The Offshore Wind Power Debate: Views from Cape Cod

Wind power resources on the eastern U.S. continental shelf are estimated to be over 400 GW, several times the electricity used by U.S. eastern coastal states. The first U.S. developer proposes to build 130 large (40 story tall) wind turbines in Nantucket Sound, just outside Massachusetts state waters. These would provide 420 MW at market prices, enough electricity for most of Cape Cod. The project is opposed by a vigorous and well-financed coalition. Polling shows local public opinion on the project almost equally divided. This article draws on semistructured interviews with residents of Cape Cod to analyze values, beliefs, and logic of supporters and opponents. For example, one value found to lead to opposition is that the ocean is a special place that should be kept natural and free of human intrusion. One line of argument found to lead to support is: The war in Iraq is problematic, this war is “really” over petroleum, Cape Cod generates electricity from oil, therefore, the wind project would improve U.S. security. Based on analysis of the values and reasoning behind our interview data, we identify four issues that are relevant but not currently part of the debate.     

破解商用车轻量化进程推手

围绕着商用车轻量化的课题，清华大学汽车工程开发研究院常务副院长宋健表示，我国的商用车企业应该从七个方面着手开展轻量化的研究工作。     

A multiobjective land development optimization model: the case of New Castle County,Delaware

This paper develops a multiobjective optimization model to consider transportation impacts of the future development of land. The output of the model is the best location and type of land use that has minimal negative transportation effects and uses the maximum available public transportation infrastructure. It provides tools for both planners and transportation engineers and enables them to consider different scenarios of possible policies and land development. Since multiple objectives and their nonlinear structures are considered, the model is solved using mixed integer nonlinear programming. The final results are shown in both tabular and graphical format. The effectiveness of the model is applied to the northern part of New Castle County, Delaware. The results show that the model successfully finds the best locations for both residential and commercial land uses in order to meet several criteria discussed in the paper.     

Measuring Public Access to the Shoreline: The Boat-Based Offset Survey Method

As cities redevelop underutilized waterfronts, opportunities exist to promote public access to the shoreline. However, planning for access is hampered by a lack of reliable data on how people utilize a specific shoreline. The boat-based offset transect survey (B-BOTS) method allows researchers to accurately record, map, and analyze shoreline access. This article discusses the use of B-BOTS along the northern part Narragansett Bay, RI. Using B-BOTS, on 52 randomly selected days over a two-season period, researchers developed a geodatabase that included the position of all shoreline users and the activity in which they were engaging. Using this geodatabase, the article demonstrates that the amount and type of shoreline use varied dramatically throughout the study area and varied in ways that would not have been predictable using conventional sources of data. The article also demonstrates that the availability of parking not only influenced the amount of shoreline use, but also the manner in which different user types distributed themselves along the shore. The article discusses the importance of such findings for developing plans for waterfront redevelopment and public access.     

Travel to work and household responsibility: new evidence

A persistent empirical finding in the research on travel patterns is that women tend to engage in shorter work commutes than men. Research evaluating the degree to which this gender differential in commuting may be explained by the division of labor in the household has produced decidedly mixed findings. This paper presents a critical review of the methods and results of recent research on the gender differential in commuting along with the associated implications for the household responsibility hypothesis (HRH). While all of the articles reviewed are informative and unique, not all conclusions are well supported. The paper then tests the HRH using the 1990 NPTS travel data. The new evidence confirms that women continue to exhibit shorter commute times and distances than men and provides support for the HRH. The paper concludes with a summary of findings and recommendations for further research.     

汽车NVH特性研究综述

本文介绍了声振粗糙度(harshness)的含义和汽车上的NVH现象,概括了研究汽车NVH特性的CAE仿真手段和评价方法。重点介绍了以刚体弹性体耦合建模和声固耦合作用分析等为主要内容的NVH特性研究在整车设计过程中的应用,并通过某轿车高速摆振的实例介绍了NVH特性研究在改善汽车乘坐舒适性的工作中所起的作用。最后总结了汽车NVH特性研究的特点和意义以及它在汽车设计中的重要地位,并对它的发展前景进行了展望。     

中国设计新势力

十一,新中国的诞生之日,我们这一期主题就是向国庆致敬,提倡大家爱中国之信念。好似有些严肃,其实我们就是邀请各位年轻的中国设计师,70后、80后,请他们一起来聊聊中国之时尚新观点、时装趋势及他们生活、时尚的标签、方向。这辑并不是传统的服装大片模式,我们选择了非常生活化的拍摄手法,如果够有sense,不管何种表现方式,都够Fashion。     

Urban activity spaces: Illustrations and application of a conceptual model for integrating the time and space dimensions

This work extends the conceptual argument for the use of ellipses to portray activity spaces and offers one example of how the ellipse construct can be used to analyze urban travel characteristics, based on observed trip making behavior and socio-economic variables. A problem in characterizing activity spaces has been in integrating the time and space dimensions into the same analytical framework while maintaining an understandable graphical representation of the space-time geographies envisioned by Hagerstrand and others. The ellipse allows this, as well as providing several quantifiable measures to be used for analyzing and characterizing activity spaces and urban travel behavior. In the current application, analysis of variance is used to analyze the resulting elliptic variables of 653 travelers. The results indicate that home location and household size are important factors in determining activity space characteristics and that the ellipse variables provide a different and useful approach for understanding urban travel behavior.     

汽车液压悬置系统动态特性研究

液压悬置是一种先进的减振系统,其动态特性对汽车的乘坐舒适性和NVH性能有很人影响。但是液压悬置的动态特性非常复杂,既具有频变特性,又具有非线性特性。本文基于系统辨识及数值分析理论,提出了模拟液压悬置动态特性的一种数值拟合方法。     

Bottom-up grassroots innovation in transport: motivations,barriers and enablers

Abstract

There is a growing phenomenon of grassroots innovation, that is, that triggered by individual users or communities (physical or virtual) seeking a solution to a personal or societal problem. This has great potential as a new source of sustainable transport innovations, but has received little attention to date. This study conducted 16 in-depth interviews and a workshop with grassroots innovators in transport. A detailed thematic analysis of the interview data identified: catalysts for the idea and the motivation behind its pursuit; the barriers experienced (those that were overcome and those that were not); and the enablers that permitted the innovations to continue and to flourish. The paper concludes by identifying the conditions that need to exist for such innovations to be created, developed and exploited in order that their potential for increasing the sustainability of the transport system can be fulfilled.