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This paper shows the development of a numerical analysis model, which enables the calculation of the cargo transport capacity of a vehicle that circulates through a vacuum tube at high speed, whose effectiveness in transport is analyzed. The simulated transportation system is based on vehicles moving in vacuum tubes at high speed, a concept commonly known as Hyperloop, but assuming the vehicles for cargo containers. For the specific vehicle proposed, which does not include a compressor and levitates on magnets, the system formed by the vehicle and the vacuum tube has been conceptually developed, establishing the corresponding mathematical relationships that define its behavior. To properly model the performance of this transport system, it has been necessary to establish the relationships between the design variables and the associated constraints, such as the Kantrowitz limit, aerodynamics, transport, energy consumption, etc. Once the model was built and validated, it was used to analyze the effects of the variation of the number of containers, the operating speed and the tube length, considering the total and specific consumption of energy. After finding the most efficient configuration regarding energy consumption and transport effectiveness, the complete system was calculated. The results obtained constitute a first approximation for the predesign of this transport system and the built model allows different alternatives to be compared according to the design variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current research is focused on the identification of cargo containers in a stack from their images in the infrared and visible spectra, in order to locate the container-origin of ignition within the cargo temperature control and fire safety system. The relevance of the topic is reinforced by the functional requirements for shipboard safety, which are embodied in Chapter II-2 of the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Convention, and demanded by the necessity of enhancing safety measures during cargo transportation by the world container fleet. The thermal imager's field of view (FOV) and the coordinate dependencies between the object and its image have been studied and modelled, and an algorithm for fire detection has been defined within the scope of the current research in connection with the containers within the camera's FOV. A corresponding verification has been carried out by means of simulation modelling using the Unity and C# programming language capabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are physical systems whose operations are coordinated, monitored, and controlled by computing and communication functions. These systems are typically heterogeneous, including Internet of Things and information technology subsystems, and can present a myriad of implementation details, making them very complex systems. An important type of CPS is a maritime container terminal (cargo port), which is a facility where cargo containers are transported between ships and land vehicles for onward transportation and vice versa. A cargo port performs four basic functions: receiving, storing, staging, and loading for both import and export containers. We present here process patterns that describe the functional aspects of cargo ports and a pattern that describes their structural properties (patterns are encapsulated solutions to recurrent problems). These patterns describe semantic aspects found in any cargo port and can be adapted to describe other CPSs. We decompose these process patterns into use cases that describe their interactions with the system. We then integrate the process patterns with structural patterns to assemble a partial reference architecture (RA) that shows the interactions of all the patterns while also indicating the typical stakeholders found in all ports. We validate the proposed reference architecture, highlighting its theoretical and practical value. Software and system designers of cargo ports need to start from a conceptual and abstract view that is subsequently refined to add more details. The use of reference architectures and patterns is an effective way to organize and describe the functional and non-functional aspects of a system, as well as to unify the design of all its aspects. This is, until now, the only published RA for cargo ports, and it can be a useful guideline for the designers of any type of cargo port. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the maritime transport of containers continues to grow and container ships change in terms of design and construction, it is important to ensure the appropriate level of safety for this type of transport. Over the decades, the size and cargo capacity of container ships have been changing, and so have their manoeuvring restrictions and required stability criteria. It seems that changes in the regulations, technological development and increased stability requirements are not yielding satisfactory results – the causes of container ship accidents continue to show similar patterns. The present article refers to the problem of ensuring safety in sea container transport, with a particular focus on cargo processes. Its purpose is to determine cause-and-effect relations leading to the loss of containers at sea, and to develop a model of loading that could significantly raise the level of safety of container transport. The article provides a general description of threats to ships related to weather conditions, loading methods or stability limitations. A statistical analysis of the occurrence of damage and/or loss of cargo from container ships was carried out and the risk of cargo loss was assessed on the basis of data from 2015‒2019. A Pareto diagram was used for this purpose. The authors present the concept of the container ship loading model, which may contribute to increasing the safety of shipping in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approaches based on mechanical equilibrium are described for handling cargo stability in the container loading problem. This problem is expressed as an integer programming model and solved with a branch-and-cut algorithm. Cutting planes are added to avoid generating unstable packings. Three grids of points are used to pack items, and then their weakness and advantages, when combined with the cargo stability, are discussed. Computational results on 180 instances from the literature show that the support factor underestimates the solution, as the proposed