Optimization of integrated scheduling of handling and storage operations at automated container terminals

Increasing demand for containerization compels container terminals to improve their performance. Uncoordinated scheduling of operations is one of the main factors accounting for poor performance at automated container terminals (ACTs). To increase land utilization efficiency and lower operational times, a new storage system called the split-platform automated storage/retrieval system (SP-AS/RS) has been introduced for temporary storage of containers. This paper describes a multi-objective mixed-integer programming (MIP) model that is based on a combination of multiple interacting sub-tasks. It is aimed at optimizing the integrated scheduling of handling and storage operations in ACTs. The MIP model objective function is to minimize delays in the loading/unloading tasks of the cranes and the travel time of vehicles and platforms in the SP-AS/RS. At the same time, a simulated annealing algorithm (SAA) that provides near-optimal solutions for the problem in a reasonable computation time is appraised. The results of this study show that the objective function of the MIP model is, on average, 58 % lower than that of the non-integrated scheduling method. On the other hand, the best objective function values obtained by the SAA indicate only a 3.7 % disadvantage in comparison with optimal values determined by the MIP model, demonstrating that the SAA is able to provide near-optimal solutions for the integrated scheduling of handling and storage operations.     

Robust principal component analysis via truncated nuclear norm minimization

Robust principal component analysis(PCA) is widely used in many applications, such as image processing, data mining and bioinformatics. The existing methods for solving the robust PCA are mostly based on nuclear norm minimization. Those methods simultaneously minimize all the singular values, and thus the rank cannot be well approximated in practice. We extend the idea of truncated nuclear norm regularization(TNNR) to the robust PCA and consider truncated nuclear norm minimization(TNNM) instead of nuclear norm minimization(NNM). This method only minimizes the smallest N-r singular values to preserve the low-rank components, where N is the number of singular values and r is the matrix rank. Moreover, we propose an effective way to determine r via the shrinkage operator. Then we develop an effective iterative algorithm based on the alternating direction method to solve this optimization problem. Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the TNNM method. Moreover, this method is much more robust in terms of the rank of the reconstructed matrix and the sparsity of the error.     

Research on gray system and quantitative model about the fund-raising ability to China private equity fund

It is a rather challenging project to seek the amount of funds raised by funds-raising companies. This paper is focused on China private equity funds that have succeeded in raising their funds. The grey systemic model is applied in the research and a formula is established for the law of fund-raising of the private equity funds in order to sum up the capacity of China private equity investment funds and to establish a model accordingly.     

Bivariate Constant-Stress Accelerated Degradation Model and Inference Based on the Inverse Gaussian Process

Modern highly reliable products may have two or more quality characteristics (QCs) because of their complex structures and abundant functions. Relations between the QCs should be considered when assessing the reliability of these products. This paper conducts a Bayesian analysis for a bivariate constant-stress accelerated degradation model based on the inverse Gaussian (IG) process. We assume that the product considered has two QCs and each of the QCs is governed by an IG process. The relationship between the QCs is described by a Frank copula function. We also assume that the stress on the products affects not only the parameters of the IG processes, but also the parameter of the Frank copula function. The Bayesian MCMC method is developed to calculate the maximum likelihood estimators (MLE) of the model parameters. The reliability function and the mean-time-to-failure (MTTF) are estimated through the calculation of the posterior samples. Finally, a simulation example is presented to illustrate the proposed bivariate constant-stress accelerated degradation model.     

Total losses and the peril of piracy in English law of marine insurance

Whereas the Marine Insurance Act 1906 provides substantial detail about total losses, very little is provided in relation to piracy in the said statute. The recent judgments in Masefield v Amlin by Steel J ([2010] 1Lloyd's Rep. IR 345) and then by the English Court of Appeal ([2011] EWCA Civ 24) have highlighted the difficulties associated with determining whether a seizure of the subject-matter of insurance, in this case cargo, by pirates, demanding a ransom, can give rise to a claim for a total loss. This is a very important matter which also raises issues of legality and public policy. This article examines the implications of this judgment against the backdrop of the English marine insurance definition of piracy and the intricacies of the law relating to constructive and actual total losses. The article concludes with the suggestion that possibly the marine insurance definition of piracy should tally with that in the domain of public international law, and further, that legislative intervention should be considered for the purpose of ascertaining the point in time whether and when seizure by pirates can constitute a total loss.     

