Quantifying the probability of a recession in selected Central and Eastern European countries

The COVID-19 pandemic simultaneously affected most economic sectors and has already caused severe worldwide social and economic damage. In response, authorities introduced social distancing measures, with an adverse impact on economic activity. If policymakers were aware of the existing vulnerabilities, including those derived from the positioning on the business cycle, resilience could have been increased. The aim of this article is to describe various methods of dating business cycles in several Central and Eastern European (C.E.E.) countries, namely Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Romania. Furthermore, a Probit model regarding the probability of a recession is estimated, confirming the adverse effects of the pandemic, in contrast with a brightening outlook given vaccination campaigns and the E.U. recovery package. However, in case of the Romanian economy, an in-sample estimation showed a high probability of negative growth rates even in a pre-pandemic world, due to the high macroeconomic imbalances

El poder judicial en el Principado de Valaquia en el Siglo XIX bajo el régimen del Reglamento Orgánico en su versión del 1 de julio de 1831

En este trabajo se traducen e interpretan las disposiciones del Reglamento Orgánico de Valaquia del 1 de julio de 1831, configurando a su vez la estructura del poder judicial en el Principado de Valaquia bajo este texto legal. A su vez, se analizan también los distintos funcionarios que componían el poder judicial, así como las reglas instituidas en el Reglamento para llevar a cabo sus actuaciones en sus cargos.<br /

Melittin Induces Local Order Changes in Artificial and Biological Membranes as Revealed by Spectral Analysis of Laurdan Fluorescence

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are a class of molecules widely used in applications on eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells. Independent of the peptide target, all of them need to first pass or interact with the plasma membrane of the cells. In order to have a better image of the peptide action mechanism with respect to the particular features of the membrane it is necessary to better understand the changes induced by AMPs in the membranes. Laurdan, a lipid membrane probe sensitive to polarity changes in the environment, is used in this study for assessing changes induced by melittin, a well-known peptide, both in model and natural lipid membranes. More importantly, we showed that generalized polarization (GP) values are not always efficient or sufficient to properly characterize the changes in the membrane. We proved that a better method to investigate these changes is to use the previously described log-normal deconvolution allowing us to infer other parameters: the difference between the relative areas of elementary peak (&Delta;Sr), and the ratio of elementary peaks areas (Rs). Melittin induced a slight decrease in local membrane fluidity in homogeneous lipid membranes. The addition of cholesterol stabilizes the membrane more in the presence of melittin. An opposite response was observed in the case of heterogeneous lipid membranes in cells, the local order of lipids being diminished. RS proved to be the most sensitive parameter characterizing the local membrane order, allowing us to distinguish among the responses to melittin of both classes of membrane we investigated (liposomes and cellular membranes). Molecular simulation of the melittin pore in homogeneous lipid bilayer suggests that lipids are more closely packed in the proximity of the melittin pore (a smaller area per lipid), supporting the experimental observation

Using Digital Twining in Fast-food Production Chain Simulation

The topic of this paper represents our research in the process of creating a virtual model (digital twin) for a fast-food company production chain starting with the moment when a customer launches an order, following with the processing of that order, until the customer receives it. The model will describe elements that are included in this process such as equipment, human resources and the necessary space that is needed to host this layout. The virtual model created in a simulation platform will be a replicate of a real fast-food company, thus helping us observe the real time dynamic of this production system. Using WITNESS HORIZON 23 we will construct the model of the layout based on real time data received from the fast-food company. This digital twin will be used to manage the production chain material flow, evaluating the performance of the system architecture in various scenarios. In order to obtain a diagnosis of the system’s performance we will simulate the workflow running through preliminary architecture in compliance with the real time behaviour to identify the bottlenecks and blockages in the flow trajectory. In the end we will propose two different optimised architectures for the fast-food company production chain

External shocks pass-through into selected central and Eastern European countries

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic put further pressure on the economies, both at individual and global level and, amid already existing vulnerabilities, worsened the economic prospects. As a result of the negative effects of these tensions in tandem with global value chains disruptions, commodities’ prices increased, leading to strong inflationary pressures around the globe. Given possible permanent effects on inflation expectations, it is therefore questionable how fast those prices are to be stabilized. In this context, this paper focuses on a group of 10 European countries, namely Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, in the period spanning from 2005 to 2020. By implementing a GVAR model, the study analyses the pass-through of the external shocks stemming mainly from the Euro Area and the US to the CEE region, comparing the responses obtained for these countries with the ones of the developed economies. Considering the strong trade relationships between the analysed countries, the considered transmission channel is the commercial one. The results indicate that a supply shock in the Euro Area has a significant negative impact on the selected CEE countries’ economic growth, the offsetting factors not being strong enough to diminish the response. First published online 11 October 202

An end-to-end statistical process with mobile network data for official statistics

Mobile network data has been proven to provide a rich source of information in multiple statistical domains such as demography, tourism, urban planning, etc. However, the incorporation of this data source to the routinely production of official statistics is taking many efforts since a diversity of highly entangled issues (access, methodology, IT tools, quality, skills) must be solved beforehand. To do this, one-off studies with concrete data sets are not enough and a standard statistical production process must be put in place. We propose a concrete modular process structured into evolvable modules detaching the strongly technological layer underlying this data source from the necessary statistical analysis producing outputs of interest. This architecture follows the principles of the so-called ESS Reference Methodological Framework for Mobile Network Data. Each of these modules deals with a different aspect of this data source. We apply hidden Markov models for the geolocation of mobile devices, use a Bayesian approach on this model to disambiguate devices belonging to the same individual, compute aggregate numbers of individuals detected by a telecommunication network using probability theory, and model hierarchically the integration of auxiliary information from the telco market and official data to produce final estimates of the number of individuals across different territorial regions in the target population. A first simple illustrative proposal has been applied to synthetic data providing preliminary software tools and accuracy indicators monitoring the performance of the process. Currently, this exercise has been applied to the estimation of present population and origin-destination matrices. We present an illustrative example of the execution of these production modules comparing results with the simulated ground truth, thus assessing the performance of each production module