Today, we know that there is an incresingly high interest in the DOM, standing for the dissolved organic matter, and the reason is mostly because DOM plays one of the critically important roles in both global and oceanic cycling of carbon, which directly impacts weather.

The primary goal of professionals in the fields of oceanography and marine biogeochemistry over the past decades was to properly understand all underlying processes of occurring during the transformations of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and other major chemical elements in the ocean waters.

The publication is arranged in sixteen chapters containing nearly two hundred informative figures and data tables, valuable reports on the major technological advances in the subject area, made by a group of experienced and world recognized pros in oceanography. Moreover, in it focusing on the major role that DOM plays in elemental cycling, and this is actually the area with a great informational demand.

Denniss Hansell and Craig Carlson did a remarkably good job in covering, in a single volume, literally all important aspects of the biogeochemistry of marine DOM and also providing a truly comprehensive review and introducing all important key issues, that made the present title maybe the best and definitely most up-to-date of those available today.

The third edition of the Power Electronics Handbook by Muhammad Rashid. Power electronics of today is a growing area that is using the latest electronics technologies to convert between different forms of electric power; it has so many applications in the human life such as the motor drives, a/c units, power supplies and sources of renewable energy.

The present handbook was intended to address literally all aspects that are relating to the switching devices, control technique, including various analytical methods and their applications. The book was specifically designed to appeal to the new generation of engineering professionals.

The publication includes four chapters dedicated to the renewable energy, energy storage and transmission, DCG, i.e. distributed and cogeneration technology, generating sets, variable speed electric generators, wind turbines, fuel cells etc. The readers of this book, upon its completion, will be able to provide a real leadership in the field of the technical design applied to the various power electronics projects.

It consists of forty-five chapters with the valuable contributions that have been made by the leading experts in the industry. The author has managed to achieve the purpose to provide people with the useful but quite concise reference equally suitable to students and pro's.

The principal part of this classic and world popular title has been arranged in five major parts with the first one providing general information and remaining four addressing the sailing and steering rules, navigating lights and shapes, sounds plus light signals, and exemptions from the applicable requirements. Four annexes to the rules are detailing the lights, shapes, and sound signaling appliances, cover the distress signals as well as the additional signals for the fishing vessels.

In addition, the volume contains the excerpts from the relevant IMO conventions and recommendations, risk assessment tables, manoeuvring information and descriptions. The list of vessels referred to in the volume has also been provided... For several centuries there have been established official rules in existence developed with the intention to prevent the ship collisions at sea; however, there were no any rules that would have statutory force, until last century.

In the middle of XIX century, a set of rules was drawn by the London Trinity House, and one of those rules obliged a steam ship passing another ship in the narrow channel to leave the other ship on her port hand, while another regulation of this set obliged the steam ships on different courses with potential risk of their collision, to alter the course to starboard in order to pass on the port sides. Some other regulations were there for the ships under sail...

The present publication is the very good course in naval architecture covering the essential theoretical knowledge required to be possessed by the naval architects. The main objective of the author was to acquaint the trainees with the theoretical basics and provide the clear explanation on their interrelation and progressive application in the ship hull design. Note that it should not be looked at as a replacement to any standard reference volume but shall rather be treated as a leading title.

It will be the excellent reference source for the students of the naval architecture. In fact this is a good introduction, as it is clearly stated in the title of the book, and those willing to get a deep understanding and knowledge of the subject, should spend more time and efforts.

The readers will go through the entire process of ship hull design, understand how the main hull characteristics shall be chosen so that the requirements advised by the clients, can be satisfied. The book is recommended to the students and is a perfect supplement to any standard training program. The material is explained in a very simple and understandable way, including all calculations as well as the design matters.

The content of the present excellent book is mainly based on the reviewed and updated information of this edition. The volume has been prepared by the award-winning author of many other naval architecture books and former VP of RINA. The book will be ideal for the people making their first steps in the subject an also for those willing to refresh their technical knowledge.

The title will provide all of them with a remarkably broad appreciation of naval architecture explaining the theory in physical terms without submerging the readers too deep into the mathematics. The author have covered all basic principles of naval architecture and has also addressed the contemporary fields, such as the design and manufacture using the computer aid, i.e. CAD/CAM. This latest release of the book is reflecting literally all ongoing technical developments and also addresses the international regulations.

The content of the book is very easy to follow and this approach has already made this book very popular among the newcomers. Of course, a proper knowledge and understanding of the basics of naval architecture is critically important not only for them but also to all other people who are working in the marine industry, such as the marine engineers, ship surveyors and crew members, as they all have to possess at least some general knowledge of the subject.

This book presents a study of various economic decisions together with their consequences of the providers and users of shipping port services. Port users include shippers, passengers, and carriers. Port, or terminal, operators will be the primary service providers; other service providers include, for example, ship agents, customs brokers, ship pilots, stevedores, freight forwarders.

