The growing concern of biologists that all was not well with their species led to the proposal of an international biological program on the theme "The Biological Basis of Productivity and Human Welfare." At the suggestion of American members of the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS), the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) appointed a planning committee. Its report...

I am grateful to the conference organizers from UNESCO and ICSU for the opportunity to present this talk and to Dr. Nicole Biros for her role as organizer of this session. Dr. Jorge Allende, our chairman, has been a colleague since our student days. He is a distinguished biochemist and citizen of Chile and it is an honor to share this occasion with him. Now, as we look to a new century and mill...

Digital Data and Service Centers, such as is envisaged by the ICSU World Data System (WDS), are subject to a wide-ranging collection of requirements and constraints. Many of these requirements are traditionally difficult to assess and to measure objectively and consistently. As a solution to this problem, an approach based on a maturity model is proposed: this adds significant value not only in...