SRSDD-v1.0: A High-Resolution SAR Rotation Ship Detection Dataset

Deep learning has been widely used in the field of SAR ship detection. However, current SAR ship detection still faces many challenges, such as complex scenes, multiple scales, and small targets. In order to promote the solution to the above problems, this article releases a high-resolution SAR ship detection dataset which can be used for rotating frame target detection. The dataset contains six categories of ships. In total, 30 panoramic SAR tiles of the Chinese Gaofen-3 of port areas with a 1-m resolution were cropped to slices, each with 1024 × 1024 pixels. In addition, most of the images in the dataset contain nearshore areas with complex background interference. Eight state-of-the-art rotated detectors and a CFAR-based method were used to evaluate the dataset. Experimental results revealed that the complex background will have a great impact on the performance of detectors.

Re.Structure: Finding the synergetic relationships between functioning urban ports, trapped landscapes, and public life

<p>In many countries around the world, contemporary urban ports have a major economical, infrastructural, and dominant presence along strategic waterfront edges. In terms of public life, these industrial private entities disconnect themselves from their parent city due to the interaction between a number of factors, namely; topography, orientation, positioning, port typology, the safety and functionality of ports, urban planning, and the effects on the natural ecology. The changing nature of how a city utilizes their waterfront questions whether urban ports have a role within the heart of the city. The potential to restructure port areas and their surrounding spaces that have been effected by development leads to the creation of dynamic public life entities. With these large infrastructural entities, the areas surrounding the boundaries are compromised and are trapped in a confusion of development and derelict design. Trapped landscapes often have detrimental effects on natural environments. This negative impact can be seen in the urban fabric of the city, and in the public well-being and life of the occupants of those spaces. This thesis investigates urban areas trapped by functioning port infrastructure, specifically the area known as the Quay Park Quarter, situated in Auckland, New Zealand. The Ports of Auckland Ltd (POAL), directly north of the area, imposes a dominating, privatised and industrial statement to contribute to the nature of this trapped landscape. The Quay Park Quarter includes heritage sites, railway infrastructure, and ad-hoc developments, some of which were initially intended to rejuvenate the area. This thesis aims to address the privatised issues surrounding the contemporary urban port by challenging the role and incorporation of public life as a means to restructure such areas. This thesis argues that active port areas can be reconfigured, restructured and reimagined in ways in which to utilize public life along active waterfront networks. This thesis will also argue that this utilization of public life can actively change the way in which trapped landscapes can be restructured for the future. By considering the ecological impact, the city’s growth and surrounding developed areas, positive changes can be made at multiple scales within the city context. This thesis proposes that this can be investigated through observing three interrelated scales to discover city systems and functions, the intimate, neighbourhood and metropolitan. The intimate scale involves the interactions with one’s self in the environment that surrounds them, as well as the composition of all things to create public life. This creates a sense of locality for being in the environment. Because of the port’s impact on this urban area as well as its external and internal functions, the neighbourhood scale addresses the reconfiguration and restructuring of the port infrastructure that has impacted this trapped urban area. The metropolitan scale involves how the public life network fits within the context of the city, through the means of landscape infrastructural components. The collaboration of these three scales allows for an interchange between what the human can experience in addition to the systematic functionality of the city. This offers unique insight beyond the master planning of such urban areas to actively engage with life on the ground. The reconfiguration and restructuring aspects of these areas allow for a variety of resolutions to both actively engage with public life within industrial areas and facilitate the release of trapped landscapes back into the surrounding context of these areas.</p>

Re.Structure: Finding the synergetic relationships between functioning urban ports, trapped landscapes, and public life

<p>In many countries around the world, contemporary urban ports have a major economical, infrastructural, and dominant presence along strategic waterfront edges. In terms of public life, these industrial private entities disconnect themselves from their parent city due to the interaction between a number of factors, namely; topography, orientation, positioning, port typology, the safety and functionality of ports, urban planning, and the effects on the natural ecology. The changing nature of how a city utilizes their waterfront questions whether urban ports have a role within the heart of the city. The potential to restructure port areas and their surrounding spaces that have been effected by development leads to the creation of dynamic public life entities. With these large infrastructural entities, the areas surrounding the boundaries are compromised and are trapped in a confusion of development and derelict design. Trapped landscapes often have detrimental effects on natural environments. This negative impact can be seen in the urban fabric of the city, and in the public well-being and life of the occupants of those spaces. This thesis investigates urban areas trapped by functioning port infrastructure, specifically the area known as the Quay Park Quarter, situated in Auckland, New Zealand. The Ports of Auckland Ltd (POAL), directly north of the area, imposes a dominating, privatised and industrial statement to contribute to the nature of this trapped landscape. The Quay Park Quarter includes heritage sites, railway infrastructure, and ad-hoc developments, some of which were initially intended to rejuvenate the area. This thesis aims to address the privatised issues surrounding the contemporary urban port by challenging the role and incorporation of public life as a means to restructure such areas. This thesis argues that active port areas can be reconfigured, restructured and reimagined in ways in which to utilize public life along active waterfront networks. This thesis will also argue that this utilization of public life can actively change the way in which trapped landscapes can be restructured for the future. By considering the ecological impact, the city’s growth and surrounding developed areas, positive changes can be made at multiple scales within the city context. This thesis proposes that this can be investigated through observing three interrelated scales to discover city systems and functions, the intimate, neighbourhood and metropolitan. The intimate scale involves the interactions with one’s self in the environment that surrounds them, as well as the composition of all things to create public life. This creates a sense of locality for being in the environment. Because of the port’s impact on this urban area as well as its external and internal functions, the neighbourhood scale addresses the reconfiguration and restructuring of the port infrastructure that has impacted this trapped urban area. The metropolitan scale involves how the public life network fits within the context of the city, through the means of landscape infrastructural components. The collaboration of these three scales allows for an interchange between what the human can experience in addition to the systematic functionality of the city. This offers unique insight beyond the master planning of such urban areas to actively engage with life on the ground. The reconfiguration and restructuring aspects of these areas allow for a variety of resolutions to both actively engage with public life within industrial areas and facilitate the release of trapped landscapes back into the surrounding context of these areas.</p>

Impact of Port Construction on the Spatial Pattern of Land Use in Coastal Zones Based on CLDI and LUT Models: A Case Study of Qingdao and Yantai

Ports are an important type of land use in coastal cities, and the development of ports has a significant influence on the spatial pattern of land use in port cities. However, the research focusing on economic indicators hardly reflects the process of changes in the spatial distribution of land development in coastal port cities. This paper introduces a spatial association rule method to establish a coastline and land development intensity (CLDI) model and land use transfer (LUT) model in the vertical direction of coastal zones to mine the association rules between shoreline change and land development intensity along the sea–land gradient in the Qingdao and Yantai coastal zones and to explore the important land development sequence patterns. The results showed that, in the early stage of regional development, the land development intensity decreased from sea to land. In the later stage, as the industry transferred to nearby towns, the land units with extremely strong and strong levels started to move to the end or middle of the sequence. With the improvement of the urban construction level, the simple LUT pattern sequence that increased building land through the occupation of cultivated land and forestland was replaced gradually by complex sequences with multiple components. The relationship between land development and distance from the port showed that the areas with strong land development intensity gradually moved from coastal to inland areas over time. Port shipping has a profound influence on port city land use patterns. Industrial transfer drives the development of surrounding towns during the metaphase. This trend was used to build a second port to realize the division of transportation capacity, as the old port’s carrying capacity tended to become saturated. This paper revealed the general changes in the important land use patterns in port areas through a comparative study of the Qingdao and Yantai port areas and the differences among different geographical locations and development processes. This study provides a reference for the rational planning of coastal zone spatial layouts and provides a model basis for the analysis of the spatial structure of coastal zones. This information can be used to coordinate the relationship between ports and cities and promote the sustainable development of coastal zones.

Evaluating the Socio-Economic Factors Impacting Foreign Trade Development in Port Areas

