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The paper presents results of a risk analysis of forest fires at county level, based on published statistical data of period 1976-2000 (”Health condition of the forests în Romania”) and different methodologies to assess the fire risk of forest stands using the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and a methodology integrating GIS techniques. The global fire risk model, based on the cumulated ranks on the analyzed period, indicated a very higher risk for forests in the south-west and south-east of Romania (the counties Caraș Severin, Gorj, and Tulcea, Constanța respectively), while other eight counties were included in the higher fire risk category. Among the models of fire occurrence based on SPI, the higher variance was explained by the cumulated value of SPI in winter, spring and summer (44%). The method based on ranking scores considered six main factors contributing to the occurrence of forest fires - vegetation type, distance to forest edge/roads, maximum temperature, maximum moisture, historical occurrence of forest fire, based on which is provided a 5 - class risk system. This method is extended further by using GIS tools, which could provide mapped information on the forest fire risk.

Aspects of flood occurrence on the Vedea River. This study addresses several aspects of floods on the Vedea River, located in the Central Romanian Plain, located between Olt and Argeş rivers. Data recorded in the most important hydrological stations (Buzeşti, Văleni, Alexandria) along the Vedea River were used, for a period of 40 years (1970-2009). Flood generating conditions, their typology and parameters were analyzed. Cavis software developed by specialists from INHGA Bucharest was employed, in order to draft the flood hydrographs and calculate the floods parameters. Also, we calculated the multi-annual and seasonal frequencies of flood occurrence. There are two main conclusions emerging from specific analysis. First, the most floods occur in late winter and early spring while the least are specific to autumn season. Second conclusion is that the highest flash floods recorded along the Vedea River are associated to heavy rainfall periods and they occurred in late spring and early summer.

To make a mechatronic prototype is essential to make firs a printed circuit board. Making a single board (prototype) in a factory would cost a lot, for this reason, it’s needed to be found a method by which this can be done at home without any problems. A highly precise method is presented in this project. With this method by applying a layer of photoresist on the board and by exposing it to ultraviolet radiation with a mask, printed circuit boards can be made at home easily. The same method is used in the production of printed circuit boards. To make it possible to achieve printed circuit boards using this process, it is needed a source of UV (ultraviolet) radiation controlled by a countdown timer, named ultraviolet exposure box. The project contains the exact description of the method and the manner of building an exposure system.

