Even though the importance of ecosystems in sustaining all human activities is well-known, methods for sustainable engineering fail to fully account for this role of nature. Most methods account for the demand for ecosystem services, but almost none account for the supply. Incomplete accounting of the very foundation of human well-being can result in perverse outcomes from decisions meant to en...

In this paper, we propose to view the concept of open government from the perspective of an ecosystem, a metaphor often used by policy makers, scholars, and technology gurus to convey a sense of the interdependent social systems of actors, organizations, material infrastructures, and symbolic resources that can be created in technology-enabled, information-intensive social systems. We use the c...

Halophiles are salt loving organisms requiring about 3M5M NaCl concentration in their growth. Eleven halophilic archaea and nine bacteria were isolated from various samples from extremely high salt concentrated ecosystem from western parts of Maharashtra, India. The isolates were studied using morphological and biochemical studies. Most of the isolates were gram negative in nature. These organi...

The study deals with the evaluation of the impact of heavy metal pollution on a Mediterranean natural ecosystem, and presents the results derived from a monitoring of heavy metals in different environmental matrixes (atmospheric dry depositions, suspended particulate matter (SPM) and stemflow of forest trees). Two sites in Castelporziano Presidential Estate (Rome), one internal and one near the...

The paper gives an introduction to behavior-based robotics and explains its prospects for industry. First, the roots of behavior-based robotics in the scientiic elds of Artiicial Life and behavior-oriented Artiicial Intelligence are presented. Based on this, the important conceptual aspects of behavior-based robotics are explained. The concepts are further motivated and illustrated with experim...

This paper presents four innovative business models that are being developed in three countries to support the commercialisation of electric vehicles (EV). Using an original business model framework and interviews with EV company founders and directors, we analyse the coexistence of competing business models (China) and partnership strategies along the EV value chain (US and France). Findings e...

Tropical forests house over half of Earth's biodiversity and are an important influence on the climate system. These forests are experiencing escalating human influence, altering their health and the provision of important ecosystem functions and services. Impacts started with hunting and millennia-old megafaunal extinctions (phase I), continuing via low-intensity shifting cultivation (phase II...

1 Center for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, UK. 2 Boyd Orr Centre for Population and Ecosystem Health, College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, UK. 3 School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sheffield, UK. 4 South African Environmental Observation Network, Fynbos Node...

Cadmium, a metal widely used in industrial processes, has been recognized to be a highly toxic and dangerous environmental pollutant. These excess amounts in addition to naturally occurring levels gradually build up to toxic levels causing damages to the biota of the aquatic ecosystem. The fresh water field crab, Paratelphusa hydrodromous is an important human food source in parts of South Indi...

Contingent valuation (CV) and conjoint analysis were used to estimate landowner’s willingness to pay (WTP) for ecosystem management on non-industrial private forest land. The results suggest that even when conjoint and CV questions are the same, except for rating and pricing format, respectively, WTP estimates are quite different. Since most conjoint models essentially count ‘maybe’ responses t...