bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Influences of girdling and potassium treatments on fruit quality and some physiological characters of ‘Fremont’ mandarin variety
Authors: Ülker Tuğba , Kamiloğlu Müge Uysal
Published: June 2021

Growing citrus involves cultural treatments such as girdling and foliar potassium treatment to increase fruit size, yield and quality. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effects of single and double stem girdling, potassium nitrate (KNO3) treatment on leaves and combinations of these treatments on the fruit yield, size and quality characteristics, leaf chlorophyll concentration and leaf nitrogen content, leaf fluorescence (PSII) and leaf sugar content of the ‘Fremont’ mandarin variety. Girdling treatments were applied on the stem by removing 4 mm wide ring of bark at the end of anthesis and after the June fruit drop. Foliar KNO3 applications were applied at a concentration of 4% twice (90 days and 120 days after full anthesis) in the experiment. The single girdling (SG) and double girdling (DG) treatments on stems increased fruit yield (kg · tree−1) by approximately 40% relative to the control (C). Treatments did not significantly affect the internal fruit quality of the ‘Fremont’ mandarin variety except in fruit colour and appearance. The highest impact on fruit size was found in the DG + KNO3 treatment. According to treatments and periods, the SPAD values varied between 62.08 and 70.67, whereas the PSII values varied between 0.698 and 0.756. The treatments significantly increased the leaf nitrogen (N) concentration and the fructose, glucose and sucrose concentrations relative to the control. The highest N concentration content was detected in the foliar potassium treatment, and the highest total sugar content was detected in the SG treatment.
Romania’s tourism industry in free fall
Authors: Anghelache Constantin , Anghel Mădălina-Gabriela , Iacob Ştefan Virgil , Dumbravă Ştefan Gabriel
Published: June 2021

Tourism is one of the consistent branches of the national economy, which can ensure some concrete results and a tailor-made contribution to the formation of the Gross Domestic Product. The tourism industry is also called invisible trade in the sense that, although it does not export goods and services, by practicing it, by developing it, it ensures consistent revenues to the state budget, but also ensures the possibility of increasing Gross Domestic Product.

Analysing the current situation of the health and economic-financial crisis, it is found that in 2020 HoReCa, the tourism industry, complementary services have decreased alarmingly. Against this background, tourism has reduced its contribution to the formation of the Gross Domestic Product, which can lead to an even greater decrease.

Investments in tourism are eroding. There is no possibility of refinancing despite support measures provided by the authorities. We say in spite of some measures granted because the postponement of some payments, the postponement of some credits, the transition to technical unemployment and others will be coupled later with other measures with almost devastating effect for the Romanian economy. Thus, many jobs will be lost. On the other hand, tourism companies will not be able to move from technical unemployment to normal activity and give a minimum of six months to those in this situation.

The tourist market practically does not exist because there are only sequential possibilities in which it takes place, but especially under the rule of business activities, which are also considered tourist activities.

The tourist activity materialized through arrivals, overnight stays, arrivals and departures has decreased steadily and this result mainly from the data subject to the study we mentioned. It is necessary to interpret these data and possibly find ways to recover.
Study on the effect of crises on economic correlations and macrostability
Authors: Anghelache Constantin , Anghel Mădălina-Gabriela , Iacob Ştefan Virgil , Grigorescu Dana Luiza
Published: June 2021

Economic growth is a goal of every country and equally of the European Community. In this sense, all national strategies related and not subordinated to the European Union’s strategy aim at economic growth, which will ensure the improvement of the quality of life. Economic growth is always achieved by the level registered by the Gross Domestic Product (Gross Domestic Product per capita) these being the most important indicators of results calculated at macroeconomic level.

The proper functioning of a country’s economy must be based, first of all, on certain correlations that are established between socio-economic variables, a context in which there must be certain proportions. The evolution of the economy in free market conditions reaches imbalances at certain times, a context in which macroeconomic stability is affected. Most often, crises, regardless of their health, economic, economic or financial nature, have the first effect of affecting macroeconomic stability. In the current conditions, when we face the health crisis, combined with the economic and financial crisis, the macroeconomic imbalance is obvious by not respecting some proportions and correlations, which must be established at the macroeconomic level. The analysis of this aspect of crises and their effect on economic correlations and macrostability is the subject of the study in this article.
Testing the Feldstein Horioka puzzle in Algeria: Maki co-integratioan and hidden causality analysis
Authors: Ayad Hicham , Belmokaddem Mostefa
Published: June 2021

