25,870 research outputs found

    Construction of Barrier in a Fishing Game With Point Capture

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    This paper addresses a particular pursuit-evasion game, called as ā€œfishing gameā€ where a faster evader attempts to pass the gap between two pursuers. We are concerned with the conditions under which the evader or pursuers can win the game. This is a game of kind in which an essential aspect, barrier, separates the state space into disjoint parts associated with each player's winning region. We present a method of explicit policy to construct the barrier. This method divides the fishing game into two subgames related to the included angle and the relative distances between the evader and the pursuers, respectively, and then analyzes the possibility of capture or escape for each subgame to ascertain the analytical forms of the barrier. Furthermore, we fuse the games of kind and degree by solving the optimal control strategies in the minimum time for each player when the initial state lies in their winning regions. Along with the optimal strategies, the trajectories of the players are delineated and the upper bounds of their winning times are also derived

    Should \u3ci\u3eLucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council\u3c/i\u3e Protect Where the Wild Things Are? Of Beavers, Bob-o-Links, and Other Things that Go Bump in the Night

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    Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council is one of several recent Supreme Court decisions in which the Court used the Just Compensation Clause as a weapon of reaction to strike down an offending land use restriction. In Lucas, the target of the Court\u27s animus was a state law prohibiting a landowner from developing two beachfront lots. The South Carolina Supreme Court upheld the law as a legitimate exercise of the State\u27s police power to protect the public from harm in the face of a takings challenge by the landowner. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the South Carolina court\u27s talismatic reliance on police power authority. Instead, the Court focused its attention on the fact that the application of the state law deprived this particular landowner of all economically beneficial use of his property, and put forward a new bright line rule to guide lower courts in such situations--that compensation will be required whenever a regulation has the effect of economically confiscating private property. But, the rule that emerged from Lucas is anything but bright, because the majority included an exception for limitations that inhere in the title itself, in the restrictions that background principles of the State\u27s law of property and nuisance already place on land ownership. The apparent rationale behind the exception is that such laws do no more than could have been achieved by courts applying common law principles. However, the exact meaning of the italicized phrase, and hence its effect, is far from clear, and the phrase has drawn the attention of many commentators. It is the focus of this article as well. This article suggests that Lucas was primarily an attempt by the Court to simplify the judicial task of resolving what Robert Gordon refers to as the hard cases involving land use disputes, and that, with respect to laws protecting wildlife, the Court did not succeed in its quest. Hard cases arise because the Court\u27s approach to land use disputes that arise in a constitutional setting requires judges to arbitrate among reasonable property uses in a regulated commons of relative rights. By substituting a reflexive, bright line rule for artful harm-preventing characterizations and other highly flexible prudential memes, like noxious use and average reciprocity of advantage, the Lucas Court may have been trying to get out of Gordon\u27s relative rights box by converting a landowner\u27s relative use right into an unassailable privilege, thereby simplifying the task of the lower courts. But Lucas may have perversely achieved precisely the opposite result because the Court did not completely eliminate these atavistic doctrinal defenses. Instead, the majority tried to cabin them by anchoring them to common law principles. However, these principles come from an era when property rights were anything but absolute, and remain frozen in that earlier time, when a pig in a parlor was a nuisance and property ownership included responsibilities to the larger community. These principles tell a very different story and potentially justify a wide array of land use restrictions, including those protective of wildlife. The Court\u27s reliance on common law principles to craft an exception to its per se compensation rule misapprehended the continued robustness of old maxims, such as those restricting the uses to which private property can be put when they threaten wildlife, and thus potentially created an exception much wider than intended. Far from simplifying the takings catechism, the resultant misalignment of these principles with landowners\u27 current, albeit misguided, understandings of the State\u27s power over the bundle of rights acquired with the title to property, reveals that the Lucas Court made a major error. This error will result in the continuation of the muddle of the relative rights model, with all of the attendant difficulties of reconciling relational rights with absolute ownership norms, the very muddle of takings jurisprudence, this article postulates, that the Court sought to undo in Lucas. The error all but guarantees continued conflict and confusion over the extent of those rights whenever restrictive laws are applied. All is not lost, however, because by making common law understandings of land ownership part of the baseline of any post-Lucas takings analysis, the Court may have inadvertently created a golden opportunity for a return to a more neighborly society and a more ecologically sensitive land use ethic, in which conflicts over the uses of private property disappear. The article uses the example of wildlife laws in which to develop these disparate thoughts. Part II briefly discusses the effect of wildlife protection regulations on private land use, and the equity issues raised by their idiosyncratic application. Part III shows how English understandings about the rights and duties of landowners influenced colonial expectations about similar matters at the time of the founding of this country. These understandings are quite different from the ones we have today about property ownership and reveal a legal convention substantially encumbered by communal obligations, including the obligation to protect wildlife. While Locke\u27s view of private property as a pantheon of important political liberty rights played a formative role in the early rhetoric of this country, it did not reflect or disturb long-held understandings about the conditional and communally restricted nature of rights in property. It is the encumbered, non-Lockean view of property that undergirds the background principles of most states\u27 common law. Part III additionally shows how early colonial law also harbored a deep-seated hostility toward wilderness and explains how some English property doctrines were changed in this country to facilitate cultivation of wild (or waste ) lands, the very lands that are prized today as wildlife habitat. Part IV of the article traces the common law roots of our modern wildlife laws and shows how the common law doctrines of state wildlife trust and public trust have protected wildlife in this country because of their importance as communal resources. But this review of the historical antecedents of various common law doctrines and their present day application reveals a legacy at odds with the obvious intent of the majority in Lucas to fashion a narrow exception to the Court\u27s per se compensation rule and with the exclusive, absolute dominion expectations of most modern landowners. Part V of the article takes a slightly more theoretical look at the communal values underpinning the doctrines described in part IV by examining the writings of several property scholars who fear that modern property rights talk may suppress these more propitious norms. The article concludes that the Lucas exception may allow wildlife to slip through the Court\u27s takings net. But, unless modern expectations about the correlative rights and obligations of property ownership are aligned more closely with the communal values reflected in the background principles of common law discussed in part V, the legacy of Lucas will be continued conflict between the individualistic aspirations of private landowners and the more commonweal goals of government regulators, and a golden opportunity to effectuate a more civil society created by the Court\u27s exception will have been lost

