Scheduling short-term marine transport of bulk products

A multinational company uses a personal computer to schedule a fleet of coastal tankers and barges transporting liquid bulk products among plants, distribution centres (tank farms), and industrial customers. A simple spreadsheet interface cloaks a sophisticated optimization-based decision support system and makes this system useable via a varity of natural languages. The dispatchers, whose native language is not English, and some of whom presumably speak no English at all, communicate via the spreadsheet, and view recommended schedules displayed in Gantt charts both internationally familiar tools. Inside the spreadsheet, a highly detailed simulation can generate every feasible alternate vessel employment schedule, and an integer linear set partitioning model selects one schedule for each vessel so that all loads and deliveries are completed at minimal cost while satisfying all operational requirements. The optimized fleet employment schedule is displyed graphically with hourly time resolution over a planning horizon of 2-3 weeks. Each vessel will customarily make several voyages and many port calls to load and unload products during this time.     

The commercialization of East European liner shipping: the experience of Poland

This paper will examine the impact of continuous and increasing change in the shipping sector of Eastern Europe with particular reference to the liner sector in Poland one of the more dynamic markets that has emerged since the political, economic and social changes of the late 1980s. Polish Ocean Lines, and in particular POL Levant, a relatively new, commercialized subsidiary operating in the private sector, are taken as case studies to assess the new structures that are emerging in the marketplace.     

Experimental study of drillship resistance performance in open and closed state of moonpool北大核心CSCD

[Objective] This paper carries out an experimental study of a multi-function dirllship model with moonpool structure in towing tank, aiming at analyzing the effects of the moonpool structure on the ship resistance in open and closure condition.[Methods]Taking a dirllship as the research object, the ship motion response in regular and irregular waves is investigated. The resistance of the ship in hydrostatic water and waves is measured with tension sensors, and the acceleration characteristics of the bow, midship and stern are analyzed by acceleration sensors.[Results]The results indicate that hull resistance under light load conditions is greater when open moonpool, while hydrostatic water resistance with closed moonpool is greater under design load conditions. The closed moonpool in regular waves reduces stern acceleration by 58.2%, bow resistance by 46.7% and heave response by 41.8%. The peak of resistance at the bow in irregular waves is about ten times higher than that at the stern, and the peak of resistance occurs more often when the moonpool is open at the same time.[Conclusions]The experimental study shows that the difference in load conditions changes the waterplane area and affects the hull resistance in hyrostatic water. In contrast, the closure of the moonpool not only reduces acceleration and resistance, but also improves surge and heave. As such, this paper can provide references for the structural design of drillships with moonpools. © 2023 Journal of Nanjing Agricultural University. All rights reserved.     

大鼠角膜移植排斥反应中体液免疫作用的研究

测定30例PVG-PVG和40例LEW-PWG角膜移植术前、术后血清、房水和泪液Ig和C3含量。结果表明，泪液和房水IgG含量异常升高与角膜移植排斥反应显著相关。初步建立了大鼠角膜移植术后无排斥反应发生时泪液IgG含量变化的定量关系，提出预测角膜移植术后排斥反应发生的一种辅助方法。     

Effect of fatigue strain range on properties of high-strength structural steel

Ship hulls are built with stiffened steel plates and experience continuous fatigue load cycles when in service. Mechanical properties of the steel are expected to change due to the application of these cyclic loads. Therefore, the mechanical properties of the material at various levels of fatigue damage need to be understood. This paper presents two test series that were conducted to determine the effect of two different strain ranges (2000 and 3000 micro strains) of fatigue cycles on the mechanical properties of high-strength structural steel. The test results indicate that the cycle-dependent behaviours of the material can cause a slight increase or a significant decrease in the yield strength when compared to its virgin state. However, the ductility of the steel does not change much as the strain cycle increases.     

Quasi-two-dimensional flow on the polar β-plane: Laboratory experiments

Geophysical turbulence is strongly affected by the variation of the Coriolis parameter with latitude. This variation results in the so-called β-effect, which forces energy from small-scales to be transferred preferentially into zonal motions. This effect results in the formation of narrow jet-like zonal flows that dominate the dynamics and act as transport barriers. Here, laboratory experiments are used to reproduce this effect in decaying turbulent flows. An electromagnetic cell is used to generate an initial field of vorticity in a rotating tank. Under conditions of quasi-geostrophic flow, the β-effect is produced by depth variation of the flow instead of variation of the Coriolis parameter. The effects of changing the container geometry and the overall fluid depth on the production of jets are investigated. The results suggest that this laboratory configuration can be used to model jet formation in the oceans and that increasing fluid depth is a practical way to decrease viscous effects.     

Hydroelastic slamming

An overview of the many water-impact (slamming) problems in ship and ocean engineering is given. Theoretical and experimental drop tests of horizontal and nearly horizontal elastic plates are reviewed. It is shown that maximum pressure cannot be used to estimate maximum slamming-induced stresses when maximum pressure is large, because dynamic hydroelastic effects then become important. Further, the significance of hydroelasticity increases with decreasing dead-rise angle, increasing impact velocity, and increasing the value of the highest local natural period of the structure. It is emphasized that the slamming problem must be hydrodynamically studied from a structural point of view. Comparisons between theory and full-scale measurements of slamming-induced local strains in the wet-deck of a catamaran are presented. The importance of the rigid body vertical accelerations and the influence of the side-hulls on the impact velocity are pointed out. Received: October 4, 2000     

Nutrient cycling and primary production in the marine systems of the Arctic and Antarctic

Primary production events in both the Arctic and the Antarctic are highly localized. Carbon-14 incubations that did not account for this caused antarctic primary production estimates to be revised too far downwards from the historic view of high productivity. The primary production regime in the Arctic is even more heterogeneous than in the Antarctic. Arctic primary production rates are in the process of being revised upwards because of a better spatial and temporal distribution of incubation experiments and a re-awakening of interest in estimating new production from the distribution of chemical variables. Similarly, recent examination of temporal changes in nitrate concentrations and recognition of the importance of ice-edge blooms has caused antarctic primary productivity to be revised upwards. In both the Arctic and the Antarctic, the ratio of “new” to total primary production is high, and neglect of this fact can lead to an underestimation of the potential that these regions have for influencing global cycles of bioactive chemicals. Some recent data on temporal changes in nitrate from Fram Strait emphasize the poor state of our knowledge by suggesting an unexpectedly high “new” production rate of 1 g C m⁻² d⁻¹ for a 35 day experiment that encountered an early Phaeocystis bloom. Chemical distributions suggest that new production over the shelf seas that border the Polar Basin is about 50 g Cm⁻² yr⁻¹.The shelves in the Arctic Ocean's marginal and adjacent seas comprise 25% of the total global continental shelf. These extensive shallow regions have much higher rates of primary production than the Polar Basin and may be globally significant sites of denitrification. Globally significant silica deposition could occur on these shelves or on the adjacent slopes.Because of the differences in geomorphology and stratification, global warming is likely to increase primary production in the Arctic and will probably decrease antarctic primary production.In addition to sharing high ratios of “new” to total primary production, high ammonium concentrations occur in the Arctic and Antarctic. It is possible that these accumulations arise from a strong repression of nitrification at low temperatures.