ROMANIA - PORTUGAL: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE TWO COUNTRIESâ€(tm) LABOUR MARKETS

Our choice was justified by the fact that between the two countries exist some features that make them interesting to study from the employment point of view. Thus, both countries are Latin and this is why we consider they are comparable, because employment means people, more precisely mentalities and attitudes to work. We considered that it is interesting to see how the labour market from the east Latin Europe has evolved, in a comparable, crucial period, with its counterpart from west Latin Europe. First of all, we would like to point out the fact that our intention is to analyse the periods which from the economic history point of view have influenced in a decisive manner the present evolution of the two countries. The Portugal labour market is a subject of real scientific interest (we would like to mention that even Michael Porter was interested by this topic). Our paper tries to emphasize the common and different features of the two labour markets, in order to facilitate an experience sharing process on this topic. To achieve the paperâ€(tm)s objectives statistical and cluster analysis have been used. This is one of the best ways to capture the influence of determinant factors on labour market performance. The degree of originality is given by the assumed objectives, namely studying some very up-to-date problems from an interconnected perspective (historical similarities, structural changes, labour market performance) and analyzing the Romanian situation compared to other EU countries, i.e. Portugal. The main impact of the paper will be on the practical level through the model outcomes and conclusions. One of the objectives is to look for solutions to the problems identified and to persuade policy makers to give them a greater importance. Our main contribution is represented by the fact that we have approached this topic from an economic and historical perspective, trying to find explanations for the present situation in the modern past of the two nations.labour market, structural changes, education, cluster analysis, EU accession

REGIONAL COMPETITIVENESS DEVELOPMENT BASED ON HUMAN RESOURCES

Into the actual social and economic context, characterised by the challenges of the globalisation process, the need of redefining the state role in the economy, the switch to the knowledge based economy, the problem of increasing the national and regionalcompetitiveness, regional development, human resources, statistical analysis, econometrical models

A comparative study on accounting heredity: the case of ex soviet countries versus other eastern european countries

This paper aims at investigating the existence of accounting heredity in some of Eastern European countries. Accounting heredity assumes that at the time the economic paradigm changes, a new accounting system emerges, enclosing both genes from the existing accounting system, as well as genes from a new accounting system used as an inspiration. Data was gathered by sending questionnaires to academics in the respective countries. Studied countries fell into two categories: Ex Soviet countries (Republic of Moldova & Ukrane), and other Est European countries (Romania, Republic of Macedonia and the Czech Republic). It analyses the survival of communist accounting practices in the post-1990 accounting systems and identifies other eternal influences that shaped these accounting systems.Accounting Heredity, Accounting Change, Accounting Genes, Eastern European Countries, Accounting History

Virtual Excursions: a new way to explore science in class

The educational platform Virtual Science Hub (ViSH) has been developed as part of the GLOBAL excursion European project. ViSH (http://vishub.org/) is a portal where teachers and scientist interact to create virtual excursions to science infrastructures. The main motivation behind the project was to connect teachers - and in consequence their students - to scientific institutions and their wide amount of infrastructures and resources they are working with. Thus the idea of a hub was born that would allow the two worlds of scientists and teachers to connect and to innovate science teaching. The core of the ViSH?s concept design is based on virtual excursions, which allow for a number of pedagogical models to be applied. According to our internal definition a virtual excursion is a tour through some digital context by teachers and pupils on a given topic that is attractive and has an educational purpose. Inquiry-based learning, project-based and problem-based learning are the most prominent approaches that a virtual excursion may serve. The domain specific resources and scientific infrastructures currently available on the ViSH are focusing on life sciences, nano-technology, biotechnology, grid and volunteer computing. The virtual excursion approach allows an easy combination of these resources into interdisciplinary teaching scenarios. In addition, social networking features support the users in collaborating and communicating in relation to these excursions and thus create a community of interest for innovative science teaching. The design and development phases were performed following a participatory design approach. An important aspect in this process was to create design partnerships amongst all actors involved, researchers, developers, infrastructure providers, teachers, social scientists, and pedagogical experts early in the project. A joint sense of ownership was created and important changes during the conceptual phase were implemented in the ViSH due to early user feedback. Technology-wise the ViSH is based on the latest web technologies in order to make it cross-platform compatible so that it works on several operative systems such as Windows, Mac or Linux and multi-device accessible, such as desktop, tablet and mobile devices. The platform has been developed in HTML5, the latest standard for web development, assuring that it can run on any modern browser. In addition to social networking features a core element on the ViSH is the virtual excursions editor. It is a web tool that allows teachers and scientists to create rich mash-ups of learning resources provided by the e-Infrastructures (i.e. remote laboratories and live webcams). These rich mash-ups can be presented in either slides or flashcards format. Taking advantage of the web architecture supported, additional powerful components have been integrated like a recommendation engine to provide personalized suggestions about educational content or interesting users and a videoconference tool to enhance real-time collaboration like MashMeTV (http://www.mashme.tv/)

Use of high polyphenols grape seeds cakes to modulate the inflammatory status and piglet health during the post-weaning period

