Development of a methodology for estimation of ballast water operation in UK ports

To avoid or mitigate risks associated with introduction of non-indigenous species, it is necessary to monitor and understand the quantity and origin of foreign and domestic ballast water discharged into territorial waters. It is not yet compulsory to report a ships ballast water operations in any ports within the UK. 38 ports have been contacted and their shipping operations from 2003 to 2008have been collected. Despite the diverse nature and format of the data, it has been possible to develop a correlation between the amount of cargo and ballast water operations for every port and hence estimate the potential amount of ballast water discharged. The proposed methodology has been used to estimate the total amount of ballast water discharged in UK waters and at individual ports. Based on this estimation, 20 UK ports with the highest amount of imported ballast water from foreign origins have been identified.     

Evaluation of alternative battery technologies for a solar assist plug-in hybrid electric tractor

This paper looks at the various battery technologies available for use in solar assist plug-in hybrid electric tractors In this context, solar assist plug-in hybrid electric tractors are those that may be used in light-duty agricultural operations. To determine the most suitable battery, four common technologies are analyzed looking at the environmental life-cycle effects and costs.     

What Does Happen to Our Driving When We Get Older?

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to uncover the main antecedents associated with driving errors among older drivers in order to establish a framework for analyzing potential skill improvements using other approaches, for example, games. The article also aims at classifying age-related declines in seniors' abilities associated with their driving performance. The research undertakes an analysis of attempts made through the investigation of the literature. We have systematically searched papers and extracted (1) prevalent driving errors among seniors and (2) underlying age-related declines in seniors' abilities associated with their driving performance. We have also identified some characteristics of the research in this area (e.g. the research methods and geographical distribution of the research). Our expert panel mapped the functional declines in seniors' abilities to the driving errors to identify the relationship between these findings. A reliability test resulted in 81% reliability of findings. We have identified eight groups of driving errors, which could be affected by physical, visual, and cognitive declines among seniors. According to the experts' opinions, the underlying relationship of physical, visual, and cognitive declines among seniors and their driving errors were also presented. Our findings show that there is a potential for the use of innovative interventions such as playing video games to create an inexpensive, motivational, and enjoyable method that may provide a transfer effect to specific driving skills. This could help improve seniors' driving performance by improving specific functional abilities associated with driving.     

Consideration of different travel strategies and choice set sizes in transit path choice modelling

Transportation - Path choice modelling is typically conducted by considering a subset of paths, not the universal set of all feasible paths as this is computationally challenging. This study...     

应用GA,PSO,ACO算法进行水下自主运载器路径规划(英文)

In this paper,an underwater vehicle was modeled with six dimensional nonlinear equations of motion,controlled by DC motors in all degrees of freedom.Near-optimal trajectories in an energetic environment for underwater vehicles were computed using a numerical solution of a nonlinear optimal control problem(NOCP).An energy performance index as a cost function,which should be minimized,was defined.The resulting problem was a two-point boundary value problem(TPBVP).A genetic algorithm(GA),particle swarm optimization(PSO),and ant colony optimization(ACO) algorithms were applied to solve the resulting TPBVP.Applying an Euler-Lagrange equation to the NOCP,a conjugate gradient penalty method was also adopted to solve the TPBVP.The problem of energetic environments,involving some energy sources,was discussed.Some near-optimal paths were found using a GA,PSO,and ACO algorithms.Finally,the problem of collision avoidance in an energetic environment was also taken into account.     

Parametric study on the effects of pile inclination angle on the response of batter piles in offshore jacket platforms

Offshore jacket-type platforms are attached to the seabed by long batter piles. In this paper, results from a finite element analysis, verified against experimental data, are used to study the effect of the pile’s inclination angle, and its interaction with the geometrical properties of the pile and the geotechnical characteristics of the surrounding soil on the behavior of the inclined piles supporting the jacket platforms. Results show that the inclination angle is one of the main parameters affecting the behavior of an offshore pile. We investigated the effect of the inclination angle on the maximum von Mises stress, maximum von Mises elastic strain, maximum displacement vector sum, maximum displacement in the horizontal direction, and maximum displacement in the vertical direction. The pile seems to have an operationally optimal degree of inclination of approximately 5°. By exceeding this value, the instability in the surrounding soil under applied loads grows extensively in all the geotechnical properties considered. Cohesive soils tend to display poorer results compared to grained soils.     

Assessing the effect of inattention-related error and anger in driving on road accidents among Iranian heavy vehicle drivers

Extensive studies have examined the effect of variables such as demographic characteristics, insomnia, and working conditions of drivers individually on inattention-related error as well as expression of anger in driving. Nevertheless, so far no study has tested the concurrent effect of these factors on crashes. This study has dealt with indirect investigation of the effect of variables including demographic characteristics, insomnia, and working conditions of drivers on inattention-related error and expression of anger in driving (as mediation model). Next, the effect of these two variables on the probability of incidence of road crashes has been assessed among truck drivers. For this purpose, 780 Iranian truck drivers were interviewed by validated questionnaires including insomnia severity index (ISI), attention related driving errors scale (ARDES), and driving anger expression (DAX). To confirm the validity of these questionnaires, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used. Next, structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed for investigating the relationships between these latent variables and truck drivers' demographic characteristics, working conditions and their crash involvement. SEM results indicated that as the severity of insomnia among drivers increased, they committed more inattention-related errors, and also expressed more anger during driving. Generally, the results of this study indicated that with increase in the extent of experience and safety knowledge of drivers and improvement in their working conditions and their sleep status, it is possible to reduce inattention-related error and expression of anger during driving among heavy vehicle drivers.     

Robust-adaptive dynamic programming-based time-delay control of autonomous ships under stochastic disturbances using an actor-critic learning algorithm

Journal of Marine Science and Technology - This paper proposes a hybrid robust-adaptive learning-based control scheme based on Approximate Dynamic Programming (ADP) for the tracking control of...     

Determining the Scour Dimensions Around Submerged Vanes in a 180° Bend with the Gene Expression Programming Technique

Submerged vanes are installed on rivers and channel beds to protect the outer bank bends from scouring. Also, local scouring occurs around the submerged vanes over time, and identifying the effective factors on the scouring phenomena around these submerged vanes is one of the important issues in river engineering. The most important aim of this study is investigation of scour pattern around submerged vanes located in 180° bend experimentally and numerically. Firstly, the effects of various parameters such as the Froude number (Fr), angle of submerged vanes to the flow (α), angle of submerged vane location in the bend (θ), distance between submerged vanes (d), height (H), and length (L) of the vanes on the dimensionless volume of the scour hole were experimentally studied. The submerged vanes were installed on a 180° bend whose central radius and channel width were 2.8 and 0.6 m, respectively. By reducing the Froude number, the scour hole volume decreased. For all Froude numbers, the biggest scour hole formed at θ?=?15°. In all models, by increasing the Froude number, the scour hole volume significantly increases. In addition, by increasing the submerged vanes’ length and height, the scour hole dimensions also grow. Secondly, using gene expression programming (GEP), a relationship for determining the scour hole volume around the submerged vanes was provided. For this model, the determination coefficients (R²) for the training and test modes were computed as 0.91 and 0.9, respectively. In addition, this study performed partial derivative sensitivity analysis (PDSA). According to the results, the PDSA was calculated as positive for all input variables.     

Individual trip rate transferability analysis based on a decision tree approach

Transferring trip rates to areas without local survey data is a common practice which is typically performed in an ad hoc fashion using household-based cross-classification tables. This paper applies a rule-based decision tree method to develop individual-level trip generation models for eight different trip purposes as defined in the US National Household Travel Survey in addition to daily vehicle miles traveled. For each trip purpose, the models are obtained by finding the best fitted statistical distribution to each of the final decision tree clusters while considering the correlation between the trip rates for other trip purposes. The rule-based models are sensitive to changes in demographics. The performance of the models is then tested and validated in a transferability application to the Phoenix Metropolitan Region. These models can be employed in a disaggregate microsimulation framework to generate trips with different purposes at the individual or household level.