The school environment as a teacher. The role of space and place in enhancing ecological literacy and social competence development in children and young people

Can space and place foster child development, and in particular social competence and ecological literacy? If yes, how can space and place do that? This study shows that the answer to the first question is positive and then tries to explain the way space and place can make a difference. The thesis begins with the review of literature from different disciplines – child development and child psychology, education, environmental psychology, architecture and landscape architecture. Some bridges among such disciplines are created and in some cases the ideas from the different areas of research merge: thus, this is an interdisciplinary study. The interdisciplinary knowledge from these disciplines is translated into a range of design suggestions that can foster the development of social competence and ecological literacy. Using scientific knowledge from different disciplines is a way of introducing forms of evidence into the development of design criteria. However, the definition of design criteria also has to pass through the study of a series of school buildings and un-built projects: case studies can give a positive contribution to the criteria because examples and good practices can help “translating” the theoretical knowledge into design ideas and illustrations. To do that, the different case studies have to be assessed in relation to the various themes that emerged in the literature review. Finally, research by design can be used to help define the illustrated design criteria: based on all the background knowledge that has been built, the role of the architect is to provide a series of different design solutions that can give answers to the different “questions” emerged in the literature review.

Innovative architecture of on-board and on-ground radio systems for space communication

The radio communication system is one of the most critical system of the overall satellite platform: it often represents the only way of communication, between a spacecraft and the Ground Segment or among a constellation of satellites. This thesis focuses on specific innovative architectures for on-board and on-ground radio systems. In particular, this work is an integral part of a space program started in 2004 at the University of Bologna, Forlì campus, which led to the completion of the microsatellite ALMASat-1, successfully launched on-board the VEGA maiden flight. The success of this program led to the development of a second microsatellite, named ALMASat-EO, a three-axis stabilized microsatellite able to capture images of the Earth surface. Therefore, the first objective of this study was focused on the investigation of an innovative, efficient and low cost architecture for on-board radio communication systems. The TT&C system and the high data rate transmitter for images downlink design and realization are thoroughly described in this work, together with the development of the embedded hardware and the adopted antenna systems. Moreover, considering the increasing interest in the development of constellations of microsatellite, in particular those flying in close formations, a careful analysis has been carried out for the development of innovative communication protocols for inter-satellite links. Furthermore, in order to investigate the system aspects of space communications, a study has been carried out at ESOC having as objective the design, implementation and test of two experimental devices for the enhancement of the ESA GS. Thus, a significant portion of this thesis is dedicated to the description of the results of a method for improving the phase stability of GS radio frequency equipments by means of real-time phase compensation and a new way to perform two antennas arraying tracking using already existing ESA tracking stations facilities.

The spatial representation of time

Numerosi studi mostrano che gli intervalli temporali sono rappresentati attraverso un codice spaziale che si estende da sinistra verso destra, dove gli intervalli brevi sono rappresentati a sinistra rispetto a quelli lunghi. Inoltre tale disposizione spaziale del tempo può essere influenzata dalla manipolazione dell’attenzione-spaziale. La presente tesi si inserisce nel dibattito attuale sulla relazione tra rappresentazione spaziale del tempo e attenzione-spaziale attraverso l’uso di una tecnica che modula l’attenzione-spaziale, ovvero, l’Adattamento Prismatico (AP). La prima parte è dedicata ai meccanismi sottostanti tale relazione. Abbiamo mostrato che spostando l’attenzione-spaziale con AP, verso un lato dello spazio, si ottiene una distorsione della rappresentazione di intervalli temporali, in accordo con il lato dello spostamento attenzionale. Questo avviene sia con stimoli visivi, sia con stimoli uditivi, nonostante la modalità uditiva non sia direttamente coinvolta nella procedura visuo-motoria di AP. Questo risultato ci ha suggerito che il codice spaziale utilizzato per rappresentare il tempo, è un meccanismo centrale che viene influenzato ad alti livelli della cognizione spaziale. La tesi prosegue con l’indagine delle aree corticali che mediano l’interazione spazio-tempo, attraverso metodi neuropsicologici, neurofisiologici e di neuroimmagine. In particolare abbiamo evidenziato che, le aree localizzate nell’emisfero destro, sono cruciali per l’elaborazione del tempo, mentre le aree localizzate nell’emisfero sinistro sono cruciali ai fini della procedura di AP e affinché AP abbia effetto sugli intervalli temporali. Infine, la tesi, è dedicata allo studio dei disturbi della rappresentazione spaziale del tempo. I risultati ci indicano che un deficit di attenzione-spaziale, dopo danno emisferico destro, provoca un deficit di rappresentazione spaziale del tempo, che si riflette negativamente sulla vita quotidiana dei pazienti. Particolarmente interessanti sono i risultati ottenuti mediante AP. Un trattamento con AP, efficace nel ridurre il deficit di attenzione-spaziale, riduce anche il deficit di rappresentazione spaziale del tempo, migliorando la qualità di vita dei pazienti.

