No room at the top? A system dynamics view of the recursive consequences of women’s underrepresentation in international assignments

Purpose: The expatriation literature has developed an insightful body of research on the reasons why women are not assigned abroad as frequently as men. However, we know very little about the systemic and recursive consequences of women’s underrepresentation in international assignments (IAs), which are examined in this conceptual paper. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing upon expatriation research and a system dynamics perspective, we propose a conceptual model to explain both women’s underrepresentation in IAs and its recursive consequences. Findings: We highlight how women’s underrepresentation in IAs results from a complex system of recursive effects that jeopardizes women’s professional development and undermines both their own career progression to top management and firms’ competitive advantage and international growth. We argue that organizations make decisions that contravene their own interest in a competitive global environment. First, because they are limiting their talent pool by not considering female candidates. Second, because they are missing the opportunity to use IAs to advance women’s careers. Research implications/limitations: Our model provides a solid grounding for future research on selecting the most effective organizational actions and designing support-ive measures to disrupt the persistent dynamics contributing to women’s underrepresentation in IAs. Future research could also expand our study by incorporating individual differences and the proactive role that women may take. Managerial implications: Our model points to specific managerial interventions (e.g., increased access to job-training and specific training ahead of the assignment, dual-career support, women’s mentoring, and affirmative action) which have the potential to reduce women’s underrepresentation in IAs and in top management. Originality: Our system dynamics approach enables a broader understanding of why women are underrepresented in IAs, how this underrepresentation further exacer-bates gender segregation in international business, and how these recursive outcomes can be averted to the advantage of firms’ sustainable growth

Paratuberculosis control: a review with a focus on vaccination

Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) infection causes in ruminants a regional chronic enteritis that is increasingly being recognized as a significant problem affecting animal health, farming and the food industry due to the high prevalence of the disease and to recent research data strengthening the link between the pathogen and human inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Control of the infection through hygiene-management measures and test and culling of positive animals has to date not produced the expected results and thus a new focus on vaccination against this pathogen is necessary. This review summarizes all vaccination studies of cattle, sheep or goats reporting production, epidemiological or pathogenetic effects of vaccination published before January 2010 and that provide data amenable to statistical analyses. The meta analysis run on the selected data, allowed us to conclude that most studies included in this review reported that vaccination against MAP is a valuable tool in reducing microbial contamination risks of this pathogen and reducing or delaying production losses and pathogenetic effects but also that it did not fully prevent infection. However, the majority of MAP vaccines were very similar and rudimentary and thus there is room for improvement in vaccine types and formulations

Covariant hydrodynamic Lyapunov modes and strong stochasticity threshold in Hamiltonian lattices

We scrutinize the reliability of covariant and Gram-Schmidt Lyapunov vectors for capturing hydrodynamic Lyapunov modes (HLMs) in one-dimensional Hamiltonian lattices. We show that,in contrast with previous claims, HLMs do exist for any energy density, so that strong chaos is not essential for the appearance of genuine (covariant) HLMs. In contrast, Gram-Schmidt Lyapunov vectors lead to misleading results concerning the existence of HLMs in the case of weak chaos.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review

Annotated checklist of marine fishes from the Sanctuary of Bahía Chamela, Mexico with occurrence and biogeographic data.

An annotated checklist of marine fishes of the Sanctuary of Islands and Islets of Bahía Chamela in the central Mexican Pacific is presented. Records of fish species were obtained by different methods including visual census, sampling with anesthetics, fisherman-nets, and trawling with a biological dredge. Additional records were obtained from natural history collections and publications. The list comprises 196 species in 64 families and 141 genera. The Carangidae is the most speciose family with 11 species, followed by the Labridae with 10 and the Pomacentridae with nine. Fourteen species are endemic in Mexican Pacific waters, but none is restricted to Bahía Chamela. The most dominant species recorded during underwater surveys were Epinephelus labriformis, Stegastes flavilatus, and Halichoeres dispilus. Most species are of tropical affinities distributed throughout the tropical eastern Pacific (123), eastern Pacific (23), and Mexican Pacific (14). Other species are known from the eastern and Indo-Pacific regions (18), eastern Pacific and western Atlantic oceans (2), and some are circumtropical (9). A new record of the Gulf Brotula Ogilbia ventralis is provided for the Bahía Chamela and its geographical distribution is extended to Mexican central Pacific