    Identifying the Burdens and Opportunities for Tribes and Communities in Federal Facility Cleanup Activities: Environmental Remediation Technology Assessment Matrix For Tribal and Community Decision-Makers

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    The cleanup of this country's federal facilities can affect a wide range of tribal and community interests and concerns. The technologies now in use, or being proposed by the Department of Energy, Department of Defense and other federal agencies can affect tribal treaty protected fishing, hunting and other rights, affect air and water quality thereby requiring the tribe to bear the burden of increased environmental regulation. The International Institute for Indigenous Resource Management developed a tribal and community decision-maker's Environmental Remediation Technology Assessment Matrix that will permit tribes and communities to array technical information about environmental remediation technologies against a backdrop of tribal and community environmental, health and safety, cultural, religious, treaty and other concerns and interests. Ultimately, the matrix will allow tribes and communities to assess the impact of proposed technologies on the wide range of tribal and community interests and will promote more informed participation in federal facility cleanup activities

    Biology and Management of the American Shad and Status of the Fisheries, Atlantic Coast of the United States, 1960

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    This paper summarizes current information on the American shad, Alosa sapidissima, and describes the species and its fishery. Emphasis is placed on (1) life history of the fish, (2) condition of the fishery by State and water areas in 1960 compared to 1896 when the last comprehensive description was made, (3) factors responsible for decline in abundance, and (4) management measures. The shad fishery has changed little over the past three-quarters of a century, except in magnitude of yield. Types of shad-fishing gear have remained relatively unchanged, but many improvements have been made in fishing techniques, mostly to achieve economy. In 1896 the estimated catch was more than 50 million pounds. New Jersey ranked first in production with about 14 million pounds, and Virginia second with 11 million pounds. In 1960 the estimated catch was slightly more than 8 million pounds. Maryland ranked first in production with slightly more than 1.5 million pounds, Virginia second with slightly less than 1.4 million pounds, and North Carolina third with about 1.3 million pounds. Biological and economic factors blamed for the decline in shad abundance, such as physical changes in the environment, construction of dams, pollution, over-fishing, and natural cycles of abundance, are discussed. Also discussed are methods used for the rehabilitation and management of the fishery, such as artificial propagation, installation of fish-passage facilities at impoundments, and fishing regulations. With our present knowledge, we can manage individual shad populations; but, we probably cannot restore the shad to its former peak of abundance

