Knowledge management for computational intelligence systems

Proceedings of the 8th IEEE International Symposium on High Assurance Systems Engineering, HASE 2004, pp. 116–125.Computer systems do not learn from previous experiences unless they are designed for this purpose. Computational intelligence systems (CIS) are inherently capable of dealing with imprecise contexts, creating a new solution in each new execution. Therefore, every execution of a CIS is valuable to be learned. We describe an architecture for designing CIS that includes a knowledge management (KM) framework, allowing the system to learn from its own experiences, and those learned in external contexts. This framework makes the system flexible and adaptable so it evolves, guaranteeing high levels of reliability when performing in a dynamic world. This KM framework is being incorporated into the computational intelligence tool for software testing at National Institute for Systems Test and Productivity. This paper introduces the framework describing the two underlying methodologies it uses, i.e. case-based reasoning and monitored distribution; it also details the motivation and requirements for incorporating the framework into CIS

Personal knowledge development in online learning environments : a personal value perspective

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyThis thesis investigates personal knowledge development in online learning environments and the impact that personal values have on it. Personal knowledge development was investigated from the perspective of Nonaka’s SECI model of organisational knowledge creation. This model served as the basis for an adapted model that conceptualises personal knowledge development in online learning at the individual level. The personal value types of the Schwartz Value Survey and the Portrait Values Questionnaire were adopted to measure personal values and their impact on personal knowledge development in online learning environments. Three data collection approaches were used. First, an exploratory study was conducted which elicited online learners’ experiences of their personal knowledge development in online learning; this study used online discussion forums for data collection. Second, a Delphi study was carried out. Experts were asked which of the ten individual-level value types by Schwartz are likely to be particularly relevant in the context of online learning. Third, an online survey was created. Its aim was to measure the impact that personal values and background variables, such as gender and age, have on personal knowledge development in online learning. A measurement instrument was devised that measures three of the SECI modes, namely Externalisation, Combination and Internalisation. This instrument measures the magnitude of online learners’ Externalisation and Combination activities as well as their level of Internalisation, i.e. the outcomes of personal knowledge development. Results of the exploratory study show that there are widely diverging experiences of personal knowledge development in online learning. The literature review suggests that the cultural situatedness of an online learning environment is an important influencing factor on personal knowledge development. The results of the Delphi study suggest that Self-Direction, Stimulation, and Achievement are particularly relevant value types in the context investigated here. Finally, the online survey confirms this view, as all three value types were found to be positively correlated with Externalisation, Combination, and Internalisation, with the exception of the Achievement-Combination relationship. A modified version of the SECI model is proposed, which extends the applicability of the original SECI model from the organisational to the individual level. It is argued that this model is suitable to describe personal knowledge development in the context of online learning. The study also contributes to closing the gap in research on the impact of personal values in the context investigated in this study. Moreover, a measurement instrument was created that can be used to measure Externalisation and Combination, i.e. personal knowledge development processes, and Internalisation, i.e. personal knowledge development outcomes

eReadiness of public university libraries in Malawi with special reference to the use of mobile phones in the provision of library and information services.

