Containerisation in the Mediterranean: between global ocean routeways and feeder services

The basin of the Mediterranean Sea has become an important focus of container traffic. Two functions are represented by this activity: one, the transhipment of containers involved in global networks; and, second, the intra-regional distribution of containers. This trade is revitalising port activity in many parts of the basin. Most striking has been the emergence of new hub ports, many of which now eclipse old-established port cities. The revitalisation offers prospects for a third function: the possibility of becoming the southern gateway of Europe. This paper examines the patterns, problems and prospects of the ‘new’ Mediterranean in the era of containerisation. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The challenge of peripheral ports: an Asian perspective

The growth of ports peripheral to the dominant container hubs has been well documented in North America and Europe, and has led to the elaboration of several theoretical models. This paper applies these models to the situation in South East Asia where much of the growth in containerisation is taking place. While confirming the emergence of several peripheral ports that are mounting challenges to the major hubs, we demonstrate that the factors behind the challenges are different to those postulated in the literature. Issues of governance arising out of the complex restructuring of the global ports industry are singled out. We suggest that a new geography of container terminals based on management and operational strategies of private and public bodies involved in the port industry needs to be fashioned.     

Across the pond: container shipping on the North Atlantic in the era of globalisation

This paper describes the development of containerisation in one of the most important theatres of maritime trade, the North Atlantic. As the original hearth of containerisation, it has been an area of experimentation and evolution for a technology that has burst around the world. Although over the last decade the Atlantic has been superceded by the Pacific Ocean as the major market focus for containers, it still is an important market arena. The emergence of global shipping networks is tending to favour the Atlantic once again. The paper provides an analysis of these recent developments. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Fifty years of organisational change in container shipping: regional shift and the role of family firms

Spectacular growth has marked the industry initiated by Malcolm McLean with the sailing of the Ideal-X in 1956. While the growth of container shipping has been typically seen in terms of technological advances, increasing vessel capacity, traffic growth, financial performance and competitiveness, it has been shaped also by organisational transformations. This paper provides an overview of the major companies that make up the container shipping industry, tracing the rapid adoption of containerisation by American carriers to its diffusion to Europe and then Asia. While several carriers belong to business conglomerates, the most dynamic in recent years have been those that are those that possess a family structure. About 12 of the present top 20 carriers are largely family controlled, including 4 out of the top 5. Unlike other capital intensive industries, where the power has shifted towards corporate governance, the container shipping industry retains a strong individualistic entrepreneurial character. At a time when North American ownership in container shipping is no more, the spirit of innovation began 50 years ago by an American visionary is still evident in the entrepreneurial dynamism of many of the industry leaders.     

Container ports,local benefits and transportation worker earnings

Over the past 50 years, containerization has both enabled and reflected the articulation of increasingly concentrated and complex global trade flows. Once close infrastructural, economic and institutional ties between seaports and port cities have been loosened, since major ports now serve producers and consumers in widely dispersed hinterlands. This process has been especially intense in North America, where west coast ports serve markets across the continent. At the same time, many of the external costs of increased port activity are incurred in port cities. Hence, questions about the changing nature of employment in port and related goods-handling sectors have become increasingly important for understanding the share of economic benefits received by port cities. This paper focuses on the effects of containerization, and related changes in transportation regulation, on port-logistics worker earnings in major United States port cities since 1975. A difference-in-differences framework is used to examine the relative annual earnings of dock, trucking and warehouse workers in major container port cities. The analysis shows that, with notable exceptions, port-logistics worker earnings in major container ports are not necessarily higher than those of comparable workers. The findings provide further insights into the strained relationship between seaports and port cities in the era of containerization and economic globalization.

An evaluation of the progress in reducing heat-related human mortality in major U.S. cities

This study estimates the excess mortality attributable to excessive heat events (EHEs) for forty major U.S. cities during 1975–1995 and 1975–2004. We calculate these results using the spatial synoptic classification method to identify EHE days. Step-wise regressions are then used to estimate the location-specific mortality algorithms that can account for the impact of the EHEs’ duration, severity, and timing. Our excess mortality results are expressed both as lives lost and associated mortality rates (excess deaths per 100,000 residents) using 2000 Census population estimates. Our results generally show a reduction in EHE-attributable mortality rates since 1996. Adjusting our results to account for changes in the average number of EHE days per year in each period does not affect this general conclusion. However, this adjustment has a considerable impact on a measure of the cities’ relative performance in terms of reducing this EHE-attributable excess mortality. Our results indicate there is promise for further reductions in EHE-attributable mortality from the approximately 1300 excess deaths per summer we identify using data from the 1975–2004 period. However, the magnitude of this result highlights the significant health burden of EHEs relative to other extreme weather events in the United States and suggests it is worthy of additional attention. Our results also raise important questions with respect to evaluating the performance of EHE notification and response programs and how EHE-attributable mortality should be estimated for future scenarios, notably for climate change projections.     

Migrations of adult horseshoe crabs,Limulus polyphemus, in the Middle Atlantic Bight: A 17-year tagging study

Adult horseshoe crabs,Limulus polyphemus, were tagged in the Middle Atlantic Bight area, from New York to Virginia on the continental shelf and within bays, to determine their migratory patterns and longevity. Of 30,432 horreshoe crabs that were tagged during the years 1986–2002, 1,122 were recovered alive, and 1,027 were dead. Many of the live recoveries were observed within 30 d (54.4%) and after years (37.53%) with one tagged animal surviving up to 10 yr. In 9 locations from Great Kills Harbor, New York, to Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, the horseshoe crabs return to their release beach within days during the spawning season. Of the 762 (100%) recoveries from crabs released along the Delaware Bay shoreline, 75.07% traveled 0–20 km, 21.0% traveled 20–50 km, 2.36% traveled 50–100 km, and 1.57% traveled over 100 km. Within Delaware Bay, 327 tagged animals (43.6%) had moved away from the release points to other locations, and 59 of these had moved out of the bay onto the continental shelf along the Mid-Atlantic Bight coastline. Horseshoe crabs migrate into Delaware Bay from waters off Ocean City, Maryland, and adjacent coastal bays. In addition to defining the range of the Delaware Bay spawning populations, 2 neighboring populations were identified by the tagging program. In one, animals tagged in southern New York mingled with those in the Sandy, Hook, New Jersey area, comprising a population that ranged from Raritan Bay across New York Harbor to Jamaica Bay. The second confirmed that a discrete population existed in northern Chesapeake Bay in the general vicinity of the Annapolis Bay Bridge.     

Horizontal motions and the generation of strong earthquakes in the North Sakhalin interiors

The recent geodynamics of Sakhalin Island is best described by the convergence of the Eurasian and North American (Sea of Okhotsk) lithospheric plates, which is manifested in the high seismic activity of the island. In North Sakhalin, the plate boundary is thought to correspond to a system of roughly N-S-trending faults, which belong to the North Sakhalin deep fault, and the Upper-Piltun fault; the latter was ruptured by the 1995 M 7.2 Neftegorsk earthquake. This study first confirmed that the stationary motion of the Sea of Okhotsk plate is retarded on this fault to form with time a series of drag folds and stress field anomalies. The latter are released during the subsequent (in a 400⦒o 1000-year period) strong earthquakes by seismic sliding on the flanks of the Upper Piltun fault. The 2003–2006 GPS observations revealed the free state of this fault zone with relative slip rates of 5–6 mm/yr.     

