Acknowledgments

Core support for the U.S. and Austrian participants in this work was provided by a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation-sponsored GeoEngineering Earthquake Reconnaissance (GEER) Association through NSF Grant CMMI-00323914. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Support for the Italian participants was partially provided by ReLuis Consortium (Italian University Network of Seismic Engineering Laboratories, with the assistance of Gaetano Manfredi, Universita di Napoli) and partially by the Ministero dell'Universita e della Ricerca (MIUR). These supports are gratefully acknowledged.

Aside from the authors, numerous individuals contributed data and observations that are reflected in this report including Margit Piber (U. Graz); Joe Smith (Montana Tech); Stefania Sica (University of Sannio); Augusto Penna (CIMA), Antonio Santo, Lorenza Evangelista, Emilio Bilotta, Domenico Calcaterra, Massimo Ramondini (University of Naples Federico II), Angelo Amorosi (Politecnico of Bari), Pietro Fargnoli (University of Rome La Sapienza, Rome, Italy), Luca Verrucci (CNR-IGAG, Rome, Italy), and Gerald Roberts (University of London). Stefano Aversa, chairman of AGI in Italy, is thanked for his participation in this effort. Alisa Facchini Stewart translated Chapter 2 from Italian to English; her timely and accurate work is much appreciated.

GEER webmasters Ben Mason and Katherine Jones are thanked for the excellent and timely assistance with preparation and posting of the html files.