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Despite the new geopolitical situation caused by the revolution at Maidan in February 2014, little is known about the real economics of Ukraine and its internal spatial disparities. In the survey of regional disparities, data on incomes, employment and unemployment were involved and completed by those on migration and age structure of the population. The spectrum of available data at rayon level is not particularly broad, but this is counterbalanced by the ca. five hundred territorial units that provide a minute picture of the inequalities. According to the classic view, the spatial pattern of economic development is opposite to the Central European west to east slope. In Ukraine, Eastern regions are not more developed as a whole but they accommodate more developed large urban centres. Spatial differences grew most rapidly during the period of economic decline (1990–2000). However, these disparities were mitigated during the two years following the global financial crisis as the latter mainly affected the large urban centres of the economy. Conversely, the Donets Basin as a whole was highly exposed to the effects of these crises owing to its outdated industrial structure (coal mining, iron and steel industry). This led to a rearrangement in the ranking of the east Ukrainian regions based on GDP per capita: Dnipropetrovs’k overtook Donets’k, and the Dnieper Region (including Zaporizhzhia) has a higher output per capita than Donbas. A significant part of the productive capacities and incomes are found in the Donbas, an area hit hard by the fighting; their loss would further deteriorate the state of the country’s economy. The fighting in the Donbas that did by far the greatest harm to the economy among the post-Soviet conflicts. It happened in a period when Ukraine, after the transformation crisis, had been on the path of growth for more than one decade. Concerning population number, area and economic weight, the Donbas exceeds Transnistria or Karabakh by an order of magnitude.
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How can spatial location affect the operation of society, population or economic conditions? What is the role of neighbourhood and distance in social phenomena? In what way can a social organisation limit spatial barriers? How would spatial structures be affected by the attraction and repulsion of territorial units? Does society only use or also design regions? These questions are explored in this study. This work analyses some important issues, concepts and analysis procedures of the territorial structure of society and social processes of spatiality. It does not contain a comprehensive theory of spatiality and regional science; it is primarily a practical empirical research. Many theoretical works aim at defining the spatial structure of Europe. This article provides an overview of models describing the spatial structure of Europe. The study describes the economic spatial structure of Europe using bi-dimensional regression analysis, based on the gravity model. The spatial structure of Europe is illustrated with the help of the gravity model and spatial auto-correlation. With these patterns, it is possible to justify the appropriateness of the models based on different methodological backgrounds by comparing them with the results of this paper. The subject of field theory concepts and methods that can aid regional analyses is examined, and attempts to offer a synthesised knowledge with a wide variety of examples and methods.
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Researching territorial development in the independent Croatia is an interesting subject for research from many aspects. Unique developments – state formation, war, spatial restructuring of population – have been taking place up until the turn of the millennium, which have also been accompanied by several significant regional impacts. The historical differences have been escalated by the time of transition, the process of Euro-Atlantic integration, and eventually, by the world economic crisis. This study takes into account the most important spatial forming factors and developments on a county level, focusing on the time frame, at the end of which Croatia became a full member of the European Union.
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This paper investigates socio-cultural differences among European countries. The theoretical roots of our defined socio-cultural dimensions are elaborated in a multidisciplinary field. According to the considerable scientific literature, various sociocultural aspects such as trust, tolerance, civic norms and social networks have a serious impact on the development potential of a country or a region. We empirically tested the characteristics of these socio-cultural aspects on the European Social Survey database. The main conclusion of the paper is that there is a definite socio-cultural cleavage between the northern/western and the Central and Eastern European countries.
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The information society has become a crucial area of the socio-economic processes over the last two to three decades, yet it was unable to reduce the differences between the development levels of different regions. The developed regions perform better and poorer regions have weaker performance in the development of info-communication technologies. It can be assumed that the lack of the info-communication tools may broaden the divide between the developed and underdeveloped regions. Therefore, it is important to measure and mitigate these differences. The results of such measurements may contribute to the formation of the regional development policy issues. This paper focuses on the analysis of the factors that play a role in the information society. These factors can help to characterize the information society on both the national and the sub-national level. Our goal is to investigate the territorial inequalities in the information society on a highly disaggregated level since the article studies the relative development of the settlements in the South Transdanubian Region. As a background, we introduce a new and composite index referred to as “the territorial index of information society”, which relies on settlement and micro-regional level data collected by the Central Statistical Office of Hungary and other private institutions. Our results indicate that the best performing settlements are in micro-regions with advantageous positions and that they are the more populated towns or locate within their agglomeration. The less populated settlements in an underdeveloped micro-region have a more disadvantageous position in the information society. Therefore, the information readiness may create differences in a similar way to economic development.
