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European Structural Funds have been created with the clear goal to redistribute money among European Union members in such a way as to help poorer regions diminish the gaps between them and the richer ones. The present study assesses this problem for the Structural Operational Programme Environment in Romania. Using spatial econometrics methods, we evaluate two issues on the sample of 42 Romanian counties. The first one is if any clusterization process takes place in what regards contracting funds through ESF for environmental protection projects. The second one is intended to test whether the main principle of the ESF is satisfied – helping the poor in a sustainable development process. Using the quartile maps and the spatial Moran's I autocorrelation coefficient we show different results for the clusterization topic. When considering the budget value of the projects implemented through SOP ENV, both as total and as eligible share, Romanian counties group based on a positive global spatial autocorrelation. This means that counties with approximately the same budget levels are neighbours. Transylvanian counties have gained the most out of the projects on environment. When the number of contracts is assessed, the distribution of the counties proves to be random and no global spatial autocorrelation was found. Moreover, the map analysis shows that, in general, there is a negative relationship between the value of the budget and the number of contracts. The spatial regression analysis shows the violation of the ESF principle. The coefficients of the GDP are positive. This implies a direct relationship between the richness of the county and the projects implemented through the SOP ENV. Thus, instead of being used by the poorer regions, money goes to the richer ones. The higher the GDP, the higher the value of the budget for the environmental protection programmes financed through European funds. The GDP also positively influences the number of contracts scheduled or signed, but the only at a 10% significance level.

After a period of studying a certain subject, students form an opinion about it and begin having certain expectations. These expectations and the degree in which, in the end, they fulfil, contribute to the reputation of the university. Consequently, a continuous evaluation of the quality of the educational process is needed. The present research presents a part of a more complex study made on a sample of master students in Audit and Financial Management in Romania. The goal was to evidence the main factors that affect students' expectations in what regards the grades they will obtain at the end of the semester. For this, a questionnaire of 20 questions was applied to 250 such students. After factor reduction procedures were applied, six most significant variables were kept in the analysis: the proportion of knowledge acquired, the perceived level of utility of the discipline in the professional career of the student, the proportion in which the subject could contribute to getting employed in the field it belongs to, the evaluation method and two variables evaluating through grades the didactic performance during the course and the overall performance of the tenure professor. The influence of these variables upon the grade expected by the student was assessed with the help of the OLS regression, both in the simple and multiple forms. Out of the six hypotheses formulated, only one proved to be false based on the simple regression analysis. When individually assessed, the evaluation method announced by the teacher at the beginning of the semester turned out to have no statistically significant influence upon students' expectations. For the rest of the variables, results were according to the assumptions made, i.e. all determine in a significant positive manner the students' opinion about the grade they will get. We have also constructed the multiple regression models. When putting all variables together, the significance changes. The level of difficulty of the evaluation method becomes significant, while from the rest of the variables only the proportion of knowledge acquirement still holds. The final conclusion is as expected: the higher the proportion of acquirement, the higher the grade expected at the end of the semester, while the more difficult the evaluation method, the lower the grade.

The article emphasizes aspects regarding the perceptions of master accountancy graduates concerning the chances to find an adequate job at graduation. These preoccupations are relatively recent in the academic studies. The studentn#8217;s expectations are often unrealistic, which causes problems to them and also to the private firms and organizations. From the empirical section results that the studentsn#8217; evaluations regarding their own opportunities to get a job modify as they advance in the programme. Even more, this evolution is influenced by employment during the studies and by the professional experience.

The study shows the reasons taken into account by the students in choosing an academic preparation. Free courses and employment opportunities during or after graduation are the most important advantages students expect to receive from an educational program that aims to follow. The empirical section results emphasize the efficiency and performance of the master program financed by the European Social Fund. \\\\r\\\\n

The present research aims to highlight the importance of the external auditing in supporting corporate governance and the preference of the listed entities to be audited by the big audit companies. Given the proposed objectives of the research, our scientific method is based on a deductive approach from general to particular that combines quantitative and qualitative studies. The role of the external audit was analyzed by conducting a study of literature on two levels: a theoretical-conceptual level in terms of economic theories and an empirical-practical level based on literature from which we extracted through a content analysis the defining elements of the audit work quality. Falling within the scope of the study, we evaluated the preference of the listed entities to be audited by the Big Four. To this end we used the content analysis of the publicly posted audit reports for the period 2005-2009. Our research results show that although we are a country with an emerging capital market development, the entities in the I-st category on the Bucharest Stock Exchange tend to an audit conducted by one of the big audit companies. Another result arising from our study is that the entities of the I-st category on the Bucharest Stock Exchange become more transparent from a year to another. Whether for the year 2005 we find only 12 audit reports publicly posted, in 2007 we can find 21 audit reports publicly posted. The trend of the large entities audited shows that the preference of the entities to be audited by one of the Big Four is higher from a year to another. The preparation of the financial statements and their audit must be done according to regulations for the currently period. The presumption found in the literature according to which the large entities are audited by the big audit companies which provide higher audit quality is confirmed in the case of our national country as well.

The teaching performance is influenced firstly by the quality of the educational system. The universities are trying to raise the expectations regarding the methods used for evaluating the teaching quality. In order for the results to be as much as credible the evaluation must defer to the existing theory and to follow the standardized procedures, starting from some basic principles. The most used framework is represented by the 3P model which contains three parts: 1. The input (factors that come under the students and the professor) 2. The learning process (activities focused on learning, teaching methods, practical ability, individual study) 3. The outcome (the output of the learning process).This study presents some results of a questionnaire based on the existing economic theory and applied to a sample of master business students from Romania. The students were asked to give grades from 1 to 5 to several aspects related to the educational process. These aspects took into consideration the following: if the didactic activity was interesting for the students/ the relationship between the objectives of the course and the activity evolved/ the clarity of the presentations/ the degree of students' participation required by the teacher/ the methods and materials used/ the availability of the teacher. The average grade is 4.39, indicating a very high level of satisfaction, taking into account that the grades ranged from 1 to 5. For 50% of the students, the average grade was below 4.53, while for the other half it was above the specified value. But one has to see the value returned for the majority of the students. The mode equals 5, meaning that most of the students involved in the analyzed programme are extremely satisfied with the quality of the educational process. With a significance value Sig. = 0.004 /_ 0.01, we can state that there is correlation between the level of satisfaction expressed by the average grade and the number of classes missed by a student, at a confidence of 99%. The value of the Pearson coefficient is -0.213, which shows the existence of a weak reverse connection.

The assessment of a significant ascertainment made by the auditor is particularly sensitive which shapes the quality of a mission as a whole. Materiality plays a primary role in determining the relevance of information provided by the users of financial statements. This material highlights the role of qualitative factors in determining materiality, as far as many practitioners are accustomed to consider this item only in terms of quantitative factors. Although legislation does not set precise rules in determining materiality, the issue is necessary because decisions of the auditors and users of audited information hang on this item.