The aim of this paper is to test the existence of Feldstein Horioka puzzle in the case of Algerian economy for the period 1970-2019 by examining the link between domestic savings and investments, we use in this paper both the co-integration tests under Gregory-Hansen (1996), Hatemi-J (2008) and Maki (2012) tests in the context of structural breaks, and the symmetric and asymmetric causality (hidden causality) proposed by Hacker-Hatemi (2010) and Hatemi (2012) respectively, the results suggest that there is a co-integration relationship between saving and investment with five endogenous structural breaks, and the saving retention coefficient is equal to 0.324 which means the existence of Feldstein-Horioka puzzle in a weaker form and high capital mobility, on the other hand, the results indicate asymmetric causal relationship between savings and investments.
Assessing the entrepreneurial intention in Romania. An approach based on a binomial logistic regression
Authors: Bălă Denisa Elena , Stancu Stelian , Bălă Dragoş
Published: June 2021

Entrepreneurship is an increasingly popular activity, spread worldwide. Every year, thousands of individuals choose to start their own business, some of them beginning from college, others after years of experience and activity in other companies, as simple employees. In Romania, entrepreneurial activity is a practice of great interest in society during the last years. But what could be the reasons behind the entrepreneurial intention and decision in Romania? We intend to answer this question using as a starting point the database provided by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, from which a series of variables considered relevant in line with other studies on this topic will be selected. We will therefore identify what determines Romanians to choose the path of entrepreneurship, but also to what extent. The methodology applied in this paper is the binomial logistic regression. Using this technique, four regression models will be estimated, based on them concluding which are the explanatory factors of the entrepreneurial intent in Romania. The results will show that in Romania some significant factors to explain the preference for entrepreneurship are individuals’ confidence in their own abilities, fear of failure, knowledge of other entrepreneurs, but also occupational status. These records will prove to be in line with the results obtained at the level of other states. However, it will be shown that unlike other nations and societies, in Romania there are no significant differences regarding the entrepreneurial decision in terms of age or gender.
Technical and scale efficiency in Romanian public hospitals: Estimating with Data Envelopment Analysis
Authors: Caunic Raluca-Elena
Published: June 2021

Hospitals are a major component of the health systems, due to the complexity of the medical services they deliver and the great resources consumption. They impact the performance of the health systems, the economic policies and the public health. Since performance is a multidimensional concept, the main technique used to get a proxy evaluation of performance in the healthcare sector is Data Envelopment Analysis. DEA measures the efficiency of the healthcare providers and allows comparative analysis to identify the best practice frontier. This study addresses the performance of Romanian public hospitals from the North-Eastern region of the country and measures technical and scale efficiency. DEA basic models were run under the assumptions of constant and variable returns to scale, in an input-oriented evaluation of a sample of 18 public hospitals. The results indicated that most of the hospitals are technically inefficient (89%) and these inefficiencies are in the form of scale inefficiency for 39% of the hospitals. The average efficiency scale value was of 82%, implying that the observed hospitals could have increased their outputs by 18% if they had reached the optimal scale. The conclusion of the paper is that the inefficiency of the compared hospitals is almost equally caused by the inefficient implementation of the production plan and by the divergence of the decision making units from the most productive scale size. This kind of efficiency analyses could support managers when planning hospitals activity and policy makers when planning resources allocation and implementation of new strategies for the health system governance.
Kinetic energies in random vectors
Authors: Daia Alexandru , Stancu Stelian , Suchak Om
Published: June 2021

This paper uses the Onicescu Coefficient concept, which is the sum of squared probabilities, through mathematical formulations to show the kinetic energy in random vectors. The paper has a brief introduction section that addresses the background of the study, the purpose of the study, and its objective. The literature review section provides an in-depth industrial application of mathematical formulations in solving real-life problems. The paper contains a methodology section highlighting the study design, data collection methods, and analysis section, highlighting some of the keywords used in locating resources and significant databases that provided the study with information. Later, the study takes the result and discussion sectional approach to present the experiments’ findings backed with facts from previous studies by other scholars in the same field. Lastly, the paper concludes with a section recapping the critical points of this study and study application in real-life, concluding with a list of references utilized by this study.
Use of Social Networks in Determining stockmarket Evolution
Authors: Dan Flaviu Bogdan , Maer-Matei Monica , Stancu Stelian
Published: June 2021

This article aims to use text mining methods and sentiment analysis to determine the stock market evolution of companies as well as virtual currencies such as Bitcoin. The source of the text is the social media channel Twitter and the text is composed of individual messages sent by users. Although previous papers proved with a degree of certainty that this paper hypothesis is true, as we will see bellow, the area of research was focused only on the professional environment or known opinion makers and not taking into account a high population mass. To ensure that a high level of information is maintained after the sentiment analysis process, we will use multiple algorithms based on different calculation methods and different word dictionaries. In addition, indicators such as the number of assessments, the number of replays etc. will be added to the methodology. By the end of the paper we will be able to both identify a working methodology of analyzing text for the purposes of stock market prediction and also we will touch on the limitations faced when creating it and the ways through which we can expand and improve it’s reliability. The implementation of all these methods and of the multiple dictionaries helped us in simulating human behavior and the differences of opinion, when a group wants to analyze a text. The algorithm becoming a way to balance the different “opinions” that resulted out of the sentiment analysis.
Spatial changes in entrepreneurship in relation to economic crisis and recovery. Insights from Romanian counties
Authors: Goschin Zizi , Druică Elena
Published: June 2021

