Empty Houses Research Articles

Empty houses – 2

The first paper in this series, published in the last issue of Structural Survey, examined the numerous laws that protect buildings and their occupants. It concluded that few measures apply to empty buildings, leaving many to fall into decay. Where local authorities have powers of protection, they rarely exercise them. Now the need to protect empty buildings is further considered against the direct and indirect costs of leaving buildings unoccupied. Recent initiatives to remedy the problem are then explored.

Empty houses

Empty houses

Biogenic debris from the pelagic tunicate, Oikopleura dioica, and its role in the vertical transport of a transuranium element

The accumulation and retention of 241Am by the pelagic tunicate Oikopleura dioica were examined using laboratory cultures and radiotracer methodology. Animals (i.e., trunks and tails) and discarded empty houses accumulated Am from seawater, giving volume/volume concentration factors of 59±8 and 10±1, respectively. The half-time for retention of Am in empty labelled houses transferred to non-contaminated seawater was 29 h; the retention half-time of Am in houses discarded by larvaceans feeding on Am-labelled diatoms was 219 h; the half-time of Am in fecal pellets produced by animals feeding on a monospecific diet of diatoms was 134 h, and 247 h for fecal pellets from animals fed a mixed diet. Approximately 30% of filtered cells remained in houses after the houses were discarded. Sinking rates of discarded houses and fecal pellets were found to vary with temperature and size, ranging from 26–157 m day −1 (house) and from 25–166 m day −1 (fecal pellets). The ubiquity and abundance of appendicularians, together with their prodigious production of houses (e.g., 10±2 houses day −1 at 17°C for each experimental animal) point to their potential significance in the vertical transport of Am, and probably other reactive metals, to intermediate depths in the ocean.

Sites of bioluminescence in the appendicularians Oikopleura dioica and O. labradoriensis (Urochordata: Larvacea)

Although bioluminescence is known in larvacean tunicates, its origin has not been reported. Two species, Oikopleura dioica and O. labradoriensis, from the northeastern Pacific Ocean, were examined during 1979–1982 to determine the sites of luminescence. An appendicularian lives within a secreted, mucous house, and its body is tightly invested by a house rudiment. Mechanical stimulation elicited multiple, summated blue-green flashes from free individuals invested by house rudiments and from empty houses that were virtually free of contamination by exogenous luminescent bacteria or dinoflagellates. Direct microscopic observations showed that the light is produced by clusters of 1 to 2 μm fluorescent granules that form intricate, species-specific patterns of inclusions in the house rudiment. These granular inclusions are probably present in the expanded house, where they account for the multiple, point-sources of light observed in flashing houses. Neither fluorescence nor luminescence were observed in any other parts of the house rudiments, expanded houses, or free appendicularians (including the oral glands, which were previously suspected of producing bioluminescent secretions).

Out-of-the-School Care in the Australian Capital Terrority: The Views of Children and Parents

The Children’s Services Sub-Committee of the Consultative Committee on Social Welfare has recently examined the adequacy of out-of-school programmes in meeting the needs of families in the ACT. The sub-committee initially consulted with several organizations that provided holiday care and afterschool care programmes. Child-care workers expressed the view that there is a high level of dissatisfaction amongst users of out-of-hours care programmes. On the basis of this consultation the subcommittee discovered that: (a) some holiday care programmes reported recent changes in enrolment patterns, especially that children who had been attending in the past were no longer doing so, and that the average age of the children attending had declined;(b) some programmes had ceased to operate through lack of enrolments after the first two or three days;(c) many after-school programmes had developed slowly and existing programmes were often under-utilised. Some child-care workers reported that it had taken twelve months to build up enrolments to economically viable levels in after-school care programmes; and(d) there was an awareness by organisations that in most suburbs there were significant numbers of 5 to 12 year olds returning to empty houses after school and that there appeared to be resistance on the part of children to attending programmes, not just reluctance on the part of parents to send their children to such programmes.

