Pre-warning System of the Rolling Mill Screw-down Device Based on Virtual Instrument

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Qing Bai

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available A traditional off-line screw-down monitoring system performs not well on real-time signal analysis or process, which cannot provide simultaneous fault pre-warning either. A diagnostic monitoring system as well as a remotely accessible graphic user interface is presented in this paper. The main objective of this work is to develop an online and available technique for monitoring the kinetic, hydrodynamic and electrical parameters of the rolling mill screw-down device, and analyze these figures to support online fault pre-warning. A series of transducers are installed in suitable locations to measure parameters decried above including the vibration acceleration of a rolling mill stand, the rolling force of a screw-down device, the stroke of a hydraulic cylinder, the system source pressure, the in-cylinder stress and the output value of an electro-hydraulic servo valve. An industrial personal computer picks up the information transformed by an extra high-speed data acquisition board embedded inside, processes the signals via a software designed by means of Laborary Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench (LabVIEW and indicates fault conditions through the graphic user interface. Besides, the data of the overall system can be published over the Internet using LabVIEW Web Server capabilities. The results of experiments suggest that the system works well on real-time data acquisition and online fault pre- warning. The statistics saved contributes to the research of vibration performance and malfunction analysis of a rolling mill.

  14. Distributed GIS for automated natural hazard zonation mapping Internet-SMS warning towards sustainable society

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Devanjan Bhattacharya

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Today, open systems are needed for real time analysis and warnings on geo-hazards and over time can be achieved using Open Source Geographical Information System (GIS-based platform such as GeoNode which is being contributed to by developers around the world. To develop on an open source platform is a very vital component for better disaster information management as far as spatial data infrastructures are concerned and this would be extremely vital when huge databases are to be created and consulted regularly for city planning at different scales, particularly satellite images and maps of locations. There is a big need for spatially referenced data creation, analysis, and management. Some of the salient points that this research would be able to definitely contribute with GeoNode, being an open source platform, are facilitating the creation, sharing, and collaborative use of geospatial data. The objective is development of an automated natural hazard zonation system with Internet-short message service (SMS warning utilizing geomatics for sustainable societies. A concept of developing an internet-resident geospatial geohazard warning system has been put forward in this research, which can communicate alerts via SMS. There has been a need to develop an automated integrated system to categorize hazard and issue warning that reaches users directly. At present, no web-enabled warning system exists which can disseminate warning after hazard evaluation at one go and in real time. The objective of this research work has been to formalize a notion of an integrated, independent, generalized, and automated geo-hazard warning system making use of geo-spatial data under popular usage platform. In this paper, a model of an automated geo-spatial hazard warning system has been elaborated. The functionality is to be modular in architecture having GIS-graphical user interface (GUI, input, understanding, rainfall prediction, expert, output, and warning modules. A

  15. Premature dental eruption: report of case.

    LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

    McNamara, C M

    2011-08-05

    This case report reviews the variability of dental eruption and the possible sequelae. Dental eruption of the permanent teeth in cleft palate children may be variable, with delayed eruption the most common phenomenon. A case of premature dental eruption of a maxillary left first premolar is demonstrated, however, in a five-year-old male. This localized premature dental eruption anomaly was attributed to early extraction of the primary dentition, due to caries.

  16. The pathway to earthquake early warning in the US

    Science.gov (United States)

    Allen, R. M.; Given, D. D.; Heaton, T. H.; Vidale, J. E.; West Coast Earthquake Early Warning Development Team

    2013-05-01

    The development of earthquake early warning capabilities in the United States is now accelerating and expanding as the technical capability to provide warning is demonstrated and additional funding resources are making it possible to expand the current testing region to the entire west coast (California, Oregon and Washington). Over the course of the next two years we plan to build a prototype system that will provide a blueprint for a full public system in the US. California currently has a demonstrations warning system, ShakeAlert, that provides alerts to a group of test users from the public and private sector. These include biotech companies, technology companies, the entertainment industry, the transportation sector, and the emergency planning and response community. Most groups are currently in an evaluation mode, receiving the alerts and developing protocols for future response. The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system is the one group who has now implemented an automated response to the warning system. BART now stops trains when an earthquake of sufficient size is detected. Research and development also continues to develop improved early warning algorithms to better predict the distribution of shaking in large earthquakes when the finiteness of the source becomes important. The algorithms under development include the use of both seismic and GPS instrumentation and integration with existing point source algorithms. At the same time, initial testing and development of algorithms in and for the Pacific Northwest is underway. In this presentation we will review the current status of the systems, highlight the new research developments, and lay out a pathway to a full public system for the US west coast. The research and development described is ongoing at Caltech, UC Berkeley, University of Washington, ETH Zurich, Southern California Earthquake Center, and the US Geological Survey, and is funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the US Geological

  17. Experiences from site-specific landslide early warning systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Michoud, C.; Bazin, S.; Blikra, L. H.; Derron, M.-H.; Jaboyedoff, M.

    2013-10-01

    Landslide early warning systems (EWSs) have to be implemented in areas with large risk for populations or infrastructures when classical structural remediation measures cannot be set up. This paper aims to gather experiences of existing landslide EWSs, with a special focus on practical requirements (e.g., alarm threshold values have to take into account the smallest detectable signal levels of deployed sensors before being established) and specific issues when dealing with system implementations. Within the framework of the SafeLand European project, a questionnaire was sent to about one-hundred institutions in charge of landslide management. Finally, we interpreted answers from experts belonging to 14 operational units related to 23 monitored landslides. Although no standard requirements exist for designing and operating EWSs, this review highlights some key elements, such as the importance of pre-investigation work, the redundancy and robustness of monitoring systems, the establishment of different scenarios adapted to gradual increasing of alert levels, and the necessity of confidence and trust between local populations and scientists. Moreover, it also confirms the need to improve our capabilities for failure forecasting, monitoring techniques and integration of water processes into landslide conceptual models.

  18. Scaling properties of planetary calderas and terrestrial volcanic eruptions

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    L. Sanchez

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available Volcanism plays an important role in transporting internal heat of planetary bodies to their surface. Therefore, volcanoes are a manifestation of the planet's past and present internal dynamics. Volcanic eruptions as well as caldera forming processes are the direct manifestation of complex interactions between the rising magma and the surrounding host rock in the crust of terrestrial planetary bodies. Attempts have been made to compare volcanic landforms throughout the solar system. Different stochastic models have been proposed to describe the temporal sequences of eruptions on individual or groups of volcanoes. However, comprehensive understanding of the physical mechanisms responsible for volcano formation and eruption and more specifically caldera formation remains elusive. In this work, we propose a scaling law to quantify the distribution of caldera sizes on Earth, Mars, Venus, and Io, as well as the distribution of calderas on Earth depending on their surrounding crustal properties. We also apply the same scaling analysis to the distribution of interevent times between eruptions for volcanoes that have the largest eruptive history as well as groups of volcanoes on Earth. We find that when rescaled with their respective sample averages, the distributions considered show a similar functional form. This result implies that similar processes are responsible for caldera formation throughout the solar system and for different crustal settings on Earth. This result emphasizes the importance of comparative planetology to understand planetary volcanism. Similarly, the processes responsible for volcanic eruptions are independent of the type of volcanism or geographical location.

  19. Study of the capability for rapid warnings of solar flare radiation hazards to aircraft. Part I. Forecasts and warnings of solar flare radiation hazards. Part II. An FAA polar flight solar cosmic radiation forecast/warning communication system study. Technical memo

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sauer, H.H.; Stonehocker, G.H.

    1977-04-01

    The first part of the report provides background information on the occurrence of solar activity and the consequent sporadic production of electromagnetic and particle emissions from the sun. A summary is given of the current procedures for the forecasting of solar activity together with procedures used to verify these forecasts as currently available. A summary of current forecasting of radiation hazards as provided in support of the Concorde SST program is also given. The second part of the report describes a forecast message distribution system developed in conjunction with solar cosmic radiation forecasts and warnings of the Space Environment Laboratory of NOAA for the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Office of Aviation Medicine. The study analyzes the currently available and future aeronautical telecommunication system facilities to determine an optimum system to distribute forecasts to the preflight planning centers in the international flight service stations for polar-flying subsonic and supersonic transport (SST) type aircraft. Also recommended for the system are timely and reliable distribution of warnings to individual in-flight aircraft in polar areas by the responsible air traffic control authority

  20. Will Teide erupt again?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marti, Joan; Geyer, Adelina

    2016-04-01

    The quantification of hazard in volcanic systems characterised by long repose period is difficult because the lack of knowledge of the past volcanic history and also because in many cases volcanism is not perceived as a potential problem, being only regarded as an attraction for tourism or a source of economic benefit, thus hiding the need to conduct hazard assessment. Teide, in the island of Tenerife (Canary Islands), is not an exception to this general rule and, despite being one of the largest composite volcanoes in the World, it is generally considered as a non-active volcano by population, visitors and even by some scientists. However, geological and geophysical evidence, including a large diversity of monitoring signals recorded during last decades, as well as a simple comparison with similar volcanoes that have erupted in recent times after hundreds or even thousands of years of quiescence, recommend to consider Teide as an active volcano and to take the necessary precaution in an island with nearly one million of permanent inhabitants and nearly 5 millions of visitors per year. What is the potential of Teide to erupt again? is the question that relies behind the fact of considering it as active, and that needs to be answered first. Based on the current volcanological, petrological and geophysical knowledge We propose a conceptual model on the magma recharge mechanisms, structure of the plumbing system, and eruption triggers and dynamics of Teide volcano that helps to understand its behaviour and to anticipate future activity. Ramón y Cajal contract (RYC-2012-11024)

  1. Premature eruption of the premolars.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Camm, J H; Schuler, J L

    1990-01-01

    This paper presents a variety of cases in which very early loss of abscessed primary molars caused early eruption of the permanent successors. Clinical sequelae including ectopic eruption, alteration of eruption sequence, arch-length inadequacy and tooth impaction are illustrated by five case reports.

  2. Global monsoon precipitation responses to large volcanic eruptions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Fei; Chai, Jing; Wang, Bin; Liu, Jian; Zhang, Xiao; Wang, Zhiyuan

    2016-04-11

    Climate variation of global monsoon (GM) precipitation involves both internal feedback and external forcing. Here, we focus on strong volcanic forcing since large eruptions are known to be a dominant mechanism in natural climate change. It is not known whether large volcanoes erupted at different latitudes have distinctive effects on the monsoon in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and the Southern Hemisphere (SH). We address this issue using a 1500-year volcanic sensitivity simulation by the Community Earth System Model version 1.0 (CESM1). Volcanoes are classified into three types based on their meridional aerosol distributions: NH volcanoes, SH volcanoes and equatorial volcanoes. Using the model simulation, we discover that the GM precipitation in one hemisphere is enhanced significantly by the remote volcanic forcing occurring in the other hemisphere. This remote volcanic forcing-induced intensification is mainly through circulation change rather than moisture content change. In addition, the NH volcanic eruptions are more efficient in reducing the NH monsoon precipitation than the equatorial ones, and so do the SH eruptions in weakening the SH monsoon, because the equatorial eruptions, despite reducing moisture content, have weaker effects in weakening the off-equatorial monsoon circulation than the subtropical-extratropical volcanoes do.

  3. The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) adaption in National Early Warning Alerting Systems of China

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Chao

    2017-04-01

    The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) [1] is an XML-based data format for exchanging public warnings and emergencies between alerting technologies. In China, from local communities to entire nations, there was a patchwork of specialized hazard public alerting systems. And each system was often designed just for certain emergency situations and for certain communications media. Application took place in the NEWAS (National Early Warning Alerting Systems) [2]project where CAP serves as central message to integrate all kind of hazard situations, including the natural calamity, accident disaster, public health emergency , social safety etc. Officially operated on May 2015, NEWAS now has completed docking work with 14 departments including civil administration, safety supervision, forestry, land, water conservancy, earthquake, traffic, meteorology, agriculture, tourism, food and drug supervision, public security and oceanic administration. Thus, several items in CAP has been modified, redefined and extended according to the various grading standards and publishing strategies, as well as the characteristics of Chinese Geocoding. NEWAS successfully delivers information to end users through 4 levels (i.e. State, province, prefecture and county) structure and by various means. [1] CAP, http://www.oasis-emergency.org/cap [2] http://www.12379.cn/

  4. [Application of Big Data Mining Technology in Monitoring and Early-warning of Schistosomiasis].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Kun; Li, Shi-zhu

    2015-12-01

    The prevalence of schistosomiasis will soon be controlled to a low level in China. It is therefore imperative to establish a more sensitive and effective early warning system for schistosomiasis, so as to consolidate the achievements of the disease control. By covering four topics including the importance of early warning system for schistosomiasis and its research direction, as well as recent development in big data mining and its application in monitoring and early-warning of schistosomiasis, this review discusses the feasibility of data mining technology for monitoring and early warning of the disease. It is hoped that this technology would increase the efficacy of studies on monitoring and early warning, and promote the elimination of schistosomiasis in China.

  5. Prediction of Solar Eruptions Using Filament Metadata

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aggarwal, Ashna; Schanche, Nicole; Reeves, Katharine K.; Kempton, Dustin; Angryk, Rafal

    2018-05-01

    We perform a statistical analysis of erupting and non-erupting solar filaments to determine the properties related to the eruption potential. In order to perform this study, we correlate filament eruptions documented in the Heliophysics Event Knowledgebase (HEK) with HEK filaments that have been grouped together using a spatiotemporal tracking algorithm. The HEK provides metadata about each filament instance, including values for length, area, tilt, and chirality. We add additional metadata properties such as the distance from the nearest active region and the magnetic field decay index. We compare trends in the metadata from erupting and non-erupting filament tracks to discover which properties present signs of an eruption. We find that a change in filament length over time is the most important factor in discriminating between erupting and non-erupting filament tracks, with erupting tracks being more likely to have decreasing length. We attempt to find an ensemble of predictive filament metadata using a Random Forest Classifier approach, but find the probability of correctly predicting an eruption with the current metadata is only slightly better than chance.

  6. Verification of warnings at the Meteorological and Hydrological Service of Croatia

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kalin, Lovro

    2017-04-01

    The role of national meteorological services is increasingly related to warnings. This is particularly stressed due to more frequent extreme events and severe weather. At the Meteorological and Hydrological Service of Croatia various warnings products are introduced, from Civil protection service and MeteoAlarm to different specialized products, such as heat spells, cold spells, forest fire warnings, etc. Verification of warnings is a relatively new field, with spurious methods and diverse data. Still, various results of warnings will be presented in this paper, mostly through contingency tables and related verification scores. These results provide an insight to the forecast system, it's properties and give a good feed-back to the forecasters.

  7. The lower effectiveness of text-only health warnings in China compared to pictorial health warnings in Malaysia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elton-Marshall, Tara; Xu, Steve Shaowei; Meng, Gang; Quah, Anne C K; Sansone, Genevieve C; Feng, Guoze; Jiang, Yuan; Driezen, Pete; Omar, Maizurah; Awang, Rahmat; Fong, Geoffrey T

    2015-11-01

    In 2009, China changed its health warnings on cigarette packs from side-only text warnings to two text-only warnings on 30% of the bottom of the front and back of the pack. Also in 2009, Malaysia changed from similar text warnings to pictorial health warnings consistent with Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Article 11 Guidelines. To measure the impact of the change in health warnings in China and to compare the text-only health warnings to the impact of the pictorial health warnings introduced in Malaysia. We measured changes in key indicators of warning effectiveness among a longitudinal cohort sample of smokers from Waves 1 to 3 (2006-2009) of the International Tobacco Control (ITC) China Survey and from Waves 3 to 4 (2008-2009) of the ITC Malaysia Survey. Each cohort consisted of representative samples of adult (≥18 years) smokers from six cities in China (n=6575) and from a national sample in Malaysia (n=2883). Generalised Estimating Equations (GEE) were used to examine the impact of the health warnings on subsequent changes in salience of warnings, cognitive and behavioural outcomes. Compared to Malaysia, the weak text-only warning labels in China led to a significant change in only two of six key indicators of health warning effectiveness: forgoing cigarettes and reading the warning labels. The change to pictorial health warnings in Malaysia led to significant and substantial increases in five of six indicators (noticing, reading, forgoing, avoiding, thinking about quitting). The delay in implementing pictorial health warnings in China constitutes a lost opportunity for increasing knowledge and awareness of the harms of cigarettes, and for motivating smokers to quit. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://www.bmj.com/company/products-services/rights-and-licensing/

  8. Rapid wave and storm surge warning system for tropical cyclones in Mexico

    Science.gov (United States)

    Appendini, C. M.; Rosengaus, M.; Meza, R.; Camacho, V.

    2015-12-01

    The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami, is responsible for the forecast of tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic and Eastern North Pacific basins. As such, Mexico, Central America and Caribbean countries depend on the information issued by the NHC related to the characteristics of a particular tropical cyclone and associated watch and warning areas. Despite waves and storm surge are important hazards for marine operations and coastal dwellings, their forecast is not part of the NHC responsibilities. This work presents a rapid wave and storm surge warning system based on 3100 synthetic tropical cyclones doing landfall in Mexico. Hydrodynamic and wave models were driven by the synthetic events to create a robust database composed of maximum envelops of wind speed, significant wave height and storm surge for each event. The results were incorporated into a forecast system that uses the NHC advisory to locate the synthetic events passing inside specified radiuses for the present and forecast position of the real event. Using limited computer resources, the system displays the information meeting the search criteria, and the forecaster can select specific events to generate the desired hazard map (i.e. wind, waves, and storm surge) based on the maximum envelop maps. This system was developed in a limited time frame to be operational in 2015 by the National Hurricane and Severe Storms Unit of the Mexican National Weather Service, and represents a pilot project for other countries in the region not covered by detailed storm surge and waves forecasts.

  9. Early warnings of hazardous thunderstorms over Lake Victoria

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thiery, Wim; Gudmundsson, Lukas; Bedka, Kristopher; Semazzi, Fredrick H. M.; Lhermitte, Stef; Willems, Patrick; van Lipzig, Nicole P. M.; Seneviratne, Sonia I.

    2017-07-01

    Weather extremes have harmful impacts on communities around Lake Victoria in East Africa. Every year, intense nighttime thunderstorms cause numerous boating accidents on the lake, resulting in thousands of deaths among fishermen. Operational storm warning systems are therefore crucial. Here we complement ongoing early warning efforts based on numerical weather prediction, by presenting a new satellite data-driven storm prediction system, the prototype Lake Victoria Intense storm Early Warning System (VIEWS). VIEWS derives predictability from the correlation between afternoon land storm activity and nighttime storm intensity on Lake Victoria, and relies on logistic regression techniques to forecast extreme thunderstorms from satellite observations. Evaluation of the statistical model reveals that predictive power is high and independent of the type of input dataset. We then optimise the configuration and show that false alarms also contain valuable information. Our results suggest that regression-based models that are motivated through process understanding have the potential to reduce the vulnerability of local fishing communities around Lake Victoria. The experimental prediction system is publicly available under the MIT licence at http://github.com/wthiery/VIEWS.

  10. Role of MODIS Vegetation Phenology Products in the U.S. for Warn Early Warning System for Forest Threats

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spruce, Joseph; Hargrove, William; Norman, Steve; Gasser, Gerald; Smoot, James; Kuper, Philip

    2012-01-01

    U.S. forests occupy approx 751 million acres (approx 1/3 of total land). Several abiotic and biotic damage agents disturb, damage, kill, and/or threaten these forests. Regionally extensive forest disturbances can also threaten human life and property, bio-diversity and water supplies. timely regional forest disturbance monitoring products are needed to aid forest health management work at finer scales. daily MODIS data provide a means to monitor regional forest disturbances on a weekly basis, leveraging vegetation phenology. In response, the USFS and NASA began collaborating in 2006 to develop a Near Real Time (NRT) forest monitoring capability, based on MODIS NDVI data, as part of a national forest threat Early Warning System (EWS).

  11. Volcanic-Ash Hazards to Aviation—Changes and Challenges since the 2010 Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guffanti, M.; Tupper, A.; Mastin, L. G.; Lechner, P.

    2012-12-01

    significant post-Eyjafjallajökull change has been renewed interest of the airline sector in the issue of ash hazards to aviation. Whereas it is accepted that flight into young, dense ash clouds is dangerous, many equipment manufacturers and airline operators view that dilute ash clouds (ash concentrations safety impacts. This calls into question the long-standing mitigation strategy of complete ash avoidance. Consequently, entities under the ICAO and WMO banners, including the VAACs, are being challenged to provide more than qualitative "ash/no ash" depictions of affected airspace, while the aviation industry is being challenged to more fully specify what ash exposures cause economic as well as safety-related damage to aircraft. In the aftermath of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption, ICAO's global aviation-warning system of eruption reporting, ash cloud detecting and forecasting, and specialized messaging, implemented after highly damaging encounters of aircraft with ash clouds in the 1980's and 1990's, is still in place, but with renewed focus among all stakeholders on improving how hazardous airspace is defined and communicated.

  12. Urban flood risk warning under rapid urbanization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Yangbo; Zhou, Haolan; Zhang, Hui; Du, Guoming; Zhou, Jinhui

    2015-05-01

    In the past decades, China has observed rapid urbanization, the nation's urban population reached 50% in 2000, and is still in steady increase. Rapid urbanization in China has an adverse impact on urban hydrological processes, particularly in increasing the urban flood risks and causing serious urban flooding losses. Urban flooding also increases health risks such as causing epidemic disease break out, polluting drinking water and damaging the living environment. In the highly urbanized area, non-engineering measurement is the main way for managing urban flood risk, such as flood risk warning. There is no mature method and pilot study for urban flood risk warning, the purpose of this study is to propose the urban flood risk warning method for the rapidly urbanized Chinese cities. This paper first presented an urban flood forecasting model, which produces urban flood inundation index for urban flood risk warning. The model has 5 modules. The drainage system and grid dividing module divides the whole city terrain into drainage systems according to its first-order river system, and delineates the drainage system into grids based on the spatial structure with irregular gridding technique; the precipitation assimilation module assimilates precipitation for every grids which is used as the model input, which could either be the radar based precipitation estimation or interpolated one from rain gauges; runoff production module classifies the surface into pervious and impervious surface, and employs different methods to calculate the runoff respectively; surface runoff routing module routes the surface runoff and determines the inundation index. The routing on surface grid is calculated according to the two dimensional shallow water unsteady flow algorithm, the routing on land channel and special channel is calculated according to the one dimensional unsteady flow algorithm. This paper then proposed the urban flood risk warning method that is called DPSIR model based

  13. Resolving the architecture of monogenetic feeder systems from exposures of extinct volcanic fields

    Science.gov (United States)

    Muirhead, J.; Van Eaton, A. R.; Re, G.; White, J. D. L.; Ort, M. H.

