Stakeholder Perspectives on the Value of Marine Spatial Planning Towards Advancing Offshore Wind in the U.S.

The United States contributes only 0.2% of the 18,814?MW of global installed offshore wind capacity. Lack of development has been attributed in part to a cumbersome regulatory process that includes the evaluation of environmental impacts. Assessments are based on biological, social, and technical data that are often incomplete. Marine spatial planning (MSP) may help fill data gaps. We conducted semi-structured interviews with key informants to understand (1) whether a lack of biological data impedes offshore wind environmental assessments, (2) whether MSP could mitigate these impediments, and (3) whether MSP could advance offshore wind development in the U.S. in other ways. Most informants stated that a lack of biological data in offshore wind environmental assessments was problematic due to incomplete data, uncertainty of data, and mismatched scales. Data issues may be mitigated by creation of data products and increased communication, outcomes of MSP that may benefit the regulatory process by increasing data availability, resolving conflicts among users, and providing a common operating picture. Challenges remain in integrating MSP into the processes of siting and permitting offshore wind, but it provides a strategic framework for the systematic identification, collection, collation, analyses, application, and management of data in the offshore wind environmental regulatory process.     

A technical note on evaluating the effectiveness of bus rapid transit with transit signal priority

Transit Signal Priority (TSP) and Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) are innovative Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) tools that can reduce travel times for buses. Combining TSP and BRT can significantly improve bus travel, but can negatively impact network traffic operations. Although TSP has been implemented worldwide, few previous studies holistically examined the effects of using various conditional and unconditional TSP strategies with or without a BRT system. This research simulates multiple TSP and BRT combination scenarios to understand their impact on traffic operations, including crossing street traffic. A test bed along International Drive (I-Drive) in Orlando, Florida, was chosen as the simulation area. Field data collected for this test bed, which included traffic volumes, bus travel times, and traffic signal control data, were used to develop, calibrate, and validate the simulation model. Results showed that BRT with Conditional TSP 3 minutes behind significantly improved travel times, average speed, and average total delay per vehicle for the main through movements compared with no BRT or TSP, with only minor effects on crossing street delays. BRT with Unconditional TSP resulted in significant crossing street delays, especially at major intersections with high traffic demand, indicating that this scenario is impractical for implementation. The simulation suggests that BRT and TSP will be most effective when used in areas where crossing street volumes are low. However, it is unknown how these ITS tools affect pedestrian traffic. Using optimization methods can determine the best strategy to balance transit and pedestrian traffic.     

RAPID MOLECULAR DETECTION OF METHICILLIN-RESISTANT S. AUREUS IN THE INTENSIVE CARE UNIT

Staphylococcus aureus is found in the nose andon the skin of a variety of healthy individuals,andis an opportunistpathogen in patients with loweredhost resistance.The isoxazolylpenicillin (e.g.me-thicillin,cloxacillin,flucloxacillin) have been themainstay of treatment for infection over2 5years.But emergence of antibiotic resistance(MRSA) is aproblem in hospitals due to transmission of epi-demic MRSA strains with antibiotic resistance.Ac-quisition of MRSA continues to be of major con-cern…     

A simplified methodology for evaluating alternative tanker configurations

Current MARPOL regulations for hypothetical oil ouflow and tank size limitations apply a deterministic approach which does not properly account for varying wing tank and double-bottom dimensions. Important considerations such as the influence of hydrostatic balance and tidal changes on the stranded vessel are not addressed in these regulations. This paper presents a more rational approach for evaluating oil outflow for double-hull and mid-deck tankers. This proposed methodology, while easy to apply, allows for the optimization of tankage configurations, and provides an effective means for indexing the environmental performance of tankers.     

Perceptions of new electronic media for business communication

A model of communications media choice in business organizations is formulated based upon the results of exploratory interviews and the consumer choice literature. Choice is modelled as a function of organizational characteristics, individual characteristics, communication activity characteristics, communication initiator-recipient relationships and perceptions and feelings about available media. Hypotheses concerning media perceptions are developed from the exploratory interviews and tested using survey results from two firms in the Chicago region. The methodology developed in this research provides a useful approach to exploring preferences for and choices of communication media. As a paradigm for future research, it can be used to extend our understanding of communications media usage.     