The Oral Gland Cells ofOikopleura dioica(Tunicata Appendicularia)

Light and electron microscopic studies showed that the oral gland cells have two quite different zones. Medially, the basal zone is in contact with body fluids and the endostyle. Its strongly pyroninophile cytoplasm contains the extremely digitated nucleus and numerous small mitochondria. Laterally, the apical zone contacts the epidermis and it may also send a process between epidermal cells and deliver cell fragments into the primordium of the new house. This cell zone contains numerous membranes. It is concluded that the oral gland cells are light producing glands and that the membrane-rich cell fragments which are incorporated into the house wall are the source of the bioluminiscence which has been reported from empty houses. The ontogenetically related subchordal cells have a similar structure and it is possible that also these cells are light producers.

Book Review: The Homeless and the Empty Houses

Book Review: The Homeless and the Empty Houses

Book Reviews

Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Policy and Provision for the Single Homeless: A Position Paper, Madeline Drake and Tony Biebuych. Personal Social Services Council, 1977. Pp. 49. £1.50. The Homeless and the Empty Houses, Ron Bailey, Penguin, 1977. Pp. 287. 95p. DAVID BRANDON DAVID BRANDON Principal Lecturer Preston Polytechnic Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Social Work, Volume 8, Issue 2, 1978, Pages 231–232, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.bjsw.a056954 Published: 01 January 1978

Yuendumu School Post Primary Project

Education outside the four walls of the classroom has long been an integral part of the program of social change at Yuendumu School.In mid October, while 80 children from the middle part of the school went on a trip to Alice Springs, the Post Primary School undertook an educational experiment which lasted for three days. There were 35 young men, 20 young women, 4 Teaching Assistants and 5 teachers involved. We chose one of the most dilapidated empty houses in the village, and undertook to renovate it. It stood empty and bare in a line of houses. Not a window or door or chimney adorned any of the 6 houses in the line; the water tanks were broken, the gardens arid, and the walls and floor, both inside and outside, were covered with unsubtle graffiti and an occasional graphic display.The school strongly feels that it must be a servant of the community. Its service must be conspicuous, and its actions undoubtedly speak more persuasively than words. So we undertook the venture in the belief that education will bring tangible results,Our specific aims were two fold:a. to repair the house, then give it to a young married man who applied for it and promised to look after it.b. to show that anybody can repair a house, so long as he is prepared to work. In other words, we hoped that others would follow suit.

The Library World Volume 43 Issue 9

TRAGEDY has touched many libraries in the past few weeks, but the really sporting manner in which has been met the worst that the Nazi bomber can do places librarians, we hope, fully in line with our people. Roofless rooms have been patched, sometimes merely with canvas and felt, empty houses have been taken over, and by similar expedients even in the worst places a library service has been continued. It has been used, too. There is no fear for the future of the book and reading, whatever difficulties impede them. It has become almost commonplace that reading is a main employment of war leisure; but we still have to get that over to the powers that be. Or have we? The Board of Education wrote to local authorities asking them to maintain and even to extend library facilities as their value in war was enhanced. Some have responded.

XXXI. Observations on the state of population in Manchester, and other adjacent places, concluded

A very accurate survey was completed last year, of the towns of Manchester and Salford, with their respective townships. This spring, and enumeration, equally exact and comprehensive, has been made of the whole parish of Manchester, which contains thirty-one townships (exclusive of the two above mentioned) in the compass of less than sixty square miles. The reader is here presented with the particulars of this remuneration. Tenanted houses, 2371 Families, 2525 Inhabitants, 13786 Males, 6942 Females, 6844 Married, 4319 Widowers, 232 Widows, 315 Under 15, 5545 Above 50, 1762 Above 60, 470 Above 70, 261 Above 80, 87 Male lodgers, 68 Female ditto, 51 Empty houses, 41 The number of person to a house in Manchester is therefore nearly 5⅘; of individuals to a family, about 5½; and ⅛th of the inhabitants have attained the age of 50. It is unnecessary to point out the difference in the proportions between the town and the adjacent country, as it will appear sufficiently obvious by comparing this account with that of Manchester. The whole number of the inhabitants in the town, township, and parish of Manchester amounts to 42937.