scholarly journals On Eventual Applicability of Plans in Dynamic Environments with Cyclic Phenomena

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lukáš Chrpa ◽  
Martin Pilát ◽  
Jakub Med
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Environments ◽  
Single Step ◽  
The State ◽  
Risk Of Falling ◽  
Planning Techniques ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
Dead End ◽  
State Of The Environment ◽  
Cyclic Phenomena

Planning and acting in dynamic environments deals with non-deterministic events that might change the state of the environment without consent of the agent. In the worst case, some events might cause the agent to become ``trapped'' in a dead-end state, which in practice might mean damage or destruction of the agent. Presence of non-deterministic events often considerably increases the number of alternatives that might occur in a single step and hence traditional non-deterministic planning techniques might not scale. In this paper, we address a class of problems where non-deterministic events represent ``cyclic phenomena''. If they interfere with the agent, they might be dangerous for it (e.g. ships cruising through the area of AUV operations). We present techniques that initially analyse the problem whether it falls within this class by considering the notion of event reversibility and if so, these techniques generate a plan such that encountered unsafe states, in which the ``cyclic phenomena'' might interfere with the agent, can be eventually crossed without any risk of ``falling'' into a dead-end state. Our approach is evaluated in the AUV and Perestroika domains.

The role of science in environmental protection

1991 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 527 ◽  
Author(s):  
AJ Constable
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Regulatory System ◽  
The State ◽  
Uncertain Information ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
Environmental Objectives ◽  
Management Procedures ◽  
High Degree ◽  
State Of The Environment ◽  
Ecologically Sustainable

A process for developing management procedures that may ensure environmental protection is discussed in light of current problems in conservation of the aquatic environment. This process provides an opportunity for determining clearly the role and objectives of science in environmental protection and deals explicitly with the problems to management of uncertain information. Feedback management procedures are advocated, and these should be developed so that they are sufficiently robust in terms of absolute performance. This is to ensure that the environmental objectives set to safeguard the public interest are likely to be met under feasible worst-case conditions despite incomplete knowledge. Three important principles should be incorporated into these procedures before a proposed activity (e.g. development, exploitation) is allowed to commence: (1) the initial level of the activity should be set commensurate with a high degree of confidence that it is ecologically sustainable, (2) the objectives of the regulatory system should be framed in terms of aspects of the state of the environment that can be estimated robustly, and (3) the regulatory framework should specify what actions are required given the state of the environment as observed through the monitoring programme.

EXPEDITION TO MALI, 2020

2020 ◽  
pp. 12-28
Author(s):  
D. V. Vaniukova ◽  
◽  
P. A. Kutsenkov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mass Murder ◽  
The State ◽  
Case Scenario ◽  
Worst Case ◽  
Traditional Art ◽  
Peter The Great ◽  
State Museum ◽  
Bobo Dioulasso ◽  
Oriental Studies ◽  
The Village

The research expedition of the Institute of Oriental studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences has been working in Mali since 2015. Since 2017, it has been attended by employees of the State Museum of the East. The task of the expedition is to study the transformation of traditional Dogon culture in the context of globalization, as well as to collect ethnographic information (life, customs, features of the traditional social and political structure); to collect oral historical legends; to study the history, existence, and transformation of artistic tradition in the villages of the Dogon Country in modern conditions; collecting items of Ethnography and art to add to the collection of the African collection of the. Peter the Great Museum (Kunstkamera, Saint Petersburg) and the State Museum of Oriental Arts (Moscow). The plan of the expedition in January 2020 included additional items, namely, the study of the functioning of the antique market in Mali (the “path” of things from villages to cities, which is important for attributing works of traditional art). The geography of our research was significantly expanded to the regions of Sikasso and Koulikoro in Mali, as well as to the city of Bobo-Dioulasso and its surroundings in Burkina Faso, which is related to the study of migrations to the Bandiagara Highlands. In addition, the plan of the expedition included organization of a photo exhibition in the Museum of the village of Endé and some educational projects. Unfortunately, after the mass murder in March 2019 in the village of Ogossogou-Pel, where more than one hundred and seventy people were killed, events in the Dogon Country began to develop in the worst-case scenario: The incessant provocations after that revived the old feud between the Pel (Fulbe) pastoralists and the Dogon farmers. So far, this hostility and mutual distrust has not yet developed into a full-scale ethnic conflict, but, unfortunately, such a development now seems quite likely.

scholarly journals What you always wanted to know about the deterministic part of the International Planning Competition (IPC) 2014 (but were too afraid to ask)

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauro Vallati ◽  
Lukáš Chrpa ◽  
Thomas L. Mccluskey
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
The State ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
Planning Techniques ◽  
Artificial Intelligence Planning ◽  
The Future ◽  
International Planning ◽  
Planning Approaches

AbstractThe International Planning Competition (IPC) is a prominent event of the artificial intelligence planning community that has been organized since 1998; it aims at fostering the development and comparison of planning approaches, assessing the state-of-the-art in planning and identifying new challenging benchmarks. IPC has a strong impact also outside the planning community, by providing a large number of ready-to-use planning engines and testing pioneering applications of planning techniques.This paper focusses on the deterministic part of IPC 2014, and describes format, participants, benchmarks as well as a thorough analysis of the results. Generally, results of the competition indicates some significant progress, but they also highlight issues and challenges that the planning community will have to face in the future.

Are listed threatened plant species actually at risk?

2002 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Burgman
Keyword(s):  
Plant Species ◽  
Threatened Species ◽  
Feedback Loop ◽  
Conservation Status ◽  
The State ◽  
Scarce Resources ◽  
Threatened Plant ◽  
Threatened Plant Species ◽  
Legal Mandates ◽  
State Of The Environment

Despite the fact that the most changes in lists of threatened species reflect changes in knowledge rather than changes in conservation status, the lists continue to provide social and legal mandates for conservation; they are used to report on the state of the environment and to guide the allocation of scarce resources. There is a substantial under-representation of non-vascular species in threatened plant lists, reflected in an absence of documented extinctions among fungi and algae. Turnover in the composition of extinct flora lists in Australia suggests that the lists of threatened species may not be sufficiently reliable to form the basis for reporting on the state of the environment. They are of limited use in distinguishing between levels of threat and may not be a reliable guide for the allocation of scarce conservation resources among plant species. Systems for listing threatened species create a feedback loop, responsive to the subjective preferences of scientists, largely unresponsive to underlying true threats, self-perpetuating and accentuating bias with each iteration. Other tools, including formal decision approaches and the acquisition of new kinds of data, are needed to fill the roles.

scholarly journals Filtering and predicting the cost of hidden perished items in an inventory model

2002 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-245
Author(s):  
Lakhdar Aggoun ◽  
Lakdere Benkherouf
Keyword(s):  
Joint Distribution ◽  
Inventory Model ◽  
The State ◽  
Inventory Level ◽  
Discrete State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Accumulated Losses ◽  
The Cost ◽  
State Of The Environment ◽  
Recursive Estimators

This paper is concerned with a discrete time, discrete state inventory model for items of changing quality. Items are assumed to be in one of a finite number, M, of quality classes that are ordered in such a way that Class 1 contains the best quality and the last class contains the pre-perishable quality. The changes of items' quality are dependent on the state of the ambient environment. Furthermore, at each epoch time, items of different classes may be sold or moved to a lower quality class or stay in the same class. These items are priced according to their quality, and costs are incurred as items lose quality. Based on observing the history of the inventory level and prices, we propose recursive estimators as well as predictors for the joint distribution of the accumulated losses and the state of the environment.

scholarly journals Mineralization of the surface waters in the Visocica drainage basin: Supplement for the landscape-ecologic analysis

2009 ◽  
Vol 89 (4) ◽  
pp. 141-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanja Mustafic ◽  
Predrag Manojlovic ◽  
Miroljub Milincic
Keyword(s):  
Surface Waters ◽  
Systematic Approach ◽  
Drainage Basin ◽  
The State ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Geologic Structure ◽  
Spatial Unit ◽  
Water Accumulation ◽  
State Of The Environment

The drainage basin is spatially and functionally clearly defined and relevant hydrologic, geomorphologic and ecologic landscape totality. Therefore, it mostly represents basic geo-spatial unit of generation, monitoring, and studying numerous physical-geographical and geo-ecologic occurrences and processes. One of the most important components of geo-space, on the level of basin, is manifested through the state and quality of surface waters. So, the acceptance of systematic approach in studying mineralization of the surface waters would contribute to the deeper understanding of the process in complex systematic surroundings which drainage basin represents. The Visocica Drainage Basin was chosen as proving ground of this kind of the research approach for several reasons. The highest specific runoff on the territory of Eastern Serbia, heterogeneous geologic structure of terrain, almost complete absence of the influence of the anthropogenic factor on the state of the environment, as well as the existence of water accumulation enabled perception of the values of dissolved mineral substances of surface waters as landscape-ecologic component of geo-space.

scholarly journals Mechanisms for Management of Environmental Protection in Europe

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-30
Author(s):  
Массеров ◽  
D. Messerov
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Management ◽  
European Union ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Environmental Regulation ◽  
The State ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Environment Monitoring ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
The European Union ◽  
State Of The Environment

The experience of the industrialized countries on the state of the environment monitoring convincing shows that their success in environmental regulation are mainly due to the use of modern environmental management methods. The experience of the European Union concerning the control mechanisms in the field of environmental protection and the possibility of its application in Russia are analyzed.

scholarly journals METHOD OF DETERMINING THE ECOLOGICAL COMPONENT QUALITY OF LIFE

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (164) ◽  
pp. 220-233
Author(s):  
O. Rybalova ◽  
O. Bryhada ◽  
O. Ilinskyi
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
General System ◽  
Environmental Indicators ◽  
The State ◽  
Comprehensive Assessment ◽  
New Method ◽  
Protection Measures ◽  
Separate Block ◽  
State Of The Environment

The work examines modern methodological approaches to assessing the quality of life using environmental indicators. Analysis of the existing methods in Ukraine for determining the environmental component when measuring the quality of life showed the need to develop a new method for a comprehensive assessment of the state of the environment. This is due to the fact that the existing methodology for assessing the quality of life does not take into account the ecological component as a separate block of indicators, and also contains some inaccuracies in the formulas for calculating the final indicator. In this regard, a new method is proposed for determining the ecological component in the general system for assessing the quality of life of the population, which is the scientific novelty of the work. Based on the analysis of monitoring data on the quality of air, surface waters and soils of Ukraine, statistical reporting on environmental indicators of the development of regions of Ukraine, intermediate indicator indicators are calculated, and then the final complex indicator of the state of the environment is determined. Calculation formulas and assessment scales in points of the state of environmental components are proposed. The proposed method is based on the processing of data from official state statistics and environmental monitoring, which determines the reliability of the initial data. The proposed technique can easily be used as an algorithm for computerized calculations of the indicator of a comprehensive assessment of the state of the environment. The calculation of the indicator of the ecological state was made on the basis of current statistical data, which showed the need for immediate environmental protection measures in the industrially developed regions of Ukraine: Donetsk, Zaporozhye, Dnepropetrovsk and Lugansk regions.

scholarly journals Losing Hope? The Environmental Crisis Today

ANVIL ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin J. Hodson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Supply ◽  
General Public ◽  
Human Population ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
The State ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
State Of The Environment ◽  
Global Water

Abstract Environmentalists and scientists who study the environment often give a pretty bleak picture of the future. Surveys of secular views on the environment suggest that the general public in the developed West are concerned about the state of the environment. After considering all of the environmental problems that are causing scientists to worry, this paper then concentrates on four: climate change; biodiversity loss; global water supply; and the increase in our human population. Finally we will see what scientists have to say about hope in a time of environmental crisis

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document