Blue growth and ocean governance—how to balance the use and the protection of the seas

The economic value of the oceans and maritime industry is strongly gaining in importance. As the oceans are very large and particularly sensitive ecosystems, which need to be preserved, a balance between the use and the protection of the seas has to be found. On this issue, the paper presents some thoughts starting with a brief analysis of what to understand by maritime industry which is labeled as blue economy, and a recapitulation of the main threats for the marine environment, caused by blue economy. After that, some noteworthy prerequisites and criteria for finding a sound balance between the use and the protection of the seas will be highlighted, especially the need for sustainable ocean governance is put to discussion.     

The influence of parents’ travel patterns,perceptions and residential self-selectivity to their children travel mode shares

Using the UK National Travel Survey from 2002 to 2006, this paper investigates the influence of households’ residential self-selectivity, parents’ perceptions on accessibilities and their travel patterns on their children daily travel mode share. In doing this, this study introduces a model structure that represents the complex interactions between the parents’ travel patterns, their perceptions on public transport services and their reported residential self-selectivity reasons and the children travel mode shares. This structure is analysed with structural equation modelling. The model estimation results show that parents’ residential self-selectivity, parents’ perceptions and satisfactions on accessibilities and their daily travel patterns significantly influence the children’s daily travel mode shares. However, the effects are not uniform across household members. This study has revealed that households’ residential self-selectivity behaviours have more correlations with the children’s non-motorised mode shares, whilst the parents’ perceptions and satisfactions on transport infrastructure and public transport service qualities have more correlations with parents’ mode shares. The results also confirm that parents’ non-motorised modes use in travelling is highly correlated with the children’s physically active travel mode shares. However, at the same time, the results also show that the effects of mothers’ car use to the children travel mode shares is more apparent than fathers’.     

Effects of task complexity and time pressure on activity-travel choices: heteroscedastic logit model and activity-travel simulator experiment

This paper derives, estimates and applies a discrete choice model of activity-travel behaviour that accommodates potential effects of task complexity and time pressure on decision-making. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that both factors (task complexity and time pressure) are jointly captured in a discrete choice model. More specifically, our heteroscedastic logit model captures potential impacts of task complexity and time pressure through the scale of the utility of activity-travel options. We collect data using a novel activity-travel simulator experiment that has been specifically designed with the aim of testing our model. Results are in line with expectations, in that higher levels of task complexity and time pressure are found to result in a smaller scale of utility. In other words, higher levels of task complexity and time pressure lead to more random choice behaviour and as a consequence to less pronounced differences in choice probabilities between alternatives. An empirical illustration suggests that choice probability-differences between models that do and those that do not capture these effects, can be very substantial; this in turn suggests that failing to capture the effects of task complexity and time pressure in discrete choice models of activity travel decision-making might lead to serious bias in forecasts of the effects of transport policies.     

The digital revolution and worthwhile use of travel time: implications for appraisal and forecasting

Savings in travel time and more specifically their monetary value typically constitute the main benefit to justify major investment in transport schemes. However, worthwhile use of travel time is an increasingly prominent phenomenon of the digital age. Accordingly, questions are increasingly being asked regarding whether values of time used by countries around the world based on their appraisal approaches are too high. This paper offers the most comprehensive examination of our theoretical and empirical understandings of international appraisal approaches and how they account for worthwhile use of travel time. It combines the economics perspective with wider social science insight and reaches the conclusion that past revolutions in transport that have made longer and quicker journeys possible are now joined by a digital revolution that is reducing the disutility of travel time. This revolution offers potential economic benefit that comes at a fraction of the cost of major investments in transport that are predicated on saving travel time. The paper highlights the challenges faced in both current and indeed potential alternative future appraisal approaches. Such challenges are rooted in the difficulty of measuring time use and productivity with sufficient accuracy and over time to credibly account for how travel time factors into the economic outcomes from social and working practices in the knowledge economy. There is a need for further research to: establish how improvements in the opportunities for and the quality of worthwhile use of travel time impact on the valuation of travel time savings for non-business travel; improve our understanding of how productive use of time impacts on the valuation of time savings for business travellers; and estimate how these factors have impacted on the demand for different modes of travel.     