    2016-12-01

    Monogenetic volcanic fields pose hazards to a number of major cities worldwide. During an eruption, the evolution of the intrusive feeder network modulates eruption behavior and location, as well as the warning signs of impending activity. However, historical examples of monogenetic eruptions are rare, particularly those monitored with the modern tools required to constrain the geometry and interconnectivity of subsurface intrusive feeders (e.g., InSAR, GPS). Geologic exposures in extinct fields around the Colorado Plateau provide clues to the geometry of shallow intrusions (<1000 m depth) that feed monogenetic volcanoes. We present field- and satellite-based observations of exposed intrusions in the Hopi Buttes volcanic field (Arizona), which reveal that many eruptions were fed by interconnected dike-sill systems. Results from the Hopi Buttes show that volcanic cone alignment studies are biased to the identification of dike intrusions, and thereby neglect the important contributions of sills to shallow feeder systems. For example, estimates of intruded volumes in fields exhumed by uplift and erosion in Utah and Arizona show that sills make up 30 - 92% of the shallow intruded volume within 1000 m of the paleosurface. By transporting magma toward and away from eruptive conduits, these sills likely played a role in modulating eruption styles (e.g., explosive vs effusive) and controlling lateral vent migrations. Sill transitions at Hopi Buttes would have produced detectable surface uplifts, and illustrate the importance of geological studies for informing interpretations of geodetic and seismological data during volcanic crises.

  14. Long-Term Volumetric Eruption Rates and Magma Budgets

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Scott M. White Dept. Geological Sciences University of South Carolina Columbia, SC 29208; Joy A. Crisp Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA 91109; Frank J. Spera Dept. Earth Science University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93106

    2005-01-01

    A global compilation of 170 time-averaged volumetric volcanic output rates (Qe) is evaluated in terms of composition and petrotectonic setting to advance the understanding of long-term rates of magma generation and eruption on Earth. Repose periods between successive eruptions at a given site and intrusive:extrusive ratios were compiled for selected volcanic centers where long-term (>104 years) data were available. More silicic compositions, rhyolites and andesites, have a more limited range of eruption rates than basalts. Even when high Qe values contributed by flood basalts (9 ± 2 Å~ 10-1 km3/yr) are removed, there is a trend in decreasing average Qe with lava composition from basaltic eruptions (2.6 ± 1.0 Å~ 10-2 km3/yr) to andesites (2.3 ± 0.8 Å~ 10-3 km3/yr) and rhyolites (4.0 ± 1.4 Å~ 10-3 km3/yr). This trend is also seen in the difference between oceanic and continental settings, as eruptions on oceanic crust tend to be predominately basaltic. All of the volcanoes occurring in oceanic settings fail to have statistically different mean Qe and have an overall average of 2.8 ± 0.4 Å~ 10-2 km3/yr, excluding flood basalts. Likewise, all of the volcanoes on continental crust also fail to have statistically different mean Qe and have an overall average of 4.4 ± 0.8 Å~ 10-3 km3/yr. Flood basalts also form a distinctive class with an average Qe nearly two orders of magnitude higher than any other class. However, we have found no systematic evidence linking increased intrusive:extrusive ratios with lower volcanic rates. A simple heat balance analysis suggests that the preponderance of volcanic systems must be open magmatic systems with respect to heat and matter transport in order to maintain eruptible magma at shallow depth throughout the observed lifetime of the volcano. The empirical upper limit of Å`10-2 km3/yr for magma eruption rate in systems with relatively high intrusive:extrusive ratios may be a consequence of the fundamental parameters

  15. Magma fluxes and recurreance rate of eruptions at Nevado de Toluca volcano (Mexico)

    Science.gov (United States)

    Weber, Gregor; Probst, Line; Arce, José L.; Caricchi, Luca

    2017-04-01

    Forecasting the frequency and size of volcanic eruptions is a long-term goal for hazard mitigation. The frequency at which a given crustal magmatic system is driven towards a critical state and the magnitude of the resulting volcanic events are linked to the supply rate of fresh magma, crustal properties, and tectonic setting. Our ability to forecast the recurrence rate of eruptions is hampered by the lack of data on key variables such as the average magma flux locally and globally. The aim of this project is to identify the average magma supply rate and injection frequency for eruptions of different magnitude and eruptive style. We centred our study at Nevado de Toluca in Mexico, a subduction-related volcano with an eruptive history spanning about 1.5 million years of comparatively well documented effusive and explosive eruptions dominantly of dacitic composition. We carry out in-situ high precision zircon geochronology for a sequence of eruptions of different magnitude to obtain a distribution of crystal ages from which average crustal magma fluxes can be calculated. Eruptive fluxes will be constrained by extracting lava flow volumes from a digital elevation model. A combination of whole rock and mineral chemistry will provide quantitative insights on petrogenetic processes and on the frequency at which intensive parameters changed within the magma reservoir before the eruptions. Our results will be integrated in a global database including other volcanic systems and literature data to attempt to identify similarities and differences between magmatic reservoirs feeding volcanic eruptions of different magnitude. The final target of this project is to identify the physical factors controlling the recurrence rate of volcanic eruptions at regional and global scale.

  16. Residentś risk perception of and response to SO2 risk in east Iceland during the volcanic eruption in Bárðarbunga/Holuhraun 2014-2015

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gísladóttir, Guðrún; Jóhannesdóttir, Guðrún

    2016-04-01

    Many Icelandic communities are exposed to volcanic eruptions every two to three years. In order to reduce risk and enhance resilience in communities exposed to volcanic hazards, involvement of local communities is essential during all phases of disaster management, from prevention and preparedness, to response and recovery. Preparedness plans for volcanic eruptions are in place for many of the volcanic hazards in Iceland especially evacuation of residents due to immediate threat from glacial outburst floods from sub-glacial eruptions. Some of the recent risks associated with volcanic eruptions have had a slow onset (volcanic gas) while others have had a sudden onset (volcanic ash). The risks are both linked to air quality in inhabited areas and dispersal are highly dependent on prevailing winds so timely forecast and modelling is needed in order to inform the population about the risk. Without preparedness plans many communities in Iceland were exposed to an unanticipated volcanic gas risks from Sulphur Dioxide (SO2) in 2014-2015 during an eruption in Bárðarbunga/Holuhraun. With no system in place to measure the highly toxic gas from the eruption, the Environmental Agency, The Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management and the Directorate of Health set up a system with over 40 handheld gas detectors and online links to 7 detectors around Iceland to monitor the gas. The defined health limit of SO2 is 350 μg/m3 for one hour, while 2600 μg/m3 for 15 minutes for working outdoors. Nevertheless, some communities in Iceland experienced much higher values and the highest measured concentration in communities during the eruption was 21.000 μg/m3. When the concentration of SO2 reached the level of >1000 μg/m3 a warning was issued and SMS text messages were sent to all mobile phones in the affected area. In order to engage with residents during the eruption the Civil Protection and local authorities, Directorate of Health, scientist and specialists

  17. Heatwave Early Warning Systems and Adaptation Advice to Reduce Human Health Consequences of Heatwaves

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bertil Forsberg

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: With climate change, there has been an increase in the frequency, intensity and duration of heatwave events. In response to the devastating mortality and morbidity of recent heatwave events, many countries have introduced heatwave early warning systems (HEWS. HEWS are designed to reduce the avoidable human health consequences of heatwaves through timely notification of prevention measures to vulnerable populations. Objective: To identify the key characteristics of HEWS in European countries to help inform modification of current, and development of, new systems and plans. Methods: We searched the internet to identify HEWS policy or government documents for 33 European countries and requested information from relevant organizations. We translated the HEWS documents and extracted details on the trigger indicators, thresholds for action, notification strategies, message intermediaries, communication and dissemination strategies, prevention strategies recommended and specified target audiences. Findings and Conclusions: Twelve European countries have HEWS. Although there are many similarities among the HEWS, there also are differences in key characteristics that could inform improvements in heatwave early warning plans.

  18. Detection of Deteriorating Patients on Surgical Wards Outside the ICU by an Automated MEWS-Based Early Warning System With Paging Functionality.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Heller, Axel R; Mees, Sören T; Lauterwald, Benjamin; Reeps, Christian; Koch, Thea; Weitz, Jürgen

    2018-05-16

    The establishment of early warning systems in hospitals was strongly recommended in recent guidelines to detect deteriorating patients early and direct them to adequate care. Upon reaching predefined trigger criteria, Medical Emergency Teams (MET) should be notified and directed to these patients. The present study analyses the effect of introducing an automated multiparameter early warning score (MEWS)-based early warning system with paging functionality on 2 wards hosting patients recovering from highly complex surgical interventions. The deployment of the system was accompanied by retrospective data acquisition during 12 months (intervention) using 4 routine databases: Hospital patient data management, anesthesia database, local data of the German Resuscitation Registry, and measurement logs of the deployed system (intervention period only). A retrospective 12-month data review using the same aforementioned databases before the deployment of the system served as control. Control and intervention phases were separated by a 6-month washout period for the installation of the system and for training. Data from 3827 patients could be acquired from 2 surgical wards during the two 12-month periods, 1896 patients in the control and 1931 in the intervention cohorts. Patient characteristics differed between the 2 observation phases. American Society of Anesthesiologists risk classification and duration of surgery as well as German DRG case-weight were significantly higher in the intervention period. However, the rate of cardiac arrests significantly dropped from 5.3 to 2.1 per 1000 admissions in the intervention period (P automated MEWS-based early warning system with paging functionality.

  19. Serreta 1998-2001 submarine volcanic eruption, offshore Terceira (Azores): Characterization of the vent and inferences about the eruptive dynamics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Casas, David; Pimentel, Adriano; Pacheco, José; Martorelli, Eleonora; Sposato, Andrea; Ercilla, Gemma; Alonso, Belen; Chiocci, Francesco

    2018-05-01

    High-resolution bathymetric data and seafloor sampling were used to characterize the most recent volcanic eruption in the Azores region, the 1998-2001 Serreta submarine eruption. The vent of the eruption is proposed to be an asymmetric topographic high, composed of two coalescing volcanic cones, underlying the location where lava balloons had been observed at the sea surface during the eruption. The volcanic products related to the 1998-2001 eruption are constrained to an area of 0.5 km2 around the proposed vent position. A submarine Strombolian-style eruption producing basaltic lava balloons, ash and coarse scoriaceous materials with limited lateral dispersion led to the buildup of the cones. The 1998-2001 Serreta eruption shares many similarities with other intermediate-depth lava balloon-forming eruptions (e.g., the 1891 eruption offshore Pantelleria and the 2011-2012 eruption south of El Hierro), revealing the particular conditions needed for the production of this unusual and scarcely documented volcanic product.

  20. Temporal variations in volumetric magma eruption rates of Quaternary volcanoes in Japan

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yamamoto, Takahiro; Kudo, Takashi; Isizuka, Osamu

    2018-04-01

    Long-term evaluations of hazard and risk related to volcanoes rely on extrapolations from volcano histories, including the uniformity of their eruption rates. We calculated volumetric magma eruption rates, compiled from quantitative eruption histories of 29 Japanese Quaternary volcanoes, and analyzed them with respect to durations spanning 101-105 years. Calculated eruption rates vary greatly (101-10-4 km3 dense-rock equivalent/1000 years) between individual volcanoes. Although large basaltic stratovolcanoes tend to have high eruption rates and relatively constant repose intervals, these cases are not representative of the various types of volcanoes in Japan. At many Japanese volcanoes, eruption rates are not constant through time, but increase, decrease, or fluctuate. Therefore, it is important to predict whether eruption rates will increase or decrease for long-term risk assessment. Several temporal co-variations of eruption rate and magmatic evolution suggest that there are connections between them. In some cases, magma supply rates increased in response to changing magma-generation processes. On the other hand, stable plumbing systems without marked changes in magma composition show decreasing eruption rates through time.[Figure not available: see fulltext.

  1. Seismic Activity: Public Alert and Warning: Legal Implications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zocchetti, D.

    2007-12-01

    As science and technology evolve in ways that increase our ability to inform the public of potentially destructive seismic activity, there are significant legal issues for consideration. Even though countries and even states within the United States have differing legal tenets that could either change or at least re-shape the outcome of specific legal questions that this session will be pondering, there are fundamental legal principals that will permeate. It is often said that the law lags behind society and in particular its technological developments. No doubt in the area of warning the public of impending destructive forces of nature or society, the law will need to do some catching up. The law is probably adequately developed for at least some preliminary discussion of the key issues. No matter the legal scheme, if there is a failure or perceived failure in the system to warn people of a pending emergencies, albeit an earthquake, tsunami, or other predictable event, those who are harmed or believe they are harmed will seek relief under the law. Every day there are situations wherein the failure to warn or to adequately warn is key, such as with faulty or defective consumer products, escaped prisoners, and police high-speed vehicle chases. With alert and warning systems for disaster, however, we have a unique set of facts. Generally, the systems and their failures occur during emergencies or at least during situations under apparently exigent circumstances when the disaster's predictability is widely recognized as less than 100 percent. The law, in particular United States tort law, has been particularly lenient when people and organizations are operating during compressed timeframes and their actions are generally considered necessary to address circumstances relative to public safety. The legal system has been forgiving when the actor that failed or appeared to fail was government. The courts have liberally applied the principal of sovereign immunity to

  2. Flood forecasting and warning systems in Pakistan

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ali Awan, Shaukat

    2004-01-01

    Meteorologically, there are two situations which may cause three types of floods in Indus Basin in Pakistan: i) Meteorological Situation for Category-I Floods when the seasonal low is a semi permanent weather system situated over south eastern Balochistan, south western Punjab, adjoining parts of Sindh get intensified and causes the moisture from the Arabian Sea to be brought up to upper catchments of Chenab and Jhelum rivers. (ii) Meteorological Situation for Category-11 and Category-111 Floods, which is linked with monsoon low/depression. Such monsoon systems originate in Bay of Bengal region and then move across India in general west/north westerly direction arrive over Rajasthan or any of adjoining states of India. Flood management in Pakistan is multi-functional process involving a number of different organizations. The first step in the process is issuance of flood forecast/warning, which is performed by Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) utilizing satellite cloud pictures and quantitative precipitation measurement radar data, in addition to the conventional weather forecasting facilities. For quantitative flood forecasting, hydrological data is obtained through the Provincial Irrigation Department and WAPDA. Furthermore, improved rainfall/runoff and flood routing models have been developed to provide more reliable and explicit flood information to a flood prone population.(Author)

  3. Polymorphous light eruption - some interesting aspects

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Corrales-Padilla, H.; Dominguez-Soto, L.; Hojyo-Tomoka, M.T.; Londono, F.; Vargas-Ocampo, F.

    1979-01-01

    A study of polymorphous light eruption (PLE) is Latin America is reported. The clinical lesions, the course, histopathology, differential diagnosis, pathogenesis, treatment and systemic photoprotection are discussed. Treatment with ultraviolet radiation is included. (C.F.)

  4. Towards forecasting volcanic eruptions on a global scale

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hooper, A. J.; Heimisson, E. R.; Gaddes, M.; Bagnardi, M.; Sigmundsson, F.; Spaans, K.; Parks, M.; Gudmundsson, M. T.; Ebmeier, S. K.; Holohan, E. P.; Wright, T. J.; Jonsdottir, K.; Hreinsdottir, S.; Dumont, S.; Ofeigsson, B.; Vogfjord, K. S.

    2016-12-01

    Volcanic eruptions can cause loss of life, damage health, and have huge economic impacts, providing strong societal motivation for predicting eruptive behavior prior to and during eruptions. I will present here recent progress we have made in mechanical modelling with a predictive capacity, and how we are expanding volcano monitoring to a global scale. The eruption of Bardarbunga volcano, Iceland, in 2014-2015 was the largest eruption there for more than 200 years, producing 1.6 km3of lava. Prior to eruption, magma propagated almost 50 km beneath the surface, over a period of two weeks. Key questions to answer in advance of such eruptions are: will it erupt, where, how much and for how long? We developed a model based on magma taking a path that maximizes energy release, which aligns well with the actual direction taken. Our model also predicts eruption in a topographic low, as actually occurred. As magma was withdrawn, the volcano surface sagged downwards. A coupled model of magma flow and piston-like collapse predicts a declining magma flow rate and ground subsidence rate, in accordance with that observed. With such a model, observations can be used to predict the timescale and rates of eruption, even before one starts. The primary data needed to constrain these predictive models are measurements of surface deformation. In Iceland, this is achieved using high accuracy GPS, however, most volcanoes have no ground instrumentation. A recent ESA mission, Sentinel-1, can potentially image deformation at almost all subaerial volcanoes every 6 days, using a technique called interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR). This will allow us to detect early stages of magma migration at any volcano, then task other satellites to acquire data at a higher rate. We are working on a system to process all Sentinel-1 data in near-real time, which is a big data challenge. We have also developed new algorithms that maximize signal extraction from each new acquisition and

  5. Evaluating probabilistic dengue risk forecasts from a prototype early warning system for Brazil

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lowe, Rachel; Coelho, Caio AS; Barcellos, Christovam; Carvalho, Marilia Sá; Catão, Rafael De Castro; Coelho, Giovanini E; Ramalho, Walter Massa; Bailey, Trevor C; Stephenson, David B; Rodó, Xavier

    2016-01-01

    Recently, a prototype dengue early warning system was developed to produce probabilistic forecasts of dengue risk three months ahead of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Here, we evaluate the categorical dengue forecasts across all microregions in Brazil, using dengue cases reported in June 2014 to validate the model. We also compare the forecast model framework to a null model, based on seasonal averages of previously observed dengue incidence. When considering the ability of the two models to predict high dengue risk across Brazil, the forecast model produced more hits and fewer missed events than the null model, with a hit rate of 57% for the forecast model compared to 33% for the null model. This early warning model framework may be useful to public health services, not only ahead of mass gatherings, but also before the peak dengue season each year, to control potentially explosive dengue epidemics. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.11285.001 PMID:26910315

  6. Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN-2006)

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) is a nationally representative public health surveillance system that has monitored drug related emergency department (ED)...

  7. Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN-2005)

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) is a nationally representative public health surveillance system that has monitored drug related emergency department (ED)...

  8. Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN-2007)

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) is a nationally representative public health surveillance system that has monitored drug related emergency department (ED)...

  9. Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN-2004)

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) is a nationally representative public health surveillance system that has monitored drug related emergency department (ED)...

  10. Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN-2009)

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) is a nationally representative public health surveillance system that has monitored drug related emergency department (ED)...

  11. Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN-2010)

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) is a nationally representative public health surveillance system that has monitored drug related emergency department (ED)...

  12. Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN-2008)

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) is a nationally representative public health surveillance system that has monitored drug related emergency department (ED)...

  13. Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN-2011)

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) is a nationally representative public health surveillance system that has monitored drug related emergency department (ED)...

  14. Of Needles and Haystacks: Building an Accurate Statewide Dropout Early Warning System in Wisconsin

    Science.gov (United States)

    Knowles, Jared E.

    2015-01-01

    The state of Wisconsin has one of the highest four year graduation rates in the nation, but deep disparities among student subgroups remain. To address this the state has created the Wisconsin Dropout Early Warning System (DEWS), a predictive model of student dropout risk for students in grades six through nine. The Wisconsin DEWS is in use…

  15. Volatile-induced magma differentiation in the plumbing system of Mt. Etna volcano (Italy): evidence from glass in tephra of the 2001 eruption

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ferlito, Carmelo; Viccaro, Marco; Cristofolini, Renato

    2008-02-01

    Mount Etna volcano was shaken during the summer 2001 by one of the most singular eruptive episodes of the last centuries. For about 3 weeks, several eruptive fractures developed, emitting lava flows and tephra that significantly modified the landscape of the southern flank of the volcano. This event stimulated the attention of the scientific community especially for the simultaneous emission of petrologically distinct magmas, recognized as coming from different segments of the plumbing system. A stratigraphically controlled sampling of tephra layers was performed at the most active vents of the eruption, in particular at the 2,100 m (CAL) and at the 2,550 m (LAG) scoria cones. Detailed scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive x-ray spectrometer (SEM-EDS) analyses performed on glasses found in tephra and comparison with lava whole rock compositions indicate an anomalous increase in Ti, Fe, P, and particularly of K and Cl in the upper layers of the LAG sequence. Mass balance and thermodynamic calculations have shown that this enrichment cannot be accounted for by “classical” differentiation processes, such as crystal fractionation and magma mixing. The analysis of petrological features of the magmas involved in the event, integrated with the volcanological evolution, has evidenced the role played by volatiles in controlling the magmatic evolution within the crustal portion of the plumbing system. Volatiles, constituted of H2O, CO2, and Cl-complexes, originated from a deeply seated magma body (DBM). Their upward migration occurred through a fracture network possibly developed by the seismic swarms during the period preceding the event. In the upper portion of the plumbing system, a shallower residing magma body (ABT) had chemical and physical conditions to receive migrating volatiles, which hence dissolved the mobilized elements producing the observed selective enrichment. This volatile-induced differentiation involved exclusively the lowest erupted

  16. A Simple Early Warning System for Evaluating the Credit Portfolio's Quality

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nicolae Dardac

    2009-05-01

    Full Text Available The last decade has witnessed the development of a vast literature devoted to the study of several phenomena like banking crises or episodes of vulnerability and distress, characterized by inadequate capitalization, impairment of the asset quality and of the credit institutions' rating. The purpose of this study is to design an early warning system in order to highlight at an earlier stage the likelihood of deterioration of the Romanian banking system credit portfolio's quality. We have applied an econometric model which constitutes a reference for this type of analysis, having as purpose the identification of a significant correlation between increasing weight of bad loans in total assets, on the one hand, and a number of macroeconomic variables and indicators of the banking system, on the other hand.

  17. A probabilistic approach of the Flash Flood Early Warning System (FF-EWS) in Catalonia based on radar ensemble generation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Velasco, David; Sempere-Torres, Daniel; Corral, Carles; Llort, Xavier; Velasco, Enrique

    2010-05-01

    Early Warning Systems (EWS) are commonly identified as the most efficient tools in order to improve the preparedness and risk management against heavy rains and Flash Floods (FF) with the objective of reducing economical losses and human casualties. In particular, flash floods affecting torrential Mediterranean catchments are a key element to be incorporated within operational EWSs. The characteristic high spatial and temporal variability of the storms requires high-resolution data and methods to monitor/forecast the evolution of rainfall and its hydrological impact in small and medium torrential basins. A first version of an operational FF-EWS has been implemented in Catalonia (NE Spain) under the name of EHIMI system (Integrated Tool for Hydrometeorological Forecasting) with the support of the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) and the Meteorological Service of Catalonia (SMC). Flash flood warnings are issued based on radar-rainfall estimates. Rainfall estimation is performed on radar observations with high spatial and temporal resolution (1km2 and 10 minutes) in order to adapt the warning scale to the 1-km grid of the EWS. The method is based on comparing observed accumulated rainfall against rainfall thresholds provided by the regional Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) curves. The so-called "aggregated rainfall warning" at every river cell is obtained as the spatially averaged rainfall over its associated upstream draining area. Regarding the time aggregation of rainfall, the critical duration is thought to be an accumulation period similar to the concentration time of each cachtment. The warning is issued once the forecasted rainfall accumulation exceeds the rainfall thresholds mentioned above, which are associated to certain probability of occurrence. Finally, the hazard warning is provided and shown to the decision-maker in terms of exceeded return periods at every river cell covering the whole area of Catalonia. The objective of the present work includes the

  18. Tooth eruption and browridge formation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Russell, M D

    1982-05-01

    One of the most reasonable hypotheses regarding the functional significance of the browridge is that the supraorbital torus forms in response to masticatory stress during development. Oyen, Walker, and Rice (1979) have recently proposed a model that tests this hypothesis: if browridges are functionally related to masticatory stresses on the cranial vault, then changes in the biomechanics of the masticatory system ought to be reflected by changes in the browridge. To test their model they attempted to relate biomechanical discontinuities resulting from tooth eruption to episodes of bone deposition on the supraorbital tori of a developmental series of dry Papio crania. This paper reports on a parallel test of the model on a cross-sectional sample of Australian Aboriginal juvenile crania. This sample showed no relation between tooth eruption and the supraorbital surface morphology thought to be indicative of active bone deposition. It is also demonstrated that no significant relationship between tooth eruption and episodes of bone deposition is shown by the Papio sample. It is concluded that the use of small cross-sectional samples of dry crania does not provide a valid test of the model.

  19. Volcanology and hazards of phreatomagmatic basaltic eruptions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Schmith, Johanne

    Iceland is one of the most active terrestrial volcanic regions on Earth with an average of more than 20 eruptions per century. Around 80% of all events are tephra generating explosive eruptions, but less than 10 % of all known tephra layers have been mapped. Recent hazard assessment models show...... that the two key parameters for hazard assessment modeling are total grain size distribution (TGSD) and eruptive style. These two parameters have been determined for even fewer eruptive events in Iceland. One of the most hazardous volcanoes in Iceland is Katla and no data set of TGSD or other eruptive...... parameters exist. Katla has not erupted for 99 years, but at least 2 of the 20 eruptions since the settlement of Iceland in 871 have reached Northern Europe as visible tephra fall. These eruptions occurred in 1755 and 1625 and remain enigmatic both in terms of actual size and eruption dynamics. This work...

  20. MAFALDA: An early warning modeling tool to forecast volcanic ash dispersal and deposition

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barsotti, S.; Nannipieri, L.; Neri, A.

    2008-12-01

    Forecasting the dispersal of ash from explosive volcanoes is a scientific challenge to modern volcanology. It also represents a fundamental step in mitigating the potential impact of volcanic ash on urban areas and transport routes near explosive volcanoes. To this end we developed a Web-based early warning modeling tool named MAFALDA (Modeling and Forecasting Ash Loading and Dispersal in the Atmosphere) able to quantitatively forecast ash concentrations in the air and on the ground. The main features of MAFALDA are the usage of (1) a dispersal model, named VOL-CALPUFF, that couples the column ascent phase with the ash cloud transport and (2) high-resolution weather forecasting data, the capability to run and merge multiple scenarios, and the Web-based structure of the procedure that makes it suitable as an early warning tool. MAFALDA produces plots for a detailed analysis of ash cloud dynamics and ground deposition, as well as synthetic 2-D maps of areas potentially affected by dangerous concentrations of ash. A first application of MAFALDA to the long-lasting weak plumes produced at Mt. Etna (Italy) is presented. A similar tool can be useful to civil protection authorities and volcanic observatories in reducing the impact of the eruptive events. MAFALDA can be accessed at http://mafalda.pi.ingv.it.

  1. Combined geophysical surveys and coring data to investigate the pattern of the Watukosek fault system around the Lusi eruption site, Indonesia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Husein, Alwi; Mazzini, Adriano; Lupi, Matteo; Mauri, Guillaume; Kemna, Andreas; Hadi, Soffian; Santosa, Bagus

    2016-04-01

    The Lusi mud eruption is located in the Sidoarjo area, Indonesia and is continuously erupting hot mud since its birth in May 2006. The Watukosek fault system originates from the neighboring Arjuno-Welirang volcanic complex extending towards the NE of Java. After the 27-06-2006 M 6.3 earthquake this fault system was reactivated and hosted numerous hot mud eruptions in the Sidoarjo area. Until now, no targeted investigations have been conducted to understand the geometry of the faults system crossing the Lusi eruption site. A comprehensive combined electrical resistivity and self-potential (SP) survey was performed in the 7 km2 area inside the Lusi embankment that had been built to contain the erupted mud and to prevent flooding of the surrounding roads and settlements. The goal of the geophysical survey is to map the near-surface occurrence of the Watukosek fault system upon which Lusi resides, delineate its spatial pattern, and monitor its development. We completed six lines of resistivity measurements using Wenner configuration and SP measurements using roll-along technique. Three subparallel lines were located to the north and to the south of the main crater. Each line was approximately W-E oriented extending for ~1.26 km. The surveyed regions consist of mud breccia (containing clayey-silty-sandy mixture with clast up to ~10 cm in size). The geophysical data have been complemented with a N-S oriented profile consisting of 6 cores (~30m long) drilled in the dry area inside the Lusi embankment. The resistivity data were inverted into 2-D resistivity images with a maximum penetration depth of almost 200 m. These images consistently reveal a region of about 300 m in width (between 30-90 m depth) characterized by anomalous resistivities, which are lower than the values observed in the surrounding area. The results of the SP data correspond well with the resistivity profiles in the anomalous parts, which suggests that their origin is related to fluid flow paths in the

  2. Research on Disaster Early Warning and Disaster Relief Integrated Service System Based on Block Data Theory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, J.; Zhang, H.; Wang, C.; Tang, D.

    2018-04-01

    With the continuous development of social economy, the interaction between mankind and nature has become increasingly evident. Disastrous global catastrophes have occurred from time to time, causing huge losses to people's lives and property. All governments recognize the importance of the establishment of disaster early warning and release mechanisms, and it is also an urgent issue to improve the comprehensive service level of emergency response and disaster relief. However, disaster early warning and emergency relief information is usually generated by different departments, and the diverse data sources, difficult integration, and limited release speed have always been difficult issues to be solved. Block data is the aggregation of various distributed (point data) and segmentation (data) big data on a specific platform and make them happen continuous polymerization effect, block data theory is a good solution to cross-sectoral, cross-platform Disaster information data sharing and integration problems. This paper attempts to discuss the integrated service mechanism of disaster information aggregation and disaster relief based on block data theory and introduces a location-based integrated service system for disaster early warning and disaster relief.

  3. Crowd-Sourced Global Earthquake Early Warning

    Science.gov (United States)

    Minson, S. E.; Brooks, B. A.; Glennie, C. L.; Murray, J. R.; Langbein, J. O.; Owen, S. E.; Iannucci, B. A.; Hauser, D. L.

    2014-12-01

    Although earthquake early warning (EEW) has shown great promise for reducing loss of life and property, it has only been implemented in a few regions due, in part, to the prohibitive cost of building the required dense seismic and geodetic networks. However, many cars and consumer smartphones, tablets, laptops, and similar devices contain low-cost versions of the same sensors used for earthquake monitoring. If a workable EEW system could be implemented based on either crowd-sourced observations from consumer devices or very inexpensive networks of instruments built from consumer-quality sensors, EEW coverage could potentially be expanded worldwide. Controlled tests of several accelerometers and global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers typically found in consumer devices show that, while they are significantly noisier than scientific-grade instruments, they are still accurate enough to capture displacements from moderate and large magnitude earthquakes. The accuracy of these sensors varies greatly depending on the type of data collected. Raw coarse acquisition (C/A) code GPS data are relatively noisy. These observations have a surface displacement detection threshold approaching ~1 m and would thus only be useful in large Mw 8+ earthquakes. However, incorporating either satellite-based differential corrections or using a Kalman filter to combine the raw GNSS data with low-cost acceleration data (such as from a smartphone) decreases the noise dramatically. These approaches allow detection thresholds as low as 5 cm, potentially enabling accurate warnings for earthquakes as small as Mw 6.5. Simulated performance tests show that, with data contributed from only a very small fraction of the population, a crowd-sourced EEW system would be capable of warning San Francisco and San Jose of a Mw 7 rupture on California's Hayward fault and could have accurately issued both earthquake and tsunami warnings for the 2011 Mw 9 Tohoku-oki, Japan earthquake.

  4. Early warning systems of financial crises: implementation of a currency crisis model for Uganda

    OpenAIRE

    Heun, Michael; Schlink, Torsten

    2004-01-01

    The objective of this paper is to implement a prototype of a currency crisis model as part of an early warning system framework for Uganda. The financial systems of developing countries like Uganda are especially vulnerable and therefore robust instruments to predict crises are needed. Our model is based on the signals approach developed by Kaminsky, Lizondo and Reinhart (1998) and Kaminsky and Reinhart (1999). The basic idea of the signals approach is to monitor several indicators that tend ...

  5. Global monsoon precipitation responses to large volcanic eruptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Fei; Chai, Jing; Wang, Bin; Liu, Jian; Zhang, Xiao; Wang, Zhiyuan

    2016-01-01

    Climate variation of global monsoon (GM) precipitation involves both internal feedback and external forcing. Here, we focus on strong volcanic forcing since large eruptions are known to be a dominant mechanism in natural climate change. It is not known whether large volcanoes erupted at different latitudes have distinctive effects on the monsoon in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and the Southern Hemisphere (SH). We address this issue using a 1500-year volcanic sensitivity simulation by the Community Earth System Model version 1.0 (CESM1). Volcanoes are classified into three types based on their meridional aerosol distributions: NH volcanoes, SH volcanoes and equatorial volcanoes. Using the model simulation, we discover that the GM precipitation in one hemisphere is enhanced significantly by the remote volcanic forcing occurring in the other hemisphere. This remote volcanic forcing-induced intensification is mainly through circulation change rather than moisture content change. In addition, the NH volcanic eruptions are more efficient in reducing the NH monsoon precipitation than the equatorial ones, and so do the SH eruptions in weakening the SH monsoon, because the equatorial eruptions, despite reducing moisture content, have weaker effects in weakening the off-equatorial monsoon circulation than the subtropical-extratropical volcanoes do. PMID:27063141

  6. Eruption products of the 1883 eruption of Krakatau and their final settlement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Izumi Yokoyama

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Firstly the volume of pyroclastic ejecta during the 1883 eruption of Krakatau is re-examined. To revise the volume of flow deposits, the author basically follows Verbeek’s observation while to estimate the fall deposits, as the last resort, the author assumes that volume ratios fall / flow are common to similar caldera eruptions, and the ratios determined by the caldera- forming eruptions of Novarupta and Pinatubo are applied to the Krakatau eruption. Verbeek’s estimation of the total volume of ejecta, 12 km3 is revised to 19 km3. This is significantly different from the volume of disrupted volcano edifice, 8 km3. Such a result does not support the predecessors’ hypothesis that calderas are formed by collapses of volcano edifices into magma reservoirs in replacement of the total ejecta. Through the discussion on the volume estimation of volcanic ejecta on and around Krakatau, the author recognizes that such estimation should be originally very difficult to attain enough accuracy. Much importance of “caldera deposits” to post-eruption settlements of the ejecta is emphasized. In relation to caldera formation, mechanical stability of a cavity in the crust is discussed. Lastly, upon the basis of subsurface structure, especially caldera deposits, a structural image of Krakatau caldera is presented.

  7. Application of Advanced Wide Area Early Warning Systems with Adaptive Protection

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Blumstein, Carl [Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Cibulka, Lloyd [Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Thorp, James [Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States); Centeno, Virgilio [Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States); King, Roger [Mississippi State Univ., Mississippi State, MS (United States); Reeves, Kari [Mississippi State Univ., Mississippi State, MS (United States); Ashrafi, Frank [Southern California Edison Co., Rosemead, CA (United States); Madani, Vahid [Pacific Gas & Electric Co., San Francisco, CA (United States)

    2014-09-30

    Recent blackouts of power systems in North America and throughout the world have shown how critical a reliable power system is to modern societies, and the enormous economic and societal damage a blackout can cause. It has been noted that unanticipated operation of protection systems can contribute to cascading phenomena and, ultimately, blackouts. This project developed and field-tested two methods of Adaptive Protection systems utilizing synchrophasor data. One method detects conditions of system stress that can lead to unintended relay operation, and initiates a supervisory signal to modify relay response in real time to avoid false trips. The second method detects the possibility of false trips of impedance relays as stable system swings “encroach” on the relays’ impedance zones, and produces an early warning so that relay engineers can re-evaluate relay settings. In addition, real-time synchrophasor data produced by this project was used to develop advanced visualization techniques for display of synchrophasor data to utility operators and engineers.

  8. Development of an advanced radioactive airborne particle monitoring system for use in early warning networks.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Baeza, A; Corbacho, J A; Caballero, J M; Ontalba, M A; Vasco, J; Valencia, D

    2017-09-25

    Automatic real-time warning networks are essential for the almost immediate detection of anomalous levels of radioactivity in the environment. In the case of Extremadura region (SW Spain), a radiological network (RARE) has been operational in the vicinity of the Almaraz nuclear power plant and in other areas farther away since 1992. There are ten air monitoring stations equipped with Geiger-Müller counters in order to evaluate the external ambient gamma dose rate. Four of these stations have a commercial system that provides estimates of the total artificial alpha and beta activity concentrations in aerosols, and of the 131 I activity (gaseous fraction). Despite experience having demonstrated the benefits and robustness of these commercial systems, important improvements have been made to one of these air monitoring systems. In this paper, the analytical and maintenance shortcomings of the original commercial air monitoring system are described first; the new custom-designed advanced air monitoring system is then presented. This system is based mainly on the incorporation of gamma spectrometry using two scintillation detectors, one of NaI:Tl and the other of LaBr 3 :Ce, and compact multichannel analysers. Next, a comparison made of the results provided by the two systems operating simultaneously at the same location for three months shows the advantages of the new advanced air monitoring system. As a result, the gamma spectrometry analysis allows passing from global alpha and beta activity determinations due to artificial radionuclides in aerosols, and the inaccurate measurement of the gaseous 131 I activity concentration, to the possibility of identifying a large number of radionuclides and quantifying each of their activity concentrations. Moreover, the new station's dual capacity is designed to work in early warning monitoring mode and surveillance monitoring mode. This is based on custom developed software that includes an intelligent system to issue the

  9. Impact of major volcanic eruptions on stratospheric water vapour

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M. Löffler

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available Volcanic eruptions can have a significant impact on the Earth's weather and climate system. Besides the subsequent tropospheric changes, the stratosphere is also influenced by large eruptions. Here changes in stratospheric water vapour after the two major volcanic eruptions of El Chichón in Mexico in 1982 and Mount Pinatubo on the Philippines in 1991 are investigated with chemistry–climate model simulations. This study is based on two simulations with specified dynamics of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Hamburg – Modular Earth Submodel System (ECHAM/MESSy Atmospheric Chemistry (EMAC model, performed within the Earth System Chemistry integrated Modelling (ESCiMo project, of which only one includes the long-wave volcanic forcing through prescribed aerosol optical properties. The results show a significant increase in stratospheric water vapour induced by the eruptions, resulting from increased heating rates and the subsequent changes in stratospheric and tropopause temperatures in the tropics. The tropical vertical advection and the South Asian summer monsoon are identified as sources for the additional water vapour in the stratosphere. Additionally, volcanic influences on tropospheric water vapour and El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO are evident, if the long-wave forcing is strong enough. Our results are corroborated by additional sensitivity simulations of the Mount Pinatubo period with reduced nudging and reduced volcanic aerosol extinction.

  10. Technical Note: An operational landslide early warning system at regional scale based on space-time variable rainfall thresholds

    Science.gov (United States)

    Segoni, S.; Battistini, A.; Rossi, G.; Rosi, A.; Lagomarsino, D.; Catani, F.; Moretti, S.; Casagli, N.

    2014-10-01

    We set up an early warning system for rainfall-induced landslides in Tuscany (23 000 km2). The system is based on a set of state-of-the-art intensity-duration rainfall thresholds (Segoni et al., 2014b), makes use of LAMI rainfall forecasts and real-time rainfall data provided by an automated network of more than 300 rain-gauges. The system was implemented in a WebGIS to ease the operational use in civil protection procedures: it is simple and intuitive to consult and it provides different outputs. Switching among different views, the system is able to focus both on monitoring of real time data and on forecasting at different lead times up to 48 h. Moreover, the system can switch between a very straightforward view where a synoptic scenario of the hazard can be shown all over the region and a more in-depth view were the rainfall path of rain-gauges can be displayed and constantly compared with rainfall thresholds. To better account for the high spatial variability of the physical features, which affects the relationship between rainfall and landslides, the region is subdivided into 25 alert zones, each provided with a specific threshold. The warning system reflects this subdivision: using a network of 332 rain gauges, it allows monitoring each alert zone separately and warnings can be issued independently from an alert zone to another. An important feature of the warning system is the use of thresholds that may vary in time adapting at the conditions of the rainfall path recorded by the rain-gauges. Depending on when the starting time of the rainfall event is set, the comparison with the threshold may produce different outcomes. Therefore, a recursive algorithm was developed to check and compare with the thresholds all possible starting times, highlighting the worst scenario and showing in the WebGIS interface at what time and how much the rainfall path has exceeded or will exceed the most critical threshold. Besides forecasting and monitoring the hazard scenario

  11. Volcanic ash and aviation–The challenges of real-time, global communication of a natural hazard

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lechner, Peter; Tupper, Andrew C.; Guffanti, Marianne C.; Loughlin, Sue; Casadevall, Thomas

    2017-01-01

    More than 30 years after the first major aircraft encounters with volcanic ash over Indonesia in 1982, it remains challenging to inform aircraft in flight of the exact location of potentially dangerous ash clouds on their flight path, particularly shortly after the eruption has occurred. The difficulties include reliably forecasting and detecting the onset of significant explosive eruptions on a global basis, observing the dispersal of eruption clouds in real time, capturing their complex structure and constituents in atmospheric transport models, describing these observations and modelling results in a manner suitable for aviation users, delivering timely warning messages to the cockpit, flight planners and air traffic management systems, and the need for scientific development in order to undertake operational enhancements. The framework under which these issues are managed is the International Airways Volcano Watch (IAVW), administered by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). ICAO outlines in its standards and recommended practices (International Civil Aviation Organization, 2014) the basic volcanic monitoring and communication that is necessary at volcano observatories in Member States (countries). However, not all volcanoes are monitored and not all countries with volcanoes have mandated volcano observatories or equivalents. To add to the efforts of volcano observatories, a system of Meteorological Watch Offices, Air Traffic Management Area Control Centres, and nine specialist Volcanic Ash Advisory Centres (VAACs) are responsible for observing, analysing, forecasting and communicating the aviation hazard (airborne ash), using agreed techniques and messages in defined formats. Continuous improvement of the IAVW framework is overseen by expert groups representing the operators of the system, the user community, and the science community. The IAVW represents a unique marriage of two scientific disciplines - volcanology and meteorology - with the

  12. Seismic constraints on caldera dynamics from the 2015 Axial Seamount eruption.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wilcock, William S D; Tolstoy, Maya; Waldhauser, Felix; Garcia, Charles; Tan, Yen Joe; Bohnenstiehl, DelWayne R; Caplan-Auerbach, Jacqueline; Dziak, Robert P; Arnulf, Adrien F; Mann, M Everett

    2016-12-16

    Seismic observations in volcanically active calderas are challenging. A new cabled observatory atop Axial Seamount on the Juan de Fuca ridge allows unprecedented real-time monitoring of a submarine caldera. Beginning on 24 April 2015, the seismic network captured an eruption that culminated in explosive acoustic signals where lava erupted on the seafloor. Extensive seismic activity preceding the eruption shows that inflation is accommodated by the reactivation of an outward-dipping caldera ring fault, with strong tidal triggering indicating a critically stressed system. The ring fault accommodated deflation during the eruption and provided a pathway for a dike that propagated south and north beneath the caldera's east wall. Once north of the caldera, the eruption stepped westward, and a dike propagated along the extensional north rift. Copyright © 2016, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

  13. Volcanic eruptions on Io

    Science.gov (United States)

    Strom, R. G.; Schneider, N. M.; Terrile, R. J.; Hansen, C.; Cook, A. F.

    1981-01-01

    Nine eruption plumes which were observed during the Voyager 1 encounter with Io are discussed. During the Voyager 2 encounter, four months later, eight of the eruptions were still active although the largest became inactive sometime between the two encounters. Plumes range in height from 60 to over 300 km with corresponding ejection velocities of 0.5 to 1.0 km/s and plume sources are located on several plains and consist of fissures or calderas. The shape and brightness distribution together with the pattern of the surface deposition on a plume 3 is simulated by a ballistic model with a constant ejection velocity of 0.5 km/s and ejection angles which vary from 0-55 deg. The distribution of active and recent eruptions is concentrated in the equatorial regions and indicates that volcanic activity is more frequent and intense in the equatorial regions than in the polar regions. Due to the geologic setting of certain plume sources and large reservoirs of volatiles required for the active eruptions, it is concluded that sulfur volcanism rather than silicate volcanism is the most likely driving mechanism for the eruption plumes.

