Public Policy and Renewal of Old Housing: The Case of Nord-Pas-de-Calais

The rules and laws enforced in France in 1977 regarding the policy of old housing renewal have extended public intervention to the whole housing stock built before 1948. It came as a complement to the 1962 Malraux Law which exclusively concerned old city centres whose architectural value was preserved. Has the objective put forward to improve old housing by maintaining their residents (tenants and owner occupiers) been reached? The public policy of old housing renewal and its consequences on social occupancy are analysed in their relation to the ownership structure and to the property strategies of the actors who finance this rehabilitation. The paper examines Nord-Pas-de-Calais, one of the regions in France where the old housing stock is the lowest in quality. As for the social changes in the occupancy of these neighbourhoods, our 1995 study confirmed the results obtained in 1988. Four years after the end of the improvement programmes, these neighbourhoodshave retained a residential function for working-class occupants. However, two new trends emerged. On the one hand, despite a better integration of old housing in the policies implemented by local authorities since the 1982-83 decentralisation law, the incentive role of state aids to renewal is increasingly limited. On the other hand, property disinvestment has only been partially reduced. Some housing units remain unimproved and some buildings remain unoccupied. The housing supply is higher than the demand. Ownership of old housing is undermined by demand for housing estates in suburban areas.     

The importance of callous–unemotional traits for extending the concept of psychopathy to children.

This study focused on the use of callous–unemotional (CU) traits to identify a subgroup of children with both attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and a conduct problem diagnosis (oppositional defiant disorder [ODD] or conduct disorder [CD]) who show characteristics similar to adults with psychopathy. In a clinic-referred sample of children aged 6 to 13 years (N?=?154), those with diagnoses of both ADHD and ODD/CD were divided on the basis of teacher ratings of CU traits. Children high on these traits showed features typically associated with psychopathy, such as a lack of fearfulness and a reward-dominant response style. Furthermore, children with CU traits seemed less distressed by their behavior problems. These findings are consistent with research on adults showing that impulsivity and antisocial behavior alone are insufficient to document persons who fit the construct of psychopathy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relational and overt aggression in preschool.

This research was designed as an initial attempt to assess relational aggression in preschool-age children. Our goal was to develop reliable measures of relational aggression for young children and to use these instruments to address several important issues (e.g., the relation between this form of aggression and social–psychological adjustment). Results provide evidence that relationally aggressive behaviors appear in children's behavioral repertoires at relatively young ages, and that these behaviors can be reliably distinguished from overtly aggressive behaviors in preschool-age children. Further, findings indicate that preschool girls are significantly more relationally aggressive and less overtly aggressive than preschool boys. Finally, results show that relational aggression is significantly related to social–psychological maladjustment (e.g., peer rejection) for both boys and girls. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences in 4-year-old children's acquisition of vocabulary during storybook reading.

Two experiments were conducted to assess how children who differ in vocabulary knowledge learn new vocabulary incidentally from listening to stories read aloud. In both experiments, 4-yr-old children were classified as having either high or low word knowledge on the basis of a median split of their Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Revised (PPVT—R) standard scores. In Exp 1, children either listened passively or labeled pictures using novel words during the book readings. We found that children with larger vocabularies produced more novel words than did children with smaller vocabularies, and children who answered questions during the book readings comprehended and produced more words than did children who passively listened to the story. In Exp 2, children either listened to readings of a book, pointed to pictures during the readings, or labeled pictures during the readings. Children with larger vocabularies comprehended more novel words than did children with smaller vocabularies. Children who actively participated by labeling or pointing learned more words than did children who listened passively to book readings. Findings clarify the role of active responding by demonstrating that verbal and nonverbal responding are effective means of enhancing vocabulary acquisition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A listener's investigation of printed word processing.

Examines the time course of lexical access in written-word recognition by comparing words with early and late uniqueness points (UPs). Three experiments, which used a normal (simultaneous) presentation of the letters under 3 different tasks (gender classification, naming, and semantic classification) provided no evidence for sequential processing. Rather, a small advantage in favor of words with late UP was found, which may be interpreted in terms of the lower n-gram frequencies of early-UP words. Exp 4 supported this interpretation and discussed an alternative interpretation in terms of parafoveal preview of the initial letters. A last experiment, which used an incremental presentation of the word letters, gave rise to a UP effect comparable in size to that obtained in an auditory study, suggesting that a temporal distribution of the signal is a sufficient condition for directional processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Edge Stress Intensity Functions in Polyhedral Domains and their Extraction by a Quasidual Function Method

The solution to elastic isotropic problems in three-dimensional (3-D) polyhedral domains in the vicinity of an edge is provided in an explicit form. It involves a family of eigen-functions with their shadows, and the associated edge stress intensity functions (ESIFs), which are functions along the edges. Utilizing the explicit structure of the solution in the vicinity of the edge we use the quasidual function method, recently presented in [Omer et al. (2004). International Journal of Fracture 129:97–130] for scalar elliptic problems and in [Costabel et al. (2004). SIAM Journal of Mathematical Analysis 35(5), 1177–1202] in a general theoretical framework, for the extraction of ESIFs. This method provides a polynomial approximation of the ESIF along the edge whose order is adaptively increased so to approximate the exact ESIF. It is implemented as a post-solution operation in conjunction with the p-version finite element method. Numerical examples are provided in which we extract ESIFs associated with traction free or homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions in 3-D cracked domains or 3-D V-Notched domains. These demonstrate the efficiency, robustness and high accuracy of the proposed quasi-dual function method.     

