Considerations about Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Economic Growth in the Digital Economy

Three technological trends—the omnipresence of information in digital form, the generalised use of computer networks, and the rapid proliferation of the World Wide Web—have profound implications for the way intellectual property (IP) is created, distributed, and accessed by every sector of society. In the last ten years much discussion of these issues has occurred in the literature and political and legislative domain. The information infrastructure offers an extraordinary ease of access to a vast array of information and peril for information to be reproduced inappropriately and for information access to be controlled in new and problematic ways. IPR regimes affect the diffusion of scientific knowledge, the innovation process and, ultimately, economic performance. Information technology raised some problems regarding the protection of intellectual property and drived to the discovery of a large number of solutions during past years. This paper’s purpose is to reveal what is the situation regarding IPR protection, economic growth and innovation in Romania, in the context of digital economy.intellectual property rights (IPR), innovation, economic growth, digital economy, Romania.

INTEGRATING DIGITAL ECONOMY AND GREEN ECONOMY: OPPORTUNITIES FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Digital economy and green economy are the most important subjects on the environmental policy agenda in the last years. The first section of the paper examine the current state of thinking on the environmental impact of digital economy, especially of ICT, while the second section looks at what is known as the green economy and the most recent initiatives in this area. Both are paradigms that have become proeminent in the separate worlds of ITC policy and sustainable development. The integration between them leads to new paradigms and creates opportunities for sustainable development, also for economic recovery in the context of recent crises.green economy, digital economy, sustainable development, green knowledge society.

APPLICATION OF FISHBONE DIAGRAM TO DETERMINE THE RISK OF AN EVENT WITH MULTIPLE CAUSES

Fishbone diagram (also known as Ishikawa diagram) was created with the goal of identifying and grouping the causes which generate a quality problem. Gradually, the method has been used also to group in categories the causes of other types of problems which an organization confronts with. This made Fishbone diagram become a very useful instrument in risk identification stage. The article proposes to extend the applicability of the method by including in the analysis the probabilities and the impact which allow determining the risk score for each category of causes, but also, of the global risk. The practical application is realized to analyze the risk “loosing specialists”.Fishbone diagram, global risk, probability, impact.

Environmental impact of ICT and implications for e-waste management in Romania

The development of Information and communications technology (ICT), as core of the digital economy, presents contradictory effects on the environment. The paper presents the main perspectives of environmental impact of ICT, especially in relation with waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE, e-waste), as they result from the approaches found in literature and the reports of official international and national bodies. The analysis of impact on environment and e-waste is done on two levels: the impact of ICT sectors and the impact of electronic applications (including the electronic commerce). The article ends with customizing the characteristics of the digital economy in Romania. Particular attention is paid to WEEE generated from the development of the digital economy and the significant challenges which the systems of collection, treatment and disposal must meet the environmental requirements.information and communications technology (ICT), digital economy, environmental impact, waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE, e-waste).

The Role of Consumer Behaviour in E-Waste Management System in Romania

The environmental issues have gained worldwide a lot of space in the researches of the last years, due to the increasing awareness that the current lifestyles lead to depletion of many resources, pollution, climate change and so forth. In the same time, the issue of waste electrical and electronic equipments (WEEE, e-waste) became an important debate topic, taking into account the development of digital economy and their environmental impact. In this context, the paper aims to tackle the role of consumer behaviour in e-waste management system in Romania. In this sense, the paper is structured into three sections. The first section of the paper is devoted to the interdisciplinary literature review on attitude and behaviour towards environment, especially regarding the waste problem. The second section analyzes the driving forces that shape the consumer behaviour regarding electrical and electronic equipments and the waste management in Romania, and is followed by the conclusions of our analysis (in the last section).private consumer, public consumer, behaviour, waste electrical and electronic equipments (e-waste, WEEE), corporate social responsibility.