Seaports are an important component of the Russian transport infrastructure. They play a major role in the sustainable development of adjacent territories and the country. Investments in port infrastructure facilitate the introduction of new technologies that accelerate cargo handling, contribute to the efficient use of resources and foreign trade increase. Ports have a major impact on the dynamics of economic indicators in the coastal region, its socio-economic development and environmental condition. In turn, the optimal development of the port infrastructure depends not only on the volume of investments made but also on other socio-economic indicators of the region. This paper analyzes the impact of socio-economic factors on export and import indicators in port areas. Based on a sample of five Russian ports and ten regions, and data observed in the period from 2010 to 2019, dependency patterns were identified for the regions of the Arctic, Baltic, Far Eastern, Azov-Black Sea and Caspian basins. The methods of correlation and regression analysis, panel data analysis (fixed-effect models) and nonlinear models, are used for the analysis. The study’s findings show that investments in the development of seaports stimulate foreign trade growth in port areas and neighboring regions, which, in turn, shows the level of a region’s integration into the global economic cooperation system. The results of the original research can be used to develop programs to support the foreign economic activity of certain regions. Conclusions are also made about the existence of inverse dependence of the volume of exports and imports on the level of costs for environmental protection. The results may have scientific significance for subsequent deeper research of the problem, as well as practical value for the development of regional development strategies within the framework of a single nationwide sustainability politics.

Straddling the Fence: Land Use Patterns in and around Ports as Hidden Designers

Ports are clearly demarcated structures on land and water. They are fenced in, easily recognizable on satellite and orthophoto images, and they have specific functions. This apparent clarity of ports, their function and outline, in relation to nearby urban and rural areas, becomes more complex when explored through the lens of land use, that is the existing and planned future functional dimension or socio-economic purpose of the land. In contrast to urban and rural areas, where land use has been mapped and defined for centuries, the use and function of land and water in port areas has long been multifunctional and not defined on land use maps. This raises questions about the role and understanding of port territory in relation to neighboring spaces, past, and present. This article first defines land use and describes its historical development. Scholars from various disciplines, including geographers, planners, and economists, have addressed the issue of land use in port areas. Land use patterns have emerged over time and are based on earlier demarcations of port areas and distinctions between port and city. As shown by the historical port city borders in Hamburg, Rotterdam, and Koper, these delimitations can change over time, by location and by function. The land use register has only recently been harmonized at the European level. European and national registers distinguish existing and planned land use in port areas differently. Mixed uses prevail in new port interventions, creating a new kind of permeability or porosity; that is, areas where port, urban and rural functions merge. New land use porosity is a particular state of land use (on both sides of the boundaries of port areas) that goes beyond the physical boundaries marked by fences. Land use porosity effectively creates land use continuity, a functional porosity that serves as a hidden blueprint for future planning. Understanding land use porosity can provide a foundation for novel approaches to the development of transition strategies that are needed to address contemporary challenges, including climate change and sea level rise, digitization, and new work and life practices in port city regions. In conclusion, we note that due to the porosity of land use patterns, the separation between the present port and the city is beginning to crumble. However, this process has yet to be made fully visible and used as a basis for design.

The contribution of Geomatics to increase safety and security in ports

In this paper, the advantages achievable from the use of two prototype systems that are being developed to increase safety and security in ports are shown. Both systems start by monitoring environmental parameters in harbors, and then process data acquired. The first system has been conceived to be helpful to port communities (port authorities, pilots) to optimize harbor waterside management (ship’s navigation and cargo, dock performances, boat moorings, refloating of stranded ships, water quality control). By monitoring and processing sea level and atmospheric pressure in port areas, it can help port communities, e.g., to choose the best time when a ship with a certain draft can enter or leave a harbor, or to plan the best route inside the basin for that vessel (port safety). The second system, instead, has been designed for port protection purposes: by monitoring and processing the Earth’s magnetic field below the sea surface in harbors (where the natural field is disturbed by a high artificial component), it is able to detect the possible presence of intruders (e.g., divers) swimming underwater in prohibited areas (port security). Here, the results of monitoring and processing activities of the two systems performed in Livorno and La Spezia harbors are shown (Italy). The processing procedures and the graphical interfaces of the systems are based on applications under development by the research team the author belongs to, by using C# and C++ languages; Matlab environment has been employed for simulations.

AIS data case study : quantifying connectivity for six Great Lakes port areas from 2015 through 2018

This Coastal and Hydraulics Engineering Technical Note (CHETN) presents results from a preliminary examination of commercial vessel traffic connectivity between six major port areas on the Great Lakes using Automatic Identification System (AIS) data collected from 2015 to 2018. The six port areas included in this study are Calumet Harbor, IL and IN; Cleveland, OH; Detroit, MI; Duluth-Superior, MN and WI; Indiana Harbor, IN; and Two Harbors, MN. These six locations represent an important subset of the more than 100 federally authorized navigation projects in the Great Lakes maintained by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). The results are presented in the context of USACE resilience-related policy initiatives as well as the larger topic of maritime system resilience.