A Decision Support System (DSS) for Project Management in the Bio-diesel Industry

The European biodiesel industry is currently facing several challenges affecting the profitability of investment projects in the industry. Among these challenges are higher prices for oilseeds, which are the main input for biodiesel production, lower fiscal support by national governments for biodiesel producers and high price volatility of oil markets. Thus identifying all opportunities for optimizing the value chain and lower the production cost of biodiesel is a main requirement for an efficient project management in the biodiesel industry. The paper addresses this topic by developing a decision support system tailored to the needs of Romanian investors in biodiesel production. The system optimizes the main activities of the biodiesel value chain and supports the decision making process at management level. In addition the DSS enables the user to perform sensitivity analysis based on varying various input parameter.Biodiesel, Investments, DSS, Optimization, Management

Particularities of Investment Projects in the Romanian Biodiesel Industry

The European biodiesel industry is currently facing major challenges with governments reducing their fiscal support for biodiesel producers and with rising prices for feedstock. These challenges have a high impact on the profitability and survival of existing investment projects in biodiesel production. In this regard identifying and assessing the main particularities of investment projects have high significance, as they help management understand industry dynamics and better cope with unfavorable events. The paper follows a structured approach towards this objective and analyzes investment projects in Romanian biodiesel based on: a thorough SWOT analysis, current financing sources for biodiesel, risk categories and their impact on profitability of investment projects.biodiesel, financing, project risks, profitability, projects.

The implications for education of Peirce’s agapist principle

AbstractIn his divisions of science, Peirce placed pedagogy in the branch of practical sciences. This means that the profession of teaching can only be meliorated by experience, through practice. However, I argue that a holistic look at Peirce’s semiotics reveals an implicit philosophy of education. The key lies in understanding his account of experience in the context of his theory of evolution. By experience Peirce meant semiosis (action of signs), not the modern empirical notion of experience. The sign, unlike an idea (purely mental entity) does not belong strictly to mental or non-mental phenomena. Experience is a characteristic of the Universe (CP 5.448), understood as a physiology of arguments (Stjernfelt 2007). According to Peirce’s taxonomy of signs, learning is the evolution of signification from the Icon sign type to the Argument sign type, being the Universe’s way of discovering itself through life forms. The Argument sign type is a result of agapasm, evolution due to creative love (CP 6.302). The paper explains how Peirce’s theory of agapistic evolution underpins an educational paradigm.</jats:p

Main factors influencing the production of biofuels in Romania

Despite the considerable progress achieved by Romania in regenerative energies, especially for the hydro energy, the energy production from biomass still has a great unused potential compared with other EU countries. The interest for biomass has increased over the last years in the EU also in the context of biofuels for the transport sector and has lead to a series of strategic choices to increase their use in the economy. Biofuel production in Romania is at a low level compared with other more developed countries like Germany or France. Thus, outlining the country profile of Romania from the perspective of a national production of biofuels becomes imperative for the integration in the EU market and the development of a new industrial branch, with high growth rates and a positive impact on other economic branches (e.g. agriculture). The present study aims at laying the foundation for a strategic analysis of the biofuels production in Romania. In this regard different factors with a direct impact on the sustainable biofuels production were identified and analyzed. For the purpose of this study information from various reports, issued by both governmental and non-governmental bodies from Romania and internationally, were used.biomass, biofuels, biodiesel, oilseeds, rapeseed

Learning and adaptation from a semiotic perspective

This paper discusses the relation between learning and adaptation, arguing that the current state of the art in semiotics suggests a continuity between the two. An overview of the relevant theories in this regard, as considered in semiotics, reveals an embodied and environmental account of learning, where language plays an important but nevertheless limited role. Learning and adaptation are seen as inseparable cases of semiotic modelling. Such a construal of these opens up new pathways towards a nondualist philosophy and theory of education

“Have you not heard, my soul [...]?”: The Great Kanon of St Andrew of Crete as a multimodal autocommunicative text

This paper examines the Great Kanon (also Great Canon; in the original Greek, Ὁ Μέγας Κανών) of St Andrew of Crete (ca. 660–740) as a case study in how religious ritual texts deploy autocommunicative processes. To study this complex liturgical hymn that occupies a key role in the ritual practice of Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Christians we employ a theoretical framework rooted primarily in Juri Lotman’s theory of autocommunication, as complemented by more recent developments in social and cognitive semiotics, particularly ideas of multimodality and viewpoint. We find that the Great Kanon performs a variety of autocommunicative functions, primarily through its provision of a rhetorical metalanguage for the interpretation of the Old and New Testaments. This is a metalanguage which is multimodally enacted in ritual performance. The process makes the believer’s experience of reading the Bible an open and unfolding dialogue, in which the viewpoints of biblical characters become models for (re)interpreting one’s life experiences and reshaping one’s sense of self. The paper ultimately highlights that analyses of ritual texts, which deploy methods from cultural and cognitive semiotics, can deepen our understanding of autocommunication

