Environmental Challenges: Climate Change, Pollution, and Biodiversity Loss
Environmental Policy and Global Challenges
Priority Areas:
- Climate change
- Nature and biodiversity
- Natural resources and waste
- Environmental health and quality of life
Global Megatrends:
- Increasing global divergence in population trends: aging, growing, and migrating populations
- Urbanization: spreading cities and spiraling consumption
- Changing patterns of global disease burdens and the risk of new pandemics
- Continued economic growth
- Global power shifts: from a uni-polar to a multi-polar world
- Intensified global
Water Treatment: Processes and Technologies
Water treatment transforms raw surface and groundwater into safe drinking water. Water treatment involves two types of processes: physical removal of solids (mainly mineral and organic particulate matter) and chemical disinfection (killing/inactivating microorganisms). Treatment practices vary from system to system, but there are four generally accepted basic techniques:
- Coagulation and Flocculation
- Sedimentation
- Filtration
- Disinfection
Groundwater requires less treatment than surface water.
Seawater
Read MoreUnderstanding Sign Language: Semiotics and Semantic Change
The Sign Language
Verbal language consists of a special type of symbol: the sign language. According to Saussure, it is an inseparable unit with two levels: the signifier or expression and the signified or content. Besides being so composed, it is characterized by the following features:
- Arbitrariness: The relationship between signifier and signified is unmotivated, i.e., a product of human will.
- Conventionality: Users of the same language must accept the signs it contains, whose values have been agreed
Structuralism, Language Norms, and Usage: A Linguistic Analysis
Structuralism and Language: A System of Relations
According to structuralism, language is defined as a system where language units (phonemes, words, semes) exist in relation to other units through a complex network of relations such as opposition or neutralization. As regards paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations, Saussure refers to them as dichotomies as well as the opposition between signifier/signified, langue/parole, or synchrony/diachrony.
Paradigmatic vs. Syntagmatic Relations
On the one hand,
Read MoreUnderstanding European Union: Treaties, Integration, and Theories
Understanding European Integration and the EU
Seeking to reduce tensions and promote cooperation, states signed international treaties, reduced barriers to trade, worked together on shared problems, and formed a network of international organizations. The underlying motive behind European integration has always been peace. The end of World War II in 1945 brought a fundamental reordering of the international system, which made the possibility of European unity much greater than ever before. The priority
Read MoreLinguistic Borrowings and Neologisms in Spanish
Types of Linguistic Borrowings
- Voices: Words derived from the evolution of Latin.
- Cultisms: Words derived directly from Latin that have not undergone typical language evolution.
- Linguistic Loans: Words from other languages that are incorporated into Spanish.
Sources of Loanwords
- Substrate Words: Words from pre-Roman languages, e.g., dog, mud.
- Teutonic Words: Words from the ancient Gothic language spoken by Germanic peoples who came to the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century, e.g., war, rich.
- Arabic Words: