Search

To enhance the technical analysis prediction of freight rate trend in the dry bulk shipping market, a fuzzy neural network combined with technical indicators is developed. Firstly, five technical indicators often used in the financial market including %R, RSI, MACD, CCI, and MA are chosen as input signals, and the accuracy rate for forecasting Baltic Dry Index (BDI) trend is about 62%. Secondly, a traditional fuzzy neural network is applied to the forecasting of BDI. The RMSPE of forecasting BDI by the traditional fuzzy neural network is 24.76. Finally, the integrated fuzzy neural network combined with technical indicators is applied to forecasting BDI. The accuracy rate for forecasting BDI trend is 83%, and the RMSPE of forecasting BDI is 1.89. The results show that the integrated fuzzy neural network combined with technical indicators has a higher forecasting accuracy rate than the technical indicator approach or the fuzzy neural network approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the design of a V-band logarithmic power detector (PD) and the integration with a 60-GHz CMOS vital-signs Doppler radar sensor to be incorporated with a microprocessor control unit (MCU) for fast automatic clutter cancellation. The PD adopts the successive detection logarithmic amplifier (SDLA) topology and achieves a high dynamic range by replacing the limited amplifiers with millimeter-wave (MMW) linear amplifiers. From the measurement results, the PD exhibits a dynamic range and logarithmic errors higher than 35 dB and within ±2 dB from 50 to 62 GHz. The whole integrated radar sensor chip is fabricated by a 90-nm CMOS process with a chip size of 2 mm $\times2.34$ mm and a dc power consuming of 243 mW. The radar chip and a 60-GHz 17-dBi patch-array antenna are integrated by bondwire interconnection on a compact single carrier board for experimental test. By incorporating the MCU to the radar chip board, the fast automatic clutter canceling can achieve more than 25-dB clutter cancellation. Moreover, it shows a successful vital-signs detection for a distance more than 1.2 m. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents a compact integration design of a low-cost bondwire-interconnection scheme between a 60-GHz CMOS vital-signs Doppler radar sensor chip and a millimeter-wave patch-array planar antenna (17-dBi gain). The interconnection has the form of an inductance-capacitance-inductance structure configured as a T-matching network. It consists of a short microstrip line as a small capacitance and parallel bondwires as inductance. Open-ended stubs are additionally applied in the design to improve the ground connection at 60 GHz. To enhance the robustness of the impedance-matching bandwidth to withstand possible bonding length variations, additional series and shunt transmission lines are also deployed. The proposed low-cost integrated circuit-to-board interconnection design requires no additional processing (e.g., cavity etching of the carrier board). In the experimental measurement, compared with the radar sensor connected with a 7-dB-loss V -band cable to the planar antenna in a previous report, the implemented compact bondwire-interconnected CMOS radar antenna module can enhance the detection range from 75 to at least 105 cm [and potentially up to 120–150 cm if the radar chip output power (0 dBm) is the same as 3 dBm]. This shows the potential facilitation for the incorporation of the 60-GHz radar sensor chip into portable devices for wireless remote physiological monitoring healthcare applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The best worst method is employed to assess key risk factors in container carriers' cold chain logistics operations. • Three major assessment aspects and 15 risk factors are preliminarily utilized to evaluate key risk factors. • Shipper risk aspect is the most important assessment aspect. • 'Excessively long container loading time' is ranked first of key risk factor. Given that reefer containers are highly dependent on their temperature control function, container carriers must pay particular attention to the risks occurring during cold chain logistics. Assessment of cold chain safety risks can therefore reduce chance of accidents and concern for product damage. The goal of this study was to use the best worst method (BWM) to assess key risk factors in container carriers' cold chain logistics operations. After gathering relevant information from the literature and conducting expert interviews, this study preliminarily determined risk factors affecting container carriers' cold chain logistics operations, and obtained 15 risk factors in 3 risk assessment aspects. A BWM model was then developed and tested using empirical data from a questionnaire survey of experts. The results indicated that (1) the "shipper risk" aspect is the most important risk link for container carriers' cold chain logistics; (2) the 6 key risk factors with the greatest effect on container carriers' cold chain logistics are "excessively long container loading time," "insufficient pre-cooling of goods," "poor or improper product packaging," "dockside or shipboard power supply system