Trying to explain the sources of persisting high inequalities in the regional distribution of entrepreneurship in Romania, this paper puts a spotlight on the spatial interactions among neighbour regions in a spatial modelling framework. We explored the interplay of factors that inform the territorial distribution of SMEs by employing various spatial panel data models that not only provided better estimations of the parameters, but also removed the cross – sectional dependence detected in our previous research using classic panel models. We found that the existing regional inequalities in entrepreneurial activity are strongly associated with differences in economic development, gross investments, research and development, age of the population, and and differences in regional resilience to economic crises. Additional useful information was brought about by the computation of direct and indirect effects of these factors of influence.
Using discriminant analysis to study the discrinimation issue of refugees and migrants from MENA region in European countries
Authors: Kobeissi Amira , Bager Ali Sadig Mohammed , Mohammad Hiba
Published: June 2021

In the last years and after the arrival of a significant number of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. Foreigners from MENA region started facing numerous issues in the host countries. One of the major issues that the refugees and migrants are facing now adays is discrimination. As most of the studies exposes that this topic is recently debatable among the European governments. Likewise, the literature review on this matter shows that most of the European countries who welcomed refugees in large numbers were more able to understand and keep away factors that drive to discrimination. It is well known that are many factors that lead to discrimination such as the difference in nationalities, religion, and gender. Although there are different places where the migrants and refugees can feel discriminated for instance: public authorities, workplace, schools, and universities. Moving on to the methodology used in this paper is the quantitative method, we conducted an online survey distributed on refugees and youth migrants in both languages (English and Arabic) that are living in European countries. We tried in our survey to ask questions related to discrimination, in order to understand how they are dealing with this issue and to what extent is discrimination affecting them. For that reason, we used the discriminant analysis. the discriminant analysis feature is split into a 2-step process firstly is testing significance of a series of functions that most affect the migrations as the results of the discriminant analysis had shown us that the number of years lived in Europe was directly affected by discrimination, in addition to the classification. As using the discriminant analysis was an efficient way to study the main factors affected by discrimination.
Does the Tax Burden impact the Performance of Companies? A case study for Romania
Authors: Ogneru Victor , Stancu Stelian
Published: June 2021

The paper analyzes the relationship between the total tax amount paid by the Romanian companies and several indicators of size, financial performance, and capital structure to identify whether there is an impact of these indicators on the tax potential and to assess the impact of the tax burden on the performance of companies as well. The total tax amount is viewed on the one hand as a tax burden when it is used as an independent variable, and as tax potential when it is used as a dependent variable. To assess these relationships, we applied cross-sectional regression models for each year of analysis, 2014-2018, using balance sheet data from the entire population of Romanian companies. In literature, is questioned only the relationship between tax burden and economic performance. Our study emphasizes the link between tax potential and some characteristics of the companies. We have identified, also, the determinants of return of equity in the case of Romanian companies. Overall, the data reveal major structural changes during the period of analysis. This movement did not affect the tax potential, but the performance of undertakings. Our findings show that it is necessary to rethink economic and tax policies.
Budgetary efficiency expressed as the interdependence of public expenditures and the Gross Domestic Product in the Republic of Moldova
Authors: Pârţachi Ion , Mija Simion
Published: June 2021

We address budget performance in terms of savings, efficiency, and effectiveness. To facilitate a quantitative analysis of budgetary efficiency, we perform a detailed study based on an econometric model of the interdependence of public expenditure, both capital and private, and GDP. We show that an increase in public expenditure, especially current, can significantly accelerate the growth of the productive sectors of the economy. Further, the implementation of performance indicators for public expenditure can lead to accelerated economic growth, both quantitatively as well as qualitatively, in the Republic of Moldova.
Supporting secondary research in early drug discovery process through a Natural Language Processing based system
Authors: Popa Alina
Published: June 2021

Last decades were characterised by a constant decline in the productivity of research and development activities of pharmaceutical companies. This is due to the fact that the drug discovery process contains an intrinsic risk that should be managed efficiently. Within this process, the early phase projects could be streamlined by doing more secondary research. These activities would involve the integration of chemical and biological knowledge from scientific literature in order to extract an overview and the evolution of a certain research area. This would then help refine the research and development operations.

Considering the vast amount of pharmaceutical studies publications, it is not easy to identify the important information. For this task, a series of projects leveraged the advantages of the open pharmacological space through state-of-the-art technologies. The most popular are Knowledge Graphs methods. Although extremely useful, this technology requires increased investments of time and human resources. An alternative would be to develop a system that uses Natural Language Processing blocks. Still, there is no defined framework and reusable code template for the use-case of compounds development.

