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Introduction: This project report describes the development, pilot phase, evaluation and implementation of a preparatory course week for incoming Erasmus medical students at the LernKlinik Leipzig, the Skills and Simulation Centre of the Medical Faculty, University of Leipzig.Project description: The aim of this project is to prepare Erasmus students for their year abroad using peer-assisted teaching as the method of choice. Major intended outcomes were support of language and clinical practical skill competency development, as well as enhancement of integration among international and German-speaking peer tutors. The methodological framework of Ross and Cameron was used in planning the Erasmus-Week. For planning the 2012 pilot project, a survey among Erasmus students of the academic year 2011/12 was performed. All succeeding cohorts were asked to participate in pre- and post-surveys which were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively.Results: Between 2012 and 2017, n=173 European medical students spent their Erasmus year in Leipzig. Of these, n=148 (86%) participated in the Erasmus-Week. The country of origin of most Erasmus students was Rumania (20,3%). Among the most positively received aspects of the Erasmus-Week, the active use of German for medical purposes and the use of peer-teaching as the method of choice to learn and repeat basic medical examination skills were mentioned. Students emphasized their wish for being able to participate in further course offers.Conclusions: Offering a preparatory course week for incoming Erasmus students focusing on language and clinical practical skills training using peer-teaching as the method of choice may facilitate the integration of Erasmus students into their foreign medical curriculum. Further studies are underway to elucidate if these experiences influence later professional careers and choice of employment., Einleitung: Der vorgelegte Projektbericht beschreibt die Entwicklung, Pilotierung, Evaluation und Durchführung einer vorbereitenden Kurswoche für Erasmus-Studierende der Humanmedizin in der LernKlinik Leipzig, dem Skills- und Simulationszentrum der Medizinischen Fakultät der Universität Leipzig.Projektbeschreibung: Ziel des vorgestellten Lehrprojektes ist es, im geschützten Rahmen mittels Peer-teaching Methode Erasmus-Studierende auf ihr Auslandsjahr vorzubereiten. Das Augenmerk liegt dabei sowohl auf der sprachlichen als auch auf der klinisch-praktischen Ausbildung, aber auch auf der Integrationsförderung durch engen Kontakt mit deutschsprachigen studentischen Peer-Tutoren. Als methodischer Rahmen für die Planung der Erasmus-Woche diente die Zusammenstellung von Ross und Cameron . Zur Planung des Pilotprojektes 2012 wurde eine Befragung der Erasmus-Kohorte des Jahrgangs 2011/12 durchgeführt. Die nachfolgenden Jahrgänge wurden gebeten, an einer Prä-Post-Befragung teilzunehmen; die Freitextangaben der Prä- und Post-Befragungen wurden quantitativ und qualitativ ausgewertet.Ergebnisse: Insgesamt n=173 Erasmus-Studierende der Humanmedizin kamen im Zeitraum 2012-2017 nach Leipzig; von diesen nahmen n=148 (86%) an der Erasmus-Woche teil. Die meisten Erasmus-Studierenden kamen aus Rumänien (20,3%). Mit Abstand die häufigsten Nennungen zu den positiven Aspekten der Erasmus-Woche betrafen die aktive Auseinandersetzung mit der deutschen Fachsprache und die Wertschätzung des Peer-teaching Verfahrens, um grundlegende Untersuchungstechniken erlernen bzw. wiederholen zu können. Ein Ausbau und eine Intensivierung des Kursangebotes wurden gewünscht.Schlussfolgerungen: Die Durchführung einer vorbereitenden Kurswoche für Erasmus-Studierende mit Fokus auf Erwerb von sprachlichen und klinisch-praktischen Fertigkeiten im Peer-teaching Verfahren kann den Einstieg und die Integration Erasmus-Studierender in den Studienablauf erleichtern. Inwieweit diese Erfahrungen auch Einfluss auf die s

A reliable estimate of completeness magnitudes is vital for many seismicity- and hazard-related studies. Here we adopted and further developed the Probability-based Magnitude of Completeness (PMC) method. This method determines network detection completeness (MP) using only empirical data: earthquake catalogue, phase picks and station information. To evaluate the applicability to low- or moderate-seismicity regions, we performed a case study in Switzerland. The Swiss Seismic Network (SSN) at present is recording seismicity with one of the densest networks of broad-band sensors in Europe. Based on data from 1983 January 1 to 2008 March 31, we found strong spatio-temporal variability of network completeness: the highest value of MP in Switzerland at present is 2.5 in the far southwest, close to the national boundary, whereas MP is lower than 1.6 in high-seismicity areas. Thus, events of magnitude 2.5 can be detected in all of Switzerland. We evaluated the temporal evolution of MP for the last 20 yr, showing the successful improvement of the SSN. We next introduced the calculation of uncertainties to the probabilistic method using a bootstrap approach. The results show that the uncertainties in completeness magnitudes are generally less than 0.1 magnitude units, implying that the method generates stable estimates of completeness magnitudes. We explored the possible use of PMC: (1) as a tool to estimate the number of missing earthquakes in moderate-seismicity regions and (2) as a network planning tool with simulation computations of installations of one or more virtual stations to assess the completeness and identify appropriate locations for new station installations. We compared our results with an existing study of the completeness based on detecting the point of deviation from a power law in the earthquake-size distribution. In general, the new approach provides higher estimates of the completeness magnitude than the traditional one. We associate this observation wi

