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The paper aim is an attempt to analyses the status quo of the stated-owned company Serbian railways infrastructure in terms of strategic development and particularly goal-setting advancement. Paper’s method is based on contemporary streams in management of stated-own enterprises and specifically alternative models of organizing relatively rigid organizations. The study examines and it shows that there is much work to be done to bring the system of objectives into a position that enable and ensure a sufficiently high management efficiency of both the enterprise stochastically and the performance management that is an essential element of governance of human resources. Based on the paper findings and results we suggest starting a procedure to develop a new system of objectives, consistent with the main goals of Serbia's railway sector reform. It is appropriate that work be based on the following system of strategic directions for development such as efficient maintenance, modernization and development of railway infrastructure, technological preparedness and level of development of business operations, upgrading of rail transport system towards adjacent countries, in line with the EU standards and other measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The worldwide challenges related with the agricultural sector are diversifying and the financing of this field is more and more required in order to develop the sustainable agriculture while mitigating and adapting to climate change. This paper aims to overview the agriculture finance landscape worldwide by investigating the Scopus research publications. Also, it was conducted an analysis at BRIC and USA levels. The review uses the bibliometric techniques for emphasizing the evolution during 1960-2016 time frames, and the distribution of agriculture finance literature by authors, type of document, language, field of study and regions. In addition, the paper presents the association maps of the key words in the field retrieved from the titles and abstracts of the analyzed documents from Scopus by using the KH Coder software. The results of this paper indicate increases of the publications in the field of agriculture finance worldwide, as well as more papers in BRIC countries than those from USA. Agricultural finance research analyzed worldwide from Scopus emphasizes topics such as the role of a nation's government in financing the agriculture for development, sustainability, management of resources, as well as food safety and security. Some other issues are population size, education, environmental management, policy development, market relations and agricultural lending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The watermark - as an inseparable element of antique paper and first form of protoindustrial logo - by virtue of its own meta-data repertoire regarding paper support since the 20th century, plays a fundamental role in heuristic investigation, imposing watermark studies among the auxiliary disciplines of history. Their study offered important information about the place and date of the production of a paper document with a low margin of error. This has led to an increasing use in the art history sector, in particular when there is a need for extra information regarding a document or drawing that is of dubious or missing dating. Up till now, there does not exist a watermark database of Leonardo's papers, nor has there ever been a diagnostic investigation on the subject in reference to the Codex Atlanticus in Milan, whose watermarks, whilst being mentioned sporadically in critical transcriptions, have never before been graphically revealed. This lack offers an interesting occasion for the contribution of new knowledge in this "black box-area" of Leonardo's studies, aligning the research with a positive tendency that, in recent years, has seen a consistent increase in international initiatives aimed at enhancing the watermark archival cultural heritage, promoting not only the digitization of the oldest papers repertoires (C.M. Briquet or G. Piccard collections), but also creating new ones from scratch inside museums, research institutes and university centres. The research aims to analyze the relationship between watermarks and Leonardo's codeces, mainly in the Codex Atlanticus, in order to collect a body of information about the manuscripts, including the structure of their papers and, in terms of extensibility and connection with other watermark digital archives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the problem of management culture in Russian Empire in the second half of the 18th century which tightly connected with the paper-work and art of drawing up documents. The author pays main attention to such type of primary sources as letter-writing guides that were to come to Russia on the turn of the 18th century. The analysis of guides had shown that they were not only good examples of epistolary norms but also gave instances of official letters which were to be important element of business culture and took part in formation of Russian legal culture. Their role could be easily seen if we look at some prefaces and structure. Some letter-guides had special parts devoted to the description of business letters and other documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cultural movement of Renaissance affected profoundly all the accusations of intellectualism. The hallmark of this alternation came with the publication of Nikolaus Copernicus work in 1543 entitled «De revolutionibus orbium coelestium». This work was the formalization of multiannual considerations, of the astronomers of that time, on the existing interpretational theories for our planetary system. The constant search for truth that governs our planetary system, remained irreducible throughout the course of the 16th century, until the invention of the first telescope by Galileo in the early 17th century. The cultural movement of Renaissance which started from Italy and slowly spread across Europe it influenced also the region of Bohemia. Inevitably Bohemia's local architecture was usually associated with the Renaissance style. Bonifaz Wolmut's miscellaneous architectural work in the Czech lands reflects this influence. Architecture as one of the classical arts, did not arise independently, rather it always reflected the intertwining of the spiritual values of the age, the development of society, technological scientific progress, knowledge and experience, arts and crafts skills. Οn the basis of this formulation but also on the fact that architecture has a content that goes beyond mere forms and functions the pursuit is, apart from the labeling of schematic and stylistic motifs in Bonifaz Wolmut's work which suggest direct influences from the field of astronomy, to emerge further ascertainments on his work which will enhance the indications on the impact of the evolution of the science of astronomy on the architectural thought and practice in the Czech lands during Renaissance period. Such ascertainments are sought through the review of the astronomical orientation of buildings listed on his name. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business communication in English is getting more highlighted in the globalized context, as the English language spreads as the most dominant lingua franca in international business settings. While the volume of studies focused on business communication in various disciplines continues to increase, new strands of research emerge; some approaches are going out of focus. To improve our understanding and offer a more realistic picture of the field of business communication in English, we examined promising trends in the area. The study primarily selected 254 publications pertaining to Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences, which were extracted from the Scopus database for the period from 2012 to 2016. All sources relevant to technical communication as well as narrowly concentrated studies in management and marketing were excluded as irrelevant. Using search strategies, sampling, content analysis, comparison analysis, categorization, the present paper revealed the basic trends in the field. 