Impacts of improvements in rural roads on household income through the enhancement of market accessibility in rural areas of Cambodia

Rural areas in low-income countries often face severe poverty typically caused by insufficient accessibility to basic facilities. Improvements in rural roads are expected to reduce poverty although the mechanism has not been investigated sufficiently. This study empirically analyzes the impacts of rural road improvements implemented from 2012 to 2014 in Cambodia, highlighting local residents’ accessibility to local markets. This study assumes two causal relationships: rural road improvements have upgraded the accessibility and travel frequency to local markets, and the upgraded accessibility and travel frequency to local markets have led to a growth in local residents’ income. The hypotheses are statistically tested with a dataset developed through a questionnaire survey conducted in three areas in 2016. The dataset contains responses from 400 local residents to questions concerning their social attributes, livelihoods, travel modes, travel frequency, and time/cost of travels to the basic facilities. The quasi-experimental design incorporating a difference-in-differences design and an inverse possibility of treatment weighting approach revealed that the improvements in rural roads did not affect travel time nor travel cost but significantly enhanced travel frequency to local markets, and that an increase in the travel frequency to local markets and travel time savings significantly contributed to the households’ income growth. The results suggest that the improvement of seasonal reliability in accessing local markets through an introduction of all-weather roads could be critical to enhance household income, particularly in areas where agriculture is a leading industry and weather conditions are unstable across seasons.

     

海龙丸全回转消防拖船

主要介绍了出口日本的“海龙丸”全回转消防拖船的船型、主要参数以及总布置、船体结构、同和电气设计等方面的特色。     

评柯胡《社会、贸易及组织:3世纪至13世纪的闽南》

泉州位于福建沿海,是中国宋元时期著名的港口城市之一,在中国与其他国家发展贸易、文化及外交往来中发挥了重要的作用.目前,有关泉州的各种语言的文献记载和研究,数量还是相当多的,然而,将其置于一个较大的区域性框架下进行考察的研究还比较少见.在本人尚未出版的完成于1982年的博士论文中,就曾作过这方面的尝试.我在自己的论文中,不仅把泉州视作一个繁荣的海港,更把它看作是泉州、漳州、兴化三府区域的中心.[2]柯胡的大著无疑是第一部从此视角来研究泉州的英语学术著作.书中涉及的区域包括福建的南部沿海地区,明清时期多称之为闽南,但作者称之为泉南.     

Active Dual Mode Tilt Control for Narrow Ground Vehicles

Small, narrow commuter vehicles have attracted considerable interest in recent years as a means to increase the utilization of existing freeways and parking facilities. However, conventional narrow track vehicles are likely to have reduced stability against overturning during hard cornering. A possible solution to this problem lies in vehicles which tilt toward the inside of a turn. Two different ways to achieve this tilt will be analyzed. For direct tilt control (DTC) an actuator forces the upper part of the vehicle to tilt. Steering tilt control (STC) uses steering to control the tilt as is done by motorcycle or bicycle riders. At low speeds, only the DTC system is effective while at high speeds the STC offers less lateral acceleration for the passenger during transient cornering and may seem more natural. The two methods of control will be studied separately and it will be shown that even though the same steady state tilt can be achieved with either system, the transient behavior of the systems is very different. It also will be shown that it is possible to switch from one system to the other at an arbitrarily chosen speed with virtually no transient effects even when the vehicle is not in a steady state. Regardless of which control system is active, the driver simply communicates his desire to follow the road by moving the steering wheel and the control systems take care of the tilting either by using the tilt actuator or by actively steering the road wheels. Thus the driver does not need to leam how to stabilize the tilt mode of the vehicle.     

基于边界元和爆震分析韩国天安舰水下爆炸事件(英文)

On March 26,2010 an underwater explosion(UWE)led to the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan.The official Multinational Civilian-Military Joint Investigation Group(MCMJIG)report concluded that the cause of the underwater explosion was a 250 kg net explosive weight(NEW)detonation at a depth of 6 9 m from a DPRK"CHT-02D"torpedo.Kim and Gitterman(2012a)determined the NEW and seismic magnitude as 136 kg at a depth of approximately 8m and 2.04,respectively using basic hydrodynamics based on theoretical and experimental methods as well as spectral analysis and seismic methods.The purpose of this study was to clarify the cause of the UWE via more detailed methods using bubble dynamics and simulation of propellers as well as forensic seismology.Regarding the observed bubble pulse period of 0.990 s,0.976 s and 1.030 s were found in case of a 136NEW at a detonation depth of 8 m using the boundary element method(BEM)and 3D bubble shape simulations derived for a 136kg NEW detonation at a depth of 8 m approximately 5 m portside from the hull centerline.Here we show through analytical equations,models and 3D bubble shape simulations that the most probable cause of this underwater explosion was a 136 kg NEW detonation at a depth of 8m attributable to a ROK littoral"land control"mine(LCM).     

