Romanian Space Research Articles

The critical spirit of Alexandru I. Philippide: Un specialist român la Lipsca

Benefiting from the consequences of cultural and scientific development which kicked off in the 19th century, the Romanian space also felt the lags up till then. The development and organisation deficit of science and culture, the poor quality of their relationships with the social complex, were augmented frequently not necessarily by the poor quality of the Romanian scholars, but by a certain superficiality of theirs in the approach and presentation of the treated matters. Trying to confer reliability, accuracy and transparency to the scientific construction in which he took part, A. Philippide often felt in a negative manner some of the scientific behaviours and results presented by his generation colleagues. In this context, beyond the high quality of his results and his highly responsible attitude, the way in which the scholar from Iași tried to improve the process was the scientific polemic.

Romanian Public-Funded Research And Development Activities In The Space Sector

Abstract Romania achieved full membership within ESA (European Space Agency) in 2011 and is actually involved in several European flagship space programmes. The “National Strategy for Space and Related Fields” is a strategic project funded through the Romanian Space Technology and Advanced Research Program (STAR), which is implemented by a consortium coordinated by IAROM S.A. One of the project goals is to identify national space- related technological capabilities and possible niches for Romania within the European space industry, as well as to identify cooperation opportunities within the mandatory and optional ESA programs. This paper presents an overview of the areas of expertise covered by projects contracted in 2012 and 2013 in the framework of the national space research and development programme. The paper does not cover industrial space contracts since they contain sensitive information.

Conventional vs unconventional linguistic means of address. (Old and new greetings in Romanian)

Among the linguistic mechanisms that individuals employ in the process of communication, one can also find means of address. Of these, an important role is played by greetings. 
 This study is aimed at identifying a series of forms / formulas of greeting used in contemporary Romanian public space and analysing them from a structural and functional perspective (with reference to their contextual pragmatic values). Alongside established (grammaticalised / clichéd) units, other forms will be recorded, conveying new semantic values that are determined by situational constraints. 
 Thus, a distinction will be made between two linguistic means of greeting: conventional ones (stylistically neutral and used by the entire community of locutors) and unconventional ones (recent imports, mostly in English, calques, which recreate the original pattern or are borrowed from the source language without any changes and are employed with an ironic or persuasive intention). 
 The corpus will be taken from the Internet. 
 Methodologically, the study will use the theoretical apparatus pertaining to psycho- and sociolinguistics, pragmatics, ethnology, and anthropology.

Developing of ESG Score to Assess the Non-financial Performances in Romanian Companies

Abstract The development of an extra-financial analysis is indisputable in the current context of world economy. This issue is also argued by the appearance and development of extra-financial rating agencies which already asses some extra financial scores based on environmental, social and governance performances (ESG scores) that the companies have registered. These scores are complementary used with the financial score, increasing accuracy in performance and risk assessments. Our attempt consists in developing an environmental, social and governance (ESG) score in order to evaluate the non-financial performances recorded by the companies which activate within the Romanian space. Our sample consists of 65 companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE) which reports a Comply and Explain Statement, as a document of adhering at the BSE Corporate Governance Code. The period of analysis is 2011-2012. In 2012 the overall results reflect a medium level of 73% of adopting the principles of best practices in corporate governance. Regarding the social and environmental performances, our results reflect that in the same year 2012 a majority share of 97% of sample companies report that they have adopted such activities. Compared to 2011, Romanian companies have made great progress in obtaining a high level of ESG performances

Fences and Profanations: Questioning the Sacredness of Urban Design

Adopting an impure and contingent conception of urban design as a biopolitical apparatus, along the theme of urban informal squatter-occupied spatialities, this paper searches for an alternative narrative of urban design. It presents a theoretical and analytical framework developed around Michel Foucault's and Giorgio Agamben's spatial ontology and political aesthetics as an aggregate source toward recalibrating the approach to urban design research, pedagogy and practice, integrating the debate around the dispositif and its profanation. Critically engaging with the complexity and contradictions of the current neoliberal urban design practice—articulated as a complex urban apparatus instrumental to regimes of security and control—the paper explores the conceptual tool of profanation as a potential antidote to the sacred production of the neoliberal city. The act of profaning the urban realm, of ‘returning it to the free use of men’, is approached through the lens of a design research initiative in a squatter-occupied space in Rome, Italy. The narrative that emerges from this theoretically inspired action research points to an alternative practice that can be read as a site of resistance in reclaiming the intellectual productivity of urban design theory and research.

From the Insolvency of the Enterprises towards the Insolvency of the Municipality: New Legislative Challenges in Romanian Space

This paper is intended to be as a blueprint for the state of regulation on insolvency proceedings in Romania regarding the entities’ activities and the overall impact on the economic environment. From the highlighted statistical analysis regarding the number of insolvencies registered in Romania but also in the European countries, there are drawn comparative conclusions which are meant to highlight the strengths and especially the weaknesses that still exist in the legal system regarding the entities’ insolvency in Romania. Although the reform of the insolvency in the legal system has been initiated since 2006, it is still in the process to harmonize with the European practices. One of the most recent areas constrained to harmonize and to reform is the administrative sector, the issue of creating the legal framework for the insolvency of the municipalities being discussed only in mid 2013. The paper also aims to highlight the similarities and differences between insolvency procedure applicable to the enterprises since 2006 and the insolvency procedure recently applicable to the municipalities in Romania. Regardless of the specifics of each procedure but both groups have a common goal, those to purify the Romanian economic and administrative environment.

:Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day

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Orbital Launcher NERVA as the First Proof of the Discontinuous Variational Solution for the Atmospheric Ascent

Since the earliest days of astronautics, more than a century ago, low cost space launchers persevered to be a long desire for the space flight thinkers. Once space flight became a daily business along the late `50-s, first by consuming large financial resources, the interest for cheap space launchers became even more laud. Today’s growing interest in small satellites have bolstered a large series of space technology companies including Virgin Galactic Corp., Garvey Spacecraft Corp., Quantum Research International, Ventions LLC, Sierra Nevada Corp., Generation Orbit Launch Services and even the giant Boeing to work on the development of various types of such vehicles, some of them of actually small size. They have announced recent progresses in their efforts to develop and test small-satellite launchers and rocket engines. Romanian space launcher effort includes the NERVA project, with the ORVEAL compound engine for the upper stage, securing the orbital injection, project developed by the team of professors and researchers from ADDA Ltd, Bucharest. This project is based on a series of innovative concepts, including the optimal ascent program first proposed by the ADDA team by means of the new discontinuous variational optimization, which is here described in detail.

Urban biodiversity hotspots are not related to the structure of green spaces: a case study of tenebrionid beetles from Rome, Italy

At global and regional scales, area prioritisation is frequently done by the identification of hotspots based on species extinction risk. The logic of the hotspot identification has never been used in urban contexts. In this paper, the tenebrionid beetles (Coleoptera Tenebrionidae) of urban Rome were studied as an exercise to show how the hotspot approach can be profitably used in an urban area to identify priority areas for biodiversity conservation. For this, tenebrionid species from 16 green spaces were scored according to their vulnerability on the basis of their geographical distribution, habitat specificity and abundance. Species vulnerability scores were then used to calculate two indices of area prioritisation (the Biodiversity Conservation Concern and the Biodiversity Conservation Weight) for each green space. Values of these indices were correlated with site characteristics and compared with those obtained from other, more natural contexts. Except for distance to other sites, no significant correlation was found between conservation values and site characteristics, which indicates that the conservation importance of green spaces cannot be predicted on the basis of their geographical characteristics, but must be established on the basis of the species that they actually host. The importance of urban green spaces for biodiversity conservation may be questioned because of the large presence of ubiquitous and alien species in urban areas. Conservation values obtained for tenebrionids of green spaces in Rome are similar to those of various animal groups in more natural contexts and hence highlight the actual importance of green areas for insect biodiversity conservation.

La variation diatopique de l’intonation dans le domaine roumain et roman. Adrian Turcule? (ed.) (2008) Iasi: Editura Universit??ii ‘‘Alexandru Ioan Cuza’’. Pp. 272 ISBN: 978-9-737-033949-7

