Shipping Points Research Articles

Moving target detection based on multi-satellite joint passive microwave imaging

Using satellite formations to form a space-based passive interferometric imaging system can achieve high spatial resolution, but the sparse detection baseline will cause aliasing in the inversion image, affecting the detection of single-pixel point targets. Considering the slowly varying characteristics of the observation area, a target detection method based on image sequence is proposed. The background is estimated by multi-frame images, and the background of the inversion image is eliminated; energy is gathered based on sidelobe characteristics, the noise in the target area is estimated, and candidate targets are selected; the motion trajectory of the target is obtained by combining the temporal motion characteristics, and the detection of moving point targets is realized. Taking the formation system composed of 10 geostationary orbit satellites as an example, 300 simulation experiments are carried out for the detection of 50 ship point targets. The results show that the proposed method can realize point target detection in a large field of view, with an average false alarm rate 14.5%and an average missed alarm rate 19.5%.

Ordovician conodont biostratigraphy of northwestern Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada, with new insights into the age and diachronism of the Ship Point Formation in the Foxe Basin

Northwestern Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada, preserves the stratigraphic record in the northern margin of the Foxe Basin. The Ordovician succession exposed on an unnamed peninsula west of Steensby Inlet, northwestern Baffin Island includes the Lower and Middle Ordovician Ship Point Formation and Upper Ordovician Frobisher Bay and Amadjuak formations. Nearly 7000 conodont specimens recovered from six sections on this peninsula allow the establishment of seven conodont zones throughout this succession: Rossodus manitouensis Taxon-range Zone, Acodus deltatus–Oneotodus costatus Assemblage Zone, Oepikodus communis Interval Zone, and Cooperignathus aranda–Jumudontus gananda Assemblage Zone in units 2 and 3 of the Ship Point Formation, correlative to the upper Tremadocian and Floian, Lower Ordovician; Phragmodus polonicus Taxon-range Zone confined to unit 4 of the Ship Point Formation, correlative to the middle Darriwilian, Middle Ordovician; and Appalachignathus delicatuluss– Belodina confluens and Belodina confluens–Periodon grandis Assemblage zones limited to the Frobisher Bay and Amadjuak formations, respectively, correlative to the lower Katian, Upper Ordovician. The establishment of these conodont zones proves that (1) the Ship Point Formation in the Foxe Basin is not a continuous stratigraphic unit but has a stratigraphic interval missing that is assignable to the Dapingian and lower Darriwilian, Middle Ordovician; (2) the base of the Ship Point Formation is diachronous in the Foxe Basin, which is correlated to the upper Tremadocian on northwestern Baffin Island but to the upper Floian on Melville Peninsula; and (3) the strata younger than lower Amadjuak Formation have been eroded in this area.

Influence of scale effect on flow field offset for ships in confined waters

To investigate the flow field characteristics of full-scale ships advancing through confined waters, the international standard container ship (KRISO Container Ship) was considered as a research object in this study. Using the RANS equation, the volume of fluid method and the body force method were selected to investigate the hydrodynamic characteristics of a model-scale ship (the model-scale ratio λ=31.6) and a full-scale ship advancing through confined waters at low speed. A virtual disk was used in the full-scale model to determine the influence of the propeller on the ship’s flow field. First, the feasibility of the numerical calculations was verified. This proves the feasibility of the numerical and grid division methods. The self-propulsion point of the full-scale ship at Fr=0.108 is determined. The calculation cases of model-scale and full-scale ships (with or without virtual disks) at different water depths and distances between the ship and the shore were calculated, and the changes in the hull surface pressure, the flow field around the ship, and the wake fraction near the ship propeller disk in different calculation cases were determined and compared. The variations in the surge force, sway force, and yaw moment between the model- scale and full-scale ships were generally consistent. In very shallow water (H/T=1.3), the non-dimensional force and moment coefficients for model-scale ships increase more rapidly with decreasing distance from shore, suggesting that using model-scale ships to investigate the wall effect in very shallow water will result in predictions that are biased towards safety. By comparing full-scale ships with and without propellers, it was discovered that the surge force, sway force, and yaw moment were marginally greater in the propeller-equipped ship due to the suction effect, and the accompanying flow before and after the propeller was slightly smaller, with less asymmetry.

