Employability skills of maritime business graduates: industry perspectives

The maritime industry underpins international business and world trade. As to be expected, business management is critical for the maritime industry, requiring highly trained individuals and teams to lead the development, implementation and control of sound contemporary management practices. Maritime business degrees are developed by universities to meet such demand by providing graduates with sufficient skills for the onshore business-related roles. This empirical study conducted in Australia, USA and Canada, investigates current and future industry employability skills for maritime business graduates through focus groups, individual interviews and an online survey with senior managers in maritime organisations. This study found the important employability skills for maritime business graduates which include communication, problem solving, adaptability, self-management, team work, and digital literacy and technology. Demand for digital literacy and technology knowledge and skills have increased due to the maritime industry having a trend of moving towards digitalisation and automation. However, the survey findings revealed that a skills focus for maritime business graduates will not be the technology itself but the use and management of technology. In relation to future skills/knowledge required from maritime business degree graduates in 10 years’ time, communication and adaptability are recognised as being the most important. Employers expect that maritime business graduates should be able to adopt new technology and be competent in communication, and be more adaptable given the highly dynamic nature of the maritime industry. Moreover, they require graduates to be equipped with a higher level of computer skills, have a strong work ethic and multilingual skills.     

Market structures in coastal shipping: what to expect in Canada following the Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement with the European Union?

After several years of negotiation between Canada and the European Union, the Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) was ratified in early 2017. The regime set out by the Canadian Coasting Trade Act that reserves shipments of cargo between Canadian ports to Canadian vessels remains mostly untouched under CETA. Minor, yet potentially significant, changes to the regime are introduced by the trade agreement. Provisions are made to liberalize the repositioning of empty containers within Canada. The liberalization of public markets now allows European firms to compete in the Canadian dredging market. Finally, EU vessels can undertake some transshipment activity in Canada but this is limited to international cargo on the specific Montreal-Halifax route. The paper attempts to highlight some possible CETA’s consequences for domestic Canadian shipping markets. It uses industrial economics analytical tools drawn from a Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) paradigm. From a literature review, it reconstructs different cases of deregulation that occurred internationally. The observed transformations are then characterized in terms of the SCP model. The paper identifies some common impacts which occurred in different transportation industries after a deregulation process. Using these findings, it concludes by discussing potential impacts for domestic shipping markets in Canada.     

Crew resource management training in the maritime industry: a literature review

The study is based on a literature review of recent empirical research on crew resource management (CRM) training in the maritime industry, organised around what non-technical skills to learn and how. The review indicates that existing work is dominated by individualistic theories of learning with less focus on learning as a social process. Five main categories of skills that need to be trained are identified: assertiveness, decision-making, communication, situation awareness and team coordination. We argue that it is necessary to operationalise these broad concepts further, emphasising the work context and crew-specific needs. The review also shows that a combination of classroom lectures and simulator-based exercises is commonly used in maritime education and training in these skills. The learning effect seems to be suffering from training programmes that are exported ‘as is’ from aviation and not adjusted to the maritime domain or to operation-specific needs. This paper examines maritime crew resource management training from a social learning perspective, involving the view that learning is a context bound, social process that might take place in communities of practice (CoP). A CoP is a group (e.g. a crew) wherein members share an activity and learn from each other. It is argued that CRM training programmes will benefit from including a social learning perspective. Factors that enable the assessment of teams are discussed, and it is argued that the training should be tailored to existing crews, emphasising a learning environment as close to reality as possible.     

Recursive least squares algorithm for a nonlinear additive system with time delay

This paper proposes a recursive least squares algorithm for a nonlinear additive system with time delay. By the Weierstrass approximation theorem and the key term separation principle, the model can be simplified as an identification model. Based on the identification model, a recursive least squares identification algorithm is used to estimate all the unknown parameters of the time-delayed additive system. An example is provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.     

Decomposing and Cluster Refinement Design Method for Application-Specific Network-on-Chips

Along with higher and higher integration of intellectual properties (IPs) on a single chip, traditional bus-based system-on-chips (SoC) meets several design difficulties (such as low scalability, high power consumption, packet latency and clock tree problem). As a promising solution, network-on-chips (NoC) has been proposed and widely studied. In this work, a novel algorithm for NoC topology synthesis, which is decomposing and cluster refinement (DCR) algorithm, has been proposed to minimize the total power consumption of application-specific NoC. This algorithm is composed of two stages: decomposing with cluster generation, and cluster refinement. For partitioning and cluster generation, an initial low-power solution for NoC topology is generated. For cluster refinement, the clustering is optimized by performing floorplan to further reduce power consumption. Meanwhile, a good tradeoff between power consumption and CPU time can be achieved. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms the existing work.     

