Political Prefects: The Regional Political Bosses of Mexico

During the formation of the Mexican nation, jefaturas políticas, or prefectures, as they will be called generically in this article, were basic institutions (1812–1917) for centralizing and organizing power and assuring governance. This was a vital task given the civil and international wars the country would endure. These powerful institutions were the mediators between the upper and lower political echelons and social classes. In the prefectures were vested an impressive range of diverse responsibilities—agrarian, fiscal, preserving order, military conscriptions, educational, medical and sanitary services, promoting the economy, elaborating statistics, mapmaking—which made modernization and administrative functionality very difficult. At the turn of the 20th century, this was an obstacle to the modernization and efficacy of the regime. Even though prefectures had responsibilities for all of Mexico, they also had an important degree of flexibility to attend to local needs. Therefore, laws and practices were adapted to the peculiarities of the different states, for example, regulating labor or conciliating rivalries that sprang from the application of liberal agrarian policies. Prefects governed specific political districts in which the states were divided and were generally appointed and removed freely by the governors as their personal representatives to enforce laws and policies and to control any opposition. They were remembered in popular imaginary, literary, and revolutionary historiography as brutal and corrupt functionaries loyal only to the upper classes and their clientelist networks. Contemporary studies have proved that these modalities—brutality and corruption—have a place in the prefect’s box of tools, but new research has widened the historiographic perspective and showed how differently these functionaries could act. In fact, they used most of their energy trying to negotiate with the whole range of social classes and political factions. But their repressive character led to its elimination: they fought the revolution of 1910, and when they lost they were suppressed in 1917.

M2M system for efficient water consumption in sanitary services, based on intelligent environment

Este documento describe el proceso investigativo cumplido para el desarrollo de un sistema inteligente para el uso eficiente del agua en unidades sanitarias del entorno doméstico. Fundamentalmente la investigación se centró en dos procesos, en primer lugar, el desarrollo de un sistema de alta confiabilidad para monitorear los consumos reales de las unidades sanitarias y en segundo lugar el desarrollo de un sistema realzado para el control inteligente de los consumos de la misma unidad sanitaria. La investigación destaca la constitución de una solución tecnológica M2M, de alta precisión que impacta la sostenibilidad ambiental, por medio de la generación de conciencia respecto al uso racional del recurso hídrico en las acciones cotidianas de higiene personal.

Die Website des gesundheitstouristischen Betriebs" vorschläge zur didaktischen Vermittlung ihres Registers für den Berufssprachenunterricht Deutsch im Tourismusbereich

Toe central pretense of this paper is to demonstrate the implementation of the Theory of the Register in the didactic preparation of an authentic commercial text Die Website des gesundheitstouristischen Betriebs in German classes for the purposes of tourism. Toe use of this textual demonstration in such dasses responds to the linguistic needs of students of Tourism, Nursing and Physiotherapy who, among their possible occupational tasks, contemplate the possibility of working in the field of Health Tourism in Germany or in ressorts dedicated to this field with an ample German-speaking clientele. Toe text contains, indeed, nu.merous useful linguistic componen ts for resolving key communicative situations in the mentioned field like, among others, the implementation of sanitary services or wellness or the task of marketing these.

Sources and amounts of financial support for medical care in the institutions of the federal penitentiary service

Aim. To evaluate the state financial guarantees for providing medical care to prisoners of penitentiary institutions. Methods. The general assessment of actual state funding of penitentiary healthcare as well as the shares of separate sources in funding of penitentiary healthcare at facilities of Russian Federal Penitentiary Service. Results. The combined funding of penitentiary healthcare increased up to 3 861 568.7 thousands of rubles in 2011 (twofold compared to 2009). Per capita funding was equal to 3844.0 rubles per year per Russian Federal Penitentiary Service facilities prisoner - 2.34 times higher compared to 2009. Hence, despite the total funding increase, the handicap compared to national healthcare funding is still huge. Conclusion. The gained data provides a real-time picture of the penitentiary healthcare funding and is necessary for improvement of medical and sanitary services in the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service institutions.

Downsizing our Water Footprint

884 million people are without adequate access to clean drinking water and 2.6 billion people lack access to basic sanitary services. Due to preventable water and sanitation-related diseases an average of 5.000 children dies each day. This is not only caused by the absence of local adequate water infrastructure, but also by regional water scarcity. In the near future the problem of water scarcity will even increase in several regions of the world because of factors like a growing world population and climate change. How can we stop this fatal trend? Left aside the need for a better water infrastructure and other measures to improve access to clean drinking water and sanitary services, the global water demand needs to be reduced. Not only for the sake of people, but also for the protection of ecosystems and biodiversity. Using water saving showerheads in our households is not enough to achieve substantial water use reduction. In the past decade scientists have developed methods to calculate our water footprint in the world. In 2011 the Global Standard for Water Footprint Assessment, developed by the Water Footprint Network (WFN) was published. It shows that the major part of our water footprint (WF) consists of water that is used for the production of our food and other products we consume. Famous examples are the 15.000 litres water needed to produce one kg beef or the fact that 140 litres water are used for the production of one (Dutch) cup of coffee. Reduction of humanity's water footprint is urgently needed in order to keep water use within the boundaries of our planet. This article intends to give a short overview of current discussions on the question how to achieve substantial water footprint reduction, focussing in particular on certification and labelling.