The 4th World Sustainability Forum
1–30 Nov 2014
- Go to the Sessions
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- a. Sustainable Use of the Environment and Resources
- b. Social Aspects of Sustainability
- c. Economic, Business and Management Aspects of Sustainability
- d. Sustainable Engineering and Science
- e. Energy Sustainability
- f. Sustainable Urban and Rural Development
- g. Sustainable Agriculture, Food and Wildlife
- h. Sustainability Education and Approaches
- i. Sustainability of Culture and Heritage
- p. Posters
- Event Details
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- Welcome from the Chairs
- Event Calls
- Conference Chairs
- Sessions
- Instructions for Authors
- List of Accepted Submissions
- List of Authors
- Sponsors and Partners
- Chairs of the 4th World Sustainability Forum
- Scientific Advisory Committee
- Organizing Committee
- Conference Organizers
- List of Keynotes & Videos
- Editions in this series
Welcome from the Chairs
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It is my great pleasure to welcome you to the 4th World Sustainability Forum. The Forum covers research in many areas relating to sustainability and sustainable development, and includes sessions in many important areas:
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Participants in this multidisciplinary conference will have the opportunity to examine, explore and critically engage with issues and advances in these and related areas. We hope to facilitate debates on theoretical and practical investigations, and to allow participants to "make a difference".
A special feature of the Forum is that it is an electronic conference. This type of conference is particularly appropriate and useful for the 4th World Sustainability Forum because research concerned with sustainability and sustainable development is progressing rapidly, while activities in industry, government and academia are simultaneously becoming increasingly globalized. Successful research therefore requires interaction with individuals and groups around the world, demonstrating the need for new types of communication within our community. An electronic conference provides a platform for rapid and direct exchanges about the latest research findings, as well as a possibility for global meetings with no limitations related to traveling. To further remove barriers to "attendance", participation in the Forum as an author or other participant is free of charge. The 4th World Sustainability Forum will be held at www.sciforum.net/conference/wsf-4, on a platform developed by MDPI to organize electronic conferences and sponsored by MDPI and the scientific open access journal Sustainability. Accepted papers will be published in the proceedings of the Forum, and selected papers will be published in Sustainability. I offer my sincere thanks to all attendees, and especially to authors, keynote presenters, members of the Scientific Advisory Committee, session chairs and organizers.
I hope that your participation in the 4th World Sustainability Forum will prove to be interesting, productive and enjoyable. Prof. Dr. Marc A. Rosen
Chair of the 4th World Sustainability Forum Editor-in-Chief of the Journal Sustainability Past President, Engineering Institute of Canada and Professor Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science
University of Ontario Institute of Technology
Oshawa, Ontario, Canada Marc A. Rosen is a Professor in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Oshawa, Canada. He served as founding dean from of the Faculty from 2002-08. Dr. Rosen was President of the Engineering Institute of Canada for 2008-10. He served as President of the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering from 2002 to 2004, and is a registered Professional Engineer in Ontario. With over 50 research grants and contracts and 400 technical publications, Dr. Rosen is an active teacher and researcher in thermodynamics, sustainable energy, and the environmental impact of energy systems. Much of his research has been carried out for industry. He has also worked for such organizations as Imatra Power Company in Finland, Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, and the Institute for Hydrogen Systems near Toronto. Dr. Rosen has received numerous awards and honours, including an Award of Excellence in Research and Technology Development from the Ontario Ministry of Environment and Energy, the Engineering Institute of Canada’s Smith Medal for achievement in the development of Canada, and the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering’s Angus Medal for outstanding contributions to the management and practice of mechanical engineering. He is a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the International Energy Foundation.
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Mr. Matthias Burkhalter, MDPI AG, Basel, Switzerland
Ms. Samanta La Russa, MDPI AG, Basel, Switzerland
Dr. Shu-Kun Lin, MDPI AG, Basel, Switzerland
E-mail: [email protected]
Tel. +41 61 683 77 35
Call for Papers
Research concerned with sustainability and sustainable development is progressing fast. Simultaneously, activities within industry, government and academia are becoming more globalized. Successful research requires interaction with multiple partners around the world. We are facing an obvious need for new types of communication within our scientific community. Sciforum.net electronic conferences provide a platform for fast exchange of the latest research findings, as well as a possibility for global meetings with no limitations related to traveling.
