THE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT IN PUBLICINSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

The need to reduce public spending in the developing process and fundingof public services has led to the introduction of performance indicators in the publicinstitutions. Moreover, the need to optimize the educational activity, the implementationof an efficient management, insuring the quality and the compatibility of the educationalsystems has led to numerous investigations in this area by adopting, as a theoreticalreference framework some organizational models to explain the functionality of theeducational system and to define a performance appraisal system. Each model generatedby default a certain philosophy regarding the evaluation methods of the institutionalperformance, design and use of the performance indicators on education institutions.economic crisis, performance, indicators, education

Dorsal visual cues in German wasp navigation

The German wasp Vespula germanica is found in the Palaeartic region of the globe. Outside this area, it is highly invasive species. It has an omnivorous diet and is able to hunt other insects and scavenge for food from both natural and anthropogenic sources. It has been previously shown that this species has efficient and specialized foraging strategies depending on the resource. It is capable of navigating successfully through closed habitats, has a large landmark learning capacity as well as flexible responses to changing environmental variables. They are also able to recognize a shape irrespective of color and contrast with the background. Our study shows that this species is able to detect patterns and their orientation in the dorsal field, ability that is lacking in honeybees. Furthermore, our data suggests that each forager is able to remember landmarks associated with not only the current, but also the previous resource location, something that has already been proved in previous studies.German wasps keep an eye on the sky during flight The insect world has many examples of superb fliers that are capable of amazing feats. Among these, wasps are some of the very best. They are an amazing combination between a jet fighter and helicopter, by being able to fly at high speed in all directions, including backward, as well as hover. German wasps (Vespula germanica) are a native species to the Palearctic region. In other parts of the globe they are highly successful pests. Like all wasps, they are skilled hunters, preying on a variety of insects and other invertebrates. Amazingly, the adults are vegetarians with a sweet tooth, preferring foods containing high amounts of sugar such as fruits and honey-dew from aphids. However, their larvae require proteins, which are obtained by the workers not only through hunting, but also by scavenging. The success of this species may be explained by the fact that it is able to take advantage of food sources both natural and anthropogenic spanning a wide range of habitats. They also have efficient foraging strategies depending on the food source: for proteins, they learn the exact location of the food source, whereas for carbohydrates, they learn the general location. A dead animal is not able to move, thus knowing and learning its exact position is very important. On the other hand, carbohydrate sources, such as flowers, occur in patches over a relatively large area. Knowing the exact position of a flower is not necessary. German wasps are central place foragers, meaning that after each trip they return to a “central place” such as the nest. In order to do this, they must be able to find their way back after each trip. This of course requires a very good memory. In order to make the learning process effective, only the endpoints of each journey are memorized in detail. The majority of the route in between remains mainly unknown with the exception of a few conspicuous landmarks such as a tree. By learning only these landmarks and nothing else, the amount of stored information is minimal. In order to navigate between landmarks, foragers use a system called path integration, in which the distance traveled and angles turned are used to continuously update an estimation of their goal’s direction. The direction is obtained from celestial cues such as the sun, stars, moon or polarized light pattern of the sky. The distance comes from measuring the pattern of apparent motion of objects, also known as optic flow. Put in a more simple way, wasps use a system similar to our own GPS, in which you track your own movement in relation to the position of your goal. However, this is achieved without the help of satellites and with a brain smaller than the size of a pinhead (0.041 mm3)! Nevertheless, all of this would be impossible without one very important component: vision. If we humans can still move without this sense, this would be impossible for a wasp. Insect eyes are regionalized, such that different parts may perform different tasks, including tracking the position of a female flying above while at the same time avoiding bumping into objects ahead, or on the ground beneath. Surprisingly, vision in German wasps is still a poorly researched subject. When navigating dense habitats such as forests, the dorsal area of the eyes is of utmost importance. Wasps need to “keep an eye on the sky”, as the canopy pattern can act as a landmark, thus enabling the wasps to navigate more easily. In bees, the dorsal part of the eye is incapable of using color information and detecting pattern orientation. In the German wasp these capacities in the dorsal area of the compound eyes remain unknown. The purpose of my project was to determine if Vespula germanica is able to find a food source by using information coming only from the dorsal visual field. This was studied with the help of a Y-maze (Figure 2) in which the ceiling had black and transparent stripes of different orientations (perpendicular/ parallel to the length of each arm). In order to preserve the optic flow which enables the wasps to fly, but remove any visual cues, the sides of the maze were covered with self-adhesive patterned vinyl window film. With the help of a feeder containing the wasps’ favorite food, sugar solution, foragers were trained to associate a perpendicular orientation of the stripes with the food source. During the experiment, they were subjected to a choice: choose the arm containing the pattern parallel to the main axis, or choose the arm containing the trained pattern. As in any school, any possibilities for cheating were removed. Thus, the patterns in each arm were switched every 10 minutes. In this way any correct choices made simply by associating a particular arm with the food source were eliminated. Like many insects, wasps are also capable of using their sense of smell, and this too was considered cheating. However, wasps do not have a nose like that of humans that can easily closed. This difficult problem had a simple solution: put an identical feeder in each arm of the maze and place a net on the top of the feeder in the “wrong” arm. Thus, even if the wasps can smell the sugar solution, or even leave pheromones on the feeder, they would not be able to get any treat unless they used the information coming from the dorsal area. It was easy to see that this was very frustrating for individuals making the wrong choice as, in the beginning, they were furiously biting the net trying to get through. Amazingly, during the four days of the experiment, the proportion of correct choices made increased to 92%. These results prove that unlike bees, German wasps are able to detect and discriminate pattern orientation in the dorsal area of their eyes. However, unlike bees, German wasps often fly in complex habitats such as a forest in order to find protein rich food for their larvae. Thus, this ability could be beneficial for foraging in a complex forest habitat and might be favored during evolution. Why might this be a useful ability in a forest-navigating insect? Imagine that you are moving through a dense forest from point A to B. How do you find your way? Remember, you have no GPS, no compass and no tree marking is allowed. In a couple of minutes you would probably be completely and utterly lost. Now imagine that at the same time as you are walking, you are able to see the silhouetted canopy. What you would see would be a pattern of light and dark patches similar to the stripes in my experiment. This has one important property: it is unique from one place in the forest to another. Now, if you were able to remember this pattern then you would be able to navigate the forest in no time. Between day 1 and day 2 as well as day 2 and day 3, one and respectively two days with no experiment occurred because of bad weather conditions. What is amazing is that the percentage of correct choices increased continuously from 62% to 92%. Thus, the wasps could not only remember what they learned, but they even got better at it! The findings of this experiment show that German wasps have remarkable visual abilities. However, this is only the beginning of understanding how these amazing insects see the world around us. Future studies are needed in order to see if they can detect pattern orientations other than 90° and whether the color or the pattern of polarized skylight also play a role. Supervisors: Eric Warrant and Marie Dacke Masters Degree Project, 30hp, 2015 Department of Biology, Lund Universit

