Driver steering and muscle activity during a lane-change manoeuvre

The article reports an experimental study of driver steering control behaviour in a lane-change manoeuvre. Eight test subjects were instrumented with electromyography to measure muscle activation and co-contraction. Each subject completed 30 lane-change manoeuvres with one vehicle on a fixed-base driving simulator. For each driver, the steering torque feedback characteristic was changed after every ten manoeuvres; the response of the vehicle to steering angle inputs was not changed. Drivers' control strategies were found to be robust to changes in steering torque feedback. Path-following errors, muscle activity and muscle co-contraction all reduce with the number of lane-changes performed by the driver, suggesting the existence of a learning process. Comparing the test subjects, there was some evidence that high levels of co-contraction were used to allow high-frequency steering inputs to be generated. The results contribute to the understanding of vehicle-driver (and more generally, human-machine) dynamic interaction.     

武汉市道路客运交通一体化研究

为了促进以特大城市为中心的大都市圈的形成,推进区域与城市之间的资源整合,必须进行城市交通一体化规划与保障实施。通过本文的论述,希望能加深人们对武汉市城市交通一体化建设的重大意义的理解,使他们从战略的角度重新审视一体化建设,从而获得他们的大力支持。     

FRP正弦波形夹心桥面板的等效有限元模型

以FRP正弦波形夹心桥面板作为研究对象,得到等效正交各项异性实心板,通过理论分析和数值对比,证明了方法的可行性;采用该法对一实际的FRP正弦波形夹心板桥进行了模态分析。     

浅谈SOLAS公约适用于国内客滚船的必要性和可行性

埃及渡轮“萨拉姆98”号沉船事故的发生,再一次引起了国际社会的震惊。对于“萨拉姆98”号悲剧的检讨绝不应仅仅限制在船舶安全和船公司安全管理本身,在其背后更深层次的背景值得人们反思。这场悲剧再次警示我们,对于滚装客船这一高风险性的船舶,如果在安全上存在与国际社会不同的双重标准,那只能意味着发展中国家的乘客面临着更大的生命危险。反思我国当前在滚装客船检验过程中适用的检验标准,在“科学发展观”、“以人为本”和“构建和谐社会”等理念的推动下,提高滚装船舶,尤其是省际间航行的滚装客船的检验标准,淘汰安全性能不良的滚装…     

Maritime liner shipping and the stevedoring industry: market structure and competition strategies

Globalization, liberalization, competition and spatial interaction are significant factors affecting the transformation of manufacturing industries worldwide. In the transportation and logistics industry, however, cooperation is becoming even more critical than competition in determining firms' efficiency. Cooperation has always characterized the liner sector in which strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions have generated twin effects: notable increases in ship size and falls in freight rates. Meanwhile, the stevedoring industry is undergoing privatization-driven consolidation and the emergence of global pure terminal operators. This article focuses on vertical integration between global carriers and terminal operators. We address the following key current issues:

• dedicated terminals as a strategy for cutting costs and controlling integrated transport chains;
• the struggle for supply chain control, involving global carriers versus global terminal operators, driven by financial power and technical and managerial capability.

We close analysing one of the core problems of the market, namely the evolving role of the dedicated terminals. For the pure stevedores they represent an opportunity to secure a cargo, while in the hands of the liners they enable cost stability and the possibility to put pressure on pure terminal operators.     

A study of passenger discomfort measures at the Hong Kong mass transit railway system

This note investigates the important attributes relating to the crowding effects at the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) stations in Hong Kong. Data was collected at two sets of three MTR stations to study the responses of the passengers due to the discomfort at crowded vehicles and platforms. Stated preference surveys were used to study the effects of passenger discomfort measures.     

The association of the population recruitment of gulf menhaden, Brevoortia patronus, with Mississippi River discharge

Gulf menhaden, Brevoortia patronus, which constitutes a major industrial reduction fishery in the USA, spawn across the northern Gulf of Mexico with a focus of spawning about the Mississippi Delta. This species is estuarine dependent; adults spawn over the continental shelf and their larvae are transported, by mechanisms that are presently not well understood, to estuarine nursery areas. Larval gulf menhaden, along with some other surface oriented larval fishes, appear to aggregate along the Mississippi River plume front, while evidence of the ecological consequences of this aggregation in terms of the feeding, growth, and survival of larvae is ambiguous. On an annual scale, Mississippi River discharge is negatively associated with numbers of half year old recruits. Discharge of the Mississippi River and the population recruitment of gulf menhaden may be plausibly linked through the action of the river's plume and its front on the shoreward transport of larvae. Greater river discharge results in an expansive plume that might project larvae farther offshore and prolong the shoreward transport of larvae. An indirect, decadal scale, positive response of recruitment and river discharge is possible, but not certain. Recruitment became elevated after 1975 when river discharge increased and became highly variable. This response might owe to enhanced primary and secondary production driven by nutrient influx from the Mississippi River.     

Development of Green-Naghdi models with a wave-absorbing beach for nonlinear, irregular wave propagation

Two-dimensional and three-dimensional Green-Naghdi (GN) models equipped with a numerical wave-absorbing beach have been developed to simulate nonlinear, regular, and irregular wave propagation. The numerical beach is introduced near the downstream boundary to absorb outgoing waves. An appropriate amount of numerical damping and an appropriate length of numerical beach are investigated using numerical experiments. The results show that the GN models with a numerical beach work very well in simulating wave propagation in water in a small computational domain.     

Manpower and employment issues

Overmanning and restrictive labour practices are major causes of low productivity in Indian ports. Proposals are put forward for a programme of reforms to support investment in modern cargo handling systems.     

EMS型磁悬浮列车运行阻力计算

就传统的轮机列车和ＥＭＳ型磁悬浮列车运行时所受到的阻力进行了简要分析，着重计算了ＥＭＳ型磁悬浮列车的电磁阻力，并提出了青城山试验示范线磁悬浮列车对直线电机驱动功率的要求。