NEW EMPIRICAL RESPONSE SPECTRAL ATTENUATION LAWS FOR MODERATE EUROPEAN EARTHQUAKES

This paper presents response spectral attenuation laws used in the new French Safety Rule, which is the reference for nuclear safety studies in France. Attenuation laws were derived from 965 horizontal and 485 vertical components from a two-step inversion method and accounts for geometrical spreading, anelastic attenuation and geological site condition. The datasets are mainly constituted of European strong motion records (83%) recently collected and homogeneously processed. In order to complete the distribution data beyond magnitude 6, a few American records were added, representing 17% of the datasets. The magnitude type and source-to-site distance definitions chosen to derive the laws are tested with respect to other definitions. These parametric tests induce a conservative law, for some magnitude and distance ranges of interest. The residual values between observed and predicted spectral accelerations are studied and do not exhibit any bias. The inferred laws are in good agreement with classical strong motion attenuation laws.     

Reclaiming Vision: Looking at landscape and the body

This paper responds to feminist critiques of the masculinity of the landscape tradition within geography. It draws upon reassessments of the gaze within film theory, art history and cultural studies as well as within representational practice. It does so in order to reclaim the concept of landscape as a theoretical tool and subject of study for a feminist cultural geography. In theorising a reclamation of looking and landscape through a critical feminist approach, issues of vision and space, gender and representation, politics and pleasure are brought forcefully together through considering images of the male body as landscape by two contemporary women artists. While recognising the politics of representation, the aim is to deconstruct ideas of an unproblematic women's vision and of a singular or essential male or female gaze. Despite the way in which the metaphor of the body/land has been employed to justify both approaches to women and the environment and to legitimate colonisation, this paper suggests that with regard to both the body and landscape we need to look again and reconsider the radical potential of visual pleasure and traditions of visual representation.     

RESIDENTIAL PATTERNS OF NEW IMMIGRANTS AND LINGUISTIC INTEGRATION

The present study looks at the residential patterns of new immigrants in Montreal and their impact on subsequent language use in the workplace and educational programs. We first explore the themes of language and territory, citing evidence for the neighbourhood of residence as being a site of language contact organized linguistically around models corresponding to the majority language spoken by its population. Secondly, we explore a sample of 1000 new immigrants, situating them in francophone, anglophone, allophone, and heterogeneous neighbourhoods. Three aspects of their residential establishment are examined: their distribution within the neighbourhoods of Montreal, the factors determining the choice of one or another of the four types of linguistic milieux, and the influence of these milieux on subsequent language use. These latter two aspects use Event History Analysis, a statistical model permitting the longitudinal analysis of dated data.     

The Cultural Complexities of Learning and Development in A Post-Modern World

The books under review focus on the role culture plays in studies of childhood socialization, learning, schooling in global contexts, and educational change. Key chapters highlight schooling practices not well known in Western culture. Both books advocate understanding and respecting cultural differences while emphasizing that cultures are dialectally reshaping and reorganizing in response to rapidly changing economic, political, and social forces. The challenge facing societies in the age of global communication is to preserve unique cultural heritages while acknowledging shared human values that may transcend the boundaries of a given world.