Romanian National Research Articles

Is there a Link between Preterm Birth and In Utero Exposure to Climate Change?

Aim: The aim of this study is to clarify if there is a link between preterm birth and temperature as a climate factor. Our study comes after a long period of clinical experience that rose the suspicion of a possible correlation between temperature variation and peaks of premature births. Materials and method: We conducted a retrospective study on the number of births registered at the “Dr. I.A. Sbarcea” Clinical Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Brasov in 2018 and 2019. Data related to premature birth was further correlated to climate information regarding Brasov area obtained from the National Administration of Meteorology, Romania and to results of fertility statistics made publicly available by the Romanian National Institute of Statistics. Results: Our study group included 99 premature births registered at “Dr. I.A. Sbarcea” Clinical Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Brasov in 2018 and 127 in 2019. The premature birth rate peaks in August for both years of study: 2018 and 2019. Statistical data processing shows there is significant correlation between in utero exposure to extreme temperatures and registration of peaks of premature births. Conclusion: Recognizing a pattern of the raise in the premature birth rate may help the healthcare system to cope with the increased demands of the pediatric care units in time periods marked by specific climate context. Easy recognition of climate conditions that can consequently lead to a peak in the rate of premature birth can be useful for medical staff and patients.

Integrative reflections in the contemporary approach of the architecture of buildings for shows

The current approaches, materialized in studies and research programs, further explain and complete the general picture regarding the identity of buildings for shows in the Republic of Moldova. The need to update existing information and correct errors and unconfirmed assumptions arises as a result of identifying new data. The research carried out in the field of buildings for shows focuses both on the detailing of its constitution and on the revelation of the architectural-artistic value – starting with the 19th century. The first buildings for shows (the Nobles’ Meeting Club and the „Pushkin” Auditorium), the refurbished buildings („Patria” Cinema and the Organ Hall) and adaptations to new programs such as soviet cinemas are highlighted. Thorough research of the history of construction and reconstruction of the two most famous buildings for shows, which were the headquarters of the Romanian National Theater in Chisinau, contributes to the identification of valid novelties in the correct and coherent dating and interpretation, as well as the names of the authors of the projects. Programs based on appreciating the value of the cultural heritage of the Soviet period are submitted to the attention of the professional environment, the interested public and the administrators of the built heritage and represent an attempt to raise awareness of the importance of re-evaluating this heritage.

Bidding for Research Funds. Inter-Fields Differences and Predictors of the Evaluation Scores: Insights from a Romanian National Competition for Postdoctoral Grants

This study sought to address an important gap in the existent knowledge about the development of the Romanian research system by looking at a very specific population of young scholars who participated in the national competition for postdoctoral grants (2016) which included over 900 participants. The paper is structured by two main research objectives. Firstly, the analysis if focused on differences between scientific fields by looking at research entities which host young scholars’ grant proposals, gender balance, young scholars’ academic performance measured through a standardized indicator (Google Scholar H index), share of people trained abroad, and information about the evaluation process. Secondly, a linear regression model is built for the relationship between research proposal’s evaluation score and a series of individuals’ characteristics and structural factors associated to entities which host young scholars’ research proposals. An original database derived from individuals’ CVs allows us to test a series of hypothesis and to reveal significant predictors for grant application’s evaluation score. For instance, individuals’ evaluation score is positively influenced by scholars’ higher Google Scholar H Index, short-term and long-term experiences of formal education or training abroad. At the same time, younger participants and women researchers have statistically significant higher scores for their proposals.

The Importance of English Trade and Capital for Understanding Historical Processes in the Work of Philosopher Stefan Zeletin

The interwar philosopher, economist and sociologist Stefan Zeletin1, professor at the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, has special contributions in various domains related to the social sciences. The merit of the interwar thinker consists in giving meaning and significance to some economic phenomena and events. Subsequently, the valences of events of economic importance were analysed, up to the implications they have on historical processes. More precisely, Zeletin shows us that we can understand the historical purpose of some peoples, namely of the Romanian nation, based on treaties or economic decisions in the international system. The Treaty of Adrianople (1829) is analysed by the Romanian intellectual in terms of the implications of English trade and capital on the Romanian Principalities.

