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The article presents abstracts of conference papers related to technology and innovation management. "Deploying Intellectual Capital for Architectural Innovative Capabilities," by Mohan Subramaniam; "Exploring Industry Implications of Organizational Learning," by David R. King; "The Fragility of Knowledge Sharing: A Behavioral Approach," by Georg Von Krogh; "When Do Acquisitions Facilitate Technological Exploration and Exploitation?," by Paul Almeida.

The article presents a section of abstracts on conference papers in Health Care Management. They include "Understanding Mental Health Treatment in Primary Care with Patient-Physician Interaction Data," examining the mental health treatment process; "Vertical Integration Between Community Hospitals and Nursing Facilities," about resource dependancy theory; and "Downstream Integration and Competitive Strategies in the US Pharmaceutical Industry," regarding vertical integration.

This section presents abstracts of operations management conference papers. The research 'Theory and Tool of Linking Business Strategy and Manufacturing Strategy,' intends to add to the theory building work by examining the following three relationships concerning the formulation of manufacturing strategy. First, the role of the formulation of manufacturing strategy in the alignment between business objectives and manufacturing missions; second, the role of the formulation of manufacturing strategy in the changes of manufacturing performance towards the business objectives; and last, the role of the formulation of manufacturing strategy in the transition from manufacturing missions to action programs. The research 'Operations Management for Professional Services: Developing Flexibility in the Knowledge Economy,' challenges criticisms with a series of propositions for professional services firms, based on a flexible manufacturing paradigm. The paper 'Building Process Improvement Capacity' focuses on the means by which process improvement capacity is developed, and, indeed, how it can be practiced. Building theory from exploratory case studies, it proposes that building process improvement capacity is an intermediating process that structures experiences of process improvement in order to maximize learning.

This section presents conference paper abstracts on technology and innovation management. An empirical study of organizational cognition in semiconductor manufacturing and process development presents evidence that learning in high technology industries can be leveraged. Prolonged, sustained investments in learning at a relatively constant level may generate highly non-linear surges in performance, but performance deteriorates as market windows close. A model of capability reconfiguration is developed in order to explain the responses of incumbents to technological change. Substitution, evolution and transformation are identified as three mechanisms of capability reconfiguration that entail different costs. The choice of reconfiguration mechanism is linked not only to the nature of technological change but also to the attributes of capabilities. The geographic concentration and co-location of university research and industrial research and development in three technological areas, such as medical imaging, neural networks, and signal processing are examined. Another paper examined the relationship between interdivisional knowledge transfer and organizational innovativeness in the context of the diversed firm.

This section presents abstracts of conference papers related to business policy and strategy. These include "Competitive Advantage in Transition Economies: Exploring Organizational Capacity for Change," discussing competitive advantage in developed countries, "A Changing of the Guard: Executive and Director Turnover Following Corporate Earnings Restatements," on corporate earnings restatements, and "Balancing Exploration and Exploitation in Alliance Formation: A Multidimensional Perspective."

The section presents abstracts of studies regarding organization development and change, including an examination of Saudi Arabia and Oman, focusing on human capital utilization deficit and knowledge-authority mismatch, a conceptual framework for examining the adaptation of strategic collaborations between firms within an evolving multi-context environment, and a study that examines how managers perceive contextual elements as either complementing or supplementing their existing and future strategic choices.

This section presents abstracts of several business policy and strategy conferences held in the U.S. as of August 2003. 'Complementary Resources and the Prediction of Post-Acquisition Performance,' by David R. King, Rebecca J. Slotegraaf, Idalene F. Kesner and Tom Lenz shows that acquisitions, on average, do not improve firm performance. 'Exploring Competing Motivations Behind the Acquisition of High-Technology Targets,' by David R. King represents a significant contribution by demonstrating conflicting findings in existing merger and acquisition research may result from alternate motivations behind merger and acquisition activity. 'Strategic Inertia Determinants: Analyzing the Size, Middle Manager, and Competitive Intensity Mix,' by Willie Edward Hopkins, Ajay Menon, Christian Homburg and Shirley Ann Hopkins, revisits firm size as a determinant of strategic inertia. 'Restructuring in Japanese Companies: Foreign Ownership, Strategic Investments, and Firm Performance' by Parthiban David, Toru Yoshikawa and Abdual A. Rasheed shows that foreign ownership leads to reduction in research and development and capital expenditures as well as improvement in performance, especially for firms with high free cash flow that are likely to have the most severe agency problems.

