Phytoplankton size classes competitions at sub-mesoscale in a frontal oceanic region

The effects of mesoscale and sub-mesoscale dynamics on the competition between two different phytoplankton size classes are investigated with a 3D primitive equations model. The model reproduces realistic simulations of mesoscale turbulence generated by a westward current in the southern hemisphere at statistical equilibrium in a summer situation. Effects of two different grazing pressures on phytoplankton competitions are compared and the role of eddy variability is quantified comparing high and low resolution simulations.High resolution simulations reveal a filamentary distribution of biomass and nutrients induced by the combination of vertical advection and horizontal stirring. This fine scale variability is observed not only on the horizontal but also on the vertical into the subsurface chlorophyll maximum.One of the key results is that such a dynamics induces a spatial segregation of the phytoplankton in the southern part of the frontal region that is mainly filamentary. This spatial segregation consists in biomass maxima for large phytoplankton in rich nutrients filaments and maxima for small phytoplankton outside these filaments. This anti-correlation is particularly strong when grazing pressure is low and is confirmed by statistical analysis. In the central frontal region, dominated by mesoscale dynamics, the two phytoplankton classes are strongly correlated together and biomass maxima are located close to downwelling regions that are poor in nutrients.It is shown that the effect of grazing is significantly amplified by the fine scale dynamics and that the combination of these two mechanisms is responsible of a switch of the ecosystem dominance in the surface layers.In addition, the effect of frontal dynamics on the detritus export is very sensitive to grazing pressure: increasing grazing induces a significant decrease of the export in the presence of frontal dynamics whereas it induces an increase of the export without small-scale variability.     

The market potential for plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles in Flanders: A choice-based conjoint analysis

This paper considers the market potential for battery electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in Flanders, Belgium. Making use of a large-scale survey conducted in 2011 and applying a choice-based conjoint experiment, it is predicted that by 2020, battery electric vehicles could have a market share of about 5% of new vehicles, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles could have a share of around 7%. By 2030, these figures could increase to 15% and 29%. The speed of up-take of electric vehicles, however, is sensitive to purchase costs.     

Annual cycle of distribution of three ice-associated copepods along the coast near Dumont d'Urville, Terre Adélie (Antarctica)

In polar regions sea ice is a site of enhanced primary production during winter and provides important habitat for small grazers, such as copepods. We sampled zooplankton from the sea ice and water column throughout 2005, near Dumont d'Urville station (Terre Adélie, Antarctica). Three species of ice-associated copepods were found: two calanoid copepods Paralabidocera antarctica and Stephos longipes and the harpacticoid copepod Drescheriella glacialis. P. antarctica was the most abundant of the three and was closely associated with the sea ice during most of the year. This species had a one year life cycle with a probable over-wintering period in the sea ice as nauplii and a short copepodite phase in spring. Reproduction and spawning occurred in early summer. A comparison with two other populations (near Syowa and Davis stations) along the east coast of Antarctica showed that there was a temporal shift in the life cycles of the three populations, which was linked to variability in sea ice conditions. D. glacialis was the second most abundant copepod and was more common during the winter than during summer, indicating its preference for the sea ice habitat. In autumn, the presence of D. glacialis in the deeper part of the water column suggested that this species colonised the sea ice from the benthos. S. longipes was found only in the water column near Dumont d'Urville and was not very abundant. In Terre Adélie particular environmental conditions, such as the absence of a permanent sea ice zone throughout the year, a longer time of open water, strong katabatic winds and the presence of polynyas, have influenced both the abundance and distribution of the three common ice-associated copepods.     

日本磁悬浮列车

介绍了日本低温超导磁悬浮列车推进、悬浮、导向的有关原理和实现方式,并概述了山梨试验线和相关的投资情况.     

Ship complexity assessment at the concept design stage

An innovative complexity metric is introduced that provides a way to compare similar or different ship types and sizes at the contract design stage. The goal is to provide the designer with this information throughout the design process so that an efficient design is obtained during the first design run. Application to and validation on real passenger ships indicate that there is a significant correlation between the error in an engineer’s judgement of complexity and the cost assessment error. It follows that this tool could be used to improve knowledge of the ship’s complexity at the contract design stage, and even to try to optimise the design if the complexity criteria are not fixed by the shipowners.     

The S.K. people mover

The S.K. people mover has presently been operated for more than six years during each exhibition at Paris - Nord exhibition lot at Villepinte. During two major exhibitions - EXPO'86 at Vancouver, Canada and YEs'90 at Yokohama, Japan - it was operated twelve hours daily during six months in each case with very short night maintenance shifts. The small cable-driven cars carried ten million people quite trouble-free with an availability better than 99.5%. After those installations on exhibition or entertainment sites, a new S.K. system is under construction in Marne-la-Vallée (near Paris, France) to link a newly-built urban development area and a regional railroad station. A S.K. is also to be installed in Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport. Other projects are being studied too. Presently entering a new class of systems, the S.K. people mover features a number of newly-designed components intended to further improve comfort and reliability.     

