Nonlinear adaptive control of an underwater towed vehicle

This paper addresses the problem of simultaneous depth tracking and attitude control of an underwater towed vehicle. The system proposed uses a two-stage towing arrangement that includes a long primary cable, a gravitic depressor, and a secondary cable. The towfish motion induced by wave driven disturbances in both the vertical and horizontal planes is described using an empirical model of the depressor motion and a spring-damper model of the secondary cable. A nonlinear, Lyapunov-based, adaptive output feedback control law is designed and shown to regulate pitch, yaw, and depth tracking errors to zero. The controller is designed to operate in the presence of plant parameter uncertainty. When subjected to bounded external disturbances, the tracking errors converge to a neighbourhood of the origin that can be made arbitrarily small. In the implementation proposed, a nonlinear observer is used to estimate the linear velocities used by the controller thus dispensing with the need for costly sensor suites. The results obtained with computer simulations show that the controlled system exhibits good performance about different operating conditions when subjected to sea-wave driven disturbances and in the presence of sensor noise. The system holds promise for application in oceanographic missions that require depth tracking or bottom-following combined with precise vehicle attitude control.     

The economics of ending Canada's commercial harp seal hunt

The roots of the Canadian harp seal hunt can be traced to the 16th Century. But in the mid-20th century, opposition to the commercial hunt became widespread after television images of seal pups being killed with clubs on the pack ice off the coast of Newfoundland were broadcast around the world. International conservation groups, animal welfare groups, animal rights groups, and foreign governments have been calling for the Canadian government to end the commercial seal hunt on the grounds that it is inhumane and that harvest levels are unsustainable. The Canadian government defends the traditional practices of hunting harp seals, argues that seal pelts are an important source of income for sealers, and insists that the killing methods are humane and that harvest levels are sustainable. Emotions run high on both sides of the debate. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether or not there is a purely economic argument for ending Canada's commercial seal hunt. The paper finds that the benefits of ending the commercial hunt exceed the costs, but not unequivocally. However, the paper argues there should be a higher criterion—the Pareto criterion—for ending the commercial hunt; that is the hunt should end only if winners compensate the losers. The paper goes on to argue that an effective way to satisfy this criterion is to introduce a system of individual transferable quotas (ITQs) and let the market reveal the value of the commercial seal hunt. In addition to many other advantages such as improving the safety and efficiency of the hunt, the ITQ market could provide a mechanism by which those willing to pay to end the hunt could do so directly to sealers thereby ensuring that the hunt is scaled back or ultimately ended only when it is economically efficient and unambiguously welfare-improving.     

湛江经济跨越式发展路径探讨

湛江具有独特的区位、自然资源和政策优势,但湛江经济发展与广东省其他城市及同批沿海开放城市相比却日趋落后。在剖析湛江经济发展中存在问题的基础上,提出了湛江各级政府应准确定位,彻底转变职能;做大做强支柱产业,积极培育战略产业;加大扶持农业龙头企业力度,提升湛江名牌、特色产品国际竞争力等实现湛江经济跨越式发展的路径。     

Estimating the economic impact of the Prestige oil spill on the Death Coast (NW Spain) fisheries

This paper presents an estimation of the economic effects of the Prestige oil spill in Galicia, focusing on the Death Coast fisheries and using fish landings as a market technique. Examining the evolution of landings in the Death Coast before and after the accident, the analysis reveals two opposing trends, with landings of some species increasing and those of other species diminishing.     

Economic gains of liberalising access to fishing quotas within the European Union

This paper analyses the extent to which specialisation gains can be achieved by liberalising access to fishing quotas within the European Union (EU). Fishing quotas are today exchanged between EU member states at a rate of 4% of total turnover in EU fisheries. Germany, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands are the most active. Only one fourth of these exchanges are permanent. With the management systems in EU fisheries differing among countries, comparative advantages in fisheries exist in member states with the best management practices. Hence, although positive but small specialisation gains exist in EU fisheries today, these gains might potentially be increased by liberalising access to fishing quotas and allowing transferability of quotas between individuals from different countries on a permanent basis. Increasing the gains might, however, affect relative stability.     

Modified Moving Particle Semi-implicit methods for the prediction of 2D wave impact pressure

As a gridless particle method, the MPS (Moving Particle Semi-implicit) method has proven useful in a wide variety of engineering applications including free-surface hydrodynamic flows. Despite its wide range of applicability, the MPS method suffers from some shortcomings such as non-conservation of momentum and spurious pressure fluctuation. By introducing new formulations for the pressure gradient and a new formulation of the source term of the Poisson Pressure Equation (PPE), and by allowing a slight compressibility, we have proposed modified MPS methods for the prediction of wave impact pressure on a coastal structure. The improved performance of the modified methods is shown through the simulation of numerous wave impact problems (including the impacts by a dam break flow, a flip-through and two cases of slightly-breaking waves) in comparison with the experimental data.     

利用卫星云图资料制作热带气旋预报路径的一种算法

根据台风生成后在云场中移动的环境条件,引入一个环境作用于台风中心的热力梯度力方向,用该热力梯度力方向与当前台风的移动方向相结合,研究台风移动过程的变化规律,寻找一种简易可行的台风路径预报方法．经过多年实践,本文揭示出台风中心未来沿着当前移动方向与环境作用于台风中心的热力方向合成移动的基本规律：当前台风中心移向与前方晴空区中轴线相交时,台风沿着当前移向前进到与阻挡轴线相交点相距4个纬距的位置时便发生偏转,逐渐与阻挡轴线走向趋于一致;若当前台风中心距相交点的距离小于或等于4个纬距时,则从当前位置发生偏转．文中利用以上规律研制出台风移向变化方程和移动轨迹方程．     

汶川特大地震后安县疫情的地理流行病学分析方法

在分析汶川特大地震后安县2008年5~7月份的流行病学数据的过程中,作者探索了安县震后疫情地理分布、疾病构成、易感人群及其时序变化等特征的地理流行病学方法,并给出了有关专题地图、过程曲线和统计表格。它们能够形象、直观、准确地反映安县震后的疫情态势地理分布,进而使防控工作有的放矢、对症下药,收到事半功倍的效果。在此基础上,作者分析了地理流行病学方法的固有优势、实施关键、应用模式,以及今后的防治方向。为确保震后疫情流行病学数据在空间性、时效性和完整性上的质量,今后对地理流行病学方法的研究,应该从目前的疫情现状描述层次,尽快地向疫情分析预测、防控决策支持等层次延伸。     

Evidence for the Retrograde Accretion onto Supermassive Black Holestwo

Recently, Sloan Digital Sky Survey successfully carried out the reverberation mapping of a sky area, aiming to test the R ? L relation that has been already widely used. Here, R is the responsivity-weighted radius of the broad line region, and L is the optical luminosity at 5100 Å. Two results have been obtained from the data in the first year: (1) The time lags of AGNs (Active Galactic Nuclei) with a high accretion rate are much shorter than that estimated from the R ? L relation, which confirmed the results of reverberation mapping observations made by the Lijiang 2.4 meter telescope. (2) Some AGNs with a lower accretion rate also have very short time lags. The shortening of the time lags of the AGNs with a low accretion rate is caused by the retrograde accretion of black holes. This result has verified from observations the theoretical prediction made by Wang et al. (2014). The discovery of the black holes with a retrograde accretion has important significance, it indicates that the cosmological evolution of the black holes in quasars is implemented via the inherently random accretion.