Charting a New Paradigm of Container Hub Port Development Policy: The Asian Doctrine

This paper proposes the conceptual model of the Asian (Port) Doctrine to explain the successful development of top ranking container ports in Asia during the past four decades. This paper draws a new paradigm for the role of government as a third governance approach in addition to Anglo-Saxon and European doctrines by describing how Asian countries have developed container hub ports by investing in infrastructure as social overhead capital to support export-led growth. We survey characteristics and outcomes in major Asian container port developments and one European port in terms of a port development policy. The findings are presented in a comparative overview of government investment in functional elements of port, maritime infrastructure and landside connections to container ports. This paper confirms that the existing two doctrines—Anglo-Saxon and European doctrines—are not sufficient to explain the Asian success in major container port developments. The proposed framework contends that a newly proposed Asian Doctrine can accomplish this with the help of cross-subsidization, strategic and administered port pricing mechanism.     

Incorporating e-Technology to Advantage in a Greener Taxi Industry and its Impact on Driving Performance and Safety

Abstract

New technologies, especially advances in telecommunications, have had profound impacts on everyday life and brought even greater changes to some business models. Taxis represent one of the major modes of transportation in urban areas but they face a number of problems, including their environmental impacts. The status of the taxi industry in Taiwan is revealed and analyzed in this study. A new business model for the extensive and popular use of smart phones is proposed. However, it is important to know whether their use is both effective and safe. Two field experiments were executed to examine the effects on taxi drivers of using a navigation system installed in a GPS PDA phone. The results revealed that the efficiency of drivers using such a portable navigation system was better than those relying on paper maps in unfamiliar urban areas. Furthermore, performance in terms of safety was also better than those who used an on-board navigation system. In summary, incorporating e-technology can promote a taxi company's competitiveness and a driver's performance and safety as well as offer environmental benefits.     

Node-based scheduling method for easy migration from CAN to FlexRay in in-vehicle networking systems

As vehicles become more intelligent, in-vehicle networking (IVN) systems such as controller area network (CAN) are essential for the convenience and safety of drivers. To expand the applicability of IVN systems, attention is currently being focused on chassis networking systems that require increased network capacity and real-time capabilities. FlexRay was developed to replace CAN protocol in chassis networking systems, to remedy the shortage of transmission capacity and unsatisfactory real-time transmission delay of conventional CAN. However, FlexRay network systems require a complex scheduling method, which is a barrier to their implementation as chassis networking systems. In particular, if we want to migrate from a CAN network to a FlexRay network using the well-defined CAN message database, which has been specifically constructed for chassis networking systems by automotive vendors, a new type of scheduling method is necessary to reduce scheduling efforts during the software development process. This paper presents a node-based scheduling method for easy migration from a CAN network to a FlexRay network system. To demonstrate the feasibility of the technique, its performance is evaluated in terms of various software complexity indices.     

Urea-SCR system optimization with various combinations of mixer types and decomposition pipe lengths

The demand for NO_x after-treatment system has increased dramatically due to the stricter NO_x emission regulations for diesel vehicles. The urea-SCR system is one of the NO_x after-treatment methods found to be quite effective to meet the regulation requirement enforced by various authorities including the Euro-6. In order to develop an effective urea-SCR system, it is critical to establish an even distribution of reductant over the catalyst surface since this favorable distribution can increase reduction reaction and in turn, improve NO_x conversion efficiencies. In the current study, a number of design variations of the urea-SCR system which included two mixer types and three decomposition pipe lengths, were evaluated systematically using CFD analysis and experimental measurements. The purpose of the CFD analysis was to estimate the distribution of reductant within the urea-SCR system with a specific configuration and the purpose of the engine emission test was to measure the amount of NO_x reduction, respectively. The results from the systematic analysis revealed the relation between the reductant distribution over the SCR and the performance of the NO_x reduction.     

Simulation of flow in diesel particulate filter system using metal fiber filter media

Metal fiber is introduced as a new filter media in wall-flow Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) system. This technology has high temperature durability which is required for filter regeneration, and can maintain the mechanical strength even in the extreme exhaust-related vibrations of vehicles. However, the regeneration near the wall (outer layer) is more difficult because of the heat loss and reduced gas flow near the wall. In this study, a flow is simulated to determine the flow control method for the more uniform flow in all filter layer. By using Star CCM+ commercial software, we obtain local velocity, streamline, and pressure distributions in the filter, which are typically difficult to obtain from measurements. The major control factors are the filter porosity, size and location of the distribution plate, and the number of blades of the swirler. By placing the distribution plate in front of the filter, the flow velocity near the wall was increased. The optimum location and size of the flat plate were chosen. By attaching the blade on the plate the flow velocity near the wall was increased more. Therefore, the regeneration efficiency is increased by using the swirler-type metal fiber DPF system.     

Road boundary detection and tracking for structured and unstructured roads using a 2D lidar sensor

Road boundaries can give useful information for evaluating safe vehicle paths in intelligent vehicles. Much previous research has studied road boundary detection, using different types of sensors such as vision, radar, and lidar. Lidar sensors, in particular, show advantages for road boundary extraction including high resolution and wide field of view. However, none of the previous studies examined the problem of detecting road boundaries when roads could be either structured or unstructured. In this study, we developed a road boundary detection and tracking algorithm using lidar sensing for both structured and unstructured roads. The algorithm extracts road features as line segments in polar coordinates relative to the lidar sensor. The extracted road features are then tracked with respect to a vehicle’s local coordinates using a nearest neighbor filter. The proposed algorithm accurately detected the road boundaries regardless of the road type.     

Grain refinement in bearing steels using a double-quenching heat-treatment process

A double-quenching (D/Q) process is proposed for heat-treating high carbon-chromium bearing steels to improve the fatigue properties through refinement of the microstructure. The new heat treatment method has two steps: The first step is a nitrocarburizing process that results in high surface hardness and lowers the transformation temperature. The second step is the same as in the conventional quenching process but can be conducted at a considerably lower temperature than in conventional quenching. The microstructure in the material that is caused by the D/Q heat treatment is much finer than in the conventional Q/T (quenching and tempering) process. In order to quantify the performance of the proposed heat-treatment process, various mechanical property tests are carried out. The rolling contact fatigue life of double-quenched bearing steels was eight times higher than in bearing steels that were treated by conventional Q/T.     

Comments on enhanced yoking proof protocols for radio frequency identification tags and tag groups

A radio frequency identification (RFID) yoking proof scheme can generate proofs of simultaneous presence of two tags in the range of a specified reader so that an off-line verifier can verify the proofs later. This proof has found several interesting applications. However, many existing RFID yoking schemes are vulnerable to replay attacks. To overcome the weaknesses, Cho et al. proposed a new RFID yoking proof protocol and a new grouping protocol. Unfortunately, Cho et al.’s schemes are still vulnerable to replay attacks. In this paper, in addition to demonstrating weaknesses, we further discuss the rationale behind these weaknesses to provide a guide line for designing secure RFID yoking schemes. Based on the guide line, we propose a new RFID yoking scheme and a new RFID grouping scheme. Performance evaluation shows that our scheme outperforms its counterparts.