A new efficient EDI system for container cargo logistics

There have been many efforts to develop a logistics information system in the Korean logistics industry. In spite of these efforts, there are many points which need improvement in the Logistics Information System, of which function is the electronic data communication without added value. This paper aims to describe some of the main problems and the successful factors which are being found in the evolution of the present EDI systems for clearing import/export container cargoes, with special reference to Singapore, Korea, and Japan. Following this, leaving legal issues aside, to suggest workable guidelines for designing a new efficient EDI system for container cargo logistics. As a result of the review, the following successful factors are drawn: (a) the planning, requirement analysis and design of EDI are critical, as it provides a framework for its implementation; (b) as the data of customs clearance are an integral part of a logistics EDI system, the inclusion of customs in the system design is essential; (c) the sharing system of cargo data as the framework of the logistics EDI is efficient for data interchange; (d) the EDI software for the user has been developed and provided by an EDI network operating company; and (e) to facilitate communication between trading partners and the transport sector, it is necessary to adopt a global message standard, such as EDIFACT.     

An analysis of the determinants of children’s weekend physical activity participation

This paper examines the out-of-home, weekend, time-use patterns of children aged 5–17 years, with a specific emphasis on their physical activity participation. The impact of several types of factors, including individual and household demographics, neighborhood demographics, built environment characteristics, and activity day variables, on physical activity participation is analyzed using a joint nested multiple discrete–continuous extreme value-binary choice model. The sample for analysis is drawn from the 2000 San Francisco Bay Area Travel Survey. The model developed in the paper can be used to assess the impacts of changing demographics and built environment characteristics on children’s physical activity levels.     

Short-term Hourly Traffic Forecasts using Hong Kong Annual Traffic Census

The need for acquiring the current-year traffic data is a problem for transport planners since such data may not be available for on-going transport studies. A method is proposed in this paper to predict hourly traffic flows up to and into the near future, using historical data collected from the Hong Kong Annual Traffic Census (ATC). Two parametric and two non-parametric models have been employed and evaluated in this study. The results show that the non-parametric models (Non-Parametric Regression (NPR) and Gaussian Maximum Likelihood (GML)) were more promising for predicting hourly traffic flows at the selected ATC station. Further analysis encompassing 87 ATC stations revealed that the NPR is likely to react to unexpected changes more effectively than the GML method, while the GML model performs better under steady traffic flows. Taking into consideration the dynamic nature of the common traffic patterns in Hong Kong and the advantages/disadvantages of the various models, the NPR model is recommended for predicting the hourly traffic flows in that region.     

埋地钢质管道外防腐层选材专家系统

对外防腐层选择时需要考虑到的因素进行总结后，建立了包括3大类18个具体因素的外防腐层选材评价体系，对18个具体因素给予一定的权重，对常用外防腐层的性能以及其适用条件进行细分并采用5分制打分。利用权重系数法计算出常用外防腐层在具体工程中的得分，由此比较防腐层在该工程中的优劣及适用与否。     

Optimum design of tilting bogie frame in consideration of fatigue strength and weight

This paper addresses the use of finite-element (FE) analysis to calculate the fatigue strength of a bogie frame, for the development of tilting trains in Korea. A multi-body dynamic analysis was performed to extract the load condition by tilting on curves. Using the results of the multi-body dynamic analysis and the load scenario setout in the UIC standard, FE analysis was performed to obtain the stress distribution and to calculate the fatigue strength. An attempt was made to minimize the weight of the bogie frame using a back-propagation artificial neural network (ANN). The results of this study reveal that the stresses at some nodes are near the fatigue limit in the Goodman diagram and by using back-propagation ANN, the weight of the bogie frame could be reduced by 4.7%.     

A graph-theoretic method to quantify the airline route authority

A U.S. certificated passenger airline must be authorized by the Civil Aeronautics Board before it can schedule a route to serve a set of cities. The route authority is described in a number of legal statements on a Route Certificate, which specifies the routing restrictions by which the airline must abide in offering the service. For cost considerations, an airline is often interested in the shortest flight-time routes between city pairs. This paper introduces a graph-theoretic method to quantify the legal statements in a Certificate. Through straightforward matrix operations, all the authorized nonstop and multistop routes, including the shortest time routes, can be generated. The method is a convenient tool to help an airline to generate alternative network routes as demonstrated by a case study of American Airlines.     

Global cutting-path optimization considering the minimum heat effect with microgenetic algorithms

This article considers microgenetic algorithms (GAs), which explore in a small population with a few genetic operators, for cutting-path optimization problems. The major difference between GAs and simple genetic algorithms (SGAs) is how to make a reproductive plan for an improved searching technique because of population choice. It is shown that GAs implementation reaches the near-optimal region much earlier than the SGAs approach, and the GAs give a better solution than simulated annealing (SA). The main objective was to determine what temperature distribution can be obtained from the solution of a travelling distributed heat source. The solution of the travelling heat source on nested raw plate provides information about the vertices of each nested part of the raw plate. From the fact that the initial temperature at a piercing point strongly depends on the heat flow which stems from the previous cutting contour, the temperature of all piercing points must be lower than the critical temperature after each cutting of the components of a part. The critical temperature is identified as the mechanical melting temperature of steels. A heuristic back-tracking method is introduced to find the near-optimum cutting path considering the minimum heat effect on deformation. The heuristic back-tracking method is incorporated with the GAs.     

Seabed scene simulation and its realization in extending Vega

Realistic simulation of underwater scene is always difficult because of the special and complex vision effects in underwater space. Seabed is an important part of underwater environment. This paper describes the methods for seabed scene simulation based on OpenGL. It includes construction of fluetuant terrain based on the random sinusoidal algorithm, simulation of seabed flicker effect by means of circular texture mapping and generation of turbidity effect by using fog techniques. For the application based on the leading high level 3D development environment-Vega, underwater scene simulation is still a difficulty since there is no module for it. Based on the analysis of Vega software and the research on seabed scene simulation methods, a Vega extending module named “Underwater Space” was created through developing module class and extending lynx interface. The module class was designed through developing DLL written in C . The Lynx was extended through developing keyword configure file, GUI configure file and lynx plug-in DLL. The problem that Vega can‘t simulate underwater space, is elementarily resolved. The results show that this module is efficient, easy using, and the seabed scene images am vivid.     

Identity-based threshold decryption on access structure

For the applied limitation of the existing threshold decryption schemes based on the (t, n) structure, an identity-based threshold decryption scheme which can be applied on the access structure is proposed through designing a special distribution algorithm of the private key shares. The generation and distribution of private key shares, the encryption, the decryption and the combination are introduced in detail. The validity and security of the scheme are proved and analyzed. Comparisons with the existing schemes show that the proposed scheme is more flexible.