254 papers were filtered for the purpose of detecting their links to business communication in English by identifying the relevance of the keywords of the papers and then comparing the selections made by both authors. All the 144 publications ultimately sorted out in our study were then amalgamated into a bigger direction of research. According to the findings of the present research the most widely explored themes relevant to business communication in English cover discourse studies and issues of pragmatics and effective business communication; research of business communication skills and competencies including their classifications, practice-related and teaching aspects; didactic studies for teaching business communication at tertiary level; publications on intercultural and cross-cultural business communication, on English as a lingua franca in business-related contexts. The research maintains that the emphasis in the field is shifting from the business language towards studying discourse and context as well as communication skills and competencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thorny issue of food safety is not new, not by far. Yet, it has been somehow in the shadow of ensuring global food security for a while, and currently it comes out from that shadow, making a spectacular step forward. Researchers have managed to put food safety in almost everyone's minds and that is an ongoing education exercise with unprecedented results. Consequently, the authors ask themselves if the topic has reached its end or, on the contrary, if there are any new approaches to be considered by the researchers. By conducting a bibliometric analysis on the scientific data from Scopus and Web of Science, the authors managed to highlight the focal points of research in the food safety domain. Also, the analysis of the word frequencies in the field indicates the main topics on food safety discussed in the articles selected from the two databases. The results show that food safety as a research topic follows a growing trend in both research papers and topic opportunities, turning out to be a true fountain of wealth. The paper should be of interest to researchers, policy makers, as well as current and future entrepreneurs, who need to find about consumer concerns and research results to develop a sustainable business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mass media is the most expanded means of communication nowadays. For decades mass media has been actively working out the strategies to influence the recipient's mind. In this research the author makes efforts to make a survey of what appears to be the most efficient, acute and widely practiced expressive stylistic means applicable in the media. The key word here is expressiveness since it reflects the speaker's attitude to the events and forms the pragmatic value of the text. As modern psycholinguists believe, effective communication in the modern world is the one influencing the ideas and making people act in a certain way. Neuro Linguistic Programming as means of predetermining people's behavior is very actual in this aspect as well. The subject of the research is a great variety of stylistic and language means which serve expressiveness such as metaphors, allusions, jargon, colloquialisms, figurative language, archaisms, neologisms as well as some others. The methods applied are stylistic analysis, lexical, semantic, morphological and syntactical analysis. The findings of this survey imply that the expressive means in mass media vary dependent on the recipient. The recipients of quality papers and the recipients of mass papers react differently to various stylistic and language means. Recipient acts as a major factor for identifying the pragmatic components of the text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The failure of the critical infrastructure elements represents a significant impact on the national security, safeguarding the basic living needs of the inhabitants, human health or the state's economy. Several critical infrastructure elements are defined, including transport. The world is threatened by several emergencies - floods, drought, tornadoes and other. These events threaten the state's critical infrastructure. Different events could trigger cascading effects. It means that the impact of an emergency on transport has an impact on another essential element of infrastructure - energy. Paper is focused on the failure of critical infrastructure elements and potential cascading effects on the transport. At first, literature research on critical infrastructure will be carried out. Secondly, possible cascade effects in the transport sector will be analyzed. Finally, evaluation and recommendation will be made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with composition and register of medical documents and their peculiarities for translation teaching. Medical documents are built up by specific standards, including cliché and professional terminology. Medical documents are regarded as the manifestation of scientific and technical styles, and the crucial feature of such texts is standardization. The in-patient records are to be used to communicate a framework of patients and doctors, hospitals and healthcare. The present paper is aimed to analyze structure, lexical, syntactic differences in sentence patterns of in-patient records in both languages. Moreover, a future translator should be competent from the one hand, in genres and structure of translated documentation, from the other hand know how to compile it in a foreign language. Standardization of medical documents due to its numerous discrepancies in linguistic, stylistic and composition features is a challenge for the translator to implement certain stylistic alteration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dramatherapy is a way of psychotherapy which helps people better understand their problems. The method is helpful especially in the field of addictions. The therapeutic community is a traditional form of caring for persons addicted to drugs. A few communities in Czech Republic use dramatherapy. The purpose of the text is to answer the question how dramatherapy works in a community and how the method influences the clients. The paper focuses on the potential of dramatherapy in a therapeutic community for persons with addiction. The goal of this paper is to present a qualitative research. The methodology is based on a qualitative semi-structured interview, an investigative research sample, and other requirements important to the research. The main question is as follows: How can dramatherapy help in the environment of a therapeutic community? In the paper the main answers are presented. Dramatherapy has a specific potential in care programmes. Dramatherapy helps people better understand their problems. The conclusion section summarizes the results of the investigation and includes a discussion with recommendations for further research. The research published in this paper is dedicated to the following project: Student Grant Competition, Palacký University in Olomouc: Research on inclusion of persons with special needs (IGA_PdF_2017_008). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of the paper is to analyze the economic development of construction companies in the monitored period during the crises. The economic development is performed with the financial indicators, which express the performance and the financial stability of the construction company. Financial indicators are represented mainly by the Return on Equity (ROE) and indebtedness of the company. The methodology is based on the collection of information from accounting statements (the balance sheet, the profit loss account and the cash-flow statement) of selected Czech construction companies, on their analysis and then synthesis using mathematical methods. Methodology used within the paper follows current principles of the financial analysis, which will be in the paper adapted to special area of construction sector. The paper elaboration is based on the detailed present state analysis including the appropriate journal and the conference papers investigation. The expected result of the paper consists in the determination of the development of the selected financial indicators in the Czech construction sector within the economic crisis and testing of the reliability of results. The results are supported with the case study including above mentioned analysis of economic data from the representative sample of selected important Czech construction companies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the advancement of the Internet, the rise of the Big-data, rapid evolution of the computer science, huge progression in robotics and programming caused the development of the Artificial Intelligence, which leads it to deal with complex issues and task. Further, this technology seems to be able to generate contents as different as music, poems, paintings, movie or news scripts, jokes along with creative problemsolving. However, can machines create paintings or produce images as an art? Firstly, this paper briefly reviews three main types of creativity that involve different methods of creating new ideas for the creative machine. The paper continues by highlighting the literature on computational creativity and the relation between art and creative machines that already made outputs as an art in order to make conceptual connections between creative machine and paintings. Paper concludes with some remarks concerning the creative, aesthetic and authentic assessment of contents created by creative machines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on the application of innovations in Kosovo have shown that businesses and other institutions have a low level of creating something new. Despite some efforts to change this situation still innovations remain a challenge in Kosovo despite the benefits they bring. This paper discusses the challenges the problems and benefits of small innovations. From the research on the vision for economic development for the future in Kosovo, economic development is focused on innovative opportunities for each sector, innovations in technology, delivery of new products, saying in a word creation of a new phenomenon that enables business development. For this reason, this paper first looked at how small businesses are aware of the innovations and the opportunities they bring to them? Secondly, this paper discusses the innovations that small companies have used and their impact on business development, and finally about the problems and difficulties that small enterprises have encountered with the application of innovations. The methodology used in this paper is the empirical method from which primary data will be analyzed taken from 100 small businesses in Kosovo. Analysis of the results was done through the SPSS program and it was proved that small businesses in Kosovo do not apply enough innovations and as a result businesses have little development. The results of this paper show that a large part of small businesses do not have the slightest idea of what innovations are (26% of the survey) and not talk about their application. Another part of the businesses even though they have the knowledge of the term innovation and the benefits they bring, they do not apply innovations (47% of businesses surveyed) because of unfavorable conditions to undertake something new. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The neoclassical realist approach considers systemic stimuli (independent), and élites' perceptions and capacities (intervening) as the variables of an explanatory model of foreign policy outcomes (dependent variable). Starting from the central assumptions of Ethology and Classical Élites Theory, with the view to delimitate élites as the foreign policy executive, or the geopolitical agent, this paper aims to reinforce the importance of the intervening variables élites' perceptions and capacities in shaping the geopolitical design and the foreign policy responses. The true core of the paper, however, is to expand the scope of geopolitical studies by including the methodological step of studying élites' perceptions and capacities. In doing so, the matter concerns to the analysis of both (i) how the élites can perceive the geographical space (Raumsinn), and (ii) what are élites' capacities in managing resources assigned to the foreign policy. The purpose of the paper is then threefold: (i) conceptual, because it deals with definition of terms and their differentiation, (ii) theoretical, since the paper intends to revisit the neoclassical realist approach and merge it with geopolitical studies trying to forge a joint approach, and (iii) methodological as it provides methodological guidelines about the new framework. Therefore, the paper brings the innovation of including insights of the neoclassical realist intervening variables into the geopolitical studies' framework for a more accurate and enhanced scope of geopolitical analysis in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the new era of digitalization, software development and personalization projects play a major role for the IT & Telecommunication players. They also come with a range of associated risks like the risk of not being able to deliver on time, on budget or the needed scope. It is thought that having the clients directly involved in the development and personalization process comes with a range of benefits that help lower the project's overall risk. In order to demonstrate the added value of supplier-client collaboration in such a context, a research has been put in place. During the four months' research period in 2017, one hundred responses were gathered and the results of the study are presented in this paper. The results of the paper will be displayed from two main different angles that consist in the business users' perception of the value added resulted from these types of collaborations along with the technical user's perception on the same topic. The paper will end by focusing also on the type of knowledge that a client can bring in a software personalization project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The article is based on the archival materials of Tomsk and Novosibirsk region, Russia. The goal of the paper is to estimate the development of publishing in Novosibirsk and Tomsk regions during the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945). The novelty of the paper is in the estimation of the opportunities of periodicals to provide consolidating social mobilization under critical historical conditions. Methods: While writing this paper the following methods were used: A method of historical periodization, systematic and structural approach, comparative method, methods of dialectics (the principle of historical and logical approach), which allow to reflect the extremely complex and contradictory processes of material and spiritual world. Results: The changes in nomenclature and the work of papers of the above mentioned areas during the Great Patriotic War have been revealed. The basic direction of the work of newspapers in a specified time period is given. The development of publishing in Novosibirsk and Tomsk regions is assessed. Conclusions: It can be stated that before the Great Patriotic War and during its years the development of publishing in Novosibirsk and Tomsk regions was under constant supervision of the Communist Party organs. The special role in this process was given to the Department of Agitation and Propaganda of Novosibirsk Region.As the role of the press as the leading news and propaganda tool was understood by party committees very well, they took all the efforts to issue newspapers despite the hard war conditions. The results of the survey can be used by the students studying history of the Soviet Union in the period of the Great Patriotic War and will be interesting for scientists and specialists in this field of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research can (or should) provide a large amount of applicable results as well as funds for teams of involved researchers. Protection of intellectual property rights is one of significant presumptions of successful business with promising research results. The paper consists of three research parts targeting intellectual property protection of applied research outputs. In the first one there is an analysis of the Czech governmental methodology evaluating research results of each research team in the country and within it the teams are financially supported. The second part analyses criteria for appointment of associated and full professors at three selected Czech universities. The third part of the presented research introduces qualitative research done with researchers dealing with biotechnological research in the Czech Republic as a group of researchers performing a particular type of applied research. Fifty-three biotechnological researchers selected from universities, scientific institutions of Academy of Science, other public institutions and private companies divided into four groups by their seniority answered five questions. They are as follows: "What system of research results management is applied in your institution?", "What way of publicat ion do you prefer?", "What do you know about research results patenting?", "What is your practical experience with patenting?" and "How are ethical aspects involved in your research?" The research of all three parts is summarized using a SWOT analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I present a procedure for extracting progressions of complex harmonies from sound objects. First, I mention spectral music as an important background for this research, and I explain the main difference respect to it. The working hypothesis is that the meaning of a sound object (understood as the perceptible sound grammar, or its identifiable coherence) can be translated into other sound media (instrumental or electroacoustic). Central to this paper is the explanation phases of this procedure, using a spectral analyzer as a tool. I include one final example for the sake of illustration, and eventually I discuss some important points about this procedure to achieve a deeper understanding of what guaranties its efficiency, mainly its multilevel harmonic structure and our listening habits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the financial crisis that has already revealed many of the shortcomings of the Eurozone, it has become clear that keeping the Eurozone together has its costs and that they may be larger than previously expected. The question arising now is whether these costs can still be justified by the benefits that come with the currency union. While many of the benefits such as greater unity, stability and influence in a geopolitical sense are hard to quantify, previous research suggests that adopting a common currency also has more tangible advantages such as lower inflation and increased bilateral trade among member countries. This paper focuses on quantifying those benefits and finding a causal effect between joining a currency union and an increase in bilateral trade. In this paper we undertake a difference-in-differences analysis to answer a simple question: what happened to the trade of the new member countries after their entry into the Eurozone relative to the counterfactual approximated by the rest of the EU members who did not join during the relevant time period? The importance and difficulty of finding a convincing group of control countries led us to examine what happened to bilateral trade of some of the most recent Eurozone joiners, more specifically those joining after 2004. We used a conventional gravity approach for the main regression and the results fall within the range of previous estimates for the effect of joining the Eurozone on bilateral trade. More precisely, we have found that trade between the new member countries and their Eurozone partners has gone up by around 8% to 10% whereas the trade with non-Eurozone countries has not changed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term “syncretism” has a complicated history in religious studies, especially it concerns European scientific environment. In Russian science it has appeared with more or less determined meaning. Comparative analysis helped us to reveal the main array of issues that concerns the meaning of the term “syncretism”. In the 70s European academics decided to revive this notion, but since it was ignored it has acquired different synonyms. So academics in the most recent papers debate if the revival of the term is really necessary, and does it make any sense to explore the phenomena at all if there is no religion that seems to be totally monolithic. Comparative analysis of the different scientific papers revealed that Russian academics usually do not focus their attention on the problematic origin of the notion and on variety of its connotation. The major explorations include new classifications of the phenomena or its case stories: different nations in Russia have syncretic religious culture. Sometimes researchers identify it as syncretism, in other cases as vernacular or folk religion. It happens that they do not distinguish these phenomena and use both in the same paper. In this research we tried to reflect the difference of the approaches that have been proposed by the representatives from academia from Europe and Russia and through analysis them to elicit its meaning against other terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the scientific community, as well as practitioners around the world, have gradually turned their attention towards the matter of life quality, both from an ecological, as well as from a socio-economic point of view – particularly in relation to the realities of the urban environment. Within contemporary cities, collective housing neighborhoods concentrate the highest densities of housing units, thus offering shelter to a large percentage of the population. These developments therefore have the largest impact on the quality of life within the urban environment and are thus increasingly studied by specialists across the world. However, while scholars concentrate fully on aspects such as accessibility and connectivity, resource and waste management, public facilities or even the physical configuration of the neighborhood and of the public space itself, the housing stock and the living conditions that the apartment buildings offer to their inhabitants are all too often ignored by the specialized literature – even though these aspects significantly influence the quality of life for individuals, whom they bear upon on a daily basis. This paper therefore proposes a theoretical study in regard to this subject, identifying the physical characteristics of the housing stock which have the greatest impact on the quality of life, as well as analyzing the way in which these aspects influence the overall well-being of individuals. Moreover, in order to further substantiate this research, the paper focuses on the study of positive examples from around the world regarding interventions on collective housing buildings and neighborhoods, identifying possible implementable measures in order to improve the existing situation. Finally, the research concentrates on the collective housing neighborhoods within the city of Timisoara, Romania, analyzing the situation of the housing stock within these developments, as well as proposing certain strategies that could, in time, lead to an increased overall level of life quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought represents a significant threat not only for the Czech Republic but also for the whole world. This threat is mainly influenced by climate change. Climate change increases air temperature. This article focuses on drought in the Czech Republic. The Czech Republic has experienced significant differences in temperatures in recent years. In particular, a change in the temperatures of the seasons can be observed and almost the disappearance of some seasons. Winter has significant fluctuations in shock and temperature changes. On the contrary, after the winter, the summer changes quickly, which is extremely warm. Temperatures can be recorded at higher peaks than usual. Thanks to the low rainfall intensity and too high summer temperatures, there is a loss of groundwater. The Czech Republic is suffering from drought, and some villages have to be outsourced. It is a significant phenomenon that is not unusual. In the past, the Czech Republic has encountered periods of drought since Mesopotamia. The aim of this paper is to introduce drought as a significant threat to the Czech Republic. First, the history of drought in the Czech Republic will be presented. Secondly, the paper will focus on the impact of climate change on current threats not only in the Czech Republic. Finally, the current wave of drought in the Czech Republic will be presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the problem of clustering North Russian cities on specific socio-demographic characteristics. The K-means method was chosen as the clustering algorithm. This clustering allows us to identify the specifics and important trends in the development of these settlements. The paper presents a cluster analysis of the data of Northern cities on their socio-demographic characteristics. The most informative was the division of all cities into 7 clusters. The division of countries into more clusters will only have a negative impact on the interpretation of the results. These data can be used in further analysis of the qualitative indicator of socio-demographic dynamics in the Northern territories of Russia. The model presented in the paper can be expanded and supplemented with a number of authors ' works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aimed to understand how fashion design higher education programs are approaching fashion 'eco-design' initiatives and how or if this could influence the diffusion and adoption by the whole sector. Furthermore, this paper argued that online education, sustained by a lifelong learning perspective, would present a valid way to deliver and disseminate the knowledge about sustainable principles in business, technological, social and environmental practices, making them quickly available for professionals and companies and thus, promoting the competencies required to prospect meaningful changes