Sea Cucumber Moratorium and Livelihood Diversity in Papua New Guinea

Livelihood diversity factors such as flexibility within fisheries, geographical mobility, reallocation of fishing effort into the broader economy, and the non-material benefits that fisheries provide are important areas of research in marine policy. We use two small-scale fisheries related socio-economic surveys of communities in the Tigak Islands of Papua New Guinea. The first conducted 5 years before a ban on the harvesting of sea cucumbers was imposed and the second from the present day, 5 years after the initiation of the ban—with the objectives of exploring changes in household fishing strategies (types and numbers of species targeted) and to identify any important socioeconomic factors that help explain those changes. Fishing's contribution to total household income has increased significantly (p = 0.019) up from 61% in 2004 to 73% in 2014 with the percentage of female residents living in a household now positively and significantly (p = 0.018) associated with fishing income. The average number of species categories targeted per household increased insignificantly while households with more women are significantly (p = 0.018) less likely to target more species than households with more men. Moreover, customary management practices contribute to this difference. Together, these results show that households are not worse off financially 5 years after the ban on sea cucumber harvesting and that gendered seascape use has implications for the role of livelihood diversity as a marine policy tool.     

How much noise reduction at airports?

Airport noise nuisance is a negative externality especially when it occurring near urban areas. Like all externalities, noise nuisance may be a reason for government intervention. When intervening, governments should set quantitative policy targets with care. In practice, this issue is generally neglected. This line of research sets the first step towards determining optimal policy targets in the case of noise nuisance near airports, more specifically in the case of Amsterdam Airport. We use hedonic pricing to establish the benefits of noise reduction. Furthermore, we develop a bottom-up cost function to analyze the costs of reducing noise for airlines. We then equate marginal costs and benefits to establish the optimal level of noise reduction, which appears to be 3 dB in the case of Amsterdam Airport. Welfare increasing measures include alternative approach procedures, regional substitution of planes within existing fleets and early depreciation of noisy planes increase welfare. Reducing the number of flights has a negative effect on net welfare.     

A renaissance in understanding technology dynamics? The emerging concept of transition management in transportation

Abstract

For the last five years the technology factor (by which is meant both process and product innovation) has received renewed attention in the transport sector as society is confronted with new challenges. This leads to a call for change and transitions. Technology is considered as a potential answer to new needs and new problems, like the reduction of CO₂ and the supply of alternative energy. It is important that there is a theoretical basis for the way of thinking on innovation and diffusion when it comes to technology dynamics. This paper, based on a literature study, addresses the question to what extent the theory of transition management can be considered as a new application of technology dynamics. The theory of technological innovations in the broad sense is analysed and applied to the transport sector.     

NIR Hyperspectral Imaging Measurement of Sugar Content in Peach Using PLS Regression

Near infrared (NIR) hyperspectral imaging measurement of sugar content in peach was introduced. NIR spectral images (650～1 000 nm, resolution: 2 nm) of peach samples were captured with developed hyperspectral imaging setup. Partial least square (PLS) regression prediction model was developed to estimate the sugar content in peach; step-wise backward method was utilized to determine optimal wavelength subsets. Experimental results show that the calibration model with optimal wavelength subsets has a correlation coefficient of prediction of 0.97 and a standard error of prediction of 0.19, the prediction accuracy is higher than the calibration model applied over the whole wavelength, which proves that variable selection plays an important role in improving the prediction accuracy of PLS regression model.     

On the Experimental Analysis of Integral Sliding Modes for Yaw Rate and Sideslip Control of an Electric Vehicle with Multiple Motors

With the advent of electric vehicles with multiple motors, the steady-state and transient cornering responses can be designed and implemented through the continuous torque control of the individual wheels, i.e., torque-vectoring or direct yaw moment control. The literature includes several papers on sliding mode control theory for torque-vectoring, but the experimental investigation is so far limited. More importantly, to the knowledge of the authors, the experimental comparison of direct yaw moment control based on sliding modes and typical controllers used for stability control in production vehicles is missing. This paper aims to reduce this gap by presenting and analyzing an integral sliding mode controller for concurrent yaw rate and sideslip control. A new driving mode, the Enhanced Sport mode, is proposed, inducing sustained high values of sideslip angle, which can be limited to a specified threshold. The system is experimentally assessed on a four-wheel-drive electric vehicle. The performance of the integral sliding mode controller is compared with that of a linear quadratic regulator during step steer tests. The results show that the integral sliding mode controller significantly enhances the tracking performance and yaw damping compared to the more conventional linear quadratic regulator based on an augmented singletrack vehicle model formulation.