Romanian Space Research Articles

Optimizing human thermal comfort and mitigating the urban heat island effect on public open spaces in Rome, Italy through sustainable design strategies

The climate affects how a city’s outdoor spaces are utilized. It is more likely that people will use and appreciate public areas designed for pedestrian use, such as parks, squares, streets, and foot-cycle pathways, when they provide a comfortable and healthy environment. A predicted increase in global temperature has made the climate uncomfortable, especially during the summer when heat stress is strengthened and anticipated. This phenomenon is more severe in urban areas, often affected by the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. Since the spatial characteristics of a city influence its climate, urban design can be deployed to mitigate the combined effects of climate change and UHI. This research is conducted to study the UHI effect on thermal comfort in an urban open space in Rome (Italy) and aims at identifying and implementing a methodology that urban designers can follow to reduce the impact of urban heat islands and increase thermal comfort in urban outdoor space. This study is based on an urban design concept adopting the Sustainable Development Goals as guidelines; it investigates how UHI’s effect affects the use of public space and examines the influence of urban microclimatic conditions on the thermal perception of users through PET, PMV and PPD values, that were assessed through simulations with ENVI-MET software. The study thus proposes a redesign for the site in Rome, with a masterplan based on sustainable design principles, aimed at improving the microclimatic conditions in the site. The design solution was then validated through ex post simulations.

Constantin Stere’s View on the Self-Government of Romania’s Sub-National Territorial Collectivities in the First Decades of the 20th Century

Contemporary democratic states make a clear distinction between the matters of national importance and those of regional or local importance. The population of sub-national territorial collectivities, by means of the elected deliberative or executive public authorities, handle an important part of the regional- and local-interest affairs. Thus, the level of local self-government development may be deemed an index of democratic development of the contemporary states. A century ago, the professor, publicist, writer and politician Constantin Stere (1865–1936) used to treat the issues of sub-national territorial collectivity self-government considering the historical, national, and mainly rural particularities in the Romanian area. C. Stere considered that the local self-government phenomenon might and could be treated just starting from the necessity of upholding human rights and liberties, especially the right to elect and be elected within the deliberative and executive public authorities. The results of C. Stere’s research have not lost their relevance and may serve as theoretical grounds for the study and settlement of issues regarding public affairs governance at regional and local level in the contemporary Romanian space

Media framing of artificial intelligence: an analysis of framing in Romanian online publications

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly at the center of public discourse. Considering the current importance of AI technologies, but also the influence that the mass media has on users' adoption of new technologies and their regulation, the article aims to analyze the attitudes of online publications in Romania towards AI. By using content analysis, the attitudes and themes of 100 articles selected from the most visited Romanian news websites were examined. The results reveal a relatively balanced distribution of attitudes, with 37% of articles expressing negative sentiments, 35% positive and 28% neutral. The most frequently addressed topics include the impact on jobs, especially the negative one, regulations in the field and new functionalities. Compared to the publications in English, as can be seen from the specialized literature, the Romanian articles present a more balanced attitude towards technology, with less emphasis on the dangers. However, the analysis shows that current events can strongly influence public discourse, and approaches vary by publication. These findings suggest a diverse debate, subject to rapid changes, with important implications for AI communication, education and policy in the Romanian space.

Monuments of Italian Colonialism as a Transcultural Heritage

This essay addresses the material legacies of Italian colonialism, reframing them as a transcultural heritage. With a focus on the complex interplay between memory and displacement, the study retraces the biographies of selected historical monuments from the late nineteenth century to fascism up until postcolonial Italy. Comparing the life and afterlives of the Monument to the Fallen Soldiers of Dogali, still preserved in a public space in Rome, with monuments implicated in processes of restitution, such as the Axum Stele and the statue of the Lion of Judah, both returned to Ethiopia, the essay reflects upon the dynamics of invisibility and absence, examining decolonial claims, and new layers of memory that currently overlap in politically charged spaces.

Moldovan Democratic Republic and the imperative of national unity (1917–1918)

The present study argues that the Union of Bessarabia with the mother country, Romania, on March 27, 1918 gave expression to the natural tendency of Bessarabian Romanians to return to the ancestral hearth, representing in the complex circumstances of 1918 an authentic salvation not only for the national being in Bessarabia, but also for its consolidation and expansion democratic values throughout the Romanian space. The author emphasizes that the determining importance of Bessarabia's return its motherland made the dissolution of the Moldavian Democratic Republic perceived as a moment of inevitable separation, the popular hopes being tied to the Romanian state from now on. It is mentioned that the embryonic statehood of the territory between Prut and Dniester, as an expression of national self-determination, was a useful, important and legitimate vehicle and means in the complicated process of unchaining and finding the two banks of the Prut River. It is concluded that giving up a statehood that they did not have the resources to fully assume, which could become an easy prey for expansionist desires, the Romanians from Bessarabia, as well as the neighboring ethnic groups, have gained, instead, an entire country, part of the free European space.