in the sector. Part of broader research about fashion design education in the European Higher Education Area, this paper identified previously selected fashion design courses, delivered onsite and online, and analyzed their curriculum and syllabus, to determine how and if sustainability integrates the design project and development of fashion products. The results demonstrated that sustainability is articulated with the fashion design curriculum diversely with few programs presenting sustainability as a ‘design philosophy,' as a mindset for developing products and projects for the fashion sector. However, the findings of this study helped to acknowledge that sustainability, present either as a program strategy or as an approach for the development of fashion projects, form a competence complex and hard to measure since the market does not absorb it quickly and thus it is permanently and inevitably outdated. The ability to maintain fashion designer and companies updated represents the central advantage of an accredited online lifelong learning. Freed from the rigidity of traditional academic stages, calendar and physical limitations, online learning would be able to approach important themes, as well as adopt a prospective approach about sustainability in the fashion sector and then enable this knowledge to be easily accessed and diffused by professionals and companies in a flexible, adaptable and affordable manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our research focuses on different ways of understanding parenting styles and the similarities and differences between conceptual understanding as well as statistical issues for 2 measurement instruments. Starting with Baumid vision of consistent and persistent ways of interactions between parents and child, there is evidence that these constant ways of interactions do have certain influences on child development. As it was shown in previous research, addiction to substance abuse, especially alcohol in adolescence is linked to parenting styles [1], delinquency [2], aggression and intimidation behaviors in school [3], self-confidence [4], low self-esteem, attention deficit [5] leadership behaviors [6], academic competence in school [7]. One of the questionnaires was developed within a Comenius project (COM-11-PR-06-GJ-RO) [8] (https://www.primariarovinari.ro/download/1018/) and it is focused on fermity and care/kindness dimensions; it results a 4 types structure: • non-care/non-kindness - firm ; • care/kindness - non-firm ; • non-care/non-kindness - non-firm ; • care/kindness - firm. There are 18 statements that have scale intensity attitude for agree or disagree with the statements. Second one is built on Hart model, C. H., Mandelco, B., Olsen, S.F. & Robinson, C.C. [9] understanding of parents -children interactions; within their paper, they do state that the aims are to identify specific practices in parenting, as well as to contextualise typologies. The paper introduces comparative results, as well as independent ones and provokes to reflection and deeper understanding of the parenting styles within Romanian cultural practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper proposes a non-invasive hybrid brain-computer interface (hBCI) applicable in rehabilitation. In the first section of this research paper, the theoretical information about BCI and hybrid BCI are explained. A non-invasive hybrid BCI is a combination and parallel usage of electroencephalography (EEG - electrical activity of the brain) and additional technology. In this research paper, the additional technology is surface electromyography (sEMG - electrical activity of muscles). In this proposal, we suggest using EEG device from Emotiv, which is called Emotiv Epoc+ and sEMG will be measured by Arduino UNO with SpikerShield board. These low-cost types of equipment fulfill the requirements and are among the most popular devices in this category. The last part of this paper is dedicated to the possibility of applying these methods in rehabilitation. This hybrid BCI proposal can be more functional than regular BCI because it can produce more accurate rehabilitation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two fields of state social policy linked in this paper – migration policy and policy of the social protection. This paper is relevant for the terminology of social sphere. For the state, which wants to implement integration policy towards migrants, it is necessary to examine the establishing of care for migrants in one subsystem of social protection – social assistance. The main objective of this paper is to examine measures (instruments) of social assistance and their application in the life of a migrant. Following tasks have been identified for the realization of our objective: to define key words, to analyse quantitative indicators of social assistance in the life of a migrant. Research methods used in the paper: theoretical general methods of scientific knowledge – induction, deduction, analysis, synthesis and comparison of available bibliographic references, discussion and scientific abstraction for generalization of the results. The data were obtained using statistical resources in the social policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Romania of the year 2019 crosses the largest exodus in its history and we are not talking about the village-city mobility but directly about international migration. At the same time, in the popular culture, Romanians are not known to be big entrepreneurs. They innovate, are spontaneous, have many ideas, but entrepreneurship is not a trait that characterizes us as people. Also, the working population migrates massively, which does not encourage the development of rural areas. This paper aims to analyze and radio graph the rural entrepreneurial environment in the Bucovina region of Romania (Suceava County), which is part of the North-East Region - one of poorest region of the European Union. With this purpose, data was collected on the companies established in Suceava County, the entrepreneurs responsible for these businesses and the areas of interest for them. At the same time, the paper aims to outline also the uncovered domains that could become useful for the area and that can attract entrepreneurs back home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a very dynamic development of project management in recent years. One reason is continued globalization and market interconnection, another reason is the technological development and the development of new technologies. There are many challenges that project managers must encounter. Managing and leading the projects is a challenge for the project managers and it becomes difficult to meet the goals of the project, once the project changes from local to global. As companies worldwide are moving more and more forward a virtual business model, this paper offers insight for project managers and their teams who collaborate on projects from geographically diverse locations. Another interesting challenge nowadays is to manage start up projects that are very common. The is explanation of managing intercultural teams, virtual teams and advice on how to coach and develop team members with success from far - off locations are given in this paper. The benefit of this paper is tips for project managers that are based on experience with these specific environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper tries to research female career paths to the top in Latvian public and private companies for the period of 2017-2018. The study methodology is based on qualitative research from top Latvian companies and particularly revealing of factors, which affect directly and indirectly women career trajectory in selected Latvian companies. In the paper are applied contemporary theories on gender diversity and other women studies streams. The study suggest that Latvia is the country with highest number of femalesin the management elite and there are numerous factors, which affect those women to climb the career leather. Paper findings show that self-efficacy and self-control are only few factors affecting the career growth,but also strategic decisions and diversity management practices also have impact on female careers in selected Latvian companies. Paper contributes to the gender theory and it has practical implications as well, which could be used as recommendations to the observed companies on how to develop and sustain women leadership and howto manage diversity more efficiently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the investigation of the relationship between firm size and firm growth for the firms from the subsector of pig breeding (0146 according to NACE classification), which are located in the Czech Republic. The paper aims to examine the validity of Gibrat’s law (Law of proportionate effect) which is devoted tosize-growth link, in this subsector. Gibrat’s law states that growth of a firm is a random effect independent of firm size. We investigate the link during the years 2010 to 2016. The analysis is based on panel data from the Amadeus database. To investigate the size-growth link, we apply traditional Ordinary least square (OLS) regression. We use two indicators for measuring firm size –sales and total assets. The results show that Gibrat’s law is confirmed for both firm size indicators. There is no statistically significant relationship between firm size and firm growth for companies from pig breeding sub-industry in the Czech Republic. Thus, the firm growth is independent of firm size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper gives the overview on the research of project managers in the spectre of the project management standards in the small, medium and big enterprises in the Slovak Republic. Authors of the paper state the importance of the Corporate Social Responsibility from project manager’s point of view in the researched companies as a part of building environmental and social responsibility. Study included in the paper consists of quantitative and qualitative research of 272 selected small, medium and big enterprises in the Slovak Republic, focused on questionnaire survey. Data retrieved from the survey have been processed by advanced statistical methods. To verify the responses of respondents to individual questions, the chi-squared test was used. Critical analysis is being used to identify specific factors of application the CSR concept in the companies from project manager’s point of view. The paper brings empirical evidences how project managers in the selected locally based companies have been applying the ecological aspects into the concept of their own project management. 52% of the surveyed companies deal with their project management projects with an average value of more than EUR 20,000. The project managers of the companies surveyed stated that, from the perspective of monitoring environmental issues as part of CSR, up to 72% of their companies almost or always focus on the occurrence of these environmental problems in the region, and only 53% of enterprises perceive this need from a social perspective. This paper includes list of recommendations for local companies based on best practices abroad, with aim to increase the knowledge and involvement of ecological problems into the projects of the companies to increase the effect of the CSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the construction industry and its analysis from the economic-statistical perspective. Construction is a specialized economic sector that provides construction, maintenance, modernization, reconstruction and demolition of building structures. The aim of the paper is to evaluate the development of construction companies in 2010 and 2014, which are years after the crisis. The statistical data of all construction enterprises were processed for the above years using the Albertina database. In 2010, there were 9584 enterprises in the construction sector and only 6,446 enterprises in 2014. The paper focuses on assessing the development of the financial situation of construction companies in the period under review, focusing on the assessment of selected indicators of net working capital of debt and liquidity. Access to finance shows a very important role for every business and reflects its efficiency and overall growth. Therefore, research in this area is necessary, and the issue may encourage potential investors to decide on their future activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of logistics in today's global business is steadily increasing, which is why the coordination and control of logistics activities has become a necessity. The logistics industry provides a significant contribution to the economy through job creation, the creation of national income and the inflow of foreign investment. However, most of the previous empirical research is based on the assessment of the effects of logistics and 3PL operators on business operations and on the effects on the economy, ignoring the opposite situation where the size of economy stimulates the global 3PL operators' income. The aim of this paper is to empirically investigate the global logistics market, i.e. to estimate the effects of the absolute and relative size of the economy, measured by gross domestic product and gross domestic product per capita on the income of global 3PL operators. The control variables included in regression are logistics performance index and investment in infrastructure, since it is assumed that the quality of logistics infrastructure in countries as well as investments can positively affect the operations of 3PL operators. The analysis was conducted on data for 58 countries in 2016. According to the World Bank classification, the countries are divided into 3 groups, lower middle-income, higher middle-income and high-income countries. The results of the regression analysis show that in cases of all three estimations, the absolute size of the economy has a significant positive effect on the income of the 3PL operator, while the relative size of the economy is not significant. Only in the case of high-income countries, the relative size of the economy has a significant, but negative impact on the income of the 3PL operator. The logistics performance index and investment in infrastructure variables are insignificant in all three cases. The contribution of this paper is reflected in the empirical estimation of the size of the economy on the operations of global 3PL operators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of the food sector on achieving the sustainable development goals is increasingly debated worldwide amid growing climate change effects and on the background of a lack of quickly responses on mitigating them. Initially, the state of the art is quantitatively analyzed for emphasizing the scientific evolution on food consumption in the context of sustainability and the main themes discussed by researchers. Further, several indicators on food consumption expenditures, daily calorie supply, emissions, waste are investigated at EU level by using secondary data analysis. The data is collected from Eurostat and Faostat and it allows the comparison of these indicators in time and space. Overall, some results indicate reductions of greenhouse gas emissions from fuel combustion in the food, beverages and tobacco manufacturing, small increases of the area under organic farming, and rises of daily calorie supply per capita. However, the statistics is different on each member state. Finally, the paper suggests the critical points generated by each indicator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health tourism as a niche has emerged and has rapidly grown to become a very significant and promising industry. In the European Union, health tourism market is definitely a new and strong trend, with total revenues of 46.9 billion EUR, which is equal to 4.6% of all tourism revenues and 0.33% of the EU-28 GDP in 2014. The purpose of this paper is to describe main attributes and to analyze some of the health tourism challenges in Italy and Croatia. In addition, the financial effects of these health tourism markets are compared and evaluated. Research results indicate that there is a reasonable ground to state that health tourism in Italy and Croatia can be a strong and reliable contributor to the economy of these countries in general, as well as a key factor for the sustainable development and seasonality reduction of tourism. However, there are still many limitations for these health tourism markets. This paper aims to give a qualitative and quantitative overview of the current health tourism markets in Italy and Croatia, and to evaluate their role in tourism in general in order to identify gaps in empirical and statistical research about the development and economic outcomes of health tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between economic growth and unemployment has been a topic of interest in academia for almost 60 years but with a special focus on developed countries and only recent papers present results at the regional level. This paper analyzes the regional Okun’s Law in two emerging countries, namely Bulgaria and Romania applying original data. To best achieve the research objective, we consider the widely valued specification of Okun’s Law, that investigates the relationship