PLM systems are key enabling systems in the development of today's products. Introduction of a new PLM capability is an expensive and risky undertaking. Many implementation projects end in tears in the sense that they are frequently late or even cancelled. In this paper, a federated PLM architecture pattern – Genesis – is introduced and evaluated against prevalent PLM approaches. From an architecture perspective, Genesis with its two distinct integration tiers decrease the number of integration points and thus cost and complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents abstracts of research on gender and diversity in organizations. One entitled "Gender Inequalities in Earnings Among Israeli Lawyers: Does Discrimination Still Exist?," examines the income gap between male and female Israeli lawyers. The analysis employs an exhaustive set of measures that includes human, social and psychological capital as well as occupational segmentation. The study, "Universal Diverse Orientation (UDO) in the United Kingdom and the United States: A Comparative Analysis," examines the role of gender and race on diversity attitudes in Great Britain and the U.S.

This section presents abstracts of several studies related to organizational behavior. Michael Humphreys and Andrew D. Brown argued that a narrative approach can assist researchers in their efforts to analyze organizational identities and sensemaking processes, as political maneuvers designed to legitimate certain interests while marginalizing others. Jenny M. Hoobler investigated whether abusive supervision may be a behavior not necessarily aimed at a specific subordinate, but instead the result of a displeasure by a supervisor with his or her organization. Hwee-Hoon Tan, Maw-Der Foo and Min-Hui Kwek proposed that customer traits play a part in the service encounter. Violet Ho adopted a dyadic-level perspective to examine the impact of social influence on employees' perceptions of psychological contract fulfillment. Kelly L. Zellars and colleagues used survey responses from restaurant employees and their supervisors to investigate linkages between the justice perceptions of employees and organizational citizenship behavior. Greg R. Oldham and Markus Baer proposed that employees exhibit creativity at work when conditions are present that facilitate both the generation of creative ideas and the sharing of these ideas with others.

The article presents abstracts on organization and management theory topics which include differences between Convention Theory and New Organizational Institutionalism, the relationship between status and uncertainty, and the people variations in networks that can affect organizational performance.

The article presents abstracts on operations management topics which include differences in operations management research agendas of North America and Europe, structural ambidexterity in high technology organizations, and the effects of asset specificity and trust on inter-company knowledge sharing.

The article presents abstracts on human resources topics which include training and competence development during organizational change, the relationship between discretion and turnover intentions, and the management of resources in the impression management process.

The article presents abstracts of international management topics which include the role of personal values in job choice, international research and development networks in the consumer electronics industry, and immigrant entrepreneurs' bicultural identity integration and social capital creation.

The article presents abstracts on health care management topics which include the role of managed networks as an organizational form in British health care, the management of hospital physician relationships, and racial disparities in patient care.

IoT devices that perform translation are often closed proprietary systems which offer no, or very limited, possibilities of being freely integrated with other IoT devices or systems/platforms and cannot be easily updated. The objective of this paper is to offer a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) approach to find and synthesise articles on IoT applications in machine translation and potential integration and interoperability functionalities, along with challenges that arise from it. This research identified IoT based projects/devices that implemented machine translation solutions, including ones that resorted to lowcost devices such as the raspberry pi, as well as challenges faced by IoT devices when it comes to integration/interoperability. The findings in this paper provide a way to become more familiar with IoT based machine translation devices/projects and IoT integration/interoperability challenges, as well as proposing new paths for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces an approach addressing the transition from choreography to orchestration. As far as validation method is achieved through the use of model-checker. We are interested in various levels of transformations. Initially, the process of transformation is based on a set of heterogeneous business protocols. This unit will consequently provide a choreography as result, which unifies them. Then, this choreography will be transformed into an orchestration. Thus, coherence between choreography and orchestration must be checked while showing the relation of conformity between these two different composition models. Indeed, this passage is accompanied by a verification phase. A set of properties will be preserved, the ones, which refer to the choreography and others, which are relative to those checked by the orchestration. Towards the end of this process, and in order to validate the transformation, we must check the maintained properties. This checking will be illustrated by the use of the model-checker, which depends on the properties. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents abstracts on organizational behavior topics which include the congruence effects of leaders' and followers' proactive personality on follower work outcomes, the stress-performance relationship within a combined stress-justice framework, and the influence of abusive supervision and organizational factors on organizational citizenship behaviors.

Cybercriminals constantly seek new methods to infiltrate a company's defences, making cybersecurity investments essential. Enterprise architecture (EA) provides a systematic risk detection and mitigation process by emphasising the interdependencies between systems, data, processes, people, and other factors. This paper provides a comprehensive approach, also referred to as a process, based on EA to assist African universities in developing a comprehensive cybersecurity plan. The EA process comprises four pillars: business architecture, data architecture, application architecture, and technology architecture. African universities can develop a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy using an EA approach in cybersecurity to achieve institutional goals and objectives. The potential attack surface comprises isolated EA components and their interconnections. This article comprehensively examines various EA processes such as business, information, application, and technology architecture. These processes are carefully analysed to evaluate the organisational structures and uncover opportunities to enhance security protocols. Additionally, we delve deep into abstract security patterns, seeking to cultivate an environment of trustworthiness within complex systems. Our research findings underscore the significant potential within African higher education institutions. By embracing a model-based approach to risk analysis and mitigation, these institutions can fortify their cybersecurity defences and bolster their capabilities to ensure uninterrupted business operations and enhance overall resilience in the face of evolving security challenges. When we combine EA and information security (ICS), we uncover many vulnerabilities malicious actors might exploit. By embracing a holistic EA-based methodology, institutions can craft and implement robust security protocols to safeguard their components and connections. Leveraging EA, our proposed integrated approach aims to forge a comprehensive cybersecurity risk management strategy tailored to the African higher education sector. This strategy seeks to facilitate the identification of critical elements and their intricate interrelationships, thus formulating an effective defence strategy against potential cyber threats. The synergy between EA and cybersecurity within African universities promises to elevate cybersecurity practices, ensure uninterrupted business operations, and fortify the continent's resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the past decade, there has been a massive development of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in the world and South Africa. The increase in the number of SEZs has not impacted the integration of the South Africa Development Community (SADC) as witnessed in Asia. Why other regions leverage on SEZs as a tool for regional integration, South Africa and Africa are not doing the same. This paper examines the literature review through the conceptual synopsis and the used qualitative analysis statistical method tool to reveal the data needed. Its qualitative methodology reveals the information on SEZ experiences of developed, developing, transitional, Africa, South Africa and current trends. In exploring the experiences, gaps are identified and new knowledge is developed on leveraging SEZs as a catalyst for integration of a regional bloc (South African Development Community). The paper evaluates SEZ experiences in order to find ideas for integration of South African Development Community (SADC) that could lead to free flow of goods and services. The experience highlights that South Africa SEZs do not consider regional bloc integration through their SEZ plans and establishments. This could be aligned to weak strategies and policy developments. The examination of the experiences also broadens the knowledge of SEZ infrastructural planners, and managers in SADC to begin to treat SEZs' knowledge as they treat any other infrastructure and economic element of the urban realm. It calls for a shift from the current "plan-demanded" mode of segregated SEZ for country's development to regional block integration for the benefits of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historical determination of the Republic of North Macedonia for integration into the collective systems, NATO and European Union is the highest national goal with strategic importance which lasts for about three decades. This paper aims to provide a detailed historical overview of our country's NATO integration path from becoming a part of Partnership for Peace to full membership of the Republic of North Macedonia in NATO, which will happen earliest at the forthcoming meeting of Foreign Affairs Ministers of NATO in Brussels on 02nd and 03rd April 2020. Besides analyzing the work of NATO done so far and the forthcoming NATO activities in the field of dealing with military and non-military security threats and providing suggestions and methods for more effective dealing with the above mentioned modern security threats, one of the main point will be the implementation of a full membership of the Republic of North Macedonia as 30th NATO member state. The main hypothesis and also the focus of our paper will be: "Analysis of the integration path of our country in the European Union". This will be based on an analysis of the documents from strategic importance of the European Union and an analysis of the forthcoming new methodology for admission and status for becoming a full member state of the European Union. Our aim is to make a historical and comparative analysis of the European Union members from the region of Southeast Europe (the Republic of Slovenia and the Republic of Croatia), with the countries which are currently in process of launching accession negotiations with the European Union such as the Republic of North Macedonia and also with integration process in EU of Southeast European countries, some of which already have candidate status (Albania, Montenegro, and Serbia). The final goal of this paper, based on an analysis from the reports of the European institutions and agencies, will give an overview of the possible dates on which the accession of the above-mentioned countries from the region of Southeast Europe to the EU will be realized, if they carry out all necessary reforms on the basis with forthcoming new methodology for accession to the European Union and given timeframe from the European Commission for implementing all necessary reforms for each Southeast European country aspiring for membership in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The implementation of a monetary union in Europe, to take full advantage of the Single Market’s potential benefits, has not hitherto delivered the expected results. On the contrary, the euro area has been afflicted by many troubles, including anemic growth, unemployment, and inequality. Many blame the euro’s defective design, and especially its incapacity to promote economic convergence and provide adjustment and stabilization mechanisms. The latter view prevailed when shaping the austerity policies imposed on the countries more affected by the financial and sovereign debt crises, intensifying an economic recession with dramatic social consequences. Citizens’ distrust in the European Union’s institutions grew, along with support for nationalistic political forces opposing the European integration project. Some of EMU’s needed reforms will both promote convergence, and help smooth economic activity and maintain citizens’ wellbeing when crises occur. The creation of an autonomous budget for the euro zone was mentioned in a European Commission discussion paper on the future of the EU. This is an eminently political matter, very sensitive to domestic public opinions. In fact, the existence of a budget for the euro zone, in recognition of the fact that this subset of EU countries has specific needs, distinct from those of other non-EMU members, would translate into a situation requiring the design of different budgets within the EU. Such issue is at the heart of the intense debate between holders of different views concerning the future of the EU and of the euro zone, especially in what concerns the question of which of these geometries will in the future be the engine for further economic and political integration in Europe. This paper assesses one of the main deficiencies of the euro’s governance model – lack of automatic stabilization – and discusses proposals to overcome it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article signals the need for an integrated approach to curriculum development and implementation with a focus on a group of disciplines related to the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC). By highlighting various teaching approaches of LOAC, I argue that there is a risk that LOAC be perceived by many non-legal practitioners, like the cadets, as difficult to grasp, interpreted and corelated with real situations they will face daily in operations, exercises or even during execution of routine peace-time duties. I support the idea that the LOAC, as a horizontal discipline in a military academy curriculum, need to be integrated dynamically, both horizontally (in relation to other operational disciplines) and vertically (along the academic path of a military cadet) into the overall construct of learning the basics of the profession of arms. To operationalise this finding, I propose an integrated educational model that suggests horizontal coordination of the academic schedule and enhanced cooperation among the teaching staff of the relevant disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to explore the barriers to integrating sustainability into construction project management in developing countries. To this end, a comprehensive review of the literature is conducted, as a result of which a list of 30 barriers is culled from existing studies. The list of barriers is subsequently assessed in terms of relative importance index (RII) through a survey questionnaire administered to Iranian construction industry experts, resulting in a dataset of 176 completed questionnaires. Findings bring to light the most influential barriers to incorporating sustainability in construction projects for a developing country. These were: (1) lack of understanding of the potential selfbenefits of proactivity and high economic risks that unsustainable practices may carry, (2) inadequate assessment of risks and a silo-based approach, namely, insufficient cooperation among practitioners, research institutions and environmental organisations and (3) the lack of a systematic approach to planning and acting for the fulfilment of sustainability goals. As one of the first studies in its kind, the paper offers invaluable insight for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers, in supporting the transition of construction project management practices towards fulfilling sustainable development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors of this work generated and examined the principles of integrating architecture into nature in urban planning. The aim of the paper is to study how the abovementioned principles have been formed in the theory of architecture and urban planning. Since ancient times humans have been looking for ways of consolidation with nature, because rational usage of landscape, water resources and environment was one of the most important conditions of comfortable life and sometimes even survival. However, as civilization and technology were developing, the process came to the point when the habitat created by man began to substantially influence nature. This caused people to think, firstly, how to stop or minimize the influence, and secondly, how to make the habitat more nature-friendly, which would help to “humanize” it. Since the 19th century many experts who specialize in the theory and practice of architecture and urban planning, together with scientists of other fields, have been trying to solve this problem, which is becoming more and more relevant. A lot of researches, papers and proclamations were dedicated to the issue. It is worth mentioning that different concepts described in them often contradict each other. Something that the scientists of the beginning of the 20th century thought would help to achieve the goal does not seem (and is not) right nowadays when the world has changed. In this paper we are going to examine some aspects of the following architectural and philosophical concepts: Garden city movement, Athens Charter by Le Corbusier, The Disappearing City by Frank Lloyd Wright, the Ideas by Lazar Khidekel, architecture of Metabolism, New Element of Settling, modern theories of sustainable development (works by Jane Jacobs, Smart Growth, Sustainable Urbanism, New Urbanism and the others), contemporary conception of eco-cities, Biophilia by Edward Osborn Wilson and Humane Cities by Karsten Pålsson. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this era of information and communication technology boom, applying this advancement to all areas is a matter of course. This is a general tendency for technology integration into foreign language teaching at universities and schools in Vietnam. Following this trend, this paper reports the results of a study investigating teachers’ beliefs about the effectiveness of technology application in English teaching at the university level. Two research instruments were a questionnaire and an interview. The results indicate that all participating teachers realized the significance and the trend of implementing technology into education and the advantages it brings to foreign language teaching and learning processes. These teachers, nonetheless, confessed their shortage of technical knowledge and skills and were satisfied with the sufficiency of technology equipment in the classrooms. Interestingly, despite these concerns, these teachers are still willing to apply technologies to their future teaching and strengthen their technology skills by self-learning and hopefully through professional training courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the grand and ongoing challenges in the STI sphere is the searching for balance between market needs and production possibilities. This task can be solved by applying different methods, including technology roadmapping (TRM) and quality function deployment (QFD), which are one of the most essential approaches. Even though these two methods have been widely investigated in the literature both separately and under integration, there is the lack of comprehensive QFD-TRM studies that consider market-product perspective as well as global and national agenda and provide the basis for decision-making. To fill in the gaps we developed a methodological approach transforming "customer voice", global challenges and trends into strategic actions system at the sectoral level. In this paper integrated QFD-TRM approach for particular sector is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When integrated within an organization, Design Thinking (DT) can be the foundation of competitive advantage. However, systematic assessments of how DT is diffused in practice have received limited scholarly attention. In this paper, we present and apply a visual model developed to assess, describe, analyze and plan the roles DT can assume within organizations based on localization and application diffusion archetypes. The application of the model to 547 organizations of different sizes and industries gives insights into the current state of the role and diffusion of DT within organizations. Patterns, current frontiers, and shifts are analyzed across all organizations by industry type and by firm size allowing for a nuanced, empirical view into the role and diffusion of DT in practice. We provide practitioners a useful tool to map and benchmark their organizations, analyze, plan and communicate the role of DT, and guide future DT researchers seeking practitioner-relevant insights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: In the paper, we will provide detailed research on hospital information systems integration to national health record system. The main problem discussed in the paper is the complex integration process of EHR. Business processes are too complex and too much coupled. The result of it - medical doctors spent too much time for creating needed documents for the patients, they make too many mistakes because they are lost in the process and every interrupt in national health record system affects their work process. Finally, because of the many tightly integrated components, the system is not as reliable as expected. OBJECTIVE: The main goal of the paper is to describe effective business process-based architecture of hospital information system integration to national electronic health record system. METHODS: Scientific business process analysis of health care information systems were made and new EHR integration architecture were proposed and described. Number of daily statuses were collected from event logs recorded between September 1, 2017 and February 1, 2018. Data were divided into 2 week time intervals and number of daily statuses in time intervals were compared with the Kruskal-Wallis test. Data were presented as mean and 95% confidence intervals. A P value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: The proposed EHR integration architecture was analysed detailed and statistical information was provided. After implementation of improved business processes mean number of daily successful statuses per 2 week increased from 80.9 (95% CI 53.6 - 108.2) to 193.5 (95% CI 129.3 - 257.7) for stationary epicrisis and from 551.4 (95% CI 333.8 - 769.1) to 1012.3 (95% CI 588.4 - 1436.2) for ambulatory description. CONCLUSIONS: The statistical analysis of the event logs showed that implementation of improved business processes influenced in increased successful number of stationary epicrisis and ambulatory description documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the recent decade the world economies have been passing an unprecedented pace of globalization and integration. It displayed itself through internationalization of business activities, cross-border integration of capital and labor markets, international transfer of technologies and knowledge. One more indivisible component of such global and integrating processes is world integration in field of higher education, which in combination with transfer of technologies and knowledge is called upon to shift the world society from information-based structure to knowledge-based one. Introduction of single study curriculums, acceptance of common system of credit transfer and accumulation, implementation of standardized evaluation methods - all of these are core attributes of integration of universities from individual countries into world system of higher education. In this context integration of universities from emerging market economies into world system of higher education requires special attention. Higher education in countries of emerging markets due to relatively poor quality of local legal and regulatory institutions but high growth rates of such economies introduces a set of challenges and opportunities for its counterpart in mature economies. In particular, on the one hand, there is growing demand on the side of prospective applicants from countries with emerging economies for bachelor and master degrees granted by universities from countries with mature economies, which implies substantial requirements for quality of prior education received by such applicants in their home universities, and, on the other hand, there is a growing supply of research opportunities in all fields of study offered by national governments and universities from countries with emerging economies for prospective scholars from universities in countries with mature economies. Higher education in emerging economy of Ukraine is not an exception. Despite being a recent member of Bologna process and prospective candidate for association with EU, Ukraine has a system of higher education which suffers traditional drawbacks of emerging markets economies, like absence of unity and coherence of existing study curriculums, partial acceptance of common system of credit transfer and accumulation, adherence to individual evaluation methods. However these drawbacks are fully compensated by profound, industry-oriented preparation of highly qualified specialists in technical fields of science by Ukrainian universities for relatively low costs. In light of stated above, the paper aims to evaluate the degree of integration of universities operating in Ukraine into world system of higher education and derive policy implications for its further enhancement. For this purpose a unique dataset of 200 public and private universities operating in Ukraine will be compiled and key indicators will be estimated and compared with corresponding averages for EU and other emerging market economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries change their education systems in order to make them more inclusive. Yet, the way inclusion is understood and implemented, varies greatly. This paper describes key elements of inclusive policy in Slovenia. The policy is evaluated against Haug's three stages of the development of the concept of inclusion and Opertti, Walker and Zhang's four core approaches that prevail in the international arena. Research method adopted is document analysis. The analysis builds on Olivera's concept of the second-degree use of the comparative data. The findings indicate that Slovenian policy primarily reflects a human rights-based understanding of inclusion, focused on students with special needs. The author aims to provide a foundation for further comparative research on inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to international construction literature which deals with issues on providing services or products in alien environment, this paper investigates exogenous market changes and respective consequences. Authors recognize the phenomenon in case of market integration process. That trend affects Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region heavily in case of politically induced market integration. Market integration induces substantial change in business logic which is presented through an empirical case study. Authors