This dissertation incorporates coalition formation and probabilistic planning towards a domain-independent automated planning solution scalable to multiple heterogeneous robots in complex domains. The first research direction investigates the effectiveness of Task Fusion and introduces heuristics that improve task allocation and result in better quality plans, while requiring lower computational cost...
In southeast Portugal, some coastal fishing communities have experienced intensified competition for harvestable stocks, and this impacted with some severity on small-scale fishermen who are especially dependent on fishing for their livelihoods. In the last decade or so, various "structural instruments" have been created in order to address this particular...
Fisheries exploited under open-access conditions create externalities, resulting in a range of problems associated with over-capitalisation and stock depletion. One answer to this is to shift the mode of production away from hunting and towards husbandry, an approach which becomes feasible where some control can be exercised over the resource...
The Pacific Arctic is undergoing rapid biogeochemical changes in response to warming air temperatures caused by climate forcing. This is manifesting as changes in seasonal sea ice thickness and sea ice extent, as well as changes in primary production within surface waters. The data and samples analyzed here were collected...
Carbon sequestration in tropical secondary forests growing in all climates must be quantified to understand their potential role in adaptation and mitigation strategies of global climate change. Total aboveground biomass (TAGB), soil carbon, and total ecosystem carbon (TEC) were measured in 54 secondary forests growing along a broad bioclimatic gradient...
It is widely accepted that in sea bottom areas where there is a scarcity of rocky formations and declining marine fish due to fisheries pressure, the deployment of artificial reefs (ARs) is a possible way to mitigate the problem. If ARs have an ecosystem-based fisheries management goal that means their...
Methods for obtaining accurate, spatially explicit estimates of biomass density in tropical forests are required to reduce uncertainties in the global carbon cycle, and to support international climate agreements and emerging carbon markets. Three-dimensional (3-D) remote sensing techniques sensitive to the vertical structure of vegetation provide a unique opportunity for...
The relationship between carbon burial and sedimentation in reservoirs is unknown, exposing gaps in our fundamental understanding of the transport, processing, and deposition of sediment and organic matter in fluvial and lacustrine systems and contributing to uncertainty in our understanding of the net impact of dams to the global carbon...
About 9600 nautical miles of marine gravity, magnetic, and bathymetric data were collected by Oregon State University during the cruise Yucatan'85 in the north and eastern margins of the Yucatan Peninsula, using a research vessel of the Mexican Navy, the Altair. A compilation of Yucatan' 85 marine data and marine...
Full Text:
Yucatan Peninsula, and Adjacent Areas
from 17o30'N to 26oN and from 840W to 93oW
by
Miguel Angel
Seasonality and drought in Amazon rainforests have been controversially discussed in the literature, partially due to a limited ability of current remote sensing techniques to detect its impacts on tropical vegetation. We use a multi-angle remote sensing approach to determine changes in vegetation structure from differences in directional scattering (anisotropy)...
Copper and iron are essential micronutrients that are required by marine primary producers for a variety of metabolic processes. Over 99% of both copper and iron are bound within organic complexes in the marine environment, however the molecular identity of many of these complexes remains unknown. The speciation of these...
The essential oil from two Lantana species (Lantana lucida Schauer and Lantana salzmannii Schauer) were evaluated for their chemical composition by GC-MS. Results showed 17 predominant compounds for L. lucida, among which β-caryophyllene (19.0%) and α- caryophyllene (or humuleno, 33.0%) were the major components. L. salzmannii showed the presence of...
This study examines dissolved rhenium (Re) as a function of water runoff using river samples from two contrasting watersheds, the Eel and Umpqua Rivers in the Pacific Northwest, USA. These watersheds share many key characteristics in terms of size, discharge, climate, and vegetation, but they have a 10-fold difference in...
Continental shelf sediments are sinks for dissolved oxygen and sources of many major and minor nutrients required for oceanic surface primary production, resulting in a strong coupling between benthic and pelagic biogeochemical cycling. However, the influence and spatiotemporal variability of benthic remineralization on bottom-water chemistry and the supply of nutrients...
We investigated the export of particulate organic matter (POM) to the ocean by two contrasting small, mountainous rivers, the Umpqua and Eel Rivers, by collecting suspended sediment samples over a range of discharges and analyzing them for a variety of constituents, including organic carbon, nitrogen, biomarkers with distinct biochemical sources,...
Proceedings of the 2017 Forum of the North American Association of Fisheries Economists, held March 22-24, 2017 in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico.
The highstanding islands of Oceania are recognized as a source of significant particulate organic carbon delivered to nearshore marine environments. The existing data on carbon export in Oceania are largely derived from small mountainous watersheds (<10,000 km2) with little or no sediment storage capacity and located in subtropical to temperate...
Methane is a product of biogeochemical processes which respond to changes in climate. The history of atmospheric methane is recorded by ice cores providing insight into past changes in these biogeochemical processes. This dissertation is comprised of three studies which focus on centennial- and millenial-scale variability of methane from ice...
Following a four-year period of writing, member comment, and multiple revisions, the AFS Position Paper and Policy on Mining and Fossil Fuel Extraction was approved unanimously by the membership at the Society's annual business meeting August 19, 2015, in Portland, Oregon. The entire document can be read at fisheries.org/policy_statements; a...
Many marine bivalves are sensitive to ocean acidification (OA) stress and often show heightened sensitivity during brief early larval and post-larval life stages, potentially leading to population bottlenecks. Most of the evidence to date has been collected in laboratory experiments that focused on physiological responses at the organismal level under...