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The dynamics of the business environment indicate that companies should become more flexible and value oriented. The competition within the IT sector leads to increased uncertainty for the players and a higher focus on the strategic direction of the company. Hence, many studies point out the significance of strategic agility as a tool of increasing company performance and achieving improved results. The paper highlights how the performance of IT companies is impacted by various factors. The main driver for company performance is strategic agility mixed with absorptive capacity. For a better understanding, the paper will analyze knowledge acquisition, knowledge assimilation, transformation and knowledge exploitation. These four dimensions represent the layers of absorptive capacity. Using as framework a survey developed based on the literature, there will be performed an analysis of the input received. The responses have been captured from stakeholders of the IT industry, who are employees of IT organizations with operations in Romania. For an enhanced output, there will be applied a regression analysis. This will contribute to the identification of factors determining company performance in the IT industry. The results of the regression analysis will demonstrate that strategic agility, knowledge acquisition and transformation have the highest impact on company performance. As only three out of the five tested dimensions are validated, further research can be grounded on understanding why knowledge assimilation and knowledge exploitation have not been confirmed as factors impacting company performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a previous paper, it was made a statistical analysis for hydropower ratio from total energy production in Romania over the period 2006 -2016 for monthly values, and the main characteristics for this set of observations were determined. Based on monthly recorded data and on mathematical model, this paper presents a method for the prediction of this random variable using the second order autoregressive (AR2) model. The reconstructed data are compared with recorded values for the last three years of the analyzed time series and, for the next two years, a forecast was made, whose results are compared with real values published in the annual reports of Hidroelectrica, for 2017, and the Transelectrica Website, for 2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the results of a sedimentologic investigation of Albian sandstones and conglomerates from the eastern extremity of the Southern Carpathians, the area between the Ialomița and Dâmbovița rivers. Lithofacies analysis, paleotransport, provenance and paleoenvironment of these clastic sediments are the main focus of the paper. An important component of the study is the part played by Ialomița-Dâmbovița Albian sediment accumulation in the Albian sedimentary history of the Carpathian Bend zone. Two major lithofacies occur in the Ialomița-Dâmbovița Albian sedimentary succession: medium- and coarse-grained sandstones and sandstones with conglomerate interbeds. These deposits are intercalated with a third significant lithofacies, rhythmic finer grained deposits of silty clay and silty and finegrained sandstones. Some of the coarser grained Albian sediments (both sandstones and conglomerates) are structureless, poorly sorted, have a relatively large amount of sandy matrix and include oversize clasts, features indicative of accumulation by sediment gravity flow. The normal graded sandstones and the conglomerates with poor sorting, abundant matrix and oversize clasts suggest sediment transport by high density turbidity currents. The accumulation of the rhythmic, alternating silty clay and silty fine-grained arenite sediments is ascribed to low density turbidity currents. According to their relationship with the underlying, younger deposits, the monocline structure and their presence within a succession of clastic sediments forming a coarsening-upward stacking pattern, it is proposed here that the Albian deposits in the Ialomița-Dâmbovița area were involved in a very active, large-scale progradation process, with deposition occurring on the continental rise. The Albian deposits in the Ialomița-Dâmbovița area are genetically and stratigraphically correlated with the deposits of the Babele Sandstone and the Scropoasa-Lăptici Sandstone units in the Bucegi Mountains. The Babele-Dâmbovița sedimentary basin is distinct and different from the depositional basin of the deep-water Albian conglomerate fan from the Carpathian Bend zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of a larger study on academic dishonesty, this paper aims to be a simple investigation of students' opinions on some ethical issues, such as cheating in exams and plagiarism in assignments. The main goal was to explore the level of awareness of cheating and plagiarism, the frequency of these dishonest behaviours, students' attitudes toward cheating and plagiarism and differences between demographic variables and the three dimensions mentioned above. This study was conducted through a questionnaire completed by 138 first-year engineering students at a university in Romania. The study showed that cheating and plagiarism practices are sometimes common among students; at the same time, it is necessary to increase students' awareness and attitudes in order to combat such misconduct. Also, students’ ethical values and actions are in