scholarly journals Varenna workshop report. Operational earthquake forecasting and decision making

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Warner Marzocchi ◽  
Thomas H. Jordan ◽  
Gordon Woo

A workshop on <em>Operational earthquake forecasting and decision making</em> was convened in Varenna, Italy, on June 8-11, 2014, under the sponsorship of the EU FP 7 REAKT (Strategies and tools for Real-time EArthquake risK reducTion) project, the Seismic Hazard Center at the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), and the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC). The main goal was to survey the interdisciplinary issues of operational earthquake forecasting (OEF), including the problems that OEF raises for decision making and risk communication. The workshop was attended by 64 researchers from universities, research centers, and governmental institutions in 11 countries. Participants and the workshop agenda are listed in the appendix.<br />The workshop comprised six topical sessions structured around three main themes: the science of operational earthquake forecasting, decision making in a low-probability environment, and communicating hazard and risk. Each topic was introduced by a moderator and surveyed by a few invited speakers, who were then empaneled for an open discussion. The presentations were followed by poster sessions. During a wrap-up session on the last day, the reporters for each topical session summarized the main points that they had gleaned from the talks and open discussions. This report attempts to distill this workshop record into a brief overview of the workshop themes and to describe the range of opinions expressed during the discussions.

This book provides the first comprehensive analysis of the withdrawal agreement concluded between the United Kingdom and the European Union to create the legal framework for Brexit. Building on a prior volume, it overviews the process of Brexit negotiations that took place between the UK and the EU from 2017 to 2019. It also examines the key provisions of the Brexit deal, including the protection of citizens’ rights, the Irish border, and the financial settlement. Moreover, the book assesses the governance provisions on transition, decision-making and adjudication, and the prospects for future EU–UK trade relations. Finally, it reflects on the longer-term challenges that the implementation of the 2016 Brexit referendum poses for the UK territorial system, for British–Irish relations, as well as for the future of the EU beyond Brexit.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2820
Author(s):  
Eglė Klumbytė ◽  
Raimondas Bliūdžius ◽  
Milena Medineckienė ◽  
Paris A. Fokaides

Measuring and monitoring sustainability plays an essential role in impact assessment of global changes and development. Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) represents a reliable and adequate technique for assessing sustainability, especially in the field of municipal buildings management, where numerous parameters and criteria are involved. This study presents an MCDM model for the sustainable decision-making, tailored to municipal residential buildings facilities management. The main outcome of this research concerned normalized and weighted decision-making matrixes, based on the complex proportion assessment (COPRAS) and weighted aggregated sum product assessment (WASPAS) methods, applied for ranking investment alternatives related to the management of the buildings. The delivered model was applied to 20 municipal buildings of Kaunas city municipality, located in Lithuania, which an EU member state employing practices and regulations in accordance with the EU acquis, as well as a former Soviet Republic. The proposed model aspires to enhance sustainability practices in the management of municipal buildings and to demonstrate a solid tool that will allow informed decision-making in the building management sector.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 414-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Tadei ◽  
Pekka Santtila ◽  
Jan Antfolk

Abstract When statistically related to child sexual abuse (CSA), background information can assist decision-making in investigations of CSA allegations. Here, we studied the use of such background information among Finnish police officers. We analyzed their ability to identify and interpret CSA-related and CSA-unrelated background information both when placed in mock scenarios and when presented as separate, individual variables. We also measured the ability to correctly estimate the probability of CSA based on such background information. In the context of mock scenarios, officers were better in discarding CSA-unrelated variables than in identifying CSA-related ones. Within-subject performance across different scenarios was, however, not consistent. When information was presented as separate variables, officers tended to incorrectly consider many CSA-unrelated variables as CSA-related. Officers performed better in recognizing whether actual CSA-related variables increase or decrease the probability of CSA. Finally, officers were inaccurate in identifying variables that are CSA-related only for boys or only for girls. When asked to estimate the CSA probability of mock scenarios, participants were accurate only in assessing low-probability cases, and this was not associated with the ability to identify CSA-related and CSA-unrelated variables. We conclude that police officers would benefit from more training in using background information and from using available decision-making support tools in the context of investigating CSA allegations.


