Research on techniques to improve accuracy in SBL locating systems

Short baseline system （SBL）, which is a kind of underwater acoustic locating technology, has widely applicable value. In order to examine the capability of ship model design, the ship model experimentation should have high accuracy. This paper focuses on the key techniques of high accuracy locating system, including high accuracy sub-array position emendation, divisional locating, anti multi-path interference measure, etc. Experiments show that the SBL locating systems has received the satisfying effect owing to these key techniques proposed in this paper.     

SPSM and its application in cylindrical shells

In naval architectures, the structure of prismatic shell is used widely. But there is no suitable method to analyze this kind of structure. Stiffened prismatic shell method (SPSM) presented in this paper, is one of the harmonic semi-analytic methods. Theoretically, strong stiffened structure can be analyzed economically and accurately. SPSM is based on the analytical solution of the governing differential equations for orthotropic cylindrical shells. In these differential equations, the torsional stiffness, bending stiffness and the exact position of each stiffener are taken into account with the Heaviside singular function. An algorithm is introduced, in which the actions of stiffeners on shells are replaced by external loads at each stiffener position. Stiffened shells can be computed as non-stiffened shells. Eventually, the displacement solution of the equations is acquired by the introduction of Green function. The stresses in a corrugated transverse bulkhead without pier base of an oil tanker are computed by using SPSM.     

Theoretical and experimental analysis of a CNG cylinder rack connection to a bus roof

From our perspective, a global technology development should be focused on resolving the issues of environmental impact and conservation of available natural energy resources. New technological solutions and alternative fuels, such as Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), have increasingly more application for modern engines and vehicles. If we take into account the situation in city transport, where primarily vehicles with diesel engines are used, a strategic proposal is to begin by retrofitting these into bi-fuel or dedicated Natural Gas Vehicles (NGVs). This paper analyzes the retrofit of a diesel bus into dedicated NGV. To confirm the safety of the vehicle in city transport, we addressed the problem of mounting a gas rack with CNG cylinders on the roof of a retrofitted city bus, according to UN ECE Regulation No. 110. This assembly is the most critical part of the retrofitted bus because of the concentration of stress due to increased mass and the application of a specific installation for supply of CNG from the cylinders to the engine. These regulations must be met in all parts of the vehicle, but we only focused on those areas affected by the retrofit to NGV.     

船体表面矩形块优化敷设设计(英文)

Rectangular tiles can be laid on a ship’s hull for protection, but the sides of the tiles must be adjusted so adjacent tiles will conform to the curvature of the hull. A method for laying tiles along a reference line was proposed, and an allowable range of displacement for the four vertices of the tile was determined. Deformations of each tile on a specific reference line were then obtained. It was found that the least deformation was required when the tiles were laid parallel to a line with the least curvature. After calculating the mean curvature on the surface, the surface was divided into three layout areas. A set of discrete points following the least deformation of the principal curvatures was obtained. A NURBS interpolation curve was then plotted as the reference line for laying tiles. The optimum size of the tiles was obtained, given the allowable maximum deformation condition. This minimized the number of bolts and the amount of stuffing. A typical aft hull section was selected and divided into three layout areas based on the distribution of curvature. The optimum sizes of rectangular tiles were obtained for every layout area and they were then laid on the surface. In this way the layout of the rectangular tiles could be plotted.     

Getting by with a little help from my friends…and family: immigrants and carpooling

While much of the scholarly literature on immigrants’ travel focuses on transit use, the newest arrivals to the United States make over twelve times as many trips by carpool as by transit. Using the 2001 National Household Travel Survey and multinomial logit mode choice models, we examine the determinants of carpooling. In particular, we focus on the likelihood of carpooling among immigrants—carpooling both within and across households. After controlling for relevant determinants of carpooling, we find that immigrants are far more likely to form household carpools than native-born adults and also are more likely than the native-born to form external carpools (outside the household). Moreover, when faced with the options of carpooling and public transit, immigrants—even recent arrivals—appear to prefer carpools over transit more strongly than the native born.     

