Fire safe,sustainable loose furnishing

The aim of this exploratory study has been to investigate the fire properties and environmental aspects of different upholstery material combinations, mainly for domestic applications. An analysis of the sustainability and circularity of selected textiles, along with lifecycle assessment, is used to qualitatively evaluate materials from an environmental perspective. The cone calorimeter was the primary tool used to screen 20 different material combinations from a fire performance perspective. It was found that textile covers of conventional fibres such as wool, cotton and polyester, can be improved by blending them with fire resistant speciality fibres. A new three‐dimensional web structure has been examined as an alternative padding material, showing preliminary promising fire properties with regard to ignition time, heat release rates and smoke production.     

Les déterminants individuels, interpersonnels et organisationnels de la détresse psychologique en milieu de travail.

Studied determinants of psychological stress in the workplace to test a 2-step model involving 3 organizational stressors (i.e., quantitative work overload, role conflict, and role ambiguity) and 3 types of resources (i.e., individual, interpersonal, and organizational). 636 full-time employees (mean age 37.5 yrs) of 4 organizations completed questionnaires assessing sociodemographic factors, organizational stressors, resources (i.e., locus of control, Type A (coronary prone) behavior, social support from supervisors and colleagues, and decisional latitude), and psychological stress. Interactions among these factors were determined via multiple regression analyses. Several French-language instruments were used, including the Questionnaire on Internal–External Locus of Control in the Workplace (N. Pettersen, 1984) and the Psychiatric Symptom Index (F. W. Ilfeld, 1976). (English abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Pupal Parasitoid Trichopria drosophilae Is Attracted to the Same Yeast Volatiles as Its Adult Host

Journal of Chemical Ecology - There is increasing evidence that microorganisms, particularly fungi and bacteria, emit volatile compounds that mediate the foraging behaviour of insects and therefore...     

The response of men to affirmative action strategies for women: The study of a predictive model.

Evaluated the effect of relative deprivation on behalf of others (RDBO), social identification (IDEN), and intergroup differentiation (DIFF) on attitudes of men and their behavioral intentions concerning affirmative action strategies on behalf of women. The variables were integrated in a predictive model that was tested using path analysis. 122 male university students (aged 17–36 yrs) participated by responding to a questionnaire pertaining to IDEN, DIFF, RDBO, and intentions. Intentions to affirmative action strategies were influenced by social identity and RDBO. RDBO acted as a mediating variable between intergroup differentiation and intentions to implement affirmative action strategies. Results show that affirmative action can be positively received by males. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experimental measurements of effective diffusion coefficient of oxygen–nitrogen mixture in PEM fuel cell diffusion media

PEM fuel cells are increasingly designed to operate at high current densities. At these densities, mass transport limitations become very significant, but they are not well understood, with many modeling studies but few experimental observations. The use of accurate transport coefficients to simulate the mass transport at high current densities is crucial. In this study, experimental measurements have been carried out to determine the effective diffusion coefficient in the carbon paper gas diffusion layer that is commonly used in PEM fuel cells. It was found that almost all the existing theoretical models significantly overpredict the effective diffusion coefficient by as much as 4–5 times; thus, underestimating the transport limitations considerably. Further, the effects of temperature, Teflon treatment for hydrophobicity and porosity on the effective diffusion coefficient were investigated. It was found that temperature does not affect the overall diffusibility of the gas. The diffusibility is decreased with the increase of Teflon treatment and decrease in porosity. Further work on better understanding the diffusion process in the gas diffusion layer is under way.     

Sociogenèse et psychobiologie: Les sources de la continuité et de la discontinuité du développement.

The aim of this article is to reflect conceptually upon the various stakes in development from both psychobiological and sociogenetical perspectives, two prominent contemporary theories of social sciences. Where does developmental continuity belong?...Does it belong within the individual or within his or her environment? Despite explicitly recognizing the influence of social experience in human development, the traditionally old nature-nurture debate remains at the center of theoretical analyses and leads to a futile integration of the two positions. The authors propose a theoretical model, which suggests not to integrate these two antagonistic positions but rather to recognize and utilize their interdependency as a means of viewing continuity and discontinuity as complementary facets of development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Concordance between the SOGS-RA and the DSM-IV criteria for pathological gambling among youth.

This study assessed the possible differences in the classification of adolescent gamblers when using the South Oaks Gambling Screen-Revised for Adolescents (SOGS-RA; K. C. Winters, R. D. Stinchfield, & J. Fulkerson, 1993) versus a clinical interview that was based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) criteria for pathological gambling. A total of 631 adolescents ages 15-17 years participated in the two phases of the study. Results revealed that of the 93 adolescents who had been screened as problem gamblers according to the SOGS-RA, only 7 could be clinically confirmed as pathological gamblers according to the criteria used at present to define pathological gambling. The need to clarify the construct of pathological gambling among youth is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quality management for psychology services in health care facilities.

Describes a model of quality management, designed by a task force of the Canadian Psychological Association, to meet revised standards of the Canadian Council on Health Facilities Accreditation for psychology services. The incorporation of aspects of Continuous Quality Improvement, Total Quality Management, Indicators, and Benchmarking are discussed in relation to their application to psychology services in health care facilities. The Quality Management Model is based on the assumptions that everyone wants to do their job well and improve in their job performance; that the improvement in the quality of services is everyone's responsibility; and that psychological service provision in a health care facility involves complex linkages between providers, suppliers, and customers. The model also assumes that the major problems affecting quality of service are usually those same linkages, or the customers themselves; and that identifying and monitoring these linkages is crucial to understanding how to improve quality. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Summarization of Imaged Documents without OCR

A system is presented for creating a summary indicating the contents of an imaged document. The summary is composed from selected regions extracted from the imaged document. The regions may include sentences, key phrases, headings, and figures. The extracts are identified without the use of optical character recognition. The imaged document is first processed to identify the word-bounding boxes, the reading order of words, and the location of sentence and paragraph boundaries in the text. The word-bounding boxes are grouped into equivalence classes to mimic the terms in a text document. Equivalence classes representing content words are identified, and key phrases are identified from the set of content words. Summary sentences are selected using a statistically based classifier applied to a set of discrete sentence features. Evaluation of sentence selection against a set of abstracts created by a professional abstracting company is given.