dissonance. The differences in gender and residence area of students are insignificant. The paper recommends that different actors collaborate to continuously educate and discourage students from engaging in academic dishonesty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to contribute to the better knowledge and understanding on entrepreneurship education and its role in supporting the development of entrepreneurial intentions in Romania. Analyzing the role of entrepreneurship education on influencing decision to of starting up a business is on the rise worldwide, a lot of importance being put on the importance of entrepreneurship education in supporting diversification of careers and transitions from unemployment or inactivity to self-employment. The empirical evidences for Romania, even if they are already addressed by several papers mainly focused on entrepreneurship education in universities still provide a lot of food for quantitative and qualitative analyses. The paper uses the data provided by Flask Eurobarometer 354 to depict the profile of Romanians that were involved in entrepreneurship education, but also to define an index on perceived effects of education in order to link the participation to entrepreneurial programs to the decision of individuals to start-up their own business. The findings on the profile of those ever engaged in entrepreneurship education in Romania points out to the structural inequalities embedded in the Romanian educational system, but also emphasize the rapid extension of the curriculum in this direction. Education is perceived as very important in building up attitudes and knowledge that support entrepreneurial intentions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research paper consists in analyzing the relationship between investments in innovation and macroeconomic performance indicators. Recent scientific literature argues that investment in innovation has a direct and positive impact on the performance of an economy. This paper aims to analyze the existence of the link between innovation and performance efforts as well as the analysis of their intensity both in Western European countries and in Romania. The data needed to assess investment in innovation, as well as those related to countries' macroeconomic performance, were selected from both the World Bank website and the OECD website for the period 1991- 2018. The research method used involves the analysis of data using regression and correlation, which are calculated using the statistical program SPSS. The study argues that investments in innovation activities can have a positive influence on macroeconomic performance indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the determinants of municipalities' absorption capac- ity, with a special focus on local governments' administrative capacity in rural Roma- nia. The analysis is based on a series of quantitative and qualitative data collected in the period 2009-2012. The study's dependent variable is the municipality's absorp- tion capacity, measured as the number of approved projects benefiting from European funds in the period 2009-2012. A multiple linear regression model shows that, ceteris paribus, rural municipalities are likely to have more projects approved for European funding because they have high administrative capacity, high levels of social develop- ment, experienced mayors, good collaboration capacity, work with consultants to draft their project proposals, and are located in Romania's North-Eastern region. The paper sheds light on the under-researched topic of capacities that beneficiaries need if they are to absorb European funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education institutions are facing increasing challenges in adapting to changing capabilities brought on by technology improvements, increasing technological interconnection, worldwide market expansion, mobility and migration, and workplace diversity. The paper deciphers significant initiatives at the European Union level with regard to digital readiness as well as summarizes the state of play for Romania's higher education sector in the context of current challenges posed by the development of digital skills. The results fill in the knowledge gap by systematically analysing the country's performance indicators that chart the progress toward green and digital transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of the paper is to examine the impact of foreign direct investment on the process of modernizing the Romanian economy and to develop recommendations on improving the investment climate and the efficient use of foreign investment to accelerate the pace of modernization of the national economy and Romania's effective participation in the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public-private partnerships are one of the most debated issues at EU-27 level nowadays. The experience of the past two decades has shown that this European Union initiative has delivered results below expectations despite the opportunities for improved absorption of European funds based on setting up such partnerships. In our paper we argue that by investigating main definitions and institutional-regulatory frameworks, public-private partnerships could turn into a key tool for promoting and supporting sustainable development at both national and rural level (that is, at the level of the regions of development) by interacting and best suited to sustain the activities of start-ups and innovative SMEs. Romania's experience is still at its very beginnings, but the current economic, social and political climate is an argument for considering how public-private-partnerships and entrepreneurship might be interlinked for generating economic growth, and creating platforms even for encouraging social entrepreneurs who, due to their 'not-for-profit' objectives are more flexible in applying new perspectives and innovations faced with new opportunities, thus gaining experiences transferable to changing and improving the 'for profit' sector and contributing to improved perceptions about public-private partnerships, not as an objective per se, but as operational tool in ensuring economic growth, social development and increased sustainability and resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Industria Textila is the property of Institutul National de Cercetare-Dezvoltare pentru Textile si Pielarie and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

On December 12, 2015, 196 countries signed the Paris Agreement, including Germany and also Romania which has the purpose to limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1,5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels. To achieve this goal, countries aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible to achieve a climate neutral world by mid-century. One of the goals is to encourage states with a low level of development, to grow economicaly from green power or green hydrogen, like will show in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to its national economic importance, the sunflower crop has established itself as the main oleaginous crop cultivated in Romania. It faces several diseases that are difficult to fight chemically. The creation of hybrids resistant to the attack of pathogens has proven to be an effective, safe, and environmentally friendly solution. This paper aims to examine the resistance of some biological sunflower creations created in Romania, to the attack of Phomopsis helianthi and Phoma macdonaldi fungi, in 2021. The experiment was placed in field conditions with a natural infestation, at A.R.D.S. Braila. The used biological material was represented by nine new sunflower hybrids. Two problem pathogens were studied: Phomopsis helianthi (perfect stage Diaporthe helianthi) and Phoma macdonaldi (perfect stage Leptosphaeria lindquistii). The climatic conditions of 2021 were favorable for the growth of the pathogens. Phoma macdonaldi had an average attack frequency of 38.8% and an average attack intensity of 1.71%, while Phomopsis helianthi recorded average values of 67.8% and 3.08%, respectively. The lowest attack degree of the Phoma macdonaldi pathogen was found in H3 (0.35%). Regarding the pathogen Phomopsis helianthi, the hybrid H3 showed good resistance, with an attack degree of 1.64%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decades the issue of refugees and immigrants has become more transparent and a subject of interest for the common citizen. Many authors discuss and analyze how people perceive immigration and the issues related to them. However, we know very little about what young citizens, members of generation Z, think about refugees and immigrants. The paper addresses this gap in the literature and analyzes how young citizens perceive immigrants and refugees that arrive in Romania. It uses Romania as a single-case study and semistructured interviews conducted in September 2022-October 2022 with young citizens coming from different sociodemographic profiles, to explain the variation in how they perceive the recent Ukrainian refugees and other immigrants. The main purpose is to explain the perceptions variation related to the current crisis generated by Russian Federation. The findings indicate that young citizens' perceptions are influenced by a combination of general attitudes toward the political system and society, education, and specific attitudes about potential external threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Romania, as a neighboring country, has also been affected by the refugee crisis since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine. Whether as a destination or a transit route to other countries, in the last five months Romania has been a short, mid-, or longterm haven for many Ukrainian refugees. The government's measures to support refugees -- ranging from money for food and shelter to ensuring access to the Romanian labor market and education system - have often been ambiguous and incomprehensible. But these were completed by the massive mobilization of non-profit organizations, churches, and the population. Starting from the month of March 2022 until today, several hundred refugees have found shelter in the homes of the Evangelical Lutheran Church A.C. in Romania. The aim of the present paper is 1) to analyze the measures implemented by Evangelical Lutheran Church A.C. in Romania to provide a medium or long-term rapid response to the needs of Ukrainian refugees: accommodation, food, transport, assistance with funds, collection of food and goods, medical, psychological, or spiritual care; 2) to identify the limits, challenges, and the risks of working with refugees 3) to outline on the analyzed data the main lines of development of a church strategy regarding refugees, to what extent they can be integrated, given that we are talking about migrants who live mostly in transit, traumatized by the losses and destructions caused by the war, in the hope of a return as soon as possible. From a methodological point of view, the study is a qualitative one, the research methods used are participatory observation in the locations where the refugees are accommodated, biographical interview with the refugees, and interview with a group of experts [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the social connectedness experiences among older migrants from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds in Australia. Data were collected via two rounds of semi-structured interviews and analysed using thematic and cluster analysis. Participants were 40 migrants aged 66-91 years, of German, Dutch, Romanian, Chinese, and Vietnamese origin. They identified a range of factors affecting their social connectedness experiences: personal preferences, individual efforts to connect with others, English language proficiency, driving ability, and length of residence. Data analysis also revealed four groupings of experience: the isolated, family, ethnic community, and multicultural cluster. These patterns of connectedness were experienced differently across the ethnic groups. The findings suggest the benefits of providing culture-specific social connection opportunities to help older migrants to stay socially connected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Romanian Review of Private Law / Revista Română de Drept Privat is the property of Universul Juridic Publishing House and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

THIS PAPER AIMED TO INVESTIGATE COINTEGRATION AND CAUSALITY EFFECT WITH BASE TO RUSSIAN FINANCIAL MARKET OVER UKRAINE, HUNGARY AND ROMANIA, (2) WHETHER IS THERE ANY OPPORTUNITY FOR HEDGE THE INVESTMENT IN ONE MARKET BY INVESTING IN ANOTHER MARKET. FOR THIS PURPOSE WE EMPLOY VECTOR ERROR CORRELATION MODEL (VECM) AND CCC GARCH ON THE SAMPLE DATA FROM JANUARY 2013 TO AUGUST 2022 COLLECTED FROM BLOOMBERG. AIC CRITERIA HAS BEEN USED TO DETERMINE THE IDEAL LAG DURATION, WHICH IS DETERMINED TO BE 8 DAYS FOR PFTS - UKRAINE AND MOEX - RUSSIA, 9 DAYS FOR BET - ROMANIA AND MOEX - RUSSIA, AND 8 DAYS FOR BUX - HUNGARY AND MOEX - RUSSIA. THIS IS BECAUSE COINTEGRATION RESULTS ARE SENSITIVE TO LAG LENGTH. CAUSALITY MUST EXIST IF TWO PARAMETERS (EXTRINSIC AND INTRINSIC) COINTEGRATE IN AT LEAST ONE DIRECTION (GRANGER, 1986). ADDITIONALLY, IT WAS ASSERTED BY GHOSH (1993), LIEN AND LUO (1994), AND LIEN (1996) THAT IF THE TWO PRICE SERIES ARE DISCOVERED TO BE COINTEGRATED, THEN THERE ARE VIABLE ERROR CORRECTION REPRESENTATIONS OF THE PRICE SERIES THAT CONTAIN BOTH SHORT-TERM DYNAMICS AND LONG-TERM INFORMATION. THE STUDY USES THE VECTOR ERROR CORRECTION MODEL (VECM) BECAUSE SPOT AND FUTURES PRICES ARE COINTEGRATED IN ORDER TO EXAMINE THE LEAD-LAG RELATIONSHIP, THE LONG- AND SHORT-RUN SPEED ALTERATION TOWARDS EQUILIBRIUM, OR THE LONG-RUN STEADY STATE (CAUSALITY), BETWEEN PFTS INDEX (UKRAINE) AND MOEX INDEX - (RUSSIA) STOCK MARKET PRICES OF SAMPLE VARIABLES. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financial auditors, members of the recognized national professional bodies, provide independent services such as statutory audit of the annual financial statements published by economic entities and other financial audit services, out of which an important category is represented by the financial audit of projects financed through European funds. In this paper, we present a comparative study of the way these two activities are undertaken in Romania, from the point of view of the aspects concerning the regulatory and the transparency status of the audit services delivered. Following our analysis, we will present the common elements that have been identified between the two audit fields, the most important being the significant public interest presented by the audited information, the verification of the accounting of some complex economic transactions, the possibility of the appearance of errors and frauds in the process of the preparation and presentation of the audited information and the specific financial audit procedures that are applied by financial auditors in their audit work. Further, we will highlight the main differences existing between the two fields, respectively the legislative regulation as opposed to performing the audits based on the options of the management authorities or of the beneficiaries of the European funding, the different audit supervising bodies (ASPAAS - The Authority for Public Supervision of the Statutory Audit Activity and, respectively, CAFR - The Chamber of Financial Auditors of Romania) and the situation regarding the ensuring of the transparency of the audit activities performed. As a result of this research, we draw conclusions about the necessity and the means through which the financial audit of EU-funded projects can be better organized, monitored and exploited in order to support the protection of the financial interests of the European Union and implicitly of the European citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the broad impact of applied research on the economy, RDI funding evaluations are required both in terms of the number of allocated resources and the management of these resources. RDI efficacy depends on human resources productivity and the financing instruments established through national priorities. This paper offers an analysis of the RDI investments in Romania allocated through the Competitiveness Operational Programme 2014-2020, covering the European Structural and Investment Funds, namely the European regional development fund. The analysis of the funded projects highlighted the common trends among the beneficiaries of RDI projects, their options in managing resources in relation to the eligibility of costs, and their national distribution between the seven development regions of Romania. The amount of funding was discussed in terms of the smart specialization domains established by the national strategy. The conclusions of the study, correlated with the objectives set by the SNCDI 2014-2020, are relevant for the management of the future funding instruments allocated to RDI by the ERDF in the period 2021-2027. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local elections have been theorized by many scholars as lower rank or second-order national elections: they are less important, less relevant, and just not as interesting as national elections. In Romania, turnout in local elections was, until the mid-2000s, quite high, even if lower than in parliamentary elections. Since 2008, however, turnout in local elections has been consistently higher than in parliamentary elections. The electoral reform that started in 2011 had, over time, a negative influence on the electoral process in the local elections. In this paper, we argue that the transition from the election of mayors using a majority electoral system in two rounds to a single round has contributed to the decline of citizens' interest in local elections, exerting a detrimental influence on the quality of political representation in general. Despite the arguments used by many of the supporters of this electoral reform, that electing the mayors in just one round will generate an increase in turnout because the competition will be fiercer, the effect was the opposite. The year 2020 marked a historic low in terms of turnout in local elections in Romania. Analyzing the official electoral data at county level and for each county capital, we will show that the health crisis generated by the COVID-19 pandemic had a minor influence on voting turnout. Instead, the specifics of the electoral law meant that, in the vast majority of county capitals, the turnout was significantly lower that the county average and the mayor was elected without reaching 50% of the votes (in many cases, the winning candidate failed to obtain more than 30% of the valid votes cast), which poses a major problem regarding the representativeness of elected mayors, as well as the stability and political balance within local political institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After 1989, Romania was faced with the challenge of integrating increasing numbers of foreigners who arrived in the country to work or study, in other words, to live for shorter or longer periods of time. Without any colonial past and deprived of contacts with the world abroad for many decades, the post-communist Romanian society has had to acquire the necessary skills to handle interaction with people of diverse cultural, historical, linguistic or religious backgrounds. The social need to efficiently communicate and work with foreigners rapidly became more stringent in the higher education system, as a result of international academic mobility. Starting from the assumptions that culture and language are closely linked, and developing intercultural communicative competence is an educational goal in itself, the aim of this paper is to address certain cultural aspects that are involved in the process of teaching and learning a foreign language. It briefly reviews the literature on the topic, and focuses on practical suggestions that teachers can make use of in the multicultural classroom of Romanian as a foreign language. The presentation leads to the conclusion that the acquisition of intercultural competence is an on-going process that will continue long after the language course has been completed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Values of total fertility rates offered by Eurostat show Romania as having the second highest fertility level in Europe, a fact that contradicts the image of population decline as outlined by Romanian demographers. In a country with important outmigration, correctly assessing the usual resident population and the corresponding vital events, as Eurostat methodology requires, is difficult. Through a detailed look at newborns in the last decade, I show that the overestimation of Romania's total fertility rate comes from the quasi total inclusion of children born abroad into the usual resident population, while in reality many of those children live abroad, with their (temporary) migrant parents. Through this paper, I want to raise a flag about this widely used fertility indicator and to make a call for caution in using it in international comparisons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we approach a Content Based Image Retrieval problem using keypoints and texture. We employ an algorithm that allows computing a fixed number of keypoints for all the images in the dataset, by adapting a certain parameter of the keypoints computation method. The SIFT (Scale Invariant Feature Transform) and SURF (Speeded Up Robust Features) algorithms yield the required keypoints. We also used texture features to improve the retrieval results. The texture features are computed using Local Binary Patterns (LBP), Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrices (GLCM), Dual Tree Complex Wavelet Transform (DTCWT), and Gabor filters. The methods were tested on our own dataset, ODIDS which contains outdoor images, mainly acquired in the city of Iaşi, Romania. We performed location identification with good results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the past decade, the eastern part of Romania has witnessed a rise in infrastructure projects. The paper sets out to determine the geoeconomic and geopolitical conditions that underpin these developments. In order to achieve this, we draw on the literature on new state capitalism, global infrastructure scramble, and the Second Cold War. First, we explore the geoeconomic and geopolitical conditions underpinning projects such as road construction prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and second, we analyze developments (modernization of railways, ports, and traffic on the Danube) following this major historical event. The first part of the analysis reveals that infrastructure construction in eastern Romania was driven by a state-led strategy to reduce subnational uneven geographic development through integration within transnational circuits of capital. These developments unfolded through a complex multidimensional sociospatiality involving processes of multiscalarity and regionalization. The second part of the analysis reveals how the unfoldings in neighboring Ukraine generated a series of infrastructure modernization projects in Romania, which were underpinned by geopolitical strategies, although they were also partially motivated by features identified in the pre-war stage, such as the statal strategy to promote local development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Industria Textila is the property of Institutul National de Cercetare-Dezvoltare pentru Textile si Pielarie and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Taxation is an important component of the business strategy and every person and company would like to pay lower taxes and still be compliant with the fiscal legislation. This paper investigates the outsourcing of tax services for natural persons, SMEs and large companies. We employed a qualitative approach using Core competences theory as theoretical framework, business environment from Romania as context and semi-structured interviews as research method. The interviews involved accounting firms and clients. The results indicated that in case of tax services outsourcing, external accountants and tax advisors help their clients to make the tax planning, improve their compliance and reduce the tax risks. Natural persons often outsource the tasks regarding taxation due to a lack of time and expertise. Outsourcing of tax services like outsourcing of accounting services is very common in small companies and smaller medium-sized enterprises for cost reduction reasons and their main interest is to comply with the fiscal law and lessen their tax burden. In larger medium-sized enterprises and large corporations the volume, variety and complexity of transactions are high and because of that so are the tax risks. In order to mitigate the tax risks, avoid fines and penalties, some of these companies resort also to external tax services such as verification or preparation of tax returns, tax reviews, ongoing support on fiscal issues, assistance and representation during fiscal inspections. International companies regardless of their size are more open to collaborate with external accountants and tax advisors. Due to recent introduction of SAF-T as declarative obligation, companies expect an increase in their tax compliance costs since they have to employ external support in a greater extent. Showing, the importance and the role of external accountants and tax advisors for persons and companies running businesses in Romania represents the main contribution of our study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although health spending has increased in Romania, the budget allocation for health, compared to the gross domestic product, is among the lowest in Europe, specifically, in 2019, lower on average by 4.69% compared to the European average and by 6.08% compared to Germany, the country with the highest budget allocation for health. Every year, Romania's mortality rate is among the highest in the European Union, each time above the EU average and in last place in terms of treatable causes of mortality, which does show that the national health system fails to provide the necessary services, among the main causes being underfunding and inefficient use of allocated financial resources. The effects of the underfunding of the health system in Romania are highlighted in the statistics of the European Union level, the life expectancy at birth as well as the unsatisfied needs regarding the medical services ranked far worse than the European average. As part of this paper, a qualitative and quantitative research has been done which highlights the existence of direct relationships between the underfunding of the Romanian health system and the ability to provide citizens with adequate medical services. A comparative analysis of the level of funding in EU countries is conducted in regards to the best performing health systems, which have a direct impact on the health of the population and the situation in Romania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competitiveness reveals a nation economic health. Due to the concept's complexity and precision in building a country's performance, the theory is nowadays a sine-qua-non-objective among policymakers, scientists and businesses. The present paper illustrates Romania's competitiveness