Who owned which books 250 years ago? This question stands at the centre of this investigation, which is based on the analysis of inventories, a widely spread source used in the research project Reading in the Alps. Taking data from the district court at St. Michaelsburg in the South Tyrolean Puster valley between the years 1750 and 1800, the author examines the inventories in order to explore historical questions about private book ownership. He presents some preliminary findings and refers to an earlier pilot study in order to discuss the methodological problems bound up with the material. These include questions as to the correlation between financial standing, gender, occupational status, and book ownership on the one hand, and issues relating to identification and classification of the literature named in the sources on the other. The article thus provides insights into new empirical research at the micro-historical level regarding book-ownership and readership in a Roman Catholic dominated alpine district on the eve of the modern era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last IPCC report predicts warmer and drier conditions for the future European climate and the Mediterranean basin could be highly sensible to future climatic change. In order to investigate how the forecast more stressing factors could affect Mediterranean shrubland ecosystems, an appropriate manipulation of the microclimate was carried out in an area covered by Mediterranean maquis aimed at extending the drought period and increasing the night-time temperature. Soil cover, plant growth, litterfall, leaf water status, and leaf nutritional status were monitored over three growing seasons. The manipulation altered the microclimate according to common scenarios, increasing mean annual night-time air temperature by about 1 �C and mean annual temperature by about 0.5 �C, and decreasing precipitation between 6-46% of the total rainfall during the growing seasons. A general increase of vegetation cover was observed in the whole community during the three years of experimentation. This positive temporal pattern was mainly observed in control and warming treatment, whereas in the drought treatment it was less evident. At species-specific level, a clear negative effect of drought treatment was observed for C. monspeliensis percentage cover. Shoot elongation was not significantly affected by the warming treatment. A significant negative effect of drought treatment was noticed in the 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 growing seasons. An increase of N and P concentrations in the drought treatment in Cistus was observed and it can be explained by the reduced shoot growth induced by the water shortage that we had observed in the same treatment. The absence of a concentration effect on the other two species could be the signal of the different behaviour with regard to a drier climate, and therefore could be a symptom of future change in species composition. We underline the need of long-term observation, because of the different responses of plants in the short and long- term conditions.

Neste artigo o autor pretende mostrar como as reflexões filosóficas de Giordano Bruno sobre a retórica foram fortemente influenciadas pelas concepções metafísicas e metodológicas de Raimundo Lúlio. Para tanto, são analisados especialmente os escritos de Wittenberg, Artificium perorandi e De lampade combinatoria, onde Bruno discute a aplicação dos princípios do lulismo através da utilização da metáfora dos caracteres e da hierarquização do cosmos, bem como da operacionalização de um processo combinatório na construção de proposições e argumentos

Este artigo examina a sociedade utópica esboçada na nova Atlântida de Francis Bacon. As interpretações modernas costuman afirmar que ela é, de modo geral, caracterizada por influências cristãs. Essa compreensão é questionada e uma interpretação alternativa é discutida. Bacon emprega um sistema complexo de indicações veladas, símbolos e alusões com ambiguidades. Isso sugere que não há um único pano de fundo filosófico, religioso ou cultural para sua sociedade utópica. Portanto, eu sustento que a identidade social da nova Atlântida é baseada num sincretismo intercultural (e, não, numa ideologia predominante cristã)

This paper addresses the issue of accessibility to written information in cultural spaces for people with intellectual disabilities (ID). The main goal is to present a process aimed at creating Easy-to-Read (EtR) texts. Two groups of participants with different levels of ID – moderate (N=7) and severe (N=7) – have been actively involved in the process of simplification of written resources within the Natural Science Museum, site in Trieste. We analyze the process that serve to create EtR textual resources functional for people with ID showing different levels of reading and comprehension abilities. By using an Inclusive Research approach, the contribution underlines the importance to include the voice of people with disabilities in the process of transformation of social and cultural spaces. Accessibilità alle risorse testuali per le persone con Disabilità Intellettiva all’interno degli spazi culturali Questo articolo affronta la questione dell’accessibilità alle informazioni negli spazi pubblici per le persone con disabilità intellettive. L’obiettivo principale è quello di presentare un processo volto a proporre comunicazioni comprensibili e informative supportate da testi semplificati. Due gruppi di partecipanti con diversi livelli di disabilità intellettiva – moderata (N=7) e grave (N=7) – sono stati attivamente coinvolti nel processo di semplificazione delle risorse scritte all’interno del Museo di Scienze Naturali, sito a Trieste. Il disegno di ricerca è un metodo misto che comprende la raccolta di dati sia quantitativi che qualitativi volti ad esplorare criteri di leggibilità e comprensibilità delle risorse testuali considerando diversi livelli di semplificazione. Il contributo sottolinea l’importanza di includere la voce delle persone con disabilità nel processo di trasformazione degli spazi sociali e culturali.