Conflicts in the transition of Morocco: From traditional to modern society

Sociopoliticamente Marruecos muestra persistencia de importantes residuos de orden social tradicional y características de una peculiar forma de Estado: una monarquía carismática. En relación a la modernización del país, analizo especialmente tres problemas que configuran la complejidad sociopolítica marroquí: una estructura social con presión demográfica. La etnicidad bereber; un problema que durante siglos no ha sido resuelto y ha gravitado sobre la historia de Marruecos. Por último un conflicto con prolongaciones internacionales: el Sahara. Este contencioso se aprecia susceptible de resolverse en un contexto internacional y con el consenso de la población autóctona.From a sociopolitical perspective, Morocco is characterized by the peculiar form of its State: the alaouite monarchy, and the inheritance of a traditional social order. Concerning the modernization of the country, I specifically analyze three main problems that remain basic to the understanding of Moroccan complexity: a social structure under demographic pressure; the socio-historical inheritance of the berbers; and a conflict of international dimensions – that of the Sahara. The latter could be solved in an international context, and with the participation of the local inhabitants

El agua en las coordenadas sociopolíticas del Mediterráneo Sur

El agua, incluyendo sus componentes simbólicos, se comparte por los arcos Norte y Sur del Mediterráneo, sin embargo son muchos los problemas que enfrentan a las dos orillas; su gestión, como el uso y abuso resulta cualitativa y cualitativamente diferente. Por otro lado, se dibujan situaciones conflictivas en el Mediterráneo Sur en el relación con el agua, comprendiendo tensiones polí- ticas que se localizan principalmente en Palestina y el Kurdistán. El Mediterrá- neo Sur, que geográficamente es el Norte del Sur social y económico situado en Africa ve incrementada su problemática con la presión demográfica y el subdesarrollo creciente de los países subsaharianos. La aproximación a las soluciones pasa por el desarrollo y aplicación de los estamentos jurídicos e institucionales vigentes y por medidas como la declaración del agua Patrimonio Inealienable de la Humanidad, estimular una ética del agua o la aplicación de una “democracia técnica”; un tipo de democracia y de desarrollo que integre requerimientos físicos y socio-culturales con los principios y ventajas técnicas. Un conjunto de medidas y capacidades que eviten la tendencia actual a la “petrolización” del agua.The problem of water and its symbolic component is one of the many elements and values sharde by the nations and societies of the Northern and Southern Mediterranean basin. But the paradigm of development is a factor of both, union and divergence between the Northern and Southern Mediterranean. Both the management and the use (and abuse) of water is qualitatively and quantitatively different in the two shores. Currently, Southern Mediterranean countries go through conflictive situations related to water, including political tensions that announce serious crisis in Palestine and Kurdistan. The problems of Southern Mediterranean countries -which geographically are the North of African, but belong socially and economically to the South- are increased by factors such as demographic pressure and growing underdevelopment in the sub-Saharian countries. Finding solutions requires the application and development of current legal institutional instruments and measures, such as declaring water “heritage of humanity”, stimulating the creation of a code of ethics in relation to water, or the application of a “technical democracy”, a kind of democracy and development that integrates physical and cultural requirements with technical principles and advantages. A cluster of measures and capacities that make it possible to avoid the current “petrolization” of water

Innovating on Well Biofouling Remediation: A Bacteriophage Cocktail Approach

Waller Creek Working Grou

División de la opinión pública española sobre las estrategias sostenibles del agua. Metodología EASW para la acción consensuada