Garnet polycrystals and the significance of clustered crystallization

Polycrystalline garnets are common in metamorphic rocks and may form as a result of close spacing of nuclei (if clustering is early) or impingement of larger grains (if clustering occurs later in the growth history). The timing of clustering relative to garnet growth is relevant to understanding the formation and evolution of porphyroblasts and evaluating the significance (if any) of clustering. Electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) analysis of garnet-bearing metamorphic rocks reveals the presence of polycrystalline garnet in nine localities examined in this study: the northern Appalachians (Vermont, Maine, New York, USA); North American Cordillera (North Cascades Range, Washington; Snake Range, Nevada, USA); western Rocky Mountains (British Columbia, Canada); southern Menderes Massif (Turkey); Santander Massif (Colombia); and the Sanandaj–Sirjan zone (Hamadan, Iran). In some samples, polycrystals comprise ~20–30% of garnets analyzed, and chemical and textural evidence suggests that early coalescence of garnet polycrystals is common. Some early-coalescing polycrystals exhibit growth zoning that is concentric about the geometric center of the polycrystal. In thin section, these garnets may be undetectable as polycrystals based on morphology or zoning. In some polycrystals, zoning is unrelated to the location of internal grain boundaries; in others, Fe–Mn–Mg zoning has a different pattern than that of Ca; zoning patterns may vary on the scale of a single thin section. In addition, some polycrystals are characterized by high-angle misorientation boundaries that may be in special (non-random) orientations, an observation that indicates that these polycrystals are not random clusters of grains. The presence of internal grain boundaries may affect diffusion pathways and length scales, and may facilitate communication of porphyroblast interiors with matrix phases, thereby influencing reaction history of the rock and the composition/zoning of garnet.     

Fire Weather in Israel — Synoptic Climatological Analysis

The study examines the synoptic situations and weather conditions under which occurred Israel's largest forest fires between the years 1987–1995. Annual rainfall and maximum temperature were found to have a positive correlation with both the size of the burnt area and the frequency of fires. A negative correlation was found for the relative humidity at 12 UTC for the same parameters. The fire season in Israel starts in May and ends in November, the peak months being May, June and July. No large fires were observed during the rainy season, December–February, despite the relatively low precipitation characterizing the region. Atmospheric disturbances as well as quasi-stationary systems were found to be favorable for the development of forest fires in Israel: the North African (‘Sharav’) cyclone and the Red Sea trough, which are common during spring and autumn. These systems carry hot, dry air from the deserts and are responsible for 55% of the burnt area from major forest fires in Israel and up to 33% of the major forest fires. Sixty-five percent of the forest fires occurred during the summer all of them under the quasi-stationary system of the Persian Gulf trough. These fires did not spread as widely as those that occurred under the North African cyclone and the Red Sea trough systems. The role of weather in the propagation of fire is exemplified in the case study of the ‘Sha'ar ha Gai’ fire of July 1995 — the biggest forest fire in the history of Israel (1300 ha). This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Containerisation in the ports of Northern and Western Europe

This paper examines some of the contemporary features of containerisation at the ports of Northern and Western Europe. Ports are having to adjust to a wide range of forces, both local and global. Enhanced competition between ports is shaping developments. Ports have to keep pace with technological developments and thus there are great pressures to expand their facilities. In addition, links with hinterland markets have to be improved and extended. The paper demonstrates that these pressures are being felt throughout the port system, and through a series of individual and regional examples the dynamism of the European port system is exposed. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Characteristics of wet-snow avalanche activity: 20 years of observations from a high alpine valley (Dischma,Switzerland)

The occurrence of wet-snow avalanches is, in general, poorly understood. For 20 years (winters of 1975–1976 to 1994–1995), the avalanche activity has been observed in the Dischma valley near Davos (Eastern Swiss Alps). The study area comprises a large starting zone of north-easterly aspect (2,300 m a.s.l.) with several avalanche paths. We have analyzed the occurrence data in combination with meteorological and snowpack data collected at an elevation of 2,090 m a.s.l. During the 20-year observation period, almost 800 wet-snow avalanches were observed, about 4.5 times more loose snow avalanches than slab avalanches. Considering both types of avalanches jointly, snow depth, precipitation and air temperature showed the highest correlation with avalanche activity. Most loose snow avalanches occurred when air temperature was high and/or after a precipitation period. Slab avalanches occurrence was primarily related to warm air temperatures and snowpack properties such as the isothermal state and the existence of capillary barriers. Radiation did not show up as a significant variable. The results suggest that in a transitional snow climate wet-snow avalanches are, as dry snow avalanches, often related to precipitation events, and that wet slab instability strongly depends on snowpack properties in relation to warming of the snowpack and melt water production.     