La variation diatopique de l'intonation dans le domaine roumain et roman. Adrian Turculet (ed.) (2008) Iasi: Editura Universitatii ''Alexandru Ioan Cuza''. Pp. 272 ISBN: 978-9-737-033949-7Reviewed by Cristina Bleortu and Alba Garcia Rodriguez1Over the last decades, intonation research presented special challenges for many scholars. The idea of this book grew out of The International Symposium on Prosody La variation diatopique de l'intonation dans le domaine roumain et roman held at Iasi on 21 and 22 October. This event was viewed as a meeting of the AMPER (Atlas Multimedia Prosodique de l'Espace Roman) research groups.The editor of this volume, Adrian Turculet, professor of Dialectology and Phonetics at the University Alexandru Ioan Cuza, Iasi, is the coordinator of the Romanian research group which belongs to the international prosodic research atlas (AMPER). Following the methodology of AMPER, the linguist has attempted to offer a wider view of the Romanian prosody contributing to the realization of another Romanian atlas (AMProm) that studies a larger range of survey points. Both projects are in full swing. The initial results of the surveys, which were released in ten cultural centres in Romania and the Republic of Moldavia, are discussed in this volume. Indeed, this research presents different intonative patterns which depend not only on the dialects but also on the level of standard language.This book is meant as a source of information for Romanian researchers concerning the state of investigation in prosody. Until now it was a difficult task to study the Romanian intonation, given that Laurentia Dascalu-Jinga's works are based only on analysis of standard language. Her approach was a traditional one: she focused on the intonation as the 'melody of the speech' concerning the use of the syntaxis, and less on the pragmatics involved.The volume might also be put to good use outside the Romanian space, and in particular in Europe, fulfilling a useful function.As far as the structure of the book is concerned, it can be divided into two strands. First, there are papers that focus on Romance varieties and second, there are those that focus on the prosodic features of certain languages (Romanian, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Sarde and Occitan).The twelve papers here constitute a point of entry for prosody in the whole Romance languages area. Another issue on which this volume sheds light is the international project AMPER (Atlas multimedia prosodique de l'espace roman). These papers allow clear recognition of the importance of this project, which launched a series of empirical investigations in the intonation field.Linguist Michel Contini in 'Vers une typologie intonative des varietes romanes' presents the essence and a detailed description of the AMPER project. Contini emphasizes that there are important aspects of the dialectal variation of the Romance languages that have been leftuntouched.The study of Romanian intonation is outlined by Turculet, Botosineanu, Minut and Mladin. Much of the discussion is devoted to the main intonative features that are present in ten cities: Baia Mare, Brasov, Bucarest, Cluj-Napoca, Craiova, Iasi, Oradea, Sibiu, Timisoara and Chisinau. The authors touch upon such questions as F0 and duration. The first point they noticed was that the speakers were mainly influenced by the dialect of the surrounding area, an influence that stems from the local differentiation. This fact, however, is a rather typical characterization of interrogative utterances, while the affirmative statements might go unnoticed.A further dimension for intonation is added in 'Aproximacion al estudio de la entonacion de la region de Murcia: Caravaca de la Cruz y Bullas', by several researchers of AMPER-CAT (Martinez Celdran, Fernandez Planas and Roseano) who study Murcia intonation. The results of their study took into account the affirmative and interrogative statements with SVO structure without subject and object. …

Gregory Smith and Jan Gadeyne (eds.), Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. 433pp. 112 BW illus. £75.00.

Gregory Smith and Jan Gadeyne (eds.), Perspectives on Public Space in Rome, from Antiquity to the Present Day. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. 433pp. 112 BW illus. £75.00.

Mediated Naming: The Case of Unconventional Anthroponyms (UA)

AbstractThe present paper deals with mediation, a particular linguistic mechanism of designating referents, which is different from conventional naming (performed by means of official proper names) and which relies on (synthetic or analytic) nomination auxiliaries. In the cases discussed, a referent’s identity is established indirectly, by means of unconventional names, the discursive functions of which are identified contextually. To be more precise, the attention is focused on mechanisms of fixing references through alterity, locative, and property.Theoretically, this article is based on descriptive semantics, pragmatics, and philosophy of language, whereas the field of investigation to which the study pertains is that of anthroponymy.The corpus analyzed consists of unconventional anthroponymic structures from Romanian public space and from the Bible.

Promoting social inclusion in the Romanian rural space.

Professional training courses can contribute to the integration of social vulnerable groups, reducing poverty, especially in rural areas. The assessment of the interest for attending such courses was done by analyzing the official reports of the AM POS DRU and by investigating a sample of women from the North West and the North East Development Regions. The results of the survey show an increase of the social inclusion in rural areas at national level, but insufficient in relation to the proposed objectives. In the two regions, women’s interest to attend such courses is high, being particularly associated with the young and middle-aged and average income. The priority domains identified by the women included in the sample are agriculture in the North East Region and promotion of traditional products in the North West Region. Sustainable development of rural areas requires both professional training of the inhabitants of these areas, as well as capitalizing on local resources and entrepreneurship development.