Estimating performance of traffic signals based on link travel times

Recent advances in communication and computing technology have made travel time measurements more available than ever before. In urban signalized arterials, travel times are strongly influenced by traffic signals. This study presents a novel method based on well‐known principles to estimate traffic signal performance (or more precisely their major “through” movements) based on travel time measurements. The travel times were collected between signals in the field by using point‐to‐point travel time measurement technologies. Closed‐circuit television cameras and signal databases were used to collect traffic demand and signal timings, respectively. Then, the volume/capacity ratio of major downstream signal movements was computed based on demand and signal timings. This volume/capacity ratio was then correlated with travel times on the relevant intersection approach. The best volume‐delay function was found, along with many other functions, to fit the field data. This volume‐delay function was then used to estimate volume/capacity ratios and, indirectly, a few other signal performance metrics. The method, called travel time‐based signal performance measurements, was automated and displayed on a Google Map. The findings show that the proposed method is accurate and robust enough to provide necessary information about signal performance. A newly developed volume‐delay function was found to work just slightly better than the Bureau of Public Roads curve. Several issues, which may reduce the accuracy of the proposed method, are identified, and their solutions are proposed for future research. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Classification modeling approach for vehicle dynamics model‐integrated traffic simulation assessing surrogate safety

To assess safety impacts of untried traffic control strategies, an earlier study developed a vehicle dynamics model‐integrated (i.e., VISSIM‐CarSim‐SSAM) simulation approach and evaluated its performance using surrogate safety measures. Although the study found that the integrated simulation approach was a superior alternative to existing approaches in assessing surrogate safety, the computation time required for the implementation of the integrated simulation approach prevents it from using it in practice. Thus, this study developed and evaluated two types of models that could replace the integrated simulation approach with much faster computation time, feasible for real‐time implementation. The two models are as follows: (i) a statistical model (i.e., logit model) and (ii) a nonparametric approach (i.e., artificial neural network). The logit model and the neural network model were developed and trained on the basis of three simulation data sets obtained from the VISSIM‐CarSim‐SSAM integrated simulation approach, and their performances were compared in terms of the prediction accuracy. These two models were evaluated using six new simulation data sets. The results indicated that the neural network approach showing 97.7% prediction accuracy was superior to the logit model with 85.9% prediction accuracy. In addition, the correlation analysis results between the traffic conflicts obtained from the neural network approach and the actual traffic crash data collected in the field indicated a statistically significant relationship (i.e., 0.68 correlation coefficient) between them. This correlation strength is higher than that of the VISSIM only (i.e., the state of practice) simulation approach. The study results indicated that the neural network approach is not only a time‐efficient way to implementing the VISSIM‐CarSim‐SSAM integrated simulation but also a superior alternative in assessing surrogate safety. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Energy Flow in Active Attitude Control Suspensions: A Bond Graph Analysis

Fully active ground vehicle suspensions which completely replace the passive spring and damper elements with a force generating actuator have required a significant amount of power. Alternative systems which retain compliant elements to handle high frequency isolation but include active elements to control the vehicle body attitude have been developed to reduce the power requirements. These suspensions are called “low bandwidth” or “fast load leveler” systems and they often incorporate semi-active dampers which produce high frequency controllable forces with low power requirements. Here, two contrasting attitude control systems are studied to show that actuator power can be significantly reduced if the actuator is used to vary a lever ratio instead of being used to compress the suspension spring directly. Both types of systems have been successfully implemented in prototype form. Bond graphs for idealized versions of the suspensions show clearly the significant differences in actuator power and energy requirements even though the abstract mathematical structures of the two systems are remarkably similar. Computer simulations confirm the analytical results.     

宋元时期闽南海外贸易中的商业活动

史书中并没有详细记载海外贸易活动是如何组织起来的.尽管我们从一些线索中可以了解当时的一些贸易活动,但很难证明其普遍存在,更不能断定它们已代表所有当时的活动.下面讨论的几种贸易模式仅仅是一些贸易活动的例子,藉以说明闽南商业的特色.……