Place Attachment Among Older Adults Living in Four Communities in Flanders,Belgium

There is strong evidence that age brings an increasing attachment to social and physical environments. However, the extent to which the experience of place attachment may vary between different types of locations remains underexplored in ageing research. Using a mixed-method approach consisting of two consecutive phases, this article aims to identify contextual factors that either promote or impede older people's attachment to place. In the first phase, quantitative data from the Belgian Ageing Studies were used to purposively select four municipalities: two with relatively strong and two with relatively weak place attachments among the older population. In the second, qualitative phase, two focus groups with local stakeholders and 20 semi-structured interviews with older residents were conducted in each of the four case study areas in order to explain and build on the quantitative results. The qualitative findings focus on two contextual factors that have been linked to place attachment: the physical–spatial environment and population turnover. The study identifies the various pathways between these factors and older people's attachments. The article concludes by discussing practical and policy issues raised by the research.     

Animated Times: Critical Transitions and the Maintenance of Field-Configuring Events

Recent research has pointed to the challenge facing recurrent field-configuring events (FCEs) in trying to remain dominant in their fields over sustained periods. Based on a revelatory historical case study of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival, the leading FCE in its field, this paper explores how a field-configuring role can be maintained over time. We focus specifically on the FCE organization, and highlight the importance of critical transitions, relatively short periods of time when fundamental changes were made to its formal and informal governance rules, which redefined the event's identity and scope, and thus ensured it remained the dominant event for field participants. In terms of the organizational dynamics facilitating critical transitions, we emphasize the importance of conflict as a driver of change, as well as the particular role of local stakeholders in renewing FCEs that are organized recurrently in the same location.     

Roadmap to master the complexity of process operation to help operators improve safety, productivity and reduce environmental impact

There is now on the market a profusion of technological devices to build plants. These devices are standardized to facilitate their dissemination and integration. The standards are technology driven because they are mainly elaborated by vendors for the design and delivery of complex plants. Operating plants means to control, maintain and manage them. Plants are operated by skilled operators, whose knowledge is mainly acquired by experience and feedback. The aim of this paper is to pave the way to master the complexity of plant operation, through explicit representation, and to help operators improve safety, productivity and reduce environmental impact.     

Study of a continuous reactor for selective solvent extraction of haemorphins in the course of peptic haemoglobin hydrolysis

The continuous hydrolysis of bovine haemoglobin at pH 3 in a triphasic reactor was studied in order to prepare two pure transient and hydrophobic opioid peptides in one step. A continuous stirred‐tank reactor was designed to extract continuously and selectively LVV‐haemorphin‐7 and VV‐haemorphin‐7 by a butan‐2‐ol–octan‐1‐ol mixture in the course of bovine haemoglobin hydrolysis by pepsin immobilised on A568 Duolite resin. The residence time in the aqueous and organic phases was maintained at 1 h. This system allowed a steady state to be achieved for haemorphin concentrations in each phase and the pepsin stability to be maintained. Finally, success was achieved in producing and extracting continuously the two haemorphins in the aqueous/butan‐2‐ol–octan‐1‐ol biphasic medium for more than 10 bed volumes of the reactor. Copyright © 2006 Society of Chemical Industry     

Denial of responsibility: A new mode of dissonance reduction.

Denial of responsibility as a mode of dissonance reduction and the conditions under which it is likely to occur were explored in 3 experiments. Two experiments tested and supported the hypothesis that following a counterattitudinal behavior, participants prefer the mode of reduction made available to them first, regardless of whether it is attitude change, trivialization, or denial of responsibility. The 3rd experiment tested and supported the hypothesis that denial of responsibility reduces the negative affective state induced by dissonance. The mechanism of denial of responsibility in dissonance reduction is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

一种用于道路车辆跟踪的多目标数据关联方法

数据关联是多目标跟踪的一个重要部分，作者对基于证据合成和简易JPDA的数据关联方法进行了比较。蒙特卡罗仿真结果表明，基于证据合成的方法可以改善跟踪精度，能适应目标数目不确定的场合。     

Setting, elaborating, and reflecting on personal goals improves academic performance.

Of students who enroll in 4-year universities, 25% never finish. Precipitating causes of early departure include poor academic progress and lack of clear goals and motivation. In the present study, we investigated whether an intensive, online, written, goal-setting program for struggling students would have positive effects on academic achievement. Students (N = 85) experiencing academic difficulty were recruited to participate in a randomized, controlled intervention. Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 intervention groups: Half completed the goal-setting program, and half completed a control task with intervention-quality face validity. After a 4-month period, students who completed the goal-setting intervention displayed significant improvements in academic performance compared with the control group. The goal-setting program thus appears to be a quick, effective, and inexpensive intervention for struggling undergraduate students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Numerical study of the impact of fluid density on the pressure distribution and stimulated volume in the Soultz HDR reservoir

During the last 5 years the European hot dry rock project (HDR) at Soultz-sous-Forêts (France) has made significant progress. Three approx. 5000-m deep wells have been drilled into the crystalline basement and hydraulically stimulated. These operations have provided a great deal of information on the subsurface, especially from the interpretation of the monitored induced microseismic events. To better understand the development and hydraulic behaviour of the fractured reservoir, a numerical model based on a discrete fracture network approach has been written to interpret and predict the pressure distribution in the HDR reservoir. The hydraulic part of this finite volume code is strongly coupled with the mechanical behaviour of the fractures.Recent modelling studies have demonstrated that the density difference between the in situ (native) reservoir fluid (density 1060 kg/m³) and the injected fluid (dense brine or fresh water) might play a significant role in the hydraulic stimulation of the reservoir. The decision was therefore taken to enhance the numerical code, under the assumption of immiscibility of the two fluids.The improved code permits us to evaluate the impact of fluid density differences on the pressure distribution in the reservoir during stimulation or fluid circulation tests. It provides better estimates on both the extension and shape of the stimulated areas, and can be used to define new stimulation strategies. The code has also been successful in predicting changes in fluid flow distributions in the reservoir, especially in fractures intersecting the wells, as well as in estimating trace breakthrough times.     

Optimal Coding and Sampling of Triangulations

We present a bijection between the set of plane triangulations (aka maximal planar graphs) and a simple subset of the set of plane trees with two leaves adjacent to each node. The construction takes advantage of Schnyder tree decompositions of plane triangulations. This bijection yields an interpretation of the formula for the number of plane triangulations with n vertices. Moreover, the construction is simple enough to induce a linear random sampling algorithm, and an explicit information theory optimal encoding. Finally, we extend our bijection approach to triangulations of a polygon with k sides with m inner vertices, and develop in passing new results about Schnyder tree decompositions for these objects.