  14. Short-period volcanic gas precursors to phreatic eruptions: Insights from Poás Volcano, Costa Rica

    Science.gov (United States)

    de Moor, Maarten; Aiuppa, Alessandro; Pacheco, Javier; Avard, Geoffroy; Kern, Christoph; Liuzzo, Marco; Martinez, Maria; Giudice, Gaetano; Fischer, Tobias P.

    2016-01-01

    Volcanic eruptions involving interaction with water are amongst the most violent and unpredictable geologic phenomena on Earth. Phreatic eruptions are exceptionally difficult to forecast by traditional geophysical techniques. Here we report on short-term precursory variations in gas emissions related to phreatic blasts at Poás volcano, Costa Rica, as measured with an in situ multiple gas analyzer that was deployed at the edge of the erupting lake. Gas emitted from this hyper-acid crater lake approaches magmatic values of SO2/CO2 1–6 days prior to eruption. The SO2 flux derived from magmatic degassing through the lake is measureable by differential optical absorption spectrometry (sporadic campaign measurements), which allows us to constrain lake gas output and input for the major gas species during eruptive and non-eruptive periods. We can further calculate power supply to the hydrothermal system using volatile mass balance and thermodynamics, which indicates that the magmatic heat flux into the shallow hydrothermal system increases from ∼27 MW during quiescence to ∼59 MW during periods of phreatic events. These transient pulses of gas and heat from the deeper magmatic system generate both phreatic eruptions and the observed short-term changes in gas composition, because at high gas flux scrubbing of sulfur by the hydrothermal system is both kinetically and thermodynamically inhibited whereas CO2gas is always essentially inert in hyperacid conditions. Thus, the SO2/CO2 of lake emissions approaches magmatic values as gas and power supply to the sub-limnic hydrothermal system increase, vaporizing fluids and priming the hydrothermal system for eruption. Our results suggest that high-frequency real-time gas monitoring could provide useful short-term eruptive precursors at volcanoes prone to phreatic explosions.

  15. Tsunami Early Warning for the Indian Ocean Region - Status and Outlook

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lauterjung, Joern; Rudloff, Alexander; Muench, Ute; Gitews Project Team

    2010-05-01

    The German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System (GITEWS) for the Indian Ocean region has gone into operation in Indonesia in November 2008. The system includes a seismological network, together with GPS stations and a network of GPS buoys additionally equipped with ocean bottom pressure sensors and a tide gauge network. The different sensor systems have, for the most part, been installed and now deliver respective data either online or interactively upon request to the Warning Centre in Jakarta. Before 2011, however, the different components requires further optimization and fine tuning, local personnel needs to be trained and eventual problems in the daily operation have to be dealt with. Furthermore a company will be founded in the near future, which will guarantee a sustainable maintenance and operation of the system. This concludes the transfer from a temporarily project into a permanent service. This system established in Indonesia differs from other Tsunami Warning Systems through its application of modern scientific methods and technologies. New procedures for the fast and reliable determination of strong earthquakes, deformation monitoring by GPS, the modeling of tsunamis and the assessment of the situation have been implemented in the Warning System architecture. In particular, the direct incorporation of different sensors provides broad information already at the early stages of Early Warning thus resulting in a stable system and minimizing breakdowns and false alarms. The warning system is designed in an open and modular structure based on the most recent developments and standards of information technology. Therefore, the system can easily integrate additional sensor components to be used for other multi-hazard purposes e.g. meteorological and hydrological events. Up to now the German project group is cooperating in the Indian Ocean region with Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Iran, Yemen, Tanzania and Kenya to set up the equipment primarily for

  16. Early Warning Signals of Ecological Transitions: Methods for Spatial Patterns

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brock, William A.; Carpenter, Stephen R.; Ellison, Aaron M.; Livina, Valerie N.; Seekell, David A.; Scheffer, Marten; van Nes, Egbert H.; Dakos, Vasilis

    2014-01-01

    A number of ecosystems can exhibit abrupt shifts between alternative stable states. Because of their important ecological and economic consequences, recent research has focused on devising early warning signals for anticipating such abrupt ecological transitions. In particular, theoretical studies show that changes in spatial characteristics of the system could provide early warnings of approaching transitions. However, the empirical validation of these indicators lag behind their theoretical developments. Here, we summarize a range of currently available spatial early warning signals, suggest potential null models to interpret their trends, and apply them to three simulated spatial data sets of systems undergoing an abrupt transition. In addition to providing a step-by-step methodology for applying these signals to spatial data sets, we propose a statistical toolbox that may be used to help detect approaching transitions in a wide range of spatial data. We hope that our methodology together with the computer codes will stimulate the application and testing of spatial early warning signals on real spatial data. PMID:24658137

  17. A new French flash flood warning service

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    de Saint-Aubin Céline

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The French State services in charge of flood forecasting supervise about 22,000 km among the 120,000 km of the French rivers within a warning procedure called Vigilance Crues (http://www.vigicrues.gouv.fr. Some recent dramatic flood events on small watershed not covered by Vigilance Crues highlight the need for a new warning procedure to anticipate violent flash floods that regularly affect rapid river-basins. Thus the concept emerged of an automatic warning service specifically dedicated to local crisis managers. This service will be less elaborated than Vigilance Crues, probably with false alarms and missed events sometimes, but it will deliver a first information. The generation of the warning is based on a simple rainfall-runoff hydrological model developed by Irstea on all French rivers, fed with radar-gauge rainfall grids provided by Meteo-France. Every fifteen minutes, the hydrological model estimates the discharges on the rivers eligible to the service and determine if certain thresholds corresponding to a high or very high flood are likely to be exceeded. The last step of the real-time system is to determine which municipalities are concerned with flood risk and send them an automatic warning by voice call, optionally by sms or email. A specific web interface is available for users to monitor the evolution of the flood risk on maps that are updated every 15 minutes. This new flash flood warning service will be operational early 2017 as a free service for about 8,000 French municipalities.

  18. Alcohol warnings in TV beer advertisements.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Slater, M D; Domenech, M M

    1995-05-01

    Mandated warnings are among the few steps Congress has taken to influence the use of legal substances such as alcohol. The usefulness of such warnings in discouraging abuse of alcohol is, however, controversial. This study examines the impact of televised warnings on probable antecedents of belief change not examined in previous research: confidence in beliefs about beer risks or benefits, and cognitive responses to the advertisements. The present study (N = 75 male and female college students) tests four of the warnings recommended in Senate Bill 674 (1993--the "Thurmond bill") edited into randomly sampled television beer advertisements, using a between-subjects treatment-and-control experimental design. The four advertisements or advertisement/warning pairs were counterbalanced and analyzed as a repeated measures factor. The study indicated, as hypothesized, that subjects exposed to warnings tended to have less confidence in their generally skeptical assessments of beer risks--a likely precursor to belief change in resistant populations. Repeated exposure to the advertisements alone also appeared to lead to increased confidence in generally positive assessments of beer benefits, whereas repeated exposure to warnings led to decreased confidence in such assessments. Repeated exposure to warnings also may have primed negative reactions to subsequent beer advertisements. These results suggest mechanisms by which alcohol warnings may over time influence beliefs. Measures used here may serve as useful criterion variables in future studies on warnings. Further attention to optimizing warning content and presentation is recommended.

  19. An efficient rapid warning system for earthquakes in the European - Mediterranean region

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mazet-Roux, G.; Bossu, R; Tome, M.; Giovambattista, R. Di

    2002-01-01

    Every year a few damaging earthquakes occur in the European-Mediterranean region. It is therefore indispensable to operate a real-time warning system in order to provide rapidly reliable estimates of the location, depth and magnitude of these seismic events. In order to provide this information in a timely manner both to the scientific community and to the European and national authorities dealing with natural hazards and relief organisation, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC) has federated a network of seismic networks exchanging their data in quasi real-time. Today, thanks to the Internet, the EMSC receives real-time information about earthquakes from about thirty seismological institutes. As soon as data reach the EMSC, they are displayed on the EMSC Web pages (www.emsc-csem.org). A seismic alert is generated for any potentially damaging earthquake in the European-Mediterranean region and disseminated within one hour following its occurrence. Potentially damaging earthquakes are defined as seismic events of magnitude 5 or above in the European-Mediterranean region. The utility of this EMSC service is clearly demonstrated by its following among the public: EMSC e-mail dissemination list has been subscribed by about 300 institutions (ECHO, NGO, civil defence services, seismological institutes) or individuals and the rate of internet connections to EMSC web site dramatically increase following an alert. The aim of this presentation is to give a complete technical description of the EMSC warning system. We will also take this opportunity to thank each of the contributing institutions for their support and efforts to enhance the system performances. (authors)

  20. SOLAR ERUPTION AND LOCAL MAGNETIC PARAMETERS

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lee, Jeongwoo; Chae, Jongchul [Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826 (Korea, Republic of); Liu, Chang; Jing, Ju [Space Weather Research Laboratory, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ 07102 (United States)

    2016-11-10

    It is now a common practice to use local magnetic parameters such as magnetic decay index for explaining solar eruptions from active regions, but there can be an alternative view that the global properties of the source region should be counted as a more important factor. We discuss this issue based on Solar Dynamics Observatory observations of the three successive eruptions within 1.5 hr from the NOAA active region 11444 and the magnetic parameters calculated using the nonlinear force-free field model. Two violent eruptions occurred in the regions with relatively high magnetic twist number (0.5–1.5) and high decay index (0.9–1.1) at the nominal height of the filament (12″) and otherwise a mild eruption occurred, which supports the local-parameter paradigm. Our main point is that the time sequence of the eruptions did not go with these parameters. It is argued that an additional factor, in the form of stabilizing force, should operate to determine the onset of the first eruption and temporal behaviors of subsequent eruptions. As supporting evidence, we report that the heating and fast plasma flow continuing for a timescale of an hour was the direct cause for the first eruption and that the unidirectional propagation of the disturbance determined the timing of subsequent eruptions. Both of these factors are associated with the overall magnetic structure rather than local magnetic properties of the active region.

  1. A hazard-independent approach for the standardised multi-channel dissemination of warning messages

    Science.gov (United States)

    Esbri Palomares, M. A.; Hammitzsch, M.; Lendholt, M.

    2012-04-01

    The tsunami disaster affecting the Indian Ocean region on Christmas 2004 demonstrated very clearly the shortcomings in tsunami detection, public warning processes as well as intergovernmental warning message exchange in the Indian Ocean region. In that regard, early warning systems require that the dissemination of early warning messages has to be executed in way that ensures that the message delivery is timely; the message content is understandable, usable and accurate. To that end, diverse and multiple dissemination channels must be used to increase the chance of the messages reaching all affected persons in a hazard scenario. In addition to this, usage of internationally accepted standards for the warning dissemination such as the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) and Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) Distribution Element specified by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) increase the interoperability among different warning systems enabling thus the concept of system-of-systems proposed by GEOSS. The project Distant Early Warning System (DEWS), co-funded by the European Commission under the 6th Framework Programme, aims at strengthening the early warning capacities by building an innovative generation of interoperable tsunami early warning systems based on the above mentioned concepts following a Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) approach. The project focuses on the downstream part of the hazard information processing where customized, user-tailored warning messages and alerts flow from the warning centre to the responsible authorities and/or the public with their different needs and responsibilities. The information logistics services within DEWS generate tailored EDXL-DE/CAP warning messages for each user that must receive the message according to their preferences, e.g., settings for language, interested areas, dissemination channels, etc.. However, the significant difference in the implementation and

  2. Synergistic combination of systems for structural health monitoring and earthquake early warning for structural health prognosis and diagnosis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wu, Stephen; Beck, James L.

    2012-04-01

    Earthquake early warning (EEW) systems are currently operating nationwide in Japan and are in beta-testing in California. Such a system detects an earthquake initiation using online signals from a seismic sensor network and broadcasts a warning of the predicted location and magnitude a few seconds to a minute or so before an earthquake hits a site. Such a system can be used synergistically with installed structural health monitoring (SHM) systems to enhance pre-event prognosis and post-event diagnosis of structural health. For pre-event prognosis, the EEW system information can be used to make probabilistic predictions of the anticipated damage to a structure using seismic loss estimation methodologies from performance-based earthquake engineering. These predictions can support decision-making regarding the activation of appropriate mitigation systems, such as stopping traffic from entering a bridge that has a predicted high probability of damage. Since the time between warning and arrival of the strong shaking is very short, probabilistic predictions must be rapidly calculated and the decision making automated for the mitigation actions. For post-event diagnosis, the SHM sensor data can be used in Bayesian updating of the probabilistic damage predictions with the EEW predictions as a prior. Appropriate Bayesian methods for SHM have been published. In this paper, we use pre-trained surrogate models (or emulators) based on machine learning methods to make fast damage and loss predictions that are then used in a cost-benefit decision framework for activation of a mitigation measure. A simple illustrative example of an infrastructure application is presented.

  3. Vantage point - Early warning flaws.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Swinden, Donna

    2014-08-28

    USING AN EARLY warning score (EWS) system should improve the detection of acutely deteriorating patients. Under such a system, a score is allocated to each of six physiological measurements including respiratory rate and oxygen saturations, which are aggregated to produce an overall score. An aggregated score of seven or higher prompts nursing staff to refer a patient for emergency assessment.

  4. New radiation warning sign

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mac Kenzie, C.; Mason, C.

    2006-01-01

    Full text: Radiation accidents involving orphan radioactive sources have happened as a result of people not recognizing the radiation trefoil symbol or from being illiterate and not understanding a warning statement on the radiation source. The trefoil symbol has no inherent meaning to people that have not been instructed in its use. A new radiation warning sign, to supplement the existing trefoil symbol, has been developed to address these issues. Human Factors experts, United Nations member states, and members of the international community of radiation protection professionals were consulted for input on the design of a new radiation warning sign that would clearly convey the message of 'Danger- Run Away- Stay Away' when in close proximity to a dangerous source of radiation. Cultural differences of perception on various warning symbols were taken into consideration and arrays of possible signs were developed. The signs were initially tested in international children for identification with the desired message and response. Based on these test results and further input from radiation protection professionals, five warning signs were identified as the most successful in conveying the desired message and response. These five signs were tested internationally in eleven countries by a professional survey company to determine the best sign for this purpose. The conclusion of the international testing is presented. The new radiation warning sign is currently a draft ISO standard under committee review. The design of the propose d radiation warning sign and the proposed implementation strategy outlined in the draft ISO standard is presented. (authors)

  5. Geospatiotemporal data mining in an early warning system for forest threats in the United States

    Science.gov (United States)

    F.M. Hoffman; R.T. Mills; J. Kumar; S.S. Vulli; W.W. Hargrove

    2010-01-01

    We investigate the potential of geospatiotemporal data mining of multi-year land surface phenology data (250 m Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) in this study) for the conterminous United States as part of an early warning system to identify threats to forest ecosystems. Cluster...

  6. Instructors' Use of Trigger Warnings and Behavior Warnings in Abnormal Psychology

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boysen, Guy A.; Wells, Anna Mae; Dawson, Kaylee J.

    2016-01-01

    College students have been increasingly demanding warnings and accommodations in relation to course topics they believe will elicit strong, negative emotions. These "trigger warnings" are highly relevant to Abnormal Psychology because of the sensitive topics covered in the course (e.g., suicide, trauma, sex). A survey of Abnormal…

  7. CME Eruption Onset Observations from EIT and SXT

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sterling, A. C.

    2004-01-01

    Why CMEs erupt is a major outstanding puzzle of solar physics. Signatures observable at the earliest stages of eruption onset may hold precious clues about the onset mechanism. We present observations in EUV from SOHO/EIT and in soft X-rays from Yohkoh/SXT of the re-eruption and eruption phases of CME expulsion, along with the eruption's magnetic setting found from SOHO/MDI magnetograms. Most of our events involve clearly-observable filament eruptions and multiple neutral lines, and we use the magnetic settings and motions of the filaments to help infer the geometry and behavior of the associated erupting magnetic fields. Pre-eruption and early-eruption signatures include a relatively slow filament rise prior to eruption, and intensity "dimmings" and brightenings, both in the immediate neighborhood of the "core" (location of greatest magnetic shear) of the erupting fields and at locations remote from the core. These signatures and their relative timings place observational constraints on eruption mechanisms; our recent work has focused on implications for the so-called "tether cutting" and "breakout" models, but the same observational constraints are applicable to any model.

  8. Strengthening Laboratory Capacity for Early Warning Alert and Response System (EWARS) in Indonesia

    OpenAIRE

    Kandel, Nirmal; Hapsari, Ratna Budi; Riana, Dyah Armi; Setiawaty, Vivi; Larasati, Wita; Wulandari, Endang; Purwanto, Edy

    2017-01-01

    Background: Establishment of Early Warning Alert and Response System (EWARS) in Indonesia was initiated since 2009 in few selected provinces and government was planning to roll out in other provinces. Before initiating this roll out the assessment of performance of EWARS in 2012 was conducted. The aim of the assessment is to strengthen laboratory for supporting to EWARS for alerts testing. Methods: Laboratory capacity mapping tool and laboratory algorithm for twenty two priority diseases of ...

  9. Tsunamis detection, monitoring, and early-warning technologies

    CERN Document Server

    Joseph, Antony

    2011-01-01

    The devastating impacts of tsunamis have received increased focus since the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004, the most devastating tsunami in over 400 years of recorded history. This professional reference is the first of its kind: it provides a globally inclusive review of the current state of tsunami detection technology and will be a much-needed resource for oceanographers and marine engineers working to upgrade and integrate their tsunami warning systems. It focuses on the two main tsunami warning systems (TWS): International and Regional. Featured are comparative assessments of detection, monitoring, and real-time reporting technologies. The challenges of detection through remote measuring stations are also addressed, as well as the historical and scientific aspects of tsunamis.

  10. A compositional tipping point governing the mobilization and eruption style of rhyolitic magma.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Di Genova, D; Kolzenburg, S; Wiesmaier, S; Dallanave, E; Neuville, D R; Hess, K U; Dingwell, D B

    2017-12-13

    The most viscous volcanic melts and the largest explosive eruptions on our planet consist of calcalkaline rhyolites. These eruptions have the potential to influence global climate. The eruptive products are commonly very crystal-poor and highly degassed, yet the magma is mostly stored as crystal mushes containing small amounts of interstitial melt with elevated water content. It is unclear how magma mushes are mobilized to create large batches of eruptible crystal-free magma. Further, rhyolitic eruptions can switch repeatedly between effusive and explosive eruption styles and this transition is difficult to attribute to the rheological effects of water content or crystallinity. Here we measure the viscosity of a series of melts spanning the compositional range of the Yellowstone volcanic system and find that in a narrow compositional zone, melt viscosity increases by up to two orders of magnitude. These viscosity variations are not predicted by current viscosity models and result from melt structure reorganization, as confirmed by Raman spectroscopy. We identify a critical compositional tipping point, independently documented in the global geochemical record of rhyolites, at which rhyolitic melts fluidize or stiffen and that clearly separates effusive from explosive deposits worldwide. This correlation between melt structure, viscosity and eruptive behaviour holds despite the variable water content and other parameters, such as temperature, that are inherent in natural eruptions. Thermodynamic modelling demonstrates how the observed subtle compositional changes that result in fluidization or stiffening of the melt can be induced by crystal growth from the melt or variation in oxygen fugacity. However, the rheological effects of water and crystal content alone cannot explain the correlation between composition and eruptive style. We conclude that the composition of calcalkaline rhyolites is decisive in determining the mobilization and eruption dynamics of Earth

  11. A compositional tipping point governing the mobilization and eruption style of rhyolitic magma

    Science.gov (United States)

    di Genova, D.; Kolzenburg, S.; Wiesmaier, S.; Dallanave, E.; Neuville, D. R.; Hess, K. U.; Dingwell, D. B.

    2017-12-01

    The most viscous volcanic melts and the largest explosive eruptions on our planet consist of calcalkaline rhyolites. These eruptions have the potential to influence global climate. The eruptive products are commonly very crystal-poor and highly degassed, yet the magma is mostly stored as crystal mushes containing small amounts of interstitial melt with elevated water content. It is unclear how magma mushes are mobilized to create large batches of eruptible crystal-free magma. Further, rhyolitic eruptions can switch repeatedly between effusive and explosive eruption styles and this transition is difficult to attribute to the rheological effects of water content or crystallinity. Here we measure the viscosity of a series of melts spanning the compositional range of the Yellowstone volcanic system and find that in a narrow compositional zone, melt viscosity increases by up to two orders of magnitude. These viscosity variations are not predicted by current viscosity models and result from melt structure reorganization, as confirmed by Raman spectroscopy. We identify a critical compositional tipping point, independently documented in the global geochemical record of rhyolites, at which rhyolitic melts fluidize or stiffen and that clearly separates effusive from explosive deposits worldwide. This correlation between melt structure, viscosity and eruptive behaviour holds despite the variable water content and other parameters, such as temperature, that are inherent in natural eruptions. Thermodynamic modelling demonstrates how the observed subtle compositional changes that result in fluidization or stiffening of the melt can be induced by crystal growth from the melt or variation in oxygen fugacity. However, the rheological effects of water and crystal content alone cannot explain the correlation between composition and eruptive style. We conclude that the composition of calcalkaline rhyolites is decisive in determining the mobilization and eruption dynamics of Earth

  12. Armenian earthquake WWER-440 NNPs and Turkish early warning system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bektur, Y.

    1991-01-01

    On December 7, 1988 a severe earthquake occurred at Spitak, approximately 90-100 km far from the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant in Yerivan. Another one named Vrancea earthquake which occurred on 4 March, 1977. During this earthquake, the Kozloduj NPP (Bulgaria) was strongly damaged. Until this event, seismic loadings had received scant attention in the siting of WWER's. However after the Kozlodui damage Soviet designers changed their opinion. In this study, the seismicity of the Black Sea region and eastern Europe, seismic requirements for WWER's and the changes in plants for which to resistant against to the earthquake are given. During the earthquake radiation levels obtained by Turkish early warning system is also given

  13. The Association between Potential Exposure to Magazine Ads with Voluntary Health Warnings and the Perceived Harmfulness of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS).