City delineation in European applications of LUTI models: review and tests

This paper stresses the lack of attention paid to the geographical definitions of cities in LUTI models as one key detrimental aspect to transferring and generalising LUTI results. First, the argumentation develops from a meta-analysis of peer-reviewed publications about LUTI applications in European cities. We show that most authors do not assess findings against potential geographical biases. Second, theoretical simulations are conducted with UrbanSim applied to a synthetic urban area. By varying the geographical limits of the system and population endowments, our simulations confirm that the absence of control on city delineation weakens the results. Finally, the paper suggests methodological guidelines to improve the comparability of LUTI applications and push forward their theoretical agenda.     

Impacts of built environment and emerging green technologies on daily transportation greenhouse gas emissions in Quebec cities: a disaggregate modeling approach

This paper aims to investigate the impact of the built environment (BE) and emerging transit and car technologies on household transport-related greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) across three urban regions. Trip-level GHG emissions are first estimated by combining different data sources such as origin–destination (OD) surveys, vehicle fleet fuel consumption rates, and transit ridership data. BE indicators for the different urban regions are generated for each household and the impact of neighborhood typologies is derived based on these indicators. A traditional ordinary least square (OLS) regression approach is then used to investigate the direct association between the BE indicators, socio-demographics, and household GHGs. The effect of neighborhood typologies on GHGs is explored using both OLS and a simultaneous equation modeling approach. Once the best models are determined for each urban region, the potential impact of BE is determined through elasticities and compared with the impact of technological improvements. For this, various fuel efficiency scenarios are formulated and the reductions on household GHGs are determined. Once the potential impact of green transit and car technologies is determined, the results are compared to those related to BE initiatives. Among other results, it is found that BE attributes have a statistically significant effect on GHGs. However, the elasticities are very small, as reported in several previous studies. For instance, a 10 % increase in population density will result in 3.5, 1.5 and 1.4 % reduction in Montreal, Quebec and Sherbrooke, respectively. It is also important to highlight the significant variation of household GHGs among neighborhoods in the same city, variation which is much greater than among cities. In the short term, improvements on the private passenger vehicle fleet are expected to be much more significant than BE and green transit technologies. However, the combined effect of BE strategies and private-motor vehicle technological improvement would result in more significant GHGs reductions in the long term.     

A module-oriented tool for optimum design of stiffened structures—Part I

The development of the LBR-5 “Stiffened Panels Software” is included in the development of a new design methodology to ease and to improve preliminary studies of naval structures and floating hydraulic structures. The ultimate target is to link standard design tools (steel structure CAD, hull form, hydrostatic curves, floating stability, weight estimation, etc.) with a rational optimization design module and a minimum construction cost (or minimum weight) objective function. This paper is the first part of a series of two articles. It focuses on the ‘Module-Oriented Optimization’ methodology and on the rational constraints. The second paper presents the optimization technique using convex linearization and a dual approach, and the optimization of an FSO unit as an example (Rigo and Fleury, Marine Stuructures, 2001). LBR-5 allows, as of the first draft, an optimization of the scantling of the structure's constituent elements. Relevant limit states of the structure are taken into account thanks to a 3D rational analysis of the structure based on the general rules of solid-mechanics and structure behaviour. The optimization module is composed of 3 basic modules (OPTI, CONSTRAINT and COST) and a group of sub-modules (in external databases). Among these the user selects a set of relevant sub-modules (i.e. geometrical and structural constraints). Since the present optimization deals with least construction costs (as objective function), and uses an explicit objective function (not empirical), the user must specify labor costs (unitary material costs, welding, cutting, etc.).     

Ichthyoplankton in the neritic and coastal zone of Antarctica and Subantarctic islands: A review

Since the article published by Loeb et al. [Loeb, V.J., Kellermann, A., Koubbi, P., North, A.W., White, M., 1993. Antarctic larval fish assemblages: a review. Bull. Mar. Sci. 53(2), 416–449.] about Antarctic ichthyoplankton, many surveys were carried out in different sectors of the Southern Ocean focusing on different aspects of the ecology of fish larvae. Some of these researches were conducted in the Subantarctic Kerguelen Islands and others on the continental shelf off Terre Adélie and Georges V land. Oceanographic and geographic features influence fish larvae ecology such as island mass effects, gyres, canyons. Antarctic fishes show also temporal segregation of spawning which induces temporal succession of early stage larvae. This avoids competition and probably the predation on early stages for species having few recruits. In that case, we have to understand how these larvae can deal with the match–mismatch with their preys and how they find sufficient food to survive. But our knowledge on Antarctic fish larvae is still insufficient as we do not know larvae for quite a lot of species and because of the difficulty to sample during winter.