The study reported in this paper investigated the effects of a cutter boat experience education program on adolescents' abilities. Data were collected by means of the IKIRU CHIKARA (IKR) (Zest for Living) inventory among 199 junior high school students at three points in time, namely before the cutter boat experience, directly after the cutter boat experience, and one month after the cutter boat experience. The IKR inventory targets three categories of ability, namely psychological and social abilities, moral abilities, and physical abilities, which are measured on the basis of 14 subscales, each comprising two items. The findings of this study showed: (1) The cutter experience improved the abilities of participants. However, depending on the subscale used, after one month, abilities had decreased a little. (2) The cutter experience program had a highly positive effect on the psychological and social, as well as moral abilities of the participants. (3) The subscales targeting positivity, adaptable behavior, range of vision-judgment, diligence, and compassion showed vast improvement among the participants. The results suggest that the cutter boat experience had a substantial influence on improving adolescents' overall abilities.

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The severity of an accident is evaluated based on the degree of damage, the loss of human life, environmental impact, etc. Since 80% or more of marine accidents are caused by human factors, it is necessary to quantify the severity of an accident considering human factors, and it is important that the result of the quantification is made use of in accident investigation and accident prevention measures.In this study, authors examined the severity of ship collisions with numerical value using CREAM (Cognitive Reliability and Error Analysis Method) which is a human reliability analysis method.The main conclusions obtained by this study are as follows:1)CPCs (Common Performance Conditions) in CREAM were modified especially for the marine field.2)Applied modified CPSs to marine collision accident analysis.3)In consideration of the frequency of occurrence and the importance of CPCs, authors quantified the severity of marine collision accident.4)Comparing accidents designated as “serious” by the accident investigation standard and those designated as “serious” by means of numerical values derived from the importance of human factors, the effectiveness of quantifying the marine accident severity with numerical value was confirmed.

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Ships have adopted various onboard protective measures against piracy and armed robbery against ships for years. The purpose of this article is to objectively identify effective onboard protective measures against such illegal acts. For this purpose, having acquired incident data based on “reports on acts of piracy and armed robbery against ships”, from 2001, issued by the International Maritime Organization, we analyze the categorical incident data, applying Hayashi's quantification method type II. We quantitatively indicate the relation between onboard protective measures and severity of consequences. Finally, we identify “Armed Security Guard” and “Evasive manoeuvres” as effective onboard protective measures.

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Changes in maritime commercial routes have been occurring at a small-scale since the 20^th century. As a consequence of global warming, more feasible Arctic navigation routes have been opened for commercial vessels. Therefore, shipping and operations on the ice navigation routes are emerging issues in the Arctic trading activities. There is, however, a lack of literature exploring ice navigation. Hence, this paper tries to synthesize the published efforts concerning ice navigation on the Arctic Ocean. In this work, we consider the navigation-oriented studies including characteristics of sea ice along with the focus of the current research concerns as well as shipping and operations in the Arctic Ocean. The emphasis is placed on issues relating to ice extent and concepts for navigating vessels in the Arctic Ocean, in addition to ice navigation in ice covered waters. Also, we address the challenges one may face during these operations and we aim to improve the awareness of the special education for navigators in the Arctic environment. Consequently, we declare the research gaps for the further Arctic navigation studies.

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