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shang, Ce; Weaver, Scott R; Zahra, Nahleen; Huang, Jidong; Cheng, Kai-Wen; Chaloupka, Frank J

    2018-03-23

    (1) Background: Several brands of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) carry voluntary health warning messages. This study examined how potential exposure to ENDS magazine ads with these voluntary health warnings were associated with the perceived harmfulness of ENDS. (2) Methods: Risk perception measures and self-reported exposure to ENDS ads were obtained from the 2014 Georgia State University (GSU) Tobacco Products and Risk Perceptions Survey of a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults. We examined the association between potential exposure to magazine ads with warnings and the perceived harms of ENDS relative to cigarettes, using binary logistic regressions and controlling for general ENDS ad exposure and socio-demographic characteristics. (3) Results: Potential exposure to ENDS magazine ads with warnings was associated with a lower probability of considering ENDS to be more or equally harmful compared to cigarettes, particularly among non-smokers (OR = 0.16; 95% CI: 0.04-0.77). In addition, ad exposure, ENDS use history, race/ethnicity, gender, education, and income were also associated with harm perceptions. (4) Conclusions: This study did not find evidence that magazine ads with warnings increased misperceptions that ENDS are equally or more harmful than cigarettes. With more ENDS advertisements carrying warnings, more research is needed to determine how the warnings in advertisements convey relative harm information to consumers and the public.

  14. Geomorphological mapping using drones into the eruptive summit of Turrialba volcano, Costa Rica

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ruiz, P.; Mora, M.; Soto, G. J.; Vega, P.; Barrantes, R.

    2017-12-01

    We produced and compared two detailed topographic datasets of the SW active crater on the summit of Turrialba volcano (03/2016 and 06/2017). These datasets are based on hundreds of orthophotos obtained by low-height flights by drones (Phantom-3, and Inspire-1) to collect the aerial data, and ground control points from RTK-GPS surveys (for ground survey and control points, we used reflective marks and local stations). Photogrammetry software and GIS were used to processes the data for creating DEMs. Using these data, we have been able to document the geomorphological changes generated by eruptions. We have learned the processes involved in the crater evolution during an eruption period passing from a close-system to an open one. Turrialba has been erupting since 2010, when a phreatic explosion opened a small vent on the SW crater. Further minor phreatic eruptions occurred in 2011-2013 with a slow increase of juvenile content in its products, until it clearly evolved to phreatomagmatism in 2014 and an open-system in mid-2016. We recorded significant changes in the morphology of the active crater in the latest period of eruption. These changes are the result of stronger eruptions between 04/2016 and 01/2017, finally clearing the main conduit that opened the system and favored the rise of magma up to the surface. Lava now lies on the bottom of the crater, forming a small lava pool (25m x 15m). We found that in the 15-month period during the opening of the volcanic system, the active crater got 100 m deeper and wider at the bottom (in 06/2017, depth was 230 m, and the empty volume of the crater 2.5x106m3. These observations are consistent with the seismic records through the opening of the system and the eruption style. Aerial dataset from low-height flights by drones are a powerful tool to understand the evolution of volcanoes from close to open systems and for volcano hazard assessments.

  15. Ozone depletion following future volcanic eruptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eric Klobas, J.; Wilmouth, David M.; Weisenstein, Debra K.; Anderson, James G.; Salawitch, Ross J.

    2017-07-01

    While explosive volcanic eruptions cause ozone loss in the current atmosphere due to an enhancement in the availability of reactive chlorine following the stratospheric injection of sulfur, future eruptions are expected to increase total column ozone as halogen loading approaches preindustrial levels. The timing of this shift in the impact of major volcanic eruptions on the thickness of the ozone layer is poorly known. Modeling four possible climate futures, we show that scenarios with the smallest increase in greenhouse gas concentrations lead to the greatest risk to ozone from heterogeneous chemical processing following future eruptions. We also show that the presence in the stratosphere of bromine from natural, very short-lived biogenic compounds is critically important for determining whether future eruptions will lead to ozone depletion. If volcanic eruptions inject hydrogen halides into the stratosphere, an effect not considered in current ozone assessments, potentially profound reductions in column ozone would result.

  16. System of prediction and warning of floods in the water basin of Struma/ Strymonas River

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mimides, Theologos; Rizos, Spyros; Soulis, Kostas; Dimitrov, Dobri

    2004-01-01

    Struma is collecting waters from four countries: Bulgaria, Serbia, FYROM and Greece. Most of its basin area is located in Bulgaria and Greece, while the upper part of its basin is in Bulgaria. There are important hydro technical structures just below the Bulgarian-Greek border, and the floods generated in the Bulgarian part of the basin could significantly affect the security of those structures and their operational rules. That is why several years ago a project related to flood warning at Struma/ Strymonas river basin was formulated and its first phase was completed in 2000. The main objective of the project was to demonstrate the principal possibility for issuing reliable warnings for hazardous flood events with sufficient lead-time to organize flood mitigation measures. The project implementation team included various scientists from the Agricultural University of Athens-Greece (leader), from the Center of Remote Sensing, Bristol University-UK, and from the National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology of Sofia - Bulgaria. The work program of the first project phase included a range of activities implemented by the Bulgarian and Greek team members, coordinated by the Agricultural University of Athens. Among the activities of the Project are included: a) a preliminary model for peak flood hydrographs and specifications of an early warning system, b) a real time flood forecasting by routing flood hydrographs through the system of the river and Kerkini lake, c) thematic maps of vegetation and land cover derived by satellite remote sensing, d) satellite snow monitoring in the basin, e) an adaptation of the Alladin Weather Forecast Model at the hydrological basin and scaling of the Crocus Snow Model at a preliminary stage, and f) development of a geo environmental recording system.(Author)

  17. Use of NWSChat (Instant Messaging program) as a coordination tool during the 2009 Redoubt Eruptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Osiensky, J. M.; Jones, D.

    2009-12-01

    The National Weather Service (NWS) based Instant Messaging service, NWSChat, is used for sharing critical warning decision expertise and other types of significant weather information between the NWS and partners in all levels of government, emergency managers, and the media. NWSChat allows multiple users to send messages to each other in forums known as “chat rooms.” NWSChat is used to enhance decision support during discussions related to high impact weather events, and improve outreach and real-time feed-back from partners. This information is exchanged with the media and emergency response community, who in turn play a key role in communicating the NWS’s hazardous weather messages to the public. NWSChat also provides media and emergency response partners with the ability to communicate significant event reports back to NWS operational personnel, who in turn utilize the information to make effective warning decisions. NWS partners can also use the Service as an efficient means of seeking clarifications and enhancements to the communication stream originating from the NWS. NWSChat will include a wide variety of types of information. Some of this information will include contents of official NWS products available through other NWS systems and thus available to the public. However, other NWSChat content may include preliminary data which has not been screened by NWS for accuracy or applicability; highly technical discussions, some of them speculative, regarding atmospheric or other environmental conditions; and other types of information not intended for a general audience. NWSChat participants are expected to avoid release of information to a broader audience that might be misinterpreted or cause confusion. NWSChat is an enhancement to communications between the NWS and its partners, and is not intended to replace official NWS products or official means of communications. In March 2009, the NWS stood up a Redoubt chatroom just prior to the first eruption

  18. 44 CFR 312.2 - Definitions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-01

    ..., tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide, mudslide, snowstorm, drought, fire, or other... materials and supplies; the provision of suitable warning systems; the construction or preparation of...

  19. Is More Better? — Night Vision Enhancement System’s Pedestrian Warning Modes and Older Drivers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brown, Timothy; He, Yefei; Roe, Cheryl; Schnell, Thomas

    2010-01-01

    Pedestrian fatalities as a result of vehicle collisions are much more likely to happen at night than during day time. Poor visibility due to darkness is believed to be one of the causes for the higher vehicle collision rate at night. Existing studies have shown that night vision enhancement systems (NVES) may improve recognition distance, but may increase drivers’ workload. The use of automatic warnings (AW) may help minimize workload, improve performance, and increase safety. In this study, we used a driving simulator to examine performance differences of a NVES with six different configurations of warning cues, including: visual, auditory, tactile, auditory and visual, tactile and visual, and no warning. Older drivers between the ages of 65 and 74 participated in the study. An analysis based on the distance to pedestrian threat at the onset of braking response revealed that tactile and auditory warnings performed the best, while visual warnings performed the worst. When tactile or auditory warnings were presented in combination with visual warning, their effectiveness decreased. This result demonstrated that, contrary to general sense regarding warning systems, multi-modal warnings involving visual cues degraded the effectiveness of NVES for older drivers. PMID:21050616

  20. A Walk through TRIDEC's intermediate Tsunami Early Warning System for the Turkish and Portuguese NEAMWave12 exercise tsunami scenarios

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hammitzsch, Martin; Lendholt, Matthias; Reißland, Sven; Schulz, Jana

    2013-04-01

    On November 27-28, 2012, the Kandilli Observatory and Earthquake Research Institute (KOERI) and the Portuguese Institute for the Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA) joined other countries in the North-eastern Atlantic, the Mediterranean and Connected Seas (NEAM) region as participants in an international tsunami response exercise. The exercise, titled NEAMWave12, simulated widespread Tsunami Watch situations throughout the NEAM region. It is the first international exercise as such, in this region, where the UNESCO-IOC ICG/NEAMTWS tsunami warning chain has been tested to a full scale for the first time with different systems. One of the systems is developed in the project Collaborative, Complex, and Critical Decision-Support in Evolving Crises (TRIDEC) and has been validated in this exercise among others by KOERI and IPMA. In TRIDEC new developments in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are used to extend the existing platform realising a component-based technology framework for building distributed tsunami warning systems for deployment, e.g. in the North-eastern Atlantic, the Mediterranean and Connected Seas (NEAM) region. The TRIDEC system will be implemented in three phases, each with a demonstrator. Successively, the demonstrators are addressing related challenges. The first and second phase system demonstrator, deployed at KOERI's crisis management room and deployed at IPMA has been designed and implemented, firstly, to support plausible scenarios for the Turkish NTWC and for the Portuguese NTWC to demonstrate the treatment of simulated tsunami threats with an essential subset of a NTWC. Secondly, the feasibility and the potentials of the implemented approach are demonstrated covering ICG/NEAMTWS standard operations as well as tsunami detection and alerting functions beyond ICG/NEAMTWS requirements. The demonstrator presented addresses information management and decision-support processes for hypothetical tsunami-related crisis situations in the context of

  1. Warning Signs of Bullying

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... of Aggressive Behavior Print Share Warning Signs for Bullying There are many warning signs that may indicate ... Get help right away . Signs a Child is Bullying Others Kids may be bullying others if they: ...

  2. Multicriteria Early Warning System of Enterprises against the Bankruptcy Risk

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tomasz Korol

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available This article is devoted to the issue of forecasting the bankruptcy risk of the enterprises. In the article author compares the effectiveness of multicriteria early warning system with the traditional discriminant analysis model of forecasting the risks of bankruptcy of companies. In the conducted research author has used data on 185 companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange Market. This population of firms was divided into learning and testing setdata. Each company has been analyzed using the absolute values of 14 financial ratios and the dynamics of change of these ratios. Additionally, author has used the macroeconomic variables in developed multicriteria system. The author’s developed models are characterized by high efficiency. These studies are the first attempt to use fuzzy logic to predict the bankruptcy of companies in Poland and one of the first in the world. Obtained results demonstrate the great potential of this method.  

  3. Flux Cancellation Leading to CME Filament Eruptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Popescu, Roxana M.; Panesar, Navdeep K.; Sterling, Alphonse C.; Moore, Ronald L.

    2016-01-01

    Solar filaments are strands of relatively cool, dense plasma magnetically suspended in the lower density hotter solar corona. They trace magnetic polarity inversion lines (PILs) in the photosphere below, and are supported against gravity at heights of up to approx.100 Mm above the chromosphere by the magnetic field in and around them. This field erupts when it is rendered unstable, often by magnetic flux cancellation or emergence at or near the PIL. We have studied the evolution of photospheric magnetic flux leading to ten observed filament eruptions. Specifically, we look for gradual magnetic changes in the neighborhood of the PIL prior to and during eruption. We use Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) images from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), and magnetograms from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI), both on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), to study filament eruptions and their photospheric magnetic fields. We examine whether flux cancellation or/and emergence leads to filament eruptions. We find that continuous flux cancellation was present at the PIL for many hours prior to each eruption. We present two CME-producing eruptions in detail and find the following: (a) the pre-eruption filament-holding core field is highly sheared and appears in the shape of a sigmoid above the PIL; (b) at the start of the eruption the opposite arms of the sigmoid reconnect in the middle above the site of (tether-cutting) flux cancellation at the PIL; (c) the filaments first show a slow-rise, followed by a fast-rise as they erupt. We conclude that these two filament eruptions result from flux cancellation in the middle of the sheared field, and thereafter evolve in agreement with the standard model for a CME/flare filament eruption from a closed bipolar magnetic field [flux cancellation (van Ballegooijen and Martens 1989 and Moore and Roumelrotis 1992) and runaway tether-cutting (Moore et. al 2001)].

  4. Locating the depth of magma supply for volcanic eruptions, insights from Mt. Cameroon.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Geiger, Harri; Barker, Abigail K; Troll, Valentin R

    2016-10-07

    Mt. Cameroon is one of the most active volcanoes in Africa and poses a possible threat to about half a million people in the area, yet knowledge of the volcano's underlying magma supply system is sparse. To characterize Mt. Cameroon's magma plumbing system, we employed mineral-melt equilibrium thermobarometry on the products of the volcano's two most recent eruptions of 1999 and 2000. Our results suggest pre-eruptive magma storage between 20 and 39 km beneath Mt. Cameroon, which corresponds to the Moho level and below. Additionally, the 1999 eruption products reveal several shallow magma pockets between 3 and 12 km depth, which are not detected in the 2000 lavas. This implies that small-volume magma batches actively migrate through the plumbing system during repose intervals. Evolving and migrating magma parcels potentially cause temporary unrest and short-lived explosive outbursts, and may be remobilized during major eruptions that are fed from sub-Moho magma reservoirs.

  5. High-speed imaging of explosive eruptions: applications and perspectives

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taddeucci, Jacopo; Scarlato, Piergiorgio; Gaudin, Damien; Capponi, Antonio; Alatorre-Ibarguengoitia, Miguel-Angel; Moroni, Monica

    2013-04-01

    Explosive eruptions, being by definition highly dynamic over short time scales, necessarily call for observational systems capable of relatively high sampling rates. "Traditional" tools, like as seismic and acoustic networks, have recently been joined by Doppler radar and electric sensors. Recent developments in high-speed camera systems now allow direct visual information of eruptions to be obtained with a spatial and temporal resolution suitable for the analysis of several key eruption processes. Here we summarize the methods employed to gather and process high-speed videos of explosive eruptions, and provide an overview of the several applications of these new type of data in understanding different aspects of explosive volcanism. Our most recent set up for high-speed imaging of explosive eruptions (FAMoUS - FAst, MUltiparametric Set-up,) includes: 1) a monochrome high speed camera, capable of 500 frames per second (fps) at high-definition (1280x1024 pixel) resolution and up to 200000 fps at reduced resolution; 2) a thermal camera capable of 50-200 fps at 480-120x640 pixel resolution; and 3) two acoustic to infrasonic sensors. All instruments are time-synchronized via a data logging system, a hand- or software-operated trigger, and via GPS, allowing signals from other instruments or networks to be directly recorded by the same logging unit or to be readily synchronized for comparison. FAMoUS weights less than 20 kg, easily fits into four, hand-luggage-sized backpacks, and can be deployed in less than 20' (and removed in less than 2', if needed). So far, explosive eruptions have been recorded in high-speed at several active volcanoes, including Fuego and Santiaguito (Guatemala), Stromboli (Italy), Yasur (Vanuatu), and Eyjafiallajokull (Iceland). Image processing and analysis from these eruptions helped illuminate several eruptive processes, including: 1) Pyroclasts ejection. High-speed videos reveal multiple, discrete ejection pulses within a single Strombolian

  6. Challenges for operational forecasting and early warning of rainfall induced landslides

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guzzetti, Fausto

    2017-04-01

    In many areas of the world, landslides occur every year, claiming lives and producing severe economic and environmental damage. Many of the landslides with human or economic consequences are the result of intense or prolonged rainfall. For this reason, in many areas the timely forecast of rainfall-induced landslides is of both scientific interest and social relevance. In the recent years, there has been a mounting interest and an increasing demand for operational landslide forecasting, and for associated landslide early warning systems. Despite the relevance of the problem, and the increasing interest and demand, only a few systems have been designed, and are currently operated. Inspection of the - limited - literature on operational landslide forecasting, and on the associated early warning systems, reveals that common criteria and standards for the design, the implementation, the operation, and the evaluation of the performances of the systems, are lacking. This limits the possibility to compare and to evaluate the systems critically, to identify their inherent strengths and weaknesses, and to improve the performance of the systems. Lack of common criteria and of established standards can also limit the credibility of the systems, and consequently their usefulness and potential practical impact. Landslides are very diversified phenomena, and the information and the modelling tools used to attempt landslide forecasting vary largely, depending on the type and size of the landslides, the extent of the geographical area considered, the timeframe of the forecasts, and the scope of the predictions. Consequently, systems for landslide forecasting and early warning can be designed and implemented at several different geographical scales, from the local (site or slope specific) to the regional, or even national scale. The talk focuses on regional to national scale landslide forecasting systems, and specifically on operational systems based on empirical rainfall threshold

  7. Months between rejuvenation and volcanic eruption at Yellowstone caldera, Wyoming

    Science.gov (United States)

    Till, Christy B.; Vazquez, Jorge A.; Boyce, Jeremy W

    2015-01-01

    Rejuvenation of previously intruded silicic magma is an important process leading to effusive rhyolite, which is the most common product of volcanism at calderas with protracted histories of eruption and unrest such as Yellowstone, Long Valley, and Valles, USA. Although orders of magnitude smaller in volume than rare caldera-forming super-eruptions, these relatively frequent effusions of rhyolite are comparable to the largest eruptions of the 20th century and pose a considerable volcanic hazard. However, the physical pathway from rejuvenation to eruption of silicic magma is unclear particularly because the time between reheating of a subvolcanic intrusion and eruption is poorly quantified. This study uses geospeedometry of trace element profiles with nanometer resolution in sanidine crystals to reveal that Yellowstone’s most recent volcanic cycle began when remobilization of a near- or sub-solidus silicic magma occurred less than 10 months prior to eruption, following a 220,000 year period of volcanic repose. Our results reveal a geologically rapid timescale for rejuvenation and effusion of ~3 km3 of high-silica rhyolite lava even after protracted cooling of the subvolcanic system, which is consistent with recent physical modeling that predict a timescale of several years or less. Future renewal of rhyolitic volcanism at Yellowstone is likely to require an energetic intrusion of mafic or silicic magma into the shallow subvolcanic reservoir and could rapidly generate an eruptible rhyolite on timescales similar to those documented here.

  8. A flexible hydrological warning system in Denmark for real-time surface water and groundwater simulations

    Science.gov (United States)

    He, Xin; Stisen, Simon; Wiese, Marianne B.; Jørgen Henriksen, Hans

    2015-04-01

    In Denmark, increasing focus on extreme weather events has created considerable demand for short term forecasts and early warnings in relation to groundwater and surface water flooding. The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS) has setup, calibrated and applied a nationwide water resources model, the DK-Model, primarily for simulating groundwater and surface water flows and groundwater levels during the past 20 years. So far, the DK-model has only been used in offline historical and future scenario simulations. Therefore, challenges arise in operating such a model for online forecasts and early warnings, which requires access to continuously updated observed climate input data and forecast data of precipitation, temperature and global radiation for the next 48 hours or longer. GEUS has a close collaboration with the Danish Meteorological Institute in order to test and enable this data input for the DK model. Due to the comprehensive physical descriptions of the DK-Model, the simulation results can potentially be any component of the hydrological cycle within the models domain. Therefore, it is important to identify which results need to be updated and saved in the real-time mode, since it is not computationally economical to save every result considering the heavy load of data. GEUS have worked closely with the end-users and interest groups such as water planners and emergency managers from the municipalities, water supply and waste water companies, consulting companies and farmer organizations, in order to understand their possible needs for real time simulation and monitoring of the nationwide water cycle. This participatory process has been supported by a web based questionnaire survey, and a workshop that connected the model developers and the users. For qualifying the stakeholder engagement, GEUS has selected a representative catchment area (Skjern River) for testing and demonstrating a prototype of the web based hydrological warning system at the

  9. Inherited retarded eruption in the permanent dentition.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rasmussen, P; Kotsaki, A

    1997-01-01

    The term retarded eruption, may be used in cases where eruption is inhibited, causing an interruption in the coordination of tooth formation and tooth eruption. The phenomenon may be local or general, and several etiological factors for retarded eruption have been listed, comprising a lack of space, ankylosis, cysts, supernumerary teeth, hormone and vitamin deficiencies and several developmental disturbances and syndromes. The present paper describes several cases of retarded eruption where no factors other than inheritance have been evident. So far 14 cases have been evaluated, 9 boys and 5 girls. In addition several cases have been registered among parents and grandparents of the probands. Typical features are: retarded eruption, defined as more than 3 SD beyond mean eruption figures, comprises all teeth in the permanent dentition, and in 5 cases also second primary molars. The chronology of tooth formation are within normal limits. Consequently the teeth finish development still laying deeply buried in the jaws, often in aberrant positions and with curves or hooks on the roots. When the teeth finally get the "signal" for eruption, 5-15 years beyond normal eruption time, they move rather quickly into right positions, despite the long eruption paths and the hooked roots. Permanent teeth without, as well as with predecessors, are affected. Extraction of predecessors does not seem to provoke eruption. The main features in management are to take care of the primary teeth, to improve-esthetics, and offer surgery and orthodontics when needed. Analyses of pedigrees indicates that the genetic transmittance may be autosomal dominant as both sexes are affected, about half of the siblings show the trait, and the trait shows continuity through generations.

  10. Paediatric Early Warning Score - A multi-center randomized controlled intervention study

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Claus Sixtus; Aagaard, Hanne; Olesen, Hanne Vebert

    Paediatric Early Warning System on evolving critical illness and intervention in hospitalised children; a regional multicentre study on implementation of a Paediatric Early Warning System Background: Critical illness in the patient and death can potentially be predicted and prevented. Deterioration...... is critically ill are related to the child’s symptoms of serious illness often being uncharacteristic. Children can seem relatively unaffected until a short time before circulatory insufficiency and cardiac arrest. Thus, there is a need for developing and investigating if an Paediatric Early Warning System...... of the intervention and evaluation. The study involves all paediatric departments and some acute departments in Central Denmark Region. The project both includes quantitative studies and a qualitative evaluation study. The studies will have different designs: • Registry study - exploring and describing life...

