When mobility makes sense: A qualitative and longitudinal study of the daily mobility of the elderly

A majority of North Americans hopes to grow old in the suburbs. This aspiration depends upon their ability to drive and their access to a car. Because it is essential for everyday travel, car-mobility in the suburbs is becoming a symbolic goal. The meanings of mobility for elderly will evolve over time, notably as a result of changes in autonomy. However, the mobility of older adults is mainly understood in terms of daily trips. Little research has considered the temporal dimension of aging as an evolving process. This study aimed at understanding with a qualitative and longitudinal perspective how older people stay (auto-)mobile in their house and their neighborhood against the need to adapt to reduced autonomy and mobility over time. A group of 22 suburbanites aged from 62 to 89 was interviewed in 1999 and in 2006. The results show that even if older people succeed in increasing their mobility, they are headed for inevitable immobility. Among the environmental adaptation strategies that were observed, the constructed behaviors, the dependencies demanding additional supports as well as the social life modulate different evolving experiences of the city: the shrinking city, the fragmented city, and the city by proxy. The built environment is at the heart of a complex process in which the adaptation of mobility contributes to the emergence of new residential experiences.     

Exploring alternative states in ecological systems with a qualitative analysis of community feedback

Demonstrating and predicting the existence of alternative states in natural communities remains a challenge for ecologists and is essential for resource managers. Positive feedback is often presented as central in maintaining alternative ecosystem states, but no formal approach relates this part of theory to real world applications. Through qualitative modelling of community response to long-term perturbations, we define generic mechanistic links between positive feedback and the occurrence of alternative states. Positive feedback diminishes a system's overall resistance to change, and can create and maintain correlations in the relative abundance of variables that coincide with alternative states.Through specific models of the dynamics of Tasmanian rocky-reef communities, which are affected by climate and fishing and persist within alternative states, we demonstrate the ability of our theoretical framework to predict alternative states in ecosystems and inform management intervention. A qualitative knowledge of community structure permits a thorough analysis of system feedback and an assessment of the potential for an ecosystem to exhibit alternative states. We illustrate the usefulness of the approach to inform management priorities, and to focus monitoring and field research on the key drivers of ecosystem dynamics.     

“Safety is everyone's job:” The key to safety on a large university construction site

Problem

Construction risk management is challenging.

Method

We combined data on injuries, costs, and hours worked, obtained through a Rolling Owner-Controlled Insurance Program (ROCIP), with data from focus groups, interviews, and field observations, to prospectively study injuries and hazard control on a large university construction project.

Results

Lost-time injury rates (1.0/200,000 hours worked) were considerably lower than reported for the industry, and there were no serious falls from height. Safety was considered in the awarding of contracts and project timeline development; hazard management was iterative. A top-down management commitment to safety was clearly communicated to, and embraced by, workers throughout the site.

Discussion and Impact

A better understanding of how contracting relationships, workers' compensation, and liability insurance arrangements influence safety could shift risk management efforts from worker behaviors to a broader focus on how these programs and relationships affect incentives and disincentives for workplace safety and health.     

Where to focus? Insights from safety personnel and external safety consultants on lessons learned about safety climate interventions – A qualitative approach

Introduction: Safety climate is important for promoting workplace safety and health. However, there is a dearth of empirical research on the effective ways of planning, designing, and implementing safety climate interventions, especially regarding what is going to be changed and improved. To address this gap, the present study sought to extract a comprehensive pool of compiled suggestions for safety climate intervention based on qualitative interviews with professionals in occupational safety and health management from potentially hazardous industries. Method: A series of systematic semi-structured interviews, guided by a comprehensive sociotechnical systems framework, were conducted with company safety personnel (n = 26) and external safety consultants (n = 15) of 21 companies from various industries. The taxonomy of five work system components of the sociotechnical systems approach served as overarching themes, representing different areas of improvement in an organization for occupational safety and health promotion, with an aim of enhancing safety climate. Results: Of the 36 codes identified, seven codes were based on the theme of external environment work system, four were based on the theme of internal environment work system, five were based on the theme of organizational and managerial structure work system, 14 codes were based on the theme of personnel subsystem, and six were based on the theme of technical subsystem. Conclusions: Safety climate intervention strategies might be most commonly based upon the principles of human resource management (i.e., codes based on the personnel subsystem theme and organizational and managerial structure work system theme). Meanwhile, numerous attributes of external/internal environment work system and technical subsystem can be jointly improved to bolster safety climate in a holistic way. Practical Applications: More systematic and organized management of safety climate would be available when various interrelated codes pertinent to a given context are carefully considered for a safety climate intervention.     

