PEDOLOGICAL STUDY OF LAND SUITABILITY IN THE AREA OF MAVRODIN TELEORMAN COUNTY, REGARDING THE ARRANGEMENT OF IRRIGATION WITH WATER FROM ZOOTECHNICAL COMPLEXES

The studied area is located in the center of Teleorman County, belonging to the Mavrodin cadastral territory, currently used as an arable land. The pedological mapping was performed with the purpose of identifying the soil area, assessing its fertility as well as the suitability for irrigation with wastewater. In this regard, a soil profile was opened and several surveys were collected from soil samples in natural and modified settlements, for morphological, physical and chemical analyzes. The soil type identified is red preluvosol. Geomorphologically, the land is part of the Roman Plain, the subunit of Burnaz, between the Danube Lunca, the Vedea, Teleorman and Calniştei valleys, extended west to the Teleorman river and the eastern limit of the county. The ground level is maintained between 8-10 m, with small fluctuations depending on the terrain. The type of soil identified, is classified in the luvisoluri class, having the following sequence of horizons: Ao-AB-Bt-C. The criteria for classification into classes, subclasses and other subunits of land according to the suitability to irrigate with waste water are those mentioned in chap. 10 from MESP, vol II (ICPA, 1987) with some additions. According to Annex 11.1 of the MESP, vol II (ICPA, 1987), the following additional criteria intervene in the selection of lands that can be irrigated with wastewater (soil type, soil texture, soil volume, soil thickness, erosion, soil unevenness, groundwater depth, excess surface moisture, other restrictions

Semiotic Aggregation in Deep Learning

Convolutional neural networks utilize a hierarchy of neural network layers. The statistical aspects of information concentration in successive layers can bring an insight into the feature abstraction process. We analyze the saliency maps of these layers from the perspective of semiotics, also known as the study of signs and sign-using behavior. In computational semiotics, this aggregation operation (known as superization) is accompanied by a decrease of spatial entropy: signs are aggregated into supersign. Using spatial entropy, we compute the information content of the saliency maps and study the superization processes which take place between successive layers of the network. In our experiments, we visualize the superization process and show how the obtained knowledge can be used to explain the neural decision model. In addition, we attempt to optimize the architecture of the neural model employing a semiotic greedy technique. To the extent of our knowledge, this is the first application of computational semiotics in the analysis and interpretation of deep neural networks

A Study of Institutional Change within the Romanian National Political Economy with a Focus on Elites, International Forces and Labour.

PhD ThesisRecognised shortcomings of the comparative political economy literature are its relatively static analysis and general bypassing of context-specific explanatory variables. The last 20 years of changes in the structural configuration of national varieties of capitalism have made it increasingly apparent that the comparative political economy literature has conceptual problems in relation to its ability to account for institutional change. This study seeks to provide an explanation for institutional change in Romania, by challenging and stepping away from the traditional elements of change of the comparative political economy literature. I revisit the question of the institutional transformation of a post-Socialist Central Eastern European (CEE) state, making the case for a more dynamic, relational, historically-based, context-specific and agent-driven analysis of institutional change. Drawing on five overarching literatures – varieties of capitalism, Polanyian varieties, economic geography, historical institutionalism and class analysis of elites – my thesis hypothesises the existence of elites, international forces and labour as the principal drivers of institutional change in Romania. In order to examine the unfolding of my approach to the study of institutional change, I designed a longitudinal comparative case study based on the examination of three Romanian sectors with distinct configurations in terms of their historical legacies, spatial and temporal vectors, and structure and composition. The three sectoral economies analysed in my thesis are 1) coal mining – an inward-oriented industrial branch representative of the Socialist regime, 2) auto – an industrial branch established in the Socialist regime with continuity in the newly-established capitalist variety through foreign direct investment, and 3) business services – an industrial branch created in the early 2000s through the inflow of foreign direct investment. The motivation behind implementing a case study was to generate an in-depth and extensive understanding regarding the processes of institutional formation and institutional change in the context of CEE through the utilisation of the Romanian national variety. I used a combination of 38 in-depth semi-structured interviews, archival research and newspaper articles and technical reports. My findings establish that the dominant elites have captured the Romanian state and its institutional configuration, and in the process, influenced institutional change across the different sectoral economies. My evidence shows that the dominant elites do not exist in a vacuum; instead, these social agents are situated within the institutional setting alongside other categories of actors with diverging roles and positionalities. International forces act as a force of change with which the domestic elites engage and interact triggering institutional change and transformation across the different spatial scales of the national political economy. More precisely, the presence of FDI produced variations in regional restructuring, driving path destruction (de-industrialisation and de-skilling) in coal mining, path re-construction (industrial upgrading and re-organisation) in auto and path creation in business services within the wider Romanian national variety of capitalism over time. The labour class can also act as a force of change with which the dominant elites engage and interact within the institutional context. However, the picture of labour is institutionally variegated across the different 4 spatial scales of the political economy, with some sectors such as coal mining and auto exhibiting a strong and coordinated labour model, whereas other sectors such as business services are characterised by a deregulated labour market model typical of liberal market varieties. Thus, labour can be driver of institutional change, although not as powerful as elites and international forces. My findings extend the emergent theory on the CEE region, as well as refine and add on to the existing body of knowledge regarding the Romanian national variety since its institutional framework is distinct and does not fully replicate the institutional configuration of the other CEE political economies. Furthermore, my findings recognise the importance of breaking the institutional structure into different spatial scales, as this allows us to zoom in on the different spatial configurations – the micro, meso, macro and international – at certain moments in time. At the same time, by conceptualising the institutional setting relationally, we can monitor and assess the different types of exchanges between the existing spatial scales and consequently, measure how they influence institutional change across the various dimensions of the national political economy