approaches allowed stable packings with a higher volume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To combat the risk of nuclear smuggling, radiography systems are deployed at ports to scan cargo containers for concealed illicit materials. Dual energy radiography systems enable a rough elemental analysis of cargo containers due to the Z -dependence of photon attenuation, allowing for improved material detection. This work studies the capabilities for atomic number discrimination using dual energy MeV systems by considering dual energy { 6 , 4 } MeV , { 10 , 6 } MeV , and { 10 , 4 } MeV bremsstrahlung beams. Results of this analysis show that two different pure materials can sometimes produce identical transparency measurements, leading to a fundamental ambiguity when differentiating between materials of different atomic numbers. Previous literature has observed this property, but the extent of the limitation is poorly understood and the cause of the degeneracy is generally inadequately explained. This non-uniqueness property stems from competition between photoelectric absorption and pair production and is present even in systems with perfect resolution and zero statistical noise. These findings are validated through Monte Carlo transparency simulations. Results of this study show that currently deployed commercial radiographic systems are fundamentally incapable of distinguishing between high- Z nuclear materials and miscellaneous mid- Z cargo contents. • Dual energy cargo scanners are incapable of uniquely characterizing high-Z materials. • This stems from competition between photoelectric absorption and pair production. • Even systems with perfect statistical resolution cannot resolve this degeneracy. • Results are validated through Monte Carlo simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The failure of vehicle's suspension components has contributed to road crashes, while their defective operation can deteriorate the fuel efficiency of the vehicles. In this context, and when compared with solid cargo transporters, the road tankers would tend to produce larger roll forces during turning, as the curved shape of the liquid cargo container, shifts upwards the centre of gravity of the cargo. With reference to a rectangular cargo container representing the solid cargo situation, the increase in the position due to elliptical and circular tank shapes, can attain a value of 17% (100% fill, circular tank). In this study, experimental results comparing the lateral load transfer due to solid and liquid cargoes, indicate that the average force increase on the vehicle's load-receiver side due to a liquid cargo, is 4.3%. To analyse the full-scale situation of both situations, that is, the higher position of the centre of gravity and the shifting of the liquid cargo, a simplified model is developed. The outputs from such a model when subjected to realistic operating conditions (speed and turning radius), suggest that the higher position of the centre of gravity due to using a non-rectangular cargo container generates an average force increase of 4.9% on the side receiving the load transfer. The incorporation of the effect of the liquid cargo, through the simple pendulum analogy, suggests that such an average increases to 6.76%, with a maximum of 8.35% in the case of the elliptical tank at 75% fill level. It is found that the average liquid cargo effect is 5.44%, which should be compared with the 4.3% of the experiments. Road tankers components would thus have a relatively shorter load cycle life than those of the solid cargo trucks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bulk cargo containerization (BCC) involves changes in the transportation mode of container shipping for cargo that uses bulk carriers without packing. This topic has recently attracted considerable attention as an alternative transportation method for container cargo. BCC is advantageous because it can address imbalances in the amount of cargo conveyed between the main and back hauls, thereby improving efficiency. A previous survey among companies involved in cargo shipping revealed that in addition to ocean freight, vanning and devanning, and customs clearance costs, consignees' decisions were the key factor in selecting transport modes. The present study aims to clarify the cost competitiveness of container shipping and identify cost reductions that may increase the use of BCC. To quantitatively check the results of the survey employed in this study, we constructed a model based on consignees' and container shipping companies' costs to determine the choice of transport mode for back-haul trade, then examined the incentives for consignees and shipping companies. We found that BCC can be realized by cost reduction on the part of the consignee and profit improvement on the part of the container shipping company for some routes and goods. Although reducing the freight rate would effectively promote BCC, reducing other costs would not have the same effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of an active cargo hook for stabilizing external loads during high-speed flight is demonstrated in simulation. A CONEX cargo container with two rear-mounted stabilization fins is used as the subject load. Significant nonlinearities in the dynamics of the external load result in multiple equilibria and limit cycle oscillations. A full-state feedback linear quadratic controller is developed assuming an isolated load in a wind tunnel model and shown to be successful in stabilizing the originally unstable load at a target airspeed of 100 kt. The design is then completed to cover the target carriage envelope from hover to high-speed flight. Simulations of a coupled system incorporating a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter with an actuated cargo hook and the external load show that the controller is successful in providing system stability throughout the target flight speed envelope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides a cargo contribution yield management model to solve the ship capacity control problem for the container liner shipping industry. We propose a new objective to optimize cargo contribution to replace the focus on total revenue or average revenue in the current research. We reflect the special characteristics of yield management in container liner shipping, and all cost items were identified and calculated to develop a new cargo contribution evaluating system. We propose a mathematical model for service route segments' allocation distribution