Cyclone Mitigation Perspectives in the Islands of Bangladesh: A Case of Sandwip and Hatia Islands

Most coastal areas of the world are now at risk from natural hazards such as cyclones, storm surges, beach erosions, tsunamis, sea level rises, and so on, resulting from geological and meteorological disturbances. In Bangladesh, during premonsoon and post-monsoon periods cyclone and tidal surges are considered the most catastrophic phenomena in coastal regions, including islands. Most coastal island residents of Bangladesh have been facing cyclones for centuries. The present study establishes a comparison between two neighboring islands, Sandwip and Hatia, of the Meghna estuary with respect to disaster reaction and management. Based on a questionnaire survey and observations, the study shows that the inhabitants of Hatia are more aware of and confident in disaster management than the inhabitants of Sandwip. Residents of both islands in the Meghna estuary have established trust in the warning signals following the heavy devastation of great cyclones of 1970, 1985, 1991, and 1997. The residents of Hatia have been facing cyclones and tidal surges more frequently than the residents of Sandwip due to the island's geographical location. In addition, shelter management and relief management are better developed in Hatia than Sandwip.     

Factors Influencing the Participation of Local Governmental Officials in the National Estuary Program

Participation by local governmental officials is not given the same attention in the literature as that of citizens, publics, technical experts, or stakeholders. Yet, local governments are often a keystone to successfully implementing and enforcing coastal management policies. Qualitative analysis of open-ended interviews with local government officials from three national estuary program applications in New England revealed factors related to nine themes that shaped decisions to participate or not. Three categories of factors help to clarify the different types of influence agencies have over local government officials' decisions about whether or not to participate: factors associated with the character of individuals, with the context, and with the process. This taxonomy helps to clarify the kinds of opportunities available to project leadership to influence local government officials toward participating in regional coastal management processes. An important finding is that project staff should listen and learn about the concerns of local government officials and then create a process that accommodates and overcomes barriers to their participation.     

Validating the results of a route choice simulator

This paper describes the validation of a route choice simulator known as VLADIMIR (Variable Legend Assessment Device for Interactive Measurement of Individual Route choice). VLADIMIR is an interactive computer-based tool designed to study drivers’ route choice behaviour. It has been extensively used to obtain data on route choice in the presence of information sources such as Variable Message Signs or In-Car Navigation devices. The simulator uses a sequence of digitized photographs to portray a real network with junctions, links, landmarks and road signs. Subject drivers are invited to make journeys between specified origins and destinations under a range of travel scenarios, during which the simulator automatically records their route choices. This paper describes validation experiments carried out during the period Summer 1994 to Autumn 1995 and reports on the results obtained. Each experiment involved a comparison of routes selected in real life with those driven under simulated conditions in VLADIMIR. The analysis included investigation of the subjects’ own assessment of the realism of the VLADIMIR routes they had chosen, a comparison of models based on the real life routes with models based on VLADIMIR routes, and a statistical comparison of the two sets of routes. After an extensive series of data collection exercises and analyses, we have concluded that a well designed simulator is able to replicate real life route choices with a very high degree of detail and accuracy. Not only was VLADIMIR able to precisely replicate the route choices of drivers who were familiar with the network but it also appears capable of representing the kind of errors made and route choice strategies adopted by less familiar drivers. Furthermore, evidence is presented to suggest that it can accurately replicate route choice responses to roadside VMS information.     

The prigogine-herman kinetic model predicts widely scattered traffic flow data at high concentrations

The classical derivation of a traffic stream model (e.g. speed/concentration relation) from the equilibrium solutions of the Prigogine–Herman kinetic equation invokes the nontrivial assumption that the underlying distribution of desired speeds is nonzero for vanishingly small speeds. In this paper we investigate the situation when this assumption does not hold. It is found that the Prigogine–Herman kinetic equation has a one-parameter family of equilibrium solutions, and hence an associated traffic stream model, only for traffic concentrations below some critical value; at higher concentrations there is a two-parameter family of solutions, and hence a continuum of mean velocities for each concentration. This result holds for both constant values of the passing probability and the relaxation time, and for values that depend on concentration in the manner assumed by Prigogine and Herman. It is hypothesized that this result reflects the well-known tendency toward substantial scatter in observational data of traffic flow at high concentrations.     

Vehicle Dynamics Estimation Using Kalman Filters

This paper deals with the application of stochastic state estimators in vehicle dynamics control. It is often unrealistic to assume that all vehicle states and the disturbances acting on it can be measured. System states that cannot be measured directly, can be estimated by a Kalman Filter. The idea of the Kalman filter is to implement a model of the real system in an on-board computer in parallel with the system itself. This paper will give 3 examples of this principle applied to automotive systems.     

2006年美国进口车新技术一览(上)

在美国，所有进口汽车制造商都推出了2006款新车型．其中包括两种混合动力车。这些进口车也将能达到美国国产车的维修技术要求，如按照SAEJ2534标准的车载电脑通用再编程技术。本田、日产、丰田以及马自达和宝马汽车都可通过网络实现这一功能。本文将介绍一些新的技术。     

2003年美国汽车技术展望

对美国生产的轿车而言,去年市场上似乎风平浪静。新推出的车只有几款,它们分别是:用以取代“土星S”的新型的“离子”轿车、“旁蒂克·Vibe”、采用增压发动机的“PT巡洋舰”和“霓虹”。还有一些改进型的车,如“林肯·LS”和“林肯·城市”。 虽然推出的新车不是很多,但对不起,我必须告诉你:CAN(控制器局域网)时代已经来临。这几年,市场已经有几款所谓的新一代故障扫描仪,这些扫描仪可以用来诊断CAN系统。除非你已     

2011美国汽车市场进口新车型概览

美国汽车工业的复兴,不仅体现在本刊所做的有关美国国内汽车制造商新车型上市的报道中,也同时体现在众多2011款进口车型的报告中。在新的一年里,每个主要的进口品牌汽车制造商,甚至包括大多数规模较小的制造商都纷纷向美国市场推出了新的车型。     

城市水岸再开发:中国临水城市发展的下一个前沿

战结束后不久,水岸再开发这一概念就成为了西方国家关注的焦点,因为很多城市都开始考虑该如何对待那些已经变得如此刺眼的水岸区域.     

对停车改革认识更加清晰的停车政策分类方法

对停车政策类型缺乏广泛理解会导致对城市停车政策的混淆。通过对各地停车政策学术研究和实践应用的综述,指出以往的政策分类或缺乏完整性,过于简单、不准确,或无法洞悉差异背后的本质。并且没有一项研究能对每种停车政策及改革背后的政策思路进行分析。为弥补这些缺陷,提出一种关于停车政策新的分类方法。该方法清晰地指出不同停车改革政策背后思维模式的差异。通过回顾不同地区(国际和都市区内部地区)停车改革实践,验证分类方法的价值并提出改进措施。通过两个关键问题定义三种停车政策模式。每个模式对停车作为一种经济产品的本质提出不同的基础假设。通过第三个问题确立分类模式的第三个维度。新方法的提出能减少由于合并不同形式造成的停车争论偏好的混淆,包括假两难推理和偷换概念等关键替代形式。