What is Left from Democracy? Electoralism and Populism in Romania

What l shall present in my paper is the relation between the frequency of the electoral cycles as well as the redistribution policies, and the increase of populism. The density of the electoral cycles and the populist redistribution policies as bribes for the poor, but numerous electorates, has turned the electoral component of democrat in an end in itself. Politicians are focused on wining the elections, not in strategic governing and even less in consolidating democracy, even just a liberal one as it became before EU accession. The most popular enemy during the electoral campaign is corruption and because its form is “state capture”, the fight against it is just populist arid endless in terms of campaign and tends to be authoritarian in terms of government. With such threats we can see Romania and other new EU member states apparently as suicidal democracies due to the weak institutionalization of the democratic mechanisms. In the times of “democratic recession”. EU protectorate is keeping its member states within a safety net which is blocking the suicidal attitudes and tolerates its new (sometimes even old) members rather as jawed democracies

Deportations and counterinsurgency: a comparison of Malaya, Algeria and Romania

This article considers in a comparative historical and strategic perspective the large-scale deportations of restive populations during the Malayan Emergency, the Algerian War and the Romanian anti-communist rebellions. The failed American campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan witnessed a rebirth of military and academic interest in post-war counterinsurgencies (COIN), with an entire "COIN school" being put in charge of the two wars from 2006 to 2011. This particular school elevated the experiences of late colonial warfare, notably the French experience in Algeria and the British campaign in Malaya to the status of policy guides for the early 21st century world. However, one crucial aspect of these was not considered, both theoretically and militarily, for obvious political reasons. Both these conflicts witnessed large-scale deportations, amounting to between a fifth and a third of the population of these colonies. The democratic governments in London and Paris, signatories of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, dislocated millions of their subjects, destroyed their property and forced them to live in poverty and food deprivation in guarded settlements and concentration camps, undergoing interrogations, torture and systematic brainwashing. In Eastern Europe, following the Soviet example but with striking similarities with democratic countries, the government of Romania launched a similar program to defeat rebellions. This article considers the role of this "forced" mobility in shaping military victory in the three cases and argues that just by itself this aspect invalidates the strategic and political relevance of them for shaping COINs waged by democratic governments

Oil: the doom of communist Romania?

This paper achieves two things: first, it establishes the existence of a certain pattern of analysis, which I will call an academic canon, of analyzing the problems caused by the oil crises of the 1970's on the economy of Communist Romania. The canon seems to hold that a series of economic decisions taken in the 1960’s and 70’s by the communist leadership concerning the vast expansion of the petroleum industry led to huge problems after the enormous increases in the price of oil at the end of the 1970's, which led to the virtual destruction of the economy and the huge deprivations of the 1980’s, thus helping to explain the popular rejection of the socialist regime. Secondly, it analyzes what the Romanian communist leadership thought of the oil industry and what was their general strategy related to it. The general conclusion of the paper is that a deeper research on the party documents and economic policies leads to a wider understanding not only of the worldview of the Romanian communist leaders, but also to nuances when describing the economic causes of political and social change

Independent Component Analysis and Complex Wavelet Decomposition for Classifying Medical Data

Abstract In this article, we describe a new classification methodology based on the use of Independent Component Analysis and Wavelet decomposition (ICAW) techniques. An ensemble system of classifiers is built such that each classifier independently decides the assignation of the test examples on several representations resulted by taking projections computed by wavelets and Independent Component Analysis (ICA). The representations used by the individual classifiers are obtained by taking the real and imaginary part of the wavelet decompositions, as well as the magnitude and phase. The decision of the ensemble system is based on several types of voting rules (such as the majority voting rule or a weighted voting rule). The experimental results presented in the paper show that the proposed ensemble systems of classifiers provide higher accuracy in the particular problem of classifying biomedical data