The Eastern Ghats Belt … A polycyclic granulite terrain

The Eastern Ghats Belt is a polycyclic granulite terrain along the east coast of India whose western boundary is marked by a shear zone along which the granulites are thrusted over the cratonic units of the Indian shield, and its northern margin is marked by the presence of a number of fault-bounded blocks. Recent work has convincingly brought out that there are domains within the belt having different evolutionary histories. The segment south of the Godavari Rift went through a high grade thermo-tectonic event at ∼1.6–1.7 Ga. North of the Godavari Rift in a narrow zone along the western boundary the last high-grade metamorphic event is of late Archaean age. A series of alkaline plutons along the western boundary zone testifies to a rifting episode at ∼1.3–1.5 Ga. In the major part of the EGB the metamorphism is broadly of Grenvillian age, with two major thermo-tectonic pulses at ∼1.1–1.2 Ga and ∼0.95–1.0 Ga. But high grade conditions persisted for a long period and younger thermal events of ∼0.65 Ga to ∼0.80 Ga are locally recorded. There are differences in the tectonometamorphic histories of different domains, but the tectonic significance of these differences remains uncertain. Pan-African (0.50–0.55) thermal overprints are common and become conspicuous along the western boundary zone. The thrusting of the Eastern Ghats granulites in a hot state over the cratons to the west is of Pan-African age. In the Rodinia assembly (∼0.9 Ga) the Eastern Ghats and the Rayner-Napier Complexes of Antarctica were contiguous, but the pre-Rodinia configuration of these terrains remains unclear. At ∼0.8 Ga during the Rodinia break up Greater India rifted apart from East Antarctica, and only later it docked with Australia-East Antarctica at 530–550 Ma. The continuation of the East Antarctic Pan-African orogenic belts into the Eastern Ghats is yet to be ascertained.     

Dynamic Analysis of Subway Structures Under Blast Loading

Public transit systems have become one of the targets of terrorist attacks using explosives, examples of which are the 1995 attack on Paris subway and the 2004 attack on Moscow subway. Considering the intense threats of terrorist attacks on subway systems in metropolitan areas, explicit three-dimensional Finite Element method was used to investigate the dynamic response and damage of subway structures under internal blast loading. The study was motivated by the fact that explosion in subway structure may not only cause direct life loss, but also damage the subway structure and lead to further loss of lives and properties. The study based on the New York subway system, and investigated the influences of various factors on the possible damage of subway tunnel, including weight of explosive, ground media, burial depth and characteristics of blast pressure. A mitigation measure using grouting to improve ground stiffness and strength was also analyzed. Considering the amount of explosive terrorists may use, the present study focused on small-diameter single-track tunnels, which are more vulnerable to internal blast loading and are common in New York City. Blast pressure from explosion was applied to lining surface assuming triangle pressure–time diagram, and the elasto-plasticity of ground and lining as well as their nonlinear interaction was taken into account in the numerical model. It is found from the numerical study that maximum lining stress occurred right after explosion, before the blast air pressure reduced to the atmospheric one, and it was more dependent on the maximum magnitude of air pressure than on the specific impulse, which is the area below the pressure–time curve. Small tunnels embedded in soft soil, with small burial depth, might be permanently damaged even by modest internal explosion that may be perpetuated by terrorists.     

Empty marine container logistics: facts,issues and management strategies

With the global container population exceeding 25 million TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit) and the annual production of new boxes exceeding 3 million TEU it is estimated that around 1.5 million TEU of empty containers are sitting in yards and depots around the world waiting for use. Although utilization rates have improved since 2004, container utilization depends on the very dynamic nature of container transportation, and the container building and leasing industries. Owing primarily to the chronic trend of increasing trade imbalances across the oceans, and despite recent trends along some trade routes, the empty container management problem has become a major issue for the container shipping industry during the last decade. This paper examines and analyzes empty container logistics at a global, interregional, regional and local level. Special consideration is given to key factors affecting the empty container logistics management and strategies implemented by ocean carriers and other stakeholders to better manage empty containers.

