Empirical Evidences on Foreign Tourist Demand Perception on Bucharest

Tourism is one of the most dynamic economic sectors, largely influenced by consumer’s perception and overall satisfaction. Tourism destinations are very complex being determined by many attributes. They are often perceived before the visit and confirmed or contradicted as attractive places by tourists’ experiences which determine their loyalty toward them. Our study depicts the incoming tourists’ perception upon Bucharest, the elements leading to it and the degree into which they are satisfied and would come back. Literature research, official statistics and a survey addressed to in-bound tourists were the main sources for collecting data, further on quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed using appropriate software solutions in order to detach a before and an after visit opinion on Bucharest. The research results show the fact that a dominantly negative perception on the tourist destination of Bucharest, formed before the visit, suffers an obvious post-consume change. As a consequence of their positive experiences during the visit most incoming tourists declare their intent to include Romania on their list of future holiday destinations. These results may be used by both academics and practitioners as a valid argument for further in-depth marketing studies and better oriented branding and promotional strategies aiming tourism development for Bucharest

METALS AND ORGANIC POLLUTANTS REMOVAL FROM WASTEWATER BY LOCAL LEMNA MINOR GENOTYPE

Lemna minor was collected from a local pond from the Floresti area, Cluj county. The plants were left for vegetative multiplication, and then analyzed in order to investigate their ability to reduce the pollutants from wastewater. The untreated wastewater contained high concentrations of As, Cd, Cr, Co, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb, Zn, Al, Ca, Fe, Mg, Na, low concentrations of Ba, Be, Ca, Fe, Hg, Li, Rb, Se, Sr, Sn, Ti, V and high levels of organic pollutants. The results showed that the Lemna minor genotype has a high potential to reduce the totally oxidizable organic pollutants from the wastewater with 65%. Lemna minor achieved high removal efficiency of Mn and Pb from wastewater. Also, the results demonstrate the impressive ability of the Lemna minor genotype to accumulate high concentrations of Na, Al, Hg and Fe compared to that of the control plants. Simultaneously, an antagonistic effect was observed in case of the Cu, Ni and Zn after the accumulation metals from the wastewater

Comparison Of Membrane-Based Pre- And Post-Combustion CO2 Capture Options Applied In Energy-Intensive Industrial Applications

Deployment of decarbonization technologies in energy-intensive industrial applications (e.g., heat and power, metallurgy, cement, chemical sectors etc.) is of great importance for reducing CO2 emission and achieving global climate neutrality. Membrane CO2 removal systems gained relevant attention as possible energy and cost-efficient CO2 capture technology. This paper is evaluating membrane-based pre- and post-combustion CO2 capture to be applied in various industrial applications with high fossil CO2 emissions. The evaluation was geared mainly towards quantification of ancillary energy consumptions of membrane systems as well as the specification of captured CO2 in respect to its potential utilization and storage applications. As the assessment show, the membrane-based systems are promising CO2 capture technology for both pre- and post-combustion capture configurations.publishedVersio

Témoignages d’enseignants européens

Pays-Bas Heleen Jansen  Quelques remarques préliminaires avant de commencer et de présenter ma vision personnelle des choses. Rappeler tout d’abord combien le métier d’enseignant est un beau métier. L’interaction avec les élèves reste toujours passionnante. Et même si la teneur de mon exposé peut parfois paraître un peu sombre, il n’en reste pas moins que stimuler les élèves dans leur développement demeure l’aspect le plus important de l’enseignement. Je voudrais relater la manière dont j’ai ..

Effects of HLA single chain trimer design on peptide presentation and stability

MHC class I “single-chain trimer” molecules, coupling MHC heavy chain, β2-microglobulin, and a specific peptide into a single polypeptide chain, are widely used in research. To more fully understand caveats associated with this design that may affect its use for basic and translational studies, we evaluated a set of engineered single-chain trimers with combinations of stabilizing mutations across eight different classical and non-classical human class I alleles with 44 different peptides, including a novel human/murine chimeric design. While, overall, single-chain trimers accurately recapitulate native molecules, care was needed in selecting designs for studying peptides longer or shorter than 9-mers, as single-chain trimer design could affect peptide conformation. In the process, we observed that predictions of peptide binding were often discordant with experiment and that yields and stabilities varied widely with construct design. We also developed novel reagents to improve the crystallizability of these proteins and confirmed novel modes of peptide presentation

The ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC

ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is a general-purpose, heavy-ion detector at the CERN LHC which focuses on QCD, the strong-interaction sector of the Standard Model. It is designed to address the physics of strongly interacting matter and the quark-gluon plasma at extreme values of energy density and temperature in nucleus-nucleus collisions. Besides running with Pb ions, the physics programme includes collisions with lighter ions, lower energy running and dedicated proton-nucleus runs. ALICE will also take data with proton beams at the top LHC energy to collect reference data for the heavy-ion programme and to address several QCD topics for which ALICE is complementary to the other LHC detectors. The ALICE detector has been built by a collaboration including currently over 1000 physicists and engineers from 105 Institutes in 30 countries. Its overall dimensions are 161626 m3 with a total weight of approximately 10 000 t. The experiment consists of 18 different detector systems each with its own specific technology choice and design constraints, driven both by the physics requirements and the experimental conditions expected at LHC. The most stringent design constraint is to cope with the extreme particle multiplicity anticipated in central Pb-Pb collisions. The different subsystems were optimized to provide high-momentum resolution as well as excellent Particle Identification (PID) over a broad range in momentum, up to the highest multiplicities predicted for LHC. This will allow for comprehensive studies of hadrons, electrons, muons, and photons produced in the collision of heavy nuclei. Most detector systems are scheduled to be installed and ready for data taking by mid-2008 when the LHC is scheduled to start operation, with the exception of parts of the Photon Spectrometer (PHOS), Transition Radiation Detector (TRD) and Electro Magnetic Calorimeter (EMCal). These detectors will be completed for the high-luminosity ion run expected in 2010. This paper describes in detail the detector components as installed for the first data taking in the summer of 2008

Development of Enzyme Replacement Therapy in Mammalian Models of Barth Syndrome

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2017Barth Syndrome (BTHS) is a devastating disorder caused by a single gene mutation in the mitochondrial transacylase, tafazzin (TAZ), which results in impaired lipid metabolism leading to dysfunction in highly energetic tissues, such as the heart and skeletal muscle. TAZ remodels, cardiolipin (CL), a multifaceted phospholipid with roles in mitochondrial bioenergetics, protein import and apoptosis. BTHS, the first known disorder of CL metabolism, manifests through a wide range of symptom, from severe impairment in cardiac function to hypotonia and recurring infections. Current treatment strategies are merely ameliorative in nature and up to 30% of patients still succumb to the disease early in life. A curative treatment is still an unmet need. TAZ enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) could significantly benefit patients suffering from this disorder. The studies presented here focus on the design and development of a recombinant TAZ protein containing a cell penetrating peptide for the treatment of BTHS, along with characterization of tafazzin deficient mammalian models critical for efficacy tests. To better understand the structure of TAZ, the mitochondrial localization signal of TAZ was determined. If successful, these studies could lead to significant improvements in quantity and quality of life for BTHS patients

The Evolution of Romanian Tourism – A Geographical Perspective

Romania has a very rich fund of tourism resources wh ich are either part of the natural environment or a result of human thinking and activ ities developed on its territory. They are randomly spread and differently grouped based on th eir specific, the degree of preservation and their involvement in different types of tourism act ivities. The correlation of tourism objectives to a dequate structures and the resulting forms of tourism durin g different periods of time allowed the differentiation of several phases with various char acteristics for tourism development in Romania: • the creation of the preliminary fund of tourism att ractions (till the end of 18 th century) • the organization and development of tourism activit ies (19 th century – 1950) • the 20 th century registered on its turn several phases amon g which the most important could be considered the one of central controlled p lanning in tourism activities (after 1950) and the post-communist phase of tourism devel opment The study makes reference and exemplifies the main characteristics of tourism resources, structures and activities for each of th ese phases

Tourism Destination Marketing Study Workpaper – An Operational Working Instrument for Geographers

Marketing is an essential domain for tourism, being recently more and more theoretically approached and conceptualized by research papers (e specially in the Anglo-Saxon literature). An economic term by excellence, marketing is as well ad opted by geographic literature and by the geography of tourism, one of the major specializati ons of Romanian faculties of geography as numerous students opt for it. Consequently there is a great need for geography students and geographers to study tourism oriented concepts even if mainly coming from other domains such as economy, social sciences, etc. and to elaborate appropriate studies without getting far from their topic of interest. In this respect the develo pment of methods and instruments of research and study is a necessity already underlined by bibliogr aphic references in the domain. They represented th e departure point of this paper which enlarges the deb ate upon a tourism destination marketing study work paper developed as an operational working instrument for geography students