Homelessness and psychosocial resources: the role of stress and psychological capital

Objective: Homelessness is widely recognised as a social problem which has major health consequences for those who experience the condition. The aims of the study were to a) to develop a brief homelessness stress scale based on previous evidence, b) determine whether the experience of being homeless is a source of psychological distress, c) determine whether stress is associated with negative health behaviour and psychological disturbance and d) investigate psychosocial variables that may mediate the experience of stress.Method: A total of 189 individuals (132 males and 57 females) experiencing homelessness, based in one of two UK cities completed face-to face surveys with validated measures focusing on psychological capital, social support, health behaviours, stress, and psychological wellbeing.Results: Participants recorded significantly lower levels of psychological capital and social support and significantly higher levels of psychological distress compared to normative scores. Analysis suggests that low SES, and mental health issues are associated with lower perceived social support, lower psychological capital scores and higher perceived stress levels.Discussion: Findings suggest the potentially utility of psychological capital as a measure of psychological resources contributing to the resilience of vulnerable homeless individuals

Sausu - Malonas - Tolai ou les leçons d'une transmigration réussie : étude agro-économique de 3 Centres de Transmigration dans la Province de Sulawesi Tengah

Cette étude concerne 3 centres de transmigration situés à Sulawesi Centre : Sausu,Malonas,Tolai.L'essentiel des données de base a été obtenu auprès des transmigrants.Un échantillon de 160 familles de colons a été suivi par enquête en quatre passages répétés espacés de 2 mois et observation sur le terrain.En Indonésie,les transferts de population commencés sous l'administration coloniale hollandaise avaient pour objectifs de réduire les déséquilibres démographiques entre les différentes iles.En 1980,la densité de population était de 690 habitants au km2 à Java et de 18 km2 à Sulawesi Centre.Dans la première partie de cette étude,les auteurs analysent l'origine,les motivations des transmigrants,ce qui fait l'originalité des 3 Centres qui jouissent d'un environnement favorable du point de vue de la pluviométrie,du relief,de la fertilité du sol.Pour chacun des centres,il est signalé les surfaces cultivées,les cultures adoptées (riz,soja) et les revenus dont bénéficient les transmigrants grace aux activités agricoles et non agricoles.Dans la dernière partie,les auteurs analysent les causes de certains échecs et des succès de l'opération en signalant le nombre trés important des transmigrants spontanés dans cette région et présentent des recommandations pour l'avenir

Grapevine European catalogue: towards a comprehensive list

Starting from the 1950’s, different European countries have established official lists of grapevine varieties authorized to be cultivated. The objectives of such lists were to limit ambiguous denomination of varieties and the related trade conflicts, as well as the implementation of viticulture recovery politics through the support of certain varieties and the limitation of others. In the same direction, in 1968 the European Union (EU) decided to create a “common catalogue of varieties”, defined as the sum of current national catalogues (Council Directive of 9 April 1968 “on the marketing of material for the vegetative propagation of the vine”, 68/193/EEC, modified). These catalogues (also called “registers”) include all the wine varieties “classified” by each Member State within the framework of the Common Organisation of the Market in wine (Council Directive No 479/2008), as well as all the non-classified varieties (table grape, rootstocks, etc.). For this work, we took the opportunity of the European research program “GrapeGen06”, focused on the study and the preservation of grapevine genetic resources, to contribute to the establishment and improvement of such an European catalogue. The comprehensive survey aims at two objectives: to support the implementation of European regulations on propagation of grapevine plants within the EU, and to assess priority actions, by technical and research institutes, for the conservation of grapevine genetic resources.Peer reviewe

Urban challenges to food and nutrition security

This review of recent literature explores the urban face of food and nutrition security in a more comprehensive, integrated way than most previous efforts. The review is organized around a conceptual framework that identifies food insecurity, inadequate caring behaviors, and poor health as the primary causes of malnutrition. It discusses current knowledge in eight areas that require the special attention of policymakers, development practitioners, and program administrators who wish to improve urban food and nutrition security: the sources and cost of food; incomes and employment; urban agriculture; urban diets; child caregiving practices; childhood mortality, morbidity, and malnutrition; health and environment; and social assistance programs, or safety nets. The review also reports on the magnitude of rural-urban and intra-urban health differences in mortality, morbidity, and malnutrition. In conclusion, the review indicates which policy issues and knowledge gaps remain for future research to address.Urban health. ,Urban poor Services for. ,Food security. ,Malnutrition. ,Child care. ,

Simplified extended Kalman filter phase noise estimation for CO-OFDM transmissions

We propose a flexible simplified extended Kalman filter (S-EKF) scheme that can be applied in both pilot-aided and blind modes for phase noise compensation in 16-QAM CO-OFDM transmission systems employing a small-to-moderate number of subcarriers. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated and compared with conventional pilot-aided (PA) and blind phase search (BPS) methods via extensive an Monte Carlo simulation in a back-to-back configuration and with a dual polarization fiber transmission. For 64 subcarrier 32 Gbaud 16-QAM CO-OFDM systems with 200 kHz combined laser linewidths, an optical signal-to-noise ratio penalty as low as 1 dB can be achieved with the proposed S-EKF scheme using only 2 pilots in the pilot-aided mode and just 4 inputs in the blind mode, resulting in a spectrally efficient enhancement by a factor of 3 and a computational effort reduction by a factor of more than 50 in comparison with the conventional PA and the BPS methods, respectively

Chandra HRC Localization of the Low Mass X-ray Binaries X1624-490 and X1702-429: The Infrared Counterparts

We report on the precise localization of the low mass X-ray binaries X1624-490 and X1702-429 with the Chandra HRC-I. We determine the best positions to be 16:28:02.825 -49:11:54.61 (J2000) and 17:06:15.314 -43:02:08.69 (J2000) for X1624-490 and X1702-429, respectively, with the nominal Chandra positional uncertainty of 0.6". We also obtained deep IR observations of the fields of these sources in an effort to identify the IR counterparts. A single, faint (Ks=18.3 +/- 0.1) source is visible inside the Chandra error circle of X1624-490, and we propose this source as its IR counterpart. For X1702-429, a Ks=16.5 +/- 0.07 source is visible at the edge of the Chandra error circle. The brightness of both counterpart candidates is comparable to that of other low mass X-ray binary IR counterparts when corrected for extinction and distance.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in Ap