Epoxy ternary systems were prepared from the diglycidylether of bisphenol-A (DGEBA), epoxidized castor oil (ECO), and nano-CaCO3 using a thermally latent initiator. The effects of ECO and the nano-CaCO3 contents on the thermal stability and mechanical interfacial properties of the prepared DGEBA/ECO/nano-CaCO3 ternary systems were examined by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Izod impact tests,...

Event-based communication is appropriate for many application domains, ranging from small, centralised applications such as GUIs to large, distributed applications such as telecommunications, network monitoring and virtual world support systems. Consequently, many di erent event models have been put forward, some designed for small-scale systems and others for large-scale systems. One such mode...

Environmental sustainability is an important issue for many individuals, businesses, and governments nowadays. One of the road blocks to sustainable practice is cost, which is an important consideration, particularly for business. The eco-efficiency movement was initiated to address this concern. This chapter reviews the eco-efficiency concept and explains why it is becoming a current issue for...

Ecological (eco) taxes are promising mechanisms to enable eco-friendly decisions, but few people prefer them. In this study, we present a way in which eco-tax options may be communicated to general public to encourage their payment. Our implementation (called “information presentation”) takes advantage of the non-linear relationship between eco-tax payments and CO2 emissions and the human relia...

‘‘Living in harmony with nature” is the slogan of the Chinese government’s campaign against the environmental crisis and has become the target of many mega eco-city projects which have emerged in China during the last decade. A number of papers in Chinese journals attribute this slogan to the government’s revival of the Confucian ecological vision, combined with western technology. This paper f...

This paper reports research into the application of Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety to assist with identifying optimal choices of design solutions at the pre-design stage of designing digital ecosystems. This study of the application of Ashby’s Law is a component of a larger research program investigating the application of classical systems analysis tools in pre-design optimisation processes ...

Eco-efficiency is concerned with the efficient and sustainable use of resources in farm production and land management. It can be increased either by altering the management of individual crop and livestock enterprises or by altering the land-use system. This paper concentrates on the effects of crop sequence and rotation on soil fertility and nutrient use efficiency. The potential importance o...