Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A Multi-Criteria And Dynamic Sustainability Assessment Of Crop Rotation Alternatives, Saturnina Fabian Nisperos

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

With the food security challenge faced by nations globally, agriculture sustainability has been a significant consideration for concerned agencies. Sustainability assessments are significant tools in providing support to stakeholders in their crop production planning. Agricultural sustainability assessment, however, is complex and it involves numerous criteria that can be conflicting. Limitations on crop rotation sustainability assessment methods include: non-dynamic assessment; lack of regard to cover crops and to the individual crop production preferences of farmers; and focused only on single-year and single-crop rotation. We sought to address these limitations by developing a multi-criteria and dynamic sustainability assessment model that considers the …

A Framework And System For A Multi-Model Decision Aid For Sustainable Farming Practices, Kasi Bharath Vegesana

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Decision support systems (DSS) for farmers address the need for modeling multiple processes and scenarios that affect farmer decision making. Existing DSS have various drawbacks that stop them from being deployed as decision support tools. This research proposes a multi-model simulation framework that can be used to analyze farm management practices at the crop level, individual farm level and at the community level to show the impact and alternatives for smallholder farming practices. A generic crop growth model is proposed, based on existing equations. We run sensitivity analysis on the model to identify important variables. The outputs from the crop …

Modeling Decision Making Related To Incident Delays During Hurricane Evacuations, Robert Michael Robinson

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Successful evacuations from metropolitan areas require optimizing the transportation network, monitoring conditions, and adapting to changes. Evacuation plans seek to maximize the city's ability to evacuate traffic to flee the endangered region, but once an evacuation begins, real time events degrade even the best plans.

To better understand behavioral responses made during a hurricane evacuation, a survey of potential evacuees obtained data on demographics, driving characteristics, and the traffic information considered prior to and during an evacuation. Analysis showed significant levels of correlation between demographic factors (e.g., gender, age, social class, etc.) and self-assessed driver characteristics, but limited correlation with …