Landscape of Migration: Mobility and Environmental Change on Bolivia's Tropical Frontier, 1952 to the Present

Bolivia's eastern lowlands form a landscape of the future. They tempt landless families with hopes of prosperity and tantalize governments both revolutionary and reactionary with dreams of export-driven development. Ben Nobbs-Thiessen takes seriously these dreams and the spaces on which they converge in Landscape of Migration: Mobility and Environmental Change on Bolivia's Tropical Frontier, 1952 to the Present. An ambitious, transnational history of migration and environment in the lowlands, this book juggles three different migratory streams: colonists from the Andean highlands, Okinawan farmers, and Mennonites who settled in Bolivia via Mexico and Canada. The confluence of these groups on land already inhabited by Indigenous communities after the Bolivian Revolution of 1952 reshaped Bolivian political and economic power in the twentieth century.After a century of wars in which Bolivia lost valuable territory and resources to its neighbors, the revolutionary nationalists of 1952 were anxious to populate and control the least connected and largest section of Bolivia. The idea of developing the lowlands through roads and settlement provided an answer to many Cold War anxieties, including for US government officials. Bolivian officials concerned about growing numbers of unemployed and politicized workers in the highlands encouraged colonization schemes in the lowlands. Meanwhile, US diplomats, concerned about the frustrated economic expectations of Okinawan youth as well as Mennonite “model farmers in search of a model crop,” saw new possibilities for prosperity in the Bolivian frontier (p. 190). Each of these communities justified their belonging in this frontier and made claims for themselves by performing what Nobbs-Thiessen calls agrarian citizenship.Landscape of Migration's first three chapters cover the nationalist revolutionary period from 1952 to 1964, establishing the histories of each migratory stream and the ways that state and settler performed agrarian citizenship. Making extensive use of both public and private archives across multiple continents, Nobbs-Thiessen shows Andeans, Mennonites, and Okinawans articulating settler legitimacy as the transformation of unruly frontier into national wealth. Landscape of Migration bridges both internal and external migration in its analysis, understanding that while Andeans and Okinawans performed their belonging in different ways, both were settlers in an unfamiliar landscape whose histories share meaningful resonances. The last two chapters of the book address the period of military dictatorship and neoliberal democracy after 1964, focusing on development projects by missionaries, nongovernmental organizations, and Mennonite soy farmers. An epilogue brings us to the present, in which Bolivia's lowlands form just one portion of the transnational empire of soybeans that now dominates the Amazon and its inhabitants.The first chapter is a standout. Here Nobbs-Thiessen explores postrevolutionary image making of and in the lowlands through film, written narrative, and photography, focusing on the work of filmmaker Jorge Ruiz. Nobbs-Thiessen describes a national romance with the lowlands, which Andeans felt in both political and nationalist terms. His analysis gives room for both nationalist anxieties and bonanza dreams, whether through oil, gold, or soybeans. The chapter considers the context of these narratives' production as well as their circulation and the material places that they traverse. This chapter would make a fine addition to undergraduate classes on film or environmental history.Bolivia's march to the east is an old story, but Nobbs-Thiessen is part of a new generation of scholars rethinking the legacies of the 1952 revolution. Landscape of Migration contributes admirably to this rethinking, weaving migration, development, and environment into a dynamic, compelling narrative and reminding Andeanists of the lowlands' importance to nation building long before Santa Cruz's economic power came to compete with that of La Paz. Nobbs-Thiessen also insists on writing Bolivia's history as inherently transnational while remaining deeply rooted in regional and local context, an endeavor that he rightly notes is rare in Bolivianist scholarship. Concerned with questions of belonging and the ways that migrant communities make claims in unfamiliar spaces, Nobbs-Thiessen explores the racial underpinnings of citizenship in the part of Bolivia that considers itself the whitest and least Indigenous. Here the book could have spent more time with the lowland region's many non-Andean Indigenous inhabitants, especially as Andean settlers and lowland Indigenous communities increasingly contest the same spaces in Bolivia's pluricultural present. Nobbs-Thiessen's analysis of the settler underpinnings of agrarian citizenship does not sidestep these questions, even as Landscape of Migration leaves their full consideration for another book.Landscape of Migration is both an environmental history of a landscape's production and a history of migration and belonging across multiple archives. Such a project establishes a high bar for future scholars in the field and raises tantalizing questions. Nobbs-Thiessen begins his fifth chapter following Mennonite settlers and Che Guevera's guerrillas on simultaneous visits to neighboring patches of lowland frontier. Both are dreaming of future success; both are stymied by the same wet weather. Has there ever been a better landscape on which to imagine the perils and ambitions of the Latin American twentieth century?

AutoNowP: An Approach Using Deep Autoencoders for Precipitation Nowcasting Based on Weather Radar Reflectivity Prediction

Short-term quantitative precipitation forecast is a challenging topic in meteorology, as the number of severe meteorological phenomena is increasing in most regions of the world. Weather radar data is of utmost importance to meteorologists for issuing short-term weather forecast and warnings of severe weather phenomena. We are proposing AutoNowP, a binary classification model intended for precipitation nowcasting based on weather radar reflectivity prediction. Specifically, AutoNowP uses two convolutional autoencoders, being trained on radar data collected on both stratiform and convective weather conditions for learning to predict whether the radar reflectivity values will be above or below a certain threshold. AutoNowP is intended to be a proof of concept that autoencoders are useful in distinguishing between convective and stratiform precipitation. Real radar data provided by the Romanian National Meteorological Administration and the Norwegian Meteorological Institute is used for evaluating the effectiveness of AutoNowP. Results showed that AutoNowP surpassed other binary classifiers used in the supervised learning literature in terms of probability of detection and negative predictive value, highlighting its predictive performance.

THE PROBABILITY OF UNCERTAINTY: ROMANIA’S GROWTH PERSPECTIVES

This paper follows the already existing literature to address three main pressing concerns that Romania is currently facing with respect to sustainable development and economic growth, which has likely been impeded as a direct consequence of the ongoing sanitary crisis. The research questions of this paper were asked with the consideration of finding possible solutions to the current developments. These questions were “How will the global health crisis project on Romania’s GDP growth in 2021 and going forward?”, “To what extent can Romania face its current challenges with respect to the budgetary pressures?”. The research itself was conducted using the R programming language with quantitative data, namely quarterly GDP starting from 2005 Q1 onwards and its main objective is to simulate Romania’s GDP to answer the aforementioned questions. Therefore, this research is empirical in the sense that it derives the simulated data from real data which was taken from Eurostat. The main findings of this research were that Romania’s GDP could grow by a mean 3.2% in 2021, which is more conservative than the existing institutional forecasts made by the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and the Romanian National Commission for Strategy and Forecasting, implying that the majority of the simulated outcomes have been in that respective range of values. Moreover, this research also finds that consumption is expected to increase by approximately 4.2% and that the budget deficit relative to GDP could go as low as to negative 7.8%. This paper creates value for future policymaking as it proposes solutions which could help Romania going forward. Thus, this paper creates value for not only the policymakers but the society as a whole.

Analysis of Romanian National Publication Output in Orthopedics

(1) Aim: To analyze the publication output from Romania in the Web of Science (WoS) category of orthopedics. (2) Methods: We have used the WoS Core Collection Advanced Search between 2009 and 2018. (3) Results: Under the WoS Orthopedics category in SCI-Expanded, we found 72 articles with Romania as the country of origin, representing 0.105% of the total Romanian research output. Using journal rankings, distribution by quartile was: 1–12 (16.7%), 2–33 (45.8%), 3–9 (12.5%) and 4–18 (25%). Average citations in total and per year by category were: 1–22.6 range 1–91 (2.56), 2–8.85 range 0–30 (1.64), 3–8.44 range 1–30 (1.25), and 4–4.11 range 0–16 (0.74). Thirteen articles published from 1986 to 2008 were excluded by limiting the timespan. When searching for all document types and all WoS core collection citation indexes, we found 107 items; the total citations increased from 714 to 806. (4) Conclusions: Orthopedic publications from Romania have increased in the last decade, but are still low compared to category averages; however, the bibliometric qualitative distribution and patterns mostly resemble that of comparators.

Aspects Regarding Geographic and Spatial Dispersion Determined by Romanian National Men’s Basketball League (2006-2019)

This article intends to analyze the men’s basketball phenomenon in Romania, at the level of the Romanian National Basketball League (the elite league in Romanian Men’s Basketball). In the first part of this article we will analyze the numeric indicators resulted from the mathematical quantifiers of the participation of men’s basketball teams in the National Basketball League. In the second part we will highlight aspects of geographic and spatial dispersion by using mathematical methods (such as the Euclidean distances). Furthermore, we will highlight the advantages and disadvantages of the geographic location of men’s basketball teams from Romania.

The National Assembly of Blaj of 3/15–5/17 May 1848 in the Symbolism of the Romanian National Identity Project Until 1918

The National Assembly of Blaj of 3/15–5/17 May 1848 in the Symbolism of the Romanian National Identity Project Until 1918

Review of the measles epidemic in children from Central Eastern Europe in the third millennium.

Measles is an extremely contagious viral disease. Even though a safe vaccine exists for this disease, it remains one of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity in infants and young children. We aimed to create a retrospective descriptive study in which to analyze the evolution of the measles epidemic at the European level. The documentation was carried out using European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) statistics. At the same time, we present the epidemic's evolution in Romania, using data provided by the Romanian National Institute of Public Health and Ministry of Health. European statistical data indicate a high number of patients diagnosed with measles both among children and adults. All European countries benefit from the measles vaccination in the form of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) trivaccine included in their National Vaccination Programme. The vaccination schedule varies from country to country. In the vaccination scheme, most European countries include two doses of the MMR vaccine among the pediatric population. Romania registered a limited number of cases of measles between 1980 and 2015 following the introduction of the measles vaccination in the National Vaccination Programme. Since 2005, the Romanian vaccination schedule includes two doses of MMR trivaccine, administered at 12 months and at 6-7 years. After 2015, as a result of a significant decrease in the number of vaccinated children, Romania is facing a major increase in the cases of measles. Consecutively, a measles epidemic was declared in 2016 and an additional dose of mandatory MMR trivaccine was introduced at the age of 9 months. After 4 years of this schedule of administration, starting with August 2020, the additional dose of MMR administered during infancy has been discontinued. We propose an analysis of the factors that influenced the downward evolution of the measles epidemic in Romania at the beginning of the third millennium. Issues related to the limitation of interpersonal contact in the context of the social distancing imposed by the Sars-CoV-2 virus pandemic are discussed. We consider necessary a detailed documentation of the percentage of new disease cases that will appear in the pediatric population in the near future, in the context of the resumption of daily activity after the reopening of nurseries, kindergartens and schools.

Romantic Motives in the Lithuanian Partisan and Deportee Songs

The aim of the article is revealing the manifestations of romanticism in the songs created during and after the World War II by the partisans and their supporters, political prisoners and deportees. The author employs studies by Vytautas Kubilius and other literary scholars; however, her research is a folkloristic one, since the songs’ lyrics are perceived as a layer of folklore created at a definite period and characterized by the common stylistic features. Having noted a coherent continuation of the tradition of national romanticism, the author suggests defining the new wave of this style originating in the postwar period as folk romanticism. This folk romanticism blossomed precisely at the time when anti-romantic tendencies prevailed in the public artistic expressions. National culture was suppressed in the occupied Lithuania, and its famous creators silenced. Therefore, the idealist creativity moved to the underground, while traditional national and romantic motives were further developed in the illegal publications by the partisan movement and in the orally spread folksongs. The great representative of the 19th century literary romanticism Maironis established the high style of the Lithuanian poetry; notions prevailing in his poems express the most cherished values, including the glorious past, noble ideals, honor, struggle, and unity. According to Vytautas Kubilius, “the high style shaped by Maironis affected the Lithuanian cultural worldview: several generations used his poems to appreciate the nature and the past of the native country, learned of loving, believing and endurance in the center of the historical whirlwinds” (Kubilius 1993: 145). The return of the romantic ideals of the 19th century in the middle of the 20th century is hardly surprising, since it is only natural in the war and postwar times – the critical period again required resistance and defense from the literature and poetry. The songs created during war and postwar period harbor almost all the typical romantic literary motives. They exalt the beauty of the homeland praising its green villages, winding rivers with meadow banks, the roadside crosses, and faraway woods. These motives are often entwined with those of spring, blossoming, and youth. The native country is frequently portrayed in the songs of resistance as a beloved girl with a “rue spray in her hair” and as a mother taking care of her children. In the songs’ lyrics, there are harsh winds blowing, thunders striking, falcons taking up to the skies notwithstanding, and one is led to hope for the dawn, sunrise, and the glorious morning of freedom. The liberated Lithuanian capital with a tricolor flag blowing out above the Gediminas’ Castle is also often depicted. The motive of Lithuanian woods, or green forests is especially prominent both in the romantic literature and in the postwar folksongs. From ancient times, the woods used to protect Lithuanians against their enemies; during the postwar period, they also served as the only shelter for people prosecuted by the fierce regime.As noted by the folklore researcher Kostas Aleksynas, a huge number of patriotic songs has been created in the course of a comparatively short period of the armed national resistance (Aleksynas 2009: 7), the folksong creativity seemingly acquiring new powers. The continuation of the national romanticism and elaboration of numerous motives employed by the Lithuanian poets analyzed in this article could perhaps explain this phenomenon. Composition of the new folksongs did not require forming of a new poetic language, since the well-established romantic tradition presented itself to use, and only certain appropriate motives had to be selected.

Romaniani­zation and Half-Hearted Concessions. The Last Four Years of German-Language Education in Southern Bessarabia (1936-1940)

The article discusses the status of German-language education in Southern Bessarabia in the last years of Romanian domination, before the Soviet takeover in June 1940 and the subsequent resettlement of the local German population in September 1940. It shows that neither the national-liberal government (1933-1938) nor the regime of King Carol II (1938-1940) complied with the 28 October 1920 treaty between the principal allied powers and Romania respecting Bessarabia, an agreement that granted the Romanian nationals of German ethnicity the right to establish and manage schools, as well as to use the German language in the educational sphere. Both the national-liberal government and the regime of King Carol II obstructed public and confessional German-language education in Southern Bessarabia.

Aromanian Ethnicity in the Accounts of British Travelers through the Balkans (approx. 1800–1860)

Abstract Nineteenth-century western-European travel literature constitutes a potentially rich historical source, which has, to date, been insufficiently exploited from the perspective of Aromanian studies. In exploring several British travelogues from the first half of the nineteenth century, the author sets out to identify specific Aromanian self-images containing essential markers of the Balkan Aromanians’ ethnicity, as it presented itself on the eve of its morphing into a mere aspect of Romanian or Greek nationality. Several important topoi of the Aromanian ethnic identity come to light; the idea of the ethnic community’s Roman origins, the endonyms being used, the social practice of endogamy, and the circulated stories of potential Aromanian folk-hero figures in the making (pending possible incorporation into the Aromanian collective memory) all function as identity markers, articulating the ethnic boundary that ensures the internal coherence of the Aromanian ethnic community and sets it apart from other ethnic groups.

The Role of Greek Merchants in European Capitalism and Greek Independence Movement

This article aims to understand the mostly-neglected role of the Greek merchants in the Greek independence movement by looking into their integration in European capitalist system. By doing this, we believe that we are able to move beyond the general tendency of romantic nationalist readings in the literature which focuses only on the Greek or European intelligentsia, as the first and foremost stimulating power behind the Greek struggle for independence. The Greek independence movement has a different place in international relations since it shows the crucial connection between the nationalist feelings and the nationalist economies. The claim in this article is that the emerging bourgeois class of the Greeks, which adapted quickly and successfully to the European capitalist system with its privileges in trade, sought independence from the Ottoman Empire in line with its economic advantages and interests. As they effectively got involved in international trade with the commercial advantages, they became wealthy and powerful enough to seek for their own nation-state that could be a strategic actor in European capitalist system. To this end, the accumulation of capital and the spirit of Europeanization encouraged them to become financiers of the emergence of the Greek intelligentsia and the formation of an ideological base in the struggle for an independent Greek state. The fact that the static and introverted empire economies that could not keep up with the dynamism of international capitalism were replaced by the nation-states explains why the enriched Greek merchant class moved away from the Ottoman Empire and turned towards European capitalism. Their successful involvement in capitalist development in Europe can be understood better when we look into the trade capacity of the Greeks at the European ports and their effective existence in international financial networks. In this context, based on the inference that there would be a link between joining international trade networks and seeking national independence, it was concluded that the Greek merchant class left the Ottoman Empire's control area and the enriched capital class became demanding its own nation-state.

Adventure Tourism: Insight from Experienced Visitors of Romanian National and Natural Parks

The rapid growth of adventure tourism is remarked all over the world, being considered as a modern form of tourism. This study attempted to investigate the preferences of experienced visitors of Romanian national and natural parks with the main focus on understanding what motives describe the three elements that define adventure tourism: physical activity, natural environment and cultural immersion, and what is the level of satisfaction regarding the quality of facilities and services. An online survey was filled in by 137 members of adventure tourism groups, being further grouped based on their experiences. Results indicate that experienced participants better appreciated the opportunity to be engaged in physical activity and to explore the natural environment. Cultural experience was perceived as similar by both groups. The level of satisfaction about facilities and services provided by the national and natural parks and adjacent rural communities was similar among groups, except for that about the existing information panels. Future development actions should address both groups to enhance their willingness to revisit the areas and increase the attractiveness of tourism in rural areas situated in the neighborhood of parks.

‘It was as if my ballet had never existed!’: August Bournonville and the Reception of Brudefærden i Hardanger

Set in Norway, August Bournonville's 1853 ballet Brudefærden i Hardanger was highly successful with both Danish and Swedish audiences. In Norway, however, the ballet was ignored and ultimately blamed for perpetuating false images of the nation. This paper explores the ways in which Norway functioned as a source of idealism, exoticism, and romantic nationalism in nineteenth-century Scandinavia. The contrasting attitudes towards Bournonville's work illuminate more than differences of tastes among the three countries. As contemporary accounts, sheet music, prints, and performance ephemera demonstrate, Brudefærden i Hardanger reveals the ways in which Bournonville's ballet created, interpreted, and also constrained national identity.

Organizarea românilor ardeleni. De la formarea Consiliului Național Român Central (31 octombrie) până la semnarea armistițiului dintre Ungaria și Antantă (13 noiembrie 1918) (O cronologie a Unirii Transilvaniei cu România după presa vremii. IV)

The night of the Hungarian Aster Revolution (October 30-31) in Budapest brought about the birth of not only the Hungarian National Council, under the leadership of Mihály Károlyi, but also of the Romanian National Council, consequently moved to Arad two days later. On the one hand, the Romanian Central National Council considered itself to be the Romanian counterpart of the Hungarian National Council which had just taken over the governance of Hungary (although, for the time being, the state was still considered to be the Kingdom of Hungary, under the House of Habsburg). As such, the new Romanian Council’s first concern was to put an end to anarchy and reinstate order in the territories inhabited by Romanians. The organization even affirmed its anti-revolutionary and pro-dynastic position, in contrast with its Hungarian counterpart, which was considered to be too much taken over by revolutionary flames. Very soon after this, the Romanian Central National Council was confronted with new geo-political developments in the Eastern European space. On November 5, 1918, during a press conference, the American State Secretary Robert Lansing mentioned the possibility of uniting Transylvania to the Kingdom of Romania. Two days later, on the occasion of signing the armistice with Hungary, the French General Franchet d’Espèrey held a speech that had a crushing effect on the Government and the public opinion of Hungary that country, in which he utterly proclaimed the dissolution of Great Hungary.

Freedom and Evolution: Hierarchy in Nature, Society and Science

This is an exceptionally entertaining and engaging book about freedom and evolution, with the subtitle hierarchy in nature, society, and science. In his new book, Adrian Bejan covers a wide range of topics such as thermodynamics, freedom and evolution, diversity and hierarchy, as well as science and freedom.This highly original book has 11 chapters. The first chapter is Nature and Power. Adrian Bejan shows that nature consists of two systems. The first system is the one chosen by the human observer to analyze and discuss. It can be an open system where there is mass flow across the boundary or a closed system where there is no mass flow across the boundary, such as engines and brakes. The second system is the surroundings, or the environment, which opposes the flow system movement. The movement on the earth surface is due to power. The power is dissipated promptly into heat that is transmitted to the ambient.In the second chapter, Adrian Bejan unveils the physics behind Economies of Scale. He shows that systems of flow tend to flow more easily by coming together into fewer and bigger systems. He gives several examples of systems integration. Conversely, all the moving things (e.g., rivers) do not follow this trend because all the movement on earth is on volumes and areas, not point to point.In the third chapter, Adrian Bejan presents Hierarchy, which is natural and most needed to create a movement that evolves toward designs with greater access. The hierarchy is due to the Constructal Law. He gives several examples of hierarchy, including his own experience as a previous player in the Romanian National Basketball Team.In Chapter 4, Adrian Bejan shows the physics basis of Inequality, which increases with increasing wealth. Inequality reduction calls for redistributive measures that reduce the wealthier’s incentives to produce wealth. This leads to an equilibrium between more equality and more wealth.Social Organization and Innovation are the subjects of Chapter 5. Bejan shows that the organization evolves naturally as the movement of society members increases. When the society size increases, the organization becomes more hierarchical, with greater non-uniformity in the distribution of movement in the populated region.Chapter 6 is dedicated to Complexity. Bejan describes Complexity as a difficult concept, such as turbulence, or chaos. At first, when persons knew a lot less than what we know today, complexity meant headache, fuzziness, difficulty, and why bother.In Chapter 7, Discipline, Bejan puts together several disciplines such as geometry and thermodynamics. This chapter continues where Complexity chapter left off. To explore its discipline, the science of complexity can benefit from the example set by thermodynamics, which is a discipline with clear words, principles, and rules.Diversity is Chapter 8. Bejan illustrates the birth of diversity from freedom, with examples from human evolution and spreading through science and technology. For example, he shows the diversification and spreading of engineering disciplines during the period 1700s–2000s.In Chapter 9, Bejan shows that we can predict evolution from the physics law that governs the phenomenon of evolution. He gives examples of other laws that give us the power to predict, such as Newton’s second law of motion and the second law of thermodynamics.In Chapter 10, Diminishing Returns, Bejan shows that we can observe diminishing returns in evolving flow architectures, which have become “mature.” Diminishing return is a global phenomenon, which accompanies evolution. When the evolving flow configuration is more mature, the improvements in the performance of the overall flow-access become smaller.The book’s last chapter is Science and Freedom. Science evolving itself in the direction of more freedom. Bejan shares memories of his professors when he was an undergraduate at MIT in the late 1960s. He details his recent investigation of the practice of plagiarism.In summary, this book is highly recommended to readers of all ages, especially high school seniors and college students in search of their paths in life.

Ticagrelor Utilization in Patients With Non-ST Elevation Acute Coronary Syndromes in Romania.

Dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) represents a major tool of non-ST elevation acute coronary syndrome (NSTE-ACS) management. The real-world usage of potent P2Y12 inhibitors within DAPT in middle-income countries is poorly described. To assess the factors that influence P2Y12 inhibitor choice at discharge in invasively managed NSTE-ACS patients, without an indication for oral anticoagulation, treated across Romania. The Romanian National NSTE-ACS Registry allows the consecutive enrollment of NSTE-ACS patients admitted in 11 (of 24) interventional centers reimbursed from public funds. NSTE-ACS patients that received DAPT at discharge were identified. Deceased patients, those with an indication for oral anticoagulation or not receiving DAPT at discharge, were excluded. P2Y12 inhibitor choice was analyzed based on demographic, clinical, and invasive management characteristics. One thousand fifty (63 ± 10 years, 73% male) of 1418 patients enrolled between 2016 and 2019 were analyzed. The P2Y12 inhibitor pretreatment rate was 90%. Obstructive coronary artery disease was found in 95.3% of patients. 84.6% underwent percutaneous coronary interventions (PCIs). Single vessel PCI was reported in 84% of PCI patients. The clopidogrel usage rate was 49.6%, ticagrelor 50.0%, and prasugrel 0.4%. Overall, higher ticagrelor usage was associated with: non-ST elevation myocardial infarction (P 0.035), age below 65 (P < 0.001), prior treatment with ticagrelor (P < 0.001), PCI during admission (P < 0.001), and its full 12-month reimbursement (since November 2017). Reimbursement increased the use of ticagrelor from 23.7% in 2016-2017 to 56.9% in 2018-2019 (P < 0.001). In PCI patients, ticagrelor use was associated with PCI with stenting (P 0.016) and multivessel PCI (0.013). DAPT, P2Y12 inhibitor pretreatment, and single vessel PCI are the standards of care in invasively managed NSTE-ACS patients in Romania. Besides the clinical and invasive characteristics that favor its use, the full reimbursement of ticagrelor introduced in November 2017 doubled its yearly usage.