M.Ing. / There is a growing need to enhance situation awareness in the maritime environment utilizing new and current technologies. There are numerous ways to enhance situation awareness by employing long-range vision detection systems, data fusion techniques, such as combining radar and automatic identification system (AIS) data and data mining techniques that allow for filtering out anomalies. With the proliferation of high-quality video equipment and cheaper and faster computational machines, there is an increasing need for automated video surveillance as the amount of information available to the operator for processing is overwhelming. It is therefore necessary that only crucial information that may negatively impact mission effectiveness be presented to the operator. Whilst performing surveillance one would be interested in monitoring other surface vessels within the sensor coverage. The detection and tracking of small and slow moving targets having low signal-to-noise ratios is of interest in the maritime environment. This is particularly challenging as influences from the natural environment, such as sea states, glint, whitecaps and clutter, on a target is captured during image acquisition and this has adverse effects on the tracking of a target. A grey-scale based target tracking algorithm using the particle filter framework was developed and tested in MATLAB® (R2008a). The main focus of the work is on the use of dynamic models in a particle filtering framework. The dynamic model contributes to the propagation of the particles in a particle filtering framework of the target grey-scale distribution. The dynamic models investigated are the constant velocity model and an acceleration model. The algorithm was tested with real-world image sequences in the maritime environment. The targets were tracked for the duration of the image sequence and the dynamic model that accounted for acceleration yielded better results when analysing the position error between the estimated position and the ground truth data points. A slight improvement in this error makes a significant difference on tracking a target as targets in the maritime environment context are small. The future scope of the work would then include accounting for more features of the target such as edge cues and/or implementing adaptive observation models to improve the accuracy, stability and robustness of the algorithm for real-time applications.

M.Phil. (Energy Studies) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

The shipping industry is in a hunker-down period and all experts predict that the recovery will come till 2020. As for now, it is the good timing for the whole industry to think what all industry can do more to survive in this cold market and wait for the recovery of the shipping market. The Wisdom Marine Group observed the trend of automation of other industries such as automobile cars and unmanned flying vehicles. There even are automated ports and docks which are working now at Europe. It seems that mankind always wanted a more easy way to do things so that the activities are safer or more efficient. Since no shipping company in Asia has developed the technique and launched autonomous vessels, Wisdom Marine Group think it’s time for us to cooperate with Rolls-Ryce, a pioneer of the development of remote controlled and autonomous ships, and Imabari Shipyard, the best shipyard with high quality and capacity, to build autonomous vessels in order to cater to the trend and be the first mover in the market. The project is called Smart Wisdom and Wisdom Marine Group will cooperate with party mentioned above to build intelligent vessel. The main goal of the project is to change the world of shipping industry with brand new autonomous vessels. There are some main features as bellow: The vessel will receive and collect daily data of weather, sea condition and bunker quantity onboard so that it will be able to plan most efficient sailing route and revise the route immediately once the vessel observe any change or risk of surrounding sea condition. When carrying out cargo operation, the vessel computer will calculate cargo quantity loaded in each hold to avoid cargo loss.

This Master Thesis occupies itself with Short Sea Shipping and its link to the Port of Hamburg. The theoretical part deals in its first part with the topic Short Sea Shipping in general, defines it, describes its specifics and presents its position and regulation in the European Union, second part introduces the Port of Hamburg and basic data about its performance in general and most importantly in the field of Short Sea Shipping. The practical part analyses available statistics and documents monitoring the current situation and mainly political tendencies related to Short Sea Shipping in the European Union. The concluding chapter deal with an interview held with a representative of Hafen Hamburg Marketing in Prague regarding this subject in relation to the Port of Hamburg. Main goals of this Master Thesis are to identify key Short Sea markets, potential, opportunities and challenges of the Port of Hamburg.

Crossing the Cartography of Exile explores ideas of territoriality, hybrid identity and transculturation. The thesis and exhibition is the result of two years of Practice-Led Research, which is the performative research methodology, carried in the La Chapelle Woodshop of the 100 Laurier Avenue East Building of the Department of Visual Arts. The building was the former Juniorat du Sacré-Coeur of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate built in 1893-94. The Woodshop is the former chapel of the seminary therefore has references to a place of prayer and worship and for my praxis became a place to re-enact the ancient trade of Joseph the Carpenter. The La Chapelle Shipyard inside the woodshop as mnemonic site became a performative site-specific platform specialized in creating small-scale sculptures with recycled and repourposed shipping pallets and a place in which to connect memory with the ancient trade of a shipwright or shipbuilder. Small-scale sculpture then became a symbolic marker for the intimacy of a personal and free territory made of repurposed shipping pallets. Therefore, by working with recycled changeable materials I fashioned a poetic visual language to enchant the wound of exile.

Declining sea ice area in the Canadian Arctic has gained significant attention with respect to the prospect of increased shipping activities along the Northwest Passage and Arctic Bridge shipping routes. Temporal trend and correlation analysis was performed on sea ice area data for total, first-year ice (FYI), and multi-year ice (MYI), and observed shipping activity within the Vessel Traffic Reporting Arctic Canada Traffic Zone (NORDREG zone) from 1990 to 2012. Relationships between declines in sea ice area and Arctic maritime activity were investigated alongside linkages to warming surface air temperatures (SAT) and an increasing melt season length. Statistically significant increases in vessel traffic were observed on monthly and annual time-scales, coincident with declines in sea ice area. Despite increasing trends, only weak correlations between the variables were identified, suggesting that other non-environmental factors have likely contributed to the observed increase in Arctic shipping activity including tourism demand, community re-supply needs, and resource exploration trends. As a first step towards quantifying spatial variability in shipping patterns, a case study was conducted using 2010 observed shipping data to reconstruct historical shipping routes using a least cost path (LCP) approach. This approach was able to successfully reconstruct vessel tracks compared to an independent data source (Automatic Identification System) to an accuracy of 10.42 km ± 0.67 km over the entire study area. A 25 km gridded product across the entire Canadian Arctic domain was produced for 2010, with this approach now providing a basis to apply this method over the entire record (since 1990) in future studies to investigate long term spatial variability and change of shipping activity across the Canadian Arctic.

This paper surveys the inland water transportation on the Rhine-Main-Danube-Canal. Beginning with a consideration of the inland water transportation in Europe in the analysis, it briefly describes the canal's evolution and fundamental terms, which are related to the water-ways. The last part of the first chapter is dedicated to the comparison of several traffic carriers. In the second chapter the two predecessors of the Rhine-Main-Danube-Canal and the motivations to their construction are reviewed. In the more detailed inspection of the formation of the RMD-Canal, the crucial institutions, which are involved in this domain, are described. Besides the corporation "Rhein-Main-Donau AG", the "Deutscher Wasserstraßen- und Schifffahrtsverein Rhein-Main-Donau e.V." and the "Wasser- und Schifffahrtsdirektion Süd" belong to it. The third part of the available paper analyzes the shipping on the RMD-Canal and on the German part of the Danube out of an economic-geographical perception. Regarded are not only differences in shipping on the Rhine, on the canal itself and on the Danube, but also the charges for using the canal and for the locking of ships. Moreover, the RMD-Canal is observed out of the traffic-geographical aspect, whilst also analysing the prognoses in comparison to the reality of the amount of shipping. The present time situation is illustrated by the example of the amount of cargo, which has been transported in the last years. At the end of the paper the problematic passage between Straubing and Vilshofen and the solution of the abolishment of this bottleneck is described.

My master thesis deals with the processes of empty packaging in GEFCO company. The goal is to analyze these processes and propose solutions that the company would bring cost savings and optimization of the flows. In the theoretical part I define returnable packaging, their functions, types, trends and compare different logistic providers. The practical part is about GEFCO focusing on the Czech branch and its processes with returnable packaging

The diploma thesis analyzes evolution of shipping on Elbe in 1948 -- 1964. It is focused especially on position of Elbe in state transport infrastructure. It evaluates Czechoslovakian external shipping on Elbe, projects for navigations on Elbe and innovations in shipping on Elbe. It deals with nationalization of company Československá plavba labská, creation of monopole and connection of Československá plavba labská and Československá plavba oderská. Part of work is focused on comparison of performance and other indicators of Československá plavba labsko-oderská and Československá plavba dunajská and comparison of goods transferred by ship, rail and road transport. Work also deals with evolution of structure of transported goods and reasons for its change.

The main objective of this master thesis is Northern Sea Route and its potential economic feasibility in maritime transportation between Europe and Asia. Theoretical part of the study begins by definition of maritime container transportation and then it continues by description of discovery of the Northern Sea Route, its geographical and weather conditions. The empirical part is concentrating on the Russian legislation adjusting using of Northern Sea Route, infrastructure and ports in arctic waters and the services of Russian icebreaker fleet that operates in arctic waters. Last part of the thesis is the case study, where is calculated the price of transport of one TEU between Asia and Europe via Northern Sea Route and the costs of this transport are compared with the costs of transport via Suez canal.