De la “Europa de las Regiones” a la Europa con las Regiones

L’autor comença per analitzar el procés de transformació que està passant l’Estat-nació a mans del triple fenomen de la globalització, l’europeïtzació i la regionalització. Aquest darrer, a més, es veu clarament afectat pels dos primers i s’ha generat un ressorgiment del neoregionalisme. Pel que fa a la incidència de la Unió Europea sobre les regions, l’autor nega que s’estiguin erosionant les identitats etnoterritorials i considera, per contra, que davant de la manca d’un demos europeu la clau del procés de construcció europea rau en saber combinar les molt diverses identitats que conviuen a Europa. Des del punt de vista de les regions, d’altra banda, l’autor posa de manifest les seves diferències d’interessos i el seu elevat nombre, factors que, entre altres, impedeixen que puguin ser els actors principals de la construcció europea, però no que hi contribueixin. No es tracta tant de parlar d’una Europa de les regions com d’una Europa amb les regions, les quals tindran el seu espai com el tenen els estats, que seguiran essent els principals protagonistes. L’autor, finalment, analitza el paper dels partits nacionalistes subestatals, els límits del Comitè de les Regions com a catalitzador dels interessos regionals, i el pes i les estratègies de les regions a Alemanya, Bèlgica i el Regne Unit.In this article the author begins by analyzing the process of transformation taking place within state-nations at the hands of the triple phenomenon of globalisation, Europeisation and regionalisation. The latter, furthermore, is clearly being affected by the first two and has generated a resurgence of neo-regionalism. In regard to the influence of the European Union on the regions, the author denies that it is eroding ethnic-territorial identities and considers, on the other hand, that in view of the lack of a European demos, the key to the process of the construction of Europe lies in knowing how to combine the extremely varied identities living together in Europe. From the point of view of the regions, on the other hand, the author points out the enormous number of different interests, factors which, among others, prevent them from being the main forces behind the construction of Europe, but not from making a contribution. It is not so much to speak of a Europe of regions as of a Europe with regions, all of which have their own space, as do the states, who will continue to be the main decision-makers. The author, finally, analyzes the role of sub-state nationalist parties, the limits of the Committee of the Regions as a catalyst for regional interests, and the weight and strategies of regions in Germany, Belgium and the United Kingdom.1. La teoría de la “Europa de las regiones”. – 2. Estrategias regionalistas de los actores políticos. – 3. Los límites del Comité de las Regiones. – 4. Perspectiva comparada. – 5. Una nota conclusiva. – Bibliografía citada

Further developments in stress initialization in geomechanics via FEM and a two-step procedure involving airy functions

The in-situ stress field in rock masses is a key aspect when a numerical analysis of a rock mass is carried out in any area of geo-engineering, such as civil, mining, or Oil & Gas. A method for the numerical generation of the in-situ stress state in the FE context, based on Airy stress functions was previously introduced. It involves two steps: 1) an estimate of the stress state at each Gauss point is generated, and 2) global equilibrium is verified and re-balancing nodal forces are applied as needed. In this paper, new developments towards improving the accuracy of the stress proposal are discussed. A real application example has been used to illustrate the results achieved with the new implementation

Introduction to the JOCN special issue on future PON architectures enabled by advanced technology

This JOCN Special Issue, which spans the September and October 2020 issues, investigates the future of passive optical networks (PONs) in light of new enabling technologies that are currently under consideration. The papers present a broad overview of topics of current interest, across both the physical and network layers. They investigate how new technologies (e.g., higher-speed direct detection transceivers, coherent systems, advanced digital signal processing, and new optoelectronic components) and new network-layer approaches may drive the medium- to long-term evolution of PONs

A Moment-Based Polarimetric Radar Forward Operator for Rain Microphysics

There is growing interest in combining microphysical models and polarimetric radar observations to improve our understanding of storms and precipitation. Mapping model-predicted variables into the radar observational space necessitates a forward operator, which requires assumptions that introduce uncertainties into model-observation comparisons. These include uncertainties arising from the microphysics scheme a priori assumptions of a fixed drop size distribution (DSD) functional form, whereas natural DSDs display far greater variability. To address this concern, this study presents a moment-based polarimetric radar forward operator with no fundamental restrictions on the DSD form by linking radar observables to integrated DSD moments. The forward operator is built upon a dataset of > 200 million realistic DSDs from one-dimensional bin microphysical rain shaft simulations, and surface disdrometer measurements from around the world. This allows for a robust statistical assessment of forward operator uncertainty and quantification of the relationship between polarimetric radar observables and DSD moments. Comparison of "truth" and forward-simulated vertical profiles of the polarimetric radar variables are shown for bin simulations using a variety of moment combinations. Higher-order moments (especially those optimized for use with the polarimetric radar variables: the 6th and 9th) perform better than the lower-order moments (0th and 3rd) typically predicted by many bulk microphysics schemes