Weaning is a very difficult period for the pig, during which the nature and quality of the feeds is of great influence on the developing systems of digestion and defence. The weaning time is correlated with an increase of local inflammatory response. The supplementation of the weaning diet with ingredients rich in bioactive compounds with antimicrobial properties was lately investigated. This is the case of the polyphenols, which have been studied in depth for their beneficial effect on health and for their antioxidant action, but to a lesser extent, for their antimicrobial action. Grape by-products (grape seeds, grape pomace) could be alternative and cheaper sources with anti-microbial potential which could be used in the weaning diet. In the present study we analysed the effects of 5% grape seed cakes (GS) inclusion in the diet on the blood biochemical parameters and on pro- and anti-inflammatory markers in spleen and lymph nodes. A total of 12 weaned pigs were fed with a control or 5% grape seed cakes (GS) diets for 30 days. Pigs were sacrificed after 30 days, blood and organs were collected and stored at –80°C until analyses. Our results showed that diet included 5% GS did not influence the health status determined by plasma biochemical parameters. Only a tendency for a slight increase of the biochemical parameters associated with energetic profile (glucose, cholesterol, triglycerides) was observed Also, GS diet had no effect on pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines content in spleen and lymph nodes tissue. Further experiments are needed in order to investigate other rate of dietary inclusion which could provide more evidence about the effect of grape bioactive compounds on general health status and inflammation in weaning piglets

Measurement of the cosmic ray spectrum above 4×10184{\times}10^{18} eV using inclined events detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory

A measurement of the cosmic-ray spectrum for energies exceeding $4{\times}10^{18}$ eV is presented, which is based on the analysis of showers with zenith angles greater than $60^{\circ}$ detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory between 1 January 2004 and 31 December 2013. The measured spectrum confirms a flux suppression at the highest energies. Above $5.3{\times}10^{18}$ eV, the "ankle", the flux can be described by a power law $E^{-\gamma}$ with index $\gamma=2.70 \pm 0.02 \,\text{(stat)} \pm 0.1\,\text{(sys)}$ followed by a smooth suppression region. For the energy ($E_\text{s}$) at which the spectral flux has fallen to one-half of its extrapolated value in the absence of suppression, we find $E_\text{s}=(5.12\pm0.25\,\text{(stat)}^{+1.0}_{-1.2}\,\text{(sys)}){\times}10^{19}$ eV.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Energy Estimation of Cosmic Rays with the Engineering Radio Array of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Auger Engineering Radio Array (AERA) is part of the Pierre Auger Observatory and is used to detect the radio emission of cosmic-ray air showers. These observations are compared to the data of the surface detector stations of the Observatory, which provide well-calibrated information on the cosmic-ray energies and arrival directions. The response of the radio stations in the 30 to 80 MHz regime has been thoroughly calibrated to enable the reconstruction of the incoming electric field. For the latter, the energy deposit per area is determined from the radio pulses at each observer position and is interpolated using a two-dimensional function that takes into account signal asymmetries due to interference between the geomagnetic and charge-excess emission components. The spatial integral over the signal distribution gives a direct measurement of the energy transferred from the primary cosmic ray into radio emission in the AERA frequency range. We measure 15.8 MeV of radiation energy for a 1 EeV air shower arriving perpendicularly to the geomagnetic field. This radiation energy -- corrected for geometrical effects -- is used as a cosmic-ray energy estimator. Performing an absolute energy calibration against the surface-detector information, we observe that this radio-energy estimator scales quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy as expected for coherent emission. We find an energy resolution of the radio reconstruction of 22% for the data set and 17% for a high-quality subset containing only events with at least five radio stations with signal.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Measurement of the Radiation Energy in the Radio Signal of Extensive Air Showers as a Universal Estimator of Cosmic-Ray Energy

We measure the energy emitted by extensive air showers in the form of radio emission in the frequency range from 30 to 80 MHz. Exploiting the accurate energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory, we obtain a radiation energy of 15.8 \pm 0.7 (stat) \pm 6.7 (sys) MeV for cosmic rays with an energy of 1 EeV arriving perpendicularly to a geomagnetic field of 0.24 G, scaling quadratically with the cosmic-ray energy. A comparison with predictions from state-of-the-art first-principle calculations shows agreement with our measurement. The radiation energy provides direct access to the calorimetric energy in the electromagnetic cascade of extensive air showers. Comparison with our result thus allows the direct calibration of any cosmic-ray radio detector against the well-established energy scale of the Pierre Auger Observatory.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DOI. Supplemental material in the ancillary file

A framework for human microbiome research

A variety of microbial communities and their genes (the microbiome) exist throughout the human body, with fundamental roles in human health and disease. The National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Human Microbiome Project Consortium has established a population-scale framework to develop metagenomic protocols, resulting in a broad range of quality-controlled resources and data including standardized methods for creating, processing and interpreting distinct types of high-throughput metagenomic data available to the scientific community. Here we present resources from a population of 242 healthy adults sampled at 15 or 18 body sites up to three times, which have generated 5,177 microbial taxonomic profiles from 16S ribosomal RNA genes and over 3.5 terabases of metagenomic sequence so far. In parallel, approximately 800 reference strains isolated from the human body have been sequenced. Collectively, these data represent the largest resource describing the abundance and variety of the human microbiome, while providing a framework for current and future studies