Preliminary Announcement (June 1999) Internet Conference on Material Flow Analysis of Integrated Bio-Systems ( http://segate.sunet.se/archives/et-w11.html ) The Conference will be an online conference in 2000 and to be organised by the Institute of Advanced Studies of the United Nations University (Tokyo) and the Integrated Bio-Systems Network (http://www.ias.unu.edu/proceedings/icibs/ibs), in cooperation with other organizations. It aims to bring together researchers, practitioners, developers and policy makers involved in the application of integrated bio-systems for resource utilisation, and waste management and treatment in industry, agriculture, fisheries, and environmental and urban planning. The Conference is a follow-up of the 1998 Internet Conference on Integrated Bio-Systems (http://www.ias.unu.edu/proceedings/icibs) and will encourage discussions on material/substance flow/balance of a wide variety of integrated bio-systems. Material flows involve the quantification of substances/wastes/nutrients and energy that are being exchanged between sub-systems of nature and society. Information that is generated from such studies can be very useful for a number of purposes; e.g. to optimize or make bio-systems more robust to changes; for improvement and development of waste management systems by cities; minimisation of raw material utilisation in industry, decision-making and planning of complex systems, life cycle and environmental impact assessments, problem solving in tracing sources of environmental problems, discover potential future problems, and they also form a basis for regulation in material handling, prediction of effectiveness of pollution abatement measures, identification of technical development and research needs, etc. . The scope of the conference is currently being defined by a planning group. If you wish to join this planning group, please send your self-introduction with information on your work and publications (if available) to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . A future announcement on the "Call of Abstracts" will provide more specific themes and topics for the Internet Conference. Future announcements, scientific programme and funds for authors and participant groups will be made via the mailing list ET-W11. REGISTRATION To receive further information and update on conference activities, please register : - via http://segate.sunet.se/archives/et-w11.html - or send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and use the subscription command: SUB ET-W11 yourfirstname yourlastname, organization e.g. SUB ET-W11 Ted Tschang, UNU/IAS-Tokyo For personal help in registration, contact: Mr. Jacky Foo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
