The visual impact of development in coastal zone areas

Abstract

The focus of this paper is theoretical, as well as methodological. It reviews previous studies of visual impact and reports research by the author on people's evaluation of the appropriateness of different man‐made facilities in different coastal‐area contexts and other environments. In this study, subjects were asked to react to slides developed through the use of landscape models and experimental facilities to simulate the appearance of a building in the landscape, while systematically varying the visual relatedness between the two. Specific interest centered on the variable of congruity vs. contrast between the appearance of the building and its landscape context, manipulated by co‐varying the attributes of color and size to create a five‐point scale of contrast/obtrusiveness. The hypothesis was that judgments of appropriateness, and to a lesser extent judgments of liking, would vary inversely with level of contrast. The role of two further variables, the functional significance of the building in its setting, and the character of the setting itself, was also investigated. The author reviews methodological issues involved where subjects respond to visual stimuli for purposes of judging change in visual quality. These methodological issues include: stimulus‐selection and problems of simulation, choice of response measures, and choice of respondents, and the treatment of individual differences. The author calls for development of standardized scales and indices such as “perceptually‐relevant environmental quality indicators.”     

Corrosion rate measurements in steel sheet pile walls in a marine environment

Corrosion of steel structures in the marine environment is a major problem. The deterioration of this kind of structures is costly and difficult to predict both when designing new structures and when estimating the remaining service life time for existing structures. The aim of this investigation was to find indicative values for the corrosion rate of steel sheet piles on the Swedish west coast. Such corrosion rates (mm/year) can be used both when designing new structures by oversizing the steel thickness and when estimating the bearing capacity of existing sheet pile structures. Earlier investigations on the corrosion rates along the Swedish east coast – with salinity from about 0.2% to 0.8% – are still used today as guidelines for the corrosion rate of all steel structures in the Swedish maritime environment even though the salinity on the west coast can be as high as 3.0%.Steel sheet pile wharfs located in the port of Halmstad on the Swedish west coast were inspected by ultrasonic measurements. Three wharf structures with a total length of about 700 m were inspected. None of the inspected wharfs had or have had cathodic protection. The thickness measurements of the steel sheet pile structures were performed by divers.The age of the three inspected sheet pile structures ranged from 36 to 51 years. The dimensions of the original sheet pile sections are known. One of the quay structures is located along a river. The salinity at all wharfs varied from low values at the surface to approx. 2% at the bottom (also in the river outflow).The measured average corrosion rates were in the same order as the design values in the European code. However, the results indicate increased corrosion rates about 1 m below the mean water surface and at the level of the propellers from the ships berthing the most frequented of the inspected wharfs, 3–6 m below water surface.The tolerances of steel sheet thicknesses – usually in the order of ±6% – are often neglected when investigating the remaining thickness in steel sheet piles. A simple calculation model shows that the sheet pile must be almost 50 years of age before an accurate estimation on the corrosion rate can be made, considering the tolerances, if the true original sheet pile thickness is not known.     

沥青路面运营初期平整度竣工验收标准研究

采用数理统计原理,运用SPSS软件对陕西省7条高速公路交-竣工平整度数据进行分析,得出了陕南、关中和陕北地区路面平整度衰变幅度均值分别为0.39m/km、0.28m/km和0.24m/km,这也将作为计算竣工验收推荐值的依据;再基于交-竣工平整度变化规律,建立了平整度竣工验收推荐值的计算公式:IRIju=IRIji+IRIs,可为今后平整度竣工验收标准提供有效的理论依据。     

数控铣床加工低碳钢零件的进给速度优化

论述了数控铣床加工低碳钢零件时进给速度的优化问题．在基于加工效率（可等效转化为加工工时）和加工成本目标函数的基础上，对这两个目标函数运用多目标函数理论进行综合，得到了多目标综合函数．通过计算，并综合表面粗糙度，进而得到进给速度的优化范围，并对不同转速下的进给速度给出了相应的优化参数，目的更接近生产实际，使技术人员不仅了解影响生产效率和成本的因素，也可在实际生产的应用中更加快捷和方便．     

Short-term forecasting of high-speed rail demand: A hybrid approach combining ensemble empirical mode decomposition and gray support vector machine with real-world applications in China

Short-term forecasting of high-speed rail (HSR) passenger flow provides daily ridership estimates that account for day-to-day demand variations in the near future (e.g., next week, next month). It is one of the most critical tasks in high-speed passenger rail planning, operational decision-making and dynamic operation adjustment. An accurate short-term HSR demand prediction provides a basis for effective rail revenue management. In this paper, a hybrid short-term demand forecasting approach is developed by combining the ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) and grey support vector machine (GSVM) models. There are three steps in this hybrid forecasting approach: (i) decompose short-term passenger flow data with noises into a number of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) and a trend term; (ii) predict each IMF using GSVM calibrated by the particle swarm optimization (PSO); (iii) reconstruct the refined IMF components to produce the final predicted daily HSR passenger flow, where the PSO is also applied to achieve the optimal refactoring combination. This innovative hybrid approach is demonstrated with three typical origin–destination pairs along the Wuhan-Guangzhou HSR in China. Mean absolute percentage errors of the EEMD-GSVM predictions using testing sets are 6.7%, 5.1% and 6.5%, respectively, which are much lower than those of two existing forecasting approaches (support vector machine and autoregressive integrated moving average). Application results indicate that the proposed hybrid forecasting approach performs well in terms of prediction accuracy and is especially suitable for short-term HSR passenger flow forecasting.     

GTM法在公路沥青路面施工中的应用研究

结合GTM法技术在河北省张石高速公路中的实践应用,介绍GTM法的设计原理、施工工艺和质量控制体系,尤其是对施工过程质量控制点和沥青路面最大密实度标准的研究分析,有效地降低了工程施工费用,提高了路面的服务寿命。     

小样本条件下混凝土强度代表值的确定

针对小样本混凝土强度代表值确定时不能利用数理统计模型的问题,引入了信息扩散原理,提出了小样本条件下混凝土强度代表值确定的实用计算模型。2个混凝土强度检测案例的计算结果表明,利用《公路工程质量检验评定标准》(JTJ071-98)进行灌注桩芯样混凝土强度代表值确定,得到的代表值保证率在95%左右波动,具有不确定性;利用《超声回弹综合法检测混凝土强度技术规程》(CECS 02:88)进行单一构件混凝土强度推定,推定值的保证率小于95%,对结构的可靠性鉴定而言是偏于不安全的,应引起试验检测人员的充分重视。     

整车试制阶段的电器故障诊断方法

以整车装车与跑车验证案例为背景，讨论汽车开发过程中汽车电器故障诊断的方法，阐述如何应用零部件置换原则来分析故障的重要性等级（significance）。     

渐变刚度钢板弹簧的设计计算

本文探讨了渐变刚度钢板弹簧的变形规律，并导出这种结构型式钢板弹簧的载荷，变形，应力的设计计算公式。