Development and significance of tectonic foliations in the Hercynian Belt of NW Spain

[Resumen] En este trabajo se presenta un modelo de distribución y desarrollo de foliaciones en rocas pelíticas y samíticas dentro de un orógeno: el Macizo Herciniano del NW d e España. Estas rocas estuvieron sometidas a una deformación polifásica, con tres fases principales, en condiciones que van desde la transición diagénesis-metamorfismo hasta un metamorfismo de alto grado. Las características de las foliaciones asociadas a las distintas fases de deformaci6n varían progresivamente a medida que lo hace el metamorfismo, existiendo, no obstante, algunos saltos bruscos en dichas características, cuya situaci6n coincide con los límites entre algunas de las grandes zonas en que se divide el orógeno. En todo caso, la foliación tect6nica primaria(Sl) muestra un carácter generalizado, mientras que las otras dos (S2 y S3) presentan una distribución más irregular, apareciendo la S2 en relación con las zonas de cizalla asociadas a grandes cabalgamientos y la S3 controlada por la posición de la anisotropía previa dominante. En la formaci6n de estas foliaciones intervino, en general, de manera muy importante la disolución por presión en las áreas menos metamórficas y la recristalización orientada de filosilicatos en las más metamórficas. El análisis de las relaciones cronológicas entre cristalización metamórfica y desarrollo de foliaciones pone de manifiesto una cierta heterogeneidad espacial en el momento de aparición de los episodios metamórficos en relación con los de deformación. Esta heterogeneidad puede explicarse por las alteraciones en las condiciones P, T que produce el emplazamiento de las grandes unidades tectónicas.[Abstract] A model concerning distribution and development of foliations is presented in this paper, for pelitic and psammitic rocks in the Hercynian Belt ofNW Spain. This rocks have undergone three main deformation phases, in conditions ranging from the iagenesis-metamorphism transition to the high grade metamorphism. The features of the foliations associated to the different phases varie progressively with the metamorphism. Nevertheless, sorne abrupt changes in this features can also be found in sorne of the borders between the main tectonic units. Anyhow, the primary tectonic foliation (Si) is generalized, and the other two (S2 and S3) have a more irregular distribution, related to shear zones associated to main thrusts (S2), or to zones with a favourable possition of the main previous anisotropy (for S3)' The deformation mechanisms opperating in the development of this foliations were, mainly, pressure solution in the zones with low metamorphism, and recrystalization of orientated phyllosillicates in those with the higher metamorphism. The analysis of the chronologic relationships between metamorphic crystalization and development of the foliations in different tectonic units shows sorne differences in the age of the metamorphic episodes in relation with the deformation. These inhomogeneities can be explained by the changes in P, T conditions produced by the emplacement of the main tectonic units

Aproximación a la mecánica de los cabalgamientos en el contexto general de la deformación en el NW de la península Ibèrica

En la cadena herciniana del NW de la Peninsula Ibérica, las Zonas Cantábrica y Asturoccidental-leonesa proporcionan buenos ejemplos de cabalgamientos desarrollados en diferentes momentos en el transcurso de la secuencia deformacional. Así, en la Zona Asturoccidental-leonesa, al existir temperaturas y presiones de confinamiento relativamente elevadas, las rocas reaccionaron ante los esfuerzos de manera dúctil, originándose pliegues; al progresar la deformación, se alcanzó la resistencia de las rocas en algunos puntos y estas se fracturaron originándose cabalgamientos. Las fracturas cortan pues a plieguesanteriores y en consecuencia no se producen sobre planos de debilidad preexistentes. Debido a la gran resistencia que ofrecen las superfícies de fractura al deslizamiento, se asocian a ellas numerosas fracturas menores y otras estructuras a veces muy penetrativas. Por el contrario, en la Zona Cantábrica. La temperatura y la preslón de confinamiento fueron menores, lo cual debió dificultar la deformación dúctil y disminuyó probablemente la resistencia de las rocas. Por otro lado, se desarrolló una superfície de debilidad en las rocas debida a la existencia de una presión de fluidos alta y tal vez a la presencia de algunos niveles poco resistentes a la deformación. Todo ello condicionó el que se originase un despegue generalizado cuya ascensión mediante fallas lístricas dio lugar a mantos de tipo apalachense. Desaparecidas las condiciones quefavorecieron el emplazamiento de estos mantos, el acortamiento posterior se llevó a cabo por un proceso de plegamiento