Ethical aspects of 20th Century Norwegian environmental philosophies

The aim of this monograph is to reveal the complex development of 20th-century Norwegian environmental philosophies from a comparative perspective by outlining not only the role of the similar philosophical premises they derive from, but also how the differences in the chosen strategies affected the changes in the Norwegian environmental politics. That is why one of the main objectives is to analyze the origin and the elaboration of some concepts and ideas which contribute to clarifying the multi-sidedness of the topic by going beyond the well-known theory of the founder of deep ecology, namely, the one of the Norwegian philosopher, mountaineer and environmental activist Arne Næss.Non peer reviewe

Enterpreneurship, management and communication

Enterpreneurship, management and communication, 978-3-659-42460-1, Communication skills are ranked after the skills most sought by employers. They are a key factor in the process of self-employment, but also in the employment of others, as well as for the achievements, career progress and success of the organization.The time when the management of employees expected humble workers who do what is required of them, has been gone. Nowadays, employees are expected to actively participate in critical thinking not just about the professional aspects that individual touch, but also actively involved in solving problems and communicating the decisions of management, with colleagues, and the public environment. This book focuses on the importance of effective communication of entrepreneurs, as a modern, innovative aspect of their daily organizational activity. The time of changes in which we live and work, requires constant improvement of their individual capital of knowledge, perceived

Assistive technology for the visually impaired: How to provide independence and ease to meal preparation?

Disabilities are a reality many don’t think about too much unless one, or someone one knows, is affected by them. This work is motivated by this fact and is focused on attempting to improve the quality of life (QoL) of persons with visual impairment or blindness by facilitating the execution of one of the activities of daily living (ADL) – cooking independently. As this work will show, cooking with severe sight loss could prove easier or more difficult depending on various factors, the main one of which is time spent living with limited sight and, of course, proclivity for this activity. Easier, however, not easy. This is why the subject of this work is to provide a set of reliable, simple, and easy to use dispensers for oil and spices equipped with elements for identification of the various products. In order to, offer adequate results, this work began with contextualizing the target market by presenting statistics. This was followed by a glimpse of the reality of living with the limitations of visual impairment by examining the neural pathways that allow for multisensory processing (MP) and how that applies in the investigation and development of sensory substitution devices (SSD). Leaving the purely scientific and experimental part, this work proceeded to examining the evolution of assistive technology throughout the centuries and concluded by analyzing the current products on the market today. This analysis led to the compiling of plausible hypotheses for the solutions proposed by the author followed by final proposals and the development of proof-of-concept prototypes. The work concluded by presenting a business plan around the proposed products

Entrepreneurship as a modern managing intention in a direction of defining quality

Practicing the entrepreneurial approach and initializing behavior within an organization in order to create work incentive, creative thinking , innovation , proactive approach and taking moderate risk in the line of work , in the transition countries will result in overcoming the present obstacles that are lack of strategy, continuous education of employees and sustainability of the process , which will affect the quality of services and adapt to the needs of the environment and the labor market . The survey confirmed the lack of defined coordination and effective communication between management levels in the management of employees as important factors in the process. The result is a recognized need for an institutional policy on corporate governance and effective implementation of the quality system which includes: defined strategies and standards for quality, responsibility in the organizational units and individuals in terms of providing them and way of their implementation, monitoring and review of the institutional operating policy

Entrepreneurship and financing: The evidence of Macedonia

There is an absence of general platform to define the entrepreneurship. Yet, it is a common sense that it presents a concept which is closely related to financial risks. In this line, the small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are still experiencing considerable difficulties in sustaining their importance for economic development. The paper describes the sources of financial support to the SMEs in Macedonia, and simultaneously identifies the most applied sources of financing. Moreover, it elaborates the importance of the Macedonian Bank for Development Promotion (MBDP) in providing financial support in terms of financing start-ups, providing medium and long-term loans to SMEs, financing exports, extending export credit insurance, and the management and implementation of international credit lines. The analyzed data set covers the period 1999-2013. The main findings reveal that the MBDP has a substantial role in development of entrepreneurship in general in Macedonia

