Labour relations and the transfer of the Panama Canal[1]

The international maritime community is concerned about Panama's preparedness to undertake the responsibility of what many consider to be the world's greatest maritime asset, the Panama Canal. In accordance with treaty provisions, the longer within the dominion of the U.S. government and its attendant regulatory framework and policies. To a great extent, Panama's efforts to prepare for the transfer thus far have been driven by its objective of a seamless transfer, whereby the status quo (meaning the Canal's existing institutional and organizational framework and attendant policies and procedures) would be preserved as much as possible. This would assure the maritime community that it can expect the same service and cost standards traditionally enjoyed under the Panama Canal Commission's stewardship. Still of great concern, however, is the continued reliability and productivity of the Canal's labour force; the Canal's reliability and efficient performance in the past is often attributed to its history of harmonious labour management relations. This article addresses some of the critical labour relations issues that will need to be considered even if Panama's status quo objective for the transfer is achieved.     

Facing the challenge of the future by strategic planning for public transport in Germany

Dramatic deteriorations in the future development of demographic and socio-economic factors having a decisive impact on public transport demand in 2000 - 2030 are predicted. How can a reasonable public transport service be maintained under these changing conditions? Depending on the entrepreneurial objectives defined individually by each public transport company a range of strategic actions must be taken in the field of offer and performance: Advancing strategies, consolidation strategies and defensive strategies are discussed with the stress laid on improving service in order to attract more ridership.     

Bridge and tunnel toll elasticities in New York

In 1992, the authors carried out a statistical analysis of Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA) crossings in New York City, to determine the impact of toll increases on traffic volumes and revenue. Using twelve years of monthly time-series data, we developed a set of multiple regression models that estimated traffic volumes on each TBTA bridge and tunnel as a function of the toll level and other explanatory variables. In most cases, the estimated toll elasticities were negative and much less than 1.0 in absolute value; the median toll elasticity for automobiles was found to be –0.10. Our finding that automobile travel demand is highly inelastic with respect to toll rates is consistent with most previous travel demand studies.     

Carbonate chemistry dynamics and carbon dioxide fluxes across the atmosphere–ice–water interfaces in the Arctic Ocean: Pacific sector of the Arctic

Climatic changes in the Northern Hemisphere have led to remarkable environmental changes in the Arctic Ocean, which is surrounded by permafrost. These changes include significant shrinking of sea-ice cover in summer, increased time between sea-ice break-up and freeze-up, and Arctic surface water freshening and warming associated with melting sea-ice, thawing permafrost, and increased runoff. These changes are commonly attributed to the greenhouse effect resulting from increased atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentration and other non-CO₂ radiatively active gases (methane, nitrous oxide). The greenhouse effect should be most pronounced in the Arctic where the largest air CO₂ concentrations and winter–summer variations in the world for a clean background environment were detected. However, the air–land–shelf interaction in the Arctic has a substantial impact on the composition of the overlying atmosphere; as the permafrost thaws, a significant amount of old terrestrial carbon becomes available for biogeochemical cycling and oxidation to CO₂. The Arctic Ocean's role in determining regional CO₂ balance has been ignored, because of its small size (only  4% of the world ocean area) and because its continuous sea-ice cover is considered to impede gaseous exchange with the atmosphere so efficiently that no global climate models include CO₂ exchange over sea-ice. In this paper we show that: (1) the Arctic shelf seas (the Laptev and East-Siberian seas) may become a strong source of atmospheric CO₂ because of oxidation of bio-available eroded terrestrial carbon and river transport; (2) the Chukchi Sea shelf exhibits the strong uptake of atmospheric CO₂; (3) the sea-ice melt ponds and open brine channels form an important spring/summer air CO₂ sink that also must be included in any Arctic regional CO₂ budget. Both the direction and amount of CO₂ transfer between air and sea during open water season may be different from transfer during freezing and thawing, or during winter when CO₂ accumulates beneath Arctic sea-ice; (4) direct measurements beneath the sea ice gave two initial results. First, a drastic pCO₂ decrease from 410 μatm to 288 μatm, which was recorded in February–March beneath the fast ice near Barrow using the SAMI-CO₂ sensor, may reflect increased photosynthetic activity beneath sea-ice just after polar sunrise. Second, new measurements made in summer 2005 beneath the sea ice in the Central Basin show relatively high values of pCO₂ ranging between 425 μatm and 475 μatm, values, which are larger than the mean atmospheric value in the Arctic in summertime. The sources of those high values are supposed to be: high rates of bacterial respiration, import of the Upper Halocline Water (UHW) from the Chukchi Sea (CS) where values of pCO₂ range between 400 and 600 μatm, a contribution from the Lena river plume, or any combination of these sources.     

Parameters Optimization for HEV Based on Simulated Annealing Particle Swarm Algorithm

分别采用多层次参数扫描(MLPS)算法和模拟退火粒子群优化(SAPSO)算法对并联式混合动力车逻辑门限控制策略的参数进行优化.将优化后的车辆以TEST-CITY-HWY测试循环进行仿真,并将结果与优化前的车辆的仿真结果进行对比.结果表明,经MLPS算法优化后,燃油消耗和HC与NOx排放分别下降了11.98％、6.01％和4.03％,但CO排放增加了25.18％;经SAPSO算法优化后,燃油消耗和HC、CO与NOx排放分别下降了13.61％、9.57％、27.78％和18.53％,且电池荷电状态(SOC)比MLPS优化略高.说明SAPSO算法在混合动力车控制参数优化效果上明显优于MLPS算法.     

海拔对铁路隧道内瞬变压力及车厢内乘坐舒适性的影响

利用计算流体力学软件FLUENT,基于三维可压缩、黏性、非定常流场数值模拟方法,建立隧道-空气-列车三维数值仿真模型.针对高海拔地区隧道空气动力学效应,研究列车以300 km/h的速度运行通过不同海拔隧道时产生的隧道内瞬变压力及车体表面瞬变压力的变化特征,分析大气压和温度等因素对瞬变压力的影响规律,得到海拔高度与瞬变压...     

The role of children’s independent mobility and social media use for face-to-face social interaction with friends

Transportation - Social interaction with friends is an important contributor to children’s well-being, but how transport affects this is rarely studied. For two or more children (not of the...     

政府干预与政策竞争:欧盟阻止船舶移籍的经验及其对中国的启示

从政策选择上对如何阻止长期以来困扰国际海运业的船舶移籍问题进行探讨，基于对国内外船舶移籍现状及其发展过程的分析，深入分析了欧盟成员国在阻止船舶移籍方面所采取的政府干预与政策竞争策略，指出了中国改善船舶移籍状况的政策取向。     

办公自动化环境下公文管理的Petri网模型

办公自动化系统是实现企业内部各部门之间办公信息的收集与处理、流动与共享、实现科学决策的信息系统.公文管理作为企业办公自动化系统的核心涉及到几乎所有的部门,文中在分析公文管理特点的基础上,以Petri网为描述手段,建立了企业办公自动化环境下收发文过程的Petri网模型,并利用矩阵方程对其进行了相关的分析和验证.