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This paper provides an insight into the transformation processes that have affected Upper Silesia, a Polish border region with long traditions of industrialisation, autonomous structures and volatile historical changes. It shows how the region, profoundly affected by the structural crisis of mining and heavy industry and experiencing unfavourable demographic processes, has managed to recover and prosper under new conditions. In a fragmented space characterised by strong urbanisation, industrial restructuring has been based on the renewal of traditional branches and the creation of new development paths through reindustrialisation and service-based development. The size of Upper Silesia, and particularly the conurbation surrounding Katowice, has also led to attempts atestablishing effective metropolitan governance, a challenge whose success depends as much on harmonising internal interests as finding a compromise acceptable by both the region and the central government.
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This study introduces and applies a modelling system that is suitable for the impact assessment of environmental innovations referred to as “Blue Economy” innovations. The paper’s contribution to the literature is threefold. First, the building of a multi-sector computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, which provides the theoretical framework for studying the economic impacts of using waste as a production input. Second, the creation of an empirical methodology through which new Blue Economy technologies can be concretely accounted for in regional input-output tables. Since Blue Economy innovations are mostly built on local inputs, their effects are primarily local. Third, given that interregional spillovers of local impacts might also be significant, through interregional trade or migration, a modelling approach that can follow complex spatial processes is applied. The broader model framework chosen is the GMR-Europe model.
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Business performance and its measurement play a key role in the life of enterprises. For sustainable development, companies must constantly keep in mind and measure their performance, in accordance with their long-term goals. Looking over the performance measurement history, we can see that this area has improved a lot, underlining the importance of this. In addition to „traditional” performance measurement indicators, several completely „new” methods from different perspectives have been developed. The economic and social conditions changed our image about the business performance. A complex and useful corporate performance evaluation, in addition to financial and non-financial indicators based on the accounting reports, has to contain other factors too. The „traditional” indicators must be completed with new performance measurement systems, or at least parts of them.
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Tourism is the act of travelling for a person or group of people from their own locality to a specific destination in a short term or long term period either for leisure or business purposes. Tourism is an important sector in the Malaysian economy where tourism development will lead to the positive economic development of the country and in general improve the quality of life for all citizens. Therefore, forecasting tourist arrivals with high accuracy becomes important since it may ensure the development and the readiness of all tourism related industries such as hotels, transportation, food and services industries and their best shape. This study focuses on tourist arrivals in Langkawi Island as one of the major tourist attractions situated in the northerly region of Peninsular Malaysia. Importantly, this paper attempts to measure and compare the performance of forecasting with Exponential Smoothing, ARIMA and ARFIMA models using the R software package.
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Culture influences thinking, language and human behaviour. The social environment, in which individuals are born and live, shapes their attitudinal, emotional and behavioural reactions and the perceptions about what is happening around. The same applies in the case of assigned/assumed roles in society based on gender. Cultural dimensions that reflect differences in gender roles, but also elements related to the ethics of sexual difference were highlighted by many researchers. The presentation of these issues from the interdisciplinary perspective is the subject of this article. Briefly, the article refers to: importance of communication in transmission of roles of those two sexes, cultural dimensions that reflect role differences invarious cultures, discrimination issues and ethics of sexual difference.
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With the start of this new century China entered into a new phase of aid, after 3 decades of double digit growth China has become the world largest exporter and second largest economy today. In the light of these economic developments China has become strong enough to significantly increase its presence as a donor of official development aid (ODA). One of the main traits of Chinese aid is that economic co-operation is linked to development assistance and there is not a clear distinction between them. Economic co-operation is seen as the ultimate goal and development assistance plays a part in that. Analysing the evolution of foreign aid policies and its institutional framework would offer a better understanding on how China intends to achieve that goal and this article tries to provide that. A foundation needed for a further in depth study of its foreign aid policies.
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Communication is involved in all social life acts, being the constituent factor of creation and of cultural processes. Cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue are intensely discussed topics in today's society which is marked by globalization. Cultural differences are the core subject for studies addressing intercultural communication. Good knowledge of other cultures is a necessary step to get to recognize the nature of these differences and to relate to others through attitudes of understanding and tolerance which are premises for genuine intercultural dialogue, especially in the tourism industry. While communication is an act of human relationships, culture is the motive of this act. In tourism, quality of communication is related to the level of the culture involved and to the degree of improvement of the means of which is done. Intercultural communication experiences help tourists to know and to appreciate other cultures, but also help them to a better understanding of their own culture.
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Families and living arrangements have changed dramatically since the 1960s in the majority of European countries. Family life and the meaning of family have undergone a profound change. Relationships between partners or spouses, but also the relationships between parents and their children, have moved away from the realm of normative control and institutional canons, into the ideal of reflexive ‘pure relationships’ based on mutual consent and the recognition of individual autonomy. Following the collapse of communism, Romania has experienced dramatic changes in family formation. Common patterns include delays and/or declines in marriage and fertility, increasing rates of cohabitation and non-marital childbearing, rising rates of divorce. This paper aims to document the main stages of the evolution of marital behaviours in Romania from the traditional family of the 19th century to present days.
