Advice seeking network structures and the learning organization

Organizational learning can be described as a transfer of individuals’ cognitive mental models to shared mental models. Employees, seeking the same colleagues for advice, are structurally equivalent, and the aim of the paper is to study if the concept can act as a conduit for organizational learning. It is argued that the mimicking of colleagues’ advice seeking structures will induce structural equivalence and transfer the accuracy of individuals’ cognitive mental models to shared mental models. Taking a dyadic level of analysis authors revisit a classical case and present novel data analyses.The empirical results indicate that the mimicking of advice seeking structures can alter cognitive accuracy. It is discussed the findings’ implications for organization learning theory and practice, addressed the study’s limitations, and suggested avenues for future research

(Dis)Embodied Cognition: Phenomenology, Spirit(ual)ism, and Performance in Proust

A psychical researcher among Marcel Proust’s contemporaries called belief in the paranormal “the Dreyfus case of science.” References to spirit-life abound in Proust’s fiction, but critics have resisted readings that attend seriously to the numerous references in À la recherche du temps perdu to reincarnation, spirit-possession, and, especially, mediumship. The paper reads them through the lens of long-standing critical controversies, particularly concerning the relationship of Proust’s aesthetics and ontology with those of Henri Bergson and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The paper accepts Nathalie Aubert’s finding in her 2011 essay “Proust et Bergson: La mémoire du corps” that Proust’s insistence on embodiment validates the reluctance of critics since Georges Poulet to connect him with Bergson and makes him, in a sense, a phenomenologist avant la lettre. The paper argues, however, that for Proust a phenomenological interpretation neglects some varieties of experience, and it investigates ways metaphors, particularly in the context of musical performance, drawn from spiritualism inflect his phenomenology and address its limitations

Review of Here Lies Hugh Glass: A Mountain Man, a Bear, and the Rise of the American Nation\u3c/i\u3e By Jon T. Coleman

Jon T. Coleman’s Here Lies Hugh Glass attempts to apply flesh to the corporeal body of Hugh Glass through the use of nineteenth-century hyperbole and twentieth-century reinvention. As such, Coleman weaves narratives of fiction and fact together, giving the reader a disjointed summation of Glass’s life, a life Coleman suggests is more Homer Simpson than Homer’s Odysseus. We see a character emerge in 1823 who is wounded in a battle with the Arikaras and survives a mauling by a female grizzly bear, only to meet his end ten years later at the hands of Arikaras along the banks of the Yellowstone River. Beginning in 1825 with James Hall, the first person to write of Hugh Glass’s ordeal, Coleman reveals a series of chroniclers less interested in the man than the scars he carried

VIV Fatigue Investigation for Subsea Planar Rigid Spools and Jumpers

Master's thesis in Offshore Technology: Marine and Subsea TechnologyToday, most new field developments consist of a subsea production system. Rigid spools and jumpers are important parts of these systems as they accommodate pipeline expansion and contraction due to changes in pressure and temperature, or due to movements of structural members. As rigid spools and jumpers are located near the sea bottom and normally consist of significant free spans, they could be subjected to seabed currents. These seabed currents, if large enough, can lead to vortex induced vibrations (VIV), which will lead to fast accumulation of fatigue damage. As failure of a rigid spool or jumper will have severe environmental and economic consequences, a proper fatigue assessment should be done to ensure sufficient fatigue life and avoid fatigue failure. The complex geometry of rigid spools and jumpers means that the flow field and hence the vortex shedding will be complex. Currently, there are no proven design guideline or software available for assessing VIV response of a rigid spool/jumper. Moreover, the available design guidelines or software do not normally account for the torsional stiffness of the structure. Hence, they do not consider the fatigue damage due to torsional stresses. The objective of this study is to benchmark the prediction of the global response of a "M" shaped rigid jumper and investigate methods to account for torsional stress in fatigue analysis. A validation study has been performed to evaluate the use of the semi-empirical program, i.e. VIVANA, and a response model approach based on DNV-RP-F105 (2006) to predict the VIV response of rigid spools and jumpers. These two VIV prediction approaches have been used to predict the VIV response of an “M” shaped rigid jumper exposed to varying current speeds hitting the jumper plane at two different angles. The two prediction methods have been evaluated against the existing experimental data. When the current hits the jumper plane at a 10° angle, VIVANA seems to give fairly good predictions on the response frequency/mode and maximum displacement amplitude for most current speeds. The response model approach, on the other hand, seems to give large overpredictions of the displacement amplitude for most current speeds at this current direction. When the current has a 90° angle relative to the jumper plane, both VIVANA and the response model approach give good predictions with respect to the maximum jumper response. iii The results from the validation study are further used to calculate the fatigue damage of the rigid jumper. A methodology presented in Nair et al. (2011) is used to calculate the torsional stresses. This methodology is based on using the stress assessment method and the fatigue assessment method given in DNV-RP-F105 (2006), which originally is for stresses due to bending (i.e. flexural stresses), to also calculate the stresses due to torsion. Then the fatigue damage is calculated using two different methods. In method 1, the fatigue damage due to flexural stress ranges and the fatigue damage due torsional stress ranges are calculated separately. In method 2, the first principal stress range is used to calculated the fatigue damage. For all current speeds and both current directions, method 2 gives higher fatigue damage for current velocities where the torsional stress contribution is large. Method 2 is also somewhat less time-consuming than method 1

Improving Sleep and Learning Motivation, and Decreasing Psychological Distress Through Different Modalities of Written Expression: Controlling for Resilience and Hardiness

College is a time of increased risk for developing psychological distress, poor sleep, and poor academic motivation. Additionally, many students who need mental health services fail to engage in treatment due to perceived barriers. As a result, it is important to find creative ways to reach this group. Research has shown that emotional expression, as well as engaging in written and verbal expression, can be associated with physical, emotional, and cognitive benefits. Specifically, years of research indicate that emotional expression through journaling is highly effective with the college population. Additionally, most college students own a cell phone, typically spending an average of 8 to 10 hours a day using them, and one of the most common activities performed is communication via short message service (SMS), or text messaging. Research also indicates that hand-written and typed writing formats of expression are comparable. However, it appears that prior research has not examined the effects of journaling using the modality of SMS among college students. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to determine whether SMS text-based journaling would benefit college students’ psychological distress, sleep, and learning motivation, above and beyond the effects of traditional journaling, and whether resilience or hardiness would act as control variables in the relationship between the intervention and the outcome variables. Data were collected from 126 college students attending a public university in the South. Participants were randomly assigned to four conditions: a traditional journal entry group, a daily SMS text-based journal entry group, a bi-weekly SMS text-based journal entry group, and a control condition. Prior to engaging in the intervention, participants were instructed to complete a baseline survey, which included informed consent; a demographic questionnaire; and measures of psychological distress, sleep quality, learning motivation, resilience, and hardiness. Participants in experimental groups reflected on positive experiences in varying written modalities, while participants in the control group were informed that they would not actively participate in the intervention. Participants engaged in one of these interventions for four weeks. After the four-week intervention, all participants completed a survey immediately and six weeks later, which included the same baseline measures along with some questions concerning the specific intervention assigned. The results of a repeated measures multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) indicated there were only significant differences between pre-intervention and post-intervention psychological distress and learning motivation, with no significant group differences for psychological distress and significant group differences between the traditional journal group and the bi-weekly SMS text-based group for learning motivation. Additionally, results of the repeated measures multiple analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) indicated that participants in the traditional journaling group scored significantly higher than the bi-weekly SMS textbased journaling group on learning motivation over time when controlling for resilience, and when controlling for hardiness

Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter Development for Residential DC Electricity

The following technical report describes the development and testing of an arc fault circuit interrupter (AFCI) for DC circuits operating primarily at 48 volts. We have identified an effective method for determining when arcing is occurring. Our method is primarily based on comparing the frequency spectrum of current flowing through the circuit during an arcing event to a known characteristic spectrum. Once an arc has been identified, our interrupter is capable of responding adequately to eliminate the arc. Hardware tests show the AFCI developed in this thesis responded, in all test cases, within 2 seconds of an arc fault occurrence. Commercialization and adoption of our interrupter will increase the safety of DC circuits operating at 80 volts or less

Empirical investigation of the relationship between Google search volume index and mutual fund performance and flows: evidence from Norway

Master's thesis in Applied financeWe investigate the relationship between Google search volume index (SVI) and Norwegian mutual fund performance and flows. We use abnormal SVI (ASVI) and relative fund flows as measures of investor attention. The aim of this thesis is twofold, we focus on past performance as a determinant of investor attention measured by ASVI, and past performance and investor attention as determinants of mutual fund flows. Our results show that performance can predict ASVI, inflows, outflows, and net flows. ASVI can predict inflows and net flows but not outflows. Interestingly, high performance has positive impact not only on inflows but also on outflows. On average, simple returns attract investor`s attention more than risk-adjusted performance measures and long-term performance is more important than short-term performance

The acute phase reaction and its prognostic impact in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma: Single biomarkers including c-reactive protein versus biomarker profiles

C-reactive protein (CRP) has a prognostic impact in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). However, the acute phase reaction involves many other proteins depending on its inducing events, including various cytokines that can function as reaction inducers. In the present study, we compared the pretreatment acute phase cytokine profile for 144 patients with potentially curative HNSCC. We investigated the systemic levels of interleukin (IL)6 family mediators (glycoprotein (gp130), IL6 receptor (R)α, IL6, IL27, IL31, oncostatin M (OSM), ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF)), IL1 subfamily members (IL1R antagonist (A), IL33Rα), and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)α. Patient subsets identified from this 10-mediator profile did not differ with regard to disease stage, human papilloma virus (HPV) status, CRP levels, or death cause. Increased CRP, IL6, and IL1RA levels were independent markers for HNSCC-related death in the whole patient population. Furthermore, gp130, IL6Rα, and IL31 were suggested to predict prognosis among tumor HPV-negative patients. Only IL6 predicted survival in HPV-positive patients. Finally, we did a clustering analysis of HPV-negative patients based on six acute phase mediators that showed significant or borderline association with prognosis in Kaplan–Meier analyses; three subsets could then be identified, and they differed in survival (p < 0.001). To conclude, (i) HPV-negative and HPV-positive HNSCC patients show similar variations of their systemic acute phase profiles; (ii) the prognostic impact of single mediators differs between these two patient subsets; and (iii) for HPV-negative patients, acute phase profiling identifies three patient subsets that differ significantly in survival.publishedVersio

Generic Quality of Life in persons With Hearing Loss: A Systematic Litterature Review

Background To the best of our knowledge, no empirically based consensus has been reached as to if, and to what extent, persons with hearing loss (HL) have reduced generic Quality of life (QoL). There seems to be limited knowledge regarding to what extent a hearing aid (HA) would improve QoL. The main aim of the present study was to review studies about the relationship between HL and QoL. A supporting aim was to study the association between distress and HL. Methods Literature databases (Cinahl, Pub Med and Web of Science) were searched to identify relevant journal articles published in the period from January 2000 to March 17, 2016. We performed a primary search pertaining to the relationship between HL, HA and QoL (search number one) followed by a supporting search pertaining to the relationship between distress/mood/anxiety and HL (search number two). After checking for duplications and screening the titles of the papers, we read the abstracts of the remaining papers. The most relevant papers were read thoroughly, leaving us with the journal articles that met the inclusion criteria. Results Twenty journal articles were included in the present review: 13 were found in the primary search (HL and QoL), and seven in the supporting search (HL and distress). The literature yields equivocal findings regarding the association between generic QoL and HL. A strong association between distress and HL was shown, where distressed persons tend to have a lowered generic QoL. It is suggested that QoL is lowered among HL patients. Some studies suggest an increased generic QoL following the use of HA, especially during the first few months after initiation of treatment. Other studies suggest that HA use is one of several possible factors that contribute to improve generic QoL. Conclusions The majority of the studies suggest that HL is associated with reduced generic QoL. Using hearing aids seem to improve general QoL at follow-up within the first year. HL is a risk factor for distress. Further research is needed to explore the relationship between HL and generic QoL, in addition to the importance of influencing variables on this relationship.publishedVersio