National Sovereignty and Territorial Unification of the Romanian Space: An Intergenerational Concept

The Romanian Constitution of 1923 is framed on the backdrop of a long historical journey, lasting more than a century, of state-building and the emergence of a specific Romanian constitutional tradition. The aim is to retrace this path in its broad phases, attempting to explain it in the light of an interpretative scheme based on a generational approach, taken as a measure of periodization and as an expression of historical and political continuities and changes. The article shows the relevance in Romanian political culture of the principle of national sovereignty, expressed in the concepts of the unity of the state’s territory and independence. Going back to the first reform projects in the first half of the nineteenth century, the article outlines the main attempts at political change based on the link between national integration and territorial unification: from the Romanian national initiatives of the first half of the century (with special attention to the 1848 Revolution) to the Constitution of 1866 and the new reality of Greater Romania after the First World War. A substantial continuity of values and ideas is outlined, assessing the intergenerational dimension of the concept of national sovereignty in Romanian political culture.

Conceptual clarifications on some terms related to the modernization of the villages of Wallachia in 1831-1858: systematization, regularization, alignment

The research undertaken here focuses on the urban modernization of the villages of Wallachia from the period of the Organic Regulation (1831-1858). It intends to specify the semantic sense of the terms by which this modernization is expressed: systematization, regularization, alignment. For this, I do the analysis of archival documents and works related to the systematization of villages. The study identifies specific limitations and definitions by the authors' field of activity and specifies the semantic evolution of the term systematization with reference to the regulatory period. The research and its conclusions allow a better understanding of the process of modernization and Europeanization through which the Romanian space and by extension, the South-Eastern European space went through in the first half of the 19th century. With clear concepts we have a right definition of the entire historical process.

Colaborarea dintre Armată și Biserică în prima jumătate a secolului al XX-lea

The process of secularisation, which started with the French Revolution in the late 18th century, was at its peak in the twentieth century when the Church was besieged by atheist regimes that emerged from the ashes of former empires after the First World War. However, the reverberations of this European anticlerical phenomenon were affected by the peculiarities of the Romanian space. Here, the church was called an auxiliary of the state, the support of the Church in preserving the state integrity being a constant throughout the centuries of existence of the Romanian people. This support was all the more visible in the first half of the twentieth century when the Romanian people fought for survival and national wholeness. These issues will be addressed, through the historical research method, during this article.

Collaboration between the Army and the Church in the First Half of the Twentieth Century

The process of secularisation, which started with the French Revolution in the late 18th century, was at its peak in the twentieth century when the Church was besieged by atheist regimes that emerged from the ashes of former empires after the First World War. However, the reverberations of this European anticlerical phenomenon were affected by the peculiarities of the Romanian space. Here, the church was called an auxiliary of the state, the support of the Church in preserving the state integrity being a constant throughout the centuries of existence of the Romanian people. This support was all the more visible in the first half of the twentieth century when the Romanian people fought for survival and national wholeness. These issues will be addressed, through the historical research method, during this article.

Chipuri și veșminte de sfinți ierarhi în Moldova secolului al XV-lea

The present article aims to bring attention to a new topic of Romanian medieval art centered on the figure of the holy hierarch represented in the frescoes of Orthodox churches in Moldova in the 15th century. During this study, the types of holy hierarchs are identified according to the clothes in which they are clothed, the connection between the liturgical context in which they are painted and the pieces of clothing they wear. The entire study is built on an analytical and comparative working method that brought frescoes of the Romanian space face to face with those of the neighboring territories.

Character identities in monodrama

The article addresses the specifics of the monodrama at the level of text and performance, the main objective being the ways of expressing the identity dimension of the character in such an artistic form. Considering the protean character of the monodrama, some aspects of the evolution of this type of artistic communication are exposed, highlighting its specific features: the combination of the epic with the lyric at the level of structuring the subject, the monologue as a way of creating conflicts and of developing inner action, the improvisational character, etc. Emphasis is placed on the typology of the character at the level of monodrama - psychodrama relationship, thus revealing the ways of affirming and manifesting the character’s identity/identities in the text and in the performance. The analyzed dramaturgical texts and the theatrical discourses reflect the specificity of monodrama in the Romanian space.