Assessing access to finance for tourism development: entrepreneurial approach

Macedonia is a small open economy that is challenged by various policies and measures in the line of enhancing its competitiveness. Being focused on becoming a recognizable country with favorable business climate, Macedonia is faced with numerous and complex limiting factors. This paper intends to assess the access to finance as one of the most profound causes that inhibits tourism development. The paper elaborates the case of Krusevo, as one of the most developed winter tourism centers in Macedonia. The objective is to identify the major problems caused by lack of access to finance for further tourism development, by employing the entrepreneurial approach. A survey is conducted among managers/owners and employees of travel agencies and tourism service facilities as the main representatives of tourism supply side. The overall conclusion is that the destination is faced with serious obstacles in terms of providing finance for tourism development

Strategic approach to the treatment of human resources in public institutions

The approach to education as an economic category requires changes that should be managed in a consistent manner, initiating inter-institutional communication and active involvement of all subjects as: local government authorities, organs of the central government, parents, school staff and the business community. Their direct involvement in the education policy will contribute to increased interaction with the local school environment, in order to adequately address its current and future needs

Intra-entrepreneurship management in tourist organizations in the east region of R. Macedonia

This paper is focused on the main results from the research embarked in the line of employees which work in tourism and catering in Macedonia. On top of this, on paper there is an idea to evaluate the current situation of the intra-entrepreneurship skills and abilities of the employees in the tourism field and to discover the deepest obstacles for their entrepreneurship development in the tourist sector. For this goal, self-administrative questionnaire has been distributed between the managers and employees that work in the tourist agencies and objects on several locations in Macedonia. Besides, on paper there are several concrete standards which implementation would make the process of effective internal management easier, which would make the managers and employees confront in the tourism and tourism sector in Macedonia. The contribution of this paper is that the solution of this question makes the under-developed academic work in Macedonia in this segment richer

Sustainable tourism and hotel management in Macedonia through the use of renewable energy sources

This study aimed to investigate the nature of energy applied in hotel industry in Macedonia. It explored the indicators for resources application in three, four and five star hotels. The data were collected by means of an online survey conducted among 45 managers and department supervisors. It is found that large number of hotels lack measures to reduce the conventional energy use and replace it with renewable sources of energy. Considering the fact that energy use is a substantial cost factor, the modest and restricted application of geothermal energy, biofuels and photocell lightening is extremely alarming for achieving sustainable tourism development. The study concludes that Macedonian hotels although being fully aware of importance of energy efficiency concept, it is not their managerial priority. It further pointed out that the development and operation of sustainable hotels requires properly planned and designed environmental protection practices. Finally, the study recommends that instead of being driven by increased number of tourists regardless the environmental concern, Macedonian hotels should pay attention and become eco-friendly and be focused on applying environmental oriented practices. At the same time, the research poses new challenges that urgently need to be brought to hotel management in the line of achieving sustainable tourism development

Review of QSAR Models and Software Tools for Predicting of Genotoxicity and Carcinogenicity

This review of QSARs for genotoxicity and carcinogenicity was performed in a broad sense, considering both models available in software tools and models that are published in the literature. The review considered the potential applicability of diverse models to pesticides as well as to other types of regulated chemicals and pharmaceuticals. The availability of models and information on their applicability is summarised in tables, and a range of illustrative or informative examples are described in more detail in the text. In many cases, promising models were identified but they are still at the research stage. For routine application in a regulatory setting, further efforts will be needed to explore the applicability of such models for specific purposes, and to implement them in a practically useful form (i.e. user-friendly software). It is also noted that a range of software tools are research tools suitable for model development, and these require more specialised expertise than other tools that are aimed primarily at end-users such as risk assessors. It is concluded that the most useful models are those which are implemented in software tools and associated with transparent documentation on the model development and validation process. However, it is emphasised that the assessment of model predictions requires a reasonable amount of QSAR knowledge, even if it is not necessary to be a QSAR practitioner.JRC.DG.I.6-Systems toxicolog