Carbon-Footprint Policy Of The Top Ten Global Retailers: Contribution To Sustainable Development

The goal of the article is to study the policy of the most prominent ten global retailers relative to the reduction in their carbon footprint. This policy is an integral part of the environmental component of the organizational policy for sustainable development. The research has an exploratory character and is based on the analysis of public information available on the Internet about the objectives, strategies and achievements of the top ten global retailers in the field of carbon-footprint. According to the research objectives, the main results of the study reveal: the organizations that have sustainable development objectives and policies as well as carbon-footprint objectives and policies; the strategies applied for the reduction in their carbon footprint and the results obtained. Are the top ten global retailers a benchmark as regards the carbon-footprint policies? Do they represent a model which has to be followed by other retailers? Several answers may be found in the present article.sustainable development, environmental assessment, ecological footprint, carbon footprint, greenhouse gas emissions, global retailers

Exploratory Research on the Organizational Learning in Small Enterprises and Implications for the Economic Higher Education

Learning is an issue of critical importance for small enterprises. The aim of this article is to explore the organizational learning processes of such enterprises, in order to identify the potential implications for the economic higher education. The topic is approached from a multi-fold perspective, at the interface among entrepreneurship, management and marketing. The article contributes to better understanding the processes, factors of influence and results of the organizational learning, by means of direct research based on the method of semi-structured interview. The research universe consisted in small enterprises within the services sector, from Bucharest. According to the research results, organizational learning is rudimentary, substantiated on the individual learning of the entrepreneur. Learning is experiential and the main outcomes are skills and concepts. Knowledge dissemination is deficient, the main flow being oriented only from entrepreneur to employees. The entrepreneur cannot control knowledge absorption but can evaluate and encourage it. The research revealed a relationship between learning and entrepreneurial orientation, according to which learning enhancement leads to innovation and opportunity identification. Following the research results, suggestions for future research and conclusions relative to the implications on economic higher education were formulated.organizational learning, strategic orientations, marketing, entrepreneurship, small businesses, higher education

E – Tourism And Tourism Services Consumer Protection

This article wishes to highlight the electronic tourism and innovation role in tourism industry with impact on economic growth especially by approach of firms. So, tourism firms witch have a website well done have access to a huge tourism market, thus succeeding to present their products and services of interest to a wide range of consumers both at national and international level. Consumer behavior is strongly influenced, observing major mutations; witch requires revision of regulations, particularly in consumer protection. Tourists protection is ensured primarily by tourism organization witch promote e-tourism and secondly by state, with legal regulations. The authors aim to highlight a number of issues relating to the importance electronic procurement of tourism packages, the responsibilities of owners sites, current policy on consumer protection for online travel services or products. Through a rigorous analysis of existing legislation, but also through an exploration of literature, authors have proposed highlighting the main directions to follow to improve consumer protection regulations online tour.e-tourism, consumer behavior, protection, website, tourism industry

ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORD - SUCCESS OR FAILURE IN THE MEDICAL DECISION FROM THE ROMANIAN HEALTH SYSTEM ?

The investments in informational and communicational technologies in the health field represent a for of investing in human capital because health and medical services will exceed the physician – patient relationship and the improvement of the physical and emotional condition of the individuals of a society will become a prioritary problem of the community. In Romania is noticed a high degree of data fragmenting, with a negligible communication, often inexistent, within and outside the system, and the decision makers of the health system hold exclusivity on their own data, fact that makes them unavailable to the other participants to the system. The software-s, the formats and supports used differ both inside the system and outside it. And because a patient is given a diagnosis without complete and safe medical data, the medical error is one of the causes for the incorrect diagnosis of the patient. The decision makers from the health system must take on responsibilities for the efficient and safe management of these data, to represent a desired issue for all medical institutions. Only the interconnected and standardized electronic medical files will be able to improve the medical decision and the care given to patients. The care will be safer, more efficient, the medical information will be also useful to other clinic physicians in time and space by using the informational and communicational technologies. The complete electronic medical record must include all types of information connected to the patient`s health (medical, family history, health file, hereditary-collateral antecedents, treatments, prescriptions, allergies) and they must be protected, shared by physicians, patients and those interested in a safe and extended environment. It is necessary to computerize the medical information specific to patient and the clinical processes, and performance in the health system will depend on the transformation of the medical services system by bringing the benefits of the medical science and technology to all individuals.critical; inefficient medical service; electronic medical record; medical information computerization, interconnected electronic medical files, medical error, health electronic file, clinical decision, protected and shared medical information, interoperability, standard.

STUDY ON THE SOILS OF GORJ COUNTY AND THEIR QUALITY

Considering the natural environment, as well as the existing environmental conditions in the GorjCounty, a great variety of soils have evolved, at the county level, the soils falling into eight soil classes, on an area of 192,405.22 ha and complexes and associations of soils on an area of 51,362.78 ha. The distribution of the lands on quality classes was done following the rating. The rating was made according to the soil, relief and climate. Regarding the average by quality classes, the agricultural area of the Gorj County falls into the fourth quality class with an average score of 36 points

STUDY ON THE SITUATION OF ANTI-EROSIONALLY ARRANGED LANDS FOR SOUTH-WEST OLTENIA REGION

In this paper there is presented the average of the anti-erosionally arranged areas in the period 2015-2019, in the South-west Oltenia region. These were of 281097 ha of which the agricultural area 264897 ha (94.24%) and the non-agricultural area 16200 ha (5,76%). Within the agricultural area, the arable land arranged against erosion represents almost half of the total agricultural area (48.81%), while the area occupied by vineyards and nursery is the smallest, respectively 3.93%. At county level, Mehedinti County has the largest agricultural area anti-erosionally arranged, namely 83628 ha, while Olt County is at the opposite pole with 25965 ha. Regarding the situation by way of use, at county level, Mehedinti has the largest arable areas (46219%) and natural pastures (33.06%), Valcea County has the largest areas with orchards and fruit nurseries (47, 67%) and with vineyards and viticultural nurseries (48.16%), and Gorj County has the largest area of natural grasslands (61.59%)

The Victorian Age and the Other

This paper deals with the reception of the Other in Queen Victoria’s realm – where the sun never sets. Covering an enormous surface of the known world, the Empire triggered real answers to the presence of the subjects of the worldwide British Empire in good ole’ England. Literary representations of the Other appeared in every genre, but especially in the novel, which more than any other literary form of the period attempted to analyze and represent Victorian socio-political stratification. Critics have usefully examined the novelistic representations of each form of Otherness, considering, for instance, representations of the “Oriental,” the “African,” the “Indian,” the "Irish,” the “Jew,” or the “Scot.” As we will see, while Victorians attempted to relate different kinds of Otherness to one another, they made both tremendous and subtle distinctions between different marginalized groups

Youth employment on the Romanian labour market in the context of the current economic and financial crisis

The paper intends to analyze the main labour market characteristics and factors for Romanian youth in the current market position.  The analysis and forecast of the educational process and of graduates’ employment according to their differing educational levels on the Romanian labour market is realised based on Markovian techniques. By making use of the developed scenarios, the crisis effects can be quantified with respect to economic growth, labour market perspectives, as well as the employability and mobility of young labour force participants in the various economic sectors. 