Venturia inaequalis is a known pathogen for long time as causing apple scab disease or black spots. The extent of the disease expression highly depends on apple cultivars, the presence in orchards of host plants of the pathogen, climatic conditions and agricultural practices. Today it becomes more important to broaden the access to more diverse genetic resources in order to improve the breeding programs including for apple varieties. The scope of this article is to analyse how much are affected apple trees by apple scab in the traditional orchards of Sibiu, Fântânele. These orchards are maintained without any pesticides, only traditional practices being applied for more than 30 years. Therefore, we consider that this hot-spot of apple diversity can be a valuable pool gene for further breeding programmes in Europe. Based on our results we can conclude that ‘Belle de Boskoop’, ‘Winter Pearmain’, ‘London Pepping’, ‘Batul Alma’, ‘Edelborsdorfer’, ‘Boiken’, ‘Yellow Bellflower’, ‘Reinette Ananas’ and ‘Reinette Baumann’ are among the best resisting cultivars against this disease. ‘Golden delicious’ is obviously the most susceptible apple cultivar against V. inaequalis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The resistance of apple tree cultivars (Malus domestica Borkh.) towards different pests and diseases is relevant for the today breeding programmes. In this respect it is important to access genetic resources from gene banks as well as from traditional apple pools. In Romania such orchards are not very often today but certain remains from the XVIII century can be found especially in Transylvania. The scope of this article is to present the incidence of infestation with apple powdery mildew (i.e. Podosphaera leucotricha) for 24 old apple varieties found in Fântânele, Sibiu County. Among the 937 investigated apple specimens, in four different landscape subunits for a three consecutive years (i.e. 2014, 2015, and 2016) three varieties proved to be extremely sensitive (i.e. Golden delicious' 'Grosse Casseler Reinette' and 'Jonathan'). On contrary local varieties proved to be resistant. Also 'Boiken', London Pepping', 'Edelborsdorfer', 'Reinette Ananas', 'Gustav', 'Astrachan Rouge', and 'Red Delicious' proved to resist to the attack of apple powdery mildew. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relations between the frequencies of the tree species in the natural regeneration represent an easy and useful way to study the trends in changing the composition of the forests. One of the most widely held expectations of vegetation response to warming is that altitudinal belt of vegetation will move with the altitude. This change appears to be occurring more evident in the spruce belt of the Carpathians Mountains. The study investigated the change in the composition of the future forests in an area dominated by Norway spruce stands, based on observed trends in the natural regeneration. Tree species presence and competition capacity were quantified using the index VID (Value of Dendrological Index) calculated as sum of the frequency percent of tree species in number (N), basal area (G) and regeneration layer (R). The participation of silver fir in mature stand composition was about 20-30% at altitudes between 900 and 1200 m. Over this altitude the presence of silver fir in stand composition decreases sharply. For the beech, the mean frecquency of participation in stand composition varies between 8% at 1000 m altitude and 15% at 1200 m altitude. In the regeneration layer spruce participate in a proportion of 70% at altitudes lower than 900 m. This proportion increases to over 80% at altitude over 1300 m. Silver fir presence in the regeneration layer is much more lower than spruce, with a mean percentage of 40% at altitudes between 1000 and 1200 m. Beech participates in the regeneration layer with a proportion of 20- 25% at altitudes of 1200 m. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Silver fir decline have been monitored on the north-eastern slopes of Obcinele Bucovinei (NE Carpathians). The number of diseased tree has increased with the slope insolation degree, stand age, and silver fir rate in the stand composition. Healthy tree rate has increased with the altitude, slope, structure complexity, and stand density. Correlation intensity is higher if the data are classified on size classes of the same factors. The main equations of multiple regression which allow a good estimation of the frequency of silver fir trees of different damaged classes (y1 … y3) and the frequency of trees of NE Obcinele Bucovinei function of relief characteristics (y4) have been synthesize. Distribution maps of the estimated frequency for NE of Oriental Carpathians have been realised with the help of the regressions based of relief characteristics (altitude, aspect, slope declivity). Altitude domain of regression equation validity is between 400 and 1200 m. Estimative values for the points situated on altitudes that get out of this domain are not statistic assured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seasonal rainfalls have a large influence on tree radial increment variability of the dominant species from plain and hilly zones (51.7% on common oak of Ştefăneşti / Danube Plain, respectively 44.2% on sessile oak and 81.3% on European beech of Mihăieşti / Getic Plateau, in all cases more relevant being the precipitation from autumn to spring). Rainfall influence on tree increment is less important in mountain areas: 23.1% on European beech of Fundata / Transylvanian Alps (with a peak in summer precipitation) and 18.4% on Norway spruce of Rarău / Oriental Carpathians. Pollutant fluxes (nitrates, ammonium, sulphur) have diffuse low role on wood increment variation (with rare local exceptions: sulphur in Ștefănești, nitrogen on grass land of Mihăești). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scale development of new technologies in agriculture, introducing new types of machinery and equipment as well as the global trend of widespread use of tractors, both in agriculture and in other economic sectors, this has led to a great diversity types of tractors. The expansion of agriculture in all geographic areas (mountains, hills) and as fierce need for mechanization, made it impossible to use power sources (tractors) because the boundary conditions of access and stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simpler foot orthoses allow the muscles, tendons and bones of the feet and lower legs to function at their highest potential. When appropriately prescribed, these orthoses can decrease pain and increase stability in an unstable joint, along with preventing potential progression or development of a deformity. Improved quality of life often results from the application of the principles of orthotics. In this paper the authors provide some models of virtual prototypes of orthoses device for foot rehabilitation where enforce some law of motions for optimizing the real motion for a healthy food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a lot of aspects regarding the usage of modern technologies, such as virtual prototyping and digital mock-up, in mechanical systems engineering (the components of the virtual prototyping platform, the connections between them in a prototyping scheme, and the virtual prototyping phases, respectively). Finally, using the MBS software ADAMS of MSC, licensed to DPR Department, the virtual prototype of an agriculture tractors is developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Right hepatic artery aneurysms are rare events that might remain asymptomatic for a long period of time. However, in cases presenting large lesions, symptoms might develop especially due to the association of compression of the surrounding elements. Most often these symptoms and signs include diffuse abdominal pain, jaundice or portal vein compression signs. In rare cases life-threatening complications might develop due to the aneurysmal erosion of the biliary duct, portal vein or due to the aneurysmal rupture in the peritoneal cavity. In all these cases emergency surgery is imposed. We present the case of a 66-year-old patient diagnosed with a partially thrombosed right hepatic artery aneurysm compressing the common bile duct who was initially submitted to a percutaneous arterial embolization of the aneurysm in association with an external biliary drainage; three weeks later the patient presented a fulminant upper gastrointestinal bleeding exteriorized through the external biliary drainage, hematemesis and hematochezia. The patient was successfully submitted to surgery, intraoperatively a synchronous rupture of the portal vein being revealed. The right hepatic artery aneurysm was resected en bloc with common bile duct resection and segmental portal vein resection. The continuity of the portal vein was re-established through the interposition of a cadaveric allograft, the common bile duct was anastomosed with en Roux en Y limb while the right hepatic artery aneurysm was ligated and resected, the arterial vascularization of the liver being provided by the left hepatic artery., (Copyright© 2017, International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. George J. Delinasios), All rights reserved.)

