Initial

This software is described in our paper, "Decision-Making for Land Conservation: A Derivative-Free Optimization Framework with Nonlinear Inputs" which is published in the Proceedings of the 38th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-24).

This is a mathematical programming tool for conservationists that allows for linear and nonlinear inputs, continuous and discrete variables, and can be paired with existing ecological software. We propose a derivative-free optimization framework paired with a nonlinear component, population viability analysis (PVA). Formulated as a mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem, our model allows for linear and nonlinear inputs. In its current form, we have RAMAS Metapopulation PVA software as the input. RAMAS is commercial software that requires a license to use. Our code invokes RAMAS using batch files, so we are able to provide all the source code. However, unless RAMAS is installed on your machine, this code won't run.

This release includes our code, data, and technical appendix.

Please refer to our paper for further details: https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v38i20.30195.