Etica aplicată şi de ce avem nevoie de ea

În cele ce urmează vom prezenta pe scurt zona de cercetare a eticii aplicate și locul ei în cadrul disciplinei filosofiei. Vom discuta apoi despre ce fac filosofii când fac etică aplicată. Vom trece în revistă câteva concepte importante din etica aplicată, cum ar fi deontologie, virtute, grijă sau drepturi. Apoi vom încerca să oferim un răspuns la întrebarea din titlul introducerii: de ce avem nevoie de etica aplicată? Vom povesti pe scurt despre istoria eticii aplicate în România, iar la final vom rezuma capitolele incluse în volum

Angiogenesis in old-aged subjects after ischemic stroke: a cautionary note for investigators

Angiogenesis represents a form of neovascularisation of exceptional importance in numerous pathological conditions including stroke. In this context it is directly related to neuroregeneration which is seen in close proximity. However, numerous experimental data have been drawn from studies that have ignored the age criterion. This is extremely important as angiogenesis is different in young versus old subjects. Extrapolating data obtained from studies performed in young subjects or "in vitro" to old-age patients could lead to inexact conclusions since the dynamics of angiogenesis is age-dependent

NEW CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE MORPHOLOGY, ECOLOGY AND DAMAGE CAUSED BY MINING MOTH CHESTNUT (CAMERARIA ORHIDELLA DESCHKA & DIMIC) IN THE HUSI - VASLUI AREAL CONDITIONS FROM EASTERN OF ROMANIA

During the research were made observations about morphology, ecology and damage the chestnut trees in the Husi-Vaslui area by chestnut leaves mining moth (Cameraria orhidella Deschka & Dimic).The harmful specie is a Lepidoptera that belongs to the Gracillariidae family, who presented a low degree of resistance to unkind ecological conditions, but still developed three generations per year which caused heavy damages in the crow of the chestnut trees by consuming the palisade tissue, producing mines on the upper face of the leaves

Pulsed Laser-Deposited TiO2-based Films: Synthesis, Electronic Structure and Photocatalytic Activity

Active under visible light, photocatalysts based on doped titania were obtained via pulsed laser deposition (PLD) method. To find out the crystalline structure, optical properties, and electronic structure, the following techniques such as X-ray diffraction, electronic spectroscopy, electrical conductivity measurements, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) are used. Photocatalytic activity is monitored by applying the photoreduction of dichromate ions under UV and visible light. The influence of zirconium ions and its content and synthesis conditions on the efficiency of nitrogen incorporation into titania structure that, in turn, determines the electronic structure and photocatalytic ability of the semiconductive materials are discussed. A substitutional nitrogen (Ti–N) rather than an interstitial one (Ti–O–N) is mainly responsible for the observed photoactivity. It is pointed that substitutional nitrogen is responsible for bandgap narrowing or formation of intragap localized states within semiconductor bandgap. The bandgap energy values are sharply decreased, while the relative intensity of substitutional nitrogen XPS peaks is increased. Pulsed laser synthesis of TiO2 films in N2/CH4 atmosphere not only leads to nitrogen incorporation but also to the formation of defects including oxygen vacancies and Ti3+ states which are all contributing to light absorption. An appropriate ratio of gas mixture, optimum zirconia content, suitable pressure, and temperature during synthesis was found for the synthesis of highly active semiconductive films. The highest photocatalytic conversion yields are obtained for nitrogen-doped 10% ZrO2/TiO2 synthesized in N2:CH4 = 5:1 at 100 Pa and at 450°C under both UV and visible light

Bisphosphonate-related osteonecrosis of jaw (BRONJ): an anti-angiogenic side-effect?

Bisphosphonates are recommended in the treatment of osteoporosis and some cancers, in which case they prevent the appearance of bone metastasis. The patients taking bisphosphonates are at increased risk of developing bisphosphonate-related osteonecrosis of jaw (BRONJ) which is characterised by the presence of an un-healing wound after dental surgery. BRONJ might represent an anti-angiogenic side effect. However, the real number of patients with BRONJ might be higher than currently recorded. Considering the differential diagnosis which includes various primary and secondary cancers, a correct histopathological diagnosis is very important. The morphological criteria for diagnosis of BRONJ are highlighted in this material.Virtual Slides: The virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/1813972972323288. © 2012 Petcu et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd