Search results

Purpose – This chapter focuses on the role evolution has played in our development of politics and public policy and reviews the theoretical approaches and studies of the last decade that address biopolitics and evolution, such as the “gene-culture co-evolution theory.”

Design/methodology/approach – In this chapter some of these theoretical developments will be reviewed, including what has been called the “Synergism Hypothesis,” with particular emphasis on what is relevant for understanding the role of politics and public policy in the evolutionary process.

Findings – A new, multileveled paradigm has emerged in evolutionary biology during the past decade, one which emphasizes the role of cooperative phenomena in the evolution of complexity over time, including the evolution of socially organized species such as humankind. I refer to it as “Holistic Darwinism.”

Practical implications – This study develops an understanding of the complicated relationship between human biology and the role of evolution in shaping politics and public policy.

Originality/value – This study addresses several existing biopolitical concepts and presents new explanations and terminology for its understanding.

This chapter provides an overview of the five main modes of intellectual property (IP) protection – patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and designs – available in the United States, the European Union, and Japan. After describing the purposes of and principal differences among the five types of IP protection and outlining the advantages of each form, the chapter provides country- and region-specific information. The authors highlight the aspects of IP law in which international harmonization has, or has not yet, occurred, and offer insights into the relative advantages of various national and regional IP protection systems.

The chapter aims to evaluate the efficacy of stakeholder participation in the solid waste management system of Mauritius in view of providing a possible mechanism to attain the goals of a sustainable waste management framework.

The study employs qualitative indicators, namely, User Inclusivity and Producer Inclusivity of the Wasteaware Benchmark Indicators. Secondary data are used to conduct a critical and comprehensive analysis of the sub-indicators falling under each of the two main indicators to determine the overall compliance level with respect to stakeholder engagement of the waste management sector of Mauritius.

The results of the study show a LOW/MEDIUM compliance level for both User Inclusivity and Provider Inclusivity indicators, which indicates that improvement is required in the stakeholder engagement mechanism in Mauritius. The main weaknesses identified comprise of lack of an adequate legal framework with clear definition of waste types with regards to segregation, especially for non-hazardous wastes, low efficiency of sustainable waste management awareness campaigns and lack of inclusion of the informal sector. The main strengths identified consist of a proper bidding mechanism in place and a good level of equity in the provision of waste management services with respect to comingled waste collection. Suggested improvement areas include a revamping of the existing legal framework related to waste management to cater for higher inclusivity of all stakeholders together with including sustainable waste management topics in the formal education curriculum.

The User Inclusivity and Producer Inclusivity indicators were previously applied only to cities to measure the level of stakeholder participation, but this study has demonstrated that these indicators can also be adopted on a nation-wide level to evaluate stakeholder engagement. The use of these indicators together with secondary data presents a less time-consuming method to assess stakeholder participation in the waste sector, which can be particularly useful for Small Island Developing States.

The multimedia data are also known as interactive data. The multimedia is progressively turning into the “greatest big data” which are the most imperative and important hotspot for bits of knowledge and data. The multimedia data also provide incredible open door for the multimedia computing in the big data centric as a functioning disciplinary research field. As per current technological usage in terms of Internet or smart devices, the data manipulate in the form of digital. Massive multimedia data have been produced in the different forms like text, image, video, and audio which is shared among vast number of people. The multimedia data are real-time unstructured, heterogeneous, and multimodal. It has vast scope to mine model, learn, and analyze the service provided by multimedia. Of course, some primarily level challenges need to be addressed like analysis, storage, retrieval, and data processing. The most complicated thing in multimedia big data (MMBD) analytics is that the computer cannot understand higher level of semantics. The quality of experience (QoE) is the most evolving part of MMBD which are directly intended with storage and performance. MMBD are highly resource intensive. They often require dedicated processing capabilities in terms of graphical processing unit (GPU). An advance-level storage-related mechanism is also needed for efficient parallel processing, transmission, and presentation. Generally, non-multimedia data are always forming in text which is normally understood by machine. The multimedia data always in the form of videos are easily understood by human compared to textual data, but it is more complex task to make it understandable to machines. The MMBD performs the task by converting the human language to computer language in an efficient manner. This chapter is also introducing salient features of MMBD. The main aim of this chapter is to cover the fundamentals for MMBD computing and feasibility study. The chapter explores the technical problems and challenges to be addressed. It also focuses on methodologies and approaches that are available from the perspectives of MMBD computing life cycle. The chapter may be beneficial for the readers to understand the features, importance and application of MMBD.

Purpose — We assert that researchers developing new web interaction tools should consider an array of user motives beyond query-based information retrieval. This chapter reports on two probes used to investigate user activities that go beyond search as traditionally conceived.

Design/methodology — This chapter reviews research on user experiences with search engines and general web use. It then describes the design and case study of cards and pebbles, two search engine-based probes developed to help elicit new concepts for web-based experiences.

Findings — Participants reflect on their experiences with the probes and offer ideas regarding how to incrementally shift the traditional search paradigm and conceive of the web in new ways.

Implications/value — This investigation serves as a starting point by offering criteria that should be considered when designing new ‘beyond search’ tools.

In this chapter we develop sustainability implications of the Savall, Zardet, Bonett, and colleagues’ approach, known worldwide as socioeconomic approach to management (SEAM). SEAM can be used as a way of doing management and organizational inquiry into the ecological sustainability of practices with planetary boundaries. We conclude that a socially responsible approach to management needs to consider the hidden costs to an enterprise if it is not being sustainable to planetary resource limits.

This chapter examines the historical relationship between Honduran Lenca worldview and how ecological resources are managed through ritual practice. The way in which the Lenca conceive of the biophysical environment is an active process of meaning-making that takes place through their interaction with the environment. The Lenca codify this relationship in the compostura, a complex set of ceremonial performances linked to economic practices that mediate human needs and desires with those of the ancestors who animate the landscapes surrounding households and communities. Through an examination of contemporary, historical, and archeological cases in western Honduras, this chapter explores how ritual economy shapes, and is shaped by, environmental worldview.