E-GOVERNMENT: A DRIVING FACTOR FOR STIMULATING INNOVATION PERFORMANCE IN ROMANIA?

The development of public services is one of the priorities on the agendas of all policies, both national and European. One of the most recent concerns of the European Commission, as shown in the 2010 Innobarometer, is to find ways and develop strategies to support the innovation in the public administration sector, in the context of the continuously changing economic background. In this paper, we'll investigate the relationship between e-Government, and the overall innovation performance at national level, for some European Union countries. e-Government is already a known concept, widespread in the world, promoting the implementation of information and communication technologies in the public administration, in order to provide better public services to citizens and businesses. A main component of the e-Government concept is the "counter reform", aimed to streamlining administrative act quickly in order to respond to the demands of citizens, businesses and government structures. Innovation in e-Government will be measured with two Eurostat indicators - "e-Government on-line availability" and "e-Government usage by individuals" - while for the overall innovation performance we'll use a composite indicator - the Summary Innovation Index (SII) - from the Innovation Union Scoreboard (IUS). In Romania, even if the values of these indicators are not at the level of other EU countries, we can say that the situation has improved and electronic public services are being used increasingly often. The study also includes a comparison between two "modest innovators": Romania and Bulgaria. Regarding the overall innovation performance, according to the 2010 Innovation Union Scoreboard ranking, Romania is the leader of the "modest innovators" countries, overcoming Latvia, Bulgaria and Lithuania. However, in the field of e-Government our country has major shortcomings. Romania has registered a significant progress in the years after the EU integration, followed by a setback in 2009, still having values below those of other EU countries, including Bulgaria.innovation, e-Government, public sector, SII, correlation

SCREENING FOR IODINE DEFICIENCY – MORE THAN A MEDICAL APPROACH

Working as a team began more and more important in many fields, including medicine. After an era of fragmentation, when the need of deepen the knowledge led to supra-specialization, we witness now the reassembly of these distinct parts, in order to obtain a comprehensive view. This is true not only for research, but also for the clinical practice. We present the building of a team who started with a screening and continued with other evaluations in a city from the eastern part of Romania. The goal of the study was to evaluate the iodine status in a former iodine deficient area. Two parameters were necessary, evaluation of thyroid volume and urinary iodine in a representative group of children. The initial pure endocrinological team increased by adopting new members: medical (nurses, epidemiologist, biochemist) and non-medical (schoolteachers). The results induced new studies and the team had growth and proved the utility of interdisciplinarity

Characterization of Pyrite Reactivity by Cyclic Voltammetry

The electrochemical behaviour of natural pyrite has been investigated i

Clustering categorical functional data Application to medical discharge letters

International audienceCategorical functional data represented by paths of a stochastic jump process are considered for clustering. For paths of the same length, the extension of the multiple correspondence analysis allows the use of well-known methods for clustering finite dimensional data. When the paths are of different lengths, the analysis is more complex. In this case, for Markov models we propose an EM algorithm to estimate a mixture of Markov processes. A simulation study as well as a real application on hospital stays will be presented

Chemical composition of the essential oils from leaves and flowers of Passiflor sexocellata and Passiflora trifasciata

The chemical composition of the essential oils of Passiflora sexocellata and Passiflora trifasciata (Passifloraceae, subgenus Decaloba) were studied for the first time. Essential oils were obtained by steam distillation of fresh leaves and flowers. The chemical composition was assessed by using GC/FID and GC/MS. For P. sexocellata leaves, the optimized analytical procedure allowed the identification of 33 compounds (75% of the total oil composition) and 29 (74% of the total oil composition) in flowers. Regarding P. trifasciata, 35 compounds (76% of the total oil composition) were detected in leaves and 32 (71% of the total oil composition) in flowers. Terpenes and mono unsaturated hydrocarbons were quantified as major constituents of the volatile fraction in flowers (17.0 to 52.6%) and (13.7 to 20.0%). Organic acids were detected in both leaves and flowers with a percentage ranging from 3.3% to 32.0%. Aldehydes were also detected in leaves (12.6 to 41.4%) and in flowers (1.4 to 5.1%). The GC/MS analyzes allowed alcohols to be detected in leaves (20.6 to 42.9%) and in flowers (8.2 to 18.1%). These compounds represent the most important feature of the large Passiflora family. Moreover, a critical role in the coevolved mechanisms of pollinators' interaction has been investigated

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN INTERNAL MARKET ORIENTATION AND EMPLOYEE JOB SATISFACTION: THE CASE OF THE ROMANIAN BANKING SECTOR

The paper aims to investigate the effect of internal market orientation and its dimensions on the employee job satisfaction. The idea of this research emerged from the extensive scientific literature that suggests the existence of a relationship between internal market orientation and employee job satisfaction. In fact, internal market orientation is conceptualized as a set of managerial behaviors that have the potential to influence employee behavior which would in turn affect customer satisfaction. The research involves a questionnaire-based survey of employees in the banking sector in Romania. The convenience sampling method was used. A total of 170 usable questionnaires were received from the employees. The measurement scales within the proposed model were evaluated for reliability and validity. The research hypotheses were tested via linear regression. The study’s empirical results suggest a positive influence of the internal market orientation and each of its three dimensions on employee job satisfaction. In order to increase the level of employee job satisfaction, the organization should systematically monitor the personal needs of every employee, to adapt every important decision taken by the managers to the individual needs that employees of different groups may have, supervisors should be interested in listening to what subordinates have to say about jobs, about the issues they have and the management of the organization must seriously consider employees’ needs, introduce policies and allocate funds to meet these needs. JEL CLASSIFICATION: M31, G2

Chromium Substituted Cobalt Ferrites by Glycine-Nitrates Process

Chromium substituted cobalt ferrites (CoFe2–xCrxO4, 0 ≤ x ≤ 2) were synthesized through solution combustion method using glycine as fuel, named glycine-nitrates process (GNP). As evidenced by X-ray diffraction data (XRD), single cubic spinel phase was formed for all CoFe2–xCrxO4 (0 ≤ x ≤ 2) series. The cubic lattice parameter (a) decreases with increasing chromium content. Room temperature 57Fe Mössbauer spectra revealed the Fe3+ and Cr3+ site occupancy, the local hyperfine magnetic fields and the substitution of Fe3+ by Cr3+ in the lattice. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed a refinement of particle size with the increase of Cr3+ content. Magnetic measurements from 5 K to 120 K have shown a dropping in the saturation magnetization as the chromium content increases. This behaviour has been explained in terms of substitution of Fe3+ by Cr3+ in the cubic lattice of cobalt ferrite

Consistency of impact assessment protocols for non-native species

Standardized tools are needed to identify and prioritize the most harmful non-native species (NNS). A plethora of assessment protocols have been developed to evaluate the current and potential impacts of non-native species, but consistency among them has received limited attention. To estimate the consistency across impact assessment protocols, 89 specialists in biological invasions used 11 protocols to screen 57 NNS (2614 assessments). We tested if the consistency in the impact scoring across assessors, quantified as the coefficient of variation (CV), was dependent on the characteristics of the protocol, the taxonomic group and the expertise of the assessor. Mean CV across assessors was 40%, with a maximum of 223%. CV was lower for protocols with a low number of score levels, which demanded high levels of expertise, and when the assessors had greater expertise on the assessed species. The similarity among protocols with respect to the final scores was higher when the protocols considered the same impact types. We conclude that all protocols led to considerable inconsistency among assessors. In order to improve consistency, we highlight the importance of selecting assessors with high expertise, providing clear guidelines and adequate training but also deriving final decisions collaboratively by consensus