The emergence and dominance of parasitic replicators are among the major hurdles for the proliferation of primitive replicators. Compartmentalization of replicators is proposed to relieve the parasite dominance; however, it remains unclear under what conditions simple compartmentalization uncoupled with internal reaction secures the long-term survival of a population of primitive replicators ag...

This paper describes a comparative analysis of alternative methods of constructing composite indicators to measure the sustainability of the agricultural sector. The three methods employed were Principal Component Analysis, the Analytic Hierarchy Process and a Multi-Criteria technique. The comparison focused on the irrigated agriculture of the Duero basin in Spain as a case study, using a datas...

Electric power infrastructure is rapidly running up against oversized growth, scale and efficiency. Electricity production, distribution and consumption play a critical role in the sustainability of the planet and its natural resources. Smart Grids which enable two-way communication and monitoring between producers and end-users need novel computational algorithms for supporting generation of p...

The authors have been developing a crack propagation analysis system that can deal with arbitrary shaped cracks in threedimensional solids. The system is consisting of mesh generation software, a large-scale finite element analysis program and a fracture mechanics module. To evaluate the stress intensity factors, a Virtual Crack Closure-Integral Method (VCCM) for the second-order tetrahedral fi...

AIM The aim of this study was to explore nurses' perceptions of climate and environmental issues and examine how nurses perceive their role in contributing to the process of sustainable development. BACKGROUND Climate change and its implications for human health represent an increasingly important issue for the healthcare sector. According to the International Council of Nurses Code of Ethics...

Not yet two decades after the publication of Our Common Future, the world’s political and environmental landscape has changed significantly. Nonetheless, we argue that the concept and practice of sustainable development (SD)–as guiding institutional principle, as concrete policy goal, and as focus of political struggle–remains salient in confronting the multiple challenges of this new global or...

The Fourth World Conference on Women acknowledged that environmental degradation 1) disproportionately affects poor women who are powerless to control it, 2) is linked to poverty, and 3) jeopardizes women's reproductive health. Thus, the Platform for Action addresses environmental inequalities among its 12 areas of critical concern, and the governments who signed the consensus agreed to take a...

A more systemic design of regional processes of development and learning has gradually gained importance in institutions for national as well as European promotion of research and innovation in the course of the nineties (Ash, Thrift 1994). An essential difference as against earlier promotion programmes, however, lies in an enlarged understanding of innovative development of enterprises and reg...