An investigation of geometric feature recognition in 3D ship data

The intelligent recognition of ship geometric features is a prerequisite for enabling computers to automatically generate and deform ship hull surfaces according to requirements, thereby replacing the work of human designers to improve design efficiency. This paper aims to research the recognition of geometric features in three-dimensional ship data using PointNet. To achieve this goal, we first construct two ship point cloud datasets suitable for global feature classification and feature part segmentation of three-dimensional hulls. Subsequently, we conducted recognition capability testing to determine the optimal hyperparameters for identifying ship feature networks. Finally, we employ ship models with non-standard positions to implement data augmentation, enhancing the network's robustness in recognizing the initial positions of ships and achieving rapid cognition of three-dimensional ship geometric features. The findings of this research will provide technical support for ship design based on artificial intelligence technology.

Identification of Spoofing Ships from Automatic Identification System Data via Trajectory Segmentation and Isolation Forest

Outliers of ship trajectory from the Automatic Identification System (AIS) onboard a ship will affect the accuracy of maritime situation awareness, especially for a regular ship trajectory mixed with a spoofing ship, which has an unauthorized Maritime Mobile Service Identification code (MMSI) owned by a regular ship. As has been referred to in the literature, the trajectory of these spoofing ships would simply be removed, and more AIS data would be lost. The pre-processing of AIS data should aim to retain more information, which is more helpful in maritime situation awareness for the Maritime Safety Administration (MSA). Through trajectory feature mining, it has been found that there are obvious differences between the trajectory of a regular ship and that of a regular ship mixed with a spoofing ship, such as in terms of speed and distance between adjacent trajectory points. However, there can be a long update time interval in the results of severe missing trajectories of a ship, bringing challenges in terms of the identification of spoofing ships. In order to accurately divide the regular ship trajectory and spoofing ship trajectory, combined with trajectory segmentation by the update time interval threshold, the isolation forest was adopted in this work to train the labeled trajectory point of a regular ship mixed with a spoofing ship. The experimental results show that the average accuracy of the identification of spoofing ships using isolation forest is 88.4%, 91%, 93.1%, and 93.3%, corresponding to different trajectory segmentation by update time intervals (5 h, 10 h, 15 h, and 20 h). The research conducted in this study can almost eliminate the outliers of ship trajectory, and it also provides help for maritime situation awareness for the MSA.

Prairie Switch

The Prairie Switch, currently known as El Campo, is located in the coastal plains of Texas. The Prairie Switch was a railroad camp that served as a switching point on the Houston-Victoria Railroad and a shipping point on the New York, Texas, and Mexican Railroad. Ranching and Railroads were the primary industry during the 1880s; the small camp annually shipped an abundance of cattle and crops such as cotton, hay, and corn. 
 My ancestors migrated to the Prairie Switch from Mexico, seeking a better life and opportunities for work. After settlement, ranching, railroads, and church was what daily life consisted of as my family quickly grew to occupy the town. I relive my grandma’s past as she describes her endeavors growing up in the Prairie Switch; her fond memories of picking cotton with her siblings and cousins, and Sunday rituals of god, family, and potlucks. As time continued, my family changed and evolved just as the town did. A greater distance has been created between generations, one that I now experience. I have no ties to the migration of countries or the great Vaqueros of Texas. I live in liminality, unattached and unknowing to my past, but perhaps liminality is my history.

Lower and Upper Ordovician conodont biostratigraphy and revised lithostratigraphy in the fault and fold zones of the Boothia Uplift, south-western Boothia Peninsula, Nunavut

The strata exposed near Pasley Bay on south-western Boothia Peninsula were previously named the Franklin Strait Formation, spanning Lower Ordovician through early Silurian and dissected by two disconformities. The interpretation of the age and correlation were based on limited fossil evidence. New detailed field investigations and sampling at the Pasley Bay section resulted in a finding of over 1000 identifiable conodont specimens representing 37 species among 28 genera. Five Lower Ordovician and four Upper Ordovician North American standard conodont Zone-equivalent faunas are documented from the section, namely: Lower Ordovician Cordylodus angulatus, Rossodus manitouensis, Acodus deltatus/ Oneotodus costatus, Oepikodus communis, Reutterodus andinus, and Upper Ordovician Belodina confluens, Oulodus velicuspis, Oulodus robustus, and Amorphognathus ordovicicus Zone-equivalent faunas. These faunas enable a new understanding of the age and stratigraphic position of the Franklin Strait Formation: (1) it is now correlated to the Turner Cliffs (upper part of lower member and upper member), Ship Point, Thumb Mountain, Irene Bay, and Allen Bay (lower member) formations straddling Lower to upper Upper Ordovician with the Middle and lower Upper Ordovician missing; (2) it biostratigraphically overlaps with the simultaneously named Netsilik Formation for the strata containing the Cordylodus angulatus, Rossodus manitouensis, Acodus deltatus/Oneotodus costatus, and lower Oepikodus communis Zone-equivalent faunas, and lithostratigraphically for the upper part of lower member and upper member of the Turner Cliffs Formation and lower Ship Point Formation. This study also provides stratigraphic support for the tectonic model that advocates the Boothia Uplift to be a deep-seated, east-dipping thrust block. Additionally, the conodont Colour Alteration Index is used to estimate the increased heat effects close to the fault zones in the environs of the Boothia Uplift.