The World Sustainability Forum 2014 (WSF-4) will cover timely research topics concerned with sustainability and sustainable development. The conference will include nine topical sessions focusing on:
Sustainable Use of the Environment and Resources
Social Aspects of Sustainability
Economic, Business and Management Aspects of Sustainability
Sustainable Engineering and Science
Energy Sustainability
Sustainable Urban and Rural Development
Sustainable Agriculture, Food and Wildlife
Sustainability Education and Approaches
Sustainability of Culture and Heritage
This inter- and multi-disciplinary conference aims to examine, explore and critically engage with issues related to recent insights and advances in these topics. In particular, the conference will encourage both theoretical and practical debates surrounding environmental, economical and social contexts for those who want to go beyond the buzzword.
The conference will be completely free of charge, both to attend and for authors to publish and is sponsored by MDPI and the scientific journal Sustainability. Selected papers will be published in the journal Sustainability. The 4th World Sustainability Forum Conference will be held at www.sciforum.net, a platform developed by MDPI to organize electronic conferences for scholars.
Please submit your abstract with max 2500 character (in English) by 3 September, 2014. Abstracts should be submitted online at http://https://sciforum.net/conference/wsf-4/page/call. All submissions will be reviewed by our scientific committee. For accepted abstracts, a proceedings paper should be submitted by 1 October, 2014.
Paper Submission Guidelines
For information about the procedure for submission, peer-review, revision and acceptance of conference proceedings papers, please refer to the section "Instructions for Authors": https://sciforum.net/conference/wsf-4/page/instructions
Conference Chairs
Marc Rosen
[Not defined]
[email protected]
Samanta La Russa
MDPI AG
[email protected]
Milos Cuculovic
MDPI AG
[email protected]
Juha Javanainen
MDPI
[email protected]
Sessions
A. Sustainable Use of the Environment and ResourcesB. Social Aspects of Sustainability
C. Economic, Business and Management Aspects of Sustainability
D. Sustainable Engineering and Science
E. Energy Sustainability
F. Sustainable Urban and Rural Development
G. Sustainable Agriculture, Food and Wildlife
H. Sustainability Education and Approaches
I. Sustainability of Culture and Heritage
P. Posters
Instructions for Authors
Submissions should be done by the authors online by registering with www.sciforum.net, and using the "New Submission" function once logged into system.
1. Scholars interested in participating with the conference can submit their abstract (about 200-250 words covering the areas of manuscripts for the proceedings issue) online on this website until 3 September 2014.
2. The Conference Committee will pre-evaluate, based on the submitted abstract, whether a contribution from the authors of the abstract will be welcome for the 4th edition of the World Sustainability Forum. All authors will be notified by 17 September 2014 about the acceptance of their abstract.
3. If the abstract is accepted for this conference, the author is asked to submit the manuscript, optionally along with a PowerPoint and/or video presentation of his/her paper (only PDF), until the submission deadline of 1 October 2014.
4.. The conference proceedings papers and presentations will be available on https://sciforum.net/conference/wsf-4/ for discussion during the time of the conference 1-30 November 2014.
5. The Open Access Journal Sustainability will publish Special Issue of the conference and accepted papers will be published in the proceedings of the conference itself. After the conference, the Conference Committee will select manuscripts that may be included for publication in the Special Issue of the journal Sustainability (the submission to the journal is independent from the conference proceedings and will follow the usual process of the journal, including peer-review, APC...).
Manuscripts for the proceedings issue must have the following organization:
First page:
Title
Full author names
Affiliations (including full postal address) and authors' e-mail addresses
Abstract (200-250 words)
Keywords
Introduction
Methods
Results and Discussion
Conclusions
(Acknowledgements)
References
Manuscripts should be prepared in MS Word or any other word processor and should be converted to the PDF format before submission. The publication format will be PDF. The manuscript should count at least 3 pages (incl. figures, tables and references). There is no page limit on the length, although authors are asked to keep their papers as concise as possible..
Authors are encouraged to prepare a presentation in PowerPoint or similar software, to be displayed online along with the Manuscript. Slides, if available, will be displayed directly in the website using Sciforum.net's proprietary slides viewer. Slides can be prepared in exactly the same way as for any traditional conference where research results can be presented. Slides should be converted to the PDF format before submission so that our process can easily and automatically convert them for online displaying.
Besides their active participation within the forum, authors are also encouraged to submit video presentations. If you are interested in submitting, please contact the conference organizer – [email protected] to get to know more about the procedure. This is an unique way of presenting your paper and discuss it with peers from all over the world. Make a difference and join us for this project!
Authors that wish to present a poster only, i.e. without proceedings paper, can do so in section P. - Posters of this conference. Posters will be available on this conference website during and after the event. Like papers presented on the conference, participants will be able to ask questions and make comments about the posters. Posters that are submitted without paper will not be included in the proceedings of the conference.