Statistical Physics and Modeling of Human Mobility

In this thesis, we extend some ideas of statistical physics to describe the properties of human mobility. By using a database containing GPS measures of individual paths (position, velocity and covered space at a spatial scale of 2 Km or a time scale of 30 sec), which includes the 2% of the private vehicles in Italy, we succeed in determining some statistical empirical laws pointing out "universal" characteristics of human mobility. Developing simple stochastic models suggesting possible explanations of the empirical observations, we are able to indicate what are the key quantities and cognitive features that are ruling individuals' mobility. To understand the features of individual dynamics, we have studied different aspects of urban mobility from a physical point of view. We discuss the implications of the Benford's law emerging from the distribution of times elapsed between successive trips. We observe how the daily travel-time budget is related with many aspects of the urban environment, and describe how the daily mobility budget is then spent. We link the scaling properties of individual mobility networks to the inhomogeneous average durations of the activities that are performed, and those of the networks describing people's common use of space with the fractional dimension of the urban territory. We study entropy measures of individual mobility patterns, showing that they carry almost the same information of the related mobility networks, but are also influenced by a hierarchy among the activities performed. We discover that Wardrop's principles are violated as drivers have only incomplete information on traffic state and therefore rely on knowledge on the average travel-times. We propose an assimilation model to solve the intrinsic scattering of GPS data on the street network, permitting the real-time reconstruction of traffic state at a urban scale.

Improvement of photon transport model by including coupled photon-electron transport and kernel refinement

The first part of this work deals with the inverse problem solution in the X-ray spectroscopy field. An original strategy to solve the inverse problem by using the maximum entropy principle is illustrated. It is built the code UMESTRAT, to apply the described strategy in a semiautomatic way. The application of UMESTRAT is shown with a computational example. The second part of this work deals with the improvement of the X-ray Boltzmann model, by studying two radiative interactions neglected in the current photon models. Firstly it is studied the characteristic line emission due to Compton ionization. It is developed a strategy that allows the evaluation of this contribution for the shells K, L and M of all elements with Z from 11 to 92. It is evaluated the single shell Compton/photoelectric ratio as a function of the primary photon energy. It is derived the energy values at which the Compton interaction becomes the prevailing process to produce ionization for the considered shells. Finally it is introduced a new kernel for the XRF from Compton ionization. In a second place it is characterized the bremsstrahlung radiative contribution due the secondary electrons. The bremsstrahlung radiation is characterized in terms of space, angle and energy, for all elements whit Z=1-92 in the energy range 1–150 keV by using the Monte Carlo code PENELOPE. It is demonstrated that bremsstrahlung radiative contribution can be well approximated with an isotropic point photon source. It is created a data library comprising the energetic distributions of bremsstrahlung. It is developed a new bremsstrahlung kernel which allows the introduction of this contribution in the modified Boltzmann equation. An example of application to the simulation of a synchrotron experiment is shown.