MONSIEUR FICHEUX

In 1988, on the day he turned 90, Dr. Robert Ficheux (1898 – 2005), a well-known French geographer and honorary member of Romanian Academy, gave an interview to Dan Er. Grigorescu explaining the reasons why his Oeuvre was entirely dedicated to Romania. Robert Ficheux begun the research for his three-part volume „The Phisycal Geography of the Apuseni Mountains” in 1921, and continued working on it for the next 67 years. Before the Second Word War, he learned Romanian, taught Geography at the University of Cluj, and traveled extensively through the country, correcting and drawing maps for far away regions. In his main work, „Phisycal Geography of the Apuseni Mountains,” he used some old Austro-Hungarian maps, drawn by Austro-Hungarian military officers, and dated around 1890. In the current interview, Robert Ficheux was pinpointing the fact that on these maps nearly all the names of localities, rivers and mountains bore Romanian names. As he was just a geographer, Robert Ficheux leaves the future historians to muse about the significance of his discoveries

The Metropolitan Area of the Municipality of Bucharest. Present-Day Features Relating to Some Environmental Issues in an International Context

The development of metropolitan areas represents the main characteristic of today’s urban evolution trends. The first initiatives to delimitate and define metropolitan areas have been in the United States since 1910. In Europe, this concept was adopted at the beginning of the1990s when the United States had already had 250 metropolitan areas. Romania adopted the concept of metropolitan area in the late 1990s, namely in 1997 when a study on the Directions, Ways, and Intensities of Development in the Municipality of Bucharest and its Metropolitan Zone. Environmental protection politics appeared. This made public a point of view about the Bucharest metropolitan area, which was legally defined by Law no. 351 of July 6th 2001 regarding the National Territory Management Plan, Section IV – Settlements. But many other limits of this area were also taken into account. The uncontrolled evolution of the Bucharest Metropolitan Area as well as of many other European capital cities can be stopped or stabilized by developing green belts or green areas

The Impact of Changing Land Use upon the Environment in the Metropolitan Area of Bucharest. Preliminary Considerations

In this paper we highlight the major changes in land use during the transition from the centralised to the market economy (1989-2005). Agricultural de-collectivisation and privatisation have caused major structural changes in land uses with direct effects upon the quality of the environment. An urban area appeared around the metropolis where the most important environmental changes took place by dint of those from agriculture, because of agricultural policies and urban expansion. Within the interior ring of the metropolitan area several regional disparities have been highlighted. These are caused by the unequal development of its southern and southeastern areas, on the one hand, and of the western area, on the other hand

Acute Cholecystitis as a Complication After Colonoscopy: A Case Report and Literature Review

Acute cholecystitis after colonoscopy is a rare event, with less than 10 cases described in the literature. We report the case of a male patient with silent gallstones who underwent colonoscopy for follow-up of his Crohn’s disease. The colonoscopy revealed erosions in the terminal ileum, from which biopsies were taken. A sessile polyp 4 mm in diameter at the recto-sigmoid junction was also removed. Less than 24 h after the colonoscopy, the patient complained of upper right quadrant pain, nausea and vomiting. Based on the clinical findings, laboratory data and ultrasonography, we diagnosed acute cholecystitis and excluded any complication after the colonoscopy. Laparoscopic cholecystectomy was performed and the patient was discharged

Electrochemical Sensing of Caffeic Acid Using Gold Nanoparticles Embedded in Poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) Layer by Sinusoidal Voltage Procedure

The increasing demand for sensitive electrochemical sensors in various medical and industrial applications promotes the fabrication of novel sensing materials with improved electrocatalytic and analytical performances. This work deals with the development of a composite material based on gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) embedded in poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) layer for electrochemical determination of caffeic acid (CA). CA is a phenolic compound with excellent antioxidant properties that is present in vegetables, fruits, and alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. Its analytical quantification is of great interest in food production monitoring and healthcare applications. Therefore, the development of sensitive analytical devices for CA monitoring is required. The AuNPs have been prepared in situ onto PEDOT coated glassy carbon electrode (GC) by means of an innovative procedure consisting on the use of a sinusoidal voltage (SV) superimposed on a constant potential. The physico-chemical properties of the PEDOT-AuNPs composite material were investigated by a range of techniques including cyclic voltammetry, electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance, and scanning electron microscopy. The glassy carbon electrode/poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-gold nanoparticles-sinusoidal voltage (GC/PEDOT-AuNPs-SV) sensor exhibited good analytical performance toward the CA quantification with a linear response over a wide concentration range from 10 µM to 1 mM. In addition, the proposed GC/PEDOT-AuNPs-SV sensor was successfully applied in the determination of total polyphenols content expressed as equivalents of CA in juice samples