Social Opportunities and Private Convenience of Choices at Farm Level: An Approach to the Links Between Farm Income and Sustainable GDP

This work proposes a method to identify and evaluate the links between the economic and environmental management of a farm, its income, and sustainable GDP. The approach is designed to link micro and macro economic aspects and is based on certain indicators, chosen from among those obtained from analysis of the farm accounts, suitable for representing socially desirable objectives. Three different types of farm accounts are employed. An MADM method of quantitative MCDM analysis was used to make a joint evaluation of various objective indicators in different types of farm management. The work only presents the most interesting result of the research, which was the method itself and does not include the results of a specific case study which was made. This method can be generally applied to connect macro and micro economic aspects and thus might be applicable to different contexts.Method, Farm, Society, Income, Environment, Well-being, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Q1,

The Use of Value Capture for Transport Projects in China: Opportunities and Challenges

Value capture (VC) could be a useful tool to address the huge demand for public transport infrastructure funding in China. This research identifies the opportunities and challenges faced by VC implementation in China and explains how local governments and local transit agencies dealt with the regulatory barriers. The findings of this research offer insights including: (1) macro environment, regulatory framework, and supportive policy environment provide opportunities to adopt VC projects, while the risk of acquiring land vale cannot be isolated from the global political and economic situations; (2) the regulatory challenges of land transactions and lack of property tax system restrict the application of VC; (3) evidence from the case study of Shenzhen demonstrates that local government may creatively deal with the regulatory challenges to do VC and benefit local community; (4) institutional capacity is vital to implement VC. The analysis of Shenzhen experience can provide a reference for other Chinese cities to implement VC.fals

Feasibility Study of Setting up Information Technology-Enabled Services (ITES) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Hubs in the North Eastern States of India: A Report

This report aims at identifying the various state administrative/commercial capital cities in the North East Region where IT-enabled service industry could be set up, and whether the necessary conditions conducive to the industry exist. It is also an attempt to rank the various cities in terms of their investment friendliness when it comes to the ITES industry. This report involves a macro environmental analysis where the focus is mainly on the STEEP sector of the business environment – social, technological, economic, environmental and political aspects that impact competitiveness.

PEST Analysis of Serbia

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of the current Serbian macro-environment on the businesses through the implementation of PEST analysis as a framework for assessing general or macro environment in which companies are operating. The authors argue the elements in presented PEST analysis indicate that the current macro-environment is characterized by the dominance of threats and weaknesses with few opportunities and strengths. Consequently, there is a strong need for faster implementation of structural changes in order to eliminate or minimize the impact of weaknesses and threats of the current macro-environment and create more favorable business climate that would enable companies to formulate effective strategies and to raise their business performances

How Phase Transitions induce classical behaviour

We continue the analysis of the onset of classical behaviour in a scalar field after a continuous phase transition, in which the system-field, the long wavelength order parameter of the model, interacts with an environment, of its own short-wavelength modes and other fields, neutral and charged, with which it is expected to interact. We compute the decoherence time for the system-field modes from the master equation and directly from the decoherence functional (with identical results). In simple circumstances the order parameter field is classical by the time the transition is complete.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure: To be published in the International Journal of Theoretical Physics (2005) as part of the Proceedings of the "Peyresq Physics 9" meeting (2004) on "Micro and Macro structures of spacetime",ed. E. Verdague

Investigating context-aware clues to assist navigation for visually impaired people

It is estimated that 7.4 million people in Europe are visually impaired [1]. Limitations of traditional mobility aids (i.e. white canes and guide dogs) coupled with a proliferation of context-aware technologies (e.g. Electronic Travel Aids, Global Positioning Systems and Geographical Information Systems), have stimulated research and development into navigational systems for the visually impaired. However, current research appears very technology focused, which has led to an insufficient appreciation of Human Computer Interaction, in particular task/requirements analysis and notions of contextual interactions. The study reported here involved a smallscale investigation into how visually impaired people interact with their environmental context during micro-navigation (through immediate environment) and/or macro-navigation (through distant environment) on foot. The purpose was to demonstrate the heterogeneous nature of visually impaired people in interaction with their environmental context. Results from a previous study involving sighted participants were used for comparison. Results revealed that when describing a route, visually impaired people vary in their use of different types of navigation clues - both as a group, when compared with sighted participants, and as individuals. Usability implications and areas for further work are identified and discussed