    Atlas of Ocean Wealth

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    The Atlas of Ocean Wealth is the largest collection to date of information about the economic, social and cultural values of coastal and marine habitats from all over the world. It is a synthesis of innovative science, led by The Nature Conservancy (TNC), with many partners around the world. Through these efforts, they've gathered vast new datasets from both traditional and less likely sources.The work includes more than 35 novel and critically important maps that show how nature's value to people varies widely from place to place. They also illustrate nature's potential. These maps show that oneĀ can accurately quantify the value of marine resources. Further, by enumerating such values, oneĀ can encourage their protection or enhancement for the benefit of people all around the world. In summary, it clearly articulates not just that we need nature, but how much we need it, and where

    Great Bay Estuary Restoration Compendium

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    Single species approaches to natural resource conservation and management are now viewed as antiquated and oversimplified for dealing with complex systems. Scientists and managers who work in estuaries and other marine systems have urged adoption of ecosystem based approaches to management for nearly a decade, yet practitioners are still struggling to translate the ideas into practice. Similarly, ecological restoration projects in coastal systems have typically addressed one species or habitat. In recent years, efforts to focus on multiple species and habitats have increased. Our project developed an integrated ecosystem approach to identify multi-habitat restoration opportunities in the Great Bay estuary, New Hampshire. We created a conceptual site selection model based on a comparison of historic and modern distribution and abundance data, current environmental conditions, and expert review. Restoration targets included oysters and softshell clams, salt marshes, eelgrass beds, and seven diadromous fish species. Spatial data showing the historical and present day distributions for multiple species and habitats were compiled and integrated into a geographic information system. A matrix of habitat interactions was developed to identify potential for synergy and subsequent restoration efficiency. Output from the site selection models was considered within this framework to identify ecosystem restoration landscapes. The final products of these efforts include a series of maps detailing multi-habitat restoration opportunities extending from upland freshwater fish habitat down to the bay bottom. A companion guidance document was created to present project methods and a review of restoration methods. The authors hope that this work will help to stimulate and inform new restoration projects within the Great Bay estuarine system, and that it will serve as a foundation to be updated and improved as more information is collected

    The production of freshwater fish for food

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    It has been estimated that in England and Wales fresh water covers some 340 square miles of which about one quarter is inhabited mainly by salmon and trout; in Scotland the lakes cover an area of 340 square miles. The principal object of this publication is to make available in handy form some of the methods, especially those involving the use of manures, by which crops of fish from water can be increased. The cultivation of water which this implies may be compared directly to the cultivation of farm land: the conditions for growth are made as favourable as possible, the seed is sown in the form of young fish, and after one or perhaps two growing seasons the crop is harvested. There are however many waters about the country where marketable fish are already available and can be removed without prejudice to, and indeed to the advantage of, sporting fisheries. In such cases it is necessary only to remove the fish and to rely on the natural processes of reproduction of those which are left to repopulate the water. Farming waters in the true sense is the concern of the greater part of this publication; the removal of crops of otherwise unwanted fish is considered in the last two sections on perch trapping and eel fisheries

    Multi-player pursuitā€“evasion games with one superior evader

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    Inspired by the hunting and foraging behaviors of group predators, this paper addresses a class of multi-player pursuitā€“evasion games with one superior evader, who moves faster than the pursuers. We are concerned with the conditions under which the pursuers can capture the evader, involving the minimum number and initial spatial distribution required as well as the cooperative strategies of the pursuers. We present some necessary or sufficient conditions to regularize the encirclement formed by the pursuers to the evader. Then we provide a cooperative scheme for the pursuers to maintain and shrink the encirclement until the evader is captured. Finally, we give some examples to illustrate the theoretical results
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