BACKGROUND AND AIMS The botanic gardens of the world are now unmatched ex situ collections of plant biodiversity. They mirror two biogeographical patterns (positive diversity-area and diversity-age relationships) but differ from nature with a positive latitudinal gradient in their richness. Whether these relationships can be explained by socio-economic factors is unknown. METHODS Species and ...

The new UK focus on well-being: what will it mean for tackling social inequalities in health? It is difficult to imagine who would not be in favour of improving well-being. Yet a major problem with well-being is knowing what different commentators understand by the term. First introduced by the World Health Organization in 1948, 1 there is still little consensus over how well-being should be de...

Seventeen years have passed since the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro took place. When the leaders will meet next time at the Johannesburg Summit, they will confront a world situation markedly different in many ways. Globalization, characterized by the liberalization of trade and capital markets and the rapid development of information and communi...

We measured the business-cycle correlations of the real gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates of two cities to capture the degree of segmentation across China’s provincial and regional borders. This type of segmentation can be caused by local protectionism as well as other economic and geographic factors. After controlling the other factors, we zeroed in on the administrative border effect ...

This paper provides a brief technical survey of the historical national accounts of Iran. Gaining access to longer-term time series in compliance with concepts, classifications and standards comparable to the present one help fulfill quantitative studies in the area of business cycles. Despite the shortage of reliable, standardized and classified information, the methodology applied in thi...

This paper presents projections of national health expenditures by type of expenditure and sources of funds for 1980, 1985, and 1990. A major purpose of these projections is to provide a baseline for health care expenditures in the absence of national health insurance and cost containment. Rapid growth in health expenditures is projected to continue to 1990. National health expenditures increas...

Dionisio de Niz [email protected] Even after years of research and practice in computer science and, in particular, in software engineering, software projects are still largely risky and unpredictable. There is significant evidence to support this observation. Consider, for instance, a NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) study in 2002 that found software errors cost the U.S...

Livestock sector plays a critical role in the welfare of India's rural population. It contributes nine percent to Gross Domestic Product and employs eight percent of the labour force. This sector is emerging as an important growth leverage of the Indian economy. As a component of agricultural sector, its share in gross domestic product has been rising gradually, while that of crop sector has be...

The recent economic and financial crisis and the current slow recovery highlight that homeownership plays a critical role in the U.S. economy. The estimated “equivalent rent” implicitly paid by homeowners accounts for more than 8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). Investment in single-family housing also represents a significant share of GDP and is closely tied to the business cycle. Over...

Health care expenditures are escalating in Western societies. In Belgium health care represented 3.4% of gross domestic product in 1960, whereas in 2003 health care expenditures were 10.1% of gross domestic product (1). The determinants of these increasing costs are multiple. However, there is agreement that technologic improvements and the growing and ageing population are the most important c...