TOURISM AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON MACRO-ENVIRONMENT IN ROMANIA

Tourism is a complex social and economic phenomenon specific to modern civilization, anessential activity in the life of nations, being strongly influenced by the freedom of travel and theevolution of society. Addressing to large shares of the population and meeting the human need fortravelling and knowledge, recreation and healing, tourism is characterized by a high momentum bothnationally and globally, resulting in a vast human and material potential, with important implicationsupon the evolution of the entire society.Hospitality and tourism industry are nowadays considered to stand for the largest business in theworld, being the main industry in point of their contribution to the gross world product, laborcommitted as well as the most important capital investor.The objective of our article is to analyze the evolution of several indicators of tourist traffic and theirinfluence on the macro-environment in Romania. As far as the research methodology is concerned, thearticle is based on a positivist quantitative approach, being in the same time a longitudinal one, as wepresent the evolution of various indicators measuring the degree of impact the hospitality industry hason the national economy.The main information sources for this research are published on the websites of various authorizedbodies (NIS, NBR, WTO), using exploratory method for analyzing the evolution of the phenomenon intime, but I also considered the interpretive method when disclosing the analysis results.Tourism, macro-environment, tourist traffic indicators

Mitigation Strategies and Costs of Climate Protection: The effects of ETC in the hybrid Model MIND

MIND is a hybrid model incorporating several energy related sectors in an endogenous growth model of the world economy. This model structure allows a better understanding of the linkages between the energy sectors and the macro-economic environment. We perform a sensitivity analysis and parameter studies to improve the understanding of the economic mechanisms underlying opportunity costs and the optimal mix of mitigation options. Parameters representing technological change that permeates the entire economy have a strong impact on both the opportunity costs of climate protection and on the optimal mitigation strategies, e.g. parameters in the macro-economic environment and in the extraction sector. Sector-specific energy technology parameters change the portfolio of mitigation options but have only modest effects on opportunity costs, e.g. learning rate of the renewable energy technologies. We conclude that feedback loops between the macro-economy and the energy sectors are crucial for the determination of opportunity costs and mitigation strategies.Endogenous technological change, Climate change mitigation costs, Integrated assessment, Growth model, Energy sector, Integrated assessment

System composite of the triplet’s of strategic overview – revised fundamentals

The STIQE 2004 paper presents the identified triplets at macro and micro level of the socio-economic system. Through the important triplets identified are the following: European Union (UE) – State Members (SM) – European Citizens (ECz); European parliament will (PW) – national commitment (NC) – personal desire (PD); sustainable development(SD) - environment protection(EP) - quality of life(QL); economics(EC) – social climate(SC) – politics(P); material resources(MR) – financial resources(FR) – human resources(HR); life security (peace)(LS) – food security (survival)(FS) – environment security(ES); agriculture development (AD) - industrial development (ID) – infrastructure development (IsD); jobs/salaries (JS) – affordability/ expenses (AE) - quality of life (QL). It was also proposed a way of the triplets identification, a system to organize and link them on two dimensions: micro and macro level, and to get possible final structures by linking the two plans. The output, through a geometrical approach, has to be a system of interconnected triplets able to provide potential effects on the whole by action (modification) one point, than could be use for national strategies design and effects estimation. According with the opinions expressed at the conference we decide to revise the fundamentals of the theory. So, there were settled some criteria of knots identification, triplets assemble and plans definition. The main delimitation are euro/national areas, micro/macro levels and socio/economic approaches. The revised fundamentals are based on a more structured view, able to conduct us to a better triplets assembly as a whole. Also, the selection of the knots is made more carefully taken into account the future step of their evolution and dependences expressed by mathematic functions. At the same time there were identified potential factors of knots influence. It is a step back on the theory development, but it allows a better analysis and structuring of the elements taken into account, that could be a crucial decision in reaching the right composite of the system.sustainable development, triplets, overview, strategy, fundamentals