Luminita Hurbean

This study explores a hybrid forecasting framework for air pollutant concentrations (PM_10, PM_2.5, and NO₂) that integrates Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) models with Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) networks. By leveraging SARIMA’s strength in linear and seasonal trend modeling and addressing nonlinear dependencies using BiLSTM, the framework incorporates Box-Cox transformations and Fourier terms to enhance variance stabilization and seasonal representation. Additionally, attention mechanisms are employed to prioritize temporal features, refining forecast accuracy. Using five years of daily pollutant data from Romania’s National Air Quality Monitoring Network, the models were rigorously evaluated across short-term (1-day), medium-term (7-day), and long-term (30-day) horizons. Metrics such as RMSE, MAE, and MAPE revealed the hybrid models’ superior performance in capturing complex pollutant dynamics, particularly for PM_2.5 and PM₁₀. The SARIMA combined with BiLSTM, Fourier, and Attention configuration demonstrated consistent improvements in predictive accuracy and interpretability, with attention mechanisms proving effective for extreme values and long-term dependencies. This study highlights the benefits of combining statistical preprocessing with advanced neural architectures, offering a robust and scalable solution for air quality forecasting. The findings provide valuable insights for environmental policymakers and urban planners, emphasizing the potential of hybrid models for improving air quality management and decision-making in dynamic urban environments.

Business intelligence and analytics (BI&A) have recently emerged as a strategic approach to managerial tasks, providing opportunities to improve work performance. Despite the growing interest in evaluating cases of BI&A adoption, to the best of our knowledge, few studies have addressed the influence of data-driven culture and the effects of BI&A adoption specifically on the work performance of managers. The aim of this study is to assess whether a data-driven culture predicts the adoption of BI&A in companies and its impact on decision-making effectiveness and managerial performance. This novel research model was tested with 180 managers from Romanian companies that work with BI&A tools. Based on PLS-SEM data analysis, our findings suggest that a data-oriented culture is a strong predictor of BI&A adoption and decision-making effectiveness. The results also confirm that BI&A utilization positively impacts decision-making effectiveness and individual work performance. The primary implication drawn from empirical evidence is that executives should prioritize the cultivation of a data-driven culture within their organizations, as this is essential for enhancing managerial performance through the adoption of business intelligence and analytics.

Purpose: The authors investigate the relationship between instant messenger (IM) use and work performance, mediated by interruptions and two key indicators of the stress associated with technology use: overload and complexity.Design/methodology/approach: The authors validate this research model using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) with data collected through a survey of 416 working professionals.Findings: The data reveal that while IM use contributes minimally to work interruptions and to a greater extent to technological complexity, these two constructs fully mediate the direct influence of IM use at work on technology overload, and meanwhile significantly and directly contribute to work performance.Research limitations/implications: This research provides theoretical insights into the deployment of IM and its actual impacts in the workplace. To improve the generalisation of the findings, the authors call for more IM-related research in other countries, with more native theories and various methodologies in this domain.Practical implications: The level of stress generated through IM use is moderate, considering IM is not a significant contributor to work interruptions. Thus, despite the potential negative effects of IM communication, the positive effects of using IM at work prevail. As a result, the technology can be promoted as long as employees, their managers and the organisation as a whole are well prepared. Employees can transfer skills and behaviour from the personal setting to their work environment and thus may find an intrinsic motivation to make better use of the IM technology at work.Originality/value: The authors argue that this research model is novel for its perspective on evaluating the actual impacts of IM use at work instead of the reasons of using it. The authors conceptualise the process to explain how IM contributes to interruptions and other technostress indicators in the working context, and the impact on performance. Contrary to some prior research, the authors find that overall IM applications do not have a negative impact on work performance, and instead may enhance it.

