Rural highway route corridor selection

The selection of a rural highway corridor between designated termini is approached as the simultaneous selection of line and grade of a particular alignment in the corridor. The selection is facilitated by the successive application of linear programming and shortest path techniques. A model is presented in which the inputs are terrain elevations, design constraints on overall grade, terminal grades and elevations, and restricted areas of passage. The output consists of a user‐specified number of alternative corridors, selected on the basis of minimum sum of the deviations of their representative profiles from the original ground. The model is applicable to situations where route selection is dominated by construction considerations. A hypothetical example and an actual application demonstrate the utility of the methodology.     

The development of a mobility index based on a factor analysis of the socio‐economic characteristics of households

Anthony J. Faria is an associate professor and Chairman of Marketing in the Faculty of Business Administration at the University of Windsor. A graduate of Michigan State University, he received his Ph.D. degree in 1974. Dr. Faria is a member of the American Marketing Association, Southern Case Research Association, the Association for Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, and the North American Simulation and Gaming Association. Dr. Faria has authored a marketing simulation game entitled COMPETE: A Dynamic Marketing Simulation and has published in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Small Business Management, Pittsburgh Business Review, Traffic Quarterly, Retail Control, Atlanta Economic Review, Retail Directions, Department Store Economist, The Southern Business Review, Business and Society, and the Marquette Business Review. In addition, he has participated in various seminars for the business community.     

基于Monte Carlo方法的路堤震害风险概率评价

以连云港-霍尔果斯高速公路K1125+470处路堤为研究对象, 在路堤震害损伤判别、路堤结构形式和地震动输入确定的基础上, 采用增量动力分析和概率性地震需求分析相结合的方法绘制了路堤震害易损性曲线, 评价了路堤震害易损性; 将路堤震害风险概率定义为场地地震危险性与路堤震害易损性的卷积, 并提出相关计算方法; 研究了场地地震烈度概率分布模型和地震烈度与地震动峰值加速度转换关系, 提出了未来50年内地震动峰值加速度的概率分布函数; 基于Monte Carlo方法进行了无挡土墙和有挡土墙路堤的震害风险概率评价, 验证了挡土墙对提高路堤抗震性能的积极作用。研究结果表明: 当地震动峰值加速度达到0.6g时, 无挡土墙路堤超越严重损伤的概率为65.910%, 达到0.8g时, 超越严重损伤的概率为99.995%, 说明无挡土墙路堤的震害易损性较高; 未来50年内无挡土墙路堤发生严重损伤和毁坏的风险概率为29.07%, 发生基本完好和轻微损伤的风险概率为31.97%;未来50年内有挡土墙路堤超越严重损伤的风险概率比无挡土墙路堤低7.9%, 发生基本完好和轻微损伤的风险概率比无挡土墙路堤高12.14%, 说明挡土墙可以显著降低路堤震害风险; 以路堤未来50年发生毁坏的风险概率40%为风险可接受度对路堤进行抗震设计和加固。     

Measurement of ocean temperatures using instruments carried by Antarctic fur seals

The study aimed to test the utility of instruments deployed on marine mammals for measuring physical oceanographic variation and, using this method, to examine temperature variation in the coastal waters around South Georgia. There was a significant correlation between temperature measurements made using a towed undulating oceanographic recorder (UOR) and concurrent measurements from time-depth recorders (TDRs) fitted to lactating Antarctic fur seals foraging from the coast of South Georgia. Congruence was found at horizontal spatial scales from 0.01°×0.01° to 0.5°×0.5° (degrees of latitude and longitude), and at a vertical scale of 10 m. However, there was no significant correlation between temperature measured by TDRs in the top 5 m and sea surface temperature (SST) measured by satellite remote sensing. TDR data provided information about temperature variation vertically through the water column, and through time. The UOR data were used to recalibrate the TDR data in order to correct for the slow response time of the TDR thermistor relative to the speed of seal movements through the water column. Seasonal temperature variation was apparent, and temperatures also varied between regions, and with bathymetry. These results were consistent with the current interpretation of the coastal oceanography around South Georgia. In particular, the relationship between on- and off-shelf waters showed larger amounts of warmer surface water in a region in which more run-off was to be expected. The study also showed that Antarctic fur seals concentrate their activity in regions of colder, and presumably oceanic, water. Such instrumented animals could provide near real time data for assimilation into ocean models.     

Investigation of model and parameter uncertainty in water quality models using a random walk method

A mathematical model to predict the effect of chemical spills in the Forth estuary in Scotland has been in use for many years. The model, based on the random walk method, predicts chemical concentrations in the estuary waters and estimates the elapsed time before the dilution is sufficient to render the spill harmless (making use of a toxicity measure such as the LC50 or a water quality standard). The model gives a deterministic result without any estimate of the uncertainty. Field studies using tracer dyes to measure the horizontal and vertical mixing rates in the estuary show that these rates vary over time. The literature on turbulent diffusion includes modelling applications using different parameterisations of the mixing process. This paper investigates the uncertainties in predicted concentrations due to model parameterisation of horizontal mixing and due to the variability in the measured mixing rates determined from surveys in the estuary. Estimates of the range of concentrations for a specific spill scenario are presented.The study shows that model formulation and parameter uncertainty are both important factors in estimating the uncertainty in model predictions. The uncertainty caused by the variations with time found in the measured mixing rates is found to be of similar magnitude to the differences in concentration resulting from using three different methods for modelling the horizontal mixing in the estuary. Uncertainties associated with model formulation could be reduced if a small number of longer timescale (e.g. 24 h) dispersion experiments were available. In addition, further data from short-term (3 h) dispersion experiments would give a better understanding of the distribution of mixing coefficients and how the mixing relates to other parameters such as tidal range and wind speed and direction.     

A review of the European Union shipping policy

It is the aim of the European Union to develop a transport policy that supports its economic and sustainable growth and where the concept of sustainable mobility is a driver in the development of such policy. To achieve this goal, the European Union (EU) is promoting the shift of goods to unused existing capacity in rail and sea modes. As such, it is the objective of this paper to carry out a review of the European shipping policy at a time when the EU Member-States are suffering from high levels of congestion, noise and pollution that not only affect the environment but also the quality of life of all citizens. This paper considers the development of EU shipping policy in three stages.     

关于提升上海港集装箱码头竞争能力的调研与建议

在上海腹地经济飞速发展的背景下,上海港要建成国际航运中心和腹地型集装箱枢纽港,将面临前所未有的大好机遇,也面临着国内港口以及东亚等港口之间的激烈竞争。本文就如何合理布局上海港集装箱运输结构;如何构建上海港各集装箱码头之间的沟通桥梁;如何整合上海港现有集装箱码头的综合竞争力,充分发挥上海港整体的优势等上述问题作初步探讨。     

Interagency Collaboration for Integrated Coastal Zone Management: A Bangladesh Case Study

Protection, conservation, and development of coastal resources of Bangladesh are being pursued by a number of agencies on narrowly defined subject-matter specialization like agriculture and fisheries. Coastal resources, however, have competitive uses and need to be approached holistically. A Program Development Office set up to start the preparatory work for an ICZM program commissioned an institutional review of 15 agencies most intimately connected with activities in the coastal area to assess their institutional capacity to take part in an ICZM program. The actual performance of one of the top-ranked organizations under review was further evaluated by drawing upon case materials from five completed multisector projects in which it was the lead agency. The case study revealed that institutional capacity was a necessary but not a sufficient condition for successful joint execution of multisector programs. Organizations tend to cooperate in a multisector program only when they are given full control over the management of their own components. Any arrangements short of that will not yield the desired result. An integrated approach needs to be formalized in a manner that allows each agency to maintain its independent status while at the same time allowing it to carry out its activities within a commonly agreed framework. This model contains the elements of an institutional design for carrying out an integrated coastal zone management program in Bangladesh.     

Errors in dynamical fields inferred from oceanographic cruise data: Part I. The impact of observation errors and the sampling distribution

Diagnostic studies of ocean dynamics based on the analysis of oceanographic cruise data are usually quite sensitive to observation errors, to the station distribution and to the synopticity of the sampling. Here we present an error analysis of the first two sources. The third one is evaluated in Part II of this work (J. Mar. Sys. (2005), this issue). For observed variables and those linearly related to them, we use the Optimal Statistical Interpolation (OI) formulation. For variables which are not linearly related to observed variables (e.g., the vertical velocity), we carry out numerical experiments in a consistent way with OI statistics. Best results are obtained when some kind of scale selection or spatial filtering is applied in order to suppress small scales that cannot be properly resolved by the station distribution.The formulation is first applied to a high resolution (SeaSoar) sampling aimed to the recovery of mesoscale features in a region of large spatial variability (noise-to-signal fraction of the order of 0.002). Fractional errors (rms error divided by the standard deviation of the field) are estimated in about 2% for dynamic height and between 4% and 20% for geostrophic vorticity and vertical velocity. For observed variables, observation errors and sampling limitations are shown to contribute in similar amounts to total errors. For derived variables, sampling errors are by far the dominant contribution. For less dense samplings (e.g., equally spaced CTD stations), fractional errors are about 6% for dynamic height and between 15% and 30% for geostrophic vorticity and vertical velocity. For this sampling strategy, errors of all variables are mostly associated with sampling limitations.