based on cargo contribution. We use a genetic algorithm to solve the model further with comparative analysis with actual practice. The study cultivates new ground in the current literature with a wide range of innovative applications at a practical level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Tremendous efforts have been devoted to the development of future nanomedicines that can be specifically designed to incorporate responsive elements that undergo modification in structural properties upon external triggers. One potential use of such stimuli-responsive materials is to release encapsulated cargo upon excitation by an external trigger. Today, such stimuli-response materials allow for spatial and temporal tunability, which enables the controlled delivery of compounds in a specific and dose-dependent manner. This potentially is of great interest for medicine (e.g. allowing for remotely controlled drug delivery to cells, etc.). Among the different external exogenous and endogenous stimuli used to control the desired release, light and magnetic fields offer interesting possibilities, allowing defined, real time control of intracellular releases. In this review we highlight the use of stimuli-responsive controlled release systems that are able to respond to light and magnetic field triggers for controlling the release of encapsulated cargo inside cells. We discuss established approaches and technologies and describe prominent examples. Special attention is devoted towards polymer capsules and polymer vesicles as containers for encapsulated cargo molecules. The advantages and disadvantages of this methodology in both, in vitro and in vivo models are discussed. An overview of challenges associate with the successful translation of those stimuli-responsive materials towards future applications in the direction of potential clinical use is given. Graphical abstract Release of encapsulated molecular cargo upon (external) triggers. Unlabelled Image [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze accident factors that occur in the unloading of steel cargoes and try to derive priority of importance among factors. The Fuzzy-AHP, which enables hierarchical analysis through pairwise comparison of factors, is used to derive priorities of safety factors to consider when unloading steel cargo. In the top factor analysis results, weights were ranked in order of human factors, safety education, equipment and facilities, and business environment. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the improvement of the safety consciousness of the field workers and enterprises and to reduce the incidence of accidents in the unloading and unloading operations by deriving the relative importance between the factors. In the future, it is necessary to study the cargoes of other disasters such as container cargo as well as steel cargo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ship stowage plan is the management connection of quae crane scheduling and yard crane scheduling. The quality of ship stowage plan affects the productivity greatly. Previous studies mainly focuses on solving stowage planning problem with online searching algorithm, efficiency of which is significantly affected by case size. In this study, a Deep Q-Learning Network (DQN) is proposed to solve ship stowage planning problem. With DQN, massive calculation and training is done in pre-training stage, while in application stage stowage plan can be made in seconds. To formulate network input, decision factors are analyzed to compose feature vector of stowage plan. States subject to constraints, available action and reward function of Q-value are designed. With these information and design, an 8-layer DQN is formulated with an evaluation function of mean square error is composed to learn stowage planning. At the end of this study, several production cases are solved with proposed DQN to validate the effectiveness and generalization ability. Result shows a good availability of DQN to solve ship stowage planning problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cargo containers passing through ports are scanned by non-intrusive inspection systems to search for concealed illicit materials. By using two photon beams with different energy spectra, dual energy inspection systems are sensitive to both the area density and the atomic number of cargo contents. Most literature on the subject assumes a simple exponential attenuation model for photon intensity in which only free streaming photons are detected. However, this approximation neglects second order effects such as scattering, leading to a biased model and thus incorrect material predictions. This work studies the accuracy of the free streaming model by comparing it to simulation outputs, finding that the model shows poor atomic number reconstruction accuracy at high- Z and suffers significantly if the source energy spectra and detector response function are not known exactly. To address these challenges, this work introduces a semiempirical transparency model which modifies the free streaming model by rescaling different components of the mass attenuation coefficient, allowing the model to capture secondary effects ignored by the free streaming model. The semiempirical model displays improvement agreement with simulated results at high- Z and shows excellent extrapolation to materials and thicknesses which were not included during the calibration step. Furthermore, this work demonstrates that the semiempirical model yields accurate atomic number predictions even when the source spectra and detector response are not known exactly. Using the semiempirical model, manufacturers can perform a simple calibration to enable more precise Z reconstruction capabilities, which has the potential to significantly improve the performance of existing dual energy radiographic systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A liner shipping network is a form of collaboration in the liner shipping industry where players such as intermodal services providers, container management services providers and container terminal operators share resources and assets to develop mutually beneficial strategies and seek operational performance gains. This paper examines the liner shipping industry from the network perspective with a focus on developing a descriptive framework for the development and operations of liner shipping networks. To achieve this objective, we use case study research to establish a descriptive framework for the reference of liner shipping