  11. An early warning system for flash floods in hyper-arid Egypt

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cools, J.; Vanderkimpen, P.; El Afandi, G.; Abdelkhalek, A.; Fockedey, S.; El Sammany, M.; Abdallah, G.; El Bihery, M.; Bauwens, W.; Huygens, M.

    2012-02-01

    An early warning system (EWS) for flash floods has been developed for part of the Sinai peninsula of Egypt, an hyper-arid area confronted with limited availability of field data, limited understanding of the response of the wadi to rainfall, and a lack of correspondence between rainfall data and observed flash flood events. This paper shows that an EWS is not a "mission impossible" when confronted with large technical and scientific uncertainties and limited data availability. Firstly, the EWS has been developed and tested based on the best available information, this being quantitative data (field measurements, simulations and remote sensing images) complemented with qualitative "expert opinion" and local stakeholders' knowledge. Secondly, a set of essential parameters has been identified to be estimated or measured under data-poor conditions. These are: (1) an inventory of past significant rainfall and flash flood events, (2) the spatial and temporal distribution of the rainfall events and (3) transmission and infiltration losses and (4) thresholds for issuing warnings. Over a period of 30 yr (1979-2010), only 20 significant rain events have been measured. Nine of these resulted in a flash flood. Five flash floods were caused by regional storms and four by local convective storms. The results for the 2010 flash flood show that 90% of the total rainfall volume was lost to infiltration and transmission losses. Finally, it is discussed that the effectiveness of an EWS is only partially determined by technological performance. A strong institutional capacity is equally important, especially skilled staff to operate and maintain the system and clear communication pathways and emergency procedures in case of an upcoming disaster.

  12. Leakage warning system for flexible underwater pipelines

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Moeller, E; Bernstein, L

    1985-08-01

    Underwater pipelines for unloading oil tankers, e.g. in 30 km distance from the harbour site, are required to be flexible and require supervision. This is done by implementation of oil sensitive sensors between the inner rubber tube and the following impregnated textile layer. The generated sensor signals, influenced by leak oil, have to be wireless transmitted from 150 meters under water to the supervisory station at the coast. Sensor configurations are described, to derive the point of the leakage from the topologized warning signals.

  13. Use of new and old technologies and methods by the Alaska Volcano Observatory during the 2006 eruption of Augustine Volcano, Alaska

    Science.gov (United States)

    Murray, T. L.; Nye, C. J.; Eichelberger, J. C.

    2006-12-01

    The recent eruption of Augustine Volcano was the first significant volcanic event in Cook Inlet, Alaska since 1992. In contrast to eruptions at remote Alaskan volcanoes that mainly affect aviation, ash from previous eruptions of Augustine has affected communities surrounding Cook Inlet, home to over half of Alaska's population. The 2006 eruption validated much of AVO's advance preparation, underscored the need to quickly react when a problem or opportunity developed, and once again demonstrated that while technology provides us with wonderful tools, professional relationships, especially during times of crisis, are still important. Long-term multi-parametric instrumental monitoring and background geological and geophysical studies represent the most fundamental aspect of preparing for any eruption. Once significant unrest was detected, AVO augmented the existing real-time network with additional instrumentation including web cameras. GPS and broadband seismometers that recorded data on site were also quickly installed as their data would be crucial for post-eruption research. Prior to 2006, most of most of AVO's eruption response plans and protocols had focused on the threat to aviation rather than ground-based hazards. However, the relationships and protocols developed for the aviation threat were sufficient to be adapted to the ash fall hazard, though it is apparent that more work, both scientific and with response procedures, is needed. Similarly, protocols were quickly developed for warning of a flank- collapse induced tsunami. Information flow within the observatory was greatly facilitated by an internal web site that had been developed and refined specifically for eruption response. Because AVO is a partnership of 3 agencies (U.S. Geological Survey, University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, and the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys) with offices in both Fairbanks and Anchorage, web and internet-facing data servers provided

  14. The Geothermal Systems along the Watukosek fault system (East Java, Indonesia):The Arjuno-Welirang Volcanic Complex and the Lusi Mud-Eruption

    Science.gov (United States)

    Inguaggiato, Salvatore; Mazzini, Adriano; Vita, Fabio; Sciarra, Alessandra

    2016-04-01

    The Java Island is characterized by an intense volcanic activity with more then 100 active volcanoes. Moreover, this island is also known by the presence of many mud volcanoes and hydrothermal springs. In particular, in the 2006 several sudden hot mud eruptions, with fluids around 100° C, occurred in the NE side of the island resulting in a prominent eruption named Lusi (contraction of Lumpur Sidoarjo) located along the major Watukosek strike-slip fault zone. The Watukosek fault system, strikes from the Arjuno-Welirang volcanic complex, intersects Lusi and extends towards the NE of the Java island. Conversely of the normal mud eruptions (cold fluids emitted in a short time period of few days), the Lusi eruption was characterized by a persistent effusive hot fluids emissions for a long-time period of, so far, nearly a decade. Moreover, the isotopic composition of emitted gases like Helium showed a clear magmatic origin. For this reasons we decided to investigate the near Arjuno-Welirang complex located on the same strike-slip fault. Arjuno-Welirang is a twin strato-volcano system located in the East of Java along the Watukosek fault, at about 25 km SW respect to the Lusi volcano system. It features two main peaks: Arjuno (3339 masl) and Welirang (3156 masl). The last recorded eruptive activity took place in August 1950 from the flanks of Kawah Plupuh and in October 1950 from the NW part of the Gunung Welirang. This strato-volcano is characterized by a S-rich area, with high T-vent fumarole at least up to 220° C (and likely higher), located mainly in the Welirang crater. In addition, several hot springs vent from the flanks of the volcano, indicate the presence of a large hydrothermal system. During July 2015, in the framework of the Lusi Lab project (ERC grant n° 308126), we carried out a geochemical field campaign on the Arjuno-Welirang volcano hydrothermal system area, sampling water and dissolved gases from the thermal and cold springs located on the flanks of

  15. AfricaArray: aims, achievements and future activities

    CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

    Durrheim, RJ

    2009-09-01

    Full Text Available data that can augment groundwater, oil, gas, and mineral exploration, and help the forecasting of natural hazards such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Network capabilities are initially focused on seismic sensors, but expansions are planned... also form part of the Indian Ocean Tsunami Early Warning System. Earthquakes are often precursors of volcanic eruptions, enabling timely evacuation. The Nyiragongo volcano (DRC) and Mount Cameroon are being monitored. The most recent major eruption...

  16. Estimating the benefits of single value and probability forecasting for flood warning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    J. S. Verkade

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available Flood risk can be reduced by means of flood forecasting, warning and response systems (FFWRS. These systems include a forecasting sub-system which is imperfect, meaning that inherent uncertainties in hydrological forecasts may result in false alarms and missed events. This forecasting uncertainty decreases the potential reduction of flood risk, but is seldom accounted for in estimates of the benefits of FFWRSs. In the present paper, a method to estimate the benefits of (imperfect FFWRSs in reducing flood risk is presented. The method is based on a hydro-economic model of expected annual damage (EAD due to flooding, combined with the concept of Relative Economic Value (REV. The estimated benefits include not only the reduction of flood losses due to a warning response, but also consider the costs of the warning response itself, as well as the costs associated with forecasting uncertainty. The method allows for estimation of the benefits of FFWRSs that use either deterministic or probabilistic forecasts. Through application to a case study, it is shown that FFWRSs using a probabilistic forecast have the potential to realise higher benefits at all lead-times. However, it is also shown that provision of warning at increasing lead-time does not necessarily lead to an increasing reduction of flood risk, but rather that an optimal lead-time at which warnings are provided can be established as a function of forecast uncertainty and the cost-loss ratio of the user receiving and responding to the warning.

  17. [Tourism ecological security early warning of Zhangjiajie, China based on the improved TOPSIS method and the grey GM (1,1)model].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Mei; Liu, Chun la; Li, Dan; Zhong, Xiao Lin

    2017-11-01

    Tourism ecological security early warning is of great significance both to the coordination of ecological environment protection and tourism industry rapid development in tourism destination, and the sustainable and healthy development of regional social and economy. Firstly, based on the DPSIR model, the tourism ecological security early warning index system of Zhangjiajie was constructed from 5 aspects, which were driving force, pressure, state, impact and response. Then, by using the improved TOPSIS method, the tourism ecological security situation of Zhangjiajie from 2001 to 2014 was analyzed. Lastly, by using the grey GM (1,1) model, the tourism ecological security evolution trend of 2015-2020 was predicted. The results indicated that, on the whole, the close degree of Zhangjiajie's tourism ecological security showed a slightly upward trend during 2001-2014, the warning degree was the moderate warning. In terms of each subsystem, warning degree of the driving force system and the pressure system of Zhangjiajie's tourism ecological secu-rity were on the rise, which evolved from light warning to heavy warning; warning degree of the state system and the impact system had not changed so much, and had been in the moderate warning; warning degree of the response system was on the decline, which changed from huge warning to no warning during 2001-2014. According to the current development trend, the close degree of Zhangjiajie's tourism ecological security would rise further in 2015-2020, and the warning degree would turn from moderate warning into light warning, but the task of coordinating the relationship between tourism development and ecological construction and environmental protection would be still arduous.

  18. When does eruption run-up begin? Multidisciplinary insight from the 1999 eruption of Shishaldin volcano

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rasmussen, Daniel J.; Plank, Terry A.; Roman, Diana C.; Power, John A.; Bodnar, Robert J.; Hauri, Erik H.

    2018-03-01

    During the run-up to eruption, volcanoes often show geophysically detectable signs of unrest. However, there are long-standing challenges in interpreting the signals and evaluating the likelihood of eruption, especially during the early stages of volcanic unrest. Considerable insight can be gained from combined geochemical and geophysical studies. Here we take such an approach to better understand the beginning of eruption run-up, viewed through the lens of the 1999 sub-Plinian basaltic eruption of Shishaldin volcano, Alaska. The eruption is of interest due to its lack of observed deformation and its apparent long run-up time (9 months), following a deep long-period earthquake swarm. We evaluate the nature and timing of recharge by examining the composition of 138 olivine macrocrysts and 53 olivine-hosted melt inclusions and through shear-wave splitting analysis of regional earthquakes. Magma mixing is recorded in three crystal populations: a dominant population of evolved olivines (Fo60-69) that are mostly reversely zoned, an intermediate population (Fo69-76) with mixed zonation, and a small population of normally zoned more primitive olivines (Fo76-80). Mixing-to-eruption timescales are obtained through modeling of Fe-Mg interdiffusion in 78 olivines. The large number of resultant timescales provides a thorough record of mixing, demonstrating at least three mixing events: a minor event ∼11 months prior to eruption, overlapping within uncertainty with the onset of deep long-period seismicity; a major event ∼50 days before eruption, coincident with a large (M5.2) shallow earthquake; and a final event about a week prior to eruption. Shear-wave splitting analysis shows a change in the orientation of the local stress field about a month after the deep long-period swarm and around the time of the M5.2 event. Earthquake depths and vapor saturation pressures of Raman-reconstructed melt inclusions indicate that the recharge magma originated from depths of at least 20

  19. Establishment of turbidity forecasting model and early-warning system for source water turbidity management using back-propagation artificial neural network algorithm and probability analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Tsung-Ming; Fan, Shu-Kai; Fan, Chihhao; Hsu, Nien-Sheng

    2014-08-01

    The purpose of this study is to establish a turbidity forecasting model as well as an early-warning system for turbidity management using rainfall records as the input variables. The Taipei Water Source Domain was employed as the study area, and ANOVA analysis showed that the accumulative rainfall records of 1-day Ping-lin, 2-day Ping-lin, 2-day Fei-tsui, 2-day Shi-san-gu, 2-day Tai-pin and 2-day Tong-hou were the six most significant parameters for downstream turbidity development. The artificial neural network model was developed and proven capable of predicting the turbidity concentration in the investigated catchment downstream area. The observed and model-calculated turbidity data were applied to developing the turbidity early-warning system. Using a previously determined turbidity as the threshold, the rainfall criterion, above which the downstream turbidity would possibly exceed this respective threshold turbidity, for the investigated rain gauge stations was determined. An exemplary illustration demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed turbidity early-warning system as a precautionary alarm of possible significant increase of downstream turbidity. This study is the first report of the establishment of the turbidity early-warning system. Hopefully, this system can be applied to source water turbidity forecasting during storm events and provide a useful reference for subsequent adjustment of drinking water treatment operation.

  20. An overview of the Icelandic Volcano Observatory response to the on-going rifting event at Bárðarbunga (Iceland) and the SO2 emergency associated with the gas-rich eruption in Holuhraun

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barsotti, Sara; Jonsdottir, Kristin; Roberts, Matthew J.; Pfeffer, Melissa A.; Ófeigsson, Benedikt G.; Vögfjord, Kristin; Stefánsdóttir, Gerður; Jónasdóttir, Elin B.

    2015-04-01

    On 16 August, 2014, Bárðarbunga volcano entered a new phase of unrest. Elevated seismicity in the area with up to thousands of earthquakes detected per day and significant deformation was observed around the Bárðarbunga caldera. A dike intrusion was monitored for almost two weeks until a small, short-lived effusive eruption began on 29 August in Holuhraun. Two days later a second, more intense, tremendously gas-rich eruption started that is still (as of writing) ongoing. The Icelandic Volcano Observatory (IVO), within the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO), monitors all the volcanoes in Iceland. Responsibilities include evaluating their related hazards, issuing warnings to the public and Civil Protection, and providing information regarding risks to aviation, including a weekly summary of volcanic activity provided to the Volcanic Ash Advisory Center in London. IVO has monitored the Bárðarbunga unrest phase since its beginning with the support of international colleagues and, in collaboration with the University of Iceland and the Environment Agency of Iceland, provides scientific support and interpretation of the ongoing phenomena to the local Civil Protection. The Aviation Color Code, for preventing hazards to aviation due to ash-cloud encounter, has been widely used and changed as soon as new observations and geophysical data from the monitoring network have suggested a potential evolution in the volcanic crisis. Since the onset of the eruption, IVO is monitoring the gas emission by using different and complementary instrumentations aimed at analyzing the plume composition as well as estimating the gaseous fluxes. SO2 rates have been measured with both real-time scanning DOASes and occasional mobile DOAS traveses, near the eruption site and in the far field. During the first month-and-a-half of the eruption, an average flux equal to 400 kg/s was registered, with peaks exceeding 1,000 kg/s. Along with these measurements the dispersal model CALPUFF has

  1. Degassing vs. eruptive styles at Mt. Etna volcano (Sicily, Italy): Volatile stocking, gas fluxing, and the shift from low-energy to highly-explosive basaltic eruptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moretti, Roberto; Métrich, Nicole; Di Renzo, Valeria; Aiuppa, Alessandro; Allard, Patrick; Arienzo, Ilenia

    2017-04-01

    Basaltic magmas can transport and release large amounts of volatiles into the atmosphere, especially in subduction zones, where slab-derived fluids enrich the mantle wedge. Depending on magma volatile content, basaltic volcanoes thus display a wide spectrum of eruptive styles, from common Strombolian-type activity to Plinian events. Mt. Etna in Sicily, is a typical basaltic volcano where the volatile control on such a variable activity can be investigated. Based on a melt inclusion study in products from Strombolian or lava-fountain activity to Plinian eruptions, here we show that for the same initial volatile content, different eruptive styles reflect variable degassing paths throughout the composite Etnean plumbing system. The combined influence of i) crystallization, ii) deep degassing and iii) CO2 gas fluxing can explain the evolution of H2O, CO2, S and Cl in products from such a spectrum of activity. Deep crystallization produces the CO2-rich gas fluxing the upward magma portions, which will become buoyant and easily mobilized in small gas-rich batches stored within the plumbing system. When reaching gas dominated conditions (i.e., a gas/melt mass ratio of 0.3 and CO2,gas/H2Ogas molar ratio 5 ), these will erupt effusively or mildly explosively, whilst in case of the 122 BC Plinian eruption, open-system degassing conditions took place within the plumbing system, such that continuous CO2-fluxing determined gas accumulation on top of the magmatic system. The emission of such a cap in the early eruptive phase triggered the arrival of deep H2O-rich whose fast decompression and bubble nucleation lead to the highly explosive character, enhanced by abundant microlite crystallization and consequent increase of magma effective viscosity. This could explain why open system basaltic systems like Etna may experience highly explosive or even Plinian episodes during eruptions that start with effusive to mildly explosive phases. The proposed mechanism also determines a

  2. ForWarn: A Cross-Cutting Forest Resource Management and Decision Support System Providing the Capacity to Identify and Track Forest Disturbances Nationally

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hargrove, W. W.; Spruce, J.; Norman, S.; Christie, W.; Hoffman, F. M.

    2012-12-01

    The Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center and Western Wildland Environmental Assessment Center of the USDA Forest Service have collaborated with NASA Stennis Space Center to develop ForWarn, a forest monitoring tool that uses MODIS satellite imagery to produce weekly snapshots of vegetation conditions across the lower 48 United States. Forest and natural resource managers can use ForWarn to rapidly detect, identify, and respond to unexpected changes in the nation's forests caused by insects, diseases, wildfires, severe weather, or other natural or human-caused events. ForWarn detects most types of forest disturbances, including insects, disease, wildfires, frost and ice damage, tornadoes, hurricanes, blowdowns, harvest, urbanization, and landslides. It also detects drought, flood, and temperature effects, and shows early and delayed seasonal vegetation development. Operating continuously since January 2010, results show ForWarn to be a robust and highly capable tool for detecting changes in forest conditions. ForWarn is the first national-scale system of its kind based on remote sensing developed specifically for forest disturbances. It has operated as a prototype since January 2010 and has provided useful information about the location and extent of disturbances detected during the 2011 growing season, including tornadoes, wildfires, and extreme drought. The ForWarn system had an official unveiling and rollout in March 2012, initiated by a joint NASA and USDA press release. The ForWarn home page has had 2,632 unique visitors since rollout in March 2012, with 39% returning visits. ForWarn was used to map tornado scars from the historic April 27, 2011 tornado outbreak, and detected timber damage within more than a dozen tornado tracks across northern Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. ForWarn is the result of an ongoing, substantive cooperation among four different government agencies: USDA, NASA, USGS, and DOE. Disturbance maps are available on the

  3. How Did Climate and Humans Respond to Past Volcanic Eruptions?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Toohey, Matthew; Ludlow, Francis; Legrande, Allegra N.

    2016-01-01

    To predict and prepare for future climate change, scientists are striving to understand how global-scale climatic change manifests itself on regional scales and also how societies adapt or don't to sometimes subtle and complex climatic changes. In this regard, the strongest volcanic eruptions of the past are powerful test cases, showcasing how the broad climate system responds to sudden changes in radiative forcing and how societies have responded to the resulting climatic shocks. These issues were at the heart of the inaugural workshop of the Volcanic Impacts on Climate and Society (VICS) Working Group, convened in June 2016 at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in Palisades, N.Y. The 3-day meeting gathered approximately 50 researchers, who presented work intertwining the history of volcanic eruptions and the physical processes that connect eruptions with human and natural systems on a global scale.

  4. The 2014 eruptions of Pavlof Volcano, Alaska

    Science.gov (United States)

    Waythomas, Christopher F.; Haney, Matthew M.; Wallace, Kristi; Cameron, Cheryl E.; Schneider, David J.

    2017-12-22

    Pavlof Volcano is one of the most frequently active volcanoes in the Aleutian Island arc, having erupted more than 40 times since observations were first recorded in the early 1800s . The volcano is located on the Alaska Peninsula (lat 55.4173° N, long 161.8937° W), near Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. The towns and villages closest to the volcano are Cold Bay, Nelson Lagoon, Sand Point, and King Cove, which are all within 90 kilometers (km) of the volcano (fig. 1). Pavlof is a symmetrically shaped stratocone that is 2,518 meters (m) high, and has about 2,300 m of relief. The volcano supports a cover of glacial ice and perennial snow roughly 2 to 4 cubic kilometers (km3) in volume, which is mantled by variable amounts of tephra fall, rockfall debris, and pyroclastic-flow deposits produced during historical eruptions. Typical Pavlof eruptions are characterized by moderate amounts of ash emission, lava fountaining, spatter-fed lava flows, explosions, and the accumulation of unstable mounds of spatter on the upper flanks of the volcano. The accumulation and subsequent collapse of spatter piles on the upper flanks of the volcano creates hot granular avalanches, which erode and melt snow and ice, and thereby generate watery debris-flow and hyperconcentrated-flow lahars. Seismic instruments were first installed on Pavlof Volcano in the early 1970s, and since then eruptive episodes have been better characterized and specific processes have been documented with greater certainty. The application of remote sensing techniques, including the use of infrasound data, has also aided the study of more recent eruptions. Although Pavlof Volcano is located in a remote part of Alaska, it is visible from Cold Bay, Sand Point, and Nelson Lagoon, making distal observations of eruptive activity possible, weather permitting. A busy air-travel corridor that is utilized by a numerous transcontinental and regional air carriers passes near Pavlof Volcano. The frequency of air travel

  5. Complicated lichenoid drug eruption.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Armour, Katherine; Lowe, Patricia

    2005-02-01

    We report a case of severe lichenoid drug eruption with multiple possible causative agents. A hepatitis C-positive male presented with a short history of painful erosions of the vermilion, lichenoid lesions on the buccal mucosa and glans penis, and erosions and lichenification of the scrotum. In addition, he had a pruritic polymorphic eruption over the scalp, trunk and limbs, comprising psoriasiform and eczematous lesions. He had received combination therapy of pegylated interferon-alpha-2a and ribavirin, along with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor for interferon-induced leucopenia, and propranolol for portal hypertension. The former three agents were ceased 3 weeks prior to presentation, but he remained on propranolol at the initial dermatology consultation. The polymorphous clinical picture was consistent with lichenoid drug eruption, which was confirmed on histology. The papulosquamous eruption responded quickly to 2 weeks of oral prednisone 25 mg daily, which was tapered to 1 mg over 3 months and then ceased. The mucosal lesions were slow to improve and required the addition of tacrolimus 0.03% solution t.d.s. for complete resolution.

  6. On Track for Success: The Use of Early Warning Indicator and Intervention Systems to Build a Grad Nation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bruce, Mary; Bridgeland, John M.; Fox, Joanna Hornig; Balfanz, Robert

    2011-01-01

    Over the past decade, schools, districts, and states have become increasingly savvy with data collection and analysis to drive student outcomes. The development and use of Early Warning Indicator and Intervention Systems (EWS) are at the cutting edge of the data- driven, outcomes-focused, high-impact education movement. These systems can increase…

  7. Fuzzy logic inference-based Pavement Friction Management and real-time slippery warning systems: A proof of concept study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Najafi, Shahriar; Flintsch, Gerardo W; Khaleghian, Seyedmeysam

    2016-05-01

    Minimizing roadway crashes and fatalities is one of the primary objectives of highway engineers, and can be achieved in part through appropriate maintenance practices. Maintaining an appropriate level of friction is a crucial maintenance practice, due to the effect it has on roadway safety. This paper presents a fuzzy logic inference system that predicts the rate of vehicle crashes based on traffic level, speed limit, and surface friction. Mamdani and Sugeno fuzzy controllers were used to develop the model. The application of the proposed fuzzy control system in a real-time slippery road warning system is demonstrated as a proof of concept. The results of this study provide a decision support model for highway agencies to monitor their network's friction and make appropriate judgments to correct deficiencies based on crash risk. Furthermore, this model can be implemented in the connected vehicle environment to warn drivers of potentially slippery locations. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

  8. Erupted Compound Odontomas: A Case Report

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Avinash Tejasvi M.L.

    2011-03-01

    Full Text Available The tumors in which odontogenic differentiation is fully expressed are the odontomas. Odontomas are considered as hamartomas rather than a true neoplasm. These tumors are composed of enamel, dentine, cementum and pulp tissue. It is most commonly associated with the eruption of the teeth. They are usually discovered on routine radiographic examination. In exceptional cases, the odontoma erupts in to the mouth. Nine cases of erupted compound odontomas are reported in the English literature, and the present paper reports another case of an erupted compound odontoma in a 22-year-old female patient.

  9. Health warnings promote healthier dietary decision making: Effects of positive versus negative message framing and graphic versus text-based warnings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rosenblatt, Daniel H; Bode, Stefan; Dixon, Helen; Murawski, Carsten; Summerell, Patrick; Ng, Alyssa; Wakefield, Melanie

    2018-08-01

    Food product health warnings have been proposed as a potential obesity prevention strategy. This study examined the effects of text-only and text-and-graphic, negatively and positively framed health warnings on dietary choice behavior. In a 2 × 5 mixed experimental design, 96 participants completed a dietary self-control task. After providing health and taste ratings of snack foods, participants completed a baseline measure of dietary self-control, operationalized as participants' frequency of choosing healthy but not tasty items and rejecting unhealthy yet tasty items to consume at the end of the experiment. Participants were then randomly assigned to one of five health warning groups and presented with 10 health warnings of a given form: text-based, negative framing; graphic, negative framing; text, positive framing; graphic, positive framing; or a no warning control. Participants then completed a second dietary decision making session to determine whether health warnings influenced dietary self-control. Linear mixed effects modeling revealed a significant interaction between health warning group and decision stage (pre- and post-health warning presentation) on dietary self-control. Negatively framed graphic health warnings promoted greater dietary self-control than other health warnings. Negatively framed text health warnings and positively framed graphic health warnings promoted greater dietary self-control than positively framed text health warnings and control images, which did not increase dietary self-control. Overall, HWs primed healthier dietary decision making behavior, with negatively framed graphic HWs being most effective. Health warnings have potential to become an important element of obesity prevention. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  10. Sulphur-rich volcanic eruptions and stratospheric aerosols

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rampino, M. R.; Self, S.

    1984-01-01

    Data from direct measurements of stratospheric optical depth, Greenland ice-core acidity, and volcanological studies are compared, and it is shown that relatively small but sulfur-rich volcanic eruptions can have atmospheric effects equal to or even greater than much larger sulfur-poor eruptions. These small eruptions are probably the most frequent cause of increased stratospheric aerosols. The possible sources of the excess sulfur released in these eruptions are discussed.

  11. Quake warnings, seismic culture

    Science.gov (United States)

    Allen, Richard M.; Cochran, Elizabeth S.; Huggins, Tom; Miles, Scott; Otegui, Diego

    2017-01-01

    Since 1990, nearly one million people have died from the impacts of earthquakes. Reducing those impacts requires building a local seismic culture in which residents are aware of earthquake risks and value efforts to mitigate harm. Such efforts include earthquake early warning (EEW) systems that provide seconds to minutes notice of pending shaking. Recent events in Mexico provide an opportunity to assess performance and perception of an EEW system and highlight areas for further improvement. We have learned that EEW systems, even imperfect ones, can help people prepare for earthquakes and build local seismic culture, both beneficial in reducing earthquake-related losses.

  12. Feasibility study of earthquake early warning (EEW) in Hawaii

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thelen, Weston A.; Hotovec-Ellis, Alicia J.; Bodin, Paul

    2016-09-30

    The effects of earthquake shaking on the population and infrastructure across the State of Hawaii could be catastrophic, and the high seismic hazard in the region emphasizes the likelihood of such an event. Earthquake early warning (EEW) has the potential to give several seconds of warning before strong shaking starts, and thus reduce loss of life and damage to property. The two approaches to EEW are (1) a network approach (such as ShakeAlert or ElarmS) where the regional seismic network is used to detect the earthquake and distribute the alarm and (2) a local approach where a critical facility has a single seismometer (or small array) and a warning system on the premises.The network approach, also referred to here as ShakeAlert or ElarmS, uses the closest stations within a regional seismic network to detect and characterize an earthquake. Most parameters used for a network approach require observations on multiple stations (typically 3 or 4), which slows down the alarm time slightly, but the alarms are generally more reliable than with single-station EEW approaches. The network approach also benefits from having stations closer to the source of any potentially damaging earthquake, so that alarms can be sent ahead to anyone who subscribes to receive the notification. Thus, a fully implemented ShakeAlert system can provide seconds of warning for both critical facilities and general populations ahead of damaging earthquake shaking.The cost to implement and maintain a fully operational ShakeAlert system is high compared to a local approach or single-station solution, but the benefits of a ShakeAlert system would be felt statewide—the warning times for strong shaking are potentially longer for most sources at most locations.The local approach, referred to herein as “single station,” uses measurements from a single seismometer to assess whether strong earthquake shaking can be expected. Because of the reliance on a single station, false alarms are more common than

  13. Steady subsidence of a repeatedly erupting caldera through InSAR observations: Aso, Japan

    KAUST Repository

    Nobile, Adriano

    2017-04-05

    The relation between unrest and eruption at calderas is still poorly understood. Aso caldera, Japan, shows minor episodic phreatomagmatic eruptions associated with steady subsidence. We analyse the deformation of Aso using SAR images from 1993 to 2011 and compare it with the eruptive activity. Although the dataset suffers from limitations (e.g. atmospheric effects, coherence loss, low signal-to-noise ratio), we observe a steady subsidence signal from 1996 to 1998, which suggests an overall contraction of a magmatic source below the caldera centre, from 4 to 5 km depth. We propose that the observed contraction may have been induced by the release of the magmatic fluids feeding the eruptions. If confirmed by further data, this hypothesis suggests that degassing processes play a crucial role in triggering minor eruptions within open conduit calderas, such as at Aso. Our study underlines the importance of defining any eruptive potential also from deflating magmatic systems with open conduit.

  14. Characterization of pyroclastic deposits and pre-eruptive soils following the 2008 eruption of Kasatochi Island Volcano, Alaska

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, B.; Michaelson, G.; Ping, C.-L.; Plumlee, G.; Hageman, P.

    2010-01-01

    The 78 August 2008 eruption of Kasatochi Island volcano blanketed the island in newly generated pyroclastic deposits and deposited ash into the ocean and onto nearby islands. Concentrations of water soluble Fe, Cu, and Zn determined from a 1:20 deionized water leachate of the ash were sufficient to provide short-term fertilization of the surface ocean. The 2008 pyroclastic deposits were thicker in concavities at bases of steeper slopes and thinner on steep slopes and ridge crests. By summer 2009, secondary erosion had exposed the pre-eruption soils along gulley walls and in gully bottoms on the southern and eastern slopes, respectively. Topographic and microtopographic position altered the depositional patterns of the pyroclastic flows and resulted in pre-eruption soils being buried by as little as 1 m of ash. The different erosion patterns gave rise to three surfaces on which future ecosystems will likely develop: largely pre-eruptive soils; fresh pyroclastic deposits influenced by shallowly buried, pre-eruptive soil; and thick (>1 m) pyroclastic deposits. As expected, the chemical composition differed between the pyroclastic deposits and the pre-eruptive soils. Pre-eruptive soils hold stocks of C and N important for establishing biota that are lacking in the fresh pyroclastic deposits. The pyroclastic deposits are a source for P and K but have negligible nutrient holding capacity, making these elements vulnerable to leaching loss. Consequently, the pre-eruption soils may also represent an important long-term P and K source. ?? 2010 Regents of the University of Colorado.

  15. Looking beyond the destruction of the GLOF-Early Warning System of the Lake 513 in the Peruvian Andes by the local rural population

    Science.gov (United States)

    Christine, Jurt; Vicuña, Luis; Dulce Burga, María; Huggel, Christian; Frey, Holger

    2017-04-01

    The news about the destruction of the early warning system of the glacial Lake 513 at the headwaters of the Chucchún catchment in Peru's Cordillera Blanca left many people perplexed. The early warning system was installed after around 40 years of glacier hazard management in the region. It was developed within a project that is widely considered as particularly successful with a close cooperation of several Peruvian institutions, the local municipality, the community and Swiss scientists. From a risk reduction point of view, the early warning system is a critical factor and its destruction by local people themselves is hardly comprehensible. Three month of fieldwork on site in the local communities of the Chucchún catchment during and after the installation of the system, including semi-structured interviews, group discussions and participatory observations as well the participation in the project allowed us to get deeper insights into the context and background of what has occurred. Here, we approach the destruction of the early warning system by analyzing different perspectives on encounters between different actors involved - local groups, scientists from Peru and Switzerland, technical staff, NGO in the field of development, representatives of governmental institutions. Such encounters between the different actors during the practice of science (e.g. doing fieldwork) or during the installation of the early warning system (as for instance in meetings on site) are crucial for overcoming gaps between scientific and local knowledge as well as between knowledge and practice. This led to new insights into the discussion of the case of destruction in Chucchún. Mutual perceptions among the groups, self-perceptions and perceptions of both visible and invisible risks shape the discourses about risks and measures in specific situations of encounters during the project. Particularly striking, however, are different perspectives on encounters in the past between

  16. Atmospheric control on ground and space based early warning system for hazard linked to ash injection into the atmosphere

    Science.gov (United States)

    Caudron, Corentin; Taisne, Benoit; Whelley, Patrick; Garces, Milton; Le Pichon, Alexis

    2014-05-01

    Violent volcanic eruptions are common in the Southeast Asia which is bordered by active subduction zones with hundreds of active volcanoes. The physical conditions at the eruptive vent are difficult to estimate, especially when there are only a few sensors distributed around the volcano. New methods are therefore required to tackle this problem. Among them, satellite imagery and infrasound may rapidly provide information on strong eruptions triggered at volcanoes which are not closely monitored by on-site instruments. The deployment of an infrasonic array located at Singapore will increase the detection capability of the existing IMS network. In addition, the location of Singapore with respect to those volcanoes makes it the perfect site to identify erupting blasts based on the wavefront characteristics of the recorded signal. There are ~750 active or potentially active volcanoes within 4000 kilometers of Singapore. They have been combined into 23 volcanic zones that have clear azimuth with respect to Singapore. Each of those zones has been assessed for probabilities of eruptive styles, from moderate (Volcanic Explosivity Index of 3) to cataclysmic (VEI 8) based on remote morphologic analysis. Ash dispersal models have been run using wind velocity profiles from 2010 to 2012 and hypothetical eruption scenarios for a range of eruption explosivities. Results can be used to estimate the likelihood of volcanic ash at any location in SE Asia. Seasonal changes in atmospheric conditions will strongly affect the potential to detect small volcanic eruptions with infrasound and clouds can hide eruption plumes from satellites. We use the average cloud cover for each zone to estimate the probability of eruption detection from space, and atmospheric models to estimate the probability of eruption detection with infrasound. Using remote sensing in conjunction with infrasound improves detection capabilities as each method is capable of detecting eruptions when the other is 'blind

  17. Sensitivity of a coupled climate-carbon cycle model to large volcanic eruptions during the last millennium

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Brovkin, Victor; Lorenz, Stephan J.; Jungclaus, Johann; Raddatz, Thomas; Timmreck, Claudia; Reick, Christian H.; Segschneider, Joachim; Six, Katharina (Max Planck Inst. for Meteorology Hamburg (Germany))

    2010-11-15

    The sensitivity of the climate-biogeochemistry system to volcanic eruptions is investigated using the comprehensive Earth System Model developed at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. The model includes an interactive carbon cycle with modules for terrestrial biosphere as well as ocean biogeochemistry. The volcanic forcing is based on a recent reconstruction for the last 1200 yr. An ensemble of five simulations is performed and the averaged response of the system is analysed in particular for the largest eruption of the last millennium in the year 1258. After this eruption, the global annual mean temperature drops by 1 K and recovers slowly during 10 yr. Atmospheric CO{sub 2} concentration declines during 4 yr after the eruption by ca. 2 ppmv to its minimum value and then starts to increase towards the pre-eruption level. This CO{sub 2} decrease is explained mainly by reduced heterotrophic respiration on land in response to the surface cooling, which leads to increased carbon storage in soils, mostly in tropical and subtropical regions. The ocean acts as a weak carbon sink, which is primarily due to temperature-induced solubility. This sink saturates 2 yr after the eruption, earlier than the land uptake.

  18. Sensitivity of a coupled climate-carbon cycle model to large volcanic eruptions during the last millennium

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Brovkin, Victor; Lorenz, Stephan J.; Jungclaus, Johann; Raddatz, Thomas; Timmreck, Claudia; Reick, Christian H.; Segschneider, Joachim; Six, Katharina

    2010-01-01

    The sensitivity of the climate-biogeochemistry system to volcanic eruptions is investigated using the comprehensive Earth System Model developed at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. The model includes an interactive carbon cycle with modules for terrestrial biosphere as well as ocean biogeochemistry. The volcanic forcing is based on a recent reconstruction for the last 1200 yr. An ensemble of five simulations is performed and the averaged response of the system is analysed in particular for the largest eruption of the last millennium in the year 1258. After this eruption, the global annual mean temperature drops by 1 K and recovers slowly during 10 yr. Atmospheric CO 2 concentration declines during 4 yr after the eruption by ca. 2 ppmv to its minimum value and then starts to increase towards the pre-eruption level. This CO 2 decrease is explained mainly by reduced heterotrophic respiration on land in response to the surface cooling, which leads to increased carbon storage in soils, mostly in tropical and subtropical regions. The ocean acts as a weak carbon sink, which is primarily due to temperature-induced solubility. This sink saturates 2 yr after the eruption, earlier than the land uptake.

  19. Integration of Disaster Detection and Warning System for a Smart Vehicle

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chun-Chieh Wang

    2014-02-01

    Full Text Available For firefighters and rescuers, the disaster relief works are difficulty performed in the tunnels because of their constricted space. To reduce the losses of accident, the safety of tunnels and factories should be ordinarily kept under surveillance. Hence, a multisensor based smart tracked vehicle is designed for the application of autonomous detection and surveillance in this paper. Besides, multisensors, communication modules, wireless cameras, an electronic compass, and a GPS module are installed in the vehicle. The key feature is the integration of disaster detection and warning systems so that the vehicle can move autonomously. Furthermore, a LabVIEW graphical programming software is applied to design a human machine interface (HMI and integrate all systems such that the vehicle can be guided by High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSHPA based remote control. Moreover, basic stamp microcontrollers are utilized as its control kernel such that the remote monitoring and control system (RMCS can be constructed successfully.

  20. Initiation of Solar Eruptions: Recent Observations and Implications for Theories

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sterling, A. C.

    2006-01-01

    Solar eruptions involve the violent disruption of a system of magnetic field. Just how the field is destabilized and explodes to produce flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) is still being debated in the solar community. Here I discuss recent observational work into these questions by ourselves (me and my colleagues) and others. Our work has concentrated mainly on eruptions that include filaments. We use the filament motion early in the event as a tracer of the motion of the general erupting coronal field in and around the filament, since that field itself is hard to distinguish otherwise. Our main data sources are EUV images from SOHO/EIT and TRACE, soft Xray images from Yohkoh, and magnetograms from SOHO/MDI, supplemented with coronagraph images from SOHO/LASCO, hard X-ray data, and ground-based observations. We consider the observational findings in terms of three proposed eruption-initiation mechanisms: (i) runaway internal tether-cutting reconnection, (ii) slow external tether-cutting reconnection ("breakout"), and (iii) ideal MHD instability.

  1. Seizure detection, seizure prediction, and closed-loop warning systems in epilepsy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramgopal, Sriram; Thome-Souza, Sigride; Jackson, Michele; Kadish, Navah Ester; Sánchez Fernández, Iván; Klehm, Jacquelyn; Bosl, William; Reinsberger, Claus; Schachter, Steven; Loddenkemper, Tobias

    2014-08-01

    Nearly one-third of patients with epilepsy continue to have seizures despite optimal medication management. Systems employed to detect seizures may have the potential to improve outcomes in these patients by allowing more tailored therapies and might, additionally, have a role in accident and SUDEP prevention. Automated seizure detection and prediction require algorithms which employ feature computation and subsequent classification. Over the last few decades, methods have been developed to detect seizures utilizing scalp and intracranial EEG, electrocardiography, accelerometry and motion sensors, electrodermal activity, and audio/video captures. To date, it is unclear which combination of detection technologies yields the best results, and approaches may ultimately need to be individualized. This review presents an overview of seizure detection and related prediction methods and discusses their potential uses in closed-loop warning systems in epilepsy. Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier Inc.

  2. Landslide and Flood Warning System Prototypes based on Wireless Sensor Networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hloupis, George; Stavrakas, Ilias; Triantis, Dimos

    2010-05-01

    Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are one of the emerging areas that received great attention during the last few years. This is mainly due to the fact that WSNs have provided scientists with the capability of developing real-time monitoring systems equipped with sensors based on Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS). WSNs have great potential for many applications in environmental monitoring since the sensor nodes that comprised from can host several MEMS sensors (such as temperature, humidity, inertial, pressure, strain-gauge) and transducers (such as position, velocity, acceleration, vibration). The resulting devices are small and inexpensive but with limited memory and computing resources. Each sensor node contains a sensing module which along with an RF transceiver. The communication is broadcast-based since the network topology can change rapidly due to node failures [1]. Sensor nodes can transmit their measurements to central servers through gateway nodes without any processing or they make preliminary calculations locally in order to produce results that will be sent to central servers [2]. Based on the above characteristics, two prototypes using WSNs are presented in this paper: A Landslide detection system and a Flood warning system. Both systems sent their data to central processing server where the core of processing routines exists. Transmission is made using Zigbee and IEEE 802.11b protocol but is capable to use VSAT communication also. Landslide detection system uses structured network topology. Each measuring node comprises of a columnar module that is half buried to the area under investigation. Each sensing module contains a geophone, an inclinometer and a set of strain gauges. Data transmitted to central processing server where possible landslide evolution is monitored. Flood detection system uses unstructured network topology since the failure rate of sensor nodes is expected higher. Each sensing module contains a custom water level sensor

  3. Application of a multi-channel system for continuous monitoring and an early warning system.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, J H; Song, C H; Kim, B C; Gu, M B

    2006-01-01

    A multi-channel continuous toxicity monitoring system developed in our laboratory, based on two-stage mini-bioreactors, was successfully implemented in the form of computer-based data acquisition. The multi-channel system consists of a series of a two-stage minibioreactor systems connected by a fiber optic probe to a luminometer, and uses genetically engineered bioluminescent bacteria for the detection of the potential toxicity from the soluble chemicals. This system can be stably and continuously operated due to the separation of the culture reactor from the test reactor and accomplish easy and long-term monitoring without system shut down by abrupt inflows of severe polluting chemicals. Four different recombinant bioluminescent bacteria were used in different channels so that the modes of the samples toxicities can be reasonably identified and evaluated based upon the response signature of each channel. The bioluminescent signatures were delivered from four channels by switching one at once, while the data is automatically logged to an IBM compatible computer. We also achieved the enhancement of the system through the manipulation of the dilution rate and the use of thermo-lux fusion strains. Finally, this system is now being implemented to a drinking water reservoir and river for remote sensing as an early warning system.

  4. [Effects of volcanic eruptions on environment and health].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zuskin, Eugenija; Mustajbegović, Jadranka; Doko Jelinić, Jagoda; Pucarin-Cvetković, Jasna; Milosević, Milan

    2007-12-01

    Volcanoes pose a threat to almost half a billion people; today there are approximately 500 active volcanoes on Earth, and every year there are 10 to 40 volcanic eruptions. Volcanic eruptions produce hazardous effects for the environment, climate, and the health of the exposed persons, and are associated with the deterioration of social and economic conditions. Along with magma and steam (H2O), the following gases surface in the environment: carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulphur dioxide (SO2), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen sulphide (H2S), carbon sulphide (CS), carbon disulfide (CS2), hydrogen chloride (HCl), hydrogen (H2), methane (CH4), hydrogen fluoride (HF), hydrogen bromide (HBr) and various organic compounds, as well as heavy metals (mercury, lead, gold).Their unfavourable effects depend on the distance from a volcano, on magma viscosity, and on gas concentrations. The hazards closer to the volcano include pyroclastic flows, flows of mud, gases and steam, earthquakes, blasts of air, and tsunamis. Among the hazards in distant areas are the effects of toxic volcanic ashes and problems of the respiratory system, eyes and skin, as well as psychological effects, injuries, transport and communication problems, waste disposal and water supplies issues, collapse of buildings and power outage. Further effects are the deterioration of water quality, fewer periods of rain, crop damages, and the destruction of vegetation. During volcanic eruptions and their immediate aftermath, increased respiratory system morbidity has been observed as well as mortality among those affected by volcanic eruptions. Unfavourable health effects could partly be prevented by timely application of safety measures.

