A sustainable Australian naval industry

Executive Summary: Australia, as an island continent, is a maritime nation. Our way of life is enabled by the sea.Our security and prosperity vests in a Navy that can fight and win at sea. For the Navy to be effective, the Australian naval industry must be able to continuously deliver and sustain capable warships and submarines.This paper puts forward an industry perspective on how to develop a sustainable and productive Australian naval industry. Australia has the ability to develop a naval industry that approaches or exceeds international benchmarks for efficiency and performance. This advanced industrial capability would be available without additional cost should the Government implement policies that enable higher industry performance.Five key recommendations are proposed:1.    implement rolling ship and submarine building programs to sustain industry throughput2.    build a capable in-country naval ‘value chain’ built on domestic and international sources ofsupply3.    implement best commercial practice across the value chain for greater productivity4.    increase in-country capability in submarine and ship integration to include warship design5.    establish, maintain and execute a strategic science and technology program.Significant benefits follow. Simply put, the most important benefit of a sustainable and productive Australian naval industry is an improvement in Navy capability. The Government also receives more cost effective products and services. A wider value is realised through greater military and industrial self-reliance, jobs growth, and development of human capital, innovation and economic growth

The implementation of the national passenger rail plan on priority corridors

Research presented for the degree of Masters of Management in Public Policy to the faculty of Commerce, Law and Management of the University of the Witwatersrand, School of Governance March 2017The National Rail Passenger Plan was approved by the Cabinet of South Africa in 2006, as a blueprint to arrest the decline of passenger rail in the country. This was developed at the backdrop of the consolidation of the rail entities where passenger and freight rail will be separately managed. South Africa’s passenger rail system was underpinned by years of underinvestment. South Africa has experienced the terminal decline pertaining to the market share in passenger rail. The entire rail assets i.e. both above rail and below rail were in a state of collapse and as such the national passenger rail plan was therefore a right intervention. The approach of the plan was to position rail transport as one of the key mode for public transport solutions. The Priority Corridors strategy was introduced as method to target the focused implementation methodology. The strategy approach was to look at corridors with high ridership in order to have an impact. Around 2.2 million, mainly low income, working people use the commuter network everyday to access employment opportunities. The focus of the research study was to understand the progress which has been made with regard to this strategic intervention. Critical is to understand what are the shortcomings that impede the implementation of national passenger rail plan in South Africa. To answer this question, the study focused on the documentary analysis and interviews as part of the data collection methodology. The findings of the study were able to demonstrate on which aspect of the strategic infrastructure investments projects were implemented in priority corridors. Some of the aspects which have been implemented include track rehabilitation, new signal equipment and station upgrades in priority corridors. However, there were challenges that were experienced during the implementation. The study findings revealed that funding of the programme implementation is one of shortcomings that delayed the implementation of the national rail plan. Other findings include the lack of capacity and technical skills; and lack of leadership in implementing the strategic projects in the priority corridors. The study recommends that for sustainable rail operations, funding should be mobilised, Prasa structure should be realigned and the rail regulatory framework should be finalised.MT 201

An enterprise-level naval shipbuilding plan

Overview: This paper reviews the past performance of Australian naval shipbuilding, describes the pros and cons of a rolling production model, and unpicks the issues that the government will have to take into account. It concludes that we’re likely to see a bigger surface navy—potentially a much bigger one—as well as the sell-off of at least part of the currently government-owned ASC Pty Ltd. The paper also looks at strategies to manage the risks in the likely course of action and recommends mitigation strategies

Trajectory Aware Macro-cell Planning for Mobile Users

We design and evaluate algorithms for efficient user-mobility driven macro-cell planning in cellular networks. As cellular networks embrace heterogeneous technologies (including long range 3G/4G and short range WiFi, Femto-cells, etc.), most traffic generated by static users gets absorbed by the short-range technologies, thereby increasingly leaving mobile user traffic to macro-cells. To this end, we consider a novel approach that factors in the trajectories of mobile users as well as the impact of city geographies and their associated road networks for macro-cell planning. Given a budget k of base-stations that can be upgraded, our approach selects a deployment that impacts the most number of user trajectories. The generic formulation incorporates the notion of quality of service of a user trajectory as a parameter to allow different application-specific requirements, and operator choices.We show that the proposed trajectory utility maximization problem is NP-hard, and design multiple heuristics. We evaluate our algorithms with real and synthetic data sets emulating different city geographies to demonstrate their efficacy. For instance, with an upgrade budget k of 20%, our algorithms perform 3-8 times better in improving the user quality of service on trajectories in different city geographies when compared to greedy location-based base-station upgrades.Comment: Published in INFOCOM 201

