处于十字路口的尼日利亚航运和造船修理业

从上世纪90年代早期到目前为止,尼日利亚联邦政府并没对航运业和造船修理业投入太多精力。一个典型例子就是,由于对这些行业不够重视导致了前尼日利亚国家货运公司（NNSL）的衰败及倒闭。1996年,尼日利亚联合货运公司（NUL）成立。但新公司的成立并     

Adapting without Retreating: Responses to Shoreline Change on an Inlet-Associated Coastal Beach

Coastal barrier systems around the world are experiencing higher rates of flooding and shoreline erosion. Property owners on barriers have made significant financial investments in physical protections that shield their nearby properties from these hazards, constituting a type of adaptation to shoreline change. Factors that contribute to adaptation on Plum Island, a developed beach and dune system on the North Shore of Massachusetts, are investigated here. Plum Island experiences patterns of shoreline change that may be representative of many inlet-associated beaches, encompassing an equivocal and dynamically shifting mix of erosion and accretion. In the face of episodic floods and fleeting erosive events, and driven by a combination of strong northeast storms and cycles of erosion and accretion, the value of the average Plum Island residence increases by 34% for properties on the oceanfront where protection comprises a publicly constructed soft structure. Even in the face of state policies that ostensibly discourage physical protection as a means of adaptation, coastal communities face significant political and financial pressures to maintain existing protective structures or to allow contiguous groups of property owners to build new ones through collective action. These factors mitigate against adapting to shoreline change by retreating from the coast, thereby potentially increasing the adverse effects of coastal hazards.     

Papahānaumokuākea: Integrating Culture in the Design and Management of one of the World's Largest Marine Protected Areas

Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument is one of the world's largest marine protected areas and was designated the first mixed conservation site in the United States due to its natural and cultural importance. It is also the world's first cultural seascape, being recognized for its continuing connections to indigenous people. As the westernmost place in the Hawaiian universe, many believe these islands and seas are the pathway that Native Hawaiians travel after death, returning to pō (night; realm of the gods). This intimate kinship has profound implications for contemporary management. Current management emphasizes integration of science, policy, cultural knowledge, traditions, and practices to create successful management strategies appropriate for both natural and cultural resources. This management is based on Native Hawaiian values and practices that incorporate observation and understanding of the natural world, indigenous principles and philosophies, cultural norms, community relationships, and unique epistemologies deeply imbedded in and formed by relationships of people with place. A cornerstone of this effort has been the direct involvement of cultural practitioners in policy, management, education, and research. This biocultural approach has led to more effective management of the monument and serves as a model for conservation around the world.     

Benthic community patterns reflect water column processes in the Northeast Water polynya (Greenland)

Benthic community patterns were investigated in the Northeast Water polynya (Greenland) during the summers of 1992 and 1993 to elucidate to what extent the bottom fauna is influenced by the dynamics of the overlying water. Five different fractions of the benthos (foraminiferans, nematodes, polychaetes, peracarid crustaceans, and epibenthic megafauna), ranging in average adult body size over 6 orders of magnitude (from about 100 μm to about 10 cm), were sampled quantitatively at 69 stations in water depths from 40 to 515 m. Total abundances of nematodes, polychaetes and peracarid crustaceans were found to be primarily correlated with parameters characterizing the potential benthic food supply (water column pigment and nitrate concentrations, sediment bound pigments and sediment biological activity), whereas abundances of foraminiferans and megabenthos were largely associated with seabed properties. Four benthic zones were distinguished by separately analyzing the faunistic composition and distribution of the five community fractions for Ob Bank, Western Westwind Trough, Eastern Westwind Trough, and Belgica Trough. This pattern was shown principally to reflect pelagic regimes differing in surface water hydrography, ice cover and euphotic productivity. This is the first time that a synoptic study of several benthic community portions spanning such a range in sizes and life styles has been performed in a polar shelf ecosystem. Our results indicate that abundances as well as composition of Arctic benthos are largely influenced by mesoscale pelagic processes, and thus provide further evidence for the importance of the benthic-pelagic coupling in high latitude seas.     

Numerical simulation on truncated oval-nosed projectile penetrating into stiffened plate北大核心CSCD

[Objectives]In this paper, the numerical simulation method is used to study the anti-penetration performance and energy absorption mode of a stiffened plate, as well as the influence of different stiffened bars on the flight attitude of the projectile body.[Methods] Finite element software LS-DYNA is used to simulate the process of a truncated oval-nosed projectile penetrating a stiffened plate, and the results of the numerical simulation are compared with an experiment to verify the reliability of the numerical simulation method. The momentum method and mass equivalence method are used to predict the residual velocity of the projectile, and the applicability of different theoretical methods within different velocity ranges is compared. The deformation energy of different regions of the stiffened plate is then extracted to analyze the influence of the initial velocity of the projectile body on the energy absorption mode of the target plate. Finally, the structure of the stiffeners is changed and the influence of the relative position of the stiffeners on the penetration attitude of the projectile body is analyzed.[Results]The results show that the mass equivalence method is more accurate than the momentum method in predicting the residual velocity of the stiffened plate when the initial velocity of the projectile body is in the range of 300–900 m/s. The ratio of the deformation energy of the stiffened plate to the energy loss of the projectile body decreases with the increase of the initial velocity of the projectile body. The effect of a T-stiffened plate on trajectory is greater than that of a rectangular-stiffened plate.[Conclusions]The related calculation method and research results have certain reference value for research and engineering application surrounding the anti-penetration of stiffened plates. © 2023 Chinese Journal of Ship Research. All rights reserved.     

Fleet deployment optimization for liner shipping: an integer programming model

Extending and improving an earlier work of the second author, an Integer Programming (IP) model is developed to minimize the operating and lay-up costs for a fleet of liner ships operating on various routes. The IP model determines the optimal deployment of an existing fleet, given route, service, charter, and compatibility constraints. Two examples are worked with extensive actual data provided by Flota Mercante Grancolombiana (FMG). The optimal deployment is solved for their existing ship and service requirements and results and conclusions are given.     

A simulation‐based reliability assessment approach for congested transit network

This paper is an attempt to develop a generic simulation‐based approach to assess transit service reliability, taking into account interaction between network performance and passengers' route choice behaviour. Three types of reliability, say, system wide travel time reliability, schedule reliability and direct boarding waiting‐time reliability are defined from perspectives of the community or transit administration, the operator and passengers. A Monte Carlo simulation approach with a stochastic user equilibrium transit assignment model embedded is proposed to quantify these three reliability measures of transit service. A simple transit network with a bus rapid transit (BRT) corridor is analysed as a case study where the impacts of BRT components on transit service reliability are evaluated preliminarily.     

Union rivalry and crew reform in shipping: A United States—Australia comparison

The national-flag fleets of most of the traditional martitime nations have, in virtually every case, been in decline in the 1980s and 1990s, despite the continued growth of ocean shipping. They have declined in terms of numbers of vessels and numbers of sea-going jobs, although not necessarily in terms of cargo carried. However, a number of those nations have responded to the changed technological and competitive conditions with some success by attempting to adjust crewing and work practices on vessels at sea. Neither the USA nor Australia has been in the forefront of such change. However, considerably more progress has been made in modernizing crewing practices and work rules in the Australian-flag fleet than in the US-flag fleet. There are a variety of reasons for this, inluding government policy. However, it is our argument that one of the principal reasons the US fleet lags behind the Australian fleet in the adoption of modern crewing practices and work rules is the much greater degree of union rivalry in the US shipping industry. In fact, while the degree of fragmentation and rivalry among unions in the Australian flag fleet has declined dramatically since 1980, their US cousins have continued, and in some ways expanded, their pattern of fratricidal behavior. First we shall discuss some of the technological and competitive imperatives that are driving human resource management practices in shipping and the crewing and industrial relations adjustments that are being made around the world to adjust to them. Then we shall indicate how the Australian and US fleets have responded to these challenges. This will be followed by a discussion of unionism in the Australian and US maritime industrics as it has devloped in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Finally, we shall draw conclusions about the impact of different patterns of unionization.     

Real-Time Fuzzy Obstacle Avoidance Using Directional Visual Perception

This paper presents a novel vision-based obstacle avoidance approach for the Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) with a PanTilt-Zoom (PTZ) camera as its only sensing modality. The approach combines the morphological closing operation based on Sobel Edge Detection Operation and the (μ-kσ) thresholding technique to detect obstacles to soften the various lighting and ground floor effects. Both the morphology method and thresholding technique are computationaUy simple. The processing speed of the algorithm is fast enough to avoid some active obstacles. In addition, this approach takes into account the history obstacle effects on the current state. Fuzzy logic is used to control the behaviors of AMR as it navigates in the environment. All behaviors run concurrendy and generate motor response solely based on vision perception. A priority based on subsumption coordinator selects the most appropriate response to direct the AMR away from obstacles. Validation of the proposed approach is done on a Pioneer 1 mobile robot.