The current patterns of production and consumption in the industrialized world are not sustainable. The goods and services we consume cause resource extractions, greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts that are already affecting the conditions of living on Earth. To support the transition toward sustainable consumption patterns, ICT applications that persuade consumers to chang...

BACKGROUND Poor medical care and high fees are two major problems in the world health care system. As a result, health care insurance system reform is a major issue in developing countries, such as China. Governments should take the effect of health care insurance system reform on the competition of hospitals into account when they practice a reform. This article aims to capture the influences ...

This paper proposes a new niching method named hierarchical niching, which combines spatial niching in search space and a continuous temporal niching concept. The method is naturally implemented as a new genetic algorithm, QHFC, under a sustainable evolutionary computation model: the Hierarchical Fair Competition (HFC) Model. By combining the benefits of the temporally continuing search capabil...

Many secondary plant compounds are synthesized in response to stressed growing conditions. We tested the feasibility of exploiting this feature in a novel strategy for the commercial production of the plant alkaloid galanthamine. Experimental lines of Narcissus pseudonarcissus were established under marginal upland permanent pasture at four different sites. Over 80% of bulbs successfully establ...

Current challenges on the markets cause companies to interact with one another and strive after becoming members of virtual organizations assuming that in doing so they can achieve sustainable competitiveness and remain successful despite increased competition. This new openness has strong implications and poses intense demands on organizations’ security systems. In this paper we present archit...

Rice has been extensively studied with respect to its allelopathy as part of a strategy for sustainable weed management options. All available information indicates that rice plants possibly release unknown allelochemicals into the neighbouring environments. A large number of compounds, such as phenolic acids, fatty acids, indoles and terpenes, were identified in rice root exudates and decompos...

Time-based competition (TBC) is defined as a strategy for the development of a sustainable competitive advantage, characterised by three major traits. First, it deals with only those lead-time areas that are most important to the customer. Second, these reductions in lead-time derive from the removal of waste from the processes involved. Third, these lead-time reductions must be achieved throug...