Baroque Spirit in Romanian Culture. Possible Educational Alternatives for Contemporaries

Abstract This study starts from the premise that the European Baroque culture, which experienced specific forms of manifestation in Romanian society, was influenced by the XVIIth century educational training. Some important factors in this sense were: the Romanian Orthodox faith, the religious feelings and the moral values of society. The interference between the educational system and the Baroque culture was a result of the following aspects: the interest of the Romanian elite for European schools and books, the graduation of schools from Rome and Poland, and their preference for certain readings and studies. Education policy has been the product of the culture and the historical time in which it has manifested. This is the main reason for which the present paper focuses on the XVIIth century, which corresponds best with the time when the baroque manifested itself in the Romanian space. It insists on cultural ideas that were present in the writings of that time and it highlights the facts that were related to the education of the young generation. This paper reveals the connection between the Baroque influence, the historical events, the culture and education of Romanian society. Our documentation was based mainly on the notes taken by the foreign travelers, on the work of Romanian chroniclers and writers. The conclusion reinforces the belief that learning systems should be understood in terms of the cultural influences of that specific period.

Environmental Issues Regarding Space Launches over the Black Sea

The Romanian NERVA space project, aimed at building and using a small rocket launcher for injecting nanosatellites into a LEO, requires the establishment of a secure launching area. The first candidate is on the western coast of the Black Sea and the candidate launching and flight corridor is the west-east vector above the sea. A series of ecological and safety challenges appear due to the high population density of the regions close to the sea-shores of the Black Sea; they must be catalogued and securely solved, before any space activity above the Black Sea begins. The main challenges of such an endeavor are analyzed henceforth and several solutions that fall within the scope of a recent research activity of the NERVA team are proposed.

Surface Corridor Requirements for Space Launches over the Black Sea

Romanian space project NERVA develops the small rocket launcher for injecting nanosatellites into a very LEO. The launching area security first requires establishing a safe launch corridor on the ground. The first candidate for the experiments with the orbital rocket prototype is the western coast of the Black Sea in Romania. Optimal flight considerations immediately show that the best launch azimuth is on west-east direction, which defines a launching corridor along the Black Sea with the similar orientation. Do to the dense population of the sea shore area and to the rather agglomerated condition on the Black Sea, serious concerns arise regarding the safety measures to be solved, before any space activity above the Black Sea should begin. The main challenge is the safe prediction of the impact point of the space launcher in every moment of the atmospheric ascent, in case of unavoidable failure of the propulsion system. This task is assumed and presented as developed within a recent research activity of the NERVA team.

Looking at public spaces in contemporary Rome: an anthropological perspective on the study of cities

Through the presentation of two case studies this paper aims to engage the theoretical debate on the persistence of public space in the contemporary city, and focuses the attention on the way people practice these spaces and on the policies which are regulating their uses. Starting from the description of different ways in which some urban spaces in Rome (Italy) are used by two different communities of people, one mainly composed by immigrants and the other by young city users, and the diverse ways in which their different practices are seen and tolerated, the aim of this paper is to reflect on public spaces. Observing how city users practice public spaces, and analysing the way in which these practices are considered, are particularly exciting perspectives that can offer an interesting vision of the spatial and social reality of the city and of hegemonic relations which govern it.