malfunction," "improper cargo stacking," and "human error affecting temperature settings." As a reference for container carriers engaging in cold chain logistics, this study also suggests risk management strategies intended to enhance cold chain safety and performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This article presents 75-110-GHz highly isolated T/R switch in 90nm CMOS. The proposed T/R switch circuit design is focused on highly isolation performance which is achieved by using both parallel inductors and leakage-cancellation techniques. To also reduce insertion loss which is also an important design key point, series-shunt single-pole double throw (SPDT) switch with optimizing transistors size and body-floating technique are adopted. From the experiment results, the designed switch has good performance of the return loss, insertion loss and isolation in W-band. Compared with some previously reported works, the designed switch has the best isolation performance of 48 dB at 94-GHz, and IP1dB is > 9dBm, respectively.© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 58:2725-2731, 2016 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluating the factors affecting customer value in department stores will shed light on the motivations of customers when choosing department stores, which will help department stores to improve their business performance and competitiveness. This paper applies the fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method to empirically analyze the determinants of customer value at department stores in Taiwan. This study first found the major factors influencing customer value at department stores in Taiwan through a review of the literature and expert interviews, and these factors consisted of four evaluation dimensions and 20 evaluation criteria. An empirical investigation was then conducted through an AHP expert questionnaire survey. The main findings of this paper were as follows: (1) "Physical environment" was the most important evaluation dimension for customer value at department stores in Taiwan. (2) The four leading factors influencing customer value in department stores were "roomy and comfortable space," "responsive customer service," "planning of lines of movement at counters," and "parking area and facilities." This study also performed further discussion of the four evaluation criteria as a reference for department stores that wish to raise their competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Navigators, shipping companies, port authorities and government maritime bureaus are interested in understanding the navigational risks of Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) in order to decide how to develop port facilities and make navigational safety regulations for MASS in the future. Unfortunately, so far there are no historical data of actual marine accidents of MASS. Most of the autonomous ship researches focused on small autonomous boats in the past, few discussed the navigational risks of large MASS. Therefore, this study proposes a novel model for forecasting objectively and quantitatively the navigational risks of MASS. Firstly, this study constructs an analytical hierarchy frame for forecasting the navigational risk of MASS. Secondly, a novel computing method is developed to integrate the subjective navigator judgment of MASS and objective actual marine accident data of crewed merchant vessels, and then to measure the navigational risk of MASS. The results showed that the navigational risk of mechanical malfunction accident is the largest when oceangoing at sea; the navigational risk of collision is the largest when entering/exiting a port. The findings could be given for a reference while making policies in the future. • A novel model for integrating subjective judgments and objective data to forecast the navigation risks of MASS is proposed. • The results showed that the navigational risk of mechanical malfunction accident is the largest when MASS oceangoing at sea. • On the other hand, the navigational risk of collision accident is the largest when MASS entering/exiting a port. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new method for measuring the degree of similarity between fuzzy numbers is proposed in this paper. The advantage of the proposed method is to take account of the membership functions of fuzzy numbers while measuring the degree of similarity of fuzzy numbers. Finally, six sets of fuzzy numbers are used to compare the proposed method with the existing methods for similarity measure of fuzzy numbers. The results show that the proposed method for similarity measure seems to be more reasonable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Hub location selection problems have become one of the most popular and important issues not only in the truck transportation and the air transportation, but also in the marine transportation. The main focus of this paper is on container transshipment hub locations in southeastern Asia. Transshipment is the fastest growing segment of the containerport market, resulting in significant scope to develop new transshipment terminal capacity to cater for future expected