From Words to Results: The Role of IS in Bridging the Sustainability Strategy-Implementation Gap

After many years of reluctance and lack of commitment, companies are increasingly prioritizing sustainability and setting ambitious goals. Along with the rise of organizational sustainability strategy (OSS), the role of information systems (IS) in sustainability has increased and become a source of sustainability at the organizational level. Although ever more companies consider sustainability a top priority, they struggle to turn sustainability strategies into practice and observe measurable results. We followed a mixed methods approach combining qualitative interview data (n=13) and quantitative data from a multi-continental industry survey (n=551) to generate an in-depth understanding of the role of IS-enabled sustainability practices in influencing the organizational sustainability strategy-implementation gap. With our study, we demonstrate that IS-enabled sustainability practices mediate the impact of OSS on organizational sustainability performance (OSP) and that these practices are enabled by IS capabilities that are critical to implementing sustainability practices (technology intelligence, data analysis, and digital twinning capability)

Situational effects on the syntax of speech and gaze behaviour in dyads

A substantial literature exists on the coordination of speaking and looking behaviour and their significance as indicators for the production and reception of social information. Within this framework, the temporal organisation of such behaviour has been 'shown to reflect both the coordination within the individual and between participants in a situation. In this paper, it is proposed that observed behavioural sequences may be formally described by rules of syntax, thus implying the likelihood of structural organisation as opposed to, for example, linear time dependence between behavioural states. This being the case, differing sets of rules and grammars respectively can be expected for various social situations. Clinical interviews and discu~sions between couples on a topic of marital conflict were analysed, the on-off patterns of speech and gaze being taken as data. The resulting behavioural repertoire was regarded, in the sense of a formal grammar, as the terminal vocabulary. A set of rewriting rules was determined and their associated probabilities inferred. The situational conditions were found to be reflectedin the syntactic features of the grammatical model - the terminal vocabulary, the production rules and the production probabilities

Tradable Permits

Tradable Permits – a Market-Based Allocation System for the Environment. Tradable Permits and Other Environmental Policy Instruments – Killing one Bird with two Stones. Tradable Permits – Ten Key Design Issues. Tradable Permits with Imperfect Monitoring. Emissions Trading with Greenhouse Gases in the European Union.Umweltzertifikat, Umweltökonomik, Immissionsschutz, Umweltpolitik, Klimaschutz, EU-Umweltpolitik, Wirtschaftspolitische Wirkungsanalyse, EU-Staaten, Vereinigte Staaten, Environmental economics, Emission control, Environmental policy, Climate protection, EU environmental policy, Economic policy analysis, EU countries, United States

Border Management in Transformation Transnational Threats and Security Policies of European States

In the 21st century, along with the process of globalisation, a constantly evolving security environment creates new dimensions of threats and challenges to security and stability of a trans-national nature. This seeks for comprehensive, multidimensional, collective and well-coordinated responses. The United Nations, European Union, Commonwealth of Independent States, Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and other international organisations are able to really contribute in developing cooperative and coordinated responses to these threats by relying on its broad membership and profound expertise and experience. This work looked into the processes of changes and renewals of border control and border management standards in relation to strategic security management during the past 25 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, and the immense challenges in nation-building in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. The abolition of border controls within the Schengen area and simultaneous introduction of necessary compensatory measures was an additional topic. In this work it has been possible to create a comprehensive synopsis of the extent to which the EU and international organisations were able to use their influence in the modernisation and/or creation of state law enforcement agencies for ensuring effective border control, border surveillance and border management in line with the EU acquis communautaire and standards. A modern, cost-benefit-oriented and effective border management should ensure both open borders as well as maximum security. At the same time, potential transnational threats must be clearly identified and cross-border organised crime combated consistently without compromise. Hence, cross-cooperation and information exchange are very important elements of the EU’s integrated border management concept, which facilitates the coordination and cooperation between all relevant authorities and organisations in the fields of border control and border surveillance in achieving the jointly defined objectives in terms of open but at the same time secure borders. This applies within the respective border law enforcement agencies (intra-agency cooperation), as well as between other involved governmental departments and agencies of a country (inter-agency cooperation) and also across borders in a bilateral and multi-lateral context (international cooperation). The process to develop a new awareness of the dimensions of these major challenges is to clarify which standards and processes the international community needs to develop in order to combat the complexity of these potential threats effectively. The dissertation project aims to give an in-depth update on the extent to which innovative integrated border management models were developed, as well as demonstrating how the implementation of new “control filters” in non-EU countries has increased the quality of border controls and security

A Standardized Ecosystem Classification for the Coordination and Design of Long-term Terrestrial Ecosystem Monitoring in Arctic-Subarctic Biomes