Piracy off West Africa from 2010 to 2014: an analysis

Piracy is one of the most frequent maritime threats. However, despite the importance of how maritime piracy is to be reduced, it is substantially less investigated than maritime safety. Piracy off Somalia is the most investigated case of piracy, but those results are not necessarily generalizable. Piracy off West Africa has been shown to be more diverse, successful and dangerous. This study investigates and analyses piracy off West Africa with the aim to understand how different operations and security measures affect the consequences of piracy. This study has identified several different intents and shows that most attacks are relatively close to shore and correspond to areas of high ship density. Attacks with the intent of theft at night-time are generally performed close to shore, and more complicated attacks against ships under way are more common during daytime and farther from shore. Five types of measures are found to have high effectiveness if the attack is detected during approach; after boarding, only two measures have high effectiveness. Of the effective measures, it can be concluded that all but one are dependent on detecting the attack. Therefore, detecting the pirates is key but must be accompanied by a set of measures because no measure alone can protect a ship given the operational conditions off West Africa. The risks associated with piracy off West Africa are estimated to be of the same magnitude as the risks posed by Somali piracy at its peak.     

Intermodal exchange stations in the city of Madrid

The City of Madrid is putting into operation Intermodal Exchange Stations (IESs) to make connections between urban and suburban transportation modes easier for users of public transportation. The purpose of this article is to evaluate the actual effects that the implementation of IESs in the City of Madrid has on the affected stakeholders: users, public transportation operators, infrastructure managers, the government, the abutters and other citizens. We develop a methodology intended to help assess the welfare gains and losses for each stakeholder. Then we apply this methodology to the case study of the Avenida de América IES in the city of Madrid. We found that it is indeed possible to arrive at win?Cwin solutions for the funding of urban transportation infrastructure, as long as the cost-benefit ratio of the project is high enough. Commuters save travel time. Bus companies diminish their costs of operation. The abutters gain in quality of life. The private operator of the infrastructure makes a fair profit. And the government is able to promote these infrastructure facilities without spending more of its scarce budgetary resources.     

Identification and quantification of link vulnerability in multi-level public transport networks: a passenger perspective

Robust public transport networks are important, since disruptions decrease the public transport accessibility of areas. Despite this importance, the full passenger impacts of public transport network vulnerability have not yet been considered in science and practice. We have developed a methodology to identify the most vulnerable links in the total, multi-level public transport network and to quantify the societal costs of link vulnerability for these identified links. Contrary to traditional single-level network approaches, we consider the integrated, total multi-level PT network in the identification and quantification of link vulnerability, including PT services on other network levels which remain available once a disturbance occurs. We also incorporate both exposure to large, non-recurrent disturbances and the impacts of these disturbances explicitly when identifying and quantifying link vulnerability. This results in complete and realistic insights into the negative accessibility impacts of disturbances. Our methodology is applied to a case study in the Netherlands, using a dataset containing 2.5 years of disturbance information. Our results show that especially crowded links of the light rail/metro network are vulnerable, due to the combination of relatively high disruption exposure and relatively high passenger flows. The proposed methodology allows quantification of robustness benefits of measures, in addition to the costs of these measures. Showing the value of robustness, our work can support and rationalize the decision-making process of public transport operators and authorities regarding the implementation of robustness measures.     

Pressure-Based Approach to Estimating the Injection Start and End in Single and Split Common Rail Injection Processes

The deep understanding on sand and sand dunes scale can be useful to reveal the formation mechanism of the sandstorm for early sandstorm forecast. The current sandstorm observation methods are mainly based on conventional meteorological station and satellites remote sensing, which are difficult to acquire sand scale information. A wireless sensing network is implemented in the hinterland of desert, which includes ad hoc network, sensor, global positioning system (GPS) and system integration technology. The wireless network is a three-layer architecture and daisy chain topology network, which consists of control station, master robots and slave robots. Every three robots including one master robot and its two slave robots forms an ad hoc network. Master robots directly communicate with radio base station. Information will be sent to remote information center. Data sensing system including different kinds of sensors and desert robots is developed. A desert robot is designed and implemented as unmanned probing movable nodes and sensors’ carrier. A new optical fiber sensor is exploited to measure vibration of sand in particular. The whole system, which is delivered to the testing field in hinterland of desert (25 km far from base station), has been proved efficient for data acquisition.