Social aspects of organic agriculture and other multifunctional benefits - Successful EU models compared with possibilities for organic developments in Croatia

Main objective of the dissertation is to illustrate how social and educational aspects (in close interaction with other multifunctional aspects in organic agriculture) which are developed on different multifunctional organic farms in Italy and Netherlands, as well as established agricultural policy frameworks in these countries, can be compared with the situation in Croatian organics and can contribute to further developent of organic issues in the Repubic of Croatia. So, through different chapters, the dissertation describes the performance of organic agriculture sectors in Italy, Netherlands and Croatia within the national agricultural policy frameworks, it analyzes the role of national institutions and policy in Croatia in connection with Croatia's status of candidate country for enterance into EU and harmonization of legislation with the CAP, as well as analyzes what is the role of national authorities, universities, research centres, but also of private initiatives, NGOs and cooperatives in organic agriculture in Netherlands, Italy and Croatia. Its main part describes how social and educational aspects are interacting with other multifunctional aspects in organic agriculture and analyzes the benefits and contribution of multifunctional activites performed on organic farms to education, healthy nourishment, environment protection and health care. It also assess the strengths and weaknesses of organic agriculture in all researched countries. The dissertation concludes with development opportunities for multifunctional organic agriculture in Croatia, as well as giving perspectives and recommendations for different approaches on the basis of experiences learned from successful EU models accompanied with some personal ideas and proposals.

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.

Safety, Security And safeguards In GEN IV sodium fast reactors

This work presents first a study of the national and international laws in the fields of safety, security and safeguards. The international treaties and the recommendations issued by the IAEA as well as the national regulations in force in France, the United States and Italy are analyzed. As a result of this, a comparison among them is presented. Given the interest of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency for the aspects of criminal penalties and monetary, also the Japanese case is analyzed. The main part of this work was held at the JAEA in the field of proliferation resistance (PR) and physical protection (PP) of a GEN IV sodium fast reactor. For this purpose the design of the system is completed and the PR & PP methodology is applied to obtain data usable by designers for the improvement of the system itself. Due to the presence of sensitive data, not all the details can be disclosed. The reactor site of a hypothetical and commercial sodium-cooled fast neutron nuclear reactor system (SFR) is used as the target NES for the application of the methodology. The methodology is applied to all the PR and PP scenarios: diversion, misuse and breakout; theft and sabotage. The methodology is applied to the SFR to check if this system meets the target of PR and PP as described in the GIF goal; secondly, a comparison between the SFR and a LWR is performed to evaluate if and how it would be possible to improve the PR&PP of the SFR. The comparison is implemented according to the example development target: achieving PR&PP similar or superior to domestic and international ALWR. Three main actions were performed: implement the evaluation methodology; characterize the PR&PP for the nuclear energy system; identify recommendations for system designers through the comparison.