Maritime economics itself consists of port and shipping economics. This book is an introduction to port economics. Although this is only a textbook, it is still expected to be useful in maritime research, to port users and service-provider decision makers, and to those of the general public who are interested in port issues. In 1984,1 and two other business professors established the center, Maritime, Trade and Transport (MTT), at Old Dominion University. Given that Norfolk, Virginia has one of the largest container ports on the east Coast of the United States, the main mission is to perform high-quality maritime researches in order to promote the Port of Virginia and international trade in the region.

Prior to 1984, although a transportation economist. I was not a student of maritime economics. However, MTT provided the author with the opportunity to become knowledgeable in the subject. In 1986, MTT was renamed the Virginia Center for World Trade and established as an economic development agency of the Commonwealth of Virginia...

This valuable and informative plus interesting title presented today was prepared with the sole purpose to define the fundamental engineering principles relating to environmental reaction, for example design of the reactor, being applicable to the developing of the relevant processes that provide any environmental benefit.

Touching the matters of prevention of the pollution impacting the surrounding environment, the main accent was placed by Martin Abraham and Robert Hesketh - on newly presented technologies minimizing the production of various undesirable side products causing pollution; however, they have also considered the matters of application of the reaction engineering to the treatment of wastes commonly produced by other means.

The opening section of this title mainly concentrates on the environment-friendly combustion, with the three articles addressing the existing methods of reduction of the NOx and PAH formation and it also covers several combustion products sensitive to the environment.

The following section of the book includes a good collection of contributions involving the utilization of catalysts to support the reactions. Then, there section comes dedicated to the use of the fluid solvents. Remaining parts of the book contain numerous interesting documents, dealing with some novel reactor designs. ​

Every now and then we hear yet another story about a nighttime collision at sea, maybe between a ferry and a yacht or even between two large ships. Either way, the same question always comes up – why did not they see each other?

Sure, if it is nighttime, it is harder to see things, as you must have noticed it yourself when driving at night, you need headlights to stand a chance of seeing anything. Yet, when you look at a ship at night, they do not have headlights.

But why? If the headlights work fine for car, why not for ships? Well, think about what a headlight actually is. It is just a source of light, designed to emit photons which can bounce off objects and return to your eyes. Your brain then interprets them and tells you what you are seeing.

Simple enough but you need a light powerful enough to illuminate the area you are looking at. The power from the light is dispersed across the full width of its beam. Then, when the light hits an object, small bit of its beam that hits the object is reflected back, but it is again dispersed, meaning that only a tiny fraction of the original light gets back to you.

That is fine in a car, you want to narrow the area right ahead of you extending out far enough that you can take action to avoid the things that you see. Even at motorway speeds around 100 meters should be enough. You are probably starting to see where I am going with this.

With a ship 100 meters may not be enough to see your own bow, let alone to see far enough ahead to take any action. A large cargo ship, for example, needs more than a mile to stop. With two such vessels approaching each other, you are looking at needing at least two miles visibility to take action in time. You know how bright a car’s headlight is. Just think how much brighter a ship’s headlight would need to be to have the same effect!

Imagine two ships approaching each other at night. We have already established that they do not use headlights to see each other. So, what do they use? Well, they still use lights, but they are called navigation or nav lights instead. Every seaworthy vessel is fitted with nav lights the idea is that they are arranged in a standardized distinctive way so that other vessels can not only see you, but also identify how you are moving. As nav lights are fitted to the target vessel, their power only needs to be sufficient to be seen by other vessels.

If you have a light fitted as shown on the picture, rather than just relying on a tiny portion of reflected light, you can see how much easier it will be to see compared to using a headlight.

But what about identifying their movement? Let us take this cargo ship as an example. She would show two masthead lights, the aft one being higher than the forward one. These immediately tell other ships in which direction she is moving. But she also shows sidelights. These are the colored lights that you probably know about – red for port and green for starboard. Again, it reinforces, which way she is traveling.

But the lights can tell us even more than that. If we are looking at the vessel’s port side and she turns towards us – as the masthead lights come in line, you can start to see both sidelights. You know the other vessel is heading straight for you. Take the look from above and you can see that the only angle where you would see all those lights is from right ahead. The observant among you will spot that these lights do not go all the way around either. Instead, we have a single white light filling in the sector of the stern, as shown on the picture. What this means is that if you spot a single white light, one of the things it could be is a power-driven vessel viewed from a stern.

If she turns a bit you can come on the cusp of viewing her sidelights and mast headlights, too. Looking from above, the only thing where this is possible, is along the white line shown – it is two points of 22.5 degrees above the beam – the very definition of overtaking we took straight from COLREGs.

Of course, we just looked at a power-driven vessel here but there are countless variations on this arrangement. You can add extra mast headlights to indicate you are towing or show only side lights to indicate you are sailing. You can even modify your status by adding two all-round red lights to show you are not under command, or three all-round red lights to show you are aground or make the middle one white to show that you are restricted in your ability to maneuver.

See, nav lights tell you so much more that headlights ever could. They accomplish the basics making the vessel show up against the dark sky. But, in addition, they allow you to identify the vessel type, work out its aspect, and see which way she is moving – all vital information when it comes to applying the collision regulations, and working out which of you needs to give way to the other.