Short-Term Trajectory Prediction of Maritime Vessel Using k-Nearest Neighbor Points

The prediction of ship location has become an increasingly popular research hotspot in the field of maritime transportation engineering, which benefits maritime safety supervision and security. Existing methods of ship location prediction based on motion characteristics have a large uncertainty and cannot guarantee trajectory prediction accuracy of the target ship. An improved method of location prediction using k-nearest neighbor (KNN) is proposed in this paper. An expanded circle area of the latest point of the target ship is first generated to find the reference points with similar movement characteristics in the constraints of distance and time intervals. Then, the top k-nearest neighbors are determined based on the degree of similarity. Relationships between the reference point of each neighbor and the latest points of the target ship are calculated. The predicted location of the target ship can then be determined by a weighted calculation of the locations of all neighbors at the predicted time and their relationships with the target ship. Experiments of ship location prediction in 10 min, 20 min, and 30 min were conducted. The correlation coefficient of the location prediction error for the three experiments was 0.992, 0.99, and 0.9875, respectively. The results show that ship location prediction with reference to multiple nearest neighbors with similar movements can provide better accuracy.

Role of the Vibrio community, reproductive effort, and environmental parameters in intertidal Pacific oyster summer mortality in British Columbia, Canada

In recent years, mortality of cultured Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas) during July and August has regularly exceeded 50% in many oyster farms in Baynes Sound, British Columbia (BC), Canada. However, little is known about the bacterial diversity and environmental/biological conditions that may be contributing to such mortality events in the region. A study of Pacific oysters in intertidal culture trays was conducted during the summer of 2017 in Baynes Sound to monitor the occurrence of oyster mortality, while identifying potentially pathogenic bacteria present in the oysters, examining oyster reproductive development, and recording various environmental parameters (temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll a, carbon chemistry, phytoplankton species/abundance, zooplankton species/abundance) at three farm sites in Buckley Bay, Fanny Bay, and Ship's Point. Continuous mortality was observed throughout July and August, cumulative mortalities ranging from 16.5 to 35.1% at the three sites. Mortality over time was examined with a binomial generalized linear mixed-effects regression model, which demonstrated a correlation with date, tides, temperature, gonad somatic index, and gonad developmental phase (Rc2 = 0.598). Average cumulative mortality per module was highly correlated with average oyster gonad length and the proportion of female oysters in a multiple linear-regression model (p = 0.002, R2 = 0.824). A total of 158 bacterial isolates were cultured and identified based on sequencing of the recA gene. Among those isolates, Vibrio aestuarianus and V. harveyi, with 27 and three isolates, respectively, are well-documented pathogens of Pacific oysters in other regions. This study is the first to concurrently evaluate a broad array of factors potentially associated with Pacific oyster summer mortality in BC. We provide evidence that summer mortality of Pacific oysters in Baynes Sound is occurring with an etiology similar to summer mortalities of adult Pacific oysters reported in other countries.

A fast recognition algorithm of ship hatch in bulk cargo terminal based on point cloud contour extraction

Port loading automation systems can improve the efficiency of cargo transfer, save port operation time and create greater economic benefits. The recognition of ship hatch is the basis and premise of building an automatic loading system, it is a major time cost in the loading system meanwhile. How to identify the hatch quickly and accurately is an important problem that needs to be solved urgently under the actual production needs of ports. In order to save the time of ship hatch recognition, this paper proposes a fast hatch recognition algorithm based on point cloud contour extraction. The ship point cloud model generated by lidar scanning is preprocessed to remove the noise and isolated points in the model. Projecting the preprocessed point cloud on the XOY plane, converting the three-dimensional point cloud into a two-dimensional image, extracting the outline further getting the point cloud pixels with linear features of the two-dimensional image by [Formula: see text] algorithm. Projecting the feature point cloud to the X-axis to classify the hatches. According to the center point of each class of point cloud, searching for the nearest neighbor hatch edge feature points to calculate hatch coordinates in the world frame. An experimental study was carried out on the scan data of actual docked ships at Guoneng Tianjin Port. The results show that the algorithm can realize the hatch recognition quickly which the speed is increased by 424% compared with the previous algorithm and the identification accuracy meets the actual production needs of the port.

Molecular detection of Listeria monocytogenes in raw milk in Kerbala Province

Listeria monocytogenes was discovered as a source of contamination during sampling of raw milk and its products from local cows at dairy farms, markets, and shipping points. The goal of the current study was to define the accuracy of listeria monocytogenes in raw milk contamination. This study was conducted by randomly collecting samples from various areas in the Karbala province and its surroundings. From January to March 2022, 250 samples of milk and dairy products (yogurt, cheese, and butter) were randomly selected, processed in accordance with Listeria monocytogenes standard procedures, and sent to a lab from individual cows for analysis. Some biochemical experiments were conducted to ascertain the physical and biochemical characteristics of milk and handled in accordance with Listeria monocytogenes standard procedures before being delivered from the individual cows for analysis to the lab, the study includes the isolation and molecular detection of Listeria monocytogenes from animal sources by employing selective media for this bacteria (oxford agar) for growing, as well as the molecular analysis of L. monocytogenes performed by conventional PCR technique using particular 4 primers (Hyl-1-f, Hyl-2-R, List-F, List-R).

The ship domain in navigational safety assessment.

Decision support and decision making systems find increasingly more applications in various modes of transport. In this connection, criteria of movement safety assessment must be established for manned, unmanned, and autonomous vehicles, bearing in mind the specifics of each transport mode. Distance is one of the basic criteria. In sea transport these include the closest point of approach and ship’s domain understood as an area that should remain free of other objects. The authors examine the relationship between the declared domain and the actually maintained effective domain in a restricted area. They define the coefficient describing this relationship for different ship’s relative bearings in the form of a mathematical function. The formulated relationship allows determining an effective passing distance based on the declared, i.e., assumed passing distance. The determined relationship also enables identification of the declarative domain based on the effective one. These relationships may be used in decision support systems of manned ships, in remote ship control centres and decision-making systems of autonomous ships for the assessment of ship movement safety, planning collision avoidance manoeuvres and generation of safe trajectories.

Numerical investigation of depth-varying currents on ship hydrodynamics in confined water

Vessels can operate in unpredictable environments depending on the geographical area and weather conditions. One example of conditions a vessel might not be assessed against is the presence of depth-varying currents, which are particularly relevant in confined waters where currents can be created due to tidal influences, or short fetches in inland waterways. The possible presence of depth-varying currents motivates a numerical assessment of the effects of sheared currents on the hydrodynamic performance of the KRISO Container Ship (KCS) in confined waters. The results highlight that exploiting currents, such as those generated by tides could be used to improve the energy efficiency of vessels considerably. These currents present significant possibilities for voyage optimisation based on geographical and meteorological conditions. The results specific for the KRISO container ship point to resistance reductions when the current assists ship motions, accompanied by considerable decreases in sinkage and trim. Conversely, when currents oppose ship motion, resistance, sinkage and trim can increase by a factor of 3 depending on the strength and shape of the depth-varying current. The results also show that a current with constant vorticity, a case frequently used in the literature to investigate the impact of sheared currents, creates the biggest increase and decrease for inhibiting and assisting currents, respectively.