comment on integration process in light of organizational readiness for larger, mature market as well as mechanisms that companies use to adapt to new business environment. This paper aims to help understand the influence of institutional change over industry through the strategy lens. Empirical evidence shows the importance of industry change readiness where reactive instead of proactive strategy endangers long-term sustainability of local firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Key tourist resources in the Danube tourism destinations in Serbia (DTDs) are identified for integrated and sustainable tourism development. Based on the attractiveness of these tourist resources, the paper proposes a differentiation of the tourism destination into three high-level tourist areas. The paper proposes criteria and priorities for activating and achieving the integrated and sustainable development of tourism on the Danube. The paper points out that priority should be given to improving the presentation and development of the interpretation of tourist resources in order to achieve the potential level of their attractiveness, as well as developing a wide range of activities, integrating and diversifying the tourist offer of DTDs, and increasing the accessibility of DTDs. As the existing institutional arrangements are among the causes of the unattractive and undeveloped tourist offer, improvements in the management of the DTDs are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The principal objective of this paper is to analysis of current SME situation in the Post-Soviet Countries, state policy, supporting programs, financial support, finding similarities and differences in post communistic legislative features, institutions, economic systems, understanding positive and negative sides of these differences and their affect on SME activity. The paper analyses a situation of one-way integration mode and information flow and outlines an existing gap in SMEs management approach. In order to succeed on international markets, it is needed to build up a network of awareness and information exchange between major actors such as SMEs, public and business support institutions, academia and other players. The article relates the key attributes of factors directly connected to SMEs and integration as well as concentrates on how SME could benefit from a closer regional economic integration through information exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study reveals the problem of higher education internationalisation. Definitions of the main concept "internationalisation" presented by various researchers are given. Also different criteria of a modern university's degree of internationalizing are presented in the study. The main aim is to design a model of internationalization strategy applicable in the Russian institution of higher pedagogical education. We take the German Strategy as an example. Germany is the country that attracts students from all over the world and actively participates in the process of higher education internationalisation. The paper may present interest for the researchers studying integration processes in the sphere of higher education, Comparative or Foreign Pedagogics and for the universities' international departments' staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigated the influence of network reconfiguration among inventors from acquired firms on their innovative performance. The management approaches that enhance their inventive performance after acquisition is not sufficiently understood. Drawing on social capital theory and exploration and exploitation views, we examined the role of two co-inventive partners on the individual’s innovation after acquisition. The first type is a new tie with the inventor in the acquiring company, and the other is an old tie with an existing partner with whom the individual had worked in the acquired company. Using patent data of a sample of 379 inventors in the U.S. semiconductor industry, we found that new partner improves the individual’s patent productivity, as well as explorative and exploitative patent generation; however, old partner only enhances exploitative output after acquisition. We also found that the combination of both partners is positively related to all types of innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of the prestigious Horizon 2020 MIICT: ICT-enabled services for migration innovation project. The project was conducted by a multidisciplinary team of technical developers, social scientists, lawyers, practitioners, and migration experts in three pilot countries of Cyprus, Spain, and Italy. The project focused on deepening societal understanding of the factors that impact upon refugee and migrant populations’ ability to access key public services and subsequently created an ICT solution to solve these problems. The project deployed a co-creation methodology, which proved essential when designing ICT solutions to aid migrant integration, enabling researchers to involve both the migrants and those assisting them in their migration journeys, namely NGOs and service providers in the study as co-researchers. The researchers, together with the participants co-designed a multilingual, intuitive, inclusive, interactive platform called IMMERSE that catered for the real needs of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. The innovative co-creation methodology deployed empowered migrants to be proactive and independent in their migration journeys and the resulting interactive platform created provides vital access to information and services like health, language, housing, employment, education, and legal assistance in a one-stop-shop design. This paper further highlights the lessons learned from the research, concerning the need for digital training courses to be implemented to overcome the digital divide and the inclusion of extensive legal and ethical protocols in migrant languages, to be integrated into the platform to counteract migrants’ fears of digital surveillance and create confidence and wider usage of the ICT platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finland-Russia relations have had a long history, but their development has not been smooth. In the second half of the 20th century the relations between the two countries were characterized as being special, whereas today these relationships are going through certain difficulties. The present paper analyses the causes of the difficulties. Finland put its relations with Russia in line with the EU common policy. Such a position resulted into a new type of relations between the two countries. The paper is based on the recent research works and follows the development of Finland-Russia relations. Such an approach to Finland-Russia relations is mainly related to Finland's attitude to the situation inside Russia. That attitude had been formed before the country joined the European Union. A new stage of trust in the relations between the two countries may solve an important problem of the Finnish foreign policy and guarantee a connection between Finland's policy in the European Union and bilateral relations with Russia. The above-mentioned leads to the idea of reviving "special relations" between Finland and Russia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of the presented paper is to research civil and political participation of migrants in the Slovak Republic in the location where they live. For the