Sociodemographic effects on place bonding

Patterns of amenity migration and recreational home development in much of the USA since the 1990s are changing the local sociodemographic make-up and the relationships formed among people and place. We use the psychological constructs of place attachment, place identity, and place dependence to assess differences in these relationships among new and long-time residents and absentee and local residents in three rural counties in the Inland Northwest. We measured place bonding using data from a mail survey of local (n = 531) and absentee (n = 239) property owners. We compared structural models suggested in the literature on the psychology of place, and found that a two-dimensional model representing place attachment and place identity was appropriate for both local and absentee property owners. Local owners exhibited stronger place attachment and place identity than absentee owners. Place bonding constructs were also substantially less impacted by the total number of years a property owner had resided on his or her property than by the number of months per year they lived on the property. The findings indicate that sociodemographic changes such as those manifested in second-home development may lead to a population that is less emotionally, behaviorally, and cognitively connected to the places in question, while sociodemographic changes from permanent in-migration may have a substantially smaller effect on place bonding.     

An analysis of the drivers affecting the implementation of green supply chain management

Green supply chain management has emerged as an important organizational philosophy to reduce environmental risks. We develop a model of the drivers affecting the implementation of green supply chain management using an Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) framework. The various drivers of green supply chain management (GSCM) are identified based on the GSM literature and on consultations with experts in the industry. The model developed is validated on a case study involving a manufacturing firm in southern India.     

如何提高产品的三防能力

文章介绍了提高产品三防能力的思维方法和一些理念及事例，有助于人们在工作中避免出现大的三防问题。     

Neighborhood satisfaction,physical and perceived naturalness and openness

This study examined neighborhood satisfaction in relation to naturalness and openness. It used Geographic Information System (GIS) and Landsat satellite imagery to physically measure the environmental attributes. Through path analysis it examined the relationship among the attributes, resident ratings of those environmental attributes, their satisfaction with them, and their overall neighborhood satisfaction (n = 725). We expected overall neighborhood satisfaction to relate to the resident's ratings of the environmental attributes and to the physical measures of them. The path model showed that overall neighborhood satisfaction was associated directly with the physical measure of building density and indirectly with the physical measure of vegetation rate through perception and evaluation of them. The perceptions and evaluations of the attributes related to one another. With refinements, GIS and Landsat data geo-related to survey data can offer a powerful tool for understanding the complex nature of neighborhood satisfaction and behavior.     

The vertical integration of Lisbon and sustainable development strategies across the EU: How different governance architectures shape the European coherence of policy documents

In Europe, sustainable development (SD) is pursued with not one but two overarching strategies, i.e., the so-called Lisbon and SD strategies. While the Lisbon Strategy is a genuinely European response to global economic and social pressures, SD strategies are national efforts corresponding with international (mainly United Nations) guidance to better coordinate and integrate economic, social and, in particular, environmental policies. The present paper explores the vertical coordination and coherence of the two pan-European strategies. After reviewing the international background of SD strategies and the EU origins of the Lisbon strategy, the paper characterizes and compares the governance architectures of the two strategies. With a solid background on how vertical policy integration functions in the two processes, the paper then shows how this affects the coherence of respective strategy structures and monitoring indicators. Based on an extensive empirical stocktaking study of the objectives and indicators in Lisbon and SD strategies across Europe it is shown that, despite the stronger European coordination through the Open Method of Coordination, the Lisbon process entailed only slightly more coherent national strategies than international guidance did in the context of SD strategies. Thus, the paper concludes that the influence international organizations such as the UN and the OECD have on national policy-making must not be underestimated.     

Urban waste recycling behavior: antecedents of participation in a selective collection program

ABSTRACT/ The aim of this study is to analyze the antecedents of urban waste recycling behavior. To achieve this goal, a concrete urban waste management program was chosen. The study focuses on the Selective Collection Program (SCP) in Zaragoza, a medium-sized city in northeastern Spain. The research starts with a conceptual model in which the variables that potentially affect recycling behavior can be classified into two groups: incentives and barriers. Moreover, the sociodemographic characteristics of the individuals are included in our study. Given that the proposed model requires specification of latent variables or constructs, the analysis is based on the Structural Equation Models (SEM) methodology. The results revealed that environmental awareness, knowledge of the environmental impact of urban waste, and the positive perception of management by local government exercise a positive effect on individual recycling behavior, while perceived personal difficulties (space and time availability) and distance to and from the container have a negative effect. As regards sociodemographic variables, this study found that annual family income sustains a negative relationship with recycling behavior, while age maintains a positive one. The results obtained clearly show the important role that the public authorities play, especially municipal governments, in achieving the waste recycling objectives established in accordance with international legislation.     

Damage to structures caused by the Japan Sea earthquake of 1983

A summary review of the Japan Sea (Nipponkai-chubu) earthquake of 1983 is presented. Damage to civil and building structures is explained in brief. Owing to the spread of earthquake-proof design, damage sustained was very slight for a M = 7.7 earthquake, except to those built on liquefied ground. Our next target in earthquake engineering may be to protect and maintain the functions of city-facilities against strong shaking so that citizens might not experience much disruption in their daily lives after big earthquakes.     

关于地震设防区建筑结构用钢的几点意见

从地震时结构用钢的换效模式出发，本文系统地提出了用于地震设防区内建筑结构用钢的性能要求。为些测定了现有常用建筑结构钢的抗震性能。并就如何提高工程抗震的可靠性，从合理选材和开发具有高抗震性能的钢材两个方面提出了意见。     

A reliability evaluation method based on the weakest failure modes for side-by-side offloading mooring system of FPSO

Offshore structures are complex systems, and numerous failure modes must be taken into consideration when reliability analysis in different loads and environment conditions are conducted on them. It is difficult to obtain structural system reliability with respect to complicated systems with numerous failure modes and dependency consideration among them. This paper applies the combination of the weakest failure modes theory with structural reliability theory to conduct reliability analysis on of side-by-side offloading mooring system of FPSO. Firstly, the numerical simulation of the system in different conditions is addressed to acquire the statistical data of time-history stress of components including hawsers, fenders and yoke, based on which, the reliability indexes of all the failure modes and correlation coefficient matrix are derived. Then the weakest failure modes, i.e. the representative failure modes that have significant impact on the system, are located through Probability Network Evaluation Technique. The probability of structural system is estimated through the weakest failure modes by considering the system as series. The analysis results indicate that two environment conditions (0°&0°&0° and 0°&30°&45° in combinations of wave, wind and current) are relative dangerous, which is in good correspondence with the practical expertise. The method is verified to be an effective and convenient evaluation approach for structural reliability analysis in terms of complex systems. It is beneficial for the identification of structure indicators from the weakest failure mode group and conduct optimum of structural system configurations in the design stage.     

An experimental test of female choice relative to male structural coloration in eastern bluebirds

Several experimental studies have shown that female birds use ornamental melanin and carotenoid plumage coloration as criteria in mate choice. Whether females choose mates based on natural variation in structural coloration, however, has not been well established. Male eastern bluebirds (Sialia sialis) display brilliant ultraviolet (UV)-blue plumage coloration on their head, back, wings, and tail, which is positively correlated with condition, reproductive effort, and reproductive success. We experimentally tested the hypothesis that female eastern bluebirds prefer as mates males that display brighter structural coloration by presenting breeding-condition females with males of variable coloration. We conducted two types of mate-choice experiments. First, females chose between males whose coloration was manipulated within the natural range of variation in the population; feathers were either brightened with violet marker or dulled with black marker. Second, females chose between males with naturally dull or bright plumage coloration. In both manipulated and unmanipulated coloration trials, female choice did not differ significantly from random with respect to structural coloration. We found no support for the hypothesis that the UV–blue coloration of male eastern bluebirds functions as a criterion in female mate choice.