It is well recognized that using the hot standby redundancy provides fast restoration in the case of failures. However the redundant elements are exposed to working stresses before they are used, which reduces the overall system reliability. Moreover, the cost of maintaining the hot redundant...

Phenology is critical to ecosystem carbon quantification, and yet has not been well modeled considering both aboveground and belowground environmental variables. This is especially true for alpine and pan-arctic regions where soil physical conditions play a significant role in determining the...

Statistical process control and maintenance planning have long been treated as two separate problems. The interdependence between these two activities has not been adequately addressed in the literature, despite their apparent connections. Information obtained in the course of statistical...

Condition-based maintenance has been proven effective in reducing unexpected failures with minimum operational costs. This study considers an optimal condition-based replacement policy with optimal inspection interval when the degradation conforms to an inverse Gaussian process with random...

The dominant pattern in U.S. non-alcoholic drink: consumption over the past 25 years has been a steady increase in per capita soft-drink: consumption, largely at the expense of coffee (and to a lesser extent) milk consumption. Our findings suggest that the major factor governing this pattern is...

The dominant trend in U.S. non-alcoholic consumption over the past two decades has been a steady increase in soft-drink consumption, largely at the expense of milk and coffee and tea consumption. Our analysis suggests that the primary factors affecting this is that the price, advertising, and...

The USDA'Â’s Foreign Agricultural Service funds three types of activities to promote agricultural exports: consumer promotion, technical assistance, and trade servicing. These "instruments" are analyzed using an adaptation of Muth's model. Results indicate that consumer promotion always...