THE IMPACT OF TEAM EMPOWERMENT ON VIRTUAL TEAM PERFORMANCE: THE MODERATING ROLE OF FACE-TO-FACE INTERACTION.

We investigated the relationship between team empowerment and virtual team performance and the moderating role of the extent of face-to-face interaction using 35 sales and service virtual teams in a high-technology organization. Team empowerment was positively related to two independent assessments of virtual team performance--process improvement and customer satisfaction. Further, the number of face-to-face meetings moderated the relationship between team empowerment and process improvement: team empowerment was a stronger predictor for teams that met face-to-face less, rather than more, frequently

The Earliest Phases of Galaxy Evolution

In this paper we study the very early phases of the evolution of our Galaxy by means of a chemical evolution model which reproduces most of the observational constraints in the solar vicinity and in the disk. We have restricted our analysis to the solar neighborhood and present the predicted abundances of several elements (C, N, O, Mg, Si, S, Ca, Fe) over an extended range of metallicities $[Fe/H] = -4.0$ to $[Fe/H] = 0.0$ compared to previous models. We adopted the most recent yield calculations for massive stars taken from different authors (Woosley & Weaver 1995 and Thielemann et al. 1996) and compared the results with a very large sample of data, one of the largest ever used to this purpose. These data have been analysed with a new and powerful statistical method which allows us to quantify the observational spread in measured elemental abundances and obtain a more meaningful comparison with the predictions from our chemical evolution model. Our analysis shows that the ``plateau'' observed for the [$\alpha$/Fe] ratios at low metallicities ($-3.0< [Fe/H] <-1.0$) is not perfectly constant but it shows a slope, especially for oxygen. This slope is very well reproduced by our model with both sets of yields. This is not surprising since realistic chemical evolution models, taking into account in detail stellar lifetimes, never predicted a completely flat plateau. This is due either to the fact that massive stars of different mass produce a slightly different O/Fe ratio or to the often forgotten fact that supernovae of type Ia, originating from white dwarfs, start appearing already at a galactic age of 30 million years and reach their maximum at 1 Gyr.Comment: 32 pages, 9 figures, to be published in Ap

Associations of moderate to vigorous physical activity and sedentary behavior with depressive and anxiety symptoms in self-isolating people during the COVID-19 pandemic:A cross-sectional survey in Brazil

This is a cross-sectional study evaluating the associations of self-reported moderate to vigorous physical activity, and sedentary behavior with depressive, anxiety, and co-occurring depressive and anxiety symptoms (D&A) in self-isolating Brazilians during the COVID-19 pandemic. Depressive and anxiety symptoms were collected using the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories (BDI and BAI). Among the 937 participants (females=72.3%), those performing ≥30 min/day of moderate to vigorous or ≥15 min/day of vigorous physical activity had lower odds of prevalent depressive, anxiety, and co-occurring D&A symptoms. Those spending ≥10 h/day sedentary were more likely to have depressive symptoms.status: publishe

LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products

(Abridged) We describe here the most ambitious survey currently planned in the optical, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). A vast array of science will be enabled by a single wide-deep-fast sky survey, and LSST will have unique survey capability in the faint time domain. The LSST design is driven by four main science themes: probing dark energy and dark matter, taking an inventory of the Solar System, exploring the transient optical sky, and mapping the Milky Way. LSST will be a wide-field ground-based system sited at Cerro Pach\'{o}n in northern Chile. The telescope will have an 8.4 m (6.5 m effective) primary mirror, a 9.6 deg$^2$ field of view, and a 3.2 Gigapixel camera. The standard observing sequence will consist of pairs of 15-second exposures in a given field, with two such visits in each pointing in a given night. With these repeats, the LSST system is capable of imaging about 10,000 square degrees of sky in a single filter in three nights. The typical 5$\sigma$ point-source depth in a single visit in $r$ will be $\sim 24.5$ (AB). The project is in the construction phase and will begin regular survey operations by 2022. The survey area will be contained within 30,000 deg$^2$ with $\delta<+34.5^\circ$, and will be imaged multiple times in six bands, $ugrizy$, covering the wavelength range 320--1050 nm. About 90\% of the observing time will be devoted to a deep-wide-fast survey mode which will uniformly observe a 18,000 deg$^2$ region about 800 times (summed over all six bands) during the anticipated 10 years of operations, and yield a coadded map to $r\sim27.5$. The remaining 10\% of the observing time will be allocated to projects such as a Very Deep and Fast time domain survey. The goal is to make LSST data products, including a relational database of about 32 trillion observations of 40 billion objects, available to the public and scientists around the world.Comment: 57 pages, 32 color figures, version with high-resolution figures available from https://www.lsst.org/overvie

Managing formalization to increase global team effectiveness and meaningfulness of work in multinational organizations

Global teams may help to integrate across locations, and yet, with formalized rules and procedures, responsiveness to those locations’ effectiveness, and the team members’ experiences of work as meaningful may suffer. We employ a mixed-methods approach to understand how the level and content of formalization can be managed to resolve these tensions in multinationals. In a sample of global teams from a large mining and resