The national funded project [BioP@ss] researches the possibilities of an IP based smart card interface based on the international smart card application interface standards [CEN 15480] and [ISO/IEC 24727]. Instead of the classical APDU based communication a TCP/IP based web service communication with the smart card is established. This solution offers the benefit that this interface relies on w...

Critics of the market-based, ecosystem services approach to biodiversity conservation worry that volatile market conditions and technological substitutes will diminish the value of ecosystem services and obviate the "economic benefits" arguments for conservation. To explore the effects of market forces and substitutes on service values, we assessed how the value of the pest-control services pro...

A global study to estimate the ecosystem service value of specific coastal ecosystems is developed. Specific variables are identified and used to develop a global multivariate regression function that supports the identification of important drivers of the value of ecosystem service of coastal protection around the world, and the Caribbean is examined in detail. Variables hypothesized to affect...

RAPID urbanization is a global megatrend with 66 percent of the world’s population expected to live in urban areas by 2050. The staggering exponential increase in urbanization is leading to more people migrating to major cities in the search of better opportunities and quality of life. Cities need to increase the efficiency in which they operate and use their resources sustainability in order t...

This paper proposes a new approach to deal with the smart objects or smart mobile devices by proposing a middleware framework inspired by RNA mechanisms in molecular biology. Our framework represents complex application scenarios of autonomic federation of smart objects as catalytic reaction networks. Each catalytic reaction is modeled as an RNA expressions from a DNA. Our framework is capable ...

An increasing demand for reliable energy supply and numerous technological advancements have motivated the development of smart grids. As the world’s largest engineered system, the smart grid will expand the current capabilities of the electric grid’s generation, transmission, and distribution systems to provide an infrastructure capable of handling future requirements for distributed generatio...