The relevance of international transport costs on food prices: Endogenous and exogenous effects

The paper addresses the problem of transport costs and their influence on food prices for South American imports. While transport does not seem to be in the focus of existing analyses, its impact on food prices might be underestimated and even closely linked to the development of commonly mentioned drivers of food prices. Since transport price formation is a function of demand and supply, drivers of food prices are also expected to impact on transport prices. The authors argue that a number of relevant factors that drive transport costs - and in consequence food prices - can be influenced by policy makers. Based on empirical analysis, the authors explain the functioning of the determinants of transport costs in the segment of international shipping, trying to describe their exogenous and endogenous components. These results are discussed in reference to policy development in the region.     

Collaborative Management of Natural Resources in San Diego Bay

This article presents the results of a three-year effort at applying information technology to the problem of collaborative natural resource management in San Diego Bay. As such, it represents an approach to integrated coastal zone management (ICZM). This effort resulted from a collaboration between the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego and the San Diego Bay Interagency Water Quality Panel for the purpose of (1) developing an environmental data repository to facilitate the acquisition and sharing of data and (2) the development of a visual model of the bay in support of the development of a comprehensive, coordinated management plan for San Diego Bay. It was determined from this study that information technology is an important and key component to ICZM but that sociopolitical factors may override the benefits of decision-support systems and should be considered at the outset of any project of this kind.     

Attitudes toward Participation in Cooperative Coastal Management: Four European Case Studies

Findings are reported of the VALCOAST project that had as one of its research objectives to ascertain: (a) stakeholder willingness to participate and cooperate in coastal management (CM), given local and national CM practices; and (b) stakeholder assessment of the "accessibility" and "friendliness" of current CM processes. The project involved case studies and stakeholder interviews in Belgium, Greece, Spain, and the UK. Major findings include: (1) most stakeholders are willing to cooperate in three out of the four case areas, but not to the same extent; (2) the participating "officials" in the case studies are expecting the stakeholders to be less willing to cooperate than the latter indicate; (3) stakeholders in all case studies do not expect to be heard by those responsible for CM, find it difficult to learn about the relevant institutional arrangements, and consider the communication of the objectives and anticipated impacts of CM policies to be inadequate. It is concluded that the strong evidence of stakeholders' potential willingness to cooperate in local initiatives is very encouraging for a devolved, regional approach to European Union coastal management policies, provided that this potential is capitalized upon in such policy processes.     

Response of carbon fiber trapezoidal corrugated sandwich structure under air explosion loading北大核心CSCD

The effects of the thickness of the face plate, angle of the wall plate and height of the core layer on the anti-explosion performance of carbon fiber reinforced composite trapezoidal corrugated sandwich structures were investigated. [Methods]First, based on the 3D Hashin failure criterion, a subroutine module of the damage evolution of fiber reinforced composites is developed using the VUMAT user subroutine interface in ABAQUS. Second, through comparison with experiments in the public literature, the effectiveness of the dynamic response simulation method of carbon fiber reinforced composites based on a development subroutine under explosion impact loading is verified. Finally, a parametric study on the explosion resistance of carbon fiber reinforced composite trapezoidal corrugated plates is carried out based on the numerical method. [Results]The results show that, compared with increasing the thickness of the blast face panel, increasing the thickness of the back blast face panel can improve the explosion resistance of the sandwich plate more obviously; when the folding angle of the core wall plate decreases from 45° to 30°, the explosion resistance increases by 1.3%; when it decreases from 60° to 45°, the explosion resistance increases by 6.3%; and whenthecoreheightincreasesfrom8mmto20mm, theexplosionresistanceincreasesby27.7%.[Conclusions]The results of this study can provide references for the explosion-proof design of carbon fiber reinforced composite sandwich structures. © 2023 Journal of Nanjing Agricultural University. All rights reserved.     

Comment Some reflections on port competition in the United States and western Europe

'Port competition' is a rather puzzling expression. This paper approaches it literally, searching for precise meanings. In seaports that contain complex and changeable mixtures of public and private enterprise, who competes and why? The answers to these questions are not conclusive but suggestive indications are found in the US, UK and northwestern Europe. Finally, we discuss what seem to be the key influential factors which may impact on the competitiveness of a port.     

Full scale ice sea trials of Korean ice breaking research vessel ‘Araon’ on the big floes near Antarctica

A speed sea trial was performed in the Amundsen Sea in February and March of 2012. The Korean ice breaking research vessel “Araon” was used to check speed performance on the big floes. Two of ice trial cases were carried out. We describe the time history of location, the engine power, and the revolutions per minute during the ice trial, and the trajectory of the ship. Additionally, the measured ice properties are considered and discussed. The ice trial results were analyzed according to variation in ice thicknesses, ice strength, propulsion power, and the speed level of the ship. Our analysis results are compared to model test results and ice trial results. A correction to the target ice thickness was used to compare the power and speed relation in the same ice thickness because it is easy to know the relative speed performance of the ship. The Hamburgische Schiffbau-Versuchs Anstalt method was applied for the correction. The speed of Araon in big floes was higher than the speed in level ice. The speed after the correction at 10 MW of power and 103 cm of ice thickness was 5.4 knots based on analysis results.     

Geographical variations in hurricane risk and legislative response

Abstract

Risk from the “natural event system”; of hurricanes varies greatly along the U.S. coastline, and so do the property and lives at risk. Damage potential from storm surge in the Miami area is less than a third that of the Tampa area. However, damage potential from winds in the Boston and New York areas exceeds that of either the Miami or Tampa areas. Passage of time since the great hurricane disasters near the turn of the century and improvements in the warning system may make coastal dwellers underestimate the likelihood of a hurricane catastrophe. But population growth near the coast has been more than three times the national average, and 10 of 58 coastal segments 50 miles in width more than doubled in population between 1960 and 1970. Twenty‐two segments increased by more than 25,000 people with six increasing by 150,000. Legislative response to the growing hazard has varied as widely as risk but is not clearly correlated with risk.     

Evaluating the impact of PSC inspectors’ professional profile: a case study of the Spanish Maritime Administration

Full-scale globalisation of trade has been accompanied by a progressive liberalisation of maritime transport. The proliferation of open registries has created a situation in which Port State Control (PSC) has become much more effective than the feeble or non-existent control exercised by those States. This study has been conducted on the influence of the professional profile of inspectors on inspection results. The objective of our paper was to evaluate the impact of PSC inspectors’ professional profile by conducting a case study of the Spanish Maritime Administration. The paper concludes with a discussion of the correlation between deficiencies detected and professional profiles.