Identification of voting systems for the identification of preferences in public participation. Case Study: application of the Borda Count system for collective decision making at the Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Abstract:The aim of this paper is to review the literature on voting systems based on Condorcet and Borda. We compared and classified them. Also we referred to some strengths and weaknesses of voting systems and finally in a case study, we made use of the Borda voting system for collective decision making in the Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Resumen: el objetivo de este trabajo es hacer una revisión bibliográfica de los sistemas de votación basados en Condorcet y Borda. Se ha comparado y clasificado los mismos. Así mismo se ha hecho referencia a algunas debilidades y fortalezas de los sistemas de votación y por último en un caso de estudio, se ha hecho uso del sistema de votación de Borda para la toma de decisión colectiva en el Parque Nacional de Salonga en la República Democrática del Congo.

An evaluation of seismic hazard in La Hispaniola, after the 2010 Haiti earthquake

An evaluation of the seismic hazard in La Hispaniola Island has been carried out, as part of the cooperative project SISMO-HAITI, supported by the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) and developed by several Spanish Universities, the National Observatory of Environment and Vulnerability) ONEV of Haiti, and with contributions from the Puerto Rico Seismic Network (PRSN) and University Seismological Institute of Dominican Republic (ISU). The study was aimed at obtaining results suitable for seismic design purposes. It started with the elaboration of a seismic catalogue for the Hispaniola Island, requiring an exhaustive revision of data reported by more than 20 seismic agencies, apart from these from the PRSN and ISU. The final catalogue contains 96 historical earthquakes and 1690 instrumental events, and it was homogenized to moment magnitude, Mw. Seismotectonic models proposed for the region were revised and a new regional zonation was proposed, taking into account geological andtectonic data, seismicity, focal mechanisms, and GPS observations. In parallel, attenuation models for subduction and crustal zones were revised in previous projects and the most suitable for the Caribbean plate were selected. Then, a seismic hazard analysis was developed in terms of peak ground acceleration, PGA, and spectral accelerations, SA (T), for periods of 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1 and 2s, using the Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Assessment (PSHA) methodology. As a result, different hazard maps were obtained for the quoted parameters, together with Uniform Hazard Spectra for Port au Prince and the main cities in the country. Hazard deaggregation was also carried out in these towns, for the target motion given by the PGA and SA (1s) obtained for return periods of 475, 975 and 2475 years. Therefore, the controlling earthquakes for short- and long-period target motions were derived. This study was started a few months after the 2010 earthquake, as a response to an aid request from the Haitian government to the UPM, and the results are available for the definition of the first building code in Haiti.

Using damage from 2010 Haiti earthquake for vulnerability estimation of typical structures in Port-au-Prince (Haiti).

After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, that hits the city of Port-au-Prince, capital city of Haiti, a multidisciplinary working group of specialists (seismologist, geologists, engineers and architects) from different Spanish Universities and also from Haiti, joined effort under the SISMO-HAITI project (financed by the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid), with an objective: Evaluation of seismic hazard and risk in Haiti and its application to the seismic design, urban planning, emergency and resource management. In this paper, as a first step for a structural damage estimation of future earthquakes in the country, a calibration of damage functions has been carried out by means of a two-stage procedure. After compiling a database with observed damage in the city after the earthquake, the exposure model (building stock) has been classified and through an iteratively two-step calibration process, a specific set of damage functions for the country has been proposed. Additionally, Next Generation Attenuation Models (NGA) and Vs30 models have been analysed to choose the most appropriate for the seismic risk estimation in the city. Finally in a next paper, these functions will be used to estimate a seismic risk scenario for a future earthquake.