Some statistical properties of a generic container inspection policy in invasive species management

摘要

In recent times — see Batabyal and Nijkamp [Batabyal, A.A., and Nijkamp, P., 2005. On Container Versus Time Based Inspection Policies in Invasive Species Management, Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment, 19, 340-347.] and Batabyal and Lee [Batabyal, A.A., and Lee, D.M., in press. The Infinitesimal, the Deterministic, and the Probabilistic: Alternate Container Inspection Policies in Invasive Species Management. Biological Invasions.]—there has been considerable interest in studying container inspection policies as a regulatory tool in invasive species management. In this note, we continue this line of inquiry and first delineate a generic container inspection policy. Next, we derive the generating function for the random number of containers in a seaport when this generic policy is used to inspect containers. Finally, we first compute the mean and the variance of the limiting distribution of the number of containers in the seaport under study and then we discuss three ways in which these two moments might be used to manage invasive species effectively.