Evidence for two attentional components in visual working memory

How does executive attentional control contribute to memory for sequences of visual objects, and what does this reveal about storage and processing in working memory? Three experiments examined the impact of a concurrent executive load (backward counting) on memory for sequences of individually presented visual objects. Experiments 1 and 2 found disruptive concurrent load effects of equivalent magnitude on memory for shapes, colors, and colored shape conjunctions (as measured by single-probe recognition). Crucially, these effects were only present for items 1 and 2 in a 3-item sequence; the final item was always impervious to this disruption. This pattern of findings was precisely replicated in Experiment 3 using a cued verbal recall measure of shape-color binding, with error analysis providing additional insights concerning attention-related loss of early-sequence items. These findings indicate an important role for executive processes in maintaining representations of earlier encountered stimuli in an active form alongside privileged storage of the most recent stimulus

Government and Corporate Initiatives for Indian Women in IT

Education of women severely lags behind that of men in many developing nations. Fewer girls go to school, tend to drop out earlier than boys, do not receive the same level of education as their male counterparts, and often choose careers that are female predominant (Kelly, 1987). Without exception, India is quite representative of these gender-biased phenomena in education. However, the recent explosion of offshore outsourcing market in India has created a new recognition regarding the role of women in technological careers. The Indian IT sector has seen a trend contrary to what most western nations are experiencing—predominance of women in IT, particularly in IT-enabled services (ITES). India has acknowledged that extensive and intensive use of information and communications technologies (ICT) alone can help the nation develop its neglected human resources, emerge as a knowledge-based society, and participate competitively in the global trade and services. Consequently, the development of ICT has become a national issue with strong impetus from the union government in New Delhi (Choudhary, 1999). Explicit in this initiative is the recognition that to progress as an information society, women must be empowered as key players the IT sector. In parallel, two other trends have focused attention on women in the information society—a nationwide movement for women’s rights spearheaded by many non-government organizations (NGOs) and an increased awareness of corporate social responsibility. Consequently, over the last decade, there has been an increased emphasis on education and reskilling India’s female workforce. While many government efforts are targeted toward the overall upliftment of women, many grassroots level initiatives led by NGO’s and corporations emphasize technological training. This article highlights how the intertwining of grassroots and policy level efforts can increase the pace at which a nation’s female workforce can be reskilled and prepared for a technological world. The article also addresses concerns about such rapid development and potentially challenging outcomes while making recommendations for improvement

Collaboration and Gender Equity among Academic Scientists

Universities were established as hierarchical bureaucracies that reward individual attainment in evaluating success. Yet collaboration is crucial both to 21st century science and, we argue, to advancing equity for women academic scientists. We draw from research on gender equity and on collaboration in higher education, and report on data collected on one campus. Sixteen focus group meetings were held with 85 faculty members from STEM departments, separated by faculty rank and gender (i.e., assistant professor men, full professor women). Participants were asked structured questions about the role of collaboration in research, career development, and departmental decision-making. Inductive analyses of focus group data led to the development of a theoretical model in which resources, recognition, and relationships create conditions under which collaboration is likely to produce more gender equitable outcomes for STEM faculty. Ensuring women faculty have equal access to resources is central to safeguarding their success; relationships, including mutual mentoring, inclusion and collegiality, facilitate women’s careers in academia; and recognition of collaborative work bolsters women’s professional advancement. We further propose that gender equity will be stronger in STEM where resources, relationships, and recognition intersect—having multiplicative rather than additive effects

Preparing for a future of diversity - a conceptual framework for planning and evaluating multicultural educational colleges

Higher Education institutions in the Western world need to prepare for a future in which cultural diversity is not a transient phase but a constant reality. They should, therefore, consider introducing Multicultural Education (ME) into their institution, and further develop it. As ME is a widely used yet hazy concept that covers a vast variety of approaches, strategies and programmes, the paper attempts to unveil the complexity of ME's broad conceptual basis. It addresses the ambiguity of the term “multiculturalism”, differentiates between five diversity-managing strategies, analyses a variety of definitions and goals attributed to ME and presents an integrated typology of ME programs. On this basis, it offers colleges a three-tier tool for benchmarking, introducing and designing ME. The tool consists of a diagnostic questionnaire, a table of design choices and an organisational guide for introducing and developing ME as first and second order changes in the college. With the multilayer conceptual framework constructed in it, the paper aims to achieve two purposes. The first is to supply a backbone for informed decisions that colleges have to make while designing their educational policy and practice in culturally diverse contexts. The second purpose is to offer a new research platform for future evaluations of ME as a complex system.peer-reviewe

Identify the HR factors that affect employee turnover in MasterHouse restaurant.

For organisations that seek reduction in employee turnover, it is crucial to identify which specific factors have the greatest impact on the staff turnover rate of the organisation. Similarly, after identifying influencing factors, it is also very important to formulate HR processes and policies based on the actual situation of the organisation. The aim of this research is to identify the HR factors that affect employee turnover rate in MasterHouse restaurant. High employee turnover rate will affect the performance of the organisation’s employees and the decline of daily functions, it will also increase the cost of organisation recruitment on-boarding and training. The purpose of this research is to identify the specific factors that affect employee turnover in MasterHouse and develop a practical plan for MasterHouse restaurant to improve employee loyalty and reduce employee turnover through the organisation’s human resources processes and policies. This research will lead to an understanding of the factors affecting the turnover rate of MasterHouse through secondary research, then researchers will collect data through quantitative research, and develop a strategic plan for MasterHouse to reduce employee turnover. The researcher will use questionnaires to investigate the HR strategies of MasterHouse and employees’ views on MasterHouse current HR process and policies. This research will involve five factors that affect employee turnover rate: Long-term relationships, benchmark, work-life balance, talent management, rewards and motivation. The researcher then connected and compared survey results with information in the literature and developed a practical plan for MasterHouse to reduce employee turnover rate