Psychosocial Integration Of Foreign Students Within The Faculty Of Dental Medicine In Craiova

Intercultural education in the Romanian space is an insufficiently addressed topic. Against the background of the significant increase in foreign students who choose to study at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Craiova, as well as the implementation of study programs in English which in turn have attracted many students from both European and non-EU countries we decided to develop a study aimed at the socio-cultural integration capacity of students at the Faculty of Dental Medicine in Craiova with a teaching program in English. The general objectives of the study aim at the following aspects: the degree of social integration of students; degree of satisfaction of educational needs; the effectiveness of the feedback system; problems encountered throughout the years of study: conflicts, discrimination phenomena, etc.the quality of courses and internships compared to their countries of origin. The target group of the study is represented by the students of Dental Medicine from Craiova, within the teaching program in English, study years I-III. The students who participated in this study come from both EU and non-EU member states. The total number of students enrolled in this study program is 93, and in our study a total of 71 respondents gave their informed consent to complete the distributed questionnaire.

Contribuția Bibliotecii „Ștefan cel Mare” din Suceava la afirmarea diversității culturale în Bucovina

The library of the “Stefan cel Mare” University of Suceava is a library of public law, without legal personality, subordinated to the Rectorate and the Senate of the university, being financed from the university’s budget. The main users are students and teachers, but there is also a growing number of beneficiaries in the community. Within the library there are many cultural activities with openness to the general public of Suceava: the Alma Mater Librorum International Book Fair, the symposium dedicated to the “Librarianʼs Day”, the homage meetings under the generic “The Man and the Book”, the “Mihai Eminescu” Days, the University Days, the reading campaign “I Read, therefore I Live”, “Școala altfel”, “Open Doors Days” etc. The main services offered by our Library are: development, record keeping and organization of collections, interlibrary exchange, cataloguing and indexing of collections, documentary information, designing bibliographic references, keeping and preserving collections, circulation of collection publications, public relations, and librarian loan. The dynamics of the activities of the University Library in Suceava imposed the appearance of the first issue of the libraryʼs magazine: “The contribution of the library to the affirmation of cultural diversity in the Romanian space”. Institutional partnerships are being updated and multiplying significantly from one stage of library development to another and international openness is manifested by the signing of new protocols, participation in programs such as Erasmus or “Eugène Ionesco”, and involvement in bilateral conventions of the university. The entire activity that the university library staff carries out at the highest level of professionalism and vocation is directly reflected in the quality of the activities specific to a library, to which are added the important contribution to the promotion of cultural values in local, regional, and European communities.

The Radar Signal Processor of the First Romanian Space Surveillance Radar

This paper describes the work for the radar signal processor, the core of the Cheia space surveillance radar. It presents the basic operation, the requirements and the achieved processing performance together with a description of optimizations both in terms of signal-to-noise ratio and in terms of software processing. The Cheia Radar is financed by the European Space Agency and will be used for the tracking of low Earth orbit objects and for refining the international catalogs of space objects.

Byzantine monodic singing from the Romanian space versus polyphonic religious singing: divergences and convergences

Among the agents of the infiltration of polyphony in native religious singing are the reforming current, coming from the West through Transylvania, as well as the act of uniting with Rome a part of Transylvanian Romanians (1701). Catholic choral pieces are insinuated in Psalter manuscripts, including the curious phenomenon of the transposition of polyphonic religious singing into the Byzantine semiographic system. The two components — monodic and polyphonic — are also meet in Moldova. In 1782 during the abbotship of Paisie Velicikovski, a choir of Russian monks was established, who practiced harmonic singing (along with native monks who, traditionally, sang monodically) at Neamts Monastery. In the first half of the 19th century, the contacts of psalter music with polyphonic religious music intensified. The presence of choral singing was signaled in several cultural centers in the researched area (Arad, Bucharest, Iasi). As time goes on, psalter singing is competing more and more dangerously with harmonic singing, things being pushed to a fierce confrontation between the two currents. The saving solution for keeping the balance between continuity and renewal is seen by the bishop Melchizedek of Roman.

Figuri de sfinți ierarhi in iconografia ortodoxă de secol XIV în spațiul românesc

"Figures of Holy Hierarchs in the Fourteenth Century Orthodox Iconography in the Romanian Space. The present study aims to establish cultural interconnections both between Wallachia and Transylvania and between them and the areas of Eastern and Western artistic influence, with the aim of identifying the transfer of clothing models from one cultural area to another, as well as to identify the reason behind the implementation of some of the figures of hierarchs in the mural theme of some of the churches. The paper notes several types of hierarchical figures organized according to the type of clothing and the context in which they are depicted. The representations of the holy hierarchs in the 14th century fresco reveal political, confessional and cultural links internally between the Romanian Countries, but especially externally, between them and the Western-Italian and Eastern-Constantinopolitan and Balkan areas. The origins of the hierarchical models reveal not only the areas of artistic influence but also a desire to affirm the newly established orthodox metropolitanates church and principalities in the Romanian Countries by adopting a predominantly monastic iconographic canon, as confessional validation in the face of Catholic proselytism. Keywords: Transylvania, Wallachia, XIV century, clothing types, cultural interference, Balkan countries, Constantinople, the West. "