Submission: Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.sciforum.net/login by registering and logging in to this website.
Accepted File Formats
MS Word: Manuscript prepared in MS Word must be converted into a single file before submission. When preparing manuscripts in MS Word, the Electronic Conference on Sensors and Applications Microsoft Word template file (see download below) must be used. Please do not insert any graphics (schemes, figures, etc.) into a movable frame which can superimpose the text and make the layout very difficult.
World Sustainability Forum Microsoft Word template file
Paper Format: A4 paper format, the printing area is 17.5 cm x 26.2 cm. The margins should be 1.75 cm on each side of the paper (top, bottom, left, and right sides).
Paper Length: The manuscript should count at least 3 pages (incl. figures, tables and references). There is no page limit on the length, although authors are asked to keep their papers as concise as possible.
Formatting / Style: The paper style of the Journal Sustainability should be followed. You may download the template file to prepare your paper (see above). The full titles and the cited papers must be given. Reference numbers should be placed in square brackets [ ], and placed before the punctuation; for example [4] or [1-3], and all the references should be listed separately and as the last section at the end of the manuscript.
Authors List and Affiliation Format: Authors' full first and last names must be given. Abbreviated middle name can be added. For papers written by various contributors a corresponding author must be designated. The PubMed/MEDLINE format is used for affiliations: complete street address information including city, zip code, state/province, country, and email address should be added. All authors who contributed significantly to the manuscript (including writing a section) should be listed on the first page of the manuscript, below the title of the article. Other parties, who provided only minor contributions, should be listed under Acknowledgments only. A minor contribution might be a discussion with the author, reading through the draft of the manuscript, or performing English corrections.
Figures, Schemes and Tables: Authors are encouraged to prepare figures and schemes in color. Full color graphics will be published free of charge. Figure and schemes must be numbered (Figure 1, Scheme I, Figure 2, Scheme II, etc.) and a explanatory title must be added. Tables should be inserted into the main text, and numbers and titles for all tables supplied. All table columns should have an explanatory heading. Please supply legends for all figures, schemes and tables. The legends should be prepared as a separate paragraph of the main text and placed in the main text before a table, a figure or a scheme.
t is the authors' responsibility to identify and declare any personal circumstances or interests that may be perceived as inappropriately influencing the representation or interpretation of clinical research. If there is no conflict, please state here "The authors declare no conflict of interest." This should be conveyed in a separate "Conflict of Interest" statement preceding the "Acknowledgments" and "References" sections at the end of the manuscript. Financial support for the study must be fully disclosed under "Acknowledgments" section.
Copyright
MDPI AG, the publisher of the Sciforum.net platform, is an open access publisher. We believe that authors should retain the copyright to their scholarly works. Hence, by submitting a Communication paper to this conference, you retain the copyright of your paper, but you grant MDPI AG the non-exclusive right to publish this paper online on the Sciforum.net platform. This means you can easily submit your paper to any scientific journal at a later stage and transfer the copyright to its publisher (if required by that publisher).
List of accepted submissions (74)
| Id | Title | Authors | Presentation | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| sciforum-003379 | A Note on Quality of Life of Artisanal Small-Scale Fishermen Along the Pacific Coast of Jalisco, México | , , , | N/A |
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| Sustainable fishing includes how fishermen live. We describe the quality of life (QOL) and lived experiences (LE) of fishermen along the coast of Jalisco, whose average daily income is slightly above the poverty level. The relationships among income, size of catch and QOL are explored using data collected in 2012 from a sample of 83 fishermen. QOL included indicators like health, income, cost of living, family, friends, holidays, education and future perspective. The QOL index combines importance and achievement ratings scores, the results are indicative of an acceptable QOL for fishermen. The concept of LE is elaborated and interviews conducted with a sample of 13 fishermen. A graphical representation of four dimensions of LE comprising aspects of life relating to Mind, Body, Work and People for each fisherman is derived, where each person was asked on the importance and gaps between aspiration and actual situation about each dimension. We found that the most important dimension in a fisherman's life is People. The gaps identified suggest that the significant gaps that should be closed, were associated to the Mind dimension, then Work and Body, and finally People. Concerning the responsibility for closing gaps, respondents identified four options ordered by frequency: self, government, self with the help of family members, and God/ faith. An inverse moderately strong relationship between catch, marginalization and QOL score was found, while income and QOL score were directly related. In general, future and past are not better than the present. All these and LE are discussed in the sustainability context | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| sciforum-002993 | A Rapid Review of Sustainable Health Interventions: Results Synthesised from the PUBMED Database in 2014 | N/A |
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| Accommodation for both humans and animals could have impacted on bothoccupants and environments at the same time. Consequently, sustainable housing with asystematic life-cycle assessment has been one of the research focuses in the recent decadeswith an aim to lessen negative impacts on natural environments and to optimise occupanthealth and wellbeing. Following this context, it was aimed to carry out a systematic reviewto synthesise existing literature published until September 2014 on sustainable housingexamples from two largest research databases covering health and development research.There were 10 research articles found in the PUBMED database and other 8 researcharticles additionally found in the ScienceDirect database. Sustainable housing examplesmainly came from Americas and Europe while a few were from Africa and Australia. Nosound studies were found from Asia. The research quality of these studies was from low tomedium only. Research into sustainable housing examples for either humans or animals isstill limited and research methodology was not robust enough to give clear indications onthe promotion of sustainability in different housing environments. Collaborations betweenepidemiologists and engineers to employ real-life housing examples and to conduct rigorousresearch and follow-ups are therefore suggested. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| sciforum-001532 | A Systematic Review of Sustainable Housing Examples: Results Synthesised from the PUBMED and ScienceDirect Databases | N/A |
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| Accommodation for both humans and animals could have impacted on bothoccupants and environments at the same time. Consequently, sustainable housing with asystematic life-cycle assessment has been one of the research focuses in the recent decadeswith an aim to lessen negative impacts on natural environments and to optimise occupanthealth and wellbeing. Following this context, it was aimed to carry out a systematic reviewto synthesise existing literature published until September 2014 on sustainable housingexamples from two largest research databases covering health and development research.There were 10 research articles found in the PUBMED database and other 8 researcharticles additionally found in the ScienceDirect database. Sustainable housing examplesmainly came from Americas and Europe while a few were from Africa and Australia. Nosound studies were found from Asia. The research quality of these studies was from low tomedium only. Research into sustainable housing examples for either humans or animals isstill limited and research methodology was not robust enough to give clear indications onthe promotion of sustainability in different housing environments. Collaborations betweenepidemiologists and engineers to employ real-life housing examples and to conduct rigorousresearch and follow-ups are therefore suggested. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| sciforum-002455 | An Inexact Fuzzy Optimization Programming with Hurwicz Criterion (IFOPH) for Sustainable Irrigation Planning in Arid Region | , | N/A |
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| In the past decades, sustainability in irrigation planning has been of concern to many researchers and managers. However, uncertainties existed in irrigation planning system can bring about enormous difficulties and challenges in generating desired decision alternatives to attain the aim of sustainability. In this study, an inexact fuzzy optimization programming with Hurwicz criterion (IFOPH) is developed for sustainable irrigation planning under uncertainty, which incorporate two-stage stochastic programming (TSP), interval-parameter programming (IPP), fuzzy credibility-constraint programming (FCP) and Hurwicz criterion (TCP-CH) within an framework. The IFOPH approach can not only provide an effective linkage between conflicting economic benefits and the associated penalties attributed to the violation of the pre-regulated policies, but also tackle uncertainties expressed as probabilistic distributions, fuzzy sets and interval values. The developed method is applied to the real case of planning sustainable irrigation in Tarim Basin, which is one of the aridest regions of China. The results based on confidence degrees and Hurwicz parameters are obtained, which can permit in-depth analyses of various policy scenarios of that are associated with different levels of economic penalties. Meanwhile, the results reveal that appropriate irrigation planning can improve the efficiency of water allocations, which has brought positive effects on remedying water deficit and promoting the sustainable development of agricultural production activities. Moreover, tradeoffs between economic benefit and system-failure risk based on Hurwicz criterion can support generating an increased robustness in risk control, which can facilitate the local decision makers in adjusting water-allocation pattern to satisfy the increasing water demand. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| sciforum-001665 | Aspects of Absolute Evaluation of Financial Stability State of Commercial Banks | N/A |
