1,221 research outputs found
Top leaders’ experiences of learning
This qualitative grounded theory study explores how ten top leaders experienced their learning, whether there were any commonalities in their learning and how that learning could be applied to leadership development and coaching.
Four military generals, three corporate chief executives and three academic leaders were interviewed on learning experiences that they judged as being influential. These interviews were transcribed and analysed according to social constructivist grounded theory through a process of initial, focused and clustered coding followed by individual theme development and common theme construction. A tentative theory emerged from the data.
At each stage findings were referred back to the ten research participants for their validation. Finally a ‘reflective conversation’ was held with each leader, during which they were asked to rate the level of their identification with 11 characteristics and tools that were identified from the common themes. The results showed considerable common identification and use across the entire sample.
Findings indicate that, very early in their lives, these top leaders developed a navigational stance based on their exploration of early relationships (Bowlby, 1988), which assumes a ‘partnering’ relationship with their world.
This navigational stance is strengthened by the consistent and compound application of a navigation template consisting of 11 identified tools and characteristics. These are: navigation (finding a way through), pragmatism (doing the best possible), three-way challenges, socialised decision-making, no attachment to failure (but to holding accountable), an acute sense of reality (no wishful thinking), holism (seeing linkages within and between contexts), alertness to constituents, a sense of direction (with no dogma), use of mentors and the use of the tools as a composite template.
Three innovative insights emerge: a) that the individuals in this research who go on to be successful organisational heads, experience their relationship with their world as a manageable partnership at an early age, b) that because this partnership relationship is perceived to be effective, they reinforce and refine it by the consistent application of a navigation template, and c) that the consistent application of the navigation template may cause these leaders to be in default transformative learning mode.
The developing theory and model is articulated and applied to leadership coaching
Optical and UV spectroscopy of the peculiar RS CVn system, RT Lacertae
Spectra in the H-alpha and H-beta regions of the peculiar double-lined RS CVn binary, RT Lacertae, were obtained in the fall of 1984. Limited International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) long wavelength low and high resolution spectra were obtained concurrently. The ground based spectra have shown an asymmetry with orbital phase in the H-alpha profile. The H-beta profiles were consistent with the same effect. One hemisphere showed excess emission and the other excess absorption, with a broad Gaussian emission component superposed upon the excess H-alpha line. An improved radial velocity curve, giving a better determined mass ratio and geometry was derived. This combined with the radii implied by the rotational broadening of the spectra, showed one component to be 80 to 90% filling the equilibrium Roche surface. The two-faced nature is, therfore, very likely due to mass transfer from the contact component impacting upon its companion. Low resolution ultraviolet data showed that the supposed cooler component is bluer than its companion. High resolution ultraviolet data taken during secondary eclipse showed Mg II emission strength which decreased more slowly than the area visible. The phase behavior of the low resolution data support the former situation, indicating traditional chromospheric activity
Skycorr: A general tool for spectroscopic sky subtraction
Airglow emission lines, which dominate the optical-to-near-IR sky radiation,
show strong, line-dependent variability on various time scales. Therefore, the
subtraction of the sky background in the affected wavelength regime becomes a
problem if plain sky spectra have to be taken at a different time as the
astronomical data. A solution of this issue is the physically motivated scaling
of the airglow lines in the plain sky data to fit the sky lines in the object
spectrum. We have developed a corresponding instrument-independent approach
based on one-dimensional spectra. Our code skycorr separates sky lines and
sky/object continuum by an iterative approach involving a line finder and
airglow line data. The sky lines are grouped according to their expected
variability. The line groups in the sky data are then scaled to fit the sky in
the science data. Required pixel-specific weights for overlapping groups are
taken from a comprehensive airglow model. Deviations in the wavelength
calibration are corrected by fitting Chebyshev polynomials and rebinning via
asymmetric damped sinc kernels. The scaled sky lines and the sky continuum are
subtracted separately. VLT X-Shooter data covering time intervals from two
minutes to about one year were selected to illustrate the performance. Except
for short time intervals of a few minutes, the sky line residuals were several
times weaker than for sky subtraction without fitting. Further tests show that
skycorr performs consistently better than the method of Davies (2007) developed
for VLT SINFONI data.Comment: 17 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in A&
Gravitational lens candidates in the E-CDFS
We report ten lens candidates in the E-CDFS from the GEMS survey. Nine of the
systems are new detections and only one of the candidates is a known lens
system. For the most promising five systems including the known lens system, we
present results from preliminary lens mass modelling, which tests if the
candidates are plausible lens systems. Photometric redshifts of the candidate
lens galaxies are obtained from the COMBO-17 galaxy catalog. Stellar masses of
the candidate lens galaxies within the Einstein radius are obtained by using
the -band luminosity and the color-based stellar mass-to-light ratios.