performance for the aggregated 2007-2019 period. The results were obtained by adopting a quantitative approach. Data were extracted from the World Bank Database, covering the years 2008-2018, and the IMD World Competitiveness Online Database, covering the 2010-2019 period. Further, based on the obtained results, the author proposes recommendations to stimulate the country's competitiveness level. According to the analysis, Romania recorded a stable increase in competitiveness' evolution starting with 2014. In 2017, the country was positioned behind Spain, Italy, Poland and Hungary, and registered a better performance than Croatia. Regarding the total public expenditure on education per student, Romania is placed at the end of the European top, together with Ukraine, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Greece. Moreover, Romania is largening the European gap concerning Research and Development (R&D). On top are countries such as Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, and Austria, while at the opposite pole, there are the following nations: Romania, Cyprus, and Ukraine. Balanced growth is supported by the collaboration of governments, research institutions, universities, and the private sector. Investments must be orientated towards education, R&D, efficiency in production, education, the country's openness, and attractiveness for foreign markets. Considering the circumstances of the worldwide chaos caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is vital for Romania's economy to strengthen its competitiveness performance to safeguard sustainable long-run economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When it comes to fractional order systems, the Industry 4.0 sector is a unique application area. This is because high performance expectations, combined with uncertainty, make it difficult to design suitable control models or modules that can address a range of concerns. Industry 4.0 demands more efficient controllers with better connectivity and high dynamic performance. On the other hand, fractional-order controllers have very robust performance and, combined with certain properties, they could become the powerful controllers of the future. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of this field research. A bibliometric study of Industry 4.0 and fractional control research published in the Scopus database was conducted to identify the most significant publications in the field, as well as the countries that contribute most to these studies and the most frequently used key terms. The VOS Viewer software was used to map and display the bibliometric networks. The results show an upward trend in the number of publications in this discipline. And that India, Chile, Belgium, Ecuador and Romania are the top contributors to fractional control research in Industry 4.0. In addition, Shah and Warrier are the most cited authors, with two citations for each. In addition, the results indicate a variety of keyword levels, such as the first, which was related to Industry 4.0 in general, the second, which was relevant to controllers, and the third, which was related to embedded systems. These results can help academics better understand the issue of fractional control in Industry 4.0, as well as broaden the scope of study in related areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gender relations of power embedded within the urban landscape and materialized in street nomenclature remain an underexplored topic in place-name studies. This paper situates the gendered spaces of street names within the broader investigation of identity politics played out in the public space. Drawing on scholarship from "critical toponymies", this article diachronically examines the gender patterning of urban nomenclature in a city from Eastern Europe (Sibiu, formerly Hermannstadt, Romania). For this purpose, a dataset was compiled from the entire street nomenclature of the city across seven successive historical periods, from 1875 to 2020 (n = 2,766). The statistical analyses performed on this dataset revealed a "masculine default" as a structuring principle underpinning Sibiu's urban namescape for the two centuries investigated. As this analysis demonstrates, contrary to the overall democratization of the Romanian post-socialist society, Sibiu's streetscape continues to tell a patriarchal story informed by hegemonic masculinity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper "The protection of competition in Romania, in the 2015-2019 period" presents a few aspects related to the duration of the investigations related to the potential violation of the competition laws in the analysed period, the entities penalised by the Competition Council and the investigations on progress at the end of the year during this period. In the period between 2015 and 2019, the Competition Council monitored the smooth operation of the competition in the market, and therefore, it opened and finalized investigations on an annual basis, but it also gave fines to companies that were found to have carried out activities likely to affect the competitive environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign trade is considered a major component of sustainable economic growth. The links between it and the gross domestic product (GDP) have been analyzed in numerous specialized economic works. The developed econometric models have demonstrated the strong connection, both in the short and long term, between these