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Currently, most tourist destinations in the world are establishing strategies to develop the culinary identity of their territories and to promote local cuisine, based on the fact that gastronomy can have a great influence on the decisions of tourists in choosing tourist destinations. Therefore, the gastronomic specificity of a destination can attract tourists interested in authenticity, specificity and new experiences from a gastronomic point of view. The gastronomic businesses are some of the most successful businesses, and this is due to a constant demand, which is based on ensuring the need for food. In Romania, the concept of local gastronomic point was recently introduced. The purpose of the local gastronomic points is the integration of gastronomy and tourism in order to support the local economy. The local gastronomic points can be seen as an invitation to discover the local products, prepared in the Romanian rural kitchens. The local gastronomic points meet the gourmets, the people interested in gastronomic experiences, eager to know and enjoy the specific dishes of the local cuisine, the traditions and customs of the locals, the culture of food preparation. The gastronomic heritage on the Romanian territory is rich and varied, and represents an element of the Romanian cultural identity. Gastronomy, as part of the national cultural profile can be an engine in the development of the local economy, through local gastronomic points, and involves the practice of gastronomic tourism. In this article, the authors aim to present the current situation of local gastronomic points in Romania and their importance in the development of gastronomic tourism.

The processes of growth, development and formation of production are determined genetically. They take place permanently under the influence of environmental conditions and agro-phytotechnical cultivation interventions. The objectives of this study were to analyze certain quantitative characteristics of the landraces of garlic from Timis county and Arad county, taken into study that can be useful for garlic production. This study shows us the fact that the landraces from Timis county, in terms of the quantitative characteristics bulbs weight and cloves weight, have the highest values, and the landraces from Arad county, namely the one from Ineu, stood out with a higher value for the number of cloves from the bulbs.

This study aimed to explore and compare Polish and Romanian students’ opinions towards the integration of learning games in Higher Education subjects and to highlight the improved soft skills by participating in learning games. This article reports the results of a quantitative study that was designed to explore and compare the opinions of 103 students from 2 universities towards the integration of learning games in the Project Management subject. The students ranked 71 items found in the questionnaire in 7 scale questions. The items are presented in the form of skills that can be developed by participating in educational games and aspects that are important in Project Management. In the analysis of the data, the T test—two sample test—was used, and the nonparametric Wilcoxon rank-sum test, using the SAS Studio application to assess whether the average responses are different between the two groups (α = 0.05). There were significant differences in the case of some items related to the skills that can be developed by participating in two educational games (communication, empathy, awareness, problem-solving, work productivity, and time management), but also items that help students understand the importance of some aspects related to Project Management after participation in educational games (work productivity, team dimension, time management, and following request).

Urban horticulture has to respond to several challenges, including reducing the growth vigor of the scion/rootstock combination, adapting the cultivated species/variety to the pedoclimatic conditions—more varied in recent years, and increasing tolerance to diseases and pests that cause extensive qualitative and quantitative damage to fruit production. For this experiment, 15 old apple varieties were chosen, all known and cultivated in the Banat area, which were grafted on the MM106 rootstock. Several parameters were analyzed that can be used for a relevant classification for planting them in limited spaces, such as in a private garden. Our research started 10 years ago and has already resulted in a doctoral thesis that extensively presents the data taken from the initial biological material and the first two years after grafting the trees; the research continued and is still ongoing in the experimental orchard. From the multitude of aspects studied, we have chosen to present some results related to the vigor of the scion/rootstock combination, the quality of the fruits, their content in acidity as well as the behavior with respect to diseases and pests—results that can be useful to those who want to grow old apple varieties in their own garden. Growth vigor was reduced in most varieties, but the highest influence of the rootstock on growth was observed in the ‘Bănățenesc’ variety, followed by ‘Jonathan de Munte’ and ‘Caslere’. Grafting and agrotechniques had a positive influence on the fruit mass in all cultivars, except ‘Crețesc’, with an experimental average of 163.35 g, namely 60.56 g higher on average than that of the original biological material. After grafting, the SSC was between 10.05 °Brix in the ‘Curcubătoase’ variety and 18.48 °Brix in ‘Parmen Auriu’, with an experimental average of 14.96 °Brix. The fruit acidity oscillated between 0.13 g/100 g in ‘Florănești’ and ‘Pătul’ varieties and 0.46 g/100 g in ‘Domnesc’, with an experimental average of 0.25 g/100 g.