A Canadian Arctic-Subarctic Biogeoclimatic Ecosystem Classification (CASBEC) is proposed as a standardized classification approach for Subarctic and Arctic terrestrial ecosystems across Canada and potentially throughout the circumpolar area. The CASBEC is grounded in long-standing terrestrial ecosystem classification theory and builds on concepts developed for ecosystems in British Columbia, Quebec, and Yukon. The fundamental classification unit of the CASBEC, the plant association, is compatible with the lower-level classifications of the Arctic Vegetation Classification (AVC), the Canadian National Vegetation Classification (CNVC), and the United States National Vegetation Classification (USNVC) and is used to generate a classification and nomenclature for Arctic and Subarctic terrestrial ecological communities. The use of a multi-scalar ecosystem framework, such as that developed by the British Columbia Biogeoclimatic Ecosystem Classification, provides an ecological context to use classified plant associations to delineate and define climatically equivalent regional scale climate units (biogeoclimatic subzones) and ecologically equivalent local-scale site units within biogeoclimatic subzones. A standardized framework and taxonomy of ecosystem classification for Subarctic and Arctic terrestrial ecological communities will facilitate the planning, coordination, and applicability of terrestrial ecological monitoring and research. The CASBEC classification and high-resolution ecosystem mapping are being used to develop an effective experimental design, to select ecosite types for long-term monitoring, and to extrapolate results to landscape scales in the Experimental and Reference Area of the Canadian High Arctic Research Station (CHARS) in Cambridge Bay. Widespread adoption of the CASBEC could provide a spatial and functionally scalable framework and a common language for interpreting, integrating, coordinating, and communicating Arctic and Subarctic monitoring, research, and land management activities across the Canadian North and around the circumpolar area.Une classification biogéoclimatique arctique et subarctique canadienne (Canadian Arctic-Subarctic Biogeoclimatic Ecosystem Classification, ou CASBEC) est proposée en tant que méthode de classification standardisée pour les écosystèmes terrestres arctiques et subarctiques pancanadiens, et peut-être même pour les écosystèmes de la région circumpolaire. CASBEC s’appuie sur une théorie de classification des écosystèmes terrestres de longue date et sur des concepts mis au point pour les écosystèmes de la Colombie-Britannique, du Québec et du Yukon. L’unité de classification fondamentale de CASBEC, soit l’association végétale, est compatible avec les classifications de niveau inférieur de la classification de la végétation de l’Arctique (Arctic Vegetation Classification, ou AVC), de la Classification nationale de la végétation du Canada (CNVC) et de la classification nationale de la végétation des États-Unis (USNVC). Elle permet de produire une classification et une nomenclature pour les communautés écologiques terrestres arctiques et subarctiques. Le recours à un cadre écosystémique multiscalaire, comme celui élaboré par la classification écosystémique biogéoclimatique de la Colombie-Britannique, fournit un contexte écologique permettant d’utiliser les associations végétales classifiées pour délimiter et définir les unités climatiques régionales à l’échelle climatiquement équivalentes (sous-zones biogéoclimatiques) et les unités écologiquement équivalentes de sites d’envergure locale à l’intérieur des sous-zones biogéoclimatiques. La mise en place d’une taxonomie et d’un cadre standardisés de classification des écosystèmes des communautés écologiques terrestres arctiques et subarctiques facilitera la planification, la coordination et l’applicabilité des travaux de surveillance et de recherche écologique terrestre. La classification CASBEC et la cartographie des écosystèmes en haute résolution sont employées pour mettre au point une conception expérimentale efficace, pour sélectionner des types d’écosites à des fins de surveillance à long terme ainsi que pour extrapoler les résultats à l’échelle des paysages dans la zone d’expérimentation et de référence de la Station canadienne de recherche dans l’Extrême-Arctique (SCREA) à Cambridge Bay. L’adoption de CASBEC à grande échelle pourrait fournir un cadre spatial et fonctionnellement extensible de même qu’un langage commun pour interpréter, intégrer, coordonner et communiquer les activités de surveillance, de recherche et de gestion des terres arctiques et subarctiques à la grandeur du Nord canadien et de l’ensemble de la région circumpolaire

DCU-Symantec at the WMT 2013 Quality Estimation Shared Task

We describe the two systems submitted by the DCU-Symantec team to Task 1.1. of the WMT 2013 Shared Task on Quality Estimation for Machine Translation. Task 1.1 involve estimating post-editing effort for English-Spanish translation pairs in the news domain. The two systems use a wide variety of features, of which the most effective are the word-alignment, n-gram frequency, language model, POS-tag-based and pseudo-references ones. Both systems perform at a similarly high level in the two tasks of scoring and ranking translations, although there is some evidence that the systems are over-fitting to the training data