realization of this purpose, following tasks have been set: to define key concepts and basic legal standards regulating the investigated area, to analyze the statistical data on civil and political participation of migrants in the Slovak Republic through the Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic. Another task that the author sets to reach the goal is to identify the most common problems related to civil and political participation of migrants in the Slovak Republic. Research methods used in the paper: theoretical general methods of scientific knowledge - analysis and synthesis of available bibliographic references, their comparison. The major finding of the presented paper is to recommend proposal of qualitative - quantitative indicators of civil and political integration of migrants into the conception of integration of migrants in the Slovak Republic. In addition to quantitative - quantitative indicators, the author examines subjects which should in the state social policy be responsible for managing the quality of life of migrants in the area of examined participation. For the State, which wants to implement the integration policies towards migrants successfully, it is essential to identify the indicators of civil integration and political integration of migrants. We are talking about the challenges that member countries of the European Union along with Slovak Republic are currently facing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A city is a network of spatial, formal, programmatic, and social relationships. It is a contiguous construct of interdependent components; some are conspicuous while others are hidden. The facets of urbanity that are not very accessible through casual observation must be uncovered in the studies of place. Identifying and interpreting the systems of relationship that make up the urban environment is key to understanding the role a new piece of architecture might have within those existing systems. This paper proposes architectural design studio pedagogy that excavates the plan of the city to find the things we don't see, and understand the things we do. This pedagogy explores the capacity of a single piece of architecture to operate at an urban scale, informing the development of the city around it. Site diagramming confronts students with differences between documentation and analysis. Students must do more than simply read a map; they must interpret information to gain a better understanding of that which might not be immediately apparent. They are also faced with the prospect of differentiating between operations of a single intervention and interrelated networks of the urban fabric. Successfully mapping site requires that contextual information be synthesized into a substantive position regarding the role of architecture in the operational systems surrounding it. This paper will focus on a design studio pedagogy in which urban contexts are seen as a series of "disruptions" to an ordered field. New interventions to the field disrupt existing relationships and forge new ones. Reading and responding to the urban fabric requires an understanding of that which will be disrupted, as well as generate an architecture that can adapt to future transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The future of the Balkans lies within the European Union" - this is the central sentence of the European Council conclusions adopted at the Thessaloniki Summit in 2003. Today, almost two decades later, the Western Balkans are even further away from that goal. After mass membership in 2004, then Bulgaria and Romania in 2007, and finally Croatia in 2013, the EU obviously looks tired. Montenegro has entered the twelve years tenth year of negotiations, and the results are still halfway through. Serbia is experiencing the same fate. And other Western Balkan countries have been on "waiting tracks" for decades. Fulfillment of basic conditions for membership such as - stable democratic institutions, rule of law, respect for human and minority rights, functioning market economy, competitive capacities, etc. - seems to be stagnant. In much of the Western Balkans economies have remained underdeveloped, dependent on aid, loans and remittances, and prone to high levels of state intervention. No new memberships are expected to occur in the near future. All this creates depression in the region with many accompanying risks. In these conditions, the region should think about possible alternatives for speeding up the integration process, which would not be in conflict with the existing compatibility of the European integration process. Could it be the European Economic Area, assisted by the Berlin Process, Open Balkans (Mini-Schengen), CEFTA, etc.? During this paper we will use especially the methods of analysis, synthesis, comparison and history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last political and strategic developments gave the Romanian Army the mission to secure the NATO's South-Eastern airspace at a level that will assure an adequate cover for the units temporary or permanently deployed in the area of responsibility. The Romanian government together with the allied structures generated some measures to gradually increase the quantity and quality of the air defense means both in the field of the strategic cover and in the self-protection of the forces. The newest acquisition programs as Patriot, VSHORAD/SHORAD and Navy's SAM capabilities added to the existing Long Range / High Altitude ADS with its own close defense and the AD capabilities of the Naval Joint Battle-Groups deployed in the Black Sea will assure the base for the improved AD protection of the critical infrastructures, population and economy and military assets. The work-paper, following the previous contributions of the authors regarding the Romanian AD, comes to out light a vision about an area integrated multilayer AD system that can reach its full capability around the years 2024 - 2028. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Risk management and information security have become critical practices in both the federal and private industry space for organizations to identify risk and establish countermeasures to ensure information security implementation across all layers of an organization. To provide holistic security and greater value, organizations should look to integrate existing enterprise architecture practices into risk management and information security programs. This paper provides a cross analysis of the enterprise architecture levels defined in Federal Enterprise Architecture Security (FEA) and Privacy Profile (SPP) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Tiered Risk Management Approach to demonstrate how enterprise architecture and risk management integrate across the organizational strategy, business processes and IT (Information Technology) of an organization. Integration of enterprise architecture and risk management programs provide an organization the ability to define information assets, their relationships, identify risks and provide mitigations or countermeasures to result in a holistic security strategy to maintain enterprise risk and information security. To further exhibit the value of integrated risk management and enterprise architecture, this paper provides several examples of how the US. Department of Energy, Netflix and ShareFile use the integration of enterprise architecture and risk management programs to identify, mitigate