Mobile robots often have to make decisions on where to point their sensors, which have limited range and coverage. A good sensing strategy allows the robot to collect useful information for its tasks. Most existing solutions to this active sensing problem choose the direction that maximally reduces the uncertainty in a single state variable. In more complex problem domains, however, uncertainti...

The optimal maintenance scheduling of systems with degrading components is highly coupled with the design of the system and various uncertainties associated with the system, including the operating conditions, the interaction of different degradation profiles of various system components, and the ability to measure and predict degradation using prognostics and health management (PHM) technologi...

We present a variation of the classical Distributed Stochastic Algorithm (DSA), a local iterative best-response algorithm for Distributed Constraint Optimization Problems (DCOPs). We introduce weights for the agents, which influence their behaviour. We model DCOPs as graph processing problems, where the variables are represented as vertices and the constraints as edges. This enables us to creat...

One of the major goals of the Sustainable Agriculture Farming initiatives at UC Davis is to provide information about the feasibility of adopting conservation tillage and cover cropping at the farm level. The project includes two tillage schemes: standard tillage (ST) and conservation tillage (CT), and three farming methods: conventional, organic, and winter legume cover crop. All three product...

Global biodiversity continues along a trajectory of decline despite enormous conservation efforts (Rands et al., 2010). This is also true in China, one of the most biodiversity-rich countries in the world (Liu and Raven, 2010; Ministry of Environmental Protection of China, 2010a). To fundamentally change this trajectory, it is essential to understand complex interactions among various forces af...

This paper studies the concept of energy security from export-oriented countries' point of view. It aims to test the effects of long-term energy export strategies in the Central Asian Caspian (CAC) region, by exploring the trade-offs between a "risk" indicator and some key variables of the energy system such as the total cost, the quantities exported, and the corresponding revenues. Risk reduct...

The purpose of this paper is to address the determinants of trade credit in the Cameroonian context. Based on a sample of 85 Cameroonian companies observed in 2006, the econometric investigations highlight a genuine financial intermediation business close to productive activity. We used a general model incorporating both financial variables, transactional and sociocultural in order to estimate ...

Despite their ambiguous historical record, conservation/development interventions the world over have remained a popular environmental governance tool. One of the latest global ‘trends’ are interventions to establish so-called ‘Transfrontier Conservation Areas’ (TFCAs): large contiguous spaces that are principally aimed at conserving biological diversity across national boundaries. In line with...