companies (LSCs) and their business partners to operate and manage their networks competently. To understand the participation of LSCs in liner shipping networks, we explore the driving forces that prompt LSCs to develop and operate their networks based on evidence from case studies of liner shipping services. This study provides a useful framework for LSCs and their business partners to compare different areas for cost and service improvements in operating liner shipping networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focusses on the risk of potential exposure to radiation for personnel driving a truck as well as illegal individuals being transported in cargo containers. Inspection facilities usually use a high energy linear accelerator (linac) in order to inspect the cargo. Since this type of equipment has associated health risks due to potential unwanted exposure, the occupational and public dose limits should be calculated in order to develop safer work conditions. This work used a computation model running the code MCNPX to simulate a typical cargo inspection facility which used a linac operating at 4.5 MeV. Two scenarios were considered: (1) exposure of the driver to the primary beam due to a potential failure of the safety sensors; and (2) dose received by an illegal individual being transported inside the cargo container. The results show a dose of 0.8514 mSv per scan for the driver exposed to the primary X-ray beam, and 0.1997 mSv per scan for an individual transported in the cargo box. In conclusion, both the individual and the driver received a dose below the acceptable limit considered safe for an individual (1 mSv/year). However, that was the value of one scan; in a case in which multiple scans would be performed, the dose limit can be quickly exceeded. In that case, the limit would be exceeded by the driver faster than by the individual in the cargo. • Focus on the risk of potential exposure to radiation for personnel driving a truck. • MCNPX computation model simulates a typical cargo inspection facility. • Results suggest that the system is safe even in an abnormal situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the prevalence of its use, very little is understood about the role of electronic commerce (EC) practice on the strategic management of container shipping companies. Four case studies were undertaken to assess the main uses, motivations, barriers and strategic relevance of EC in the container shipping industry between 1992 and 2002. The cases studies included one large, one medium and one small deep-sea container line, and one medium-sized feeder line. The research found that despite pressing technical and managerial barriers, the need to improve internal economies provided the most fertile grounds for EC use in 1992 and EC was seen as a tactical tool to achieve these goals. By 2002, customer-oriented motivations became critical to the increased relevance of EC and to its perception as a business necessity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper, empty container movements in the Los Angeles and Long Beach (LA/LB) port area are studied in an effort to reduce congestion by optimizing the empty container reuse. The dynamic empty container reuse is modeled analytically, and techniques are developed to optimize empty container operations. Several case studies based on current and projected demand in the LA/LB port area are used to evaluate the proposed techniques. Simulation results demonstrate that significant cost and congestion reductions can be achieved in the area, through reuse of empty containers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Positioned strategically between major east–west and north–south trading routes, the Caribbean basin has become a locus of new service configurations in container shipping. Over the last decade global shipping lines have been restructuring their service networks in the region in order to integrate local services with the newly rationalized intercontinental connections. By comparing service network structures in 1994 and 2002 at three levels of organization—local, regional and global—we are able to show that although Caribbean ports are well connected to the global system, and while the total number of services has declined between the two years, those mounted by members of global alliances have increased. Moreover, services of the global carriers at the local and regional levels are on the increase. As much as the alliances are reshaping Caribbean networks, the smaller carriers are still playing a role, but at a reduced spatial scale. Parallel with the modifications to network configurations are the changes in the port system. Essentially, traffic of the most important ports in the north and western part of the basin has grown at slower rates than the ports in the south and east. These traffic changes are only partly related to network changes. It is the growth of transshipments that is driving the most important developments in port traffic and bringing to the forefront the development of hub ports. The most important are: Colon, Panama (southwest), Freeport, Bahamas (north), Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago (southeast), Kingston, Jamaica and Rio Haina, Dominican Republic (middle), and Cartagena, Colombia and Puerto Cabello, Venezuela (south). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synchromodality is a freight transport process in which information is exchanged expeditiously in order to maximize the benefits of different modes of transport and transport nodes in terms of efficiency and environmental impact. The aim of the study is to analyze the problems of synchronized intermodal traffic management between the main port and inland transport nodes in European transport corridors and to find reliable solutions to these problems. Therefore, the main purpose of this article is to investigate the problem of the distribution of containers transported by rail between two transport terminals in a synchronous transport network. A specific optimization model is presented in this article. This optimization task is formulated as a stochastic integer programming model between the terminals located in Vilnius and Klaipeda Seaport, the essence of which is as follows: (a) to minimize the waiting time for container cargo at the location—terminal No. 1; (b) to minimize the total journey time of the train; (c) to minimize the waiting time for containerized cargo at the point of arrival—terminal No. 2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]