Considerations about implementation of the Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment Directive in Romania

Electric and Electronic Equipment Waste Management has become in the last years one of the most important concerns all over the world regarding environmental protection. For Romania, as for the other countries, members of the European Union, this concern has been intensified by the necessity of alignment to the European directives regarding electric and electronic equipment waste management, especially to the Directive 2002/96/CE. Although the waste quantities collected until now are far away from the goal proposed by EU, progresses have been made in what regards the implementation of an appropriate management system in Romania. This study presents the principal aspects with which European countries confront in implementing this directive and analyses the situation of Romania regarding the stage reached until now but also the main problems appeared during the last years. The paper is the result of the research in project “Modeling the Waste Management System for Electrical and Electronic Equipment in Romania in Order to Optimize the Environmental Impact of the Digital Economy”, code ID_1834, director Nadia Ciocoiu.Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), Directive 2002/96/CE, consumer behavior, collecting, recycling

THE WEEE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN ROMANIA. DIMENSION, STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Management systems for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) have modernized as countries have accumulated experience. They are characterized by a profound dynamism because of the alert pace of growth of waste quantities which have been generated, but also because of the continuous diversification of the range of electronic equipment sold as an effect of the technical progress evolution and of the living standards of population growth. In Romania, the emergence and the development of WEEE management system has been stimulated by the need to align to the European Commission stipulations as a result of the integration into the European Union in 2007. In this context the present paper examines the strengths and weaknesses of WEEE management system in Romania.Romania, Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment – WEEE, management, weakness, strengths.

EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS – ESSENTIAL COORDINATES IN MEASURING THE PERFORMANCE OF WEEE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

This paperwork presents the most pertinent points of view regarding efficiency and effectiveness, as basic notions in defining the performance of waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) management systems. After a short incursion in the subject of performance and performance measuring, the paper presents and analysis some definitions of efficiency and effectiveness, emphasizing the conceptual delimitations between these two notions. Also, the paper focuses on justifying the necessity and opportunity of measuring the performance of the WEEE management systems, emphasizing on the benefits and limits of such a work and on the understanding the malfunctions that may arise in performance evaluationperformance, WEEE management system, efficiency, efficacy.

Design support for constructing pilot training programmes

Deciding how to construct a training programme or a training exercise, and especially what and how training media and methods should be selected to deliver effective and efficient training is an ongoing endeavour that preoccupies training analysts and designers alike. There are many interactions and dependencies that one has to take into consideration when making decisions, about cost, safety, or interactions between various components of a training system (e.g. between various types of media; between media and methods; between media, methods and trainees) to produce the desired outcome. The focus of this PhD research is to develop an understanding of the challenges faced by decision-makers within the military fast-jet training domain in constructing the training and, further, to develop solutions that support the decision-making effort. A significant challenge faced by decision-makers in constructing training programmes, identified through this research, is the ever increasing amount of information that they need to have at their disposal to enable fully informed decision-making and the lack of methods and tools to facilitate the management and analysis of this information. This research specifically investigated the problem of media selection to construct the training and developed a series of concept solutions to support differentiation between training media, assessment of trainees previous experiences, management of TNA outputs, selection of instructional methods and understanding of the cognitive relationship between media, method and trainee. The thesis firstly introduces the problem to be addressed; the research context and research questions set to be answered. This research, sponsored by Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSERC) and BAE Systems, is preceded by another BAE Systems funded research project (the Training Optimisation Case Study), which provided the background for the work presented in this thesis. Secondly, it reviews the literature relevant to the subject matter to understand the current state of knowledge in the area of: UK RAF training programmes construction and training media selection; assessment of competencies; impact of media and method on learning; development of decision making support systems; and construction and management of knowledge. The main part of the work presented in this thesis is the development of a series of support solutions to aid the decision-making process of construction of UK fast-jet pilot training. These include: TNA output Analysis (ToA) tool; Trainee Contextual Proficiency Profile (TCPP) tool; Training Media Classification Framework; models that map the cognitive relationship between media, method and trainee, and a unified Framework of Selection of Instructional Process alongside a novel approach towards training media selection. This research work was initially scoped through an exploratory study (a case study) into the domain area, followed by requirements elicitation. This part of research helped at identifying the issues within the problem area and in defining the research questions. The TCPP and ToA were verified through two case studies and presented alongside the rest of the research to the customer (BAE Systems) that gave positive feedback on the research outcomes

Investments characteristics in infrastructure industry

The development of the infrastructure has always represented a major priority at the level of all actors implied in the economic-social activity, from public authorities to private organizations and even civil population. The particularities of the investment projects in the infrastructure attract a more and wider private organizations category which analyses the infrastructure differences as potential business opportunities. The present paper presents a series of particularities specific for the investments in the infrastructure sphere as well as the main attraction factor for the private companies.investments, efficiency, infrastructure