George Enescu (1881-1955) is the best-known Romanian composer and has been widely lauded for his folk- inspired compositions. While folk music was an important influence in Enescu’s music, it was always balanced by his passion for and intimate understanding of late Romantic compositional techniques. The extent to which he was influenced by the folk music of his homeland is a point of contention amongst some of the leading Enescu scholars. The English-speaking representative, Noel Malcolm believes that the influences in Enescu´s musical language were more diverse than scholars have suggested prior to the 1989 revolution. He believes that the depiction of Enescu as a folkloristic composer has contributed to his marginalisation and relative obscurity. By contrast, scholars such as Boris Kotlyarov and Grigore Constantinescu give greater weight to national characteristics in Enescu’s music. Enescu conceded that some of his early works made direct quotation of Romanian folk melodies, and that such an approach was limited in its possibilities. The composer’s more mature works employ characteristics of folk music and its performance traditions without the use of direct quotation. This critical commentary will observe and comment on the folk influences in Enescu’s compositions as well as noting the influence of Western traditions and techniques. Due reference will be given to the work of Bartók, whose incisive study of Romanian folk music remains one of the most substantial and detailed primary sources today. In order to highlight specific examples of folk influence, as well as other techniques, three of Enescu’s works are targeted for specific study, namely the Romanian Rhapsody, op. 11 no. 1, Sonata for Violin and Piano, op. 25 no. 3 and his Impressions D’Enfance for violin and piano, op. 28. Each work exhibits a tie with the composer’s Romanian origins, but also with 19th and early 20thC composers such as Brahms, Wagner, Debussy and Fauré. This critical commentary highlights the fact that Enescu’s works display folk idioms and techniques developed using late-Romantic techniques.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2007. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Nov. 24, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 23-26).

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio University, June, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 154-170).

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Thesis (M. Arch. D.U.)--University of Notre Dame, 2005. / Thesis directed by John Stamper for the School of Architecture. "April 2005." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-88).

Thesis (M. A.)--Florida State University, 2006. / Advisor: Danielle Wiese, Florida State University, College of Communication, Dept. of Communication. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed June 13, 2006). Document formatted into pages; contains iv, 76 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

<p>Developing countries are quite attractive destinations for foreign investments in various economic sectors.Whether an MNC can successfully enter these markets embodies the aptitude to understand the external macroeconomic and social environment of the host country. An MNC must adjust their competitive stance, decipher adequate market potential and uncover the relevant entry strategy to acquire operational success. We have built a framework surrounded by essential operational strategy. This concerns matching a firm's resources and capabilities to the opportunities that arise in the external environment. In most common literature, emphasis lies within identification of profit opportunities in the external environment of the firm. Imperative emphasis shifts from the interface between strategy and the external environment; towards the interface between strategy and the internal environment. In this context, the concentration of the organization's resources and capabilities is targeted to combat turbulent external environments and devise a secure foundation for long term strategy. To understand why the resource-based view has had a major impact on strategy assessment, a preceding glimpse for strategy formulation can be considered. Conventionally, firms have answered the question “who are our customers?” “What are their needs we're seeking to serve?” “Who are our Competitors?” “How can gain a competitive advantage?” Through answering these questions in conjunction with macroeconomic analysis are inevitable prerequisites for pinpointing the key success factors (KSF) for the individual market segments. The KSF are the factors within the company's market environment that determine its ability to prosper and survive exploiting its core resources.</p>

This dissertation consists of three stand-alone substantive chapters. It examines how various aspects of globalisation - openness to international trade, inflows of foreign direct investment and exposure to foreign demand shocks - affect economic performance through their impact on individual firms. The first substantive chapter presents a theoretical model of international trade with heterogeneous firms that differ not only by their productivity but also by the distortions they face. For a particular distribution of productivity and distortions, it shows that the distortions which affect the domestic and export sales in the same way and are correlated with productivity reduce the welfare gains from trade, while the distortions affecting only domestic sales tend to increase them. In addition, it documents that correlated distortions lead to a bias in an influential recent method for estimating the gains from trade. The following chapter empirically examines the link between the presence of multinational companies and the export sophistication of domestic firms in an emerging economy. The analysis is based on the matched firm and customs panel data from Romania covering the period 2005-11. The results show a positive relationship between the unit values of goods exported and imported by Romanian firms and the multinational companies' presence in downstream (input sourcing) industries. These results are consistent with quality upgrading being an additional channel through which local suppliers benefit from contacts with their multinational customers. The last chapter examines how Romanian manufacturing firms reacted to a dramatic drop in the export demand during the global trade collapse of 2008 and 2009. The exogenous effect of a fall in exports is identified by instrumenting exports with a firm-specific index of foreign demand. The results indicate that exporting firms were unable to redirect their sales to the domestic market and were forced to abruptly reduce their employment, material expenditure and investment, passing the shock to their suppliers. The results suggest that the export status of a firm may be a poor predictor of its vulnerability to a negative foreign demand shock.

The Rroma people have a complex and highly contested narrative which is partly due to the fact that the Rroma are a homeless society, a society with no borders, no economy, no territory but with an origin. The perception of ethnicity itself is based on subjective interpretation and not based on some kind of scientific sociological truth. Those that apply their notions of ethnicity on a group may do so based on particular aspects of physical appearance or differential culture customs.    This research draws heavily on the theories of two authors, Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka in order to answer my research question: To what extent can the challenges of the Rroma people in Romania be explained by Kymlicka and Taylor’s theories? What rights if any do they have?   Despite the fact that Romania is a democracy and that all people have the fundamental human rights, one can easily see the big disparities that exist between the Rroma ethnical group and the Romanian society. Members of a culture that has failed to be recognized will feel uprooted and it is important to give the recognition that a minority or unprivileged group is due and thereby acknowledge the fact that they have a cultural identity with their own traditions and aesthetic history. People should have the right to express their ethnic culture without any fear from persecution and prejudice from the society they live in.