Economic Security in the Black Sea Region

Berry Buzan and the Copenhagen School proposed three new dimensions of security in order to complete it’s the narrow political and military components. These are the economic, societal and environmental dimensions. The result is that economic factor came to be considered the building block of the other aspects of security. This idea is supported by NATO’s new strategic concept (defined in 1991) stating that security and stability have political, economic, societal and environmental elements; and also by the EU’s efforts of building the Common Foreign and Security Policy, were it applies economics, its strongest points, in the military security, one of its weakest points. Ensuring a country’s economic security considers the identification and management of dysfunctions, vulnerabilities, risks and threats to economic stability and strategic decisions independence concerning vital resources. The paper will attempt to analyze the implications of applying the concept of economic security in the Black Sea extend area and highlight the link between the development model and interdependencies in international cooperation.economic security; cooperation; Black Sea; energy

Romania trying to be an European brand

Building a coherent country branding program at international level requires a strong coordination between the government, the business sector, the decision makers from educational and cultural sector, the civil society and, the mass media representatives in any country. The paper presents the main efforts Romania has done to build a country image with a significant impact at international level. It focuses on the main policies and programs applied by Romania in the specific field of the national branding, offering a good analysis on the institutional framework and experience in promoting the country’s image internationally. The paper presents also the results of a research conducted with different local authorities (based on personal interviews) involved in the construction and promotion of a national brand abroad. The findings of the study provide opinions on the implications of the role of Romania’s country image in the European Integration process. A SWOT analysis on the Romania’s policy for building a European country brand completes the conclusions and the perspective on this particular issue considered to be important for a European Union integrating country. Finally, the paper makes proposals for creating a positive country image for Romania, a country that is in the process of redefining its position and its image at international level. Romania’s image will be considered from the perspective of the four dimensions defining a country image (tourism, exports, foreign direct investments and foreign policy), as well as from the perspective of building an integrated image abroad.Country branding, country image, policy making, European integration.

THE IMPACT OF ACCESSION TO THE EUROPEAN UNION ON PERCEPTIONS RELATED TO BUSINESS RISKS IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE. A DISTANCE-TYPE ANALYSIS

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of 2004 accession to the European Union on perceptions related to business risks in Central and Eastern European countries. The investigation makes use of the data provided by the Regular Reports on Global Competitiveness published annually by the World Economic Forum. Methodologically, our analysis requires the estimation of an average for the core of 15 member states of the European Union (EU 15) for each individual pillar considered to describe properly the business environment. In doing so, it is possible to measure the convergence – in terms of a distance-type analysis – of the new member states with the average of EU 15, prior and after the accession, comparatively. In addition, based on a k-means clustering technique, we investigate similarities between the same countries, as well as the convergence of different groups of countries with the group which contains this average.business risk, convergence, clusters, Eastern European Enlargement

Empirical evidence on risk aversion for individual romanian capital market investors

The evolution of stock prices is influenced by the expectations of investors regarding the earning prospects associated to each listed company. One of the key elements of investment decision is the positive relationship between risk and return. Risky securities are preferred to less risky ones only if there is a higher pay-off in the long run that could compensate the investors. The previous studies proved that expected return direct correlated with risk and, due to the presence of risk aversion, this relationship is assumed to be positive one. Risk premium is determined by a lot of factors including risk aversion. The intensity of risk aversion and the evolution of it during a specific period of time are very important for any market. This study proposed an analysis of risk aversion that is based on a specific survey and it is very useful for comparative analysis with other similar studies developed on the case of other emerging markets (from EU or outside EU).risk aversion, individual investor, Romanian capital market

The efficiency of polycentric development strategies in the context of economic crisis. Case study - the development of Southwest Oltenia region - Romania

Romania's polycentric development model was elaborated by the Interdisciplinary Centre for Advanced Researches on Territorial Dynamics within the University of Bucharest and by Urbanproiect SA. The elaboration of the polycentric development strategy is based on the human settlements' classification depending on their polarisation capacity and the designing of a polycentric network, able to ensure the territorial complexity necessary to the attenuation of negative impulses from the suprasystems' level. The world economic crisis may be considered the most powerful negative impulse after the Second World War, generating major disfunctionalities at the level of fragile territorial systems. The elaboration of some specific strategies, able to take into account the new challenges given by the global world, is an important preoccupation of the decision factors in order to increase territorial competitiveness

Raport privind controlul calită܊ii microbiologice a produselor farmaceutice veterinare în anul 2013

The microbiological contamination of pharmaceutical products could have major consequences on the physical – chemical characteristics, safety and efficiency of the medicinal products and also on the out of specification products recall-associated costs. Quality control of the pharmaceutical products should be a major objective for both the pharmaceutical industry as well as for the official quality control laboratories and the final results of these tests should provide most accurate data regarding the safety and the efficiency of the controlled pharmaceutical products. This report is presenting the results which were obtained in 2013 in the Microbiological Control Laboratory following the quality control of the products according to their pharmaceutical form and therapeutical class

Report concerning results of proficiency testing laboratory on assay of tobramycine and nystatin by microbiological method

The present study describes the results obtained by the Microbiological Control Laboratory from Institute for Control of Biological Products and Veterinary Medicines after participating in the proficiency testing scheme study on microbiological assay of nystatin and tobramycin. The proficiency testing scheme was organized by European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and Health Care. The microbiological method consisted of a cylinderplate agar diffusion assay using Bacillus subtilis ATCC 6633 for tobramycin and Saccharomyces cerevisiae for nystatin as the test microorganism. The means of results were 108.70 % of label claim for nystatin and 104.70%of label claim for tobramicin. The Z scores were 0.14 for tobramycin and 1.40 for nystatin, the assigned value used for booth samples was 105.4% for tobramycin and 101.7% for nystatin. The performance of Microbiological Control Laboratory was very good for both samples