As expected, the lensing masses are found to be larger than the stellar masses
of the candidate lens galaxies. These candidates have similar dark matter
fractions as compared to lenses in SLACS and COSMOS. They also roughly follow
the halo mass-stellar mass relation predicted by the subhalo abundance matching
technique. One of the candidate lens galaxies qualifies as a LIRG and may not
be a true lens because the arc-like feature in the system is likely to be an
active region of star formation in the candidate lens galaxy. Amongst the five
best candidates, one is a confirmed lens system, one is a likely lens system,
two are less likely to be lenses and the status of one of the candidates is
ambiguous. Spectroscopic follow-up of these systems is still required to
confirm lensing and/or for more accurate determination of the lens masses and
mass density profiles.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables, ApJ accepte
International Immersion in Counselor Education: A Consensual Qualitative Research Investigation
This study used consensual qualitative research methodology to examine the phenomenon of international immersion on counselor education students\u27 (N = 10) development and growth. Seven domains emerged from the data (cultural knowledge, empathy, personal and professional impact, process/reflection, relationships, personal characteristics, and structure). Implications for multicultural education and future research are discussed
Molecfit: A general tool for telluric absorption correction II. Quantitative evaluation on ESO-VLT X-Shooter spectra
Context: Absorption by molecules in the Earth's atmosphere strongly affects
ground-based astronomical observations. The resulting absorption line strength
and shape depend on the highly variable physical state of the atmosphere, i.e.
pressure, temperature, and mixing ratio of the different molecules involved.
Usually, supplementary observations of so-called telluric standard stars (TSS)
are needed to correct for this effect, which is expensive in terms of telescope
time. We have developed the software package molecfit to provide synthetic
transmission spectra based on parameters obtained by fitting narrow ranges of
the observed spectra of scientific objects. These spectra are calculated by
means of the radiative transfer code LBLRTM and an atmospheric model. In this
way, the telluric absorption correction for suitable objects can be performed
without any additional calibration observations of TSS. Aims: We evaluate the
quality of the telluric absorption correction using molecfit with a set of
archival ESO-VLT X-Shooter visible and near-infrared spectra. Methods: Thanks
to the wavelength coverage from the U to the K band, X-Shooter is well suited
to investigate the quality of the telluric absorption correction with respect
to the observing conditions, the instrumental set-up, input parameters of the
code, the signal-to-noise of the input spectrum, and the atmospheric profiles.
These investigations are based on two figures of merit, I_off and I_res, that
describe the systematic offsets and the remaining small-scale residuals of the
corrections. We also compare the quality of the telluric absorption correction
achieved with moelcfit to the classical method based on a telluric standard
star. (Abridged)Comment: Acc. by A&A; Software available via ESO:
http://www.eso.org/sci/software/pipelines/skytools
Molecfit: A general tool for telluric absorption correction. I. Method and application to ESO instruments
Context: The interaction of the light from astronomical objects with the
constituents of the Earth's atmosphere leads to the formation of telluric
absorption lines in ground-based collected spectra. Correcting for these lines,
mostly affecting the red and infrared region of the spectrum, usually relies on
observations of specific stars obtained close in time and airmass to the
science targets, therefore using precious observing time. Aims: We present
molecfit, a tool for correcting for telluric absorption lines based on
synthetic modelling of the Earth's atmospheric transmission. Molecfit is
versatile and can be used with data obtained with various ground-based
telescopes and instruments. Methods: Molecfit combines a publicly available
radiative transfer code, a molecular line database, atmospheric profiles, and
various kernels to model the instrument line spread function. The atmospheric
profiles are created by merging a standard atmospheric profile representative
of a given observatory's climate, of local meteorological data, and of
dynamically retrieved altitude profiles for temperature, pressure, and
humidity. We discuss the various ingredients of the method, its applicability,
and its limitations. We also show examples of telluric line correction on
spectra obtained with a suite of ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) instruments.
Results: Compared to previous similar tools, molecfit takes the best results
for temperature, pressure, and humidity in the atmosphere above the observatory
into account. As a result, the standard deviation of the residuals after
correction of unsaturated telluric lines is frequently better than 2% of the
continuum. Conclusion: Molecfit is able to accurately model and correct for
telluric lines over a broad range of wavelengths and spectral resolutions.
(Abridged)Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures, 5 tables, accepted for publication in Astronomy
and Astrophysic
Galaxy Groups in the SDSS DR4: I. The Catalogue and Basic Properties
We use a modified version of the halo-based group finder developed by Yang et
al. to select galaxy groups from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS DR4). In
the first step, a combination of two methods is used to identify the centers of
potential groups and to estimate their characteristic luminosity. Using an
iterative approach, the adaptive group finder then uses the average
mass-to-light ratios of groups, obtained from the previous iteration, to assign
a tentative mass to each group. This mass is then used to estimate the size and
velocity dispersion of the underlying halo that hosts the group, which in turn
is used to determine group membership in redshift space. Finally, each
individual group is assigned two different halo masses: one based on its
characteristic luminosity, and the other based on its characteristic stellar
mass. Applying the group finder to the SDSS DR4, we obtain 301237 groups in a
broad dynamic range, including systems of isolated galaxies. We use detailed
mock galaxy catalogues constructed for the SDSS DR4 to test the performance of
our group finder in terms of completeness of true members, contamination by
interlopers, and accuracy of the assigned masses. This paper is the first in a
series and focuses on the selection procedure, tests of the reliability of the
group finder, and the basic properties of the group catalogue (e.g. the
mass-to-light ratios, the halo mass to stellar mass ratios, etc.). The group
catalogues including the membership of the groups are available at
http://gax.shao.ac.cn/data/Group.html and
http://www.astro.umass.edu/~xhyang/Group.htmlComment: 19 pages, 12 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ. Group
catalogues are available at http://gax.shao.ac.cn/data/Group.html and
http://www.astro.umass.edu/~xhyang/Group.htm
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