and counter risks scenarios to ensure mission success. Enterprise architecture and risk management programs offer value to an organization; however the integration of these practices across the enterprise provides holistic information security and ensures organizations can achieve mission success in today's world of integrated IT and cyber threats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English words borrowed in Romanian are most often adapted so as to conform to the morphosyntactic rules of the recipient language. However, sometimes borrowings remain uninflected for Romanian grammatical categories, by not receiving the relevant suffixes for gender, number, case, and definiteness. These unintegrated forms are known in the literature as bare forms. The present paper analyses such cases of English-origin bare nouns and noun phrases in Romanian, and tries to explain the structural, social and functional mechanisms that trigger their appearance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper tackles the long-discussed processes of internationalization and globalization that is taking place in the sphere of higher education. The purpose of the research is to determine the underlying factors in students' choice of a university and a country of study. We carry out comprehensive evaluation of attractiveness of high education in the world according to the student mobility criteria. A research of English-language programs offering by the Russian top universities included in the QS World University Ranking has been also made. In addition, we have researched students' satisfaction with English-speaking educational programs (a case of Plekhanov Russian University of Economics). Research methods used by the authors while preparing this paper: deduction, comparative and structural-logical analysis, as well as method of focus group. Our findings show that the language spoken and used in the course of instruction is likely to affect international students' choice of potential destination countries. Moreover, the language of instruction is one of the most important underlying factors in students' choice of a university of study and instrument of integration into global educational space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper concentrates on a study of the cluster-based concept of regional economies development. It has been empirically proven that the cluster-based approach appears to be one of the most effective instruments for regional economic growth and businesses integration. The approach is premised on formation of territorial-industrial clusters within which a network of interacting private, municipal and state enterprises, organizations and institutions is setup which facilitates joint efforts to address particular economic issues, as well as necessary actions to effectively promote comprehensive development of the area. In the context of theoretical and methodological concept of the cluster-based area development strategy it is still vital to address the issue of working out a methodological toolbox designed to substantiate the formed clusters efficiency and forecast their performance. This paper presents a methodological approach to justification of both existing and potential clusters efficiency, which is outlined based on two proprietary techniques. The first technique involves an assessment of clustering potential based on a quick evaluation of economic potential of the core enterprises operating in the cluster. According to the first technique, the economic potential is suggested to be evaluated using the rating principle subject to an analysis of the main elements of the potential, in particular, manufacturing, financial and marketing. The second technique represents a set of tools designed to forecast the synergetic effect achieved through the integration processes running inside the cluster. The described methodological approach has been tested using the territorial-industrial cluster model of Nizhnekamsk Municipal District of the Republic of Tatarstan. Furthermore, the Nizhnekamsk cluster potential development factors have been investigated in order to give analytical justification of the cluster-based approach applicability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents models for short chains of fruits, considering integration as the main mechanism of coordination agents' activities on the chain. The research answer the question how efficient are activities of fruits' chain in this particular form of integrated activities of collecting fruits, store and process them in juices and jams and sell them to the market, in a single economic unit. The objective of the research is to assess the efficiency of such a business. In achieving this purpose, economic data regarding investment, production, revenues and expenses have been analysed, for an associative form of processing and selling fruits, which develops such a business. The results show that investment is feasible, because revenues are higher than expenses, the rate of return is 5%, and the return of investment is 5.66 years, less than the machineries' period of operation. The model is useful for farmers owning orchards, who want to apply for structural funds and to develop, as such, their business in the direction of integrating activities downstream the chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern enterprises use service-oriented architecture to accommodate business agility. One of the most important SOA standards is BPEL, because it provides a means to specify business processes and their interaction. In this paper we examine patterns that are related to BPEL or can be implemented in BPEL. The most important identified pattern types are SOA patterns, workflow patterns and integration patterns. We analyze these aforementioned sets of patterns, sort out and briefly describe patterns used for web service composition and patterns that can be implemented in BPEL. The main aim of this paper is to list existing patterns that are relevant to BPEL developers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The generative engineering is revolutionizing software development just as automation and componentization revolutionized manufacturing. Key technologies for the development of this approach are the model transformations and XML technologies. In this paper we show the contribution of these two techniques in the implementation of a learning management system generator which is multi-target and adaptable to different runtime environment, that we named LMSGENERATEUR. Our innovation introduces the basics of a new programming approach of virtual learning environments. This approach is based on generative programming that integrates the user specifications (abstract models) and technologies desired in order to produce bricks software, then put them together to produce a solution adapted to area and users' needs. In this paper, we present our approach, the implementation of our approach: LMSGENERATOR and these two phases of generation based on transformation model and abstract XML descriptions and we promote the idea that using this approach based on open business models, adaptable, and scalable to obtain open learning environments, adaptable, and scalable. Specifically, thanks to the generative programming, new technologies or new needs can be easily integrated at any time simply by changing the generators and their transformation rule. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]