Competition and disruption in a dynamic urban supply chain

Rapid changes and complexities in business environments have stressed the importance of interactions between partners and competitors, leading supply chains to become the most important element of contemporary business environments. There is a concomitant need for foresight in describing supply chain performance in all operating environments, including those involving punctuated disruptions. Furthermore, the urban metropolis is now widely recognized to be an environment which is especially vulnerable to supply chain disruptions and for which integrated supply chain decisions can produce very substantial net benefits. Accordingly, this paper presents a dynamic supply chain network model formulated as a differential variational inequality; the model is fashioned to allow consideration of supply chain disruption threats to producers, freight carriers, and retail enterprises. The DVI is solved using a fixed-point algorithm, and a simple numerical example, introduced to illustrate how the impacts of supply chain disruptions may be quantified, is presented.     

车辆阻挡效应对隧道火场燃烧及烟流之影响研究

近期国际曾发生多起重大隧道火灾灾难,隧道火灾安全议题已获得全球普便之重视。目前学术界与工程界多采用缩小尺寸实验或数值模拟方法对隧道火场环境进行研究与探讨。然不论实验或计算机模拟最重要的关键为能否充分地反应出实际隧道之火场情境,方能获致合理且有意义之研究成果。检视现今之隧道火害研究,可发现几乎所有的相关研究皆仅简化地假设火场上游无车辆回堵现象,此有违火场上游应发生车辆回堵之实际隧道火灾情境,因此将无法合理地模拟火场上游车辆阻挡风机气流对火场燃烧及烟流所造成之影响。针对此项尚待厘清之议题,本研究首先执行缩小尺寸实验,以均匀风速施加于隧道横断面模拟风机作动所产生之气流,探讨隧道塞车情境对火场燃烧所造成之影响。复执行全尺寸纵流式排烟模式(轴流风机)隧道火灾情境计算机数值模拟,针对火场上游是否有车辆回堵、回堵车体尺寸、火源与回堵车体距离等变因对火场燃烧、温度及烟流所造成之影响进行探讨。研究结果发现火场环境及烟流将受有、无车辆回堵、回堵车体大小及火源与车体距离等因素而有不同程度之影响。     

Time-variant ultimate longitudinal strength of corroded bulk carriers

Many bulk carrier losses have been reported of late, and one of the possible causes of such casualties is thought to be the structural failure of aging hulls in rough weather. In aging ships, corrosion and fatigue cracks are the two most important factors affecting structural safety and integrity. This paper uses a set of the time-dependent corrosion wastage models for 23 different member locations/categories of bulk carriers previously developed by the authors, based on the available corrosion measurements for existing large bulk carrier structures. Differences due to the location and corrosion severity of every member type are taken into account. The nominal design corrosion values for the primary members are suggested based on the annualized corrosion rates obtained in the present study. The effect of time-variant corrosion wastage on the ultimate hull girder strength as well as the section moduli is studied. The criteria for repair and maintenance of heavily corroded structural members so as to keep the ultimate longitudinal strength at an acceptable level are discussed. Important insights and conclusions developed are summarized.     

Blast loaded plates

Plates form one of the basic elements of structures. Land-based structures may be subjected to air blast loads during combat environment or terrorist attack, while marine structures may be subjected to either air blast by the attack of a missile above the water surface or an underwater explosion by the attack of a torpedo or a mine or a depth charge and an aircraft structure may be subjected to an in-flight attack by on-board explosive devices. Furthermore, gas explosion occurs in offshore installations and industries. This review focuses on the phenomenological evolution of blast damage of plates.     

A trial application of FSA methodology to the hatchway watertight integrity of bulk carriers

Formal safety assessment (FSA) is a formal, structured and systematic methodology, aimed at enhancing maritime safety, including protection of life, property and marine environment, by using risk and cost–benefit assessments. For the application of this methodology to the rule-making process, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) presented the Interim Guidelines, which describe procedures of FSA and inputs/outputs of each procedure in detail. This paper basically deals with an application of FSA methodology according to the IMO's Interim Guidelines to the hatchway watertight integrity of bulk carriers, which was carried out as a cooperative research between Korean Register of Shipping and Seoul National University. As results of this application study, 18 hazards are identified and 32 risk control measures are devised to reduce the associated risks. Potential risks, costs and benefits when some Risk Control Options are introduced are evaluated in monetary unit of US $. Finally, some discussions and recommendations based on experiences are also given for both future work and better application of this FSA methodology to the rule-making process.     

Port e-Transformation,customer satisfaction and competitiveness

ABSTRACT

e-Transformation in container ports means port organization-wide innovative transformation encompassing internal and external value chains based on information and communication technology. There is a considerable theoretical literature on the impact of e-Transformation on business performance, but there is very little empirical study on its effectiveness in ports. The objective of this paper is to empirically investigate how e-Transformation in container port management can influence customer satisfaction and port competitiveness. The findings reveal that e-Transformation in container ports can affect customer satisfaction and port competitiveness through e-Workplace, customer relationship management and security, implying that container ports should make every effort to focus on e-transformation in these critical areas. Due to limited empirical studies in this area, the findings have provided an empirical support for the importance of e-Transformation in container terminal management and shed more light on how e-Transformation can affect customer satisfaction and port competitiveness.     

Comments on enhanced yoking proof protocols for radio frequency identification tags and tag groups

A radio frequency identification (RFID) yoking proof scheme can generate proofs of simultaneous presence of two tags in the range of a specified reader so that an off-line verifier can verify the proofs later. This proof has found several interesting applications. However, many existing RFID yoking schemes are vulnerable to replay attacks. To overcome the weaknesses, Cho et al. proposed a new RFID yoking proof protocol and a new grouping protocol. Unfortunately, Cho et al.’s schemes are still vulnerable to replay attacks. In this paper, in addition to demonstrating weaknesses, we further discuss the rationale behind these weaknesses to provide a guide line for designing secure RFID yoking schemes. Based on the guide line, we propose a new RFID yoking scheme and a new RFID grouping scheme. Performance evaluation shows that our scheme outperforms its counterparts.     

Numerical method for simulating tire rolling noise by the concept of periodically exciting contact force

For the numerical simulation of tire rolling noise, an important subject is the extraction of normal velocity data of the tire surface that are essential for the acoustic analysis. In the current study, a concept of periodically exciting contact force is introduced to effectively extract the tire normal velocity data. The ground contact pressure within contact patch that is obtained by the static tire contact analysis is periodically applied to the whole tread surface of stationary tire. The periodically exciting contact forces are sequentially applied with a time delay corresponding to the tire rolling speed. The tire vibration is analyzed by the mode superposition in the frequency domain, and the acoustic analysis is performed by commercial BEM code. The proposed method is illustrated through the numerical experiment of 3-D smooth tire model and verified from the comparison with experiment, and furthermore the acoustical responses are investigated to the tire rolling speed.     

隧道检测系统及其在韩国高速铁路隧道的应用

介绍韩国高速铁路隧道安装的健康监测系统,提出基于检测数据诊断隧道衬砌可能破损的新系统识别方法。引入逆算法,即根据已知的形变数据和混凝土衬砌恒载,估计破损的程度和位置。对以刚度均减和裂缝概念为基础建立的两种模型进行效果和优劣比较。对理想化的隧道结构进行数学分析,并用检测数据中常用的白噪声对模型进行适应性研究。结果表明,基于刚度均减方法的模型1对白噪声相对不敏感,而以裂缝概念为基础的模型2由于受刚度减小的影响很小,易于现场应用。