An Aristotelian School in Romania

The purpose of this essay is to trace Aris-totle's presence within Philosophy as a sufficient argument for the existence of an established School.At a first glance, such an investigation should be risk-free. It could simply mean re-sorting to counting the term Aristotelian in the corpus of Philosophy and re-transiting the routes of the conceptual context of However, the limitations of such a quantitative investigation do present a real problem. If we refer to a philosophical school in general (or, as in our case, to the School), then there are diversities of meanings concerning this term. But if we refer to a philosophical school in a specific or technical meaning (for example as the phenomenological school of Freiburg or the French school of structuralism), then we have only one answer to my question: there is no real School. There-fore, my argument seems to have been exhausted even before I approached it.Nevertheless, I am interested in understand-ing whether the School has an existence or it is rather not present under specified conditions. I will proceed by ex-plaining what I understand by Aris-totelian School. My prerequisites have already been formulated by Gabriel Liiceanu in a pub-lic presentation (which has not been published, as far as I know) titled Why we do not have a history of philosophy.' First, we can talk about a philosophical school if sev-eral thinkers (with scientific expertise in the field), researching the same idea or topic or (e.g., Aristotle in our case), up and hand on the torch in a roundabout of the same thinking. By applying this definition to philosophy, Liiceanu concludes that Romanian philosophers do not think on a unique problem and they do not pass it on to further generations. Each of them is the tribu-tary of his readings made abroad and each of them is an epigone of other Western epigones. He gives as examples Vasile Conta, Constantin Ra dulescu Motru, Petre P. Negulescu, and Lucien Blaga, but we can give other examples such as Aram Frenkian, § tefan Bezdechi, and Athanase Joja.Certainly, these statements are rather radi-cal. However, they seriously question any kind of justification of a specifically tra-dition of philosophy. If we are to keep in mind all these issues, then we probably should limit ourselves to a simple quantitative research. In the end, however, such a quantitative research would lead to a diversity of opinions without reaching a unitary view. But the topic of this essay can delimitate and organize a corpus of texts, beyond all variations of personal opin-ions, even if indirectly rather than frontally ap-proached. We can assert that there is a sum of shared perspectives on the philosophy of Aris-totle in culture. Considering this, I will focus on discovering these perspectives, although they are not regarded as a philosophi-cal school in a technical sense. It is by search-ing the shared perspectives on the philosophy of Aristotle in the culture rather than by proving the existence of an Aristote-lian School of Thought on the territory that this theme can be tackled and divided as follows:Highlighting Aristotelianism in the Space: Seventeenth-Eighteenth CenturiesHighlighting Aristotelianism in the Roma-nian space is an extremely controversial prob-lem and, unfortunately, insufficiently studied so far. The main reason for this is that Roma-nian space has been exposed, over the centu-ries, to a variety of influences (Slavonic, Greek, French, German, Russian)-both cul-tural and linguistic, but also political and reli-gious. I must therefore highlight the fact that my essay will not take in account Aristotelian-ism as practiced in religious or monastic spaces; I will strictly focus on Aristotelianism practiced in secular environments. …

Demographic Disfunctionalities in Rural Space. Case study: the Buzău Subcarpathians

The BuzAƒu Subcarpathians are an all but completely rural region, currently facing manifoldproblems, which have led to the onset of a process of gradual deterioration. The purpose of this articleis to assess the demographic dysfunctionalities that have emerged and intensified as a result of themultiple transformations undergone by the Romanian rural space in the past half-century. In order toanalyze the demographic characteristics, 7 indicators were calculated (the rate of natural increase, thenet migration rate, the intensity of depopulation, the ratio of the elderly population of the totalpopulation, the population aging index, the demographic potential index, the total age dependencyratio) for each of the region’s 58 administrative-territorial entities. Later on, starting from thestandardized values of the 7 variables, a global indicator was calculated (generically calleddemographic index), which allows the classification of settlements into a hierarchy in terms of thedemographic factor. The analysis of the demographic index reveals that the administrative-territorialentities with the highest values are, in particular, those located within the area of influence of the citiesof BuzAƒu and PloieE™ti, which feature a good access infrastructure. On the opposite side, there arecommunes located, typically, in the North-Eastern and South-Western regions, characterized by a highvolume of definitive migration (especially in the young and adult age groups) which resulted, in themedium and long run, among others, in the decline of birth rates and the onset of a pronouncedprocess of population aging. In a situation where the current conditions persist, some of the villages inthe analyzed area will disappear.

Cosmic Christianity in Mircea Eliade's Hermeneutics on “Mioriţa”: The Possibility of a Cognitive Perspective on the “Sacred” in the Traditional Romanian Culture

“Cosmic Christianity” refers, according to Mircea Eliade, to a new religious development, which characterises South-Eastern Europe, where the Christological mystery is projected over the entire nature, with emphasis on the liturgical dimension of human existence in the world.In this paper I will demonstrate that Eliade's analysis of the ballad can be also exploited from a cognitive approach, in an attempt to emphasise the fact that transfiguring death into an event of cosmic proportions and structure, as well as the mystic sympathy between man and nature, highlighted in Mioriţa, reveal new significances of the “sacred”. The manner in which Eliade exploits the text of the ballad from the view of ethno-psychology and sociology can be integrated into a cognitive perspective, according to which ethnic, psychological and mental mechanisms largely determine religious beliefs and practices specific to a geographic area, such as South-Eastern Europe.The cognitive approach projected on Mioriţa can be considered a type of critical discourse on one of the founding myths that represents a cultural and spiritual model in the Romanian space and history.