Author(s):  
MiguelAndres Guerra ◽  
Yekenalem Abebe

There are several ways of quantifying flood hazard. When the scale of the analysis is large, flood hazard simulation for an entire city becomes costly and complicated. The first part of this paper proposes utilizing experience and knowledge of local experts about flood characteristics in the area in order to come up with a first-level flood hazard and risk zoning maps, by implementing overlay operations in Arc GIS. In this step, the authors use the concept of pairwise comparison to eliminate the need for carrying out a complicated simulation to quantify flood hazard and risk. The process begins with identifying the main factors that contribute to flooding in a particular area. Pairwise comparison was used to elicit knowledge from local experts and assigned weights for each factor to reflect their relative importance toward flood hazard and risk. In the second part of this paper, the authors present a decision-making framework to support a flood risk response plan. Once the highest risk zones have been identified, a city can develop a risk response plan, for which this paper presents a decision-making framework to select an effective set of alternatives. The framework integrates tools from multicriteria decision-making, charrette design process to guide the pairwise elicitation, and a cost-effective analysis to include the limited budget constraint for any city. The theoretical framework uses the city of Addis Ababa for the first part of the paper. For the second part, the paper utilizes a hypothetical case of Addis Ababa and a mock city infrastructure department to illustrate the implementation of the framework.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 858
Author(s):  
Stefan Bouzarovski ◽  
Harriet Thomson ◽  
Marine Cornelis

This paper scrutinizes existing policy efforts to address energy poverty at the governance scale of the European Union (EU) and its constituent Member States. Our main starting point is the recent expansion of energy poverty policies at the EU level, fuelled by the regulatory provisions of the Clean Energy for all Europeans Package, as well as the establishment of an EU Energy Poverty Observatory. Aided by a systematic and customized methodology, we survey the extensive scientific body of work that has recently been published on the topic, as well as the multiple strategies and measures to address energy poverty that have been formulated across the EU. This includes the principal mitigation approaches adopted by key European and national institutions. We develop a framework to judge the distributional and procedural justice provisions within the recently adopted National Energy and Climate Plans, as an indicator of the power, ability and resolve of relevant institutions to combat the causes and consequences of energy injustice. We also provide a research and policy agenda for future action, highlighting a series of scientific and decision-making challenges in the European and global context.


Significance The three parties successfully negotiated a coalition agreement with a strong emphasis on modernising Germany’s economy. Throughout the negotiations, the parties presented a public image of stability and harmony, yet several divisive issues will test the new government's stability and effectiveness. Impacts The composition of the new government will make it harder for Berlin to win approval for the EU-China Comprehensive Investment Agreement. Chancellor Olaf Scholz will seek to prioritise more unity at the EU level when it comes to foreign policy decision-making. The spread of the Omicron variant will slow economic recovery and potentially delay the transition to a greener economy.


IG ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 278-294
Author(s):  
Niklas Helwig ◽  
Juha Jokela ◽  
Clara Portela

Sanctions are one of the toughest and most coercive tools available to the European Union (EU). They are increasingly used in order to respond to breaches of international norms and adverse security developments in the neighbourhood and beyond. However, the EU sanctions policy is facing a number of challenges related to the efficiency of decision-making, shortcomings in the coherent implementation of restrictive measures, as well as the adjustments to the post-Brexit relationship with the United Kingdom. This article analyses these key challenges for EU sanctions policy. Against the backdrop of an intensifying global competition, it points out the need to weatherproof this policy tool. The current debate on the future of the EU provides an opportunity to clarify the strategic rationale of EU sanctions and to fine-tune the sanctions machinery.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-106
Author(s):  
Alberto Nicòtina

The aim of this paper is to analyse the 'débat public' procedure, which finds its roots in the Canadian legal system and its most defined formulation in France, and which more recently has been circulating to Italy – first at the regional level and, since 2016, at the national level. The first part of the paper will thus be devoted to a historical overview of the débat public and to how it is implemented in each of the two legal systems. The second part will subsequently distil the 'paradigm', i. e. those distinctive traits that make the débat public an autonomous research subject, within the multi-layered legislative framework of environmental governance in Europe. Three main features of the paradigm will be pointed out (Participation, Effectiveness, Authority), thus highlighting how it can respond to the needs in light of which it has been designed, namely dealing with proximity conflicts and providing a forum for the construction of shared rational decisions in environmental decision-making. The paper eventually leads to the conclusion that the débat public, with its codified rules and procedures, represents the first and probably the most noticeable attempt towards the institutionalisation and generalisation of deliberative practices in environmental decision-making, thus towards developing a procedural stance in environmental democracy.


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