In this study, it is presented the design and development of a system that uses Dynamic Topic Modelling and Named Entity Recognition modules in order to extract meaningful information from a large volume of unstructured texts. Moreover, the dynamic character of the topic modelling technique allows to analyse the evolution of different subject areas over time. In order to validate the system, a collection of articles from the Pharmaceutical Research Journal was used.

Our results show that the system is able to identify the main research areas in the last 20 years, namely crystalline and amorphous systems, insulin resistance, paracellular permeability. Additionally, the evolution of the subjects is a highly valuable resource and should be used to get an in-depth understanding about the shifts that happened in a specific domain.

However, a limitation of this system is that it cannot detect association between two concepts or entities if they are not involved in the same document.
Sustainability literacy in the Romanian Universities
Authors: Prada Elena-Maria , Apostu Simona-Andreea , Gogu Emilia
Published: June 2021

Sustainable university refers to the active involvement of higher education institutions in elaborating policies to protect the natural environment. The sustainable university is the one that, besides the governmental involvement, contributes to the safety of the environment by adapting the curriculum to the ecological needs and through the progress of the scientific knowledge, as a result of the didactic and research activities.

As a vector of society’s development, the primary role of the university consists of educating future decision-makers. From the point of view of sustainable education, the concept of sustainable literacy has been shaped. Sustainable literacy involves educating future generations for sustainable development, considering the social, environmental, and cultural aspects specific to each country.

In our opinion, “Sustainability literacy” in the academic environment is the formation and transmission of knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes that will allow students/graduates to engage deeply in building a sustainable future and improve their decision-making towards sustainability. The purpose of this research paper is to identify the context of ensuring and promoting sustainability in Romanian tertiary education.

For this purpose, data obtained from the Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education were used regarding the number of students (as an element of the university demand) who follow a study program related to sustainable development, as well as data on the number of study programs in sustainability (as an element of the university offer). The results show that the number of students decreases, mainly due to demographic reasons, and the low graduation rates following the baccalaureate examination. Nevertheless, the number of programs in the sphere of sustainable development was higher in 2018 than the previous year. This fact demonstrates the importance given and the serious concerns regarding sustainability literacy in Romanian universities.
Looking ahead - from fossil fuel to a circular bioeconomy in Europe. Evolution and behaviour
Authors: Zaman Gheorghe , Grădinaru Giani Ionel , Matei Bogdan Florin
Published: June 2021

Giving due consideration to sustainability, the new concept of bioeconomy has faced strong support from international policymakers, changing the way the economy is currently working. And it does not involve only the replacement of fossil feedstock with bio-based fuels, but also acquiring value from waste and bringing to light the resource efficiency that can lead to a smooth transition from a linear to a circular economy. This paper aims to track the EU states movement in implementing the bioeconomy best practices by building clusters based on their progress in adapting their industries to the new requirements. To make this possible, we created two scenarios for recording the evolution of the energy industry in 27 countries: the first one that groups them according to the fossil-fuel sources, and the second one based on renewable resources. Our results revealed that the biomass tends to be used as a complementary source and not a substitute, in comparison to the traditional fuels. Same actors keep the leading positions in both scenarios, making us believe that they may face strong challenges in reaching the European Commission goals. Thus, the present study emphasizes the need to develop highly efficient policies for all EU members to keep the same path.
Working beyond the normal retirement age in urban China and urban Russia
Authors: Gustafsson Björn , Nivorozhkina Ludmila , Wan Haiyuan
Published: June 2021

The incidence of working for earnings beyond the normal pension age of 55 for females and 60 for males in urban China and Russia is investigated using micro-data for 2002, 2013, and 2018. Estimated logit models indicate that, in both countries, the probability of working after normal retirement age is positively related to living with a spouse only, being healthy, and having a higher education level. It is negatively associated with age, the scale of pension, and, in urban China, being female.

We find that seniors in urban Russia are more likely to work for earnings than their counterparts in China. Two possible reasons that are attributable to this difference are ruled out, namely cross-country differences in health status and the age distribution among elderly people. We also demonstrate that working beyond the normal retirement age has a much stronger negative association with earnings in urban China than in urban Russia. This is consistent with the facts that the normal retirement age is strictly enforced in urban China and seniors attempting to work face intensive competition from younger migrant workers. We conclude that China can learn from Russia that it has a substantial potential for increasing employment among healthy people under 70.
Mitigating Long-term Unemployment in Europe
Authors: Miyamoto Hiroaki , Suphaphiphat Nujin
Published: June 2021