between the cyclical components of output and unemployment. Moreover, we favour the Hodrick-Prescott (HP) filter for a better comparison with the literature. We discover important regional heterogeneities of Okun’s, as in some Bulgarian and Romanian Regions the Okun’s coefficients are not statistically significant. Furthermore, we present an analysis of the economic drivers that explain why the Okun Law is significant only in some regions. Lastly, we highlight the importance of the regional characteristic in the design of fiscal policies by discussing some policy implication, since demand-side policies are effective in unemployment reductions only in regions where the Okun’s Law is significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quality of life of a person with severe visual impairment can be and is influenced by a large number of variable factors. One of these factors is the personality of a person with severe visual impairment, which is then further influenced by the environment in which he grows up and then moves. In this paper we will focus on two / respectively three basic variables - the personality of an individual with severe visual impairment, his / her family and then his / her employment. The family of the people with visually impairment and then the occupational and their role in the quality of life of the people with visually impairment were and are still being examined through the IGA projects the co-researcher is the author of. The contribution will therefore include results from more than three years of research. In the first part of the paper we will focus on the issue of people with severe visual impairment, the family and possible parenthood of people with severe visual impairment and consequently on education, which affects the work ability of a person with severe visual impairment. With regard to the fact that man is a social creature, we will also look at how the lay and professional public place the work of a person with severe visual impairment. The paper is one of the outcomes of the following project: IGA_PdF_2017_013 entitled: 'Quality of life in persons with special needs in the current research context'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People's Republic of China has experienced an unprecedented growth of exports in the last decades. At first these exports were considered to be mainly of low added value but China's export structure has changed dramatically in the last years. China is growingly exporting high value products. Example of such goods can be motor vehicles which are also crucial for numerous Central and Eastern European countries. In this paper we will focus on how China's growing car exports influence the exports of Visegrad countries into their main export destinations. The gravity model using panel data regression will be used to assess the impact of China's rise on economies of Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. It is showed that despite the growing Chinese exports in the vehicle sector, a decline of Visegrad countries exports due to Chinese competition is not straightforward. One of the plausible explanations is that Chinese cars are not outright substitutes to cars produced in the European Union. This paper is organized as follows: The first part briefly presents the main changes in the Chinese car exports and summarizes the literature review. The following part focuses on the methodology and describes gravity approach and data used in our analysis. The main findings are presented in the next part and conclusion and discussion of our results is offered at the end of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Merger control is an important part of EU competition rules, as it serves the purpose of preventing the distortion of markets by prohibiting anticompetitive merger practices. The main legal act regulating this issue at the EU level is the Merger Regulation (hereinafter EUMR) [1], last time reformed in 2004. With the aim of making the merger control system even more efficient, in 2013 the EU Commission (hereinafter EUC) launched a public consultation on the proposed reforms of the EUMR resulting in the White paper published in 2014 [2] together with the enclosed documents [3]. One of the main objectives and most intriguing aspects of the proposed merger control reform, relates to the extension of the scope of the EUMR to the acquisition of non-controlling minority shareholdings. As it currently stands, EUC has no competence over such transactions. However, recent merger activities and in particular the attempted takeovers of Aer Lingus by Ryanair [4], demonstrated that in certain instances even minority shareholdings may cause harm to competition, and consequently to consumers [5]. With that in mind, the EUC now proposes the extension of the scope of the EUMR to capture also non-controlling minority shareholding acquisitions. While this regulative change may be beneficial in some instances, an important question arises - is the potential of competitive harm as extensive to justify such a far-reaching legislative change? The answer this question in significant because an unproportioned legislative reform may negatively affect corporate activities and thereby negatively affect the development of the European internal market. With this in mind, the paper explores whether the newly proposed system of control over acquisitions of non-controlling minority shareholdings is proportionate to the threat posed by such transactions and evaluates what to expect in the near future in that regard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to describe and compare different approaches in lexical semantics and to find out which of them can be used to study semantic features that are necessary for a speaker and a listener while processing spoken word. We group the methods that can be used in semantic research according to three criteria:1) what aspects are in focus of a research: here we compare the studies of the relations between different concepts (such as a word association experiment) and the studies of the components of concepts (semantic features); 2) types of data used: a single word or a word along with its linguistic context (syntagmatic or paradigmatic); 3) methodology: who and how makes a decision about semantic features and relations between them; and here -- inter alia -- we differentiate between the studies where a researcher is responsible for the decision (which result in dictionary definitions and formal semantic descriptions) and psycholinguistic experiments with native speakers. In the second part of the paper, we shortly describe the two stages of a study we conducted in order to figure out what semantic features of Russian nouns are regarded as essential by native Russian speakers. 90 participants were asked to write down essential features of the concepts expressed by 10 Russian nouns. The answers obtained from different participants were grouped so that the words of one and the same root formed one group (for example, smeh 'laughter' and smeshnoj 'funny'). Then, the groups were ranked according to their frequency. A corpus-based study showed that the words denoting the most frequent features we got in the experiment are normally used together with the nouns from the experiment in casual Russian. It supports our hypothesis that these features can be used by a listener while processing spoken word. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the relevance of using the Intergenre Model of Scientific Text while teaching master students how to write primary genres in English. On the basis of the analysis of the Federal State Educational Standards for Higher Education in Russia the importance of teaching master students as research-oriented ones to write in English a scientific report and an abstract for a conference is emphasized. The characteristics of the primary scientific genres are given in the article while distinguishing between academic and scientific writing. The cognitive aspect of teaching scientific genres when knowledge is organized in the form of frames, scenarios, and other knowledge structures is considered. The cognitive approach and genre-based approach are considered to be the basis for developing the proposed intergenre model. The structural components of the model are presented. The model is described as an invariant and universal model corresponding to the stages of communicative and cognitive activity of a scientist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two fields of state social policy linked in this paper - migration policy and policy of the social protection. This paper is relevant for the terminology of social sphere. For the state, which wants to implement integration policy towards migrants, it is necessary to examine the establishing of care for migrants in one subsystem of social protection - social insurance. The main objective of this paper is to examine measures (instrument) of social insurance and their application in the life of a migrant. Following tasks have been identified for the realization of our objective: to define key words, to analyze quantitative indicators of social insurance in the life of a migrant. Research methods used in the paper: theoretical general methods of scientific knowledge - induction, deduction, analysis, synthesis of available bibliographic references, discussion and scientific abstraction for generalization of the results. The data were obtained using statistical resources in the social policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of the paper is the analysis of complaints of insulating glass units produced in the real company. This kind of analysis may be one of the ways to assess the quality of products. In the first part of the paper qualitative analysis of complaints of insulating glass units was made using the Pareto chart. In the analysis 10 types of complaints were taken into account. The analysis allowed to rank complaints from the most to the least frequent ones. In the second part of the paper the causes and effects of complaints of insulating glass units were assessed using FMEA method. In this analysis 10 types of complaints, included in the previous analysis, were taken into account. This method showed that the biggest problem concerned the scratches and inadequate dimension. In the last part of the paper the in-depth analysis of the causes of appearance of complaints using Ishikawa chart was made. Based on the results of the analysis improvement actions were proposed. The analysis takes into account the results collected in the company producing various types of glass units. The analysis covers the period of three calendar years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explain the importance of the initial orientation of startup businesses in the market and the problems that they face in the enfant industry phase. Thereof the paper aims to identify challenges and obstacles they face in this phase specifically in the transition country markets. There are many challenges including political, economic, social, cultural, legal, environmental, cultural and technological factors affecting the success or failure of businesses in initial stage. The paper tries to find the solution how to create a suitable environment to help these businesses. Given the research the paper included different methodologies including qualitative and quantitative methods even that there are limitations such as lack of data resources, culture of new entrepreneurs and primary data are collected mainly through interviews conducted and questionnaires The secondary data are based on recent developments in the field, research papers from recent journals, various publications from research institutes and main theories dealing with this problem. Finalization of this work will enable the adequate addressing the difficulties and problems faced by businesses, and will provide recommendations to enable adequate measures for successful businesses start creating incentives and support for economic activities that develop them in order to support economic growth and employment in the responsibility for future generations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paper's aim is to shed a light on theoretical and practical aspects of taken measures by the Russian government on agriculture business optimization in Southern Russia. Moreover, the paper develops methodology as recommendation for the small agriculture business in Russia based on economy theories, previous studies in the area of agriculture business development. This study analyses federal and regional governmental initiatives and programs addressing optimization of small agriculture business in the period of economic crisis and legislative changes in the agricultural sector in Russia. The paper employs different models in investigating specific methods as systematic-functional, dynamic, structural-logical, statistical, clustering and graphic methods for analyzing of the agriculture business sector development in Southern Russia. The paper suggests that there is particular mutual impact between governmental policies and agricultural production, which affects the small business in agriculture sector on national level. Furthermore, the study suggests that exist several measures, which might increase the economic efficacy of agriculture business, which would enable balancing the factors coming from the endogenous interventions. The paper findings are addressing new criteria for evaluating the social effect from the agriculture business current development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on answering question: What are the ideal and most important skills and personality traits that project managers need to have. The aim of the paper is to describe the significance of project manager competencies needed in current changing environment. Project manager is key to the success of each project. For this reason, staffing projects with managers who have the right competences is crucial to achieve project goal. The success of project managers is mainly related to abilities and skills that they have. The challenge and dynamics of today's environment require the project manager to develop technical skills, leadership and strategic management skills. Technical skills are essential to project management, but they are not enough in today's competitive global market. The contribution is the identification of different technical, leadership and strategic management abilities. Implication of this paper is gather available information and create framework of project manager competences in today's world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents our strategic management approach on tourism destination with the help of the SWOT analysis. We consider that a macro-economic analysis on a region is of utmost importance for all the stakeholders implied in tourism activities: tourists, businesses, tourism agencies and professional associations, local and national governance actors, NGO's etc. In this regard, the general objectives of this paper are: a. identifying strengths and weaknesses of these two counties which shall generate tourist destination revival strategies; b. classifying the inventory of natural and atrophic resources and generating a comparative review on the two Romanian counties of Neam and Suceava; c. recognizing opportunities and threats for businesses implied in tourism activity so as to develop the future tourist offer by taking into account tourists' needs and particularities according to the new trends in tourism. Hence, the methodology of this paper consists firstly of the presentation of the scientific results generated by previous research on the topic and secondly, of descriptive statistics and research on secondary and tertiary data offered by websites, articles in local and national papers, brochures and advertisements aimed at attracting tourists. In this view, we mainly offer to local businesses a start point in designing their own business strategies by capitalizing tourism assets and attractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Republic of Croatia is a country with significant number and large variety of autochthonous products. In recent years, more attention is paid to the importance of local products and their protection at national and even European level. The aim of the paper is to explore tourists perception towards autochthonous products quality. For the purpose of this paper the primary research in the area of Dubrovnik has been carried out. Autochthonic products in Croatia can be protected by the marks of origin, geographical origin and traditional reputation, so all the types have been included in the research. According to the results of the research, which included the sample of 250 respondents, it is visible that tourists are satisfied with the autochthonous products quality. The tourists which have been included in the research are not satisfied with distribution channels, because of small number of retail outlets. Although they find out that the price is acceptable, there is not always value for money. According to the tourists' opinion some of autochthonous products are well protected, but it is necessary to protect it better in the future and improve all other elements of placement, not only quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]