The onset of biological winter in the eastern Weddell Gyre (Antarctica) planktonic community

Data on hydrography, phyto- and zooplankton, obtained on a transect along the 0° meridian during the Winter Weddell Gyre Study, June 1992, revealed peculiarities of the early winter situation in the eastern Weddell Gyre. The vertical distribution and developmental stage composition of Rhincalanus gigas, Calanoides acutus, Calanus propinquus and krill, Euphausia superba larvae, were a good index for a general assessment of the seasonal condition of the plankton communities. There were five zones differing in seasonal situation: (1) The Polar Front and the southern ACC (not studied in detail), (2) The Weddell Front, (3) The Weddell Gyre interior, (4) The Maud Rise area, and (5) The Coastal Current zone. In the Weddell Front, the planktonic community resembled an autumnal situation with moderate phytoplankton biomass; the overwintering stock of copepods was not completely formed and the occurrence of calyptopes larvae of E. superba indicated that krill continued to reproduce until May. In the Weddell Gyre interior, a typical winter plankton community was found even before sea ice had formed. The specific hydrographic regime of the Maud Rise (governed by the mesoscale circulation over the seamount) support the late autumn conditions similar to the Weddell Front (but without early krill larvae). The plankton of the Coastal Current was a winter community. We conclude that in the eastern part of the Weddell Front (compared to the western part) seasonal development of both phytoplankton and herbivorous zooplankton is delayed in spring but prolonged in late autumn. Furthermore, it appears that the Weddell Sea ecosystem exhibits a much higher degree of spatial and temporal variability than thought before. This may have an impact on seasonal pattern of organic carbon transport from the pelagic realm to deeper water layers and to the sediment.     

Dissolved organic matter studies in enclosed systems: Application of Hydrophobic fractionation for the assessment of organic nitrogen dynamics

The evolution of dissolved organic matter (DOM) in a non-axenic batch culture of the marine diatom Thalassiosira tumida was studied by hydrophobic fractionation during a three month experiment. DOM was fractionated with XAD-2 resin into hydrophobic (acid and neutral, “humic”) and hydrophilic fractions. The combined amino acid contents of unfractionated filtered seawater, XAD-fractions and particulate material were determined during the growth, stationary and degradation phases of the culture, and variations related to changes in dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) in XAD-fractions, dissolved inorganic nitrogen, algal and bacterial biomass. XAD-fractionation enabled the discrimination of simultaneously ocurring release and uptake of organic nitrogenous compounds: During the diatom growth there was a net increase of tolal DON concentrations, which was mostly accounted for by the hydrophilic fraction. A concurrent heterotrophic uptake of combined amino acids and other non-amino acid organic nitrogen was discernible by the decrease of their concentrations in the hydrophobic fractions. In the stationary phase, during the prevailing net consumption of total DON, the production of algal exudates could be detected in the hydrophobic fractions, while uptake mainly involved non-amino acid organic nitrogen from the hydrophilic fraction. During the degradation phase, after two months part of the particulate amino acid pool was transformed into hydrophilic DON, which in contrast to the stationary phase, was not adequate for supporting sustained bacterial growth. This suggests that the generation of recalcitrant substances may begin in the hydrophilic fraction of DOM. A slight increase of the hydrophobic acid fraction was indicative of the incipient formation of humic substances. XAD-2 was able to adsorb substances from fast changing DOM pools and thus should be a useful tool in studies concerned with phytoplankton and bacterial dynamics.     

Timing rules for major transportation investments

The timing decision for major transportation investments – when to build – typically is made without an objective approach for considering the economic value of implementation at different times. This paper uses a model of benefit-cost analysis and derives rules for timing major transportation investments. Three sets of conditions are considered, depending on whether annual benefits of an investment are uncertain and whether the objective is to maximize net present value or simply to achieve positive net present value. The timing rules under each set of conditions are stated in three forms: benefit-cost ratio, annual benefits, and implementation time. The paper compares these timing rules analytically, discusses potential applications, and illustrates them with a numerical example. Consequences of incorrectly using the timing rules are also examined with the example. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Determining locations of charging stations for electric taxis using taxi operation data

The adequate provision of charging infrastructure is critical for the effective deployment of electric taxis. This study attempts to locate charging stations for electric taxis reflecting real-world taxi travel patterns identified from taxis equipped with digital tachographs. Data for one week are processed in order to estimate their charge demand. The estimated temporal distribution of charge demand indicates that it varies day-by-day and hour-by-hour. The maximum set covering model is applied for determining the locations of charging stations. The results show that the pre-specified service distance and service coverage rate (defined by the proportion of total demand served) can be critical factors for determining the number and location of charging stations. These factors should be carefully specified by considering the tradeoff between operational efficiency of charging facilities and user convenience.     