(1) Background: The water content and the way of bonding in the food matrices, including bread, can be easily and simply evaluated by Karl Fischer titration (KFT). The goal was to identify the main KFT parameters that influence the similarity/dissimilarity of commercial bread products, using multivariate statistical analysis. (2) Methods: Various commercial bread samples were analyzed by volumetric KFT and the water content, parameters from titration process and KFT kinetics were used as input for principal component analysis (PCA). (3) Results: The KFT water content was in the range of 35.1&ndash, 44.2% for core samples and 19.4&ndash, 22.9% for shell samples. The storage and transportation conditions consistently influence the water content of bread. The type of water molecules can be evaluated by means of KFT water reaction rates. The mean water reaction rates up to 2 min are consistently higher for bread core samples, which indicates a high fraction of &ldquo, surface&rdquo, water. PCA reveals the similarity of core samples and various bread types, as well as dissimilarity between bread parts, mainly based on KFT kinetic parameters. (4) Conclusions: KFT kinetics can be a useful tool for a rapid and simple differentiations between various types of bread products.

In the world, population growth phenomenon is accentuated, being estimated an increase of 30% over the next 40 years, leading to more than 9 billion people by the year 2050. In this period, mankind will face a exploitation without preceding of its natural resources, them being finite. There will be significant climate change, loss of biodiversity, increasing pressures on the environment, threatening, thus, the stability of living systems. In this context, Europe needs to change the manner of approaching to production, consumption, processing, storage, recycling and disposal of biological resources. Bioeconomy is the key element for smart growth in Europe, aspect pointed out in the Europe 2020 strategy adopted by the European Commission. This strategy is based on the Seventh Framework Program for Research and Technological Development (FP7) and the EU Framework Program for Research and Innovation (Horizon 2020). Bio-economy represents a cost savings in using the soil and sea biological resources, including the production of renewable biological resources and conversion of those resources and waste to value-added products (food, feed, bio bioenergy). Bioeconomy include sectors like agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food industry, as well as parts of chemical industry biotechnological and energetic. Bioeconomy relies on life sciences, agronomy, ecology, food science, social sciences, biotechnology, information and communication technologies and engineering. The bioeconomy support granted in the European Union offers many opportunities for Romania. Through bioeconomy specific approaches, the bioresources production potential in Romania could be exploited. Developing and implementing new solutions for better exploitation of this Romanian potential requires a significant investment in education and research. For Romania, the bioeconomy is a chance, an objective for a more innovative economy, smart, low emissions and with more sustainable use of renewable resources.

One of the main problems of the world in the coming years is food security. The main problem of agriculture in the future is not only to produce more, but to do so in a sustainable way. European Innovation Partnership called "Productivity and sustainability of agriculture" aims to provide a working interface between agriculture, bio-economy, science and other disciplines at national, regional and EU level. European Innovation Partnership is a new concept that was introduced in Strategy Europe 2020 of the European Commission. In this document, the Commission underlines the role of research and innovation as key elements in adapting to future challenges of the European Union. This partnership will also serve as a catalyst to increase the effectiveness of actions related to innovation supported through rural development policy, EU research and innovation. It has been identified two main objectives for the European Innovation Partnership: promoting productivity and efficiency of agriculture and durable agriculture sustainability in all Member States. It aims to create a better cooperation between research and agricultural practice, namely farmers. Through National Program for Rural Development 2014 - 2020, can be financed such initiatives, through Measure 16, sub-16.1 - Support for the establishment and operation of operational groups of the EIP for agricultural productivity and sustainability and sub-16.2 - Support for pilot projects and development of new products, practices, processes and technologies. The purpose of these sub-measures is to support the establishment of operational groups between partners coming from research: research institutes, research stations or centers, higher education institutions that have research in agriculture or which can be applied in agriculture and agricultural producers (farmers, companies, cooperatives and producer groups). Development and innovation activities would enable farmers to capitalize on joint the produced products, to adapt production to market requirements, have better access to inputs, equipment, credit and marketing, to optimize their production costs, create short supply chains and handle with various market challenges.

