Initiatives in Philippine Coastal Management: An Overview

Standardized and free-format questionnaires on the state of coastal management were fielded to coastal management practitioners during three workshops and a national feedback and recommendation workshop. The most commonly cited responses were identified for each of 13 political regions and overall trends were identified. Management frameworks frequently included research, community organizing, education, livelihood, resource enhancement, resource protection, regulation, and networking components. Gender issues, documentation, and infrastructure investment were rare. The most commonly perceived environmental problem was illegal/ destructive fishing and its associated overfishing and low fish catch. The most commonly cited socioeconomic problem was the inadequacy of law enforcement. The best monitored variables were usually those related to environmental management: status and change of habitats, resources, and degree of enforcement/patrolling activities. The most common nonregulatory enhancement, aside from environmental education (which is the most popular), was mangrove reforestation. In terms of regulations, the majority of the respondents have reportedly formulated an integrated coastal management plan. In practice, regulating destructive and illegal fishing practices and then the establishment of fish sanctuaries are the next most implemented. The most popular quality-of-life enhancement strategies focused on the improvement of sustainable fishing as a livelihood and on a variety of supplementary livelihoods. The most usual institutional intervention being implemented was the setting up of local community people's organizations. Major factors which may influence success or failure of coastal management and recommendations on research, community organizing and livelihood, legislation and policies, implementation and coordination, and networking are also summarized.     

An analysis of the determinants of children’s weekend physical activity participation

This paper examines the out-of-home, weekend, time-use patterns of children aged 5–17 years, with a specific emphasis on their physical activity participation. The impact of several types of factors, including individual and household demographics, neighborhood demographics, built environment characteristics, and activity day variables, on physical activity participation is analyzed using a joint nested multiple discrete–continuous extreme value-binary choice model. The sample for analysis is drawn from the 2000 San Francisco Bay Area Travel Survey. The model developed in the paper can be used to assess the impacts of changing demographics and built environment characteristics on children’s physical activity levels.     

Short-term Hourly Traffic Forecasts using Hong Kong Annual Traffic Census

The need for acquiring the current-year traffic data is a problem for transport planners since such data may not be available for on-going transport studies. A method is proposed in this paper to predict hourly traffic flows up to and into the near future, using historical data collected from the Hong Kong Annual Traffic Census (ATC). Two parametric and two non-parametric models have been employed and evaluated in this study. The results show that the non-parametric models (Non-Parametric Regression (NPR) and Gaussian Maximum Likelihood (GML)) were more promising for predicting hourly traffic flows at the selected ATC station. Further analysis encompassing 87 ATC stations revealed that the NPR is likely to react to unexpected changes more effectively than the GML method, while the GML model performs better under steady traffic flows. Taking into consideration the dynamic nature of the common traffic patterns in Hong Kong and the advantages/disadvantages of the various models, the NPR model is recommended for predicting the hourly traffic flows in that region.     

Dual extended Kalman filter for vehicle state and parameter estimation

The article demonstrates the implementation of a model-based vehicle estimator, which can be used for combined estimation of vehicle states and parameters. The estimator is realised using the dual extended Kalman filter (DEKF) technique, which makes use of two Kalman filters running in parallel, thus 'splitting' the state and parameter estimation problems. Note that the two problems cannot be entirely separated due to their inherent interdependencies. This technique provides several advantages, such as the possibility to switch off the parameter estimator, once a sufficiently good set of estimates has been obtained. The estimator is based on a four-wheel vehicle model with four degrees of freedom, which accommodates the dominant modes only, and is designed to make use of several interchangeable tyre models. The paper demonstrates the appropriateness of the DEKF. Results to date indicate that this is an effective approach, which is considered to be of potential benefit to the automotive industry.     

Vehicle Motion Analysis in Relation to Vehicle Safety

The influence of vehicle handling on the possible avoidance of accident situations is discussed. lit is shown that accident reconstruction at present does not provide the necessary information to relate the cause of accidents to the lack of road worthiness of vehicles. It follows that the vehicle behavior in proximity of its performance limit must be determined in order to infer its accident avoidance potential.

The paper presents a review of the state-of-the-art of vehicle modeling, simulation of vehicle maneuvers and full scale testing. The application of the direct method of the stability theory is suggested as a possible means of obtaining performance limit envelopes which are necessary for establishing standards of the performance of vehicles.     

REGULATION OF PRODUCTION OF PARATHYROID HORMONE－RELATED PEPTIDE （PTHrP） AND EXPRESSION OF ITS mRNA IN A HUMANLIVER－DERIVED CE

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Information needs of the continuing urban transportation planning process

Urban transportation is identified as a functional element in the broader context of urban facilities and services. From this point of view, the relative merits of separate information systems for transportation planning and general urban planning, as contrasted to unified systems for all urban management functions, are discussed. The overriding need to make the most effective use of urban resources argues strongly for the unification of urban information systems to the greatest possible extent consistent with the special data requirements of various functional programs. The need to identify and correlate data items for very small areal units and to keep current records of the constantly shifting patterns of social and economic activities in urban areas present difficult, but not insurmountable technical problems. However, the most serious barrier to the development and implementation of comprehensive urban information systems is concluded to be institutional, rather than technical, in nature.     

An application of variance reduction techniques in freeway simulation

Computer simulation models are used in a variety of applications in transportation engineering and have become a prime aid in decision making. The applications range from evaluating traffic control strategies for single intersections to such complex decision processes as evaluating the impact of removing toll facilities at the George Washington Bridge in New York City. While it is widely accepted that simulation offers an unmatchable capability of evaluating alternate control policies, the high variance of the output variable presents a critical problem in such comparative analyses. The simulation models with high output variance must be run longer or replicated many times to achieve a desired precision level, and that corresponds to increased cost of computer resources. This paper describes and illustrates the application of variance reduction concepts that can improve the reliability and efficiency of the simulation experimental process by taking advantage of the simulation model structure. The two variance reduction concepts (common random numbers and antithetic variates) reduce the variance of the output variable by replacing the original sampling procedure with a new procedure that yields the same expected value but with a smaller variance. The application of the variance reduction concept was illustrated using results from experiments with a freeway simulation model. The results indicate that both common random numbers and antithetic variates sampling procedures appreciably reduce the variance of the simulation output measure.