土壤污染物源解析技术研究进展

简述了土壤污染物源解析技术的发展历程及土壤污染物的主要类型与来源。指出,定性源识别技术主要包括特征比值法、多元统计法、空间分析法等;定量源解析技术主要包括源清单法、扩散模型法、化学质量平衡模型法、正定矩阵因子分解法、UNMIX模型法、同位素法等。重点总结了这些技术方法的原理及其在应用上的优势与局限。从解析对象、解析方法和软件开发角度,提出了土壤污染物源解析技术的未来发展方向。     

PLS-BP法定量分析火灾中的常见有毒有害气体

针对火灾和材料燃烧中常见的有毒有害气体,选取低浓度的CO、CO2、NO、NO2、SO2、HCl、HBr、HCN八种典型气体同时进行定量分析。基于傅里叶变换红外光谱技术(FTIR),设计可靠实验系统和实验过程控制,准确得到气体的光谱数据。通过合理去除干扰光谱区间、筛选样本、选择模型参数等,建立BP-PLS回归模型,并对未知样本进行预测,各组分的校正误差均方根RMSEC达到4×10-6以下,预测可决系数R2均达到0.95以上。通过将PLS-BP模型与经典的线性模型经典最小二乘(CLS)和偏最小二乘(PLS)进行比较,PLS-BP模型在非线性拟合能力和预测性能两方面明显高于经典线性模型CLS和PLS。     

Institutional design in transformation: A comparative study of local irrigation governance in Uzbekistan

The irrigation sector constitutes the backbone of Uzbekistan's economy, providing social and economic stability in the region. The sector collapsed with the fall of the Soviet Union, due to worsening of infrastructure conditions causing tensions among resource users. Subsequent irrigation management reforms were implemented in a top-down manner. More than a decade after the initial reforms – which established local Water Consumers Association (WCA) and transferred operation and maintenance responsibilities for on-farm irrigation canals – the poor performance of these associations is still apparent, illustrating the heritage of the strong role of state agencies in Uzbek water management that still affects collective irrigation management today. This paper identifies the necessary and sufficient conditions for successfully managing common pool resources (CPRs) and, more specifically, irrigation canal maintenance in the rural Bukhara region of Uzbekistan. Fifteen WCAs were examined regarding conditions that may facilitate successful irrigation canal maintenance. Methods involved focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with the associations concerned. Data gathered was analyzed using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. The results indicate that two paths of local factors can lead to well-maintained irrigation canals: (1) the combination of appropriate chairmanship skills with sustainable resource appropriation or (2) the combination of appropriate chairmanship skills with the presence of effective participatory governance. The results also illustrate the role of path-dependence and traditional co-production of irrigation management in Uzbekistan.     

定性物理模拟FM上下V拔长圆柱体

采用定性物理模拟的方法对FM上下V锻造法锻件心部的应力状态进行了实验分析,得出了当上砧宽比W/D_0=0.34时,锻件心部处于三向压应力的结果。实验结果与定量物理模拟相吻合。     

Sensitivity of system stability to model structure

A community is stable, and resilient, if the levels of all community variables can return to the original steady state following a perturbation. The stability properties of a community depend on its structure, which is the network of direct effects (interactions) among the variables within the community. These direct effects form feedback cycles (loops) that determine community stability. Although feedback cycles have an intuitive interpretation, identifying how they form the feedback properties of a particular community can be intractable. Furthermore, determining the role that any specific direct effect plays in the stability of a system is even more daunting. Such information, however, would identify important direct effects for targeted experimental and management manipulation even in complex communities for which quantitative information is lacking. We therefore provide a method that determines the sensitivity of community stability to model structure, and identifies the relative role of particular direct effects, indirect effects, and feedback cycles in determining stability. Structural sensitivities summarize the degree to which each direct effect contributes to stabilizing feedback or destabilizing feedback or both. Structural sensitivities prove useful in identifying ecologically important feedback cycles within the community structure and for detecting direct effects that have strong, or weak, influences on community stability. The approach may guide the development of management intervention and research design. We demonstrate its value with two theoretical models and two empirical examples of different levels of complexity.     

土壤中多氯联苯简化计算定量方法研究

针对含有两种或两种以上Aroclor多氯联苯混合物的样品,研究其简便易行的定性、定量方法。将复杂样品中的多氯联苯分别折算成Aroclor 1016、1242、1260含量,在定性的同时予以定量。3种不同组分混合样品的加标回收率分别为68.2%～80.6%、67.9%～74.2%、67.1%～76.8%,实际土壤样品的测定结果与已有研究结果相吻合。方法缺点为无法识别和计算各Aroclor之间的准确比例,可用于应急监测复杂组分样品中多氯联苯的测定。