The goal of the present study was the evaluation of the fatty acid (FA) profile of lipid fraction from dry common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) (CBO) harvested from North-East (NE) and South-West (SW) of Romania and to protect against thermal and oxidative degradation of the contained omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) glycerides by β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) nanoencapsulation, using kneading method. The most abundant FAs in the CBO samples were PUFAs, according to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. Linoleic acid (methyl ester) was the main constituent, having relative concentrations of 43.4 (±1.95) % and 35.23 (±0.68) % for the lipid fractions separated from the common beans harvested from the NE and SW of Romania, respectively. Higher relative concentrations were obtained for the omega-3 α-linolenic acid methyl ester at values of 13.13 (±0.59) % and 15.72 (±0.30) % for NE and SW Romanian samples, respectively. The omega-3/omega-6 ratio consistently exceeds the lower limit value of 0.2, from where the PUFA glyceride mixture is valuable for the human health. This value was 0.32 (±0.02) for the NE samples and significantly higher for the CBO-SW samples, 0.51 (±0.01). These highly hydrophobic mixtures especially consisting of PUFA triglycerides provide β-CD complexes having higher thermal and oxidative stability. Kneading method allowed obtaining β-CD/CBO powder-like complexes with higher recovery yields of >70%. Thermal analyses of complexes revealed a lower content of hydration water (3.3–5.8% up to 110°C in thermogravimetry (TG) analysis and 154–347 J/g endothermal effect in differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis) in comparison with the β-CD hydrate (12.1% and 479.5–480 J/g, respectively). These findings support the molecular inclusion process of FA moieties into the β-CD cavity. Attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) analysis reveals the formation of the β-CD/CBO inclusion complexes by restricting the vibration and bending of some bonds from the host and guest molecules. Moreover, powder X-ray diffractometry (PXRD) analysis confirm the formation of the host-guest complexes by modifying the diffractograms for β-CD/CBO complexes in comparison with the β-CD and β-CD + CBO physical mixtures. A significant reduction of the level of crystallinity from 93.3 (±5.3) % for β-CD to 60–60.9% for the corresponding β-CD/CBO complexes have been determined. The encapsulation efficiency (EE), the profile of FAs, as well as the controlled release of the encapsulated oil have also been evaluated. The EE was >40% in all cases, the highest value being obtained for β-CD/CBO-SW complex. The SFA content increased, while the unsaturated FA glycerides had lower relative concentrations in the encapsulated CBO samples. It can be emphasized that the main omega-3 FA (namely α-linolenic acid glycerides) had close concentrations in the encapsulated and raw CBOs (13.13 (±0.59) % and 14.04 (±1.54) % for non-encapsulated and encapsulated CBO-NE samples, 15.72 (±0.30) % and 12.41 (±1.95) % for the corresponding CBO-SW samples, respectively). The overall unsaturated FA content significantly decreased after complexation (from 19.03–19.16% for the raw CBOs to 17.3–17.7% for encapsulated oils in the case of MUFAs, and from 55.7–58.8% to 35.13–43.36% for PUFAs). On the other hand, the omega-3/omega-6 ratio increased by β-CD nanoencapsulation to 0.51 (±0.07) and 0.76 (0.26) for β-CD/CBO-NE and β-CD/CBO-SW complexes, respectively. As a conclusion, the lipid fractions of the Romanian common beans are good candidates for β-CD complexation and they can be protected against thermal and oxidative degradation in common beans based food products such as functional foods or food supplements using natural CDs.

Globally, the concern for the environment is continually growing, among travel and tourism industry operators. Each unit hotel has its identity, its characteristics, and therefore, it is necessary to use and apply specific information about the environment, so as to create their own proactive environment protection policies. It must be performed an overview of environmental issues affecting the company and the performance that it has. Each unit hotel policy must be based on actual consumer demand for tourist services - as an active and conscious part - along with unit staff. Environmental action planning of a hotel unit has to go through several stages. The preparation of environmental actions of a hotel unit, involves biological control, which should help in making decisions on the most important measures that would benefit. Implementing the concept of environmental management in the hospitality unit requires including and taking the following steps: motivation, actions planning, analyze their performance and progress. They form an annual cycle of environmental management, which will go each year, to identify both the difficulties that have arisen and achievements and recommendations for the future.