The occurrence of hepatic artery aneurysms is rare and might be incidentally diagnosed, as the patient remains asymptomatic for a long period of time. However, due to the fact that these lesions are associated with a high risk of developing life threatening complications, such as intraperitoneal rupture, it has been stated that all cases should be submitted to treatment by endovascular or surgical approach. We present the case of a 68-year-old patient, who presented with recurrent upper digestive tract bleedings and was diagnosed with a large aneurysm of the common and the proper hepatic artery, and the gastroduodenal artery. The preoperative angiography revealed an anatomic variation consisting of the common hepatic artery originating from the celiac trunk, and the left hepatic artery originating from the left gastric artery. A percutaneous right portal vein embolization was performed in order to induce hypertrophy of the left lobe and prepare the patient for a right hepatectomy and aneurysmal resection. However, at the time of surgery, after performing the aneurysmal resection and arterial ligation, the vascular supply of the entire liver was efficiently provided by the left hepatic artery and its collaterals. Concluding, hepatic resection was no longer necessary., (Copyright© 2017, International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. George J. Delinasios), All rights reserved.)

Background: Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal malignancies and is associated with a very poor overall survival. However, it seems that the only curative option remains an aggressive surgical approach capable of obtaining a radical resection. Unfortunately, this desiderate is even harder to be obtained when it comes to pancreatic tumors with vascular invasion., Case Report: We present the case of a 65-year-old patient who was diagnosed with a cephalopancreatic tumor invading both the portal vein and the superior mesenteric artery., Results: Whipple procedure was performed with portal and superior mesenteric artery resection; the continuity of the portal vein was established by an end-to-end anastomosis, while the superior mesenteric artery was re-implanted in the infra-renal aorta., Conclusion: Due to improvements of surgical techniques and postoperative management, the postoperative morbidity and early mortality significantly decreased and enabled the surgeon to perform ultra-radical surgery with better outcome., (Copyright© 2015 International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. John G. Delinassios), All rights reserved.)