Integral transform solution for fluid force investigation of a flexible circular cylinder subject to vortex-induced vibrations

In the present paper, fluid force distribution of a long flexible cylinder subject to vortex-induced vibrations is investigated by Generalized Integral Transform Technique (GITT). This method is using experimental response data as input, and then implementing GITT to transfer the governing differential equations to ordinary differential equations. Therefore, the selection of truncation order could be analyzed to avoid the error induced by the high-mode response. Once each mode contribution of fluid force is obtained, the analytical inversion transfer recovers the fluid force. An experiment was carried out in a towing tank and the experimental response was accurately measured and used as input, then GITT was performed to calculate the fluid force distribution of the long flexible cylinder. The comparison between the numerical results from GITT and the experimental results from load cell verified the capability and availability of the proposed method. If one can use this method for lower modes, then one certainly can extend the method for higher modes. Two experimental cases from the literature were evaluated and good agreement was obtained based on the spatio-temporal evolutions of the lift coefficient and the mode numbers. Since this method is easy to implement, it could be an alternative method to investigate fluid force of such slender structures.     

Experimental study on piston- and sloshing- mode moonpool resonances

An experimental study was performed on the piston- and sloshing-mode moonpool resonances of offshore structures. Two different geometries were considered to investigate the flow characteristics in a plain moonpool and a moonpool with a cofferdam. To examine the efficiency of a cofferdam for reducing the flow in a moonpool, three cofferdam geometries were tested. The plain moonpool presented violent flows as a result of the piston- and sloshing-mode resonances. However, the moonpool with the cofferdam introduced violent sloshing waves instead of the ascent and descent of the water column in the piston-mode moonpool resonance. Among three different cofferdam geometries, the model with a right triangle facing to the left on the top of the cofferdam was most effective in reducing the flow in the moonpool when compared with the other models.     

Motion response prediction by hybrid panel-stick models for a semi-submersible with bracings

A diffraction-radiation analysis is usually required when the hydrodynamic interactions between structural members occur in short waves. For bracings or small cylindrical members, which play important roles in the vicinity of the natural frequency of a floating platform, special care should be taken into account for the effect of viscous damping. Two hybrid panel-stick models are, therefore, developed, through the combination of the standard diffraction-radiation method and the Morison’s formulae, considering the effect of small members differently. The fluid velocity is obtained directly by the panel model. The viscous fluid force is calculated for individual members by the stick model. A semi-submersible type platform with a number of fine cylindrical structures, which is designed as a floating foundation for multiple wind turbines, is analyzed as a numerical example. The results show that viscous force has significant influence on the hydrodynamic behavior of the floating body and can successfully be considered by the proposed hybrid models.     

海浪水压场的混沌特性分析及预测模型

海浪水压场作为水中兵器水压引信最严重的干扰源,对其混沌特性进行研究具有极为重要的意义.依据判断系统是否具有混沌特性的2个重要指标:关联维数和最大Lyapunov指数,分别通过G-P算法和小数据量的Wolf算法进行了计算.对一定数量的海浪水压场数据所进行的计算表明,海浪水压场具有分数的关联维数和正的Lyapunov指数,表现出明显的混沌特性.在此基础上依据混沌信号的相空间重构理论使用支持向量机对海浪水压场进行了预测建模,结果表明非线性混沌模型较常规的线性AR模型具有更高的预测精度.     

铁路轨检车轴箱振动加速度消趋方法的比较

振动测量数据中往往包含了趋势项,这些趋势项对数据的分析会产生很大的影响,尤其在积分过程中,这种影响会进一步放大,所以消除趋势项是数据分析的基本前提。对包含在轴箱加速度中的趋势项进行消除,并进行双积分以达到与轨面高低不平顺进行比较的目的,采用了三种消趋方法进行对比分析的方式,三种消除趋势项的方法（多项式拟合消趋,滤波消趋及小波消趋）对实测数据的分析结果为：多项式拟合消趋不适于轴箱加速度的积分分析,而滤波消趋与小波消趋能适于这种分析,进一步,从波形包络来看,小波消趋与原波形最接近。最后提出了适合于轴箱加速度分析的消趋方法及其相关参数值。