Has Organic Farming Potential for Development? Comparative Study in Romania and Serbia

Nowadays, in the EU and worldwide, agriculture and food industry face new trends of developing green alternatives. This agriculture sector emerged as a result of people concerns about health and environment due to the intensification of agriculture technologies, and uses of chemicals, in both agriculture and food processing industry. These problems appeared and acknowledged by the developed countries, among others, are strictly related to environmental pollution and increasing problems of health degradation. The present study investigates the possibilities of developing organic farming in Romania and Serbia. The results show that there is a great application that can ensure its development, considering many factors relating to the way in which resources are exploited. Thus, statistical data about agricultural areas under organic farming, uncultivated areas, use of chemicals, and number of semi-subsistent farms are gathered in both countries and comparative analyzed. This article makes a foray in assessing the resources that countries can rely on in developing strategies based on organic agriculture

Experimental and Theoretical Studies on the Dynamics of Transient Plasmas Generated by Laser Ablation in Various Temporal Regimes

During the last decade, our groups have performed systematic experimental studies on the characterization of plasma plumes generated by laser ablation in various temporal regimes (ns, ps, fs) on materials ranging from simple metals (Al, Cu, Mn, Ni, In, W, …) to more complex compounds (ceramics, chalcogenide glasses, ferrites). Optical (fast imaging and space- and time-resolved emission spectroscopy) and electrical (mainly Langmuir probe) methods have been applied to experimentally investigate the dynamics of the plasma plume and its constituents. Influence of the target physical (thermodynamic and electrical) parameters on the plasma dynamics has been studied. A mathematical correlation between the local and global plasma parameters and the physical properties of the target was proposed for the first time. Peculiar behaviors like plume splitting or plasma oscillations have been evidenced for high laser fluence ablation in vacuum. Along with results from the literature, our findings provide convincing arguments for the existence of multiple double-layers in the laser ablation plasma plume, in a scenario including two-temperature electrons. New fractal-based theoretical approaches have been developed to qualitatively and quantitatively account for the observed phenomena. The space and time evolution of expansion velocity, particle number, current density and plasma temperature were theoretically investigated

The impact of agricultural performance on foreign trade concentration and competitiveness: empirical evidence from Romanian agriculture

Analysing the impact of agricultural performance on foreign trade concentration and competitiveness defines an important step in identifying the opportunities, challenges and proactive measures in designing a functional and marked based agricultural model. The scope of this study is to investigate the evolution of Romania’s the foreign trade competitiveness and its concentration on main destinations during 2007–2016. In this context, in the paper are identified and investigated some of the competitiveness’ mutations arisen from the Romania’s trade flows concentration and restructuration in relation with 26 of the European Union member states. It was used a unique dataset on agro -food trade output and concentration across EU countries to construct measures of trade competitiveness. The results obtained suggest the existence of a dual relationship of the Romanian agriculture competitiveness and its dependence on the EU economic area, by the concentration of the commercial relationships

Learning GFlowNets from partial episodes for improved convergence and stability

Generative flow networks (GFlowNets) are a family of algorithms for training a sequential sampler of discrete objects under an unnormalized target density and have been successfully used for various probabilistic modeling tasks. Existing training objectives for GFlowNets are either local to states or transitions, or propagate a reward signal over an entire sampling trajectory. We argue that these alternatives represent opposite ends of a gradient bias-variance tradeoff and propose a way to exploit this tradeoff to mitigate its harmful effects. Inspired by the TD($\lambda$) algorithm in reinforcement learning, we introduce subtrajectory balance or SubTB($\lambda$), a GFlowNet training objective that can learn from partial action subsequences of varying lengths. We show that SubTB($\lambda$) accelerates sampler convergence in previously studied and new environments and enables training GFlowNets in environments with longer action sequences and sparser reward landscapes than what was possible before. We also perform a comparative analysis of stochastic gradient dynamics, shedding light on the bias-variance tradeoff in GFlowNet training and the advantages of subtrajectory balance.Comment: ICML 202

Analysis on the impact of investments, energy use and domestic material consumption in changing the Romanian economic paradigm

The main aim of the paper is to assess the impact of fix capital, energy use and domestic material consumption in changing the inland Romanian economic paradigm, from an economic perspective, using the intensive form of the Cobb-Douglas function. In order to identify various connections of economic growth, sustainable development, energy usage has determined the application of the vector error correction (VEC) model and the implied error correction term (ECT). This method was chosen based on the premise that it has a high degree of applicability and it can be used in order to revile significant aspects terms of indicator significance and displays. The results obtained during the research confirm that both in Romania and at EU-28 level there are determinant and significant elements shaping a proactive economic policy