Learning and knowing as semiosis: Extending the conceptual apparatus of semiotics

Если все знания рождаются в процессе семиозиса, то в семиотический инструментарий следует добавить дополнительные понятия. Вместе с тем, семиотические понятия должны быть определены через другие семиотические понятия. Мы рассматриваем возможность определения понятий когнитивных процессов и явлений с помощью семиотических терминов. В частности, мы концентрируемся на понятиях, имеющих отношение к теории познания, таких как обучение, знание, доступность (affordance), подпорка (scaffolding), ресурсы, компетенция, память и некоторые другие. Даем их предварительные определения с семиотической точки зрения, что позволяет также показать их взаимо связанность. Переосмысление этих терминов помогает избежать как физикализма, так и психологизма, демонстрируя эпистемологические характе- ристики взаимоотношения организмов и среды через семиотическое понимание при способленности. Также мы вкратце обсудим значение наших введенных заново определений в качестве вклада в семиотическую теорию познания, которая имеет отношение как к гуманитарным наукам, так и к наукам о жизни, не забывая при этом об их значимости для образования и психологии, а также для социальных семиотических исследований и исследований в области мультимодальности.If all knowing comes from semiosis, more concepts should be added to the semiotic toolbox. However, semiotic concepts must be defined via other semiotic concepts. We observe an opportunity to advance the state-of-the-art in semiotics by defining concepts of cognitive processes and phenomena via semiotic terms. In particular, we focus on concepts of relevance for theory of knowledge, such as learning, knowing, affordance, scaffolding, resources, competence, memory, and a few others. For these, we provide preliminary definitions from a semiotic perspective, which also explicates their interrelatedness. Redefining these terms this way helps to avoid both physicalism and psychologism, showcasing the epistemological dimensions of environmental situatedness through the semiotic understanding of organisms’ fittedness with their environments. Following our review and presentation of each concept, we briefly discuss the significance of our embedded redefinitions in contributing to a semiotic theory of knowing that has relevance to both the humanities and the life sciences, while not forgetting their relevance to education and psychology, but also social semiotic and multimodality studies. &nbsp

A “Strong” Approach to Sustainability Literacy:Embodied Ecology and Media

This article outlines a “strong” theoretical approach to sustainability literacy, building on an earlier definition of strong and weak environmental literacy (Stables and Bishop 2001). The argument builds upon a specific semiotic approach to educational philosophy (sometimes called edusemiotics), to which these authors have been contributing. Here, we highlight how a view of learning that centers on embodied and multimodal communication invites bridging biosemiotics with critical media literacy, in pursuit of a strong, integrated sustainability literacy. The need for such a construal of literacy can be observed in recent scholarship on embodied cognition, education, media and bio/eco-semiotics. By (1) construing the environment as semiosic (Umwelt), and (2) replacing the notion of text with model, we develop a theory of literacy that understands learning as embodied/environmental in/across any mediality. As such, digital and multimedia learning are deemed to rest on environmental and embodied affordances. The notions of semiotic resources and affordances are also defined from these perspectives. We propose that a biosemiotics-informed approach to literacy, connecting both eco- and critical-media literacy, accompanies a much broader scope of meaning-making than has been the case in literacy studies so far

How to Sample the Unreachable: Transbronchial Biopsy

Transbronchial biopsy (TBBx) or bronchoscopic lung biopsy (BLBx) should be a diagnosis tool for focal peripheral lesions and for diffuse lung disease in every bronchoscopic suite around the world. The main advantage of this procedure is that it avoids open lung surgery for peripheral lung biopsy. The procedure is usually safe and can be done in an outpatient setting with moderate sedation, but life-threatening complications can occur, so a proper evaluation of the risk benefits ratio should be carefully analyzed before the intervention. There is no need for guidance in diffuse peripheral lesions, but for localized peripheral lesions, the diagnostic yield of TBBx is significantly higher with fluoroscopic guidance. In this chapter, we assess the utility, indications, and contraindication of this technique, as well as its clinical applications and complications