Journal of Marine Science: An Open Framework Dedicated to the Presentation of the Discoveries and Insights in Marine Science Research

Marine environment represents a very important and actual topic. Water bodies cover more than two thirds of the earth’s surface and even after thousands of years, scientists have yet to fully uncover their mysteries. At the same time climate, change has visible effects with a growing dynamics in the last decades and the marine environment is very sensitive to these changes. In order to mitigate the effects of the climate change there is an increasing need of reducing the CO2 emissions and from this perspective the marine environment represents an important source of clean renewable energy. In this respect, the Journal of Marine Science represented even from the beginning an open framework dedicated to the presentation of the discoveries and insights in marine science research

Renewable Energy in Marine Environment

The effects of human-caused global warming are obvious, requiring new strategies and approaches. The concept of business-as-usual is now no longer beneficial. Extraction of renewable energy in marine environments represents a viable solution and an important path for the future. These huge renewable energy resources in seas and oceans can be harvested, including wind, tide, and waves. Despite the initial difficulties related mostly to the elevated operational risks in the harsh marine environment, newly developed technologies are economically effective or promising. Simultaneously, many challenges remain to be faced. These are the main issues targeted by the present book, which is associated with the Special Issue of Energies Journal entitled “Renewable Energy in Marine Environment”. Papers on innovative technical developments, reviews, case studies, and analytics, as well as assessments, and papers from different disciplines that are relevant to the topic are included. From this perspective, we hope that the results presented are of interest to for scientists and those in related fields such as energy and marine environments, as well as for a wider audience

An Overview on the Shipbuilding Market in Current Period and Forecast

The work presents the evolution of the shipbuilding market for the period 2002-2017 and the forecast for the period 2018-2035. Following the dynamics of the shipbuilding market in the period under review, in close connection with the world economic growth, the authors highlight the differences in the pre-crisis period of 2008 and beyond. The study provides information on the evolution of the order book, new orders and deliveries pre-and post-crisis, from which resulting their downward in the post-crisis period, especially for the standard ships that face a surplus of ships. The forecast by SEA Europe and other major shipbuilding associations for the period 2018-2035 shows that the ship demand will be rising, although at a relatively low rate. Analyzing the world market shares by country/region for the 2014-2017 period, it result that the Asian countries dominated the standard ship market, while the European shipyards have specialized in high-value vessels

Stakeholders’ Perception for Development of an Entrepreneurial and Innovative Institution

The present paper aims to show the way in which we can determine the importance given to a higher education institution, on the basis of its self-assessment, by the internal and external stakeholders, using the HEInnovate tool. The objective of the work was to identify the most relevant aspects of the entrepreneurship and innovation in a higher education institution (HEI) from Romania, by establishing the level of the perceptions of the main groups involved in the evaluation. As study methods, the semantic differential (SD) and One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used. Also, to determine the groups of respondents that participate in the self-assessment, between which there are significant differences of perception, the Least Significant Difference (LSD) was used. Research revealed that the respondents perceived as equally important all pillars, giving them a favorable score (average score) ranging between 3.51 and 3.81

Can Air Quality be Influenced in Coastal Areas by Shipping?

The problem of pollution is a topical issue at global, regional but also at the local level. Starting from this idea, the question arises whether the coastal region in the North-East of the Black Sea is affected by the emissions resulting from the combustion of marine fuels in large ship engines, which manage to set in motion floating buildings intended for the transport of goods and passengers. This paper wants to evaluate the variation of the air quality indicators in the coastal area of Romania, taking into account the contribution that the ships by their number, size and destination can have on these qualitative factors. Such an approach is needed from the perspective of the more than 500,000 inhabitants possibly affected by the effects with which this industry is accompanied. As the Black Sea active fleet is already old, as its ages year by year, the premises for the need for this study can be set up. As in other regions, drastic measures are taken in order to reduce the effects of pollution due to such economic activity, the assessment of the effects that this industry produces in inhabited areas becomes necessary. In order to carry out this study, air quality data from the database provided by the National Air Quality Monitoring Network of the Workshop on the calitateaer.ro site were evaluated

An Evaluation of the Main Physical Features and Circulation Patterns in the Black Sea Basin

Having as target the semi-enclosed basin of the Black Sea, the primary purpose of the existing paper is to present an overview of its extensive physical features and circulation patterns. To achieve this goal, more than five decades of data analysis - from 1960 to 2015 - were taken into consideration and the results were validated against acknowledged data, both from satellite data over the last two decades and in-situ measurements from first decades. The circulation of the Black Sea basin has been studied for almost 400 years since the Italian Count Luigi Marsigli first described the “two-layer” circulation through the Bosphorus Strait in the year 1681. Since climate change projections for the Black Sea region foresee a significant impact on the environment in the coming decades, a set of adaptation and mitigation measures is required. Therefore more research is needed. Nowadays, the warming trend adds a sense of immediate urgency because according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centre for Environmental Information, July 2020 was the second-hottest month ever recorded for the planet. Its averaged land and ocean surface temperature tied with July 2016 as the secondhighest for the month in the 141-year NOAA’s global temperature dataset history, which dates back to 1880. It was 0.92°C above the 20th-century average of 15.8°C, with only 0.01°C less than the record extreme value measured in July of 2019

Temporal variation of the wave energy flux in hotspot areas of the Black sea

This paper aims to examine the temporal variation of wave energy flux in the hotspot areas of the Black Sea. For this purpose, a 31-year long-term wave dataset produced by using a three-layered nested modelling system was used. Temporal variations of wave energy were determined at hourly, monthly, seasonal, and yearly basis at seventeen stations. Based on the results obtained, it can be concluded that the stations have very low fluctuations in mean wave power during the day. Mean wave power in the summer months shows a low difference between the stations, but in the winter months, there is a higher difference in wave power between the stations. This difference is more at the stations in the southwestern part of the Black Sea and much lower in the eastern Black Sea stations around Sinop, being in the middle of the southern coast of the Black Sea. In addition, it is concluded that mean wave energy flux presents a decreasing trend at all stations, but maximum wave power offers an increasing trend at most of the stations.Romanian Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding (PN-III-P4-IDPCE-2016-0017

The Earned Value Management - a measurement technique of the performance of the costs and labor in the project

Most of the planned projects have problems due to the cost and time overruns from different reasons. Earned value management (EVM) is a project performance evaluation technique that has been used in many projects from several fields, but which has been adapted to be used in project management to objectively track the physical accomplishment of certain work. The earned value analysis offers the possibility to manage the project performances in early stages of the project to point out the need of the eventual corrective action. This paper aims to present the main parameters involved in the calculation of the Earned Value Analysis (EVA) for a ballast plant on shipboard

Approche geo - demographique sur la situation actuelle de la population maori de la Nouvelle Zelande

Although there are significant differences for many demographic and economic indicators between Maori and the rest of the New Zealand population, we can see a trend of ownership of demographic traits. The Maori population is among the best built in a modern society of colonial origin. Several factors have contributed to the social aggregation, supported also by the political structures, by associations and non-governmental organizations and the desire of both peoples from vastly different. Through this integration we are witnessing a renaissance of Maori people and an awareness of current membership in the nation of New Zealand, as the best chance of prosperity and blur the differences and marginalization