Performing heavy transfers for offshore wind maintenance

As offshore wind farms become larger and further from the shore, there are strong economic and climate incentives to perform transfers required for operations and maintenance from floating vessels, rather than employing expensive and slow jack up rigs. However, successful transfers of heavy and sensitive equipment from a floating vessel (in all but benign sea/wind conditions) are heavily dependent on multiple degrees of freedom, high performance control. This project aims to bring a novel modelling and simulation methodology in Simulink that could be used to assess offshore wind installation and maintenance procedures. More specifically, the goal is to demonstrate that a crane prototype assumed to be located on a floating ship can transfer loads of hundreds of tons onto a fixed platform. Furthermore, this process should be completed with good precision and minimal impact force during equipment loading onto the stand. This problem has not yet been answered in research, with the only relevant patent in the field being the Ampelmann platform, a motionless bridge allowing technicians to access the offshore turbine. The first main contribution to knowledge of this thesis was the design of a 90 m crane that could handle a 660 tons load. This thesis presents a procedure, based on both mechanical/hydraulics design as well as empirical findings, which could be re-used for scaling the crane model to a more realistic dimension. It is worth noting that the goal here was to assess whether a realistically weighing piece of equipment could be stably handled, while the actual size of the crane was deemed unimportant. Another missing gap in literature this project wanted to fill was achieving active motion compensation for a larger scale system such as the current one. This refers to balancing out the base motions on multiple axes, so the payload can be moved on a given trajectory unaffected by them. Currently, research in the field mainly consists of crane mechanisms that feature active heave compensation, which only refers to the vertical axis. Hence, two control design methods were employed to assess the viability of heavy payload positioning from floating vessels through the development of a simulation approach using Simulink. The crane prototype was designed and modelled to operate under simulated vessel motions given by sea states with a significant wave height of 5 m and maximum wave frequency of 1 rad/s. Then, traditional control (feedback and feedforward) was designed to achieve active motion compensation with steady-state position errors under 20 cm. A second controller architecture was then designed/implemented as a comparison basis for the first one, with the aim being to find the most robust solution of the two. The nonlinear generalised minimum variance (NGMV) control algorithm was chosen for control design in this application. Due to its ability to compensate for significant system nonlinearities and the ease of implementation, NGMV was a good candidate for the task at hand. Tuning controller parameters to stabilize the system could also be based on the previously determined traditional control solutions. An investigation of controllers’ robustness against model mismatch was carried out by introducing various levels of uncertainty which influence actuators’ natural frequency to assess system sensitivity. The outcome of the investigation determined that traditional and NGMV controllers provided comparable regulating performance in terms of reference tracking and disturbance rejection, for the nominal case. This confirmed the assertion that the PID-based NGMV weightings selection is a useful starting point for controller tuning. Increasing the mismatch between the nominal system based on which the controllers’ were designed and the actual plant showed that the traditional control was marginally more robust in this application. The final contribution to knowledge this thesis aimed to bring was minimising the impact force during load placement on a fixed and rigid platform. To that end, the contact forces between the payload and a platform were first successfully modelled and measured. A switching algorithm between position and force control was then developed based on a methodology found in literature but on a microscopic scale project. To execute smooth load placement, an automated hybrid force/position control scheme was implemented. The proposed algorithm enabled position control on x and y axes, while minimising impact forces on the z-axis. Unfortunately, preliminary findings showed that there is still work to be done to claim any success in this regard. However, the author hopes this offers a good starting point for future work.As offshore wind farms become larger and further from the shore, there are strong economic and climate incentives to perform transfers required for operations and maintenance from floating vessels, rather than employing expensive and slow jack up rigs. However, successful transfers of heavy and sensitive equipment from a floating vessel (in all but benign sea/wind conditions) are heavily dependent on multiple degrees of freedom, high performance control. This project aims to bring a novel modelling and simulation methodology in Simulink that could be used to assess offshore wind installation and maintenance procedures. More specifically, the goal is to demonstrate that a crane prototype assumed to be located on a floating ship can transfer loads of hundreds of tons onto a fixed platform. Furthermore, this process should be completed with good precision and minimal impact force during equipment loading onto the stand. This problem has not yet been answered in research, with the only relevant patent in the field being the Ampelmann platform, a motionless bridge allowing technicians to access the offshore turbine. The first main contribution to knowledge of this thesis was the design of a 90 m crane that could handle a 660 tons load. This thesis presents a procedure, based on both mechanical/hydraulics design as well as empirical findings, which could be re-used for scaling the crane model to a more realistic dimension. It is worth noting that the goal here was to assess whether a realistically weighing piece of equipment could be stably handled, while the actual size of the crane was deemed unimportant. Another missing gap in literature this project wanted to fill was achieving active motion compensation for a larger scale system such as the current one. This refers to balancing out the base motions on multiple axes, so the payload can be moved on a given trajectory unaffected by them. Currently, research in the field mainly consists of crane mechanisms that feature active heave compensation, which only refers to the vertical axis. Hence, two control design methods were employed to assess the viability of heavy payload positioning from floating vessels through the development of a simulation approach using Simulink. The crane prototype was designed and modelled to operate under simulated vessel motions given by sea states with a significant wave height of 5 m and maximum wave frequency of 1 rad/s. Then, traditional control (feedback and feedforward) was designed to achieve active motion compensation with steady-state position errors under 20 cm. A second controller architecture was then designed/implemented as a comparison basis for the first one, with the aim being to find the most robust solution of the two. The nonlinear generalised minimum variance (NGMV) control algorithm was chosen for control design in this application. Due to its ability to compensate for significant system nonlinearities and the ease of implementation, NGMV was a good candidate for the task at hand. Tuning controller parameters to stabilize the system could also be based on the previously determined traditional control solutions. An investigation of controllers’ robustness against model mismatch was carried out by introducing various levels of uncertainty which influence actuators’ natural frequency to assess system sensitivity. The outcome of the investigation determined that traditional and NGMV controllers provided comparable regulating performance in terms of reference tracking and disturbance rejection, for the nominal case. This confirmed the assertion that the PID-based NGMV weightings selection is a useful starting point for controller tuning. Increasing the mismatch between the nominal system based on which the controllers’ were designed and the actual plant showed that the traditional control was marginally more robust in this application. The final contribution to knowledge this thesis aimed to bring was minimising the impact force during load placement on a fixed and rigid platform. To that end, the contact forces between the payload and a platform were first successfully modelled and measured. A switching algorithm between position and force control was then developed based on a methodology found in literature but on a microscopic scale project. To execute smooth load placement, an automated hybrid force/position control scheme was implemented. The proposed algorithm enabled position control on x and y axes, while minimising impact forces on the z-axis. Unfortunately, preliminary findings showed that there is still work to be done to claim any success in this regard. However, the author hopes this offers a good starting point for future work

The evolution of Romanian demographic phenomena in terms of globalization

Globalisation and demography are the main forces modelling the development of societies at large and of each nation in particular.The paper aims to identify and synthetically present some factors of influence which triggered by the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century a series of characteristics defining the changes of the demographic model and structure of population on age brackets.The paper presents the results obtained by using the Markov-type model, for studying the development of demographic indicators in Romania, and their forecasting as well.