Organic production systems are based on specific and precise standards of production, pursuing the achievement of optimal agro-systems, easy to sustain in terms of social, environmental and economic. Organic production systems plays a dual social role, because, on the one hand provides for a specific market that is responding to consumer demand for organic products, and on the other hand delivers public goods, contributing to environmental protection, animal welfare and rural development. The main goal of organic agriculture is to optimize the health and productivity of interdependent communities of soil, plants, animals and humans, providing new guidance of agricultural diversification in a general context of protecting the environment and promoting the development of sustainable agriculture. In 2013, the continent with the largest organic cultivated surface was Australia / Oceania, over 17.3 million, up to 5 million hectares compared to 2011, followed by Europe with 11.4 mil. Ha, Latin America - 6.6 million ha, Asia - 3.4 million ha North America - 3.0 million ha and Africa - 1.2 million ha of the 43.1 million total hectares grown in organic management system, almost two thirds are permanent pastures (27 million hectares), followed by agricultural land area totaling 10.9 million ha (arable land - 7.7 million ha permanent crops - 3.2 million ha).

The sustainable development is a process taking place at the same time with the complex and sustainable agricultural development; agriculture and the rural area being interdependent sides specific to rural communities. When analysing economic activity in the rural area we should pay a particular attention to the identification of such alternative activities that have a real chance for development and create new jobs that compensate the diminution of labour occupancy degree in agriculture. Opportunities of rural economy represent a source of having alternative income for the population from rural communities in order to escape from poverty and in order to accelerate the social progress in the rural area. Alternative activities with economic, social and cultural impact, providers of jobs and incomes are: the development of agro tourism and rural tourism, processing and promoting foodstuff, local traditional drinks, ecological foodstuff, handicraft and silviculture. Improving the conditions for business in the rural area is a main condition for the generation of economic activities generating jobs in the rural area.

The decreasing total population has had major repercussions on the labour force market as well. The difficulties that Romania’s South-East Region has to deal with characterise the whole country and have arisen as a result of the decline in the active and employed population. In the South-East Region, the dynamics of the active population decreased – as it did at national level – from 1,276 in 2004 to 1,240 thousand people in 2009. The declining trend affects both the population structure on residential areas and on sexes. The reduced active population is an obvious sign of a low activity rate with long-term effects on the economy of the region. On analysing the structure of the active population on residential areas, one can notice a slight increase in the urban active population: 708 thousand people in 2009 compared to 694 thousand people in 2003. However, the rural active population is decreasing permanently, 732 thousand people in 2009 compared to 586 thousand people in 2003. A significant decline was also visible in the employed population both at regional and national level: from 1,151 in 2004 to 1,151 in 2009. The regional and national dynamics of the employed population on residential areas is decreasing chiefly because of the decline in the rural employed population, which decreased with 20,000 people from 2009 to 2004. In the past years, the urban employed population has increased from 626 thousand people in 2004 to 642 thousand people in 2009. In 2009, the distribution of the employed population on activities of the national economy in every county of the South- East Region underlines the sectors with the highest share of employed population in the following order, in thousand people: agriculture (304), processing industry (225), trade (138) and construction (101).

The present paper is presenting some statistics relating to knowledge in the field of information technology and communication. Data presented were taken following the processing of 63 questionnaires. Questionnaires have tried to include a higher sphere on IT & C knowledge of the persons interviewed, from what is known as a simple user of programs considered usual, passing over aspects of knowledge minimum hardware and ending with the e-commerce. The study revealed a basic knowledge that allow writing, technical, calculations, surf the Internet and transmitting/receiving e-mails. In other areas (accounting, databases, CAD etc.), only those who work day by day in that domain, have knowledge about the software. The situation is the same at hardware chapter, where the vast majority of persons interviewed are not interested in this type of knowledge, even though in most cases would save time and money. The situation is worse in rural areas, depriving here very often even the knowledge base. However, compared to previous years, there is a knowledge increase and a bigger interest for IT at rural level.