Indoor Hibernation of <em>Helix aspersa</em> Juveniles

The “Italian” outdoor snailfarming technology assumes that both mature and juvenile snails hibernate outdoor, protected by a thin sheet of unweaved coverlet (agryl sheet). In contrast, the “French” snailfarming technology implies that only mature brown garden snails (Helix aspersa) hibernate indoor, in strictly controlled microenvironmental parameters (temperature, humidity, and ventilation). This technology may also be viable for H. aspersa juveniles. Extremely high death rates occurring in Romanian outdoor snailfarms during colder winters (>80%) imposed the need to find alternative paths for a proper hibernation of H. aspersa. Using statistical analyses, close surveillance of technological flow, and controlled microenvironmental parameters, we assessed the possibility to adapt indoor hibernation for H. aspersa juveniles. The experiments lasted for 2 years (2006–2008) and were carried out on 34,000 H. aspersa juveniles and 15,000 mature ones, using different technological flows and microenvironmental parameters (temperature, humidity, and ventilation). They were performed in two stages and involved five case studies, conducted independently in three different locations: Floreşti (Mehedinţi county), Sântuhalm (Hunedoara county), and Muntenii de Sus (Vaslui county). The first stage tested the hypothesis in relation to survival rate of mature snails, H. aspersa, in the same conditions, whereas the second stage improved the technological flow, before its extensive application. We demonstrated that noncontrolled microclimate parameters (temperature, humidity, and ventilation) and the use of straw as hibernation support induced significant differences (P < 0.01) concerning death levels of H. aspersa juveniles as compared to their indoor hibernation in semicontrolled microclimate (temperature and ventilation). In the same hibernation microclimate, mature snails exhibited higher survival levels than the juvenile ones, irrespective of technological flow and origin (P < 0.0001). We also demonstrated that juveniles’ weight loss displays a relatively constant variation (16.33–20.51%). In addition, the correlations between the individual average weight before and after hibernation were described by the same logarithmic regression. Furthermore, significantly higher survival rates of H. aspersa juveniles (P < 0.0001) have been registered when they had not been awakened during hibernation. Finally, we proved that indoor hibernation of H. aspersa juveniles in strictly controlled microenvironmental parameters (temperature, humidity, and ventilation) could represent a viable technology that improves the technological flow in outdoor snailfarming during wintertime in colder climates

Financial contagion and identifying speculative frenzies: Unraveling price bubbles in cryptocurrency markets

This research investigates the occurrence of financial bubbles in the cryptocurrency market and highlights the factors that may influence the formation of these bubbles. Three cryptocurrencies were analyzed: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Cardano, and our findings showed that these cryptocurrencies exhibited potential bubbles during the three-year period under study, from 2020 to 2023. To detect financial bubbles, the Exponential Curve Fitting Model (EXCF) model was used. Events such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict were examined from the perspective of their potential impact on the cryptocurrency market and investor behavior. The study also illustrated how investors’ behavior, whether rational or influenced by external factors, as well as internal factors such as panic levels and knowledge in the financial-economic domain, were analyzed

Risk factors for infections caused by carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales: an international matched case-control-control study (EURECA)

Cases were patients with complicated urinary tract infection (cUTI), complicated intraabdominal (cIAI), pneumonia or bacteraemia from other sources (BSI-OS) due to CRE; control groups were patients with infection caused by carbapenem-susceptible Enterobacterales (CSE), and by non-infected patients, respectively. Matching criteria included type of infection for CSE group, ward and duration of hospital admission. Conditional logistic regression was used to identify risk factors. Findings Overall, 235 CRE case patients, 235 CSE controls and 705 non-infected controls were included. The CRE infections were cUTI (133, 56.7%), pneumonia (44, 18.7%), cIAI and BSI-OS (29, 12.3% each). Carbapenemase genes were found in 228 isolates: OXA-48/like, 112 (47.6%), KPC, 84 (35.7%), and metallo-beta-lactamases, 44 (18.7%); 13 produced two. The risk factors for CRE infection in both type of controls were (adjusted OR for CSE controls; 95% CI; p value) previous colonisation/infection by CRE (6.94; 2.74-15.53; <0.001), urinary catheter (1.78; 1.03-3.07; 0.038) and exposure to broad spectrum antibiotics, as categorical (2.20; 1.25-3.88; 0.006) and time-dependent (1.04 per day; 1.00-1.07; 0.014); chronic renal failure (2.81; 1.40-5.64; 0.004) and admission from home (0.44; 0.23-0.85; 0.014) were significant only for CSE controls. Subgroup analyses provided similar results. Interpretation The main risk factors for CRE infections in hospitals with high incidence included previous coloni-zation, urinary catheter and exposure to broad spectrum antibiotics

Climatología y arquitectura vernácula africana

Con el paso del tiempo el ser humano se ha ido adaptando y ha ido evolucionando, ajustándose a las necesidades que iban teniendo e inclemencias que les venían dadas por la tierra en la que habitaban, esta evolución no solo se ha dado para sí mismo sino a todo lo que le rodea y sobretodo al centro entorno al que giran la mayoría de sus decisiones, la vivienda. Esta se ha ido adaptando y modificando a lo largo del tiempo de forma intuitiva por el ser humano respondiendo a las necesidades climatológicas a las que se enfrentaban en cada momento, desde el momento que comenzaron a habitar las cuevas, hasta el momento en el que empezaron a construir sus propias viviendas, produciéndose una evolución en estas hasta conseguir las condiciones de confort y habitabilidad a las que tanto aspira a llegar el ser humano, mediante el uso de materiales de construcción autóctonos fáciles de obtener y fáciles de modificar. En esta investigación se realiza un estudio sobre la simbiosis que existe entre la climatología y la arquitectura vernácula africanas, pasando por los 3 climas que predominan el continente, verificando y contrastando este estudio a través de artículos e investigaciones climatológicas mediante el programa Climate Consultant, dando una explicación a las estrategias que se han seguido en la construcción de las viviendas para alcanzar el confort y señalando la importancia que este estudio tiene para el mantenimiento de este tipo de arquitectura y para la mejora de la arquitectura actual