Deployment of Open Standards in the Public Administration

Open Source Software is receiving an increasing attention in the public administration. The aim of the paper is to discuss the deployment of open source software for office automation and to present a synthesis of the up to date status. It is intended to sensitize provosts and policy makers regarding the value and benefits of open standards in public administration. The article explains why anyone would choose an open standard format for office documents, instead of the obsolete binary formats. The responsibility of the public sector to protect the permanently, open and free access to public documents is emphasized. Switching the IT systems to open source and open standards can solve the problems with significant financial benefits. One available open source software solution in the field, the Open Office suite, is presented as a viable and free alternative to commercial products. The article reviews next the existent competing open standards - OpenDocument and OpenXML. Finally, the measures and efforts implied to make a non invasive migration to open technologies are presented.open source software, open standards, personal productivity, transition

Rumble: Data Independence for Large Messy Data Sets

This paper introduces Rumble, an engine that executes JSONiq queries on large, heterogeneous and nested collections of JSON objects, leveraging the parallel capabilities of Spark so as to provide a high degree of data independence. The design is based on two key insights: (i) how to map JSONiq expressions to Spark transformations on RDDs and (ii) how to map JSONiq FLWOR clauses to Spark SQL on DataFrames. We have developed a working implementation of these mappings showing that JSONiq can efficiently run on Spark to query billions of objects into, at least, the TB range. The JSONiq code is concise in comparison to Spark's host languages while seamlessly supporting the nested, heterogeneous data sets that Spark SQL does not. The ability to process this kind of input, commonly found, is paramount for data cleaning and curation. The experimental analysis indicates that there is no excessive performance loss, occasionally even a gain, over Spark SQL for structured data, and a performance gain over PySpark. This demonstrates that a language such as JSONiq is a simple and viable approach to large-scale querying of denormalized, heterogeneous, arborescent data sets, in the same way as SQL can be leveraged for structured data sets. The results also illustrate that Codd's concept of data independence makes as much sense for heterogeneous, nested data sets as it does on highly structured tables.Comment: Preprint, 9 page

STRESS CONCENTRATION DUE TO A SPHERICAL VOID UNDER HERTZIAN CONTACT

The present paper presents the method of estimating the stress concentrator effect of a spherical void from an elastic half-space. An essential part consists in estimation of FEM error by finding the contact pressure from half-plane using an analytical method. Next, the stress concentrator effect of the same void, except for placed into elastic space, is found

STUDY OF THE INFLUENCES OF GEOGRAPHICAL FACTORS ON THE WIND SPEED AND FREQUENCY. STUDY CASE IN SW OF ROMANIA.

Abstract; The surveillance and the management of the wind resources in Romania represent an issue of national importance considering the fact that the natural potential of the wind is non-polluted resource. This activity requires a great number of observations points and stations of measurement and processing. The paper presents the study carried out in the National Meteorological Administration regarding the influences of geographical factors {location, relief, land cover/land use) on the wind speed and direction in the SW part of Romania. The working methods consisted in statistical analysis of the database climatic parameters (wind speed and direction) for the 1961 - 2000 period of 13 meteorological stations (situated in the SW mountainous region of Romania). The obtained results emphasized the important differences in the wind speed and frequency due to different local geographical conditions and variety of mountainous microclimate. The high baric gradients generate strong winds (with regional character) and the low baric gradients determine weak winds (with local character)

Development and Validation of a Gas Chromatography Method for Quantitative Analysis of Fatty Acids in Vegetable Oils

The major fatty acids present in cosmetics are the unsaturated fatty acids from triglycerides, especially essential fatty acids: linoleic acid (omega-6) and α-linolenic acid (omega-3).The purpose of the study was to develop a simple and precise gas chromatography-flame ionization detection method, using an OPTIMA-WAX (macrogol 20000) capillary GC column (30m x 0.32mm x 0.25µm) with a run time of 17min, for the analysis of fatty acids composition from vegetable oils and macerated oils. The method was validated for quantifying four major fatty acids: palmitic, stearic, oleic and linoleic acids, as methyl esters. The quantification was performed by internal standardization, using the methyl ester of nonadecanoic acid as internal standard. The esterification reaction was carried out on a magnetic stirrer at a temperature of 80°C and with continuous stirring, in hermetically sealed vials

Demonstration of CO2 conversion to synthetic transport fuel at flue gas concentrations

A mixture of 1-and 2-butanol was produced using a stepwise synthesis starting with a methyl halide. The process included a carbon dioxide utilization step to produce an acetate salt which was then converted to the butanol isomers by Claisen condensation of the esterified acetate followed by hydrogenation of the resulting ethyl acetoacetate. Importantly, the CO 2 utilization step uses dry, dilute carbon dioxide (12% CO 2 in nitrogen) similar to those found in post-combustion flue gases. The work has shown that the Grignard reagent has a slow rate of reaction with oxygen in comparison to carbon dioxide, meaning that the costly purification step usually associated with carbon capture technologies can be omitted using this direct capture-conversion technique. Butanol isomers are useful as direct drop-in replacement fuels for gasoline due to their high octane number, higher energy density, hydrophobicity, and low corrosivity in existing petrol engines. An energy analysis shows the process to be exothermic from methanol to butanol; however, energy is required to regenerate the active magnesium metal from the halide by-product. The methodology is important as it allows electrical energy, which is difficult to store using batteries over long periods of time, to be stored as a liquid fuel that fits entirely with the current liquid fuels infrastructure. This means that renewable, weather-dependent energy can be stored across seasons, for example, production in summer with consumption in winter. It also helps to avoid new fossil carbon entering the supply chain through the utilization of carbon dioxide that would otherwise be emitted. As methanol has also been shown to be commercially produced from CO 2 , this adds to the prospect of the general decarbonization of the transport fuels sector. Furthermore, as the conversion of CO 2 to butanol requires significantly less hydrogen than CO 2 to octanes, there is a potentially reduced burden on the so-called hydrogen economy