A numerical approach to trajectory planning for yoyo movement

Based on nonlinear trajectory generation (NTG) software package, a general approach (i.e. numerical solution) to trajectory planning for yoyo motion is presented. For the real-time control of such periodical dynamic system, a critical problem is how to implement fast solving the optimal trajectory, so as to meet the real-time demand. However, traditional numerical solution methods are very time-consuming. In this paper, the optimization problem is solved by mapping the problem to a lower-dimension space. And combined with multithread programming technology, the computation time for solving the optimal trajectory is greatly reduced. Simulation results show that the numerical solution is identical to the analytic one, which demonstrates the correctness of the proposed method. The computation time of one cycle of yoyo simulation is about 10 ms, which shows that the proposed numerical method can be applied to the real-time control of yoyo playing.     

Causal linkages between highways and sector-level employment

While transport infrastructure investments have usually been viewed to have long-term impacts on employment, what is perhaps not immediately clear is the direction of causality. This paper has sought to disentangle the causal relationship between highway infrastructure and employment, using panel data for the 48 contiguous US states from 1984 to 1997. Of particular emphasis in this analysis is the sectoral differences in the causal and spatial effects of highway capacity expansions for employment growth in alternative sectors of the economy. The results indicate that lane-mile additions of own-state major highways could increase state employment growth in the services sector while reducing growth in manufacturing. However, the causal relationship is also found to work the other way around. That is, both the rapid growth in services employment and the slowdown in manufacturing jobs temporally lead to increases in roadway capacity of non-interstate major roads. Our analysis also shows that highway infrastructure could produce both positive and negative employment spillovers across states. We find that improvements in non-interstate major roads outside the state border are beneficial to the manufacturing sector which generally serves regional and national markets. For the services sector, however, employment gains from interstate highways in the same state may come at the expense of other states as there is clear evidence of negative employment spillovers from interstate lane-mile additions.     

MINOE: A Software Tool to Analyze Ocean Management Efforts in the Context of Ecosystems

Transitioning ocean governance into an integrated ecosystem-based approach requires improved knowledge of existing governance arrangements. This article presents a software tool, MINOE, to assist policymakers, scientists, and others involved in ecosystem-based management initiatives to navigate through management documents as they relate to a user-defined ecosystem. The tool uses a conceptually modeled ecosystem, defined by the user, and text analysis of a set of management-related documents to determine which ecosystem linkages are potentially acknowledged in the documents. For illustration, the set of documents included with MINOE currently (and used to demonstrate the software in this article) are laws and regulations from four geopolitical jurisdictions for the year 2006; however, users may also import other documents for a more tailored application. Features include an interactive matrix containing results about the set of management documents within the user's scope and scale of interest. In addition, MINOE includes metrics and visualization tools to synthesize information derived from the documents. The article presents the software tool, describes potential uses for the tool, and ends with a discussion of future work to expand the program.     

A review of Australian traffic system design models

The demands for traffic infrastructure are increasing. Yet over the last decade investment in new infrastructure has decreased at all levels. Traffic systems designers are, therefore, being asked to be more accurate in their prediction of the impacts of changes, to analyse ever more complex situations and to extract more from the existing traffic system. This paper reviews developments in techniques for analysing the impacts of changes in the traffic system. It looks at intersection, route, network, parking lot and public transport design models that have been developed in Australia. Particular emphasis is given to the considerable developments in microcomputers and graphics and the impact these are having on the models. Future developments are also discussed.     

A low-cost testbed of underwater mobile sensing network

Comprised by a swarm of acoustically linked and cooperative autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) with onboard sensors, an underwater mobile sensing network (UMSN) will be a complementary means to fixed observatory networks, e.g. seafloor observatory networks and moored buoy arrays. It has obvious advantages over a single large AUV in higher efficiency due to parallel observation, stronger robustness to vehicle failures and lower cost. Although an UMSN can be viewed as a counterpart of wireless mobile sensing networks for air and terrestrial applications, it is much more challenging due to poor performance of underwater acoustic communication, poor performance of underwater positioning and high degree of uncertainty in vehicle dynamics and underwater environment. In order to verify key technologies involved in an UMSN, e.g. cooperation of multi-AUVs based on acoustic communication, a low cost testbed has been developed for experimental study. The design of both hardware and software is introduced. Also the results of a functional test for verification of the effectiveness of the testbed are presented.