traffic flows. A shipping carrier not only calculates transport distances and operation costs, but also evaluates some qualitative conditions for existing hub locations and then selects an optimal container transshipment hub location in the region. In this paper, a fuzzy multiple criteria decision-making (FMCDM) model is proposed for evaluating and selecting the container transshipment hub port. Finally, the utilization of the proposed FMCDM model is demonstrated with a case study of hub locations in southeastern Asia. The results show that the FMCDM model proposed in this paper can be used to explain the evaluation and decision-making procedures of hub location selection well. In addition, the preferences are calculated for existing hub locations and these are then compared with a new proposed container transshipment hub location in the region, in this instance the Port of Shanghai. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis is performed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The available empirical evidence on the relationship between international trade container volume and the economic growth in Taiwan is not conclusive. The purpose of this paper is to propose a modified regression model for forecasting the volumes of Taiwan’s import containers. This article first identifies the contributions and shortcomings of previous empirical works. Then, a new modified regression model is proposed and built using data for the period 1989–2001. Finally, this paper compares the accuracy of the traditional regression model and this modified regression model for forecasting the volumes of Taiwan’s import containers. The results show that this modified regression model proposed in this paper exhibits higher prediction accuracy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: “Transshipment” is a very popular and important issue in the present international trade container transportation market. In order to reduce the international trade container transportation operation cost, it is very important for shipping companies to choose the best transshipment container port. The aim of this paper is to present a new Fuzzy Multiple Criteria Decision Making Method (FMCDM) for solving the transshipment container port selection problem under fuzzy environment. In this paper we present first the canonical representation of multiplication operation on three fuzzy numbers, and then this canonical representation is applied to the selection of transshipment container port. Based on the canonical representation, the decision maker of shipping company can determine quickly the ranking order of all candidate transshipment container ports and select easily the best one. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The COVID-19 pandemic has implications for the container shipping industry and global supply chains. Measuring the efficiency of major international container shipping companies (CSCs) is an important issue that helps them make strategic decisions to improve performance, especially in the context that all businesses and governments are adapting to build back better the post-pandemic world. This paper develops a new integrated approach using both a qualitative assessment tool and a performance assessment tool as a systematic and flexible framework for evaluating the container shipping industry. This new methodology is implemented in two phases to consider both qualitative and quantitative criteria for assessing the performance of CSCs based on efficiency. In the first phase, qualitative performance evaluation is performed using spherical fuzzy analytical hierarchical process (AHP-SF) to find criteria weights and then the grey complex proportional assessment methodology (COPRAS-G) is used to find the ranking of CSCs. Qualitative variables are converted into a quantitative variable for use in the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model as an output called an output variable called expert-based qualitative performance (EQP). Then, DEA is performed to identify efficient and inefficient CSCs with the EQP variable and other quantitative parameters (i.e., capacity, lifting, expenses, revenue, and CO2 emissions). The efficiency of 14 major global CSCs is empirically evaluated, and the scores for CSCs' efficiency in all dimensions are measured and examined. The results show that the average cargo efficiency of the CSCs is lower than their eco-efficiency performance, revealing the operational disruption caused by the pandemic. Moreover, by identifying efficient and inefficient CSCs, our findings provide practical implications for decision-makers in the maritime field and assist in modifying applicable policies and strategies to achieve sustainable performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attractiveness of ports is usually a pre-requisite and necessary condition for ports to achieve competitiveness, as well as the springboard to explore the competitive advantages of ports. To determine whether a port is competitive, it is necessary to explore whether it boasts certain factors that make the port attractive to users. The main purpose of this article is to apply