道德与海员职业--论海员培训中的伦理学教育以及道德决定的策略

引言在对海员的职业培训中 ,有关如何作出符合伦理道德的决定的培训也应当包括其中。当我们在对他们进行传统的如轮机、航海、人员管理以及通讯等培训时 ,不要忘记 ,教给他们有关道德和道德思维的基础知识同样重要。在这个竞争激烈、全球一体的商业世界中 ,我们必须承认这样一句格言 :成功的商人必为有德者。所以 ,对海员的培训 ,既应当教给他们有关伦理道德的历史 ,还应进行具体的案例学习 ,更重要的是 ,应通过有关范例的讨论和学习 ,使他们掌握进行道德决定的模式和方法 ,并指明解决问题的方向。对此 ,位于缅因州的国际道德研究院的Ｒｕｓ…     

The role of VMT reduction in meeting climate change policy goals

This article evaluates the case for vehicle miles traveled (VMT) reduction as a core policy goal for reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs), concluding the economic impacts and social consequences would be too severe given the modest potential environmental benefits. Attempts to reduce VMT typically rely on very blunt policy instruments, such as increasing urban densities, and run the risk of reducing mobility, reducing access to jobs, and narrowing the range of housing choice. VMT reduction, in fact, is an inherently blunt policy instrument because it relies almost exclusively on changing human behavior and settlement patterns to increase transit use and reduce automobile travel rather than directly target GHGs. It also uses long-term strategies with highly uncertain effects on GHGs based on current research. Not surprisingly, VMT reduction strategies often rank among the most costly and least efficient options. In contrast, less intrusive policy approaches such as improved fuel efficiency and traffic signal optimization are more likely to directly reduce GHGs than behavioral approaches such as increasing urban densities to promote higher public transit usage. As a general principle, policymakers should begin addressing policy concerns using the least intrusive and costly approaches first. Climate change policy should focus on directly targeting greenhouse gas emissions (e.g., through a carbon tax) rather than using the blunt instrument of VMT reduction to preserve the economic and social benefits of mobility in modern, service-based economies. Targeted responses are also more cost effective, implying that the social welfare costs of climate change policy will be smaller than using broad-brushed approaches that directly attempt to influence living patterns and travel behavior.     

Comparison of different structural stress approaches for fatigue assessment of welded ship structures

The structural stress approach, which considers the stress increase due to the structural configuration, allows the fatigue strength assessment of welded ship structures with various geometries on the basis of an S–N curve depending only on the type of weld. However, a unique definition and the numerical calculation of the structural stresses are problematic, which has resulted in the development of different variants of the approach. These are discussed and compared with each other in the present paper. The application to three examples shows the variation and differences in the analysed stresses and predicted fatigue lives, which are compared with those derived from fatigue tests.     

Exploring the links between personal networks, time use, and the spatial distribution of social contacts

Although the study of the role of the social context in travel behavior and activity patterns has recently gained attention, the empirical evidence supporting the relationship between social networks and the temporal and spatial characteristics of social activities is still limited. With this motivation, this paper studies the link between “longer term” (social networks) and “shorter term” (social activities) social decisions, by exploring the intertwined relationship between the individuals’ personal networks attributes, and the spatiotemporal characteristics of their daily social activities. The paper contributes to the literature by adding two key aspects to the study of the role of social networks on travel behavior: the social networks’ structure, and the spatiality of all individuals participating on the social activities. Based on data which link people’s personal networks and time use, and using a structural equation modeling approach, the paper studies the influence of individual and interactional attributes on the duration, distance, and number of people involved in social daily activities. The results show that aspects such as tie social closeness, gender and age similarity, and network density, help to understand social activity duration and distance, complementing traditional socio-demographic aspects such as income, occupation, and accessibility to services. In this way, socio-demographic attributes are not enough to explain the spatiotemporal dimension of daily activities which makes necessary to include variables related to the social context to explain with a higher level of accuracy both the duration and distance traveled to the activity.     

Transportation mode detection – an in-depth review of applicability and reliability

The wide adoption of location-enabled devices, together with the acceptance of services that leverage (personal) data as payment, allows scientists to push through some of the previous barriers imposed by data insufficiency, ethics and privacy skepticism. The research problems whose study require hard-to-obtain data (e.g. transportation mode detection, service contextualisation, etc.) have now become more accessible to scientists because of the availability of data collecting outlets. One such problem is the detection of a user's transportation mode. Different fields have approached the problem of transportation mode detection with different aims: Location-Based Services (LBS) is a field that focuses on understanding the transportation mode in real-time, Transportation Science is a field that focuses on measuring the daily travel patterns of individuals or groups of individuals, and Human Geography is a field that focuses on enriching a trajectory by adding domain-specific semantics. While different fields providing solutions to the same problem could be viewed as a positive outcome, it is difficult to compare these solutions because the reported performance indicators depend on the type of approach and its aim (e.g. the real-time availability of LBS requires the performance to be computed on each classified location). The contributions of this paper are three fold. First, the paper reviews the critical aspects desired by each research field when providing solutions to the transportation mode detection problem. Second, it proposes three dimensions that separate three branches of science based on their main interest. Finally, it identifies important gaps in research and future directions, that is, proposing: widely accepted error measures meaningful for all disciplines, methods robust to new data sets and a benchmark data set for performance validation.