NASA Launch Services Program Small Satellite Processing Capabilities at Kennedy Space Center and Vandenberg Air Force Base

The NASA Launch Services Program (LSP) Launch Site Integration Branch (LSIB) conducted a study to identify options for accommodating launch site support requirements for the next generation of NASA small satellites and secondary payloads launched from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Vandenberg Air Force Base (VAFB). The anticipated needs range from cleanroom facilities, to long-term secure hardware storage, to propellant loading/unloading, to stacking and fairing encapsulation. Existing commercial and government payload processing facilities (PPF) are highly capable and commonly used to support satellite processing, while alternate options may be better tailored for the needs and budgets of small satellites. These include peripheral facilities such as PPF airlocks or partitioned spaces, existing facilities which can be refurbished or upgraded, and portable facilities such as cleanroom trailers. The LSP LSIB continues to evaluate its capability to meet the needs of small satellites and secondary payloads. The author requests input from the small satellite community, to help identify any emerging launch site requirements for future NASA small satellite and secondary payload missions

Upgrade of the Inner Tracking System of ALICE

The upgrade of the Inner Tracking System (ITS) of ALICE is planned for the second long shutdown of the LHC in 2019-2020. The ALICE physics program after the shutdown requires the ITS to have improved tracking capabilities and improved impact parameter resolution at very low transverse momentum, as well as a substantial increase in the readout rate. To fulfill these requirements the current ITS will be replaced by seven layers of Monolithic Active Pixel Sensors. The new detector will be moved as close as 23 mm to the interaction point and will have a significantly reduced material budget. Several prototypes of the sensor have been developed to test different aspects of the sensor design including prototypes with analog and digital readout, as well as small and final-size sensors. These prototypes have been thoroughly characterized both in laboratory tests and at test beam facilities including studies on the radiation hardness of the sensors. This contribution gives an overview of the current status of the research and development with a focus on the pixel sensors and the characterization of the latest prototypes.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, proceedings of VERTEX 2015, 1-5 June 2015, Santa Fe, New Mexico, US

Rolling stock quality - Improvements and user willingness to pay.

This study has estimated monetary valuations of various types of rolling stock and stock related attributes in relation to each other. It has used a combination of Revealed Preference (RP) and Stated Preference (SP) methods. The estimated monetary valuations of different types of rolling stock do not vary greatly and this contrasts with most of the previous quantitative research findings in this area. The largest valuation of one stock type in relation to another was 39 pence per single trip for the comparison of Wessex electrics and Sprinters. This valuation is equivalent to 4.3% of the average fare paid. With regard to specific rolling stock attributes, this study has examined seating comfort, seating layout, ride quality, ambience, ventilation and noise. The most important attributes were found to be seating comfort, ride quality and ambience. The largest valuation obtained for seat comfort differences was 17 pence per single trip for the comparison of Networkers and Sprinters. This is equivalent to 1.9% of the average single fare. The corresponding figure for ride quality was 13 pence for the comparison of Wessex electrics and Sprinters and for ambience it was 10 pence for the comparison of Networkers and Sprinters. The maximum differences between stock types in terms of seating layout, ventilation and noise were all valued at less than five pence. The results can be generalised to stock types not covered in this research by obtaining ratings on a ten point scale of the relevant train types or specific rolling stock attributes and entering these into the estimated model

Turnaround of Indian Railways: A Critical Appraisal of Strategies and Processes

Indian Railways (IR), which was declared to be heading towards bankruptcy as per the Expert Group on Indian Railways in 2001, is today the second largest profit making Public Sector Undertaking after ONGC. The fund balance crossed Rs.12,000 crores in 2005-06, which had reached a low of just Rs.149 crores in 1990-2000. The total investment being planning for the eight-year time frame (2007-2015) is tentatively in the order of Rs.350,000 crores. This confidence is not only due to the rising trend of performance, but also due to the significant growth in the past two years. These two years coincided with Mr. Lalu Prasad being at the helm of affairs of the IR, having moved into his position on 23rd May, 2004. Railway officials called this as the ‘turnaround’ of IR. This paper attempts a diagnosis of the ‘turnaround,’ beginning with the question as to whether it really was a ‘turnaround’. This paper then carried out an analysis of the various determinants of the ‘turnaround’ related to goods, passenger and other operations. This is followed by a critical assessment of the strategies and key processes being the ‘turnaround’. Finally the sustainability of the ‘turnaround’ is explored.