Aspects of Political Theology in the Spiritual Autobiography of Nicolae Steinhardt

Important personality of the Romanian space, the Jew Nicolae Steinhardt that will discover the Christianity in prison and will be baptised in Jilava prison, will be not only an intellectual with ecumenical vocation, but also a writer that offers a rich testimony about the way how Communism from the Romanian space can not only ruin a life, but also make one to come closer to God and arrive to a deeper consciousness of the real values of life and spirituality that will therefore be connected to the cultural space, seen as an alternative and a form of survival in the Prison life. Both the experience that he had as an imprisoned for political reasons, like the one after his release will be emphasized in his discontinuous journal and therefore aspects like political theology will come as outcomes of his experiences or as forms of presenting the conclusions of his lectures. Contribution: Based on The diary of happiness, the most important and the most translated work of Nicolae Steinhardt (translated in 20 languages), that constitutes also an important part of the samizdat literature from Romania during the Communist period, the present research emphasizes the way how Steinhardt’s spiritual autobiography comes in contact with the political theology, bringing into attention the pillars of his conception.

The Nexus between Sustainable Behaviour of Tourists from Generation Z and the Factors That Influence the Protection of Environmental Quality

In a context in which tourism is considered to favour the degradation of the environment, it is important to promote forms of travel with low environmental impact. Globally, studies have shown a good understanding and increased receptivity to the practice of sustainable forms of travel among tourists. Therefore, this study proposes an analysis of the nexus between sustainable behaviour of tourists from Generation Z and the factors that influence the protection of environmental quality. The research methodology included the development and application of a questionnaire on a sample of 492 tourists belonging to Generation Z, with travel experience. The results showed nexus among the analysed factors and the Cronbach Alpha score for the latent variables: cultural factors (α = 0.769), personal factors (α = 0.829), psychological factors (α = 0.809), technological factors (α = 0.800), sustainable behaviour of young tourists (α = 0.910), social factors (α = 0.857) and conservation of the environmental quality (α = 0.906). The hypothesis regarding the testing of tourists’ sustainable behaviour in nexus with the protection of the environment quality was confirmed, even if the results of testing the nexus between the social factors and sustainable behaviour of Generation Z Romanian tourists could not be considered statistically significant. However, the study represents a contribution to the literature in a field concerned with this aspect of sustainability and interest, which is constantly growing, and for which, at least until now, there have been no studies in the literature pertaining to Romanian space.

Ridurre le disuguaglianze sociali e culturali fin dai primi anni di vita. Buone prassi di contrasto alla povertà educativa negli Spazi Mamme di Roma e Brindisi

The health emergency caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has considerably exacerbated situations at risk of social exclusion, leaving many families and children on the “margins”. Children seem to be paying the greatest consequence, in the first place, as they risk seeing their right to participate in quality education limited. In light of this premise, in this article we will present the results of a research-training experience carried out in partnership with Save the Children within Mothers’ Spaces in Rome and Brindisi, Italy, in order to illustrate how the educational action of these services can be a useful starting point for reflecting on educational actions capable of actively involving children and families and orienting post-emergency educational practices towards social inclusion. In particular, we will focus on the actions taken with regard to the 0-6 age group, which has been considered the one most at risk compared to the problems caused by the pandemic, focusing attention on activities to contain the Learning Loss caused by the prolonged closure of ECEC services during the lockdown.

Innovative Contributions to the Art of Established Word Games

Over the last 50-60 years, the art of interpretation on Pan flute has developed considerably, which is conditioned by technical improvement of the instrument, setting up pan flute classes at special musical institutions in the republic. In particular, however, this process has been marked by the artistic activity of some famous pan flute – Gheorghe Zamfir, Simion Stanciu, Boris Rudenco, Vasile Iovu and others – players who have taken the fame of this instrument away from the country's borders. The Article is dedicated to analysing the contributions made by renowned pan flute players in this respect from the point of view of their artistic activities and of interpretation techniques, which, at the time of their appearance, were innovative steps in the way of the universal contemporary affirmation of this instrument. The problem is addressed from the diacritical - evolution and cultural perspectives that refer to the Romanian space, European and universal space, one of the purposes of the article is to shaping and complete the international path of the pan flute, in the light of the innovations brought into the art of interpretation during the defined period.