KERFIX, a time-series station in the Southern Ocean: a presentation

Between January 1990 and March 1995, the research project KERFIX undertook the first regular noncoastal multiyear acquisition of parameters related to the carbon cycle in the Southern Ocean at a time series station located at 50°40′ S–68°25′ E, 60 miles southwest of the Kerguelen Islands. The objectives of KERFIX are (1) to monitor the ocean/atmosphere CO₂ and O₂ exchanges and to understand which processes govern these exchanges (2) to observe and interpret the seasonal and interannual variability of the production, flux, decomposition and dissolution of carbon and associated elements at this location. In addition, micropaleontological studies describe the present and past flux dynamics in this oceanic area, to improve the knowledge of the transfer functions of some oceanographic proxies. This paper presents a survey of the KERFIX program: scientific objectives, organization of the field operations and some main results obtained since the beginning of KERFIX program, as well as the results of the temporal evolution of hydrological, chemical and biological parameters.     

Evaluating employer programs encouraging the use of alternate transportation modes: Two studies

Since 1976, major Denver metropolitan area firms have been required to encourage employees to use mass transit, carpooling, bicycling, and other alternate transportation modes to commute to work. The encouragement programs of 36 firms were clearly associated with greater use of alternate transportation modes, with the portion of variance in alternate transportation use explained by differences in employer programs of approximately 15%. The effects of the programs on deterring alternate mode users from returning to solo driving are consistently weaker than their effects on persuading drivers to try alternate transportation modes initially. Recommendations for the conduct of alternate transportation encouragement programs are made, based on these and other results. In addition, two recommendations are made concerning the evaluation of encouragement programs: that aggregate percentage change in alternate transportation use should not be used as the sole measure of success, and that environmental variables such as the availability of and pressure for use of alternate transportation modes should be measured and controlled.     

康明斯2009年四季度强势反弹2010年销售额预期达到110亿美元

康明斯四季度新增现金流2.44亿美元,2009年全年实现5亿美元现金收入.这主要得益于公司在全球范围内所推动的降成本、降库存和根据需求调整产能等有效举措.     

The Arctic Shipping and Environmental Management Agreement: A Regime for Marine Pollution

Climate change is predicted to have particularly challenging impacts throughout the Arctic. For instance, there is a great probability of sea ice melting, leading to increased vessel traffic and oil pollution. Eight major nation-states have vested concerns in the potential opening of Arctic sea routes. They each have pledged to take protective action through the Arctic Council. However, there is still a need to develop an international institution to simultaneously address Arctic marine pollution and protect the needs of these states. This article seeks to design a legally binding regime for oil pollution control in the Arctic. In creating this new regime, we shall utilize several shared design elements of historically effective international regimes and take advantage of the legal innovations of these agreements. Our new regime, entitled the Arctic Shipping and Environmental Management Agreement (ASEMA), will take into account both the economic and environmental interests of the parties involved.     

指环王属谁?

虽然Audi公司宣布,同时增强了RS6 Avant和R8两款车的性能,不过究竟谁是真正的王者呢?站在公路的起始点,向远处望去,笔直的公路竟然因为热浪的缘故而变得弯弯曲曲。由于现在还未到中午,因此可以断定,这并非公路吸收太阳的热度。再仔细一看,这股热浪中,     

The Added Value of Accounting For Users’ Flexibility and Information on the Potential of a Station-Based One-Way Car-Sharing System: An Application in Lisbon,Portugal

Car-sharing systems are an alternative to private transportation whereby a person may use an automobile without having to own the vehicle. The classical systems in Europe are organized in stations scattered around the city where a person may pick up a vehicle and afterward return it to the same station (round trip). Allowing a person to drop off the vehicle at any station, called one-way system, poses a significant logistics problem because it creates a significant stock imbalance at the stations, which means that there will be times when users will not have a vehicle available for their trip. Previous mathematical programming formulations have tried to overcome this limitation by optimizing trip selection and station location in a city in order to capture the best trips for balancing the system. But there was one main limitation: The users were assumed to be inflexible with respect to their choice of a station, and held to use only the one closest to their origin and destination. If the user is willing to use the second or even the third closest station the user could benefit from using real-time information on vehicle stocks at each station and be able to select the one with available capacity. In this article we extend a previous model for trip selection and station location that takes that aspect into account by considering more vehicle pick-up and drop-off station options and then apply it to a trip origin–destination matrix from the Lisbon region in Portugal. Through the extended formulation we were able to conclude that user flexibility allied with having information on vehicle stocks increases the profit of the company, as people will go directly to a station with a vehicle available, thus making the use of the fleet more efficient. Observing the size of the stations resulting from the model, we also concluded that the effect of information is enhanced by large car-sharing systems consisting of many small stations.     

Natural Coast Protection and Use in China: Implications of Resource Protection “Redline” Policies

A significant proportion of China's coast has been developed for aquaculture, salt industry, ports and harbors, industry, reclamation, and so on. The stated target, of keeping at least 35% mainland coast in natural status until 2020, in the National Marine Functional Zoning Plan (2011–2020) is unlikely to be realized. This article analyzes the current protection and utilization of mainland coast and discusses effects of coastal over-development. The use of the “redline” policy in natural resources protection, including forests, cultivated land, freshwater and marine ecology is reviewed, and the “redline” policy is advised to be adopted in natural coast protection through such measures as total length control, buffer zones, regional control, inter-region engagement, and efficient artificial coastal areas use and restoration.     

Scrutinizing individuals’ leisure-shopping travel decisions to appraise activity-based models of travel demand

Activity-based models for modeling individuals’ travel demand have come to a new era in addressing individuals’ and households’ travel behavior on a disaggregate level. Quantitative data are mainly used in this domain to enable a realistic representation of individual choices and a true assessment of the impact of different Travel Demand Management measures. However, qualitative approaches in data collection are believed to be able to capture aspects of individuals’ travel behavior that cannot be obtained using quantitative studies, such as detailed decision making process information. Therefore, qualitative methods may deepen the insight into human’s travel behavior from an agent-based perspective. This paper reports on the application of a qualitative semi-structured interview method, namely the Causal Network Elicitation Technique (CNET), for eliciting individuals’ thoughts regarding fun-shopping related travel decisions, i.e. timing, shopping location and transport mode choices. The CNET protocol encourages participants to think aloud about their considerations when making decisions. These different elicited aspects are linked with causal relationships and thus, individuals’ mental representations of the task at hand are recorded. This protocol is tested in the city centre of Hasselt in Belgium, using 26 young adults as respondents. Response data are used to apply the Association Rules, a fairly common technique in machine learning. Results highlight different interrelated contexts, instruments and values considered when planning a trip. These findings can give feedback to current AB models to raise their behavioral realism and to improve modeling accuracy.     

Grouping travelers on the basis of their different car and transit levels of use

Market segmentation studies in travel behavior research are ordinarily based on socioeconomic characteristics and personality traits. This study explores the usefulness of a different approach, where the actual overall mobility levels across different ground transportation modes, along with desired changes in the use of cars and transit, are used as clustering variables. Using a given mode can in fact influence the personal representation of that mode, which in turn has been proven to be a key element in transport behaviours. We form such multimodality-based clusters from two field studies, one involving employees of the French transportation research institute INRETS and the other a representative sample of residents of the US San Francisco Bay Area. We find that strong users of a given mode would like to bring more balance to their “modal consumptions” by decreasing the use of this mode more than the average, and increasing the use of the alternative mode. However, concerning ground transport travel budgets, the desire to travel more (or less) overall seems less strongly related to the composition of the modal balance. The US dataset shows also a greater latent demand for travel than the French one. Socioeconomic characteristics of the clusters could not explain the patterns that were found, confirming the importance of taking into account multimodality issues in travel behavior research. Some policy implications from these findings are finally reported.