Modelling passengers,buses and stops in traffic microsimulation: review and extensions

In the last decade, significant research efforts and technology have been dedicated to the development of microsimulation tools for a better representation of traffic systems. As a result, several commercial packages appeared and they are used nowadays in the detailed modelling of different transportation systems and operations for specific project evaluations and local designs, mostly within the urban context. After reviewing the specialized literature, we realized that most of these microsimulation tools are oriented to the movement of cars, leaving the public transportation systems as a complement, just for a realistic representation of the transportation system as a whole, but always oriented to simulate cars. In this paper, the objective is to provide guidelines on how to incorporate the necessary entities and components for a proper simulation of public transport systems in a microsimulation environment. Thus, the different approaches to simulate transit systems at a microlevel are discussed, highlighting the necessity of including stops, passengers and transit vehicles explicitly as entities within the microsimulation environment, for modelling transfer operations, control strategies, etc. Several examples are then provided to quantify the impact of such representations, for different cases and potential simulation platforms. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A route guidance system considering travel time unreliability

Under a stochastic roadway, drivers need a route guidance system incorporating travel time variability. To recommend a customized path depending on the trip purpose and the driver’s risk-taking behavior, various path ranking methods have been developed. Unlike those methods, our proposed disutility method can easily incorporate a target arrival time in the ranking process by measuring how late the travel is and by penalizing it depending on the severity of lateness. In addition, the disutility-based route guidance system can properly address travel time unreliability that causes unacceptable disruptions to the driver’s schedule (i.e., unexpected long delay). We compare the disutility-based path ranking method with other ranking methods, the percentile travel time, the mean excess travel time, and the on-time arrival probability. We show that the disutility has stronger discriminating power and requires less solution space to find an optimal path. The most important advantage is that it can estimate a driver’s risk-taking behavior for each trip purpose by using the discrete choice analysis. We construct a simulation framework to acquire the travel time data on a hypothetical roadway. We analyze the data and show how various ranking methods recommend a customized path. Using the data, we show the advantage of the disutiltiy method over the other methods, which is generating a customized path with respect to the target arrival time by properly penalizing the travel time lateness.     

Site Selection Appraisal for Tidal Turbine Development in the River Mersey

This paper used a specialist software package to produce a detailed model of the River Mersey estuary, which can be subjected to a range of simulated tidal conditions. The aim of this research was to use the validated model to identify the optimal location for the positioning of a tidal turbine. Progress was made identifying a new optimal site for power generation using velocity data produced from simulations conducted using the MIKE 3 software. This process resulted in the identification of site 8, which sits mid-river between the Morpeth Dock and the Albert Dock, being identified as the favoured location for tidal power generation in the River Mersey. Further analysis of the site found that a 17.2-m diameter single rota multidirectional turbine with a 428-kW-rated capacity could produce 1.12 GWh annually.     

Educating parents to support children’s road safety: a review of the literature

ABSTRACT

This narrative review synthesised the limited work that has been carried out into road safety education targeting parents. Parent education appeared to have a positive impact on child safety seat use and children’s bike helmet use, but results regarding the impact of parent education on pedestrian safety were mixed. The review highlighted important gaps in the literature. A key gap being identifying effective ways to engage parents of low socioeconomic and ethnic minority backgrounds. Further, another gap is understanding effective ways to engage and support parents of children with additional needs to build their children’s road safety skills. There is some evidence that parent education has a positive impact on these “at-risk” groups, but little work on how to engage with these groups and the type of parent education required.     

Running for the 7:45: The effects of public transit improvements on commuter stress

This research project took advantage of the implementation of a major mass transit improvement by New Jersey Transit which provided a "one-seat ride" into New York City for many commuters who previously had to transfer in Hoboken in order to take Port Authority Trans Hudson (PATH) trains into New York City. The creation of this new service provided a natural experiment in which some riders switched to the new route, while others continued to use their previous route. We studied psychological and psychophysiological responses to these commuting options, using a quasi-experimental, pre-post change, field research design.We found that riders on this new line had lower levels of stress, as multiply measured, than they had earlier, before the advent of this new train, or than did other riders currently using the Hoboken-PATH option. The stress effects seemed to be mediated by the time of the trip – that is, the reduced trip time of the new, direct service seemed to be a primary factor in the reduced stress to riders. Predictability of the trip was also inversely correlated with stress, but did not distinguish between the commuter groups. These results were largely replicated with a student group who rode the same lines acting as simulated commuters.     

Morphology and oxidation kinetics of CI engine’s biodiesel particulate matters on cordierite Diesel Particulate Filters using TGA

The impact of small compression ignition (CI) engine operation conditions and fuel properties on diesel and biodiesel particulate matters (PMs) quantity using opacity smoke meter is investigated. The biodiesel engine’s PMs are around a half of diesel engine PMs under the same engine operation conditions. Morphology of both engine’s PMs are also studied using a Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and image processing method. The average primary nanoparticle sizes of diesel and biodiesel engine’s PMs are approximately 34 nm and 32 nm, respectively. The result shows that engine operation condition and fuel property are strongly impact on the quantity and size distribution of primary nanoparticles emission. PM oxidation kinetics on conventional cordierite Diesel Particulate Filters (DPFs) powders by Thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA) is also successfully studied. The calculated apparent activation energies of biodiesel engine’s PM oxidation on conventional cordierite DPFs powders are lower than that of diesel engine’s PM and carbon black because of unburned oxygenated molecule. The calculated apparent activation energy of biodiesel engine’s PM and diesel engine’s PM oxidize on conventional cordierite DPFs powders with pure air are in the range of 109 ~ 131 kJ/mole and 117 ~ 130 kJ/mole, respectively. It might be expected that smaller primary nanoparticle size of biodiesel engine’s PMs and bio-oxygenate unburned hydrocarbon can promote more PM oxidation rate during vehicle’s DPF regeneration process.