Anatexis at 700 to 1000 MPa in the aureole of the Marcy anorthosite, Adirondack Highlands, New York

High temperature (>900 °C) metamorphism affected the New Russia gneiss complex in the aureole of the Marcy anorthosite, Adirondack Highlands, New York. Dehydration melting of pargasitic hornblende and plagioclase in metagabbro during contact metamorphism produced garnet among other phases, an indicator that pressure exceeded 700 MPa during anatexis. Partial melting also occurred in mangerite and charnockite. Minerals that equilibrated during melting yield barometric estimates of 970 ± 100 MPa (garnet–orthopyroxene–plagioclase–quartz in metagabbro and mangerite) and 735 ± 100 and 985 ± 100 MPa (garnet–hornblende–plagioclase–quartz, metagabbro and mangerite, respectively). From these results we infer that the Marcy anorthosite was emplaced at a depth of at least 23 km and probably near 32 km. Received: 9 February 2000 / Accepted: 4 April 2000     

The economics of containership route deployment

Larger and faster containerships have cut back on the number of port calls, thereby enhancing demand for and cost of land-based feeder services to the ports. The case in Taiwan is no exception. However, this tendency becomes economical only when differences in operation efficiency and handling charges (among other things), between competing ports are observed. Other things being equal, the multi-port calls instead of single-port-call/inland-feeder services could still be economically feasible so far as the containerships' route deployment serving Taiwan is concerned. Hence, the proposed expansion of the container terminals at the Port of Keelung in N Taiwan could be justifiable.     

Earthquakes in the Eastern Great Lakes Basin from a regional perspective

This paper presents a summary of the seismicity and its relation to stress and geologic structures in the Eastern Great Lakes Basin (EGLB) and compares it with that of other regions in the central and eastern North America (CENA). The earthquakes scattered throughout the EGLB are occurring at a rate somewhat less than that of the Appalachians and along the Atlantic Seaboard. Paleoseismology studies suggest that the lower seismicity rate may be characteristic of the EGLB since the Late Wisconsin. North of the EGLB, earthquakes have primarily thrust mechanisms, while to the south of the EGLB, most earthquakes are strike-slip. Throughout the region, including the EGLB, the average P axes of the earthquakes are oriented NE–SW and are aligned with the direction of the current plate driving stress. On a regional basis, earthquakes are centered primarily in the Precambrian basement beneath the Paleozoic cover. Many of the earthquakes in the EGLB have occurred in areas of preexisting faults, at least some of which may have been active during past episodes of continental rifting. For individual faults that have been studied in some detail, however, it is not clear whether earthquakes represent reactivations of local preexisting structures or nucleation of new ruptures in or near the old fault zones.     

Temporal and spatial variations in the magnitude of completeness for homogenized moment magnitude catalogue for northeast India

Northeast India region is one of the most seismically active areas in the world. Events data for the period 1897–2010, used in this study has been largely compiled from global ISC, NEIC and GCMT databases. Historical seismicity catalogue of Gupta et al (1986) and some events data from the bulletins of India Meteorological Department are also used. Orthogonal regression relations for conversion of body and surface wave magnitudes to M _w,HRVD based on events data for the period 1978–2006 have been derived. An Orthogonal Standard Regression (OSR) relationship has also been obtained for scaling of intensity estimates to M _w,NEIC using 126 global intensity events with intensity VI or greater during the period 1975–2010.     

Centennial fluctuations of flood-season discharge of Upper and Middle Yangtze River Basin, China (1865–1988): cause and impact

This paper reveals the nature of flood-season discharge and the associated impact on the upper and middle Yangtze river basin, on the basis of a historical database of daily discharges recorded at the Yichang (1865–1985) and Hankou (1878–1988) hydrological stations. Results show the period of discharge fluctuations of 2–6a, which is significant during 1878–1900 and 1915–1975 at Yichang station and the period of 2–7a during 1865–1905 and 1925–1975 at Hankou station. Within these periods, a major period of 2.9–3.5a and two secondary periods of 7–8a and 13.9–16.5a can be further identified from both stations. Our observation verifies that the fluctuations of streamflows of the upper and middle Yangtze River are fairly consistent with the periodicities of the Asia monsoon precipitation and ENSO event, reflecting coupling effect on the fluctuations of discharges in the Yangtze basin. In the 1920s–1960s, intensified variability of streamflows of the upper and middle Yangtze River was closely associated with warming temperature in the basin and in China as well. In 1975–1988, insignificant discharge fluctuations recorded at both stations can be chiefly attributed to human activities, i.e., the large number of reservoirs constructed and associated increasing capacity of water storage, which has largely weakened the discharge fluctuations throughout the basin.