Trends of the Contagion Risk in Sovereign Spreads for Emerging European Countries

We investigate the sovereign spreads behavior of the European emerging countries using the clustering technique. Our main finding is that the distances between spreads during high volatile times is significantly lower than in normal periods, that is, the correlation is much higher. Secondly, the market sentiment explains a much higher percentage of the spreads movements during turbulent times. Thirdly, the link between spreads and macroeconomic fundamentals seems to be blurred compared with the expectations from the economic theory.contagion spreads, emerging markets, clustering

Cross-cultural Knowledge Management

The success of international companies in providing high quality products and outstanding services is subject, on the one hand, to the increasing dynamic of the economic environment and on the other hand to the adoption of worldwide quality standards and procedures. As market place is becoming more and more global, products and services offered worldwide by international companies must face the multi-cultural environment challenges. These challenges manifest themselves not only at customer relationship level but also deep inside companies, at employee level. Important support in facing all these challenges has been provided at cognitive level by management system models and at technological level by information cutting edge technologies Business Intelligence & Knowledge Management Business Intelligence is already delivering its promised outcomes at internal business environment and, with the explosive deployment of public data bases, expand its analytical power at national, regional and international level. Quantitative measures of economic environment, wherever available, may be captured and integrated in companies’ routine analysis. As for qualitative data, some effort is still to be done in order to integrate measures of social, political, legal, natural and technological environment in companies’ strategic analysis. An increased difficulty is found in treating cultural differences, common knowledge making the most hidden part of any foreign environment. Managing cultural knowledge is crucial to success in cultivating and maintaining long-term business relationships in multicultural environments. Knowledge Management provides the long needed technological support for cross-cultural management in the tedious task of improving knowledge sharing in multi-national companies and using knowledge effectively in international joint ventures. The paper is approaching the conceptual frameworks of knowledge management and proposes an unified model of knowledge oriented enterprise and a structural model of a global knowledge management system.Global Business, Intercultural Competencies, Business Intelligence, Multicultural Knowledge Management, Business Knowledge Frameworks, Knowledge Capital

Education and Training Needs in the Field of Logistic Structures and Services in the Lower Danube Region

The approach of the subject concerning the training of specialists in the domain of logistic structures and services in the region of the inferior Danube is enlisted within a larger context, the Strategy of the Danube, but also in a more restrained one, the Program of Cross-Border Cooperation Romania – Bulgaria, 2007-2013. The Strategy of the Danube represents a project initiated in the year 2008 by Germany, Austria and Romania to which subsequently there adhered the other states on the Danube and which became a program of the European Commission. It shall have allotted a budget of 50 milliards euro until the year 2013. It shall be preponderantly addressed to the population in the Danube Basin, which is estimated at 115 millions, following to be developed through cross-border projects. In December 2010 there is foreseen the approval of the Action Plan for the program the Strategy of the Danube by the European Commission. The integration process needs premises and conditions for further development. One of them is the connectivity and it supporting system – the logistics. The problem of the connectivity is one of the pillars of the Danube strategy, which could play an important role in the Lower Danube Macro region’s development. Those problems need different approaches, specialized research and training. The situation of the two countries in the domain of fluvial logistics may be characterized as unsatisfactory in relation to their potential. At the present moment there is a single bridge which connects the two countries (Giurgiu – Ruse) and several travels with the passage boat. The harbour infrastructures are old and inefficient. There are no modern multi-modal platforms or a coherent vision in their design. The transportation on the Danube is insufficiently exploited. As well, the river is not capitalized in other domains, too: agriculture, pisciculture, energy, ecology, tourism, arrangement of the territory, etc.Within a more restrained context, but correlated with the Strategy of the Danube, Romania and Bulgaria cooperate within the Cross-Border Program 2007-2013. Within it, the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest and thee Economic Academy Dimitar Apostolov Tsenov in Svishtov proposed themselves to collaborate in the domain “Cooperation concerning the development of human resources – the joint development of abilities and knowledge”.fluvial logistics, multi-modal platform, education, transportation, cross-border, Lower Danube Macro region, territorial connectivity

Localization of Energy-Momentum for a Black Hole Spacetime Geometry with Constant Topological Euler Density

The evaluation of the energy-momentum distribution for a new four-dimensional, spherically symmetric, static and charged black hole spacetime geometry with constant non-zero topological Euler density is performed by using the energy-momentum complexes of Einstein and M{\o}ller. This black hole solution was recently developed in the context of the coupled Einstein--non-linear electrodynamics of the Born-Infeld type. The energy is found to depend on the mass $M$ and the charge $q$ of the black hole, the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ and the radial coordinate $r$, while in both prescriptions all the momenta vanish. Some limiting and particular cases are analyzed, illustrating the rather extraordinary character of the spacetime geometry considered.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures. Present version accepted for publication in Advances in High Energy Physic

Photogrammetric modelling for urban medieval site mapping. A case study from Curtea de Argeş, Romania

Detailed mapping of urban historical sites superposed on natural landforms within built-up areas is a real challenge. Digital photogrammetric techniques meet the requirements for mapping archaeological sites within dense built-up areas. The objectives are to reveal the landform value in medieval site development and to analyse its impact on the landforms. The aim of the present study is to highlight the contribution of geomatics technologies for the evaluation and preservation of historical sites using UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) imagery and field photos for 3D modelling. Curtea de Argeş medieval site, established on Argeş River terraces and attested since the 13th century, represents the town core for which the specific methodology was applied

Resilient DC LV communities – UPB demonstrator

This work presents the architecture and operational features of a demonstrator developed at the premises of MicroDERLab Research Group at UPB that consists of two interconnected DC low voltage microgrids aiming to serve several research projects that focus on resilient DC LV communities. The architecture of the demonstrator uses a case-driven approach to validate and demonstrate the toolkits to be developed. Concretely, the demonstrator aims to facilitate the experimental assessments of several applications from monitoring and active power management of energy consumption in prosumers’ world, to aggregation of measurement data for modelling, planning, integration, operation and evaluation of distributed Energy Storage Systems. One of the major innovation of the proposed architecture consists in the extension of the functionality of the Unbundled Smart Meter (USM), the so called SMX side that processes all the information coming from the micro-controller of the energy router (ER). Simulated results of a distributed and adaptive energy management system to be tested on this demonstrator are also presented, while briefing a number of use-cases in line with several business models that led us to this design

AN ASSESSMENT OF THE EFFECTS OF CRUDE OIL POLLUTION ON SOIL PROPERTIES

Pollution caused by crude oil is the most prevalent problem in the environment. The release of crude oil into theenvironment by oil spills is receiving worldwide attention. The effect of crude oil pollution on soil properties wasinvestigated by achieving a case study in Perisoru, Braila County. It has been achieved a profile until 120 cm and soilsamples were collected according to the methodology and analyzed for some physical and chemical properties. In caseof physical analysis, the values obtained for granulometric fractions were not influenced by the presence of crude oil.Results obtained showed variation in chemical properties of soil. Organic carbon increased from 2.23% for anunpolluted soil to 5.51% in polluted soil. C/N ratios increased from 13.01 for an unpolluted soil to 20.54 in pollutedsoil. Mobile phosphorous and potassium registered in polluted soil similar values with the one characteristic forunpolluted soil. Crude oil at high pollution levels inhibited the growth of crops