macroeconomic components. This paper demonstrates once again the long-term and short-term links between these variables by using the VECM (vector error correction) econometric model on the annual GDP, Export and Import data with Romanian agricultural products from the period 1995-2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 infodemic has brought forth an intensification of disinformation and conspiracy narratives, especially in the online environment. Beside the public health implications, the geopolitical aspect is also relevant, since Romania, a member of the EU and NATO, has constantly been under pressure from a multitude of propaganda attempts meant to undermine people's trust in the West. The main goal of this paper is to explore the type of online information that the Romanian public is exposed to regarding NATO, an institutional actor representative for the Western model, specifically to assess the main communicators, content, and patterns of information dissemination. A dataset of Facebook mentions was created and filtered (n=9705) and visual network analysis was employed to build a NATO issue network. The main clusters of this network were analyzed to reveal that the two largest communities are structured according to a political cleavage, while an anti-Western media actor, Sputnik, controls a separate cluster, but its content infiltrates several others. Qualitative content analysis on a relevance sample of the most frequently distributed content was employed to evaluate both attitudes toward NATO (negative stances were identified in several analyzed documents) and the occurrence of conspiracy narratives (also a significant presence). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The E.coli outbreak in Romania and the crisis of the babies' illness in Romania has evolved between February 4 and April 12, 2016. Throughout this period, the media emphasized the crisis by putting pressure on Romanian institutions to find out the cause of these mass diseases (Cioacă, Briciu, 2017, 307). Starting from these data, this paper aims to examine how the instructional risk messages are communicated to the large public by the Romanian online media outlets. Using the IDEA Model for effective instructional risk and crisis messages (Sellnow et al., 2012) and the Exemplification theory (Zillmann, 1999), this research presents a content analysis of online news articles published by 48 media outlets. The findings showed that the most used IDEA element is Explanation(E), constructed by emphasizing scientific information combined with the presence of the national institutions and experts. This element was used together with the element of Internalization(I), constructed by the emphasis of proximity and personal relevance for the publics. Three main themes could be highlighted: (1). the quest for the disease source; (2). the personal relevance of the epidemic; (3). the effective measures associated with the actions/statements of national experts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper "The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Romanian Foreign Trade Results in the Year 2021" is to analyse the Romanian economy in the year 2021 from the prospect of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in order to quantify the impact of the health crisis on the economic activity and the volume of foreign trade. We will analyse the evolution of the FOB exports and CIF importants, the evolution of the FOB/CIF results and compare the actual figures with the figures from the previous year without influecences from the Corona pandemic. After that, we will make some recommendation in order to reduce the negative influences for the Romanian economy and to improve the trade result of Romania. In addition, we will present the general trends of economic evolution in the pandemic context and the opportunities that economic actors should take advantage of. The results of this analysis should be of real interest to decision-makers, investors, managers, students, the media, and other users in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's economy, the banking industry is crucial in determining the standard of living. The Romanian economy has recently shown a reliance on bank finance, with the banking industry's key goals being to strengthen customer focus, foster digital transformation, and meet consumers' needs as they relate to current trends. The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the Romanian economy, forcing it to overcome new obstacles in the banking sector. Thus, in order to manage their competitiveness, banks must create a resilience strategy. According to the financial reports, the most profitable Romanian banks in 2021 are: Banca Transilvania (BT), Banca Comercială Română (BCR) and Banca Română pentru Dezvoltare (BRD). These banks have the highest profit margins, with a cumulative 3.5 billion RON, which equates to 55% of the banking profit gain. This paper's primary goals are to: (1) provide a cumulative analysis of banking competitiveness and its key driving factors; and (2) examine the three major commercial banks of Romania - BT, BCR and BRD. Regarding to the five key indicators of banking competitiveness--total assets, net profit, market share, number of branches, and employees--we aimed to conduct a quick analysis of those three largest commercial banks in Romania. These institutions have a direct impact on the whole Romanian banking industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]