While unemployment rates in Europe declined after the global financial crisis until 2018/2019, the incidence of long-term unemployment, the share of people who have been unemployed for >1 year to the total unemployed, remained high. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic could aggravate the long-term unemployment. This paper explores the factors associated with long-term unemployment in European countries using a panel of 25 European countries over the period 2000–2018. We find that skill mismatches, labor market matching efficiency, and labor market policies are associated with the incidence of long-term unemployment. Among the different types of active labor market policies, training and startup incentives are found to be effective in reducing long-term unemployment.
The Comparison of Kinship Terminology in the Yulin Dialect and in Cantonese
Authors: Hu Wenmin
Published: June 2021

The Yulin dialect is a sub-dialect of Cantonese, only used in Yuzhou and Fumian districts of the city of Yulin, located in the southeast of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. The kinship terms in Yue dialects include direct and indirect address terms, and usually are a combination of morphemes used to embody referential features (synthetic relation terms) and morphemes that distinguish the degree of kinship (ranking, collateral, spousal, generation and gender terms). This article offers a comparison, in terms of morphology, of kinship terms between the Yulin dialect and Cantonese. It is argued that the Yulin dialect and Cantonese have the same pattern of combining kinship terms, but approximately half of the compared kinship term logograms in the Yulin dialect are totally different from those in Cantonese as used in Canton, and the same terms are used in less than one-fourth of the cases.
How to choose the proper words? The process of vocabulary standardization in Putonghua
Authors: Kurpaska Maria
Published: June 2021

As with most fields of life, China can trace its history of word standardization back to ancient times, when the first dictionaries (such as Erya, ca. 3rd century B.C.) appeared. Modern Standard Chinese used in Mainland China – Putonghua – has been subject to standardization since its proclamation as the official national language of China in 1956. The definition states quite clearly that its base is formed by the Northern dialects. This statement concerns also vocabulary.

However, it is not a simple matter to make a choice of words which are to be used throughout the country. On the one hand, the so-called “Northern dialects” are spoken by almost 70% of the Han Chinese population, i.e. by about 800 million people. Although the Northern dialects are said to be quite uniform, the vast area that they cover must bring diversity in vocabulary. On the other hand, the remaining 30% of the Han Chinese speak a range of mutually unintelligible tongues, which are bound to penetrate the Northern dialects.

The aim of this paper is to show how the lexicon of Putonghua is being codified. An attempt will be made to reveal how the basic vocabulary was selected during the forming of Putonghua in the 1950s. Some of the tools used by the State Language Commission in order to control the process of vocabulary standardization will be described. Moreover, the paper intends to describe the ongoing changes in the Chinese lexicon. It will show the sources of new words that are gradually accepted into the authoritative dictionaries of modern Chinese.
The grammatical distinction between count nouns and mass nouns in Mandarin Chinese
Authors: Stoch Nastazja
Published: June 2021

The purpose of this paper is to prove the Mass Noun Hypothesis wrong. The hypothesis claims that all common nouns in classifier languages like Mandarin Chinese are mass nouns. The objection against it consists in displaying its implausible deduction, where false conclusions have been drawn due to relying on the grammar of English, which is incongruent with the grammar of Chinese. Consequently, this paper defends the Count Noun Thesis, stating that in Chinese there are count as well as mass nouns. In support of this statement, first, the typology of numeral classifiers had to be established, which resulted in gathering and completing all the reasons to distinguish classifiers from measure words. After only this necessary differentiation was made, it was possible to show that the count/mass distinction exists in Mandarin Chinese. That is, count nouns by default have only one classifier, with certain disclaimers. Apart from that, count nouns, as in every language, may undergo some measurement with measure words. Mass nouns, however, in the context of quantification may appear only with measure words, but not with classifiers. These conditions naturally follow from the ontological status of the two types of nouns’ referents, i.e. bounded objects denoted by count nouns, and scattered substances denoted by mass nouns.
Speech shadowing as a teaching technique in the CFL classroom
Authors: Zajdler Ewa
Published: June 2021

The aim of this paper is to present speech shadowing (the listener’s repetition of a word, phrase or sentence immediately after hearing it) as an effective teaching technique. Shadowing has been practiced in English classes in Japan for decades and many studies have confirmed its effectiveness for improving learners’ listening comprehension and pronunciation skills. Even though some studies have already indicated that this technique is successfully used in teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) (Zajdler & Chu 2019), its potential has not been widely utilized in the Chinese classroom in Poland. Thus, the present paper will first discuss the auditory and cognitive underpinnings of shadowing, then a classification of the types of shadowing will be proposed. Finally, practical aspects of shadowing as an effective in-class CFL teaching technique will be presented.
Chinese vocabulary and elements of culture reflected in the lexical meaning as a challenge in the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language
Authors: Zhu Zhiping
Published: June 2021

