Sustainability Perspective to Support Decision Making in Structural Retrofitting of Buildings: A Case Study

The reuse of existing materials in buildings can give a contribution to sustainable practices such as a balance in embodied energy, water, and emission reduction. However, it is not always possible to maintain the existing structural materials because some different technical variables could hamper their usability, namely seismic reinforcement needs, fire safety protection, conservation state, and new legal requirements. The paper follows a case study approach for assessing the technical and environmental performances of structural options for old building retrofitting works. All structural options were analyzed through the results of several categories of environmental impact. Some parameters of a retrofitting management system were also used to frame in a comprehensive way the technical constraints pertaining to building retrofitting works. The structural option choice was taken by the owner with the contribution of the design team and the construction manager of the construction project as well as the results of interviews with other construction professionals, considering the variables related to technical suitability and environmental impact. The results of the study show that the steel structure is the solution that best addresses the technical constraints of the building retrofit works and minimizes environmental impact. The results of the study also suggest that the consideration of other variables other than the technical ones can contribute to the effective functioning of the renovation subsegment of the building market. Some suggestions for further studies to enhance the results of this work are put forward.

The Structure of Interrogative Sentences with a Nominal Subject in the French Language in a Diachronic Aspect

The article is focused on the study of interrogative sentences with a nominal subject in the French language in terms of structural criteria in a diachronic aspect. The purpose of this study is to reveal the features of the so-called complex inversion in interrogative sentences. Special attention is paid to terminological problems. Pronominal reprise is recognized by the authors as the most correct term for an interrogative construction with a nominal subject duplicated by a personal pronoun. The lack of uniformity in terminology indicates a multidimensional nature of the inversion phenomenon in the French language. For instance, in addition to interrogative sentences, it can be used in other contexts: in simple declarative sentences after certain adverbs, in subordinate clauses after some conjunctions, in exclamatory sentences, etc. The authors highlight and describe the characteristic features of interrogative sentences with a nominal subject in terms of diachrony. Pronominal reprise appears in interrogative constructions as early as in the 16th century, mainly in general questions, subsequently extending to special questions. In the 16th – 17th centuries, the subject did not regularly precede the verb; the same applied to interrogative words, which could be placed both to the left and to the right of the subject. In sentences with a nominal subject, reprise was not the only possible structural option. The following were also used: direct word order, construction question word + est-ce que, and simple inversion. The authors come to the conclusion that pronominal reprise had finally replaced simple inversion of the nominal subject in general questions in French by the end of the 17th century.

Francis and the Pastoral Geopolitics of Peoples and Their Cultures: A Structural Option for the Poor

In response to the phenomenon of globalization, which has resulted in the exclusion of entire peoples and their cultures, Pope Francis has proposed a pastoral geopolitics that is in keeping with the spirit of Vatican II and Latin American theology. Today’s poor are not only the individually poor, but also “poor-peoples” ( pueblos-pobres). Francis’s pastoral geopolitics seeks to identify the new historical processes being formed on the peripheries, such as social movements for democratic and inclusive societies, processes that the Church should encourage by valuing and incarnating itself in poor-peoples’ “cultures.” His structural option for the poor brings together ecclesiology, geopolitics, and evangelization.

Do Benefit Corporations Represent a Policy Threat to Nonprofits?

In the US and increasingly internationally as well, considerable efforts have been made in recent years to introduce new legal forms, such as the benefit corporation, at the local level as an additional structural option for social entrepreneurs. These efforts have been met with considerable apprehension on the part of nonprofit sector advocates, who perceive these new organizational forms as potential competition. This paper investigates whether the benefit corporation is in fact a likely competitive threat to nonprofits. Presenting the findings of an early uptake study, it reviews the early experience with the state-level introduction of the benefit corporation in Maryland, the first state to adopt the new legal form.

A difficult to explain phenomenon: increasing complexity in the prenominal position

In English, the position of the AP in the nominal phrase is determined by its form: only structurally simpler phrases are said to be licit in prenominal position, more complex ones have to follow the noun. Recent studies have reported an increasing use of nominal premodifiers in English, so the question arises whether this trend affects only simpler phrases or whether a new structural option emerges – complex APs in prenominal position. Drawing on data from COHA, this article investigates which types of AP occur prenominally. The data show that certain types of complex APs are gaining ground in the prenominal position. Most of these can be analyzed as complex words rather than complex phrases and hence do not indicate major syntactic changes in the English NP. However, some of the attestations, such as easy-predicates with a to-infinitival clause, are complex phrases. It is argued that it is the dependency relation between their rightmost element, a lexical verb, and the noun they modify which makes them occur in prenominal position.