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Previous studies revealed that ethnocentric consumers are more willing to purchase a domestic product. Furthermore, country-of-origin has a direct impact on consumers’ decision to buy a product in such a manner that a positive country image can substitute other missing qualities of the product. On the other hand, a strong brand is not expected to compensate for a negative country-of-origin perception. Many brands rely on their home country as a warranty for quality and prestige, in order to gain consumers’ interest and attention. This paper examines the moderating role of variables such as perceived quality, ethnocentrism and familiarity in determining a consumer to buy a domestic product. Through exploratory research, this study aims to investigate to what extent Romania, as country-of-origin for its local products, influences consumers’ decision making process. The major contributions of the study consist of identifying the elements that play a role in consumers’ product evaluation based on the country-of-origin and to improve the understanding of country image effects on the buying intention.
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A moins d’une décennie apres sa révision, la jeune Constitution roumaine est a nouveau dans la situation d’une redoute assaillie par des politiciens qui veulent la réécrire profondément. De la réforme des institutions fondamentales et jusqu’au réaménagement des rapports de force entre autorités, toutes se retrouvent dans le projet de révision et refletent une nouvelle conception constitutionnaliste. La Roumanie de 2011 rappelle étonnamment la France de 1958, l’évolution des évenements ayant le caractere d’une campagne militaire dans laquelle la tonalité est donnée par un tambour major. Meme si nous doutons que cette approche aura une finalité, les propositions du projet de révision méritent une analyse, aussi breve qu’elle soit, a fin de comprendre ce qui dérange dans le contenu actuel de la Constitution roumaine et de quels changements doit-elle etre protégé.
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Panoramic views on the mentality of living cultures may be edifying. For no law can be made a fetish or abstracted from the society collectively shaping it. The more the everyday life of legal cultures is based on written records, on formal mediation by texts and on the internal constraint of debates within a professional community, the stronger are the mechanisms in-built that aim at further increasing the complexity and refinement of the law’s internal structure and operations. In large systems ramifications are also larger, so the chances are greater for both functional excesses and dysfunctional forced paths to occur. As the present US case-study reveals, there are destructive consequences if social space vanishes from behind the law, if religion instead of cementing society becomes inoperative, if values degenerate into personal pleasure, and social normativity is atomised. Then law will remain the last common denominator among individuals, with implied rationality elevated to the heights of omnipotence. Now their lawyers are expected to stand for human certainty. With a view to their mythical self-belief and obsessive rationalism, the postmodern construct of “secular humanism” is at stake again, including the trouble of defining and justifying societal ends when classical foundations are refuted.
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Art. 61, paragraph (1) of the Romanian Constitution registers two principles: 1) the Parliament is the supreme representative body of the Romanian people and 2) the Parliament is the sole legislative authority of the country. However, the first principle is contradicted by other constitutional and legal regulations, coming into conflict, in particular, with the requirements of the principle of separation of powers, while the second principle should be reconsidered and redefined given that Government expands its regulatory powers, adopting laws by assuming liability, or emergency ordinances in all areas, including those reserved for organic laws, and given that legal regulations that govern even more of our social relations are adopted abroad.
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La codification est une des questions actuelles du droit moderne. Certaines domaines du droit, tels que le droit civil et le droit pénal, ont été codifiés il y a 200 ans. Plus difficile s’avere la situation du droit administratif, qui était né a ce moment. Quoi que durant ces deux siecles on a essayé plusieurs fois dans différents pays européens d’adopter un code administratif, néanmoins pour certaines raisons cette initiative n’a pas aboutit jusqu’a présent. Une des raisons est la portée trop large et la diversité des domaines régies par les regles du droit administratif, fait qui ne permet pas leur concentration dans un seul code. Par conséquent, nous considérons comme approprié la codification des institutions les plus importantes du droit administratif. Dans la République de Moldova on a déja un Code des contraventions (les contraventions étant décriminalisées depuis la période soviétique). Dans ce contexte, nous proposons la codification de l’institution du contentieux administratif qui est gouvernée par la Loi du contentieux administratif (no.793/2000), qui contient surtout des regles matérielles, mais également quelques regles procédurales de cette loi sont complétées, dans le processus de l’administration de la justice avec les regles du Code de procédure civile. La pratique judiciaire dans ces 11 ans de contentieux administratif dans notre pays montre que de tels litiges sont examinés pendant des années, non seulement en raison du grand nombre de dossiers, mais plutôt a cause de l’application de la procédure civile. Nous avons proposé, dans nos études jusqu’a présent, et également aupres des autorités compétentes, l’élaboration d’un Code de procédure administrative contentieuse, mais nous n’avons pas été entendus. Dans ce rapport nous soutenons la nécessité d’adoption d’un Code de la justice administrative qui comprend des regles matérielles de la loi cadre et des regles appropriées a la nature des litiges du contentieux administratif, en tenant compte de la pratique des autres pays qui considerent que l’état; qui est un défendu dans tels litiges, ne peut pas etre jugé par les memes regles que les individus, ç’est-a dire apres les regles de procédure civile.
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