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The Romanian rural household is the socio-economic unit for which the agricultural activity continues to be the main source of income or at least of supplementing incomes in the form of self-consumption; thus, most rural households overlap the agricultural household farms/peasant farms/small-sized farms. The actuality of this topic results from the ever increasing importance of small farms in the European Union, the literature highlighting their role in the production of environmental public goods, food security, preservation of traditions and local crafts, being the main driving engine of the rural area, with important role in the demographic, economic and social vitality of the Romanian countryside. The paper intends to establish a typology of the rural households in territorial profile according to the agricultural/non-agricultural employment level, to provide a first information on the degree of rural household dependency on the farming activity. The main working hypothesis is the following: the communities with numerous rural population and lower average age have a higher share of non-agricultural occupations. The methodology used is based on Pearson correlation method that can be positive (in the case of direct correlations) or negative (in the case of inverse correlation) between the avnalyzed variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper intends to establish a reciprocity relationship between the modernization and development level of the rural space, as main modernization-development point of the rural household. On the basis of the interdependence relation between rural area modernization and development, the paper aims to establish a typology of the modernization-development potential of rural areas from the socio-economic point of view, starting from the premise that there are significant differences between the rural areas. The starting point in establishing this reciprocity is the development of a theoretical model for the evaluation of the socio-economic modernization and development level of the rural space in terms of the modernization-development potential of the countryside. Having in view the concerns for a balanced economic and social development in the recent period as well as the multi-dimensional character of rural development, we have opted for a set of relevant indicators to reveal the socio-economic development level (in terms of economic performance and living standard) in the rural area across counties. In the paper, each social and economic indicator will be approached to reveal the gap between counties, and finally a hierarchy of counties according to the composite indicators will be established to capture the socio-economic modernization and development level of rural areas, as well as the interdependency between these two phenomena. The entire analysis will be made from the point of view of the main actor: the rural household. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rural household epitomizes the central socioeconomic unit of the vernacular village. The territorial resources, livestock and human capital shape the particular features of each place and zone. The present study relies upon field research, namely a questionnaire undertaken in 354 rural households across the counties from the North-east Development Region. The main conclusions highlight visible zonal differences among them, all with clear distinctive features that draw the traditional element of each zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural development has as main subject the rural space as a system in which the main components (natural resources, people) interfere and have a specific (economic, social, cultural, political, institutional) behaviour. The rural household is the main actor in the rural space, owner of the main (natural, human, economic, cultural) resources, which it uses at its own discretion and whose behavior is very important for the society where it belongs. The need for this study stems from the necessity of the Romanian rural household to get adapted to the new Romanian and European socio-economic development realities. Even though the modernization paradigm has been replaced by the rural development paradigm, the Romanian rural communities and agriculture must continue their modernization process, which had a sinuous evolution rather than a continuous constant evolution as in the case of the developed countries from Europe, taking into consideration the new orientations of the current rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the off grid areas of underdeveloped countries households use oil based lamps to carry out their day to day activities in the post dusk period. As a developing country, around 40% people in Bangladesh do not have access to electricity and mainly rely on oil based lamps after dusk. The luminous output of theses lamps is extremely small and causes continuous strain in the eyes which ultimately produces serious eye defects. Moreover, the toxic fumes emitted from these lamps seriously affect the general health of the village households. Also there are cases of fire and burn injuries from these lamps. Normally poor households are not inclined to purchase solar home system due to high investment cost. Lighting based on solar Home systems (SHS) provides a risk free and long term economically viable alternative to the oil based lamps. The light output from the lamps connected to SHS is about 100∼150 times more than oil based lamps with almost no emission of toxic gases in the operating areas. Although the investment cost appears to be too high for solar home system, but considering the cost involved (termed as hidden cost) due to medical treatment and fire hazards may surpass the investment cost of solar Home System. In this paper, the hidden costs involved for the use of oil based lamps and the actual operating cost to run these lamps have been highlighted and a comparative study has been made to show that considering the hidden cost and the running cost of the oil lamps, SHS will be cheaper than the oil based lamps offering numerous additional benefits to the households. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Smart Grid is being considered in power systems industry for its vast potentials in providing numerous benefits that include efficient management, self-healing of the network and dynamic pricing. Such a concept can also be applied in managing grid networks that contain renewable energy sources such solar panel, wind and biogas based plants. Renewable energy (RE) sources and the related technology present themselves as important alternatives to conventional energy sources in Bangladesh that is experiencing an acute shortage of electricity supply. RE sources and the associated loads can be operated in a mini grid fashion, and load management and intelligent control of such grids can be achieved through the use of smart grid technology. This paper proposes smart grid operating techniques for efficient management of a mini grid connecting RE sources to household loads in a rural environment. The proposed techniques indicate that smart grid concepts can have useful applications for grid systems based on RE sources. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The present paper aims to assess to what extent the rural development policies have had any impact on the Romanian rural household. For this purpose, it was decided to develop a theoretical model for assessing the degree of modernization and socioeconomic development of rural areas from the perspective of increasing the rural household welfare. This was achieved taking into consideration the following dimensions of the rural space: natural-anthropic, demographic, social and economic; for each dimension a set of indicators were selected considered relevant for the investigated issue. These indicators lay at the basis of a composite indicator meant to make a diagnosis of the modernization and development degree of the rural area at a given moment, in order to provide proper solutions/directions for rural development policies. To capture the impact of rural development policies on the rural area and on the rural household implicitly, the paper will analyse the correlations between the rural development measures implemented in the programming period 2007-2013 and the composite index of rural modernization and socio-economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]