THE MANAGEMENT OF DOCUMENTS AN OPTIMISING COMPONENT FOR A COMPANIES IT SYSTEM

In order to ensure success in the competitive world of business, companies must accommodate the needs of their clients, partners, employees and capital owner. Companies that pay attention to the way their documents and information are administrated are more prepared to face cost reduction and can respond much faster to the changes occurred on Basically, it is all about information and controlling it and thus the response time is minimum to any inquiries or demands that come from inside the informational system of the company. So, you need an efficient document management. Software solutions that come to your aid, in order to optimize this process are Electronic Document Management System.Management, document, efficient, efficiency, opportunity, safety, IT

Efficiency of Insurance Activities in Romania

The assessment of a company’s insurance performances has to consider both the financial results, the ratio between resulting effect and efforts made in order to get this effect as well as insurer’s success assessment in order to fulfil its clients’ needs. Insurances efficiency is an economic and social form of efficiency and expresses the ratio between the results of insurance activities and recovery expenses made for the damaged goods or insured sums payments and the financial results achieved by the insurerprovided ,insurance, effective insurance

Valences considering the identification of risks in terms of public internal audit

Risks get new valences into the public sector within an economy characterized by resource limitation, increase of public exigency regarding services and diversification of the activities in the public sector entities. By carrying out this fundamental research we consider the problem of classification of risks from point of view of public internal audit. This study is based on a synthesis of the ideas published by national and international accounting regulators, accounting bodies and works put forward on the matter. We define the concept of risk, identify the types of risks in terms of public internal audit at European and national level, we determine the correlation between the audit risk optimization and the expedience of public financing use and propose a model to evaluate risks.audit risk, public internal audit, risk.

Characterization of the ocelli of the migratory Bogong moth (Agrotis infusa) in comparison to the non-migratory Turnip moth (Agrotis segetum)

The Bogong and Turnip moths are two species of the genus Agrotis, similar in size, but different in life style. The Bogong moth is a long distance migratory species endemic to Australia, whereas the Turnip moth has a wide spread in Africa, Europe and Asia where it is considered a pest. The ocelli are single-lens eyes of the camera type, whose role is still unknown in many insects, including the studied species. The present study searched for a potential role of these visual organs in these species, by determining the physiological and optical characteristics of the ocelli. Because of their different life styles (migratory vs. non-migratory), we searched to see if any differences are found and if the roles of the ocelli may differ as well. In my thesis I have found that these species have two underfocused ocelli placed laterally on the vertex of the head, close to the dorsal margin of the compound eyes and posterior to the antennae. The lenses are smooth with no pronounced asymmetry and astigmatism. The projection fields from the Bogong ocellar neurons are located close to the posterior brain surface, adjacent to the esophageal hole, anterior to the mushroom body calyx and anterior of the central complex. Because of the optical and physiological characteristics of the ocelli, it is probable that they play a role in flight stabilization reflexes although a function as a regulator of the initiation and cessation of diurnal activities, cannot be excluded

