Price Formation of Dry Bulk Carriers in the Chinese Shipbuilding Industry

In this paper we present, for the first time, the price formation of China’s dry bulk carrier using vessel prices quoted by major Chinese shipyards in actual shipbuilding orders. This allows us to investigate the relationship of price and determinants in the Chinese shipbuilding industry by including generic market factors as well as Chinese elements. The analysis, employing Principal Component Regression (PCR) approach, indicates that the time charter rate has the most significantly positive impact. While increases in other four factors, namely shipbuilding cost, price cost margin, shipbuilding capacity utilization and credit rate, have descending order of positive influences. Different from traditional perception, we assert that the most important role of time charter rate plays mainly attributes to the ‘China Factor’ in bulk carrier sector. In addition, simulations are performed to investigate what would happen to the Chinese dry bulk carrier prices under changes of time charter rate and shipbuilding cost. This paper has implications for the Chinese shipyards, shipbuilding industry customers and industry policy makers. Acknowledgment - This research is partly funded by the Chinese Scholarship Council and TORM Foundation.Price Formation, Dry Bulk Carrier, Chinese Shipbuilding Industry

Assessing the cost competitiveness of China’s Shipbuilding Industry

Cost has a significant impact on competitiveness within the shipbuilding industry. In China, low costs have created favourable conditions for domestic shipyards competing in the international market. However, China’s shipbuilders have been facing rising cost pressures in recent years, which may affect their industrial competitiveness. In this article, we assess China’s shipbuilding cost and its impact on the competitiveness of China’s shipbuilding industry. We make comparisons with China’s major competitors, South Korea and Japan, over the period from 2000 to 2009. First, we analyse principal factors that affect shipbuilding cost. Second, we examine the changes in China’s shipbuilding cost over the time period. Finally, we use shipbuilding cost and market share as the basis for analysing the competitiveness of the shipbuilding industry. The results reveal the sources and limiting factors of China’s cost advantage, as well as changes in its shipbuilding cost and competitiveness.Shipbuilding cost; industry competitiveness; China’s shipbuilding industry

Research on the Possibility of Civil Public Interests Protected by Individual Litigation in China: Based on the Path of Similarity of Interests

The forms of civil public interests relief are mainly citizen suit, class action and test litigation in western countries. The contradiction between the demand of civil public interests relief and the supply of public subjects gradually appears in Chinese civil action. The limitation of Chinese public subjects in public interests relief and the non-finality of civil action relief further aggravate the contradiction. Public interests show the dual attributes of private benefit and public benefit, in which the similarity of private benefit is the theoretical basis of public interests protected by individual litigation. The similarity of private benefit not only provides the theoretical path of individual litigation, but also overcomes the contradiction between the traditional civil public interest litigation and the interest of litigation.

Analysis of Pyrolysis Kinetic Model for Processing of Thermogravimetric Analysis Data

Pyrolysis has profound implications for coal as a raw material to make phase change material (PCM). It is necessary to derive a pyrolysis kinetic model for predicting the yield of volatiles and reaction performance during pyrolysis of coal, which is of significant importance for its thermal processing. The devolatilization of coal is characterized by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) at different heating rates, and many kinetic models can be achieved by analyzing the TGA data. This work was aimed to find an appropriate model to describe the pyrolysis of coal and took Zhundong coal as an example. Four types of isoconversion kinetic methods, that is, Friedman, Flynn-Wall-Ozawa (FWO), Kissinger-Akahira-Sunose (KAS), Miura-Maki method, and different distributed activation energy models (DAEM) were employed here to fit TGA data for pyrolysis of Zhundong coal. The pre-exponential factors and activation energies obtained from different kinetic models were analyzed. An m-nth-DAEM was developed by considering that m classes of reactions took place with the same pre-exponential factor k0 but different distribution activation energy following logistic distribution or Gaussian distribution. The results showed that the FWO model was better for description of pyrolysis process of Zhundong coal, and the 2-nth-DAEM assuming Gaussian distribution of activation energy gave the best fit for the TGA data of Zhundong coal. The research provides a valuable reference to the development of thermal utilization technology of Zhundong coal

Physical modeling of spent-nuclear-fuel container

A new physical simulation model was developed to simulate the casting process of the ductile iron heavy section spent-nuclear-fuel container. In this physical simulation model, a heating unit with DR24 Fe-Cr-Al heating wires was used to compensate the heat loss across the non-natural surfaces of the sample, and a precise and reliable casting temperature controlling/monitoring system was employed to ensure the thermal behavior of the simulated casting to be similar to the actual casting. Also, a mould system was designed, in which changeable mould materials can be used for both the outside and inside moulds for different applications. The casting test was carried out with the designed mould and the cooling curves of central and edge points at different isothermal planes of the casting were obtained. Results show that for most isothermal planes, the temperature control system can keep the temperature differences within 6 ℃ between the edge points and the corresponding center points, indicating that this new physical simulation model has high simulation accuracy, and the mould developed can be used for optimization of casting parameters of spent-nuclear-fuel container, such as composition of ductile iron, the pouring temperature, the selection of mould material and design of cooling system. In addition, to maintain the spheroidalization of the ductile iron, the force-chilling should be used for the current physical simulation to ensure the solidification of casting in less than 2 h

Audio steganography with AES for real-time covert Voice over Internet Protocol communications

As a popular real-time service on the Internet, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) communication attracts more and more attention from the researchers in the information security field. In this study, we proposed a VoIP steganographic algorithm with variable embedding capacities, incorporating AES and key distribution, to realize a real-time covert VoIP communication. The covert communication system was implemented by embedding a secret message encrypted with symmetric cryptography AES-128 into audio signals encoded by PCM codec. At the beginning of each VoIP call, a symmetric session key (SK) was assigned to the receiver with a Session Initiation Protocol-based authentication method. The secret message was encrypted and then embedded into audio packets with different embedding algorithms before sending them, so as to meet the real-time requirements of VoIP communications. For each audio packet, the embedding capacity was calculated according to the specific embedding algorithm used. The encryption and embedding processes were almost synchronized. The time cost of encryption was so short that it could be ignored. As a result of AES-based steganography, observers could not detect the hidden message using simple statistical analysis. At the receiving end, the corresponding algorithm along with the SK was employed to retrieve the original secret message from the audio signals. Performance evaluation with state-of-the-art network equipment and security tests conducted using the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon method indicated that the proposed steganographic algorithm is secure, effective, and robust

Leaching and freeze-thaw events contribute to litter decomposition - a review

Litter decomposition is vital for carbon and nutrient turnover in terrestrial ecosystems, and this process has now been thoroughly demonstrated to be regulated by various mechanisms. The total environment has been continuously changing in recent decades, especially in high-latitude regions; these alterations, however, profoundly contribute to the decomposition process, but a comprehensive recognition has not available. Here we reviewed the empirical observations and current knowledge regarding how hydrological leaching and freeze-thaw events modulate early decomposition of plant litter. Leaching contributes a considerable percentage of mass loss and carbon and nutrient release in early stage of decomposition, but the magnitudes are different between species levels depending on the chemical traits. Frequent freezing and thawing events could positively influence decomposition rate in cold biomes but also hamper soil decomposer and there is no general and predictable pattern has been emerged. Further experiments should be manipulated to estimate how the altered freezing and thawing effect on carbon and nutrient release from plant litter to better understanding the changing environment on litter decomposition