In the past years, the population of the West Region has experienced a decline, under the mixed influence of the different level of the natural growth, domestic migration flows and intense external migration. The demographic and economic effects of the reduced young population will be felt in time and will lead to changes in subpopulations (school population, fertile age population, employable population). The effects of the demographic aging process upon the development of the economic and social life have been felt after 2005, when the generations born after 1990 joined the employable population. The transition to the market economy has had a strong impact on the characteristics of the labour market, causing significant changes in the size and structure of the main labour force indicators (activity rate, employment rate, unemployment rate).

From the perspective of human development indicators during the past 15 years, Region North-West has undergone a series of negative processes, which are the most significant demographic decline due to negative natural growth and increased migration of people, especially those assets. Region North-West faces a negative demographic trend, with life expectancy of 71.38 years, the national average (72.22 years) with high external migration, especially of highly qualified workforce. Analysis of employment trends of population in Region North-West shows a downward trend and projections for the development for years emphasized the decrease in employment. Estimates on the evolution of the population in Region North-West during 2005-2013 reveals a total population decreased by 4.2%.

The global organic market is increasing constantly, organic sales reaching over USD 5 billion per year. Organic Monitor estimates that international sales amounted to about USD 38.6 billion in 2006, more than the double of USD 18 billion in 2000. The organic demand is concentrated in North America and Europe, these two regions comprising 97% of the global revenues. The European organic food and beverage market is the largest and most complex in the world, evaluated at USD 20 billion in 2006. Many European countries offer grants to organic farms to support organic production. This production-oriented strategy will have guaranteed success if the market structures and the marketing channels will be able to face the rapidly increasing demand and if the sellers adapt their products, sales channels and prices to the consumers’ demand.

The trends of the main demographic phenomena provide useful information about the future evolution of the number and age structure of Romania’s population. The mutations in the social-economic structure of the country have led to a dynamic territorial mobility of the population; at the same time, they have direct consequences upon the socio-demographic structure of the population. In the past years, demographic migration has become a common fact. The young and mature population migrates from the rural to the urban environment, motivated by the living and working conditions in the urban centers. Consequently, the remaining rural inhabitants are mostly old-aged. The aging of the rural population is also caused by a series of demographic and social-economic factors. The economic effects of the demographic evolution will be seen in time and will bring about changes in the various subpopulations (school children, fertile population, inhabitants able to work).

The „EUROP” grading system supplies the opportunity of generalising pork quality in the E.U. The market price of Romanian pork carcasses in 2009 has some characteristics depending on quality classes. Among member states of the E.U., Romania ranks 9 from the point of view of the share (4.0%) of establishing market price for pork carcasses. In Romania, in 2009, they graded over 2.8 million pork carcasses, but only about 2.3 million made the object of commercial transactions as carcasses. The price of pork carcasses in Romania in 2009 varied between 554,840 Lei/100 kg carcass in the Dobrogea County and 872,633 Lei/100 kg in the Arad County, the pondered average being 662,736 Lei/100 kg of carcass. If the price of pork carcasses in Romania is lower than that of other E.U. member states, their quality reaches the level of the most performing states in the field of pork. Romanian experience and tradition in the breeding and exploitation of swine are now, together with the implementation of the EUROP system, considered as most valuable.

Study during college is different from high school and differ for students from day one in from distance learning. What teachers expect from students is to learn more on their own, and themes/activities/projects are usually much larger. Much of the learning process is related to the use of computers and e-learning platforms. As discussed, it is important to know the skills in IT&C, in the area where potential future students will be selected. The present paper is presenting some statistics relating to knowledge in the field of information technology and communication from year 2009 to 2011. The data presented are the result of processing more than 100 surveys annually, from the west side of Romania. Questionnaires have tried to include a higher sphere on IT & C knowledge of the persons interviewed, from what is known as a simple user of usual programs, passing over aspects regarding minimum hardware knowledge and ending with the e-commerce. The study revealed a basic knowledge that allow writing, technical, calculations, surf the Internet and transmitting/receiving e-mails. In other areas (accounting, databases, CAD etc.), only those who work day by day in that domain, have knowledge about this software. The situation is the same at hardware chapter, where the vast majority of persons interviewed are not interested in this type of knowledge, even though in most cases would save time and money.