Reinsurances in people’s insurances

Reinsurance has an important role as it fulfills the following functions: offers capacity, creates stability, contributes to reinforcement of finanaciar power. The initial reason of reinsurances is granting capacity. In each chapter of insurances there are risks that an insurance society can not afford to keep for own portofolio. Reinsurances maintain constantly the results of the society of insurances for a certain period of time. Result can fluctuate as a result of gathering some individual demanges which appear in a period of time or as a result of unexpected demange, very big. Reinsurance decries this fluctuation by limitation of the exposure of individual risks to demange or bz restrictions of demanges to which a portofolio might be a subject.reinsurance, insurances of persons, stability, insurance company

MACRO-ECONOMICAL INDICATORS IN INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS

The intern product, the national product and the national income are three basic economical concepts expressing the results of the economical activity in the entire national economy. The intern product expresses the final product of economical goods obtained in a lapse of time by the economical agents who develop their activity inside the country. The national product expresses the final product of economical goods obtained in a lapse of time both by the economical agents inside the country and by the ones who develop their activity outside the national borders. The national income expresses the net value added in a lapse of time after the developed economical activity, respectively the sum of the incomes of the production factors. The three concept statistically measured allow us to determine three main macro-economical indicators spotlighting the results obtained in the national economy in a determined lapse of time. Hereinafter, we present the necessity of the calculation and the analysis of these indicators.Intern product, national income, national product

ALTERNATIVE DIRECTIONS OF CHOOSING THE INVESTMENT STRATEGIES

Strategic choosing refers to making decisions (selecting the strategic option) related to the future of the enterprise and the ways it respond to the action of certain pressure and influence factors identified by analysis and strategic diagnosis. The clear definition of the enterprise objectives is very important from the viewpoint of the business types where it is involved and of the connections existent between them (by means of the SBU mix). But, the successful development of the strategies should consider the fact that they cannot be built only on the existent financial resources, but also on the development of these resources.Strategic choosing , enterprise objectives , investment strategies

Three Essays on Finance

This thesis is comprised of three chapters. The main objective of Chapter 1 is to assess empirically the impact an increase in the adverse selection risk has on competition between passive traders in different exchanges in the US. stock market (inter-market competition). By using macroeocnomic news as an exogenous shock, I show that increases in adverse selection risk is associated with a decrease in inter-market competition. Around macroeconomic news, despite the increase in adverse selection risk, passive traders take advantage and earn larger rents than during intra-days with no macroeconomic news. Furthermore, to the best of my knowledge this is the first paper to study the impact an increase in fragmentation has on inter-market competition as a function of adverse selection risk. In line with this, I show that the impact an increase in fragmentation has on inter-market competition is context-dependent. Chapter 2 is written in the context of the Finance Crowed Analyses Project (FINCAP). With this aim, FINCAP launched a project to understand the mechanism behind differences in results across different Research Teams (RTs). In line with this, all RTs had to test the same hypothesis using the same data, and finally submit a short paper with the results (estimates) obtained. The dispersion in estimates across researchers (non-standard error) is the object of study of FINCAP. I participated in the project together with Sophie Moinas as a Research Team (RT).With this aim, we had to test 6 hypothesis related to market quality. The short paper written together with Sophie Moinas and submitted in the final stage of the experiment constitutes the first part of Chapter 2. The estimates provided by all RTs are used as an input in the final project Non-Standard Errors to study what drives differences in estimates across researchers. The final conclusions of the experiment are specified in the paper: Non-Standard Errors (forthcoming in the Journal of Finance), which constitutes the second part of Chapter 2. The paper Non-Standard Errors is coauthored with researchers affiliated to a total of 207 institutions listed in Annex 1. In the third chapter, a joint work with José Maria Marin Vigueras, we test performance evaluation in the context of the Rational Expectations Equilibrium (REE) Paradigm. Based on the extremely positive results obtained, we develop a strongly micro-founded new measure of performance evaluation which we call Informed Alpha that beats the standard Jensen alpha measure of performance. We show that Informed Alpha sorts truly talented managers who exhibit strong persistence in their performance.Doctorado en Empresa y Finanzas. Mención InternacionalPresidente: Giovanni Cespa.- Secretario: Jesper Rudiger Sorensen.- Vocal: María Teresa González Pére