The work load of warehouse workers in three different working systems

An investigation was conducted in five companies in the distribution branch. These companies were divided into three different working systems, i.e., highly mechanized (HM), moderately mechanized (MM), and slightly mechanized (SM). The three systems differed in logistics and kind of appliances used. The purpose of this study was to compare the three working systems with different degrees of mechanization concerning the time spent on tasks, activities during the working day, postures that occurred, physiological work load, perceived exertion and recovery from work. To investigate the different tasks, activities and working postures, 50 warehouse workers, originating from the three working systems, were observed by means of a direct observation method, called: ‘TRAC’. To investigate the physiological work load the heart rate was recorded continuously during the working day and related to the individually determined relation between heart rate and oxygen uptake. This relation was constructed with the results of a cycle ergometer test done in the laboratory. During lunch and at the end of the working day the warehouse workers filled in a questionnaire concerning their perceived exertion and recovery from work.

In the slightly mechanized system more time was spent with the trunk flexed more than 75° as compared with the other two systems. This posture was very common during lifting of objects, and lifting was done more often in this system than in the other systems. In the MM system the warehouse workers had the highest estimated oxygen uptake and reported the highest perceived exertion at the end of the working day. The workers in the HM system had a shorter working day and had less problems with recovery from work than the workers of the other two systems. Poor working postures like rotation and lateroflexion were commonly found in the HM working system. An important explanation was the difference in time spent driving an electric car. This activity was done mostly in the HM system. In conclusion, the HM system was considered most favourable when it concerned work load and recovery from work. The appliances used in the HM system, and especially the electric car, need to be designed according to ergonomic guidelines to avoid poor working postures.     

Management and enterprise architecture click: The FAD(E)E framework

Enterprises are living things. They constantly need to be (re-)architected in order to achieve the necessary agility, alignment and integration. This paper gives a high-level overview of how companies can go about doing ‘enterprise architecture’ in the context of both the classic (isolated) enterprise and the Extended Enterprise. By discussing the goals that are pursued in an enterprise architecture effort we reveal some basic requirements that can be put on the process of architecting the enterprise. The relationship between managing and architecting the enterprise is discussed and clarified in the FAD(E)E, the Framework for the Architectural Development of the (Extended) Enterprise. Frank G. Goethals completed his Master studies in economics (option informatics), at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, in 2000. He is presently researching for a Ph.D. under the theme of `Managing data in the Extended Enterprise'. This research is conducted at the K.U.Leuven under the guidance of professor J. Vandenbulcke, and is financed by SAP Belgium. Frank has a strong interest in coordination and dependency theory and Enterprise Architecture. Monique Snoeck obtained her Ph.D. in May 1995 from The Department of Computer Science of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven with a thesis that lays the formal foundations of the object-oriented business modelling method MERODE. Since then she has done further research in the area of formal methods for object-oriented conceptual modelling. She now is Full Professor with the Management Information Systems Group of the Faculty of Economics and Applied Economics at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. She has been involved in several industrial conceptual modelling projects. Her research interests are object oriented conceptual modelling, software architecture and software quality. Wilfried Lemahieu holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Applied Economic Sciences of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (1999). At present, he is associate professor at the Management Informatics research group of the Faculty of Economics and Applied Economics. His teaching includes Database Management, Data Storage Architectures and Management Informatics. His research interests comprise distributed object architectures and web services, object-relational and object-oriented database systems and hypermedia systems. Jacques A. Vandenbulcke is professor at the Faculty of Economics and Applied Economics of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. His main research interests are in Database management, Data modelling, and Business Information Systems. He is co-ordinator of the Leuven Institute for Research on Information Systems (LIRIS) and holder of the SAP-chair on ‘Extended enterprise infrastructures’. He is president of ‘Studiecentrum voor Automatische Informatieverwerking (SAI)’, the largest society for computer professionals in Belgium, and co-founder of the ‘Production and Inventory Control Society (PICS)’ in Belgium.     

Lien entre la qualité des relations familiales et sociales à l'adolescence et à l'age adulte.

Fifty-seven families with adolescent children participated in a study of a) the quality of family and friendship relationships in adolescence, and b) the quality of family, friendship, and romantic relationships of adolescents 7 years later. Observation measures and self-report questionnaires were used to examine the variables. Regression analyses showed that mothers' marital satisfaction, conjugal conflict, and quality of mother-daughter relationship in adolescence predicted daughters' satisfaction with romantic relationships in adulthood. However, only the parental variables during adolescence predicted the quality of friendship relationships in adulthood. This study highlighted the contribution that quality of family relationships in adolescence makes to the quality of interpersonal relationships in adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)