9,177 research outputs found
Not even the past: The joint influence of former leader and new leader during leader successions in the midst of organizational change
Leader succession often occurs during organizational change processes, but the implications of leader succession, in terms of reactions to the change, rarely have been investigated. Employee attitudes and behaviors during organizational change may be influenced jointly by a former leader who recently has transitioned out of the team and the new leader who recently has transitioned into it. We predict an interaction between former and new leaders’ transformational leadership on employees’ behavioral resistance to and support for change. Based on contrast effect theory, a highly transformational former leader constrains the potential effectiveness of the new leader, but a former leader low in transformational leadership enhances this potential effectiveness. We also propose conditional indirect effects transmitted through commitment to the changing organization. Our research was conducted in a large Chinese hospitality organization that was implementing radical organizational change, during which virtually all aspects of processes and products are changed. We collected a 2-wave multisource data from employees who had recently experienced a leader succession and their newly assigned leaders. Based on a final sample of 203 employees from 22 teams, we find empirical support for the proposed interaction effects. The conditional indirect effects were also consistent with our expectations, but the effect on behavioral resistance to change was stronger than the effect on behavioral support for change.postprin
Anaerobic membrane bioreactors for future green bioprocesses
© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers. This chapter focuses on the comprehensive overview of the recent progress in anaerobic membrane bioreactor (AnMBR) applications, including the fundamental aspects and development of AnMBR processes. For a future green bioprocess, the chapter discusses the application development of AnMBRs in domestic and industrial wastewater treatment, opportunities for biogas production and waste minimization and membrane fouling researches. The anaerobic treatment processes are known to have the inherent advantages over the aerobic counterparts, such as sludge minimization and energy savings. The key competitive advantages of AnMBRs over conventional aerobic and anaerobic processes include total biomass retention, excellent effluent quality, bioenergy recovery, smaller footprint, lower energy consumption, high efficiency of wastewater treatment, and strong ability of handling fluctuation in influent quality. Biogas recovery represents one of the key green features of AnMBR technology, particularly for submerged AnMBR (SAnMBR). The compact configure of SAnMBR allows for more convenient collection of biogas
Challenges in biogas production from anaerobic membrane bioreactors
© 2016 Spectacular applications of anaerobic membrane bioreactors (AnMBRs) are emerging due to the membrane enhanced biogas production in the form of renewable bioresources. They produce similar energy derived from the world's depleting natural fossil energy sources while minimizing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. During the last decade, many types of AnMBRs have been developed and applied so as to make biogas technology practical and economically viable. Referring to both conventional and advanced configurations, this review presents a comprehensive summary of AnMBRs for biogas production in recent years. The potential of biogas production from AnMBRs cannot be fully exploited, since certain constraints still remain and these cause low methane yield. This paper addresses a detailed assessment on the potential challenges that AnMBRs are encountering, with a major focus on many inhibitory substances and operational dilemmas. The aim is to provide a solid platform for advances in novel AnMBRs applications for optimized biogas production
Patient safety in dentistry: development of a candidate 'never event' list for primary care
Introduction The 'never event' concept is often used in secondary care and refers to an agreed list of patient safety incidents that 'should not happen if the necessary preventative measures are in place'. Such an intervention may raise awareness of patient safety issues and inform team learning and system improvements in primary care dentistry.
Objective To identify and develop a candidate never event list for primary care dentistry.
Methods A literature review, eight workshops with dental practitioners and a modified Delphi with 'expert' groups were used to identify and agree candidate never events.
Results Two-hundred and fifty dental practitioners suggested 507 never events, reduced to 27 distinct possibilities grouped across seven themes. Most frequently occurring themes were: 'checking medical history and prescribing' (119, 23.5%) and 'infection control and decontamination' (71, 14%). 'Experts' endorsed nine candidate never event statements with one graded as 'extreme risk' (failure to check past medical history) and four as 'high risk' (for example, extracting wrong tooth).