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| Concern on financial stability of commercial banks is an ongoing issue, requiring permanent reviewing of regulatory frameworks and developing new approaches. Currently static regulatory methodologies are prevailing, which set pre-defined minimal requirements on limited financial parameters, such as capital or liquidity. The number of such indicative parameters cannot reflect overall performance of a bank because the set of monitored parameters is insufficient and because each financial stability parameter is monitored separately. Moreover, such parameters are static. Dynamic setting of values of minimal or desired parameters of financial performance of commercial banks should be more effective, in case we decide that we ought to vary requirements on banks over changing macroeconomic environment. Evaluation based on multiple criteria decision-aid (MCDA) methods comprises simultaneously several multidimensional criteria and provides results of evaluation in a clear form for both financier and everyman-depositor. Such an evaluation of financial stability state of the banks is providing more holistic approach. Moreover, it can considerably reduce information asymmetry between depositors and commercial banks, which may have positive effect on financial stability.Existing methodology of absolute MCDA evaluation provides an efficient tool of altering benchmark banks, hypothetical best and worst banks, comparing to which the evaluation is carried out, thus allowing to alter requirements for banks upon shifts of financial environment. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
List of Authors (167)
Chairs of the 4th World Sustainability Forum
University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, Canada
Editor-in-Chief of the Journal Sustainability
Scientific Advisory Committee
Organizing Committee
Conference Organizers
Chairs of the 4th World Sustainability Forum
Prof. Dr. Marc A. Rosen
University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, Canada
Editor-in-Chief of the Journal Sustainability
Scientific Advisory Committee
Dr. Joo Hwa (Philip) Bay, Curtin University of Technology, Australia
Prof. Dr. Rachel J.C. Chen, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA
Prof. Dr. Matthias Finkbeiner, Technische Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Prof. Dr. Michael J. Heckenberger, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA
Dr. Kathryn Hegarty, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Dr. Monzur A. Imteaz, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia
Dr. Giuseppe Ioppolo, University of Study of Messina, Italy
Prof. Dr. Christopher Koroneos, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece
Prof. Dr. Jesús Martínez Frías, CSIC-UCM, Madrid, Spain
Prof. Dr. Marc A. Rosen, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa ON, Canada
Prof. Dr. Miklas Scholz, University of Salford, Salford, United Kingdom
List of Keynotes & Videos
Presentation of the Poster "Gross National Happiness, Limits to Growth, and Challenges to Bhutan's Development Approach"
Comments
Prof. Dr. Marc A. Rosen - Energy Sustainability: Needs and Challenges
Comments


A well organized, set-on-earth explanation of a key issue.
Kind regards,
Andres Caballero
Barranquilla, Colombia

A. Sustainable Use of the Environment and Resources
This section is chaired by: Prof. Dr. Miklas Scholz, University of Salford, Salford, United Kingdom
Session Chair
Professor Miklas Scholz, The University of Salford
B. Social Aspects of Sustainability
This section is chaired by: Dr. Joo Hwa (Philip) Bay, School of Built Environment, Architecture and Interior, Curtin University of Technology, Australia
Session Chair
Professor Joo Hwa Bay
C. Economic, Business and Management Aspects of Sustainability
This section is chaired by: Prof. Dr. Rachel J.C. Chen, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA
Session Chair
Dr. Rachel Jc Chen, University of Tennessee
D. Sustainable Engineering and Science
This section is chaired by: Dr. Giuseppe Ioppolo, Department of Economics, Business, Environment and Quantitative Methods (SEAM), University of Study of Messina, Italy
Session Chair
Professor Giuseppe Ioppolo, University of Study of Messina
E. Energy Sustainability
This section is chaired by: Prof. Dr. Christopher Koroneos, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, Greece Prof. Dr. Jesús Martínez Frías, CSIC-UCM, Madrid, Spain
Session Chairs
Professor Jesus Martinez-Frias, Instituto de Geociencias, IGEO (CSIC-UCM)
Professor Christopher Koroneos
F. Sustainable Urban and Rural Development
This section is chaired by: Prof. Dr. Michael J. Heckenberger, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA
Session Chair
Professor Michael Heckenberger
G. Sustainable Agriculture, Food and Wildlife
This section is chaired by: To be announced.
Session Chair
Professor Marc Rosen
Show all published submissions (8) Hide published submissions (8)
Submissions
List of Papers (8) Toggle list
H. Sustainability Education and Approaches
This section is chaired by: Dr. Kathryn Hegarty, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Session Chair
Dr. Kathryn Hegarty
I. Sustainability of Culture and Heritage
This section is chaired by: Prof. Dr. Michael J. Heckenberger, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA
Session Chair
Professor Michael Heckenberger
P. Posters
In this section posters can be presented stand-alone, i.e. without a proceedings papers that goes with it. Posters will be available online on this website during and after the e-conference. However, posters will not be added to the proceedings of the conference.
Session Chair
Professor Marc Rosen


This video help to make aware of particular vision of development in Bhutan, its potential strengths
and drawbacks.
Kind regards,
Andres Caballero
Barranquilla, Colombia