Humans play an undeniable role in the acceleration of threats to the diversity of ecosystems, species and genes. This book is a response to the urgent need of policy oriented socio-ecological research, profoundly based on empirical evidence. Socio-environmental patterns and political responses are compared through the use of case studies analyzing a range of pressures to biodiversity. Aquatic bioinvasions in the Ebro River and Lake Izabal exemplify socio-environmental processes linked to river basins. Other cases examine processes at the regional level: the social attitudes to genetically modified organisms in Catalan agriculture, the implementation of a Regional Strategy for Biodiversity in the Ile-de-France, the management of an invasive insect in the city of Paris, and the comparative analysis in Kent (UK) and Tartu (Estonia) county of the effects of the Common Agricultural Policy on pollinators' diversity. An economic valuation of the decline of pollinators in Germany and Spain, and an analysis of land use changes in the new EU member states focus on processes at the national scale within the EU frame. A case study in Argentina, about the emergence of pesticide resistance in an invasive pest, embodies the relationship between a national state and the processes of the world economy. The ALARM project aims to promote creative thinking. Inspired by ecological economics, methodologies employed range from multi-criteria evaluation and participatory techniques to social network analysis, valuation of environmental services, scenario modelling and historical analysis. The authors have uniquely explored case-study-based research for socio-economic analyses of biodiversity risks. Emphasis is put both on the lessons learnt from the comparative analysis as well as on the methodological innovations.

If there is any one element to the engineering of service systems that is unique, it is the extent to which the suitability of the system for human use, human service, and excellent human experience has been and must always be considered. An exploration of this emerging area of research and practice, Advances in the Human Side of Service Engineering covers a broad spectrum of ergonomics and human factors issues highlighting the design of contemporary manufacturing systems. Topics include: Adoption of health information technology (HIT) Aging society: the impact of age on traditional service system constructs Anthropology in service science Applying service design techniques to healthcare Co-creating value Cognitive systems modeling of service systems Context-related service: the human aspect of service systems Designing services for underserved populations Ethics dividend in services: how it may be cultivated, grown, and measured Governance of service systems Human aspects of change when applying Lean Six Sigma methods and tools Human side of service dominant logic in B2B settings Human-computer interaction and HF in software technologies Service network configuration impacts on customer experience Simulating employees and customers in service systems Systems design and the customer experience Usability and human side of electronic financial services The book also discusses issues that arise in shop floor and office environments in the quest for manufacturing agility, i.e. enhancement and integration of human skills with hardware performance for improved market competitiveness, management of change, product and process quality, and human-system reliability. It provides a foundation upon which researchers and practitioners can contribute to this quickly evolving area and make lasting contributions.

Corporate Strategy for Dramatic Productivity Surge deals with the very basics of productivity and cost performance - including abridgement of time, increase in speed, enhancement of capabilities, increase in sensitivity and precision, enhancement of efficiency and effectiveness, alteration of size, reduction of costs and increase in revenue, among others. This book consists of five parts - Introduction, Case Studies of Super Effects in Management Functions, Case Studies of Global Scale Super Effects Realized, Case Studies of Super Effects in Marketing Domains, and Conclusion: The Road to Realizing the Super Effect - featuring more than fifty successful cases of productivity surge or super effects, including risk-driven ones. Productivity surge herein means a dramatic reduction of costs, at least by one-tenth, while maintaining effectiveness or discontinuous increase in effectiveness by at least 10 times, while keeping the costs the same. Cases highlighted in the book are instrumental and valuable for the organizations worldwide to evaluate processes, avoid unnecessary failure and work towards future success.

Providing a wide range of case studies in sustainable tourism planning, this authoritative work presents cases at both international and national levels as well as on a regional, sub-regional, urban, local and site scale. Drawing on the author's world-wide experience and with contributions from professionals in the field, this book takes a comparative approach relating to different economic, political and temporal dimensions, examining established initiatives both in the context of the standards of the time and from a modern perspective looking back. With an emphasis on sustainability, this unique collection is an essential resource for tourism planners, researchers and students.

A deep dive into the Arctic, this edited volume endeavors to fill this opulent lacuna by placing the unjustly forsaken concept of social sustainability at the forefront of supply chain management (SCM) research.

Use demand driven optimized inventory and replenishment to overcome your supply chain weaknesses, and deliver business-maximizing results Reviewing the fundamentals of inventory optimization so that you can attain a demand-driven supply, Demand-Driven Inventory Optimization and Replenishment provides a business look at why present inventory systems sub-optimize the supply chain and faulty replenishment processes lead to wasted time and effort. Straightforward and clearly written, this book allows readers to come away with a good understanding of why optimized inventory and replenishment helps overcome in-system weaknesses and deliver results. Discusses how multi-echelon inventory optimization and replenishment enables installed systems to go from a sequential, "islands of efficiency" approach to a systematic distribution system working as a complete network Provides case studies throughout Reveals how optimized inventory and replenishment delivers results across industry verticals With a historical view of the three major supply chain efforts of the last thirty years, this book discusses mathematical shortcuts set up in the transitional and supply chain management systems that make it very difficult for companies to attain supply chain excellence.