Assessing National Progress in Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals: A Case Study of Morocco

The achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for any nation has become more of an urgent priority in the global agenda than at any time before, especially under the light of recent disrupting events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the alarming food–water–energy trilemma, and the geopolitical upheavals impacting the supply chain of vital commodities. Assessing the sustainable progress of a country over time can help policy makers establish and develop robust strategies by identifying their strengths and weaknesses, allocating adequate resources, and understanding how far the country is from achieving the SDGs. No prior research has evaluated the SDGs performance composite index in Morocco. Hence, this study evaluates the national level of SDG progress by analyzing 13 out of 17 SDGs, including 46 available economic, social, and environmental indicators from 2001 to 2018, to provide factual data that can be used as a decision-making basis. The selection of indicators is established based on the framework adopted by the UN General Assembly. A composite index was created and quantified using the min–max normalization technique, the geometric product aggregation, and the overall scores of Morocco’s SDG performance and the different dimensions were calculated. The results show that economic performance was the worst among the other dimensions. Morocco is progressing to achieve the environmental and social targets, but more effort is required to absorb the needs linked with population growth and improvement of living standards. The developed framework could be of great interest for scientists and researchers to assess the national SDG progress of other countries

Characterization of olive cake production in northern Morocco

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A New Multi-Bit Flip-Flop Merging Mechanism for Power Consumption Reduction in the Physical Implementation Stage of ICs Conception

Recently, the multi-bit flip-flop (MBFF) technique was introduced as a method for reducing the power consumption and chip area of integrated circuits (ICs) during the physical implementation stage of their development process. From the perspective of the consumer, the main requirements for such an optimization method are high performance, low power usage and small area (PPA). Therefore, any new optimization technique should improve at least one, if not all, of these requirements. This paper proposes a new low-power methodology, applying a MBFF merging solution during the physical implementation of an IC to achieve better power consumption and area reduction. The aim of this study is to prove the benefit of this methodology on the power saving capability of the system while demonstrating that the proposed methodology does not have a negative impact on the circuit performance and design routability. The experimental results show that MBFF merging of 76% can be achieved and preserved throughout the entire physical implementation process, from cell placement to the final interconnection routing, without impacting the system’s performance or routability. Moreover, the clock wirelength, nets and buffers needed to balance the clock network were reduced by 11.98%, 3.82% and 9.16%, respectively. The reduction of the clock tree elements led to a reduction of the power consumption of the clock nets, registers and cells by 22.11%, 20.84% and 12.38%, respectively. The total power consumption of the design was reduced by 2.67%

Characterizing neutral genomic diversity and selection signatures in indigenous populations of Moroccan goats (Capra hircus) using WGS data

International audienceSince the time of their domestication, goats (Capra hircus) have evolved in a large variety of locally adapted populations in response to different human and environmental pressures. In the present era, many indigenous populations are threatened with extinction due to their substitution by cosmopolitan breeds, while they might represent highly valuable genomic resources. It is thus crucial to characterize the neutral and adaptive genetic diversity of indigenous populations. A fine characterization of whole genome variation in farm animals is now possible by using new sequencing technologies. We sequenced the complete genome at 12× coverage of 44 goats geographically representative of the three phenotypically distinct indigenous populations in Morocco. The study of mitochondrial genomes showed a high diversity exclusively restricted to the haplogroup A. The 44 nuclear genomes showed a very high diversity (24 million variants) associated with low linkage disequilibrium. The overall genetic diversity was weakly structured according to geography and phenotypes. When looking for signals of positive selection in each population we identified many candidate genes, several of which gave insights into the metabolic pathways or biological processes involved in the adaptation to local conditions (e.g., panting in warm/desert conditions). This study highlights the interest of WGS data to characterize livestock genomic diversity. It illustrates the valuable genetic richness present in indigenous populations that have to be sustainably managed and may represent valuable genetic resources for the long-term preservation of the species