Business Intelligence and Analytics systems have the capability to enable organizations to better comprehend their business and to increase the quality of managerial decisions, and consequently improve their performance. Recently, organizations have embraced the idea that data becomes a core asset, and this belief also changes the culture of the organization; data and analytics now determine a data-driven culture, which makes way for more effective data-driven decisions. To the best of our knowledge, there are few studies that investigate the effects of BI&A adoption on individual decision-making effectiveness and managerial work performance. This paper aims to contribute to bridging this gap by providing a research model that examines the relationship between BI&A adoption and manager’s decision-making effectiveness and then his individual work performance. The research model also theorizes that a data-driven culture promotes the BI&A adoption in the organization. Using specific control variables, we also expect to observe differences between different departments and managerial positions, which will provide practical implications for companies that work on BI&A adoption.

The new era of hyper-communication has led organizations to increasingly adopt communications technologies such as instant messaging (IM) for better connections and improved work efficiency. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exerted further pressure and many organizations increasingly depend on IM tools to manage remote workers. In this new context, negative workplace impacts of IM seem more plausible, because technology use causes technostress. In this paper, we propose a research model to analyze instant messaging usage effects on individual work performance and well-being by the means of relevant techno-stressors. The model was tested on a sample of 372 employees from Romanian organizations that use instant messaging at work. Econometric analysis relies on the Structural Equation Modelling methodology and uses SPSS AMOS. Our findings suggest that the usage of instant messaging significantly influences on perceived techno-complexity, techno-overload and techno-invasion, which in turn influences, to some extent, both individual work performance and well-being. Dividing the sample according to the type of work (teleworking and office work), we compared the results between these two groups and encountered some significant differences.

Machine learning (ML) has already gained the attention of the researchers involved in smart city (SC) initiatives, along with other advanced technologies such as IoT, big data, cloud computing, or analytics. In this context, researchers also realized that data can help in making the SC happen but also, the open data movement has encouraged more research works using machine learning. Based on this line of reasoning, the aim of this paper is to conduct a systematic literature review to investigate open data-based machine learning applications in the six different areas of smart cities. The results of this research reveal that: (a) machine learning applications using open data came out in all the SC areas and specific ML techniques are discovered for each area, with deep learning and supervised learning being the first choices. (b) Open data platforms represent the most frequently used source of data. (c) The challenges associated with open data utilization vary from quality of data, to frequency of data collection, to consistency of data, and data format. Overall, the data synopsis as well as the in-depth analysis may be a valuable support and inspiration for the future smart city projects.

Energy is the sector most strongly connected with climate change moderation, and this correlation and interdependency is largely investigated, in particular as regards renewable energy and sustainability issues. The United Nations, European Union, and all countries around the world declare their support for sustainable development, materialized in agreements, strategies, and action plans. This diversity, combined with significant interdependencies between indicators, brings up challenges for data analysis, which we have tackled in order to decide on relevant indicators. We have built a research framework based on Business Intelligence & Analytics for monitoring the SDG7 indicators that aim at “Ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all”, in relation with SDG13 indicators targeting the sustainable aspect of energy. In developing the Business Intelligence & Analytics framework, we have considered Design Science Research in information systems guidelines. We have designed a process for carrying out Design Science Research by describing the demarche to develop information artifacts, which are the essence of a Business Intelligence & Analytics system. The information artifacts, such as data source, preprocessed data, initial and final data model, as well as data visualizations, are designed and implemented in order to support clean and affordable energy data analysis. The proposed research model, applied for Romania in this paper, serves as a point of departure for investigating data in a more integrated way, and can be easily applied to another country case study.

The studies published in 2015 analyzing the need for human resource in Iasi IT market (the most representative market for the North-East of Romania) conclude that the demand for specialists exceeds by far the number of graduates from faculties which train IT specialists. Nationwide, within the FEBA², the employment rate for the students that complete the Economic Informatics undergraduate program and different master programs that specialize students in BIS³ is approximately 95%. We strongly believe that the students graduating the program AIS⁴ could get a higher employability in the IT area and appropriate improvement measures would beneficially contribute to a higher rate of employability, but also to the diversification of their professional horizon and their adjustment to the IT field requirements for professional accountants nowadays. The research also attempts to determine the profile of AIS graduates and their compatibility with IT related positions in the labour market and graduates' employability in terms of knowledge, skills and attributes relevant to the employers' needs.