The costs of living with wildlife are assessed using Namibian subsistence farmers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for deterrents to attacks on crops and livestock as a measure of damage costs. A utility-theoretic approach jointly estimates household WTP for deterrent programs in two “currencies,” maize and cash. This has a double payoff. Use of a noncash staple increases respondent comprehension and ...

This paper presents a method for determining the network lines and buses where the occurrence of faults will lead to voltage sags causing severe financial losses in the power system. The proposed method is based on a typical stochastic assessment of voltage sags. The network regions where fault occurrences will simultaneously lead to voltage sags at different sensitive load points can be determ...

Damage in metals is mainly the process of the initiation and growth of voids. With the growing complexity in materials and forming processes, it becomes inevitable to include anisotropy in damage (tensorial damage variable). Most of the anisotropic damage models define the damage tensor in the principal damage direction, with the assumption that the principal damage direction coincides with tha...

Remote sensing techniques can decrease pest monitoring costs in orchards. To evaluate the feasibility of detecting spider mite damage in orchards, we measured visible and near infrared reflectance of 1153 leaves and 392 canopies in 11 peach orchards in California. Pairs of significant wavelengths, identified by Partial Least Squares regression, were combined into normalized difference indices. ...

Earthquakes can and do happen in the Southeastern United States. In areas where earthquakes are likely to occur, knowledge of where and how to build structures can be helpful in reducing property damage. In this study, a detailed earthquake analysis of an existing high-rise structure located in the southeast region of the United States is performed. The analysis is based on the effects of past ...

A central principle in life-history theory is that reproductive effort negatively affects survival. Costs of reproduction are thought to be physiologically based, but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Using female North American red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus), we test the hypothesis that energetic investment in reproduction overwhelms investment in antioxidant protect...

in this paper, the capabilities of displacement curvature derived from static response data for finding the location and severity of damage in euler-bernoulli beams are assessed. static response of a beam is obtained using the finite element modeling. in order to reduce the number of measured nodal displacements, the beam deflection is fitted through a polynomial function using a limited number...

Plant reproduction yields immediate fitness benefits but can be costly in terms of survival, growth, and future fecundity. Life-history theory posits that reproductive strategies are shaped by trade-offs between current and future fitness that result from these direct costs of reproduction. Plant reproduction may also incur indirect ecological costs if it increases susceptibility to herbivores....

background: air pollution in tehran, capital of iran is responsible for several diverse negative effects. it has been estab­lished that air pollution can affect human health. these health effects include increased hospital admissions due to the ex­acerba­tion of cardiac and respiratory diseases, as well as symptoms such as headache, cough, eye irritation, nausea, sputum and even death in the mo...

alborz province with an area of about 5121.7 km2 has about 0.31% of the total area of the country. the total arable area of the province is about 48954 hectares. water, land and capital are the most important factors for agricultural production. by understanding the subjective beliefs, decision-making criteria and economic incentives of local farmers, the priority of crops can be achieved with ...