EDITORIAL

This is Issue No. 21 of our Journal ''Ingenierías Universidad de Medellín.''

This issue exhibits two different characteristics. On the one side, articles related to several environmental engineering fields occupy half issue. On the other side, we are making a big effort to increase the number of foreign authors with the purpose of making of the Journal a real instrument to disseminate regional scientific contents for Latin America.

The significant presence of articles related to environmental engineering is a clear indication that the Journal is complying (and it really should make a stronger effort) with its commitment to a debate as sensitive for regional development as the sustainable development and the relationship engineering has to such social commitment. Our Journal holds its publishing policy, that is, accepting generic engineering articles, but we cannot disregard the strong presence this area of knowledge has historically had in its pages.

It is a pleasure for us to know that most remaining articles are intended to generate spaces of academic dialogue from the engineering standpoint, with relevant aspects for the real world such as those associated to the economic production. That is the raison d'être of engineering and more specially the raison d'être of a Journal which disseminates engineering scientific contents.

In relation to the increased number of non-Colombian authors, we are pleased to receive a higher number of articles from this kind of authors. This surely takes us to have a higher number of regional readers and this is a commitment for us to improve our quality processes.

As always, we are confident that contents of this issue may be a contribution for having a scientific debate with social pertinence.

Fredy López Pérez
Editor