Response-based extreme value analysis of moored offshore structures due to wave, wind, and current

Floating moored offshore structures have a significant future in offshore operations as an attractive economic alternative to fixed structures in deep waters and/or in areas where there is no existing infrastructure. This paper describes an analysis procedure based on the structure variable approach to estimate load and response values of a moored offshore platform at a given return period by taking into account the joint occurrence of wave, wind, and current. The results show that the most severe mooring loads may not occur when wind, wave, and current are collinear and are at their maximum design values, i.e., the 50- or 100-year case. It is recommended that the extreme mooring design loads for moored offshore systems should be determined through a range of physical or numerical simulations where wave, wind, and current are noncollinear and act with less severe magnitudes than the 50- or 100-year case. This recommendation has also been adopted in the ITTC/Ocean Engineering Committee recommendations to the ITTC Conference held in September 1996.     

Safety Evaluation for Freeway Exit Ramp Based on Speed Consistency

Speed differential has direct relationship with road safety. Conventional speed consistency measures draw sample data from independent population that follows a normal distribution. These methods may fall into ecological fallacy and overestimate the safety level of road elements. After deducing the relationship between the difference in operating speed ΔV₈₅ and85(ΔV), the 85^th percentile value of individual speed reduction, this paper recommends 85(ΔV) and speed reduction rate 85(ΔV)R is used to evaluate ramp safety. Point speeds of individual vehicle at freeway diverge area, upper ramp, and lower ramp are collected by radar guns. Safety performance of 37 exit ramps are appraised using three different measures, namely, ΔV₈₅, 85(ΔV), and 85(ΔV)R. The results show that 85(ΔV) is 1.42 to 2.02 times of ΔV₈₅, and that the evaluation result of 85(ΔV)R is between the other two. The measure 85(ΔV)R considers not only individual speed but also the base speed on upstream element, which avoid the pitfalls of ecological fallacy and overestimation possessed by conventional measures. It is a safer and reasonable measure that should be adopted in practice.     

Optimal Threshold Policies for Robust Data Center Control

With the simultaneous rise of energy costs and demand for cloud computing, efficient control of data centers becomes crucial. In the data center control problem, one needs to plan at every time step how many servers to switch on or off in order to meet stochastic job arrivals while trying to minimize electricity consumption. This problem becomes particularly challenging when servers can be of various types and jobs from different classes can only be served by certain types of server, as it is often the case in real data centers. We model this problem as a robust Markov decision process (i.e., the transition function is not assumed to be known precisely). We give sufficient conditions (which seem to be reasonable and satisfied in practice) guaranteeing that an optimal threshold policy exists. This property can then be exploited in the design of an efficient solving method, which we provide. Finally, we present some experimental results demonstrating the practicability of our approach and compare with a previous related approach based on model predictive control.     

Characteristics of premium transit services that affect mode choice

This research seeks to improve the understanding of the full range of determinants for mode choice behavior and to offer practical solutions to practitioners on representing and distinguishing these characteristics in travel demand forecasting models. The principal findings were that the representation of awareness of transit services is significantly different than the underlying assumption of mode choice and forecasting models that there is perfect awareness and consideration of all modes. Furthermore, inclusion of non-traditional transit attributes and attitudes can improve mode choice models and reduce bias constants. Additional methods and analyses are necessary to bring these results into practice. The work is being conducted in two phases. This paper documents the results of Phase I, which included data collection for one case study city (Salt Lake City), research and analysis of non-traditional transit attributes in mode choice models, awareness of transit services, and recommendations for bringing these analyses into practice. Phase II will include data collection for two additional case study cities (Chicago and Charlotte) with minor modifications based on limitations identified in Phase I, additional analyses where Phase I results indicated a need, and a demonstration of the research in practice for at least one case study city.     

A ship's flag—who cares?

Over 60% of ocean trade moves in ships with convenience flags, those of Liberia, Panama, Cyprus and others. Semi-detached flags of Norway, France and the UK are another of the growing devices for avoiding rich-country taxes and labour costs. Shipowners and their customers see little hope for change (taxes and labour) in their political climates at home, but they need some workable governing structure to assure safety, payment of bills, protection of the environment and decent service. It follows that all maritime nations, especially the USA and Canada, should pay more attention to the creation and observance of International Conventions.