  5. Rapid laccolith intrusion driven by explosive volcanic eruption.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Castro, Jonathan M; Cordonnier, Benoit; Schipper, C Ian; Tuffen, Hugh; Baumann, Tobias S; Feisel, Yves

    2016-11-23

    Magmatic intrusions and volcanic eruptions are intimately related phenomena. Shallow magma intrusion builds subsurface reservoirs that are drained by volcanic eruptions. Thus, the long-held view is that intrusions must precede and feed eruptions. Here we show that explosive eruptions can also cause magma intrusion. We provide an account of a rapidly emplaced laccolith during the 2011 rhyolite eruption of Cordón Caulle, Chile. Remote sensing indicates that an intrusion began after eruption onset and caused severe (>200 m) uplift over 1 month. Digital terrain models resolve a laccolith-shaped body ∼0.8 km 3 . Deformation and conduit flow models indicate laccolith depths of only ∼20-200 m and overpressures (∼1-10 MPa) that likely stemmed from conduit blockage. Our results show that explosive eruptions may rapidly force significant quantities of magma in the crust to build laccoliths. These iconic intrusions can thus be interpreted as eruptive features that pose unique and previously unrecognized volcanic hazards.

  6. The Novarupta-Katmai eruption of 1912 - largest eruption of the twentieth century; centennial perspectives

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hildreth, Wes; Fierstein, Judy

    2012-01-01

    The explosive outburst at Novarupta (Alaska) in June 1912 was the 20th century's most voluminous volcanic eruption. Marking its centennial, we illustrate and document the complex eruptive sequence, which was long misattributed to nearby Mount Katmai, and how its deposits have provided key insights about volcanic and magmatic processes. It was one of the few historical eruptions to produce a collapsed caldera, voluminous high-silica rhyolite, wide compositional zonation (51-78 percent SiO2), banded pumice, welded tuff, and an aerosol/dust veil that depressed global temperature measurably. It emplaced a series of ash flows that filled what became the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, sustaining high-temperature metal-transporting fumaroles for a decade. Three explosive episodes spanned ~60 hours, depositing ~17 km3 of fallout and 11±2 km3 of ignimbrite, together representing ~13.5 km3 of zoned magma. No observers were nearby and no aircraft were in Alaska, and so the eruption narrative was assembled from scattered villages and ship reports. Because volcanology was in its infancy and the early investigations (1915-23) were conducted under arduous expeditionary conditions, many provocative misapprehensions attended reports based on those studies. Fieldwork at Katmai was not resumed until 1953, but, since then, global advances in physical volcanology and chemical petrology have gone hand in hand with studies of the 1912 deposits, clarifying the sequence of events and processes and turning the eruption into one of the best studied in the world. To provide perspective on this century-long evolution, we describe the geologic and geographic setting of the eruption - in a remote, sparsely inhabited wilderness; we review the cultural and scientific contexts at the time of the eruption and early expeditions; and we compile a chronology of the many Katmai investigations since 1912. Products of the eruption are described in detail, including eight layers of regionwide fallout

  7. Assessing the impact of a future volcanic eruption on decadal predictions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Illing, Sebastian; Kadow, Christopher; Pohlmann, Holger; Timmreck, Claudia

    2018-06-01

    The likelihood of a large volcanic eruption in the future provides the largest uncertainty concerning the evolution of the climate system on the timescale of a few years, but also an excellent opportunity to learn about the behavior of the climate system, and our models thereof. So the following question emerges: how predictable is the response of the climate system to future eruptions? By this we mean to what extent will the volcanic perturbation affect decadal climate predictions and how does the pre-eruption climate state influence the impact of the volcanic signal on the predictions? To address these questions, we performed decadal forecasts with the MiKlip prediction system, which is based on the MPI-ESM, in the low-resolution configuration for the initialization years 2012 and 2014, which differ in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) phase. Each forecast contains an artificial Pinatubo-like eruption starting in June of the first prediction year and consists of 10 ensemble members. For the construction of the aerosol radiative forcing, we used the global aerosol model ECHAM5-HAM in a version adapted for volcanic eruptions. We investigate the response of different climate variables, including near-surface air temperature, precipitation, frost days, and sea ice area fraction. Our results show that the average global cooling response over 4 years of about 0.2 K and the precipitation decrease of about 0.025 mm day-1 is relatively robust throughout the different experiments and seemingly independent of the initialization state. However, on a regional scale, we find substantial differences between the initializations. The cooling effect in the North Atlantic and Europe lasts longer and the Arctic sea ice increase is stronger in the simulations initialized in 2014. In contrast, the forecast initialized in 2012 with a negative PDO shows a prolonged cooling in the North Pacific basin.

  8. Estimating rates of decompression from textures of erupted ash particles produced by 1999-2006 eruptions of Tungurahua volcano, Ecuador

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wright, Heather M.N.; Cashman, Katharine V.; Mothes, Patricia A.; Hall, Minard L.; Ruiz, Andrés Gorki; Le Pennec, Jean-Luc

    2012-01-01

    Persistent low- to moderate-level eruptive activity of andesitic volcanoes is difficult to monitor because small changes in magma supply rates may cause abrupt transitions in eruptive style. As direct measurement of magma supply is not possible, robust techniques for indirect measurements must be developed. Here we demonstrate that crystal textures of ash particles from 1999 to 2006 Vulcanian and Strombolian eruptions of Tungurahua volcano, Ecuador, provide quantitative information about the dynamics of magma ascent and eruption that is difficult to obtain from other monitoring approaches. We show that the crystallinity of erupted ash particles is controlled by the magma supply rate (MSR); ash erupted during periods of high magma supply is substantially less crystalline than during periods of low magma supply. This correlation is most easily explained by efficient degassing at very low pressures (<<50 MPa) and degassing-driven crystallization controlled by the time available prior to eruption. Our data also suggest that the observed transition from intermittent Vulcanian explosions at low MSR to more continuous periods of Strombolian eruptions and lava fountains at high MSR can be explained by the rise of bubbles through (Strombolian) or trapping of bubbles beneath (Vulcanian) vent-capping, variably viscous (and crystalline) magma.

  9. Winter warming from large volcanic eruptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robock, Alan; Mao, Jianping

    1992-01-01

    An examination of the Northern Hemisphere winter surface temperature patterns after the 12 largest volcanic eruptions from 1883-1992 shows warming over Eurasia and North America and cooling over the Middle East which are significant at the 95-percent level. This pattern is found in the first winter after tropical eruptions, in the first or second winter after midlatitude eruptions, and in the second winter after high latitude eruptions. The effects are independent of the hemisphere of the volcanoes. An enhanced zonal wind driven by heating of the tropical stratosphere by the volcanic aerosols is responsible for the regions of warming, while the cooling is caused by blocking of incoming sunlight.

  10. Naples between two fires: eruptive scenarios for the next eruptions by an integrated volcanological-probabilistic approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mastrolorenzo, G.; Pappalardo, L.; de Natale, G.; Troise, C.; Rossano, S.; Panizza, A.

    2009-04-01

    Probabilistic approaches based on available volcanological data from real eruptions of Campi Flegrei and Somma-Vesuvius, are assembled in a comprehensive assessment of volcanic hazards at the Neapolitan area. This allows to compare the volcanic hazards related to the different types of events, which can be used for evaluating the conditional probability of flows and falls hazard in case of a volcanic crisis. Hazard maps are presented, based on a rather complete set of numerical simulations, produced using field and laboratory data as input parameters relative to a large range (VEI 1 to 5) of fallout and pyroclastic-flow events and their relative occurrence. The results allow us to quantitatively evaluate and compare the hazard related to pyroclastic fallout and density currents (PDCs) at the Neapolitan volcanoes and their surroundings, including the city of Naples. Due to its position between the two volcanic areas, the city of Naples is particularly exposed to volcanic risk from VEI>2 eruptions, as recorded in the local volcanic succession. Because dominant wind directions, the area of Naples is particularly prone to fallout hazard from Campi Flegrei caldera eruptions in the VEI range 2-5. The hazard from PDCs decreases roughly radially with distance from the eruptive vents and is strongly controlled by the topographic heights. Campi Flegrei eruptions are particularly hazardous for Naples, although the Camaldoli and Posillipo hills produce an effective barrier to propagation to the very central part of Naples. PDCs from Vesuvius eruptions with VEI>4 can cover the city of Naples, whereas even VEI>3 eruptions have a moderate fallout hazard there.

  11. Explosive Volcanic Eruptions from Linear Vents on Earth, Venus and Mars: Comparisons with Circular Vent Eruptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Glaze, Lori S.; Baloga, Stephen M.; Wimert, Jesse

    2010-01-01

    Conditions required to support buoyant convective plumes are investigated for explosive volcanic eruptions from circular and linear vents on Earth, Venus, and Mars. Vent geometry (linear versus circular) plays a significant role in the ability of an explosive eruption to sustain a buoyant plume. On Earth, linear and circular vent eruptions are both capable of driving buoyant plumes to equivalent maximum rise heights, however, linear vent plumes are more sensitive to vent size. For analogous mass eruption rates, linear vent plumes surpass circular vent plumes in entrainment efficiency approximately when L(sub o) > 3r(sub o) owing to the larger entrainment area relative to the control volume. Relative to circular vents, linear vents on Venus favor column collapse and the formation of pyroclastic flows because the range of conditions required to establish and sustain buoyancy is narrow. When buoyancy can be sustained, however, maximum plume heights exceed those from circular vents. For current atmospheric conditions on Mars, linear vent eruptions are capable of injecting volcanic material slightly higher than analogous circular vent eruptions. However, both geometries are more likely to produce pyroclastic fountains, as opposed to convective plumes, owing to the low density atmosphere. Due to the atmospheric density profile and water content on Earth, explosive eruptions enjoy favorable conditions for producing sustained buoyant columns, while pyroclastic flows would be relatively more prevalent on Venus and Mars. These results have implications for the injection and dispersal of particulates into the planetary atmosphere and the ability to interpret the geologic record of planetary volcanism.

  12. Aircraft Instrument, Fire Protection, Warning, Communication, Navigation and Cabin Atmosphere Control System (Course Outline), Aviation Mechanics 3 (Air Frame): 9067.04.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dade County Public Schools, Miami, FL.

    This document presents an outline for a 135-hour course designed to familiarize the student with manipulative skills and theoretical knowledge concerning aircraft instrument systems like major flight and engine instruments; fire protection and fire fighting systems; warning systems and navigation systems; aircraft cabin control systems, such as…

  13. Flash floods warning technique based on wireless communication networks data

    Science.gov (United States)

    David, Noam; Alpert, Pinhas; Messer, Hagit

    2010-05-01

    Flash floods can occur throughout or subsequent to rainfall events, particularly in cases where the precipitation is of high-intensity. Unfortunately, each year these floods cause severe property damage and heavy casualties. At present, there are no sufficient real time flash flood warning facilities found to cope with this phenomenon. Here we show the tremendous potential of flash floods advanced warning based on precipitation measurements of commercial microwave links. As was recently shown, wireless communication networks supply high resolution precipitation measurements at ground level while often being situated in flood prone areas, covering large parts of these hazardous regions. We present the flash flood warning potential of the wireless communication system for two different cases when floods occurred at the Judean desert and at the northern Negev in Israel. In both cases, an advanced warning regarding the hazard could have been announced based on this system. • This research was supported by THE ISRAEL SCIENCE FOUNDATION (grant No. 173/08). This work was also supported by a grant from the Yeshaya Horowitz Association, Jerusalem. Additional support was given by the PROCEMA-BMBF project and by the GLOWA-JR BMBF project.

  14. Tsunami Warning Services for the U.S. and Canadian Atlantic Coasts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Whitmore, P. M.; Knight, W.

    2008-12-01

    In January 2005, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) developed a tsunami warning program for the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts. Within a year, this program extended further to the Atlantic coast of Canada and the Caribbean Sea. Warning services are provided to U.S. and Canadian coasts (including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands) by the NOAA/West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center (WCATWC) while the NOAA/Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) provides services for non-U.S. entities in the Caribbean Basin. The Puerto Rico Seismic Network (PRSN) is also an active partner in the Caribbean Basin warning system. While the nature of the tsunami threat in the Atlantic Basin is different than in the Pacific, the warning system philosophy is similar. That is, initial messages are based strictly on seismic data so that information is provided to those at greatest risk as fast as possible while supplementary messages are refined with sea level observations and forecasts when possible. The Tsunami Warning Centers (TWCs) acquire regional seismic data through many agencies, such as the United States Geological Survey, Earthquakes Canada, regional seismic networks, and the PRSN. Seismic data quantity and quality are generally sufficient throughout most of the Atlantic area-of-responsibility to issue initial information within five minutes of origin time. Sea level data are mainly provided by the NOAA/National Ocean Service. Coastal tide gage coverage is generally denser along the Atlantic coast than in the Pacific. Seven deep ocean pressure sensors (DARTs), operated by the National Weather Service (NWS) National Data Buoy Center, are located in the Atlantic Basin (5 in the Atlantic Ocean, 1 in the Caribbean, and 1 in the Gulf of Mexico). The DARTs provide TWCs with the means to verify tsunami generation in the Atlantic and provide critical data with which to calibrate forecast models. Tsunami warning response criteria in the Atlantic Basin

  15. Wavelet analysis of the seismograms for tsunami warning

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. Chamoli

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available The complexity in the tsunami phenomenon makes the available warning systems not much effective in the practical situations. The problem arises due to the time lapsed in the data transfer, processing and modeling. The modeling and simulation needs the input fault geometry and mechanism of the earthquake. The estimation of these parameters and other aprior information increases the utilized time for making any warning. Here, the wavelet analysis is used to identify the tsunamigenesis of an earthquake. The frequency content of the seismogram in time scale domain is examined using wavelet transform. The energy content in high frequencies is calculated and gives a threshold for tsunami warnings. Only first few minutes of the seismograms of the earthquake events are used for quick estimation. The results for the earthquake events of Andaman Sumatra region and other historic events are promising.

  16. January 30, 1997 eruptive event on Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii, as monitored by continuous GPS

    Science.gov (United States)

    Owen, S.; Segall, P.; Lisowski, M.; Miklius, Asta; Murray, M.; Bevis, M.; Foster, J.

    2000-01-01

    A continuous Global Positioning System (GPS) network on Kilauea Volcano captured the most recent fissure eruption in Kilauea's East Rift Zone (ERZ) in unprecedented spatial and temporal detail. The short eruption drained the lava pond at Pu'u O' o, leading to a two month long pause in its on-going eruption. Models of the GPS data indicate that the intrusion's bottom edge extended to only 2.4 km. Continuous GPS data reveal rift opening 8 hours prior to the eruption. Absence of precursory summit inflation rules out magma storage overpressurization as the eruption's cause. We infer that stresses in the shallow rift created by the continued deep rift dilation and slip on the south flank decollement caused the rift intrusion.

  17. Eruption probabilities for the Lassen Volcanic Center and regional volcanism, northern California, and probabilities for large explosive eruptions in the Cascade Range

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nathenson, Manuel; Clynne, Michael A.; Muffler, L.J. Patrick

    2012-01-01

    Chronologies for eruptive activity of the Lassen Volcanic Center and for eruptions from the regional mafic vents in the surrounding area of the Lassen segment of the Cascade Range are here used to estimate probabilities of future eruptions. For the regional mafic volcanism, the ages of many vents are known only within broad ranges, and two models are developed that should bracket the actual eruptive ages. These chronologies are used with exponential, Weibull, and mixed-exponential probability distributions to match the data for time intervals between eruptions. For the Lassen Volcanic Center, the probability of an eruption in the next year is 1.4x10-4 for the exponential distribution and 2.3x10-4 for the mixed exponential distribution. For the regional mafic vents, the exponential distribution gives a probability of an eruption in the next year of 6.5x10-4, but the mixed exponential distribution indicates that the current probability, 12,000 years after the last event, could be significantly lower. For the exponential distribution, the highest probability is for an eruption from a regional mafic vent. Data on areas and volumes of lava flows and domes of the Lassen Volcanic Center and of eruptions from the regional mafic vents provide constraints on the probable sizes of future eruptions. Probabilities of lava-flow coverage are similar for the Lassen Volcanic Center and for regional mafic vents, whereas the probable eruptive volumes for the mafic vents are generally smaller. Data have been compiled for large explosive eruptions (>≈ 5 km3 in deposit volume) in the Cascade Range during the past 1.2 m.y. in order to estimate probabilities of eruption. For erupted volumes >≈5 km3, the rate of occurrence since 13.6 ka is much higher than for the entire period, and we use these data to calculate the annual probability of a large eruption at 4.6x10-4. For erupted volumes ≥10 km3, the rate of occurrence has been reasonably constant from 630 ka to the present, giving

  18. Dynamics of a large, restless, rhyolitic magma system at Laguna del Maule, southern Andes, Chile

    Science.gov (United States)

    Singer, Brad S.; Andersen, Nathan L.; Le Mével, Hélène; Feigl, Kurt L.; DeMets, Charles; Tikoff, Basil; Thurber, Clifford H.; Jicha, Brian R.; Cardonna, Carlos; Córdova, Loreto; Gil, Fernando; Unsworth, Martyn J.; Williams-Jones, Glyn; Miller, Craig W.; Fierstein, Judith; Hildreth, Edward; Vazquez, Jorge A.

    2014-01-01

    Explosive eruptions of large-volume rhyolitic magma systems are common in the geologic record and pose a major potential threat to society. Unlike other natural hazards, such as earthquakes and tsunamis, a large rhyolitic volcano may provide warning signs long before a caldera-forming eruption occurs. Yet, these signs—and what they imply about magma-crust dynamics—are not well known. This is because we have learned how these systems form, grow, and erupt mainly from the study of ash flow tuffs deposited tens to hundreds of thousands of years ago or more, or from the geophysical imaging of the unerupted portions of the reservoirs beneath the associated calderas. The Laguna del Maule Volcanic Field, Chile, includes an unusually large and recent concentration of silicic eruptions. Since 2007, the crust there has been inflating at an astonishing rate of at least 25 cm/yr. This unique opportunity to investigate the dynamics of a large rhyolitic system while magma migration, reservoir growth, and crustal deformation are actively under way is stimulating a new international collaboration. Findings thus far lead to the hypothesis that the silicic vents have tapped an extensive layer of crystal-poor, rhyolitic melt that began to form atop a magmatic mush zone that was established by ca. 20 ka with a renewed phase of rhyolite eruptions during the Holocene. Modeling of surface deformation, magnetotelluric data, and gravity changes suggest that magma is currently intruding at a depth of ~5 km. The next phase of this investigation seeks to enlarge the sets of geophysical and geochemical data and to use these observations in numerical models of system dynamics.

  19. Precursory diffuse CO2 and H2S emission signatures of the 2011-2012 El Hierro submarine eruption, Canary Islands

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pérez, Nemesio M.; Padilla, Germán D.; Padrón, Eleazar; Hernández, Pedro A.; Melián, Gladys V.; Barrancos, José; Dionis, Samara; Nolasco, Dácil; Rodríguez, Fátima; Calvo, David; Hernández, Íñigo

    2012-08-01

    On October 12, 2011, a submarine eruption began 2 km off the coast of La Restinga, south of El Hierro Island. CO2 and H2S soil efflux were continuously measured during the period of volcanic unrest by using the accumulation chamber method at two different geochemical stations, HIE01 and HIE07. Recorded CO2 and H2S effluxes showed precursory signals that preceded the submarine eruption. Beginning in late August, the CO2 efflux time series started increasing at a relatively constant rate over one month, reaching a maximum of 19 gm-2d-1 one week before the onset of the submarine volcanic eruption. The H2S efflux time series at HIE07 showed a pulse in H2S emission just one day before the initiation of the submarine eruption, reaching peak values of 42 mg m-2 d-1, 10 times the average H2S efflux recorded during the observation period. Since CO2 and H2S effluxes are strongly influenced by external factors, we applied a multiple regression analysis to remove their contribution. A statistical analysis showed that the long-term trend of the filtered data is well correlated with the seismic energy. We find that these geochemical stations are important monitoring sites for evaluating the volcanic activity of El Hierro and that they demonstrate the potential of applying continuous monitoring of soil CO2 and H2S efflux to improve and optimize the detection of early warning signals of future volcanic unrest episodes at El Hierro. Continuous diffuse degassing studies would likely prove useful for monitoring other volcanoes during unrest episodes.

  20. Practice makes better - Learning effects of driving with a multi-stage collision warning.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Winkler, Susann; Kazazi, Juela; Vollrath, Mark

    2018-02-21

    Advanced driver assistance systems like (forward) collision warnings can increase traffic safety. As safety-critical situations (especially in urban traffic) can be diverse, integrated adaptive systems (such as multi-stage warnings) need to be developed and examined in a variety of use cases over time instead of the more common approach of testing only one-time effectiveness in the most relevant use case. Thus, this driving simulator experiment investigated a multi-stage collision warning in partially repetitive trials (T) of various safety-critical situations (scenarios confronting drivers with hazards in form of pedestrians, obstacles or preceding vehicles). Its output adapted according to the drivers' behavior in two warning stages (W1 - warning for moderate deceleration in less critical situations; W2 - urgent warning for strong, fast braking in more critical situations). To analyze how much drivers benefit from the assistance when allowed practice with it, the driving behavior and subjective ratings of 24 participants were measured over four trials. They comprised a baseline without assistance (T1) and three further trials with assistance - a learning phase repeating the scenarios from T1 twice (T2 + T3) and a concluding transfer drive with new scenarios (T4). As expected, the situation criticality in the urgent warning (W2) scenarios was rated higher than in the warning (W1) scenarios. While the brake reaction time differed more between the W1 scenarios, the applied brake force differed more between the W2 scenarios. However, the scenario factor often interacted with the trial factor. Since in later warning stages reaction time reductions become finite, the reaction strength gains importance. Overall the drivers benefited from the assistance. Both warning stages led to faster brake reactions (of similar strength) in all three assisted trials compared to the baseline, which additionally improved successively over time (T1-T3, T1 vs. T4, T2 vs. T4