Geothermal energy is becoming an important clean energy source, however, the stimulation of a reservoir for an Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) is associated with seismic risk due to induced seismicity. Seismicity occurring due to the water injection at depth have to be well recorded and monitored. To mitigate the seismic risk of a damaging event, an appropriate alarm system needs to be in place for each individual experiment. In recent experiments, the so-called traffic-light alarm system, based on public response, local magnitude and peak ground velocity, was used. We aim to improve the pre-defined alarm system by introducing a probability-based approach; we retrospectively model the ongoing seismicity in real time with multiple statistical forecast models and then translate the forecast to seismic hazard in terms of probabilities of exceeding a ground motion intensity level. One class of models accounts for the water injection rate, the main parameter that can be controlled by the operators during an experiment. By translating the models into time-varying probabilities of exceeding various intensity levels, we provide tools which are well understood by the decision makers and can be used to determine thresholds non-exceedance during a reservoir stimulation; this, however, remains an entrepreneurial or political decision of the responsible project coordinators. We introduce forecast models based on the data set of an EGS experiment in the city of Basel. Between 2006 December 2 and 8, approximately 11 500 m3 of water was injected into a 5-km-deep well at high pressures. A six-sensor borehole array, was installed by the company Geothermal Explorers Limited (GEL) at depths between 300 and 2700 m around the well to monitor the induced seismicity. The network recorded approximately 11 200 events during the injection phase, more than 3500 of which were located. With the traffic-light system, actions where implemented after an ML 2.7 event, the water injection was reduce

We present a time-independent gridded earthquake rate forecast for the European region including Turkey. The spatial component of our model is based on kernel density estimation techniques, which we applied to both past earthquake locations and fault moment release on mapped crustal faults and subduction zone interfaces with assigned slip rates. Our forecast relies on the assumption that the locations of past seismicity is a good guide to future seismicity, and that future large-magnitude events occur more likely in the vicinity of known faults. We show that the optimal weighted sum of the corresponding two spatial densities depends on the magnitude range considered. The kernel bandwidths and density weighting function are optimized using retrospective likelihood-based forecast experiments. We computed earthquake activity rates (a- and b-value) of the truncated Gutenberg-Richter distribution separately for crustal and subduction seismicity based on a maximum likelihood approach that considers the spatial and temporal completeness history of the catalogue. The final annual rate of our forecast is purely driven by the maximum likelihood fit of activity rates to the catalogue data, whereas its spatial component incorporates contributions from both earthquake and fault moment-rate densities. Our model constitutes one branch of the earthquake source model logic tree of the 2013 European seismic hazard model released by the EU-FP7 project ‘Seismic HAzard haRmonization in Europe' (SHARE) and contributes to the assessment of epistemic uncertainties in earthquake activity rates. We performed retrospective and pseudo-prospective likelihood consistency tests to underline the reliability of our model and SHARE's area source model (ASM) using the testing algorithms applied in the collaboratory for the study of earthquake predictability (CSEP). We comparatively tested our model's forecasting skill against the ASM and find a statistically significant better performance for testing

Fracture shear-dilatancy is an essential process for enhancing the permeability of deep geothermal reservoirs, and is usually accompanied by the radiation of seismic waves. However, the hazard and risk perspective of induced seismicity research typically focuses only on the question of how to reduce the occurrence of induced earthquakes. Here we present a quantitative analysis of seismic hazard as a function of the two key factors defining an enhanced geothermal system: The permeability enhancement, and the size of the stimulated reservoir. Our model has two coupled components: (1) a pressure diffusion model and (2) a stochastic seismicity model. Permeability is increased in the source area of each induced earthquake depending on the amount of slip, which is determined by the magnitude. We show that the few largest earthquakes (i.e. 5-10 events with M ≥ 1.5) contribute more than half of the total reservoir stimulation. The results further indicate that planning and controlling of reservoir engineering operations may be compromised by the considerable variability of maximum observed magnitude, reservoir size, the Gutenberg-Richter b-value and Shapiro's seismogenic index (i.e. a measure of seismic reactivity of a reservoir) that arises from the intrinsic stochastic nature of induced seismicity. We also find that injection volume has a large impact on both reservoir size and seismic hazard. Injection rate and injection scheme have a negligible effect. The impact of site-specific parameters on seismicity and reservoir properties is greater than that of the injected volume. In particular, conditions that lead to high b-values—possibly a low differential stress level—have a high impact on seismic hazard, but also reduce the efficiency of the stimulation in terms of permeability enhancement. Under such conditions, target reservoir permeability can still be achieved without reaching an unacceptable level of seismic hazard, if either the initial reservoir permeability is hig