Study of the Variations in the Use of Hospital Services, Based on the Case Mix, in 2008 in Romania

The healthcare system copes with economic challenges worldwide, so the healthcare reform is a topic more important than ever for social policies. What do we get for our money? Is a question that raises more and more. It has been shown that more healthcare services does not necessarily mean a better health. Many countries focus of medical practice variations or health disparities. The collection of case mix data starting with 2003 in Romania made possible several studies concerning practice variations in Romania. The present article shows how these data can be used to provide accurate comparisons in geographic profile concerning the volume of services, territorial disparities and to hypothesize about the possible causes of practice variations. Key words: Hospitals, medical practice variations, territorial disparities, case mi

On the Kinetics of Sol Gel Al:ZnO Thin Films Crystallization on Silicon Substrate

Recently, there is a growing interest in applying ZnO thin films on silicon buffer substrates for p-n junction devices, optical wave guide, etc. A sol gel process is very attractive technique for obtaining oxide thin films, due to easy control of film composition, easy fabrication of large area thin films with low cost and the ability to coat-specific shapes substrates. This paper presents a kinetic investigation of the crystallization (550-650 oC) of high preferential c-axis oriented ZnO thin films on p-type (100) silicon wafer substrate, from XRD data

Photocatalytic Properties of Semiconductive Oxide Nanoparticles. From Fundamentals to Applications

Photocatalysis is a promising technology that demonstrated important applications in environmental systems such as air purification, pollution removal, self-cleaning and antimicrobial. Semiconductive oxides (e.g., ZnO, TiO2, CuO) are important photocatalytic materials that can act as sensitizes for light based redox processes due to their electronic structure, which is characterized by the conduction-band with electrons (good reductants) and the valence band with holes (powerful oxidants). Excitation of electrons from the conduction-band and valenceband holes can react with electron donors and electron acceptors adsorbed on the semiconductor surface and electric double layer around the particles. The band gap value determines the semiconductive behavior of oxide nanoparticles. The absorption of UV-Vis radiation is an important tool for evaluating photocatalytic behavior of the obtained semiconductive nanoparticles. In this paper we present the correlation between the band gap value, particle size and the photocatalytic activity of ZnO nanoparticles prepared via an aqueous solution chemical method

Automatic extraction of conceptual labels from topic models

This work outlines a novel system that automatically extracts conceptual labels for statistically obtained topics. By creating a projection of the topic, which is a distribution over all the vocabulary words, over the WordNet ontology we succeed in associating concepts to the said groups of words. The most important contributions of this paper are connected to the validation of the role of these concepts as topical labels and the determination of correlations that emerge between the utility of these labels and the strength of the relation between the concepts and the topics

Photocatalytical Activities of Manganese Doped Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles Prepared by Sol-Gel Method

In the last period, ZnO and doped ZnO nanoparticles are intensively investigated for their photocatalytic properties. This paper reports on ZnO and Mndoped ZnO nanoparticles obtained by modified sol-gel method. Were studied the structural and optical properties by using x-ray diffraction (XRD) data and visible absorbtion spactra. The photocatalytic activity of nanoparticles was investigated based on the degradation of the Methylene Blue (MB) dye solution. The results showed that Mn doping enhanced the photocatalytic activity of ZnO nanoparticles

Specialized Manual Therapy Techniques which Can Improve Neuromotor Outcome in Patients with Foot-Drop Syndrome

Introduction: Functional rehabilitation of foot-drop syndrome due to lumbar disc herniation it is a problem that concerns many researchers. Study objective was to investigate if specialized manual therapy techniques and functional electrical stimulation alone and combined can influence the overall neuromotor outcome. Methods: 90 subjects were randomized to 3 groups, 30 subjects allocated to control group (CG) which received physical therapy, 30 subjects in functional electrical stimulation group (FES) and 30 subjects in combined FES with manual therapy techniques (FES-MT). All groups received a number of 20 sessions. We evaluated nerve conduction study, dynamometry, goniometry, functional ankle disability index (FADI), Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) and Numeric Rating Scale (NRS). Results: For Compound muscle action potential we have found significant modifications when comparing FES-MT vs CG (p<0.011). For dynamometry we registered as follows: FES-MT vs CG (0.0001), FES-MT vs FES (p<0.003). ODI and FADI scores were more significant in FES-MT and FES compare with CG. Conclusions: Manual therapy techniques utilized for increasing the excitability of neuromuscular spindle can increase the overall functionality of the tibialis muscle in case of foot drop syndrome. The combination between FES and MT showed better functional results than physical therapeutic exercises and FES alone