СПОСІБ ВІДОБРАЖЕННЯ РЕЗУЛЬТАТІВ ПРОГРАВАННЯ ПЛАНУ РОЗХОДЖЕННЯ

A method of displaying the results of trial plan for collision avoidance is proposed. It is considered that in general form this plan can be represented by segments of its own ship movement with a constant velocity vector, and sections of this vector change. The basic requirements for displaying trial plan results are formulated. It is accepted that the domains of danger, which are used in solving the tasks to avoid collision are formed at the target and are convex shapes which are symmetrical about the target course line. These domains can be smooth closed curves or closed broken lines (polygons). A program for simulating the execution of an anti-collision plan is proposed to obtain data on this process. It is noted that the risk of passing the target is the greatest one at the moment when the shortest distance between its domain and own ship is small. The vessels’positions, special point and closest to own ship point of the domain up to this moment are considered to be displayed as trial data. Such data along the own ship path to avoid collision are called informational marks. They represent the demanding attention areas, and allow making the reasonable conclusion on acceptability of anticollision plan. Algorithms for calculating elements of informational marks, when using elliptical and polygonal danger domains for targets, are determined. To test the procedure of simulating the implementation of the evading plan and the proposed method of displaying information, a special program was compiled in the Borland Delphi language. This program was used to test the plans to avoid collision in many collision situations applying various forms of targets danger domains. The display of testing results for two segments of the evading plan in a situation with six targets, using circular danger domains with a center shifted towards the nose from the center of the target mass, is presented. Target and own ship dimensions are included in the size of each domain.

California harbor dredging: History and trends

California is a major shipping point for exports and imports across the Pacific Basin, has large commercial and recreational fisheries, and an abundance of marine recreational boaters. Each of these industries or activities requires either a port or harbor. California has 26 individual coastal ports and harbors, ranging from the huge sprawling container ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to small fishing ports like Noyo Harbor and Bodega Bay. Almost all of California’s ports and harbors were constructed without any knowledge or consideration of littoral drift directions and rates and potential future dredging issues. Rather, they were built where a need existed, where there was a history of boat anchorage, or where there was a natural feature (e.g. bay, estuary, or lagoon) that could be the basis of an improved port or harbor. California’s littoral drift rates and directions are now well known and understood, however, and have led to the need to perform annual dredging at many of these harbors as a result of their locations (e.g. Santa Cruz, Oceanside, Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Channel Islands harbors) while other harbors require little or no annual dredging (e.g. Half Moon Bay, Moss Landing, Monterey, Redondo-King and Alamitos Bay). California’s coastal harbors can be divided into three general groups based on their long-term annual dredging volumes, which range from three harbors that have never been dredged to the Channel Islands Harbor where nearly a million cubic yards is removed on average annually. There are coastal harbors where dredging rates have remained nearly constant over time, those where rates have gradually increased, and others where rates have decreased in recent years. While the causal factors for these changes are evident in a few cases, for most there are likely a combination of reasons including changes in sand supply by updrift rivers and streams related to dam construction as well as rainfall intensity and duration; lag times between when pulses of sand added to the shoreline from large discharge events actually reach downdrift harbors; variations in wave climate over time; shoreline topography and nearshore bathymetry that determine how much sand can be trapped upcoast of littoral barriers, such as jetties and breakwaters, before it enters a harbor; and timing of dredging. While there is virtually nothing that can be done to any of these harbors to significantly reduce annual dredging rates and costs, short of modifying either breakwater or jetty length and/or configuration to increase the volume of sand trapped upcoast, thereby altering dredging timing, they are clearly major economic engines, but come with associated costs.

Dynamic setting of shipping points in logistics systems with multiple heterogeneous warehousesorecasting the confidence interval of efficiency in fuzzy DEA

This study aims to model a planning process of handling outbound deliveries from a set of geographically dispersed warehouses. The model incorporates parameters observed in real life supply chains and allows simulation of various variants of process supporting decision making of current shipment management, as well as strategic planning of distribution network. A heuristic algorithm that can be used for planning of source warehouses for shipments is proposed. The model is built and tested on real business data and its performance proves to be better than the one currently used by reference company.

Upper Cambrian and Lower Ordovician conodont biostratigraphy and revised lithostratigraphy, Boothia Peninsula, Nunavut