the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method and the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) technique to evaluate key determinants of attractiveness and their cause/effect relationships for container ports in Taiwan. The empirical results showed that: (1) Top six determinates of attractiveness for container ports are 'ample cargo sources,' 'favorable port charges,' 'dense ship network and routes,' 'low transshipment costs,' 'efficient wharf operations,' and 'adequate wharfs and back-line land,' respectively. (2) Among the above six determinants of attractiveness, 'ample cargo sources' is the cause determinant. Three determinants of port attractiveness, 'favorable port charges,' 'dense ship network and routes,' 'low transshipment costs,' which are the effect determinants. They are affected by the determinants of attractiveness of 'ample cargo sources'. In addition, this study discusses the above findings and expects to provide the study results to Taiwan's port authorities for reference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a 60-GHz CMOS direct-conversion Doppler radar RF sensor with a clutter canceller for single-antenna noncontact human vital-signs detection. A high isolation quasi-circulator (QC) is designed to reduce the transmitting (Tx) power leakage (to the receiver). The clutter canceller performs cancellation for the Tx leakage power (from the QC) and the stationary background reflection clutter to enhance the detection sensitivity of weak vital signals. The integration of the 60-GHz RF sensor consists of the voltage-controlled oscillator, divided-by-2 frequency divider, power amplifier, QC, clutter canceller (consisting of variable-gain amplifier and 360^\circ phase shifter), low-noise amplifier, in-phase/quadrature-phase sub-harmonic mixer, and three couplers. In the human vital-signs detection experimental measurement, at a distance of 75 cm, the detected heartbeat (1–1.3 Hz) and respiratory (0.35–0.45 Hz) signals can be clearly observed with a 60-GHz 17-dBi patch-array antenna. The RF sensor is fabricated in 90-nm CMOS technology with a chip size of \2 mm\times \2 mm and a consuming power of 217 mW. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Rainfall is a fundamental process in the hydrologic cycle. This study investigated the cause-effect relationship in which precipitation at lower frequencies affects the amount of emitted radiation and at higher frequencies affects the amount of backscattered terrestrial radiation. Because the advantage of a probabilistic graphical model is its graphical representation, which allows easy causality interpretation using the arc directions, two Bayesian networks (BNs) were used, namely, a naïve Bayes classifier and a tree-augmented naïve Bayes model. To empirically evaluate and compare BN-based models, 'black box'-based models, including nearest-neighbor searches and artificial neural network (ANN)-based multilayer perceptron and logistic regression, were used as benchmarks. For the two study regions-namely, the Tanshui River basin in northern Taiwan and Chianan Plain in southern Taiwan-rain occurrences during typhoon seasons were examined using passive microwave imagery recorded using the Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder. The results show that although black box models exhibit excellent prediction ability, interpretation of their behavior is unsatisfactory. By contrast, probabilistic graphical models can explicitly reveal the causal relationship between brightness temperatures and nonrain/rain discrimination. For the Tanshui River basin, 19.35-, 22.23-, 37.0-, and 85.5-GHz vertically polarized brightness temperatures were found to diagnose rain occurrences. For the Chianan Plain, a more sensitive indicator of rain-scattering signals was obtained using 85-GHz measurements. The results demonstrate the potential use of BNs in identifying rain occurrences in regions with land features comprising various absorbing and scattering materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optimizing collaborative operations for yard cranes (YCs) and yard trucks (YTs) is vital to the overall performance of a container terminal. This research investigates four different hybrid approaches developed for dealing with yard crane scheduling problem (YCSP) and yard truck scheduling problem (YTSP) simultaneously for export containers in the yard side area of a container terminal. First, these approaches use a load-balancing heuristic to assign containers to YCs evenly. Following this, each of them employs a specific heuristic/metaheuristic, such as genetic algorithm (GA), particle swarm optimization (PSO) or subgroups PSO (SGPSO), to generate alternative container loading sequences for each YC. Finally, a simulation model is used to simulate loading and transporting of these export containers, evaluate alternative planning results, and finally output the best planning result. Experiments have been conducted to compare these hybrid approaches. The results show Hybrid4 (SGPSO) outperforms Hybrid1 (Sort-by-bay), Hybrid2 (GA), and Hybrid3 (PSO) in terms of makespan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]