Conclusion Consensus on a preliminary list of never events was developed. This is the first known attempt to develop this approach and an important step in determining its value to patient safety. Further work is necessary to develop the utility of this method
New Fe-based superconductors: properties relevant for applications
Less than two years after the discovery of high temperature superconductivity
in oxypnictide LaFeAs(O,F) several families of superconductors based on Fe
layers (1111, 122, 11, 111) are available. They share several characteristics
with cuprate superconductors that compromise easy applications, such as the
layered structure, the small coherence length, and unconventional pairing, On
the other hand the Fe-based superconductors have metallic parent compounds, and
their electronic anisotropy is generally smaller and does not strongly depend
on the level of doping, the supposed order parameter symmetry is s wave, thus
in principle not so detrimental to current transmission across grain
boundaries. From the application point of view, the main efforts are still
devoted to investigate the superconducting properties, to distinguish intrinsic
from extrinsic behaviours and to compare the different families in order to
identify which one is the fittest for the quest for better and more practical
superconductors. The 1111 family shows the highest Tc, huge but also the most
anisotropic upper critical field and in-field, fan-shaped resistive transitions
reminiscent of those of cuprates, while the 122 family is much less anisotropic
with sharper resistive transitions as in low temperature superconductors, but
with about half the Tc of the 1111 compounds. An overview of the main
superconducting properties relevant to applications will be presented. Upper
critical field, electronic anisotropy parameter, intragranular and
intergranular critical current density will be discussed and compared, where
possible, across the Fe-based superconductor families
Observation of the Nernst signal generated by fluctuating Cooper pairs
Long-range order is destroyed in a superconductor warmed above its critical
temperature (Tc). However, amplitude fluctuations of the superconducting order
parameter survive and lead to a number of well established phenomena such as
paraconductivity : an excess of charge conductivity due to the presence of
short-lived Cooper pairs in the normal state. According to an untested theory,
these pairs generate a transverse thermoelectric (Nernst) signal. In amorphous
superconducting films, the lifetime of Cooper pairs exceeds the elastic
lifetime of quasi-particles in a wide temperature range above Tc; consequently,
the Cooper pairs Nernst signal dominate the response of the normal electrons
well above Tc. In two dimensions, the magnitude of the expected signal depends
only on universal constants and the superconducting coherence length, so the
theory can be unambiguously tested. Here, we report on the observation of a
Nernst signal in such a superconductor traced deep into the normal state. Since
the amplitude of this signal is in excellent agreement with the theoretical
prediction, the result provides the first unambiguous case for a Nernst effect
produced by short-lived Cooper pairs
Continuous Interaction with a Virtual Human
Attentive Speaking and Active Listening require that a Virtual Human be capable of simultaneous perception/interpretation and production of communicative behavior. A Virtual Human should be able to signal its attitude and attention while it is listening to its interaction partner, and be able to attend to its interaction partner while it is speaking – and modify its communicative behavior on-the-fly based on what it perceives from its partner. This report presents the results of a four week summer project that was part of eNTERFACE’10. The project resulted in progress on several aspects of continuous interaction such as scheduling and interrupting multimodal behavior, automatic classification of listener responses, generation of response eliciting behavior, and models for appropriate reactions to listener responses. A pilot user study was conducted with ten participants. In addition, the project yielded a number of deliverables that are released for public access
Canine pseudopregnancy: an evaluation of prevalence and current treatment protocols in the UK
Background: There is a dearth of literature on pseudopregnancy in the bitch, with only a few treatment-based
studies published since the 1990s. Pseudopregnancy may be under-recognised in bitches and may account for a
proportion of behavioural cases seen in veterinary practices including aggression. Little is known about commonly
used treatments for overtly pseudopregnant bitches and it is possible that current regimes may not be prescribed
for a sufficient duration to control any clinical signs including, physical and behavioural changes. To investigate
current trends in diagnosis and treatment of canine pseudopregnancy, a postal survey was sent to 2000 randomly
selected veterinary surgeons in UK veterinary practices. The questionnaire queried how often vets recognise cases
of pseudopregnancy in spayed and entire bitches, which physical or behavioural signs are commonly recognised
for diagnosis, and which management or treatment protocols are used.
Results: The response rate was 19.8% (397/2000). Ninety-six percent of veterinary surgeons reported seeing
pseudopregnant bitches showing behavioural changes without any physical changes within the last 12 months.
Of those behavioural changes, collecting and mothering objects was the most frequently reported behavioural
sign (96%). Ninety-seven percent of vets had seen aggression in pseudopregnant bitches. Nevertheless, only 52%
of vets routinely asked owners about behavioural changes during consultations. Forty-nine percent of respondents
reported seeing pseudopregnancy in spayed bitches. The most commonly reported physical sign was enlarged
mammary glands and/or milk production (89%). Treatment options varied (surgical, medical or none) and depended on
duration and severity of physical and behavioural signs, owners’ preference, cost, concurrent disease, drug availability
and previous history.
Conclusions: This is the largest epidemiological study of canine pseudopregnancy in the UK. The prevalence and
severity of clinical signs in dogs with pseudopregnancy are variable and possibly under-estimated. Dogs with overt
pseudopregnancy experience diverse physical and behavioural changes and information on standard treatment
protocols are lacking. Although, progress on our understanding of diagnosis and treatment of pseudopregnancy in
spayed and entire bitches has been made, further studies are warranted
A Simple and Effective Method for Construction of Escherichia coli Strains Proficient for Genome Engineering
Multiplex genome engineering is a standalone recombineering tool for large-scale programming and accelerated evolution of cells. However, this advanced genome engineering technique has been limited to use in selected bacterial strains. We developed a simple and effective strain-independent method for effective genome engineering in Escherichia coli. The method involves introducing a suicide plasmid carrying the l Red recombination system into the mutS gene. The suicide plasmid can be excised from the chromosome via selection in the absence of antibiotics, thus allowing transient inactivation of the mismatch repair system during genome engineering. In addition, we developed another suicide plasmid that enables integration of large DNA fragments into the lacZ genomic locus. These features enable this system to be applied in the exploitation of the benefits of genome engineering in synthetic biology, as well as the metabolic engineering of different strains of E. coli.open7
Health-state utilities in a prisoner population : a cross-sectional survey
Background: Health-state utilities for prisoners have not been described.
Methods: We used data from a 1996 cross-sectional survey of Australian prisoners (n = 734).
Respondent-level SF-36 data was transformed into utility scores by both the SF-6D and Nichol's
method. Socio-demographic and clinical predictors of SF-6D utility were assessed in univariate
analyses and a multivariate general linear model.
Results: The overall mean SF-6D utility was 0.725 (SD 0.119). When subdivided by various medical
conditions, prisoner SF-6D utilities ranged from 0.620 for angina to 0.764 for those with none/mild
depressive symptoms. Utilities derived by the Nichol's method were higher than SF-6D scores,
often by more than 0.1. In multivariate analysis, significant independent predictors of worse utility
included female gender, increasing age, increasing number of comorbidities and more severe
depressive symptoms.
Conclusion: The utilities presented may prove useful for future economic and decision models
evaluating prison-based health programs
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