Mine production scheduling may be long-term or short-term based on the time period considered and the final objective. The optimization goal of short-term production scheduling is to minimize the mining cost expected from a mine while satisfying operational constraints, such…

Self-definition and relatedness are fundamental personality developmental tasks that engage individuals across the entire lifespan (Blatt, 1974, Blatt & Luyten, 2009; Luyten & Blatt, 2013). Healthy psychological maturation requires the development of a sense of self that is differentiated, integrated,…

A mining complex is an integrated business that extracts materials from open pit or underground mines, treats extracted materials via a series of processing facilities that are interconnected by various material handling methods, and generates a set of products that…

Over the past few decades, advances in X-ray and gamma-ray astronomy have greatly expanded our knowledge of the neutron-star family. One important recent discovery has been that of the "magnetars," isolated neutron stars whose radiation and occasional bursting activity is…

Due to land degradation, growing population pressures, and frequent drought, smallholder farmers in Kenya’s food insecure drylands are struggling to meet production objectives while maintaining a diverse set of crops to support health/nutrition. In the Eastern Province’s semi-arid region of…

The aims of this work are to validate the potential application of Cherenkov emission (CE) in radiotherapy dosimetry, online imaging and beam modulation by analysis of its correlation with radiation dose and by a spectral shift to the near-infrared (NIR)…

This thesis explores the challenges involved in building autonomous exploration and monitoring systems, and makes contributions on four fronts: describing the semantic context of the collected data, summarizing this information, deciding where to collect this data, and making optimal online…