This paper describes the elements of Chinese culture enclosed in vocabulary and in the meaning of words; it is divided into four parts. Firstly, it is pointed out that, due to the fact that words are written down with Chinese characters, teachers of Chinese should purposefully help the students understand the rich culture contained in Chinese words, especially disyllabic compounds. Secondly, the article presents the investigation methods concerning compound words applied by the researchers of Chinese lexicon；It also assesses their applicability with regard to teaching a second language. Thirdly, the paper discusses five ways of incorporating Chinese culture during the process of formation of compound words, and points out their relationship with second language teaching. Finally, the paper discusses the methods applied in teaching Chinese vocabulary, and puts forward two methods of teaching vocabulary and their strategies at different levels.
Biology of the thornback ray (Raja clavataLinnaeus, 1758) in the North Aegean Sea
Authors: Cabbar Koray , Yiğin Cahide Çiğdem
Published: June 2021

The study deals with aspects of the population dynamics in the thornback ray (Raja clavataL., 1758), one of the most abundant cartilaginous fish caught in the North Aegean Sea. Females accounted for 73.08% and males 26.92% of all individuals. Total length of females and males ranged between 50.2 and 89.9 cm (disc width: 33.4–62.0 cm), and between 43.1 cm and 82.7 cm (disc width: 30.7–64.2 cm), respectively. Relationships between total length (TL) and total weight (TW), and between disc width (DW) and total weight (TW) were described by the equations: TW = 0.0041 TL3.10and TW = 0.0178 DW3.03, respectively. Age data derived from vertebrae readings were used to estimate growth parameters using the von Bertalanffy function: L∞= 101.71 cm, K = 0.18 y−1, t0 = −0.07 y for males and L∞= 106.54 cm, K = 0.16 y−1, t0 = −0.28 y for females. The maximum age was 8 years for males and females. Total length at first maturity of males and females was 70.9 cm and 81.2 cm, respectively. Based on the gonadosomatic index and gonadal macroscopic observations, it was determined that the spawning period lasted throughout the year. Stomach content analysis showed that crustaceans (53.03% IRI) and teleosts (14.70% IRI) were the most preferred prey.
Inter-clutch egg differences and androgenesis in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss, Walbaum 1792)
Authors: Polonis Marcin , Błaszczyk Agata , Jagiełło Krzysztof , Panasiak Ligia , Dobosz Stefan , Ocalewicz Konrad
Published: June 2021

Ionizing radiation (IR) is applied to inactivate the nuclear genome in rainbow trout eggs during induced androgenetic development. However, IR-generated reactive oxygen species (ROS) may affect developmental potential of eggs and reduce the effectiveness of androgenesis. To verify this assumption, androgenetic development of rainbow trout was induced in eggs irradiated with 350 Gy of X-rays. Survival rates, pH of the ovarian fluid and activity of antioxidant enzymes, including SOD, CAT and GPx, were examined in non-irradiated and irradiated eggs originating from four females. Survival rates of androgenetic embryos developing in eggs produced by different females varied from 1% to 57% and these inter-clutch differences were significant. Eggs from female F4, which showed the highest developmental competence for androgenesis, also showed increased activities of SOD, CAT and GPx enzymes. The pH value of the ovarian fluid of each female was over 8 before and after irradiation, therefore it seems that radiation did not affect the ovarian fluid pH. Considering the above-mentioned inter-clutch differences, a strong maternal effect on the effectiveness of androgenesis can be assumed. Eggs with increased activity of antioxidant enzymes before irradiation should be expected to show increased developmental competence for androgenesis.
The foraminiferal record in the Holocene evolution of the Mecklenburg Bay (south-western Baltic Sea)
Authors: Kostecki Robert , Radziejewska Teresa
Published: June 2021

Foraminiferal assemblages were analyzed in a 620-cm long core retrieved from the central part of the Mecklenburg Bay (MB, south-western Baltic Sea) to aid in the reconstruction of environmental changes occurring in the area during the Holocene and to complement a set of previously investigated palaeoenvironmental proxies. A total of five foraminifera-based stratigraphic units were identified, including an initial 80-cm thick layer devoid of foraminifera. The next two units featured an increasing abundance of the foraminiferal assemblage dominated by the calcareous Ammonia group species. Nearly all the calcareous foraminifera found in the core were decalcified. Following the maximum abundance within the 470–410 cm layer, the foraminiferal abundance declined sharply and the assemblage’s dominance structure changed to domination of the agglutinated foraminiferal species, Eggerelloides scaber, which continued up to the top of the core and marked a pronounced shift in environmental conditions (shallower depth, lower salinity, more dynamic sedimentation conditions). The foraminifera-based stratigraphy of the core proved to be complementary to that emerging from previous analyses of diatoms and sediment geochemistry.
Effects of copper and cadmium on physiology and antifouling defense of the marine macroalga Ulva reticulata
Authors: Al-Khaldi Wejdan Ahmed , Al Solami Lafi , Satheesh Sathianeson
Published: June 2021

Heavy metals are major stressors for benthic macroalgal communities in marine ecosystems. In this study, the effects of copper and cadmium on some physiological parameters along with antifouling defense of the marine macroalga Ulva reticulata were assessed under laboratory conditions. Macroalgal samples were treated with three concentrations (1 mg l−1, 3 mg l−1 and 5 mg l−1) of copper and cadmium for 2 and 7 days. After treatment, algal samples were analyzed for chlorophyll-a, carotenoid, total polyphenol and total antioxidant capacity. Also, algal extracts were tested against biofilm-forming bacteria strains to understand differences in antifouling activity. The results indicated that exposure of U. reticulata to copper and cadmium, on the one hand, induced protective mechanisms such as total phenol production and antioxidant capacity against metal stress and, on the other hand, reduced photosynthesis. While the extract obtained from control algal samples showed a strong inhibitory effect on the growth of biofilm-forming bacteria, treatment with heavy metals resulted in reduced antibiofilm activity. In general, the results revealed that exposure of macroalgae to heavy metals can affect antifouling defense traits in addition to changes in photosynthetic pigment content.
Distribution of Didymosphenia, Gomphonema and Gomphosphenia diatoms (Bacillariophyta) in Turkish inland waters
Authors: Solak Cüneyt Nadir , Wojtal Agata Z. , Rybak Mateusz , Yılmaz Elif
Published: June 2021

In this study, a total of 53 taxa were identified from 13 catchments in Turkey. Gomphonema affine var. rhombicum E.Reichardt, G. angusticephalum E.Reichardt & Lange-Bertalot, G. calcifugum Lange-Bertalot & E.Reichardt, G. elegantissimum E.Reichardt & Lange-Bertalot, G. exilissimum (Grunow) Lange-Bertalot & E.Reichardt, G. graciledictum E.Reichardt, G. italicum var. densistriatum Levkov, Mitic-Kopanja & E.Reichardt, G. linearoides Levkov, G. megolobrebissonii D.A.Chudaev, Kociolek & M.A.Golobova, G. minusculum Krasske, G. minutum f. syriacum Lange-Bertalot & Reichardt, G. reediae Levkov, Mitic-Kopanja & E.Reichardt, G. sarcophagus W.Gregory, G. subcapitatum (Grunow) E.Reichardt & Levkov and Gomphosphenia holmquistii (Foged) Lange-Bertalot were recorded for the first time in Turkey. Of the identified taxa, Didymosphenia geminata (Lyngbye) M.Schmidt, Gomphonema acuminatum Ehrenberg, G. affine Kützing, G. angustatum (Kützing) Rabenhorst, G. augur Ehrenberg, G. micropus Kützing, G. minutum (C.Agardh) C.Agardh, G. olivaceum (Hornemann) Brébisson, G. parvulum (Kützing) Kützing and G. truncatum Ehrenberg are common in the waters. G. angustius E.Reichardt, G. insignaffine Reichardt, G. insigne W.Gregory, G. italicum Kützing, G. laticollum E.Reichardt, G. pumilum var. rigidum E.Reichardt & Lange-Bertalot, G. stonei E.Reichardt, G. supertergestinum E.Reichardt and G. vibrio Ehrenberg have been recently recorded from the Turkish waters. The genus Gomphosphenia in Turkey has so far been represented only by G. grovei (M.Schmidt) Lange-Bertalot.
Determination of heavy metals in some tissues of four fish species from the Karasu River (Erzincan, Turkey) for public consumption
Authors: Tanır Özge Zencir
Published: June 2021

The study aimed at determining the concentration of heavy metals in muscle, liver, and gill tissues of four fish species (Acanthobrama marmid, Capoeta umbla, Capoeta trutta and Chondrostoma regium) collected from five sites in the Karasu River, Erzincan, between July 2019 and January 2020. The relationships between fish size (length and weight) and metal concentrations in the tissues were also investigated using Pearson correlation analysis. Concentrations of Al, Fe, Cu, Mn and Zn were higher than those of other metals in all tissue samples from four fish species. Fe and Al concentrations were very high, while the lowest Co, Cd and Pb concentrations were determined in the muscle, liver and gill tissues. The results of Pearson correlation analysis showed that significant relationships between heavy metal concentrations and fish size (length and weight) were positive (p < 0.01, p < 0.05), except for a few cases. Furthermore, heavy metal concentrations in the edible parts (muscle) of the studied fish species did not exceed the maximum acceptable concentrations (MACs) proposed by national and international food standards and were safe within human consumption limits, except for Cr.
The Importance of the Sense of Agency in the Process of Social Activity and Participation of Young People
Authors: Myszka-Strychalska Lucyna
Published: June 2021