Doctor of Philosophy in Information Studies. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 2016.It was observed that public university libraries in Malawi were failing to adequately serve their clients due to, among others, inadequate ICT infrastructure and and and limited opening hours. The use of mobile phones in the provision of library and information services was viewed as an alternative solution to this challenge. This study was, therefore, undertaken to investigate the eReadiness of public university libraries in Malawi to use mobile phones in the provision of library and information services. The study addressed the following questions: What is the level of preparedness of public university libraries in Malawi in terms of ICT infrastructure, policy framework and human capacity for the adoption and use of mobile phones in providing library and information services? What electronic information resources and services are currently available in public university libraries in Malawi that can potentially be adopted and used through mobile phones? What is the current status of providing and accessing library and information services through mobile phones in public university libraries in Malawi? What are the attitudes of library staff, academic staff and students towards the potential use of mobile phones in providing and accessing library and information services? What factors influence the adoption and use of mobile phones by library staff, students and academic staff in providing and accessing library and information services? The study was underpinned by two theories: Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), and Technology, Organization, and Environment (TOE) Framework. The study used the pragmatic paradigm, mixed methodology and case study design to understand the research phenomenon. The population of the study comprised students, academic staff, university/college librarians and ICT Directors. The samples of the population studied were 370 students, 255 academic staff, 5 university/college librarians and 5 ICT Directors. Qualitative data was collected through interviews from university/college librarians and ICT Directors while quantitative data was collected from students and academic staff using questionnaires. Qualitative data was analysed using Nvivo whilst quantitative data was analysed using IBM SPSS Software version 23. Findings of the study reveal that libraries surveyed had most of the ICT infrastructure necessary for offering library and information services through mobile phones. Students and academic staff possessed mobile phones which they could use to access information services offered by the libraries. Moreover, the mobile telecommunications network was pervasive in the country making the delivery and access to library services through mobile phones easier. However, ICT policies were not available whilst human resources and requisite skills were inadequate to provide effective library and information services through the use of mobile phones. The results further revealed that institutions surveyed had e-resources such as OPAC, e-books, e-journals, and repositories of local content that could be implemented through mobile phones. Findings also revealed that COM Library had fully implemented library and information services offered through mobile phones but MZUNI, KCN, The Polytechnic and LUANAR were all planning either to introduce or fully implement these services. The attitudes of library staff, academic staff and students towards the potential use of mobile phones in providing and accessing library and information services were largely positive. Network quality, service costs, and response times were factors that influenced the use of mobile phones in providing library and information services. The overall conclusion from this study was that public university libraries in Malawi were generally e-ready to offer library and information services through mobile phones notwithstanding certain infrastructure and skills issues that must be addressed. Consequently, the study recommended that public university libraries in Malawi that had not implemented the delivery of library services through mobile phones should speed up their implementation. The study further recommended that infrastructure and skills issues that were discovered should be addressed to ensure effective operations of library and information services provided through mobile phones. The researcher recommends that a much broader study covering all students in the four public universities in order to provide a holistic picture of the eReadiness of public university libraries in Malawi to offer library and information services through mobile phones

Retention of employees in the Department of Transport in the Ministry of Works and Transport in Namibia

The purpose of this study was to investigate the retention of employees in the Department of Transport in the Ministry of Works and Transport. The research was undertaken because employees in the Department of Transport are resigning rapidly, creating a high vacancy rate in the department. There is thus a need to investigate the reason/s why employees are leaving the institution so that strategies can be implemented to mitigate the high number of resignations. In order to obtain the desired results, the research project used both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The study revealed that the Department of Transport has no guidelines on retention of employees and this has negatively affected the department, particularly its failure to retain employees with specialised skills that are highly sought in the labour market. Another shortcoming of the Department of Transport is the failure to offer performance-related incentives and market-related remuneration. In the absence of these benefits, employees opt to resign and seek better remuneration packages elsewhere. It is therefore proposed that the department should review its efforts to retain employees, including the formulation of retention guidelines and reviewing the remuneration of employees.Public AdministrationM.P.A

Vectorisation of male supremac(h)ist ideologies in high-impact narratives and sociopolitical statism in western contemporary patriarchies

The present thesis dissertation, oriented at the fulfilment of the requirements for the obtention of the Philosophy Doctor, aims provide an intensive analysis on the deployment of traditional and contemporary narrative formats, in the context of the patriarchal establishments which have governed the Western world since early foundational civilisations, for the endurance of their supremac(h)ist organisation principles through the creation and maintenance of a conceptually recreated gender breach. The appropriate obtention of relevant data, for the surveyal of the potential encoding of gender unequal ideological concerns, as oriented to the alterity portrayal of the male and the female with socio-political stratification purposes, from the analysis of such a wide variety of narrative formats entails the implementation of diverse, text-specific, methodological guidelines. The technology in the contemporary world has imposed the inevitable presence of penetrating audiovisual ideological narratives with a massive outreach. Such would be the case of television, whose brief, but precise, advertisement narrations are studied to intergenerationally perpetuate the patriarchal task distribution that displaces women to the private sphere for the performance of kitchen and cleansing duties in a world were women cannot be denied to work and efforts for conciliation are necessary, as exhibited in the analysed costumbrist spots by major and highly consumer-endorsed brands ‘Natillas La Lechera’ and ‘La Cocinera’, or ‘Lejía Conejo’ bleach, ‘Vileda Windomatic’ squeege and ‘Philips Perfect Care’. As opposed to television advertising, other audiovisual formats, such as animation, do not intend to depict spectators’ daily life, but to present easy-to-embrace characters, who are studied to hold a powerful faculty to channelise narrative-controlled feelings and ideas. Such a factor would justify the eligibility of The Simpsons, as the longest scripted show in TV history and the most popular family in UK, over the royal family. In ‘The Diatribe of a Mad Housewife’, the female incorporation to the public sphere of professional life, which materialises in female writing, is deceitfully conceived as a source of misandry and conflict between the male figures of reference. Another audiovisual narrative format for male chauvinist ideologisation, video games, would interestingly resort to the immersion of fictional worlds governed by representational rules tacitly accepted by players when interacting with such influential major entertainment products, so the player-avatar identification facilitates the extrapolation of the gender-based in-game representations to the players’ external reality. Specifically, top-sales Resident Evil 4 (2005) and Bioshock Infinite (2013) present their respective female protagonists, Ashley Graham and Elisabeth Comstock, as passive entities to possess and custody in the private sphere, being both the characters the unfortunate threat to the socio-political stability of the status quo when the private custody decays and their control is usurped by male figures who move them to other public or private spaces. As observed in Resident Evil 4, the reversibility of such a systemic unbalance may be feasible when the damsel in danger is rescued from the private captivity setting and the initial custody by the male president of the United States and head of the free patriarchal world is restored. However, the male custody of Elisabeth Comstock in Bioshock Infinite’s public sphere, which implies her presence outside the house prophylactic confinement, is contrastively portrayed as the catalyser of the unleash of female uncontrolled powers and the inevitable destruction of the malecreated civilisation. The first five games in Pokémon saga offer a peaceful alternative to Resident Evil 4 and Bioshock Infinite, where gender alterity is imposed by the necessary-to-progress interaction of the player with male and female flat stereotypical characters, and the peaceful coexistence of humans and monsters is guaranteed by a hierarchised power apparatus with a minimal female representation. On the contrary, contemporary written formats, along with the atemporal urban legend and news, are also examined to complement the holistic contribution performed by narratives for the creation of a multiplatform supremac(h)ist ideological apparatus. Thus, wide-outreach social networking interactions may be contemplated to resort to hoaxes, pseudo-informative narratives, for the fostering of gender-biased conceptions which justify the organisation of the community around the male figure. Specifically, Twitter is analysed to have been utilised by Spanish (ultra)right political forces to summon the population’s fear to massive concentrations in early COVID-19 crisis to depict Spanish 8M feminist activism and overtly feminist first-order female politicians as peril for the wellbeing of the community, which prioritises their ambitions to individuals’ health and integrity. In order to filter and retrieve the tweets to explore, term (8M, 8-M), chronological (March 6th – June 21st, 2020) and geolocation (Spain) Boolean operators have been implemented in Twitter internal browser. Boolean operators may also prove relevant for the discovery of news as a written narrative genre actively contaminated by writers’ ideological communicative intentions during text elaboration and design, as observed in the ideological justification and ‘laundering’ of the toxic model of possessive masculinity exhibited upon Will Smith’s aggressive restitution of the woman-channelised family name staining at 2022 Academy Awards. To these regards, the filtered journalistic reports on Smith’s assault on Chris Rock upon Jada Pinkett’s alopecia joke, in Spanish, English and Portuguese, highlight Pinkett’s passivity in favour of the male participants’ interventions, who are to impose offence on the defenceless woman, in the case of Rock, and deliver medieval-like justice, as providentially assigned by the Catholic divinity, for the effective exercise of the custody of the damsel in danger, as incarnated by Smith. In this context, contemporary broadcasting platforms reveal as powerful vectors of influencer-based toxic masculinities. The last of the written genres examined befits those high impact viral accounts, with adaptative contextual flexibility to enhance its relevance for the narratee, a sense of veracity and a cautionary ending which exhort narratees to vectorise the subliminally ideological precepts encoded in the story ‘DNA’. These atemporal narratives, extracted from Spanish and English language Ortí and Sampere (2017), Camacho (2005, 2007), Brown & Flynn (2003) and Brunvald’s (1999) anthologies are filtered to obtain urban legends which depict women ‘in action’ under no male custody, as in Camacho’s (2007) “Secado Rápido”, a story at the crossroads of gender and Elder age inferiority in the private sphere, where an unsupervised widow kills an innocent puppy while arrogantly trying to microwave-dry it after an unplanned bath; Brown and Flynn’s (1999) “Chain reaction”, where an uncivil, yet irrelevant, woman’s behaviour in a public transport space causes a massive disaster which redounds in the destruction of the male-created urban skyline; or Hayes’ (2013), where the female ambition’s to trespass women’s patriarchal limitations lead her to reach the top of the Catholic Church under the disguise of John Anglicus, in early 13th century, but meets the capital penalty when misguided by her lust and her subsequently unexpected public labor during a religious service in the surroundings of Rome’s colosseum and St. Clement’s church.La presente tesis doctoral, que está orientada a la satisfacción de los requisitos para la obtención del título de doctor en la rama de lenguas y culturas, pretende llevar a cabo un análisis intensivo de la utilización de formatos narrativos tradicionales y contemporáneos, en el contexto de los statu quo patriarcales que han gobernado el mundo occidental desde los albores de sus civilizaciones fundacionales, con el objeto de perdurar sus principios de organización ‘supremac(h)istas’ por medio de la creación y mantenimiento de una brecha de género de origen conceptual. La obtención adecuada de información relevante sobre la posible existencia de codificaciones ideológicas en base a la desigualdad de género, que estarían dirigidos a una descripción altérica de la mujer y el hombre para la estratificación sociopolítica, en tan amplia variedad de formatos narrativos, requiere la implementación de líneas metodológicas diversas y adaptadas al formato textual correspondiente. Las prestaciones tecnológicas del mundo contemporáneo han impuesto la presencia ineludible de narrativas ideológicas audiovisuales de largo alcance. Este sería el caso de la televisión y sus cortas narrativas publicitarias, que, aunque cortas pero precisas, contribuyen a la perpetuación intergeneracional de la distribución de tareas patriarcal, que desplazaría a la mujer a la esfera privada para la satisfacción de obligaciones, en lo que a la cocina y a la higienización del hogar se refiere, en un mundo en el que no se puede alienar el derecho a la mujer a trabajar y que impone un esfuerzo extra para la conciliación familiar, como se observa en los anuncios, de corte costumbrista, de productos de marcas punteras como ‘Natillas La Lechera’, ‘La Cocinera, ‘Lejía Conejo’, ‘Vileda Windomatic’ o ‘Philips Perfect Care’. Al contrario que en el caso de la publicidad televisiva, otros formatos audiovisuales, como la animación, no persiguen retratar la vida diaria del espectador, sino ofrecer personajes con los que simpatizar, dada su probada valía para la canalización de ideas y emociones en las narrativas en las que se enmarcan. Este factor justifica la elección de Los Simpsons, que se erigen como el espectáculo guionizado de mayor duración en la historia de la televisión, así como la familia más popular en Reino Unido, incluso por encima de la familia real del país. En ‘Diatriba de una ama de casa loca’, la incorporación de la mujer a la vida profesional de la esfera pública, que en el caso de Marge se materializa en la escritura femenina, se concibe, no exenta de engaño, como una fuente de misandria y conflicto entre las figuras masculinas de referencia en el entorno de social de Marge. Otro formato narrativo audiovisual de ideologización supremac(h)ista tendría su seno en los videojuegos, que ofrecen a los jugadores una experiencia inmersiva en la que, como fruto de la interacción con estos productos de entretenimiento de gran influencia, los jugadores aceptan tácitamente las reglas representacionales y operativas que gobiernan el mundo ficticio del juego. En particular, los títulos superventas Resident Evil 4 (2005) y Bioshock Infinite (2013), muestran a sus protagonistas femeninos respectivos, Ashley Graham and Elisabeth Comstock, como sujetos pasivos a poseer y custodiar en la esfera privada, suponiendo ambos personajes una amenaza para la estabilidad del statu quo cuando la custodia privada inicial decae y su control es apropiado indebidamente por otras figuras masculinas, que ejercerán una custodia forzosa de la mujer cautiva en otros contextos públicos y privados. Como se puede observar en Resident Evil 4¸el desequilibrio sistémico causado por dicho ‘traspaso’ solo reviste reversibilidad cuando se rescata a la ‘damisela en apuros’ del escenario privado donde se mantiene cautiva y se restaura la custodia inicial, a cargo del presidente de los Estados Unidos y líder del mundo patriarcal libre. Por el contrario, la custodia masculina de Elisabeth Comstock en la esfera pública de Bioshock Infinite, que implica inherentemente la presencia de la mujer fuera de su confinamiento profiláctico entre las cuatro paredes del hogar, se conceptualiza como el catalizador de la liberación de los poderes descontrolados de la misma y la destrucción inevitable de la civilización creada por la mano del hombre. Por otro lado, los cinco primeros títulos de la saga Pokémon ofrecen una alternativa pacífica al mundo ficticio de Resident Evil 4 y Bioshock Infinite, donde la interacción del jugador con personajes masculinos y femeninos estereotípicos y planos se impone como una necesidad para el progreso de los jugadores en la narrativa, y la convivencia pacífica entre seres humanos y monstruos viene de la mano de un aparato de poder jerarquizado en el que la presencia de la mujer es mínima. Por otro lado, los formatos escritos contemporáneos, junto con otros formatos atemporales como la noticia o la leyenda urbana, también son objeto de análisis, de cara al descubrimiento de la contribución holística de narrativas diversas a la creación de un aparato ideológico supremac(h)ista multiplataforma. En este contexto, se examina la manera en la que las interacciones en redes sociales de amplio alcance recurren a los bulos, narrativas pseudo-informativas, para la promoción de concepciones basadas en la desigualdad de género, que vendrían a justificar la organización sociopolítica de la comunidad en torno a la figura del hombre. En particular, se analiza el uso de Twitter, por parte de fuerzas de la (ultra)derecha política española, para avivar el miedo de la población general a las concentraciones masificadas en los albores de la crisis sanitaria de la COVID-19 y retratar, así, al activismo feminista español en torno al 8M, y a las políticas de primer orden que lo encabezan, como un peligro para el bienestar de la comunidad que priorizaría sus ambiciones a la salud e integridad de los ciudadanos. Para la recuperación y subsiguiente filtrado de los tuits a estudiar, se implementan los operadores booleanos terminológicos (8M, 8-M), cronológicos (del 6 de marzo al 21 de junio de 2020) y de geolocalización (España) en el buscador interno de Twitter. La pertinencia de los operadores Booleanos para el estudio de la noticia, como género narrativo que adolece de una contaminación por parte de las intenciones comunicativas ideológicas de sus escritores, durante el proceso de elaboración textual, se puede observar en la justificación ideológica y el ‘blanqueamiento’ del modelo de masculinidad tóxica exhibida por Will Smith en la restitución agresiva de la honra familiar, previamente violada por medio de la explotación de la mujer del núcleo familiar como instrumento para ello. En relación a esto, los relatos periodísticos filtrados en español, inglés y portugués destacan la pasividad de Pinkett en favor de la intervención de los intervinientes masculinos, quienes imponen su ofensa verbal sobre la mujer indefensa, en el caso de Rock, e imparten una justicia cuasi-medieval, de acuerdo a los designios providenciales de la divinidad católica, para el ejercicio de la custodia de la ‘damisela en apuros’, en el caso de Smith. En este contexto, las plataformas de retransmisión de contenidos contemporáneas se erigen como vectores poderosos de las masculinidades tóxicas exhibidas por las figuras influyentes antes mencionadas. El último de los géneros escritos explorados en la presente tesis correspondería a aquellos relatos virales de alto impacto, que destacarían por su flexibilidad contextual adaptativa al público meta, la sensación de veracidad que recrean y su final precautorio, factores que contribuirían, de forma holística, a la vectorización de los preceptos ideológicos imbricados subliminalmente en el ‘ADN’ de la narración. Estas narrativas atemporales, que han sido exploradas en las antologías en lengua castellana e inglesa de Ortí y Sampere (2017), Camacho (2005, 2007), Brown y Flynn (2003) y Brunvald (1999), han sido sometidas, con posterioridad, a su filtrado para la obtención de leyendas urbanas que crean un retrato distorsionado de la mujer ‘en acción’, lejos de la custodia masculina, como sería el caso de “Secado Rápido” (Camacho, 2007), una historia que entremezcla género y edadismo, como factores clave en la inferioridad del individuo, en la que una viuda sin supervisión acaba con la vida de un cachorro de perro al intentar, en un alarde de inteligencia arrogante, secarlo en el microondas tras un baño que no estaba en los planes de la ‘abuelita’. Así mismo, en la leyenda urbana de título “Chain Reaction” (Brown and Flynn, 1999), el comportamiento tan inadecuado como inocuo de una mujer poco cívica en el espacio público del transporte colectivo origina la devastación del paisaje urbano civilizado creado por el patriarcado. Por último, también es objeto de análisis la leyenda urbana de Hayes (2013), en la que la ambición femenina lleva a una mujer a traspasar las limitaciones previstas por el patriarcado para su género y alcanzar así, a principios del siglo XIII y bajo la identidad de John Anglicus, la cima de la jerarquía católica, siendo presa de su lujuria, que asombrará a los allí presentes con un inesperado parto durante una procesión religiosa en las cercanías del Coliseo Romano y la iglesia de San Clemente, y su posterior ejecución, como único sino de la mujer que invade los espacios reservados para el hombre

International Journal of African Development, Vol. 5, Issue 1

Complete issue of International Journal of African Development, Volume 5, Issue 1 - Spring 2018

A system dynamics perspective of the non-profit organisation's quest for sustainability: a case study.

Doctor of Philosophy in Business & Leadership. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2015.The process of investigating this organisation’s quest for sustainability began by recognition of the struggle to remain sustainable as a common one among NPOs the world over. The sustainability of non-profit organizations is of vital importance as the non-profit sector contributes large amounts of time, energy and resources to the upliftment of society, while faced with constant financial, environmental and organizational uncertainty and ambiguities. It was recognised that the sustainability of NPOs is a complex issue requiring a methodology that could capture such complexity adequately. A Qualitative System Dynamics methodology was chosen based on its merits in enhancing understanding regarding complex problem issues. In addition, the study was guided by a case study approach with the empirical work been conducted on the Oxfam Great Britain (GB) affiliate operating in SA. Empirical investigations, together with careful scrutiny of organisational documentation formed the basis of the findings that emerged which pointed to seven themes as integral to the sustainability of Oxfam affiliates, namely: (1) Human Resource capacity (2) Credibility of the organisation (3) Partnerships (4) Competition in the non-profit sector (5) Co-financing and funding arrangements (6) Navigating the North-South Dilemma and (7) the dynamics involved in attempts to remain apolitical. Sustainability was recognised as being emergent from the feedbacks within and between such themes. Furthermore, it was recognised that due to the constantly changing nature of such feedbacks and of the environment in which the organisation is embedded, non-profits tend to traverse a sustainability landscape in terms of being more sustainable at certain times and less sustainable at other times, depending on how they respond to such change. A number of external influences emanating outside of the organisation were also identified as impacting the NPOs sustainability, including the influence of the political and economic systems in which the organisation was embedded, the impact of donors’ perceptions of South Africa as a middle-income or prosperous nation, the external pressures encouraging the establishment of a South African Oxfam affiliate in SA, and the impact of the global economic recession on international aid and development efforts. Overall implications for the NPO sector were also identified including the effect of continuous giving to well-known or “successful” NPOs such as Oxfam, as well as the consequences of an ever-growing NPO sectors’ reliance on ever-shrinking funding pools

Can we break the addiction to fossil energy? : Proceedings of the 7th Biennial International Workshop Advances in Energy Studies

Sponsored by Obra Social "la Caixa", Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and LIPHE4 Scientific Association, Generalitat de Catalunya.From 1998 onwards, every other two years, the Biennial International Workshop "Advances in Energy Studies" (BIWAES) gathers experts in what can be called energy analysis to present and discuss advances, innovations and visions in energy and energy-related environmental and socioeconomic issues and models. Renowned energy experts and ecologists, such as H.T. Odum, James Kay, Charles Hall, Tim Allen, Vaclav Smil, Robert Herendeen, Jan Szargut, Joseph Tainter and Robert Ulanowicz among others, have discussed at the BIWAES the importance of energy in our society and ecosystems and the ways to better analyze and model their complex relationships. Previous editions of BIWAES have focused on energy flows in ecology and economy; analysis of the supply side; the ecological consequences of energy sources exploitation; and the role of renewable energy sources and new energy carriers. The present Book of Proceedings refers to the seventh Edition, which took place in the month of October 2010 in Barcelona and addressed society's addiction to fossil energy