Conflicts and devided opinion over the water strategies have sharpened in Spain during the years 2000-2001, in which the new National Plan on Water was drawn up by the Government. The main solution launched by the Government, in order to cope with increasing water consumption in the long term, is a large transfer of water from the northern region to southern and eastern regions of the country. Groups of experts and community based associations consider this strategy scarcely satisfactory as a technical and social solution for water. Social actors, who are active or passively involved in the decision-making process concerning the future of water resources, give different reasons for their support or rejection of that plan. This article analyzes the arguments expressed by the different social sectors, i.e., the public administration; the private business and enterprises, the scientific and technological sector, and the community based organizations. With the information they provide, we try to built the structural problematic regarding water sustainability of the coming years. Basically the problematics consist in the following: wether solution is through massive public spending on water transfer, considering that the cost of water will be liberalized in the coming years, and will habe to be paid for by regions and citizens; or throught the inmediate involvement of general population in reducing consumption and in maximising profit from available water, by means of the new environmental technologies.Los conflictos y división de opiniones sobre las estrategias del agua en España se han agudizado en os años 2000-2001 con motivo del nuevo Plan idrológico Nacional, elaborado por el Gobierno, que a establecido como rincipal solución, frente al aumento del consumo a largo plazo, un trasvase asivo de agua de las regiones del Norte a las regiones del Sur y Este del territorio acional. Esta strategia se considera poco satisfactoria como solución écnica y social para el agua, por parte de rupos de expertos y de asociaciones iudadanas os actores sociales, protagonistas implicados por ctiva o por pasiva en el roceso de toma de decisiones sobre el futuro del agua, alegan distintas razones para posicionarse a favor o en contra de este plan. En este artículo se analizan los argumentos comunicados por distintos sectores sociales: el sector público o administración del Estado; el sector privado-empresarial, el sector técnico-científico y el sector asociativo-ciudadano. Con la información que ellos aportan se construye la problemática estructural que se perfila en torno a la sostenibilidad del agua en los próximos años. Básicamente la problemática radica en: si solucionar el agua desde un masivo gasto público, cuando en cinco años se va a liberalizar el agua y repercutir los costes a regiones y ciudadanos, o solucionar el agua implicando a la población «desde ya» en reducir su consumo y aprovechar el agua impulsando las nuevas tecnologías medioambientales. Ante el carácter, social y tecnológicamente, insostenible del escenario tendencial marcado por el PHN para el agua en España, se recomienda implicar a las entidades ciudadanas en la gestión consorciada de los fondos destinados a campañas de sensibilización para el ahorro de agua y la incorporación de nuevas tecnologías medioambientales. La metodología que se recomienda aplicar tanto al diseño de las campañas de sensibilización, como para la sensibilización en sí es el Escenario Workshop EASW con observación del seguimiento

Academical and Research Wiimote Applications

IADIS MULTI CONFERENCE ON COMPUTER SCIENCE AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS 2008 Amsterdam, The Netherlands JULY 22 - 24, 2008This paper proposes the employment of the Wii Remote controller, better known as Wiimote, as an useful tool for educators and researchers. The quick development on fields such as Wireless Sensors and Actuators Networks or Hybrid Systems, and their applications, requires engineers with a solid knowledge in these areas. To achieve this goal the Wiimote becomes a great alternative to other options due to its great variety of analog and digital components, for a very low price, and the good documentation about it existing in Internet. As will be seen in this paper, the possible academical and research uses of the Wiimote are almost endless and cover many interesting problems in control engineering

Comparison of organic packing materials for toluene biofiltration

he paper focuses on the operation of a pilot plant with four biofilters operated in parallel for determining the suitability of coconut fiber, peat, compost from the digested sludge of a wastewater treatment plant and pine leaves as packing materials for biofiltration of toluene. Physical characteristics of packing materials such as specific surface area, density, pore size and elemental composition were determined for each packing material. Biological activity and packing capabilities related to toluene removal were determined during the startup and operation of the four biofilters under different conditions of nutrients, watering and inlet air relative humidity supply. Nutrient addition was key in improving removal efficiency (RE) and elimination capacity (EC) of biofilters. Feeding of medium with nutrients increased the RE and the EC by a factor of 2 to 4 than these found when supplying only tap water. Additionally, when extra nitrogen was supplied in the medium, RE and EC increased by a factor of 2. Nutrient addition also lead to a microbial population change from bacterial to fungal biofilters. It was denoted that watering control is necessary to improve fungal biofilters performance in terms of ensuring a proper washout of acidic by-products to avoid fungi inhibition and consequent lowered removal capacities.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Effect of Sky Discretization for Shading Device Calculation on Building Energy Performance Simulations

The calculation of sunlit surfaces in a building has always been a relevant aspect in building energy simulation programs. Due to the high computational cost, some programs use algorithms for shading calculation for certain solar positions after discretization of hemispherical sky. The influence of the level of discretization on the estimation of incident direct radiation on building surfaces, as well as on the required computational times, are studied in this work. The direct solar energy on a window for a year, with simulation time steps of five minutes, has been simulated by using an algorithm based on Projection and Clipping Methods. A total of 6144 simulations have been carried out, varying window sizes, window orientations, typologies of shading devices, latitudes and discretization levels of the hemispherical sky. In terms of annual incident solar energy, the results show that maximum error values are about 5% for a low level of angular discretization. Errors up to 22% in hourly incident solar energy have been estimated for some of the configurations analysed. Furthermore, a great number of configurations show errors of shading factor on a window of up to 30%, which could be most relevant in studies of natural lighting. The study also shows that the improvement achieved by the most accurate discretization level implies an increase in computational cost of about 30 times