Estimating the value of risk reductions for car drivers when pedestrians are involved: a case study in Spain

We estimated the benefits associated with reducing fatal and severe injuries from traffic accidents using a stated choice experiment where choice situations were generated through a statistically efficient design. Specifically, the risk variables were defined as the expected annual number of vehicle car-users that suffered their death or were severely injured in a traffic accident. In addition, and differing from previous research, the number of pedestrians that died or were severely injured in traffic accidents per year was also included as a risk attribute in the choice experiment, to attempt at measuring drivers’ willingness to pay to reduce the risk of hitting pedestrians in a crash. The empirical setting was a choice of route for a particular trip that a sample of car drivers periodically undertakes in Tenerife, Spain. Models were estimated accounting for random taste heterogeneity and pseudo-panel data correlation. The median of the distribution of simulated parameters was used to obtain a representative measure for the monetary valuation of risk reductions. We found that the ratio between the values of reducing the risk of suffering a serious injury and that of reducing a fatality was approximately 18 %. Further, and quite novel, we also found that the value of reducing a pedestrian fatality was 39 % of the value of reducing a car occupant fatality.     

Cost and time damping: evidence from aggregate rail direct demand models

There is a significant body of evidence from both disaggregate choice modelling literature and practical travel demand forecasting that the responsiveness to cost and possibly to time diminishes with journey length. This has, in Britain at least, been termed ‘Cost Damping’, and is recognised in guidance issued by the UK Department for Transport. However, the consistency of the effect across modes and data types has not been established. Cost damping, if it exists, affects both the forecasting of demand and our understanding of behaviour. This paper aims to investigate the evidence for cost and time damping in rail demand using aggregate rail ticket sales data. The rail ticket sales data in Britain has, for many years, formed the basis of analysis of a wide range of impacts of rail demand. It records the number of tickets sold between station pairs, and it is generally felt to provide a reasonably accurate reflection of travel demand. However, the consistency of these direct demand models with choice modelling and highway demand model structures has not been investigated. Rail direct demand models estimated by ticket sales data indicate only slight variation in the fare elasticity with distance, as is evidenced in the largest meta-analysis of price elasticities conducted to date (Wardman in J Transp Econ Policy 48(3):367–384, 2014). This study of UK elasticities shows strong variation between urban and inter-urban trips, presumably a segmentation at least in part by purpose, but less remaining variation by trip length. A lack of variation by length supports the hypothesis of cost damping, because constant cost sensitivity would imply that fare elasticity would increase strongly with distance, because of the increasing impact of higher fares at longer distances. In this paper we indicate that rail direct demand models have some consistency of behavioural paradigm with utility based choice models used in highway planning. We go on to use rail demand data to estimate time and fare elasticities in the context of various cost damping functions. Our empirical contribution is to estimate time elasticities on a basis directly comparable with cost elasticities and to show that the phenomenon of cost damping is strongly present in ticket sales data. This finding implies that cost damping should be included in models intended for multimodal analysis, which may otherwise give incorrect predictions.     

Review of managing the risks of offshore banking and its implications for the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone

As more and more Chinese and foreign-funded banks settle in the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone (CSPFTZ), it has become an imperative to enhance risk management of offshore banking. At the international level, the regulatory effort for offshore banking mainly focuses on tax evasion and money laundering. Existing regulatory frameworks have established standards to identify countries providing facilities for money laundering and developed punitive measures. In terms of strategy, it is suggested that, firstly, relevant regulatory measures should be improved in the short term, and it is necessary to define the scope of offshore banking and regulatory measures for Chinese banks and foreign-funded banks under a suitable legal framework. Secondly, it is necessary to establish risk exposure mechanism and risk evaluation system for the offshore banking in the CSPFTZ, while risk management measures are implemented based on on-site supervision. Thirdly, in the medium and long term, it is necessary to enhance management of potential risks which can be created by offshore banking due to deregulation. Fourthly, on the one hand, specific regulations should be formulated to provide a regulatory basis for taxation; on the other hand, tax informational exchange agreements (TIEAs) may be used as a reference for achieving effective tax regulation.     

Factors associated with home-based e-working and e-shopping in Nanjing,China

The widespread adoption of information and communication technology has facilitated frequent e-activities in people’s daily life. From the perspective of individual’s time use on e-working and e-shopping at home, this paper aims to enhance our understanding of the function of home beyond a living space for family life. Using a household survey of 608 full-time paid employees who conducted e-activities at home in Nanjing, China, we investigated the characteristics and patterns of home-based e-working and e-shopping. Only 7.9% of the respondents neither e-shopped nor e-worked at home. We find that the socio-demographic context, Internet use habits, attitudes towards e-working/e-shopping, and geographical accessibility have influenced the patterns of home-based e-working and e-shopping. The results indicate that the rich e-activities taking place at home have changed the time use at home and reinforced the function of home as a multifunctional hub.