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The Swedish Species Information Centre (ArtDatabanken, SSIC) at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) accumulates, analyses and disseminates information concerning Swedish species, habitats and ecosystems. The SSIC hosts the Swedish Taxonomy Initiative (STI) and produces the Swedish Red List. In addition, the SSIC is the leading partner within the Swedish LifeWatch (SLW) consortium, which cooperates with the Biodiversity Atlas Sweden (BAS) and the Living Atlas Community. The SSIC provides an open access biodiversity reporting and analysis infrastructure including for example the Swedish Species Observation System (artportalen.se), the Swedish taxonomic backbone (dyntaxa.se) and tools for species information including traits, terminology and species determination (artfakta.se). All systems, including the SLW Analysis Portal (analysisportal.se), rely on recognized standards to ensure interoperability and consist of databases, API:s and portals. The Artportalen platform now contains >69 000 000 georeferenced observations, along with 1 300 000 images, video or sound, of some 32 000 species from Sweden. The data are harvested by SLW and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). In addition to reports from NGOs and the general public, which generate >90% of the observations, a rapidly increasing number of Swedish governmental authorities and agencies are using the platform to store regional and local species inventories collected by standardized scientific methods. There are sophisticated systems for validation and to secure data quality, and the records are used by scientists as well as by county and municipality councils as a principle biodiversity resource in environmental planning and decision making. Data concerning some species considered to be particularly sensitive to disturbance are classified and not openly available. These data can be accessed via a hierarchy of access levels so as to enable such classified data to available to, for example, environmental officers and to be used in management purposes The SSIC has just launched new API:s, modules for improved reporting of species checklists and invasive species, and a new platform aggregating the services in a single web interface and based on responsive design and specific interfaces for different users (artfakta.se). Improvements are also to be made in the infrastructure of the Swedish taxonomic backbone, which now contains data for almost all Swedish species (more than 275 000 scientific names and 62 000 species). In 2002, when the Swedish Taxonomy Initiative (STI) was established, the SSIC was commissioned by the Swedish Parliament to identify all species of multicellular plants, fungi and animals in the country and to make the information available to scientists, conservationists and the public. The information is presented in the Artfakta platform and in a series of identification handbooks, The Encyclopedia of the Swedish Flora and Fauna. In addition, the STI supports barcoding activities, scientific courses and announces grants for museums and taxonomic research and inventories within poorly known organismal groups. The Swedish and Norwegian taxonomy initiatives work cooperatively to increase the collective knowledge of poorly known species and, as a result, more than 3 000 species new to Sweden and Norway have been found, approximately a third being new to science. The attempt to join forces between different Scandinavian counterparts via technical progress and to focus on digitalization and sharing information on species and communities from the same biogeographical region has proven a successful concept.

Abstract This paper proposes a new approach to the classification of Developmental States (DS) based on their public efforts to foster human development. We conceptualize DS within a multidimensional framework that includes three main dimensions (economic, social and democratic), and run a hierarchical cluster analysis for 112 countries in order to build a multidimensional taxonomy of ds. We propose a country-classification and characterize three country-groups with different developmental public efforts: i) the human development States; ii) the unbalanced developmental States and iii) the non-developmental States. Our multidimensional taxonomy offers a more complex understanding of the variety of public efforts devoted to promote human development, thus overcoming the restricted -economical- conception of DS, which is mainly focused to the East Asian region.

The article is devoted to the study of the peculiarities of the development of the energy system of modern China. The analysis of the main directions of the formation of the system of renewable energy sources in the country is carried out, the current regulatory and legal acts regulating the direction of development in the field of energy are considered. In the PRC, under the current conditions, preference is given to economic growth and ensuring energy security due to a moderate increase in generating capacity from fossil sources using modern available technologies to minimize damage from their use, while simultaneously increasing renewable energy sources (RES). One of the main reasons for increasing renewable energy in China is strategic in nature: by increasing the share of renewable sources in its energy balance for electricity consumption, China can reduce geopolitical tensions, making the country less dependent on unstable regions in terms of energy security. The energy market, dependent on fossil fuels, depends on ensuring the safety of oil and gas transportation routes, but one of the main reasons why the Chinese government is promoting renewable energy is to reduce air pollution. The NPC Environmental Protection Committee has repeatedly noted that the production and consumption of fossil fuel energy is responsible for 90% of sulfur dioxide emissions in the country and that for this reason, 7 of the 10 most polluted cities in the world are located in China. The country is working on the reconstruction and modernization of production facilities in order to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, technologies for carbon capture, use and storage are being developed. Currently, the country is implementing a very important transition from control over the total volume of energy consumption and the energy intensity of GDP to a new "double control" — control over the total amount of carbon emissions and the intensity of emissions.

We look at ways of classifying runoff methods in terms of characteristics such as number of rounds, rules used to determine which candidates advance to the next round, and rules which determine the final winner. We also compare runoffs and so-called instant runoffs such as the alternative vote. [Copyright 2008 Elsevier Ltd.]

A TAXONOMIC APPROACH TO STATE CLASSIFICATION CAN REDUCE INTERSPACE VARIATIONS INTO INTERTIME AND PROVIDE BASIS OF QUANTIFIABLE COMPARISON MAINTAINING UNIQUENESS OF EACH SPECIES. DIFFICULTIES IN PREPARING INVENTORIES OF VARIABLES UNDER EACH OPERATIONAL PRINCIPLE AND IN QUANTIFYING THE TIME FACTOR CAN BE OVERCOME BY APPLYING HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGY.