Do EAPs work? A complex answer to a simple question.

The main purpose of this paper is to stimulate debate about what effectiveness means in the context of EAPs by challenging some widespread and taken-for-granted assumptions about the benefits of counselling for individual and organizational performance. I also hope to stimulate debate by suggesting some possible costs and benefits of EAPs which it appears have not yet been systematically considered or assessed. I will argue that it is only by looking for more complex answers to the question of whether EAPs work that serious and significant progress can be made in the design and delivery of EAPs. This is not an attempt to argue that counselling does not 'work', but rather an attempt to unpack what 'work' means - particularly in relation to the wider claims of EAPs

Response of a marine-terminating Greenland outlet glacier to abrupt cooling 8200 and 9300 years ago

Long-term records of Greenland outlet-glacier change extending beyond the satellite era can inform future predictions of Greenland Ice Sheet behavior. Of particular relevance is elucidating the Greenland Ice Sheet's response to decadal- and centennial-scale climate change. Here, we reconstruct the early Holocene history of Jakobshavn Isbræ, Greenland's largest outlet glacier, using 10Be surface exposure ages and 14C-dated lake sediments. Our chronology of ice-margin change demonstrates that Jakobshavn Isbræ advanced to deposit moraines in response to abrupt cooling recorded in central Greenland ice cores ca. 8,200 and 9,300 years ago. While the rapid, dynamically aided retreat of many Greenland outlet glaciers in response to warming is well documented, these results indicate that marine-terminating outlet glaciers are also able to respond quickly to cooling. We suggest that short lag times of high ice flux margins enable a greater magnitude response of marine-terminating outlets to abrupt climate change compared to their land-terminating counterparts

Evidence-based Management and Leadership

Organizations can be led and managed in many different ways and there is no shortage of perspectives, models, and frameworks for thinking about how such tasks can be accomplished. This chapter focuses on one such perspective: evidence-based management (EBMgt). At its core is the idea that when managers and organizations make decisions, evidence of various types should be collected, critically appraised, and taken into account. Put this way, EBMgt does not appear to be either new or radical. However, as we shall go on to discuss, recent attempts to elaborate and flesh out this idea show that while some of its core principles are unremarkable, actually doing EBMgt presents major challenges, threats, and opportunities. Far from being business as usual, using evidence seriously and systematically appears to represent a significant departure from what organizations typically do. This chapter starts with an account of the origins of the idea of evidence-based practice in other fields and how it has been adapted in the development of EBMgt. It then looks at the sometimes controversial notion of leadership and what we know about what managers and leaders do. We then consider the extent to which leaders, managers, and organizations are evidence-based in their approach to managing organizations and what can be done to further develop this approach. Finally, we discuss some of the challenges that managing in an evidence-based way present to leaders and to more traditional ways of thinking about what leadership entails

Mobility and Trapping of Molecules During Oxygen Adsorption on Cu(110)

Adsorption of oxygen on Cu(110) at 4 K has been investigated by scanning tunneling microscopy. We have observed that weakly bound, “trapped” molecules coexist with pairs of atoms which are preferentially oriented along [110] and [001]. Molecules and atoms are both adsorbed in hollow sites. Clustering of O2 at step edges perpendicular to [110] indicates substantial anisotropic mobility of the molecular precursor. It is concluded that precursor dynamics and multidimensionality of the potential energy surface have a dominant influence on the dissociative chemisorption of O2 on Cu(110)

Backflow in a Fermi Liquid

We calculate the backflow current around a fixed impurity in a Fermi liquid. The leading contribution at long distances is radial and proportional to 1/r^2. It is caused by the current induced density modulation first discussed by Landauer. The familiar 1/r^3 dipolar backflow obtained in linear response by Pines and Nozieres is only the next to leading term, whose strength is calculated here to all orders in the scattering. In the charged case the condition of perfect screening gives rise to a novel sum rule for the phase shifts. Similar to the behavior in a classical viscous liquid, the friction force is due only to the leading contribution in the backflow while the dipolar term does not contribute.Comment: 4 pages, 1 postscript figure, uses ReVTeX and epsfig macro, submitted to Physical Review Letter

The role of the spin in quasiparticle interference

Quasiparticle interference patterns measured by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) can be used to study the local electronic structure of metal surfaces and high temperature superconductors. Here, we show that even in non-magnetic systems the spin of the quasiparticles can have a profound effect on the interference patterns. On Bi(110), where the surface state bands are not spin-degenerate, the patterns are not related to the dispersion of the electronic states in a simple way. In fact, the features which are expected for the spin-independent situation are absent and the observed interference patterns can only be interpreted by taking spin-conserving scattering events into account.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Looking at electronic wave functions on metal surfaces

The project described here is not only a beautiful example of the visual side tophysics, it is also a beautiful example of international cooperation. The first use of the idea—to apply a Fourier transform to STM pictures to see electron waves instead of just the surface atoms—came out of a collaboration between Plummer, Sprunger and the Aarhus group headed by Besenbacher. Hofman, who had beenworking at Tennessee, took Be(1010) samples to Berlin where the images shown in this pictorial were taken. All of the participants are now preparing a paper on the use of a Fourier transform to map the Fermi contour at metal surfaces

Effective and efficient committee work: A Systematic overview of multidisciplinary literatures

An era of financial constraints calls for effective and efficient committee work when making collective decisions. A systematic search identified research literatures in business administration, health research and service development, and social psychology addressing decision making about highly technical issues by mixed groups of people. Existing empirical and theoretical syntheses were drawn together to identify learning about the structure, processes and environment of committees and the characteristics of effective chairing. Committee performance depends upon the individuals involved, their attributes and relationships; and the time available for a committee to explore their knowledge to make choices or solve problems. In general, groups with six to twelve members tend to perform better than those in either smaller or larger groups, especially when relying on virtual communication. Diverse groups take account of a range of opinions and enhance credibility and widespread acceptance and implementation of decisions but may be more difficult to convene and manage appropriately. However, where chairs manage conflict constructively, more varied membership leads to better performance and more reliable judgements. These small-scale interactions reflect the larger scale institutional relationships, hierarchies and cultures which act as a backdrop to committee activities. These findings suggest that effective committee performance is enhanced by: appointing members from all key stakeholder groups who between them bring the appropriate range in educational and functional background, while keeping the group size close to 6-12; appointing committee chairs for their facilitation skills and generalist background rather than specialist knowledge; allowing sufficient time to allow all relevant knowledge to be shared and evaluated through discussion, especially when judgements need to be made by committees with members who vary in status; applying formal consensus development processes; and, particularly when working virtually, considering the challenges of developing trust and cohesion, and integrating divergent perspectives

Theology, News and Notes - Vol. 17, No. 02

Theology News & Notes was a theological journal published by Fuller Theological Seminary from 1954 through 2014.https://digitalcommons.fuller.edu/tnn/1195/thumbnail.jp