The social activity of young people is essential for the development of their participation in the social life. It’s conditioned, inter alia, by educational measures directed at stimulating the behaviour of the young people, strengthening their sense of consciousness and responsible influence on the environment. The article presents a deeper insight into the mutual dependence between the individual’s sense of agency (and thus the subject’s belief in his/her ability to influence the reality) and his social activity (understood as the readiness to act for the benefit of others). They are not meaningless for building the social capital of the young generation, which in the near future will be responsible for the fate of the world. One of the analytic categories used to consider the presented issues is the construct of pro-development orientation, the constructive features of which include both trust in others and the world, as well as a sense of agency.
Professional Learning Communities in the Contemporary Basic Education in Finland
Authors: Suwalska Arleta
Published: June 2021

In the article I will pay attention to schools as Professional Learning Communities which include: shared values and vision of education, collective responsibility, reflective professional inquiry, collaboration and group, as well as individual, learning. I also analyze trust and respect, closely related to PLC in contemporary Finnish education.
Kindergarten Teachers’Attitudes Toward Distance Education During the COVID-19 Outbreak
Authors: Jankowiak Barbara , Jaskulska Sylwia , Rybińska Anna
Published: June 2021

This research report presents results of a study on kindergarten teacher’s attitudes toward distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic and their associations with selected characteristics related to the teacher’s profession. The tools that the teachers used for distance education were also described. 429 correctly completed surveys were collected. The most positive opinions concerned the development of one’s professional competencies, feeling positive emotions in the relationship with children and their parents. One of the worst assessed areas was those related to the possibility of supporting the social and emotional development of children. Most of the examined aspects of professional functioning, e.g. seniority, the location of the kindergarten, did not differentiate the attitudes. The differences mainly concerned teachers of special kindergartens, who in some aspects of attitudes (e.g. positive emotions towards this form of work) obtained lower results than teachers employed in other types of kindergartens.
Far from the Eyes, Close to the Heart? The Attitude of Kindergarten Teachers to Distance Learning in Kindergartens in Israel
Authors: Alezra Fani
Published: June 2021

The coronavirus pandemic has forced the world to deal with distance learning. This article discusses distance learning in the kindergartens in Israel from the perspective of kindergarten teachers. The research was carried out after the first wave of the virus, in March 2020, and its problems was: What is the attitude of the kindergarten teachers in Israel to distance learning? The research used a linear (differential semantic) questionnaire that measures the degree to which they agree with statements related to distance learning in the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional aspects. The questionnaire was filled out by 213 kindergarten teachers. The research attempts to conclude about the kindergarten teachers’ perception of distance learning.
Fairy Tale Protagonists in the Early Childhood Education Field in the Perspective of Children
Authors: Kaliszewska-Henczel Magdalena
Published: June 2021

The paper explores the nature of fairy tales’ protagonists in a traditional literary fairy tale and in the modern one from the perspective of pupils who are from seven to ten years old. The fairy tales are often being used in the early childhood education field as the starting point for school plays, as play themes or as a ‘background’for language, science or mathematics activity. Children’s symbolic perception of the fairy tales’ characters and their relationships reveals that there is a way of pupils’ reception of texts in which those texts are treated (and analysed) as a work of literary art. The article presents the results of research, in which – through the application of a non-verbal method – children indicated the interactions between Cinderella from the traditional literary fairy tale and a daisy from Hans Christian Andersen’s story (The Daisy).
Happiness, Chance or Hard Work and Ambition? Primary School Students about the Determinants of Professional Success
Authors: Kozielska Joanna
Published: June 2021

The text presents chosen results from research over the choices, aspirations and educational and career plans of young people (including some aspect of the perception of success). The chosen modules of the survey conducted in 2020 in a medium-sized city (approx. 80,000 inhabitants) are presented. The research goals were as follows: to characterize aspirations and plans as well as educational and professional choices made by young people; to present their opinions on the category of ‘success’ (including professional success) with its determinants; to characterize factors on educational paths of young people which enable or disable them to achieve professional success (technical, vocational schools vs general secondary schools) and prestigious versus non-prestigious professions; and to characterize the process of career counselling (students evaluation of the process and their expectations toward it).

Previous studies in this field have shown that, for example, personality traits are poor predictors of entrepreneurial behaviour, while beliefs and judgments about one’s self and the world may be a determinant of success. Therefore, it can be assumed that positive beliefs about the determinants of success, such as optimism, hope for success, will contribute to a more positive perception of the transition process from education to the labour market. Importantly, the way of perceiving the determinants of success determines the adoption of a passive versus active attitude in shaping one’s fate. Therefore, the author of the article is interested in the way, that primary school students perceive the life and professional success (the dimension which they use to identify success or withdrawn from this identification), as well as in the way they perceive the factors that determine it. Those students’ perceptions may determine their attitudes towards shape of their lives.