Structural Adjustment, Integration and Agricultural Policy Reform: Lessons from Jamaica's Agricultural Sector

Agricultural and Food Policy,

Online Inverse Optimal Control for Control-Constrained Discrete-Time Systems on Finite and Infinite Horizons

In this paper, we consider the problem of computing parameters of an objective function for a discrete-time optimal control problem from state and control trajectories with active control constraints. We propose a novel method of inverse optimal control that has a computationally efficient online form in which pairs of states and controls from given state and control trajectories are processed sequentially without being stored or processed in batches. We establish conditions guaranteeing the uniqueness of the objective-function parameters computed by our proposed method from trajectories with active control constraints. We illustrate our proposed method in simulation.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for publication in Automatic

Below Horizon Aircraft Detection Using Deep Learning for Vision-Based Sense and Avoid

Commercial operation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) would benefit from an onboard ability to sense and avoid (SAA) potential mid-air collision threats. In this paper we present a new approach for detection of aircraft below the horizon. We address some of the challenges faced by existing vision-based SAA methods such as detecting stationary aircraft (that have no relative motion to the background), rejecting moving ground vehicles, and simultaneous detection of multiple aircraft. We propose a multi-stage, vision-based aircraft detection system which utilises deep learning to produce candidate aircraft that we track over time. We evaluate the performance of our proposed system on real flight data where we demonstrate detection ranges comparable to the state of the art with the additional capability of detecting stationary aircraft, rejecting moving ground vehicles, and tracking multiple aircraft

Due Process for Cash Civil Forfeitures in Structuring Cases

On January 22, 2013, Tarik “Terry” Dehko sat down to pay the bills for his small Michigan grocery store when a federal agent entered his office. The agent told Dehko that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had executed a seizure warrant and taken the market’s entire bank account—more than $35,000. When Dehko asked how he could run his business without its bank account, the agent replied, “I don’t care.” The government did not charge Dehko with a crime that day. In fact, Dehko had never been charged with any crime in his life. Instead, the government waited until July 19 to bring a civil forfeiture action against Dehko—ninety-one days after Dehko filed a claim with the IRS asserting his property interest in the seized money. During that time, Dehko could not access those funds to pay his employees, rent, utility bills, or vendors. For the first time, Dehko was late on his payments

Essays on foreign direct investment and growth in the United States

The period between 1978 and 1997 was characterized by a major influx of foreign direct investment (FDI to the United States. In 1997, foreign controlled firms accounted for 6.3 percent of US GDP, 4.9 percent of non-bank employment, 20 percent of US exports of goods, 30 percent of US imports of goods, and 12 percent of firm R&D. However, due to data limitations, previous research has examined the impact of FDI on growth only at the country level. By constructing a new stock measure of FDI---the employment measure---I am able to disaggregate FDI across states. This allows an examination of the impact of FDI on growth at the state level. Because spillovers tend to be local in nature, such a focus gives a better understanding of the impact FDI can have in the growth process. Furthermore, because ownership should be conceptualized as an on-going relationship, this new stock measure, which proxies for a continuing flow of benefits (information, technology, know-how and etc. from the source to the host economy, captures these benefits better than those based on one time investment flows. Drawing on ideas present in the areas of economic growth, international trade, knowledge spillovers, regional science, and the multinational firm, my dissertation examines the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) at the state level

Responsible tourism: A guide for tourism and sustainability in small-scale fisheries and agri-food

‘Responsible Tourism: a guide for tourism and sustainability in small-scale fisheries and agri-food’ is a product of TourFish, a project funded by the EU INTERREG IVA 2 Seas programme. The aim of TourFish was to explore opportunities for coastal areas through developing responsible tourism that draws together food, small-scale inshore fisheries, regional branding and place-based marketing opportunities