The strata exposed along Lord Lindsay River on southern Boothia Peninsula were previously named the Netsilik Formation, and then recognized as the Turner Cliffs Formation; the interpretation of the age and correlation was based on limited data. New detailed field investigation at 23 localities along the section resulted in the discovery of over 640 identifiable conodont specimens, with 35 species representing 16 genera, among which a new species, Rossodus? boothiaensis sp. nov., is recognized. Five North American standard conodont zone/subzone-equivalent faunas are documented from the section, namely the Hirsutodontus hirsutus Subzone-equivalent, Cordylodus angulatus, Rossodus manitouensis, Acodus deltatus/Oneotodus costatus and Oepikodus communis Zone-equivalent faunas. These faunas enable a new understanding of the age and stratigraphic position of the Netsilik and Turner Cliffs formations on southern Boothia Peninsula. The Netsilik Formation can be correlated with the lower member (except for the lowest part) and upper member of the Turner Cliffs Formation; the previously unmeasured upper part of the section can be associated with the lower Ship Point Formation. Based on the new conodont data, these three units are dated as early Age 10, late Cambrian to middle Tremadocian, Early Ordovician; late Tremadocian, Early Ordovician; and early Floian, Early Ordovician, respectively. This study fills a gap in upper Cambrian and Lower Ordovician biostratigraphy on Boothia Peninsula, and links the regional biostratigraphy to that of Laurentia.

Development of Risk Optimisation Model for Oil and Gas Transportation Pipeline Routes

Identifying safe routes for the pipelines that transport Oil and Gas (O&G) products is a challenging topic in the current environment; particularly in the insure countries. Because the relevant data about the probability and severity levels of the Risk Factors (RFs) that affect the safety of these pipelines are rare. Which makes the existing risk assessment tools ineffective to analyse these RFs and identify safe route for these pipelines. Hence, this paper aims to develop a risk assessment tool that can identify safe routes for the new O&G pipelines in Iraq in a systematic way using the following steps. Firstly, an industry-wide questionnaire survey was conducted to gather the data about the probability and severity levels of the RFs in such projects in Iraq. Secondly, the Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) in MATLAB was used to analyse and rank the RFs. Because the FIS can reduce the uncertainty in risk analysis, which results from the lack of data and the biasness of stakeholder’s judgments about the RFs. Thirdly, the existing information from the new pipelines projects were analysed to identify the potential RFs in the proposed routes for these projects. As the O&G pipeline network in Iraq is above-the-ground, this paper focused on the RFs that affect this type of pipelines. Fourthly, the safest route for the new pipeline was identified by optimising the risk index value for each route. While, the route that has less value of risk index is the safest route. This paper analysed the five routes that were suggested to build a new gas export pipeline in Waist in Iraq. The pipeline will transport the extracted gas from Badra filed to the shipping points in Iraq. It was found that route number 4 is the safest route for this pipeline.

Spatial price dynamics in the US vegetable sector

AbstractThis study investigates price transmission in the US fresh vegetable market, considering four important vegetables: carrots, lettuce, onions, and potatoes. An asymmetric variable‐threshold autoregressive (AvTAR) model was used to estimate price relationships between 40 pairs of terminal market vegetable prices, whereas the parity bounds model (PBM) was used to estimate the probability of 22 shipping point to terminal market pairs behaving efficiently. The estimated AvTAR models suggest market integration is higher for more perishable produce. Results for the PBM indicate that 18.2% of the markets studied had more than a 10% probability of behaving inefficiently, indicating that while the majority of markets behaved efficiently, there is room for improvement. The estimated thresholds have been suggested as an estimate of transport costs, but estimated thresholds often differ substantially from actual transport costs.

Describing the cull sow market network in the US: A pilot project

Currently, little objective data is available describing the movements of cull sows and cull pigs through market channels or the association these movements with disease transmission risk. In this pilot study, we collected data to describe the scope and complexity of movements within the sow market channel. Premise ID tags where collected from all animals moving through a single slaughter plant over a one-week period in 2017. The premise ID’s were each cross referenced with a public database to obtain origin location, and each tag was matched with its final collection point (FCP). This allowed terminal market, FCP, and point of origin of each sow to be determined. Approximately 90.4% of all sows moving to the plant during the one-week period were identified, indicating the utility of this data collection approach. Sows originated from premises in 21 states and Canada, and shipped from collection points in 7 states and Canada. Sows traveled a median straight-line distance of 1057 km, identifying the national scope of the sow market. Of the sows identified, 86% entered the plant from a final shipping point that was within 240 km to the source farm. The remaining 14% traveled more than 240 km from the premise of origin to the final point of shipment with 2.5% traveling distances 5 times greater between premise and FCP, then from FCP to the plant. From this it was hypothesized that not only is the sow market national in scope, but a significant number of sows are moved between multiple collection points prior to arriving at the terminal market. The combination of these two factors makes the sow network a likely candidate of pathogen transmission throughout the swine industry.