Suchergebnisse

The transfer properties of the moisture and heat through multilayer textile packages have an influence on the wearing comfort of the clothing assemblies produced from such materials. The necessary properties of the textile package are obtained by means of proper selection of the structure of the package and physical properties of each individual textile layer. The research of wearing comfort is focused on analysis of air permeability, thermal resistance and the resistance and absorption of water vapour. In this work a typical assortment of textile materials, which is used in summer and winter military clothing, was selected. During the experimental investigation the thermal and water vapour resistance of the textile packages consisting of different combinations of layers made of different materials have been compared. The finite element computational model has been developed for the analysis of heat transfer through the textile package caused by heat conduction and advection due to ventilation air flow. The model enabled to obtain values and time laws of temperatures in each layer of the package. The validity of the model is ensured by employing the experimentally measured thermal resistance values for each individual layer of the structure. The numerical results have been compared against experimentally measured data of the textile package.

The objective of this article is to analyze the criteria and conditions of division of competence betweenterritorial municipalities and other subjects of public governance as well as theoretical aspects of competenceestablishment of territorial municipalities and sub-national governance structure.The first part of the article examines the criteria and terms of division of competence between territorialmunicipalities and other subjects of public governance. The second part analyzes theoretical aspectspertaining to size and competence establishment of territorial municipalities. The third part deals with thepeculiarities of establishing the number of sub-national governance levels and competence of territorialmunicipalities. After analyzing the scientific literature it can be stated that when shaping and improving the publicgovernance system of a specific country, it is beneficial to parallely assess and combine the competencecomponents of public governance structure and governance subjects, which are inter-related through tiesof mutual dependence.Although guidelines are offered in economic theories for structurization of sub-national governanceand establishment of the competence of territorial municipalities, the structure of sub-national governanceand competence of territorial municipalities varies significantly from one country to another, subject to avariety of situational variables. A conclusion was therefore made that it is practically impossible to establishan optimal size of territorial municipalities and the number of levels of sub-national governance dueto the complicated assessment of diverse and changing conditions for production and organization of publicgoods, the cost structure of public goods produced and organized by territorial municipalities,qualitative aspects and the scope of externality.

In Baltic States, since the 90's of the last century, when was getting independent of state's, attention is increasingly paid to country's regional development and problematic of economical potential. Worldwide, in European Union and so in Latvia the features of ongoing socioeconomic crisis make draw attention to activization around decentralization and focus on questions of regional development more intensively, particularly on search of solutions for research and analysis of a more efficient economical potential and its use in regions and counties.Economical development is the goal not only in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but also worldwide, in particular, in peripheries, in ulterior territories of countries – in regions. Economic growth of regions and municipalities depends on several factors. One of the most important core factors is reasonable use of the economical potential, using the opportunities of increasing financial capital, attraction of investments to the administrative territory of the municipality or increased economical potential. Regions and counties economic potential mostly depends on actions and activities of the certain county, how well organized, strategically far-reaching and reasonable the available nature, infrastructure , financial, social and other resources are used. Example of state Ireland verifies that approximately during the past 25 years the state has carried out very proper macroeconomical policy, remarking also the fact that many countries had the favourable conditions, but not all of them were able to use them. State of Ireland can be mentioned as a positive state economical and regional development example, as it is also located in remote part of Europe, nevertheless with help of a proper macroeconomic policy and ability to create favourable economical relations with other countries (also outside EU), it is one of the most developed countries in EU. In Ireland's development period three main directions of economical policy can be marked: fiscal stabilization, open conditions ...

The article deals with the problems of quality of training based on the analysis of Ukrainian national experienceof training, retraining and advanced training of civil servants. The dependence of qualification parametersof the specialization of their training on the choice of the direction of public administration developmentis discussed. The specifics of government officials' training at the current stage of the state governancesystem development are identified. Areas of future scientific researches are outlined.

The excellence in public governance and education and training are very closely interconnected. Aspecial role plays the preparation of new doctors in public administration and management – their qualificationpromotes excellence. The aim of this article is to show how excellence could appear in public administrationand management and to analyse the Doctoral Studies Programme in Administration andManagement at the University of Latvia and to show the directions of its development. The article includesmain principles of the European Good Administrative Practice Code, which could be regarded as a backgroundof excellence in public administration, goals of doctoral studies in the field of administration andmanagement at the University of Latvia, general framework of the studies programme, contents of programmeand its organisation, as well as proposals forits further development.

The general framework of the article is the analysis of aspects of the rotational role of public administrationhuman resources in the contemporary democracy development and its processes. It pays attention to theinterplay between the requirements of human resources activities and the democracy references. The analysisprovided in the paper emphasizes, that the personnel of public administration organizations integrates into publicpolicy implementation as tools for warranty and continuation of democratization processes. The main resultof this article is a double-sided idea, that human resources are involved in establishment, determination, consolidationand development processes of democracy; from the other side, democracy makes a great impact onpublic administration human resources through democratic values and their system.

Taking into consideration the peculiarity of the field of management and administration, Mykolas RomerisUniversity has all qualifications necessary to become one of leaders in the area of public administration (on managementalapproach) research in Lithuania.For research purposes it is recommended to expand/develop collaboration between the Departments of PublicAdministration and the Faculties of the Strategic Management and Political Sciences of Mykolas Romeris Universityas well as with the other foreign and Lithuanian universities.

Economic integration is perceived as a multi-phase process in which national economic policies of a group of countries or territories are systematically coordinated and substituted by common policies. We can observe that this world-wide tendency to create regional free-trade agreements, common markets and monetary unions is beneficial for their participants. It is widely recognized that benefits from coordination and giving up national policy independence exceed costs, both economic and social ones. It can be argued that the European Union and the European Monetary Union are the role models of economic integration. In the course of integrating New Member States that joined the EU in 2004, and later, one can expect that both nominal and real convergence takes place. This is of high importance especially for those countries, which intend to join the EMU soon. There is a set of nominal criteria to be met, but their economic justification is not clear. They are not associated with the optimality criteria of the classical Optimal Currency Area theory. Despite they are intended to induce convergence, many economists criticize them as too strict in terms of their definitions. As a half of century of experience of the non-European monetary unions tells us (Młodkowski 2007), neither inflation nor fiscal deficit represents a reason for rejecting a prospect member. It is argued that compliance with any of the criteria is achievable at lower costs (social and political) after full monetary integration due to endogenity. What matters is the monetary policy stance convergence in the pre-integration period among monetary union member states. Only then substituting domestic monetary policy with a common one will not generate any shocks for the underlying economies. Therefore, it would be reasonable to reform the current set of nominal convergence criteria and introduce a new one, covering monetary policy stance convergence. In order to implement this idea a convenient, simple and easy to understand method is required for capturing ...

The article tries to reveal some of the reasons why the national strategy of research and development and first Version of Lisbon Strategy for the period 2005-2007 in Estonia has been quite efficient. Since 2000, the European Commission has been measuring the innovation performance of countries with the help of the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) which is the instrument developed by the European Commission, under the Lisbon Strategy, to provide a comparative assessment of the innovation performance of EU Member States annually. The research problem being solved in this article is: how to implement Lisbon agenda in Estonia (in 2008-2015). The aim of the article was to highlight the theoretical constitution of knowledge triangle based on Lisbon agenda and to analyse conception problems of knowledge triangle (academic research, infrastructure of higher educational institutions, innovative enterprise) concerning Estonian situation. In order to evaluate Estonia's perspectives in Lisbon strategy in 2008-2015 there was made analysis on ground of European Innovation Scoreboard. There are two main tendencies of the development of Knowledge Triangle: first, innovative rearrangements done in social sphere, in economy and in higher educational sphere to fulfil tasks from Lisbon strategy and, second, increase Estonian competitiveness. Another side of the knowledge triangle concerns creating new economic mechanisms (concrete business solutions) and creating new structure of institutions (rearrangement) to carry out new comprehensive and dynamic innovation model.According to European Innovation Scoreboard 2008 Estonia's place among 27 EU states is 12th. This is clearly evident that Estonia is reaching the EU mean level for summary innovation index and has a relatively high growth rate for its level.

Tourism is one of the largest and most perspective branches in the world economy. European Union (EU) ranks as first in the world and accounts 57, 8 percent of the world tourism market due to its unique tourist's objects and products differentiation as well as cultural and historical distinction of each country. Enlargement of EU extended markets and range of tourism services, thereby EU tourism sector went in higher and more sophisticated level of competition. Expanded tourism market provides together threats and opportunities for members of EU. To turn threats to opportunities is important to form tourism sector in innovative and effective way, to employ innovative methods and knowledge. Thus could secure tourism sector tight competitive positions in world economy, to encourage development of the member's infrastructure. Fast changing market's environment is causing the specific requirements for countries towards development of tourism sector. However there is lack of findings how innovative initiatives and activities displays in tourism sector of EU countries. The formed preconditions allow revealing scientific research problem of this article: how entrepreneurial characteristics reflect in Slovenia and Scotland tourism sectors? The aim of the article is to highlight reflections of entrepreneurship characteristics in tourism sector, trying to determine level of innovation in tourism sectors of Slovenia and Scotland. There were systemized approaches of tourism system and models, as well as perception of innovation was developed in the article. As the conclusion of this analysis model of tourism system and perception of innovation were highlighted and explained. Seeking to solve scientific problem and to reach the aim, entrepreneurship characteristics were crystallized in the article. The article stresses that the main elements of innovative tourism sector are proactivity, dynamism, creativity and social responsibility. As it is highlighted in the article, handling of mentioned features in various ways could signally ...

This paper discusses the development of central banking in the circumstances of the European Common Market, globalised banking industry and financial market complexity. Central banks make up an essential part of the financial sector. The establishment of the European Central Bank (ECB), the formation of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) in 1998 and the enlargement of the European Union (EU) on 1 May 2004 as well as on 1 January 2007 was a turning point for the EU national central banks (NCBs). The process of the EU enlargement was accompanied by the formation of some groups of the NCBs: the NCBs of the old EU countries (EU15) and the NCBs of the new EU Member States (EU12). The analysis of the performance indicators of a number of the NCBs points to substantial differences between the given groups of the NCBs and there are good opportunities for promoting the integrity of the ESCB. Following the centralisation of a part of the decision-making process, the effectiveness and efficiency of the NCBs were questioned.Specific development circumstances in each country have determined the mode of operation and the place of the central bank in the financial environment. At the same time in the context of financial market globalisation and turbulences, the central banks are subject to financial risks. The paper pursues the aim to propose solutions for further improvements in the ESCB's operation and policy. In the pursuit of the objectives set, the authors have made use of such methods as the statistical analysis of indicators, and the graphic and monographic approach. The authors build their research on the analysis of operational results of the NCBs and views of a number of researchers on various aspects of modern central banking. Some differences have been detected for several indicators of central banks of the EU15 and EU12 countries; they prove that there is still room for improving the integration, effectiveness and efficiency of the ESCB. The findings of the research suggest that there exists a closer relationship ...

Fast expansion of European Union (hereafter – EU), which occurs in a quite short time just confirms, that EU as a formation of the member states helps them to reach additional positive economic effect. The EU always meets new challenges for economic evolution as it is expanded both in geographical and integration point of view, and as it has uneven economic and social level of development, different demographic situation. One of the above-mentioned challenge - how to reach closer cohesion of economic development. It is not easy to seek this, especially if you know how very different economies of EU member states are. For instance, the size of production of Germany which generates the largest part of EU economy is the same as twenty smallest member states all together. Obviously, the EU economic development mostly depends and will depend on the biggest countries' economic growth and that is because they will have influence on development of smaller member states. In order to seek a closer cohesion between members states in the EU one of the measures are creation of structural funds. The question: do these instruments allow to reach the said aims?According to the financial perspective for 2000-2006 approximately 90 pc of the whole EU support was accorded to EU-15; approximately 60 pc provided in financial perspective for 2007-2013. In this case emerge ambiguous situation: on the one part, insufficient concentration of EU financial support for less developed regions impede sustainable development, in the other part, citizens of the new member states get more financial support from EU budget than they pay for it. It is important to underline, that EU financial support and participating in the common market has changed two main economic rates: GDP growth and inflation. The new member countries also should not forget abilities to absorb this structural support. In this regard the old member states dominate over the new ones. For that reason one of the future challenges for the new member states - to reach the same level. ...

The article analyses the political-administrative dichotomy and the relationshipsbetween administrative and political actors.Based on the Peters and the Aberbach, Putnam, and Rockman models of interactionbetween political and administrative actors, some representative cases were selectedand studied in order to identify the specificities of senior civil servant selection,recruitment and employment regimes.The main objective was to verify if there is some space for hybrid managementmodels, combining both the political and meritocratic requisites, in the context of thecontemporary democracies.The paper also presents some proposals for a more integrated strategic selectionand management policy for senior civil servants, aiming at the improvement oftransparency, legitimacy and merit in the selection processes.

The second part of the article (for the first section see the 26th issue of this journal) examines issuesconcerning the formation of Lithuanian labour policy in the period from 2001 to 2008. The study revealsthat during that period Lithuanian labour market policy was modelled in view of preparing for the EuropeanUnion (EU) accession stage, harmonising Lithuanian labour market policy with EU normative actsand implementing the common European Employment Strategy (EES). The national labour market policywas also drawn up in line with 'homework' assigned by the European Commission (EC) and the aim tocreate an active, flexible and stable labour market, also one that reflects national interests. The articlepresents practical and theoretical assessment of the separate stages of Lithuania's labour market policydevelopment. This article is a continuation of the first attempt to draw up an analytic assessment ofchanges and management characteristics to labour market development in the re-established Republic ofLithuania.

This paper is part of a larger project investigating the relative roles of ideology and gender composition in determining organizational structure and behavior. The project's genesis arose from a study by Meinhard and Foster (2003) that found that Canadian women's voluntary organizations (WVOs) differed from gender-neutral and men's organizations on many different measures. Women's organizations were less likely to adopt a business orientation or pursue new revenue strategies, but were more likely to collaborate with other organizations and more likely to downsize. They also tended to be more pessimistic in their outlook and engaged in more advocacy and political action. Meinhard and Foster (2003) also found that among women's organizations, those that were members of the Canadian National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC), an umbrella organization for feminist groups, were more extreme in their differences. In other words, although both NAC and non-NAC organizations differed significantly from gender-neutral organizations, NAC organizations differed the most. Keywords: CVSS, Centre for Voluntary Sector Studies, Working Paper Series,TRSM, Ted Rogers School of Management Citation: ; Meinhard, A., Schwartz, S. & Handy, F. (2009). Mission (Im)possible? Determining Organizational Ideology by Examining Mission Statements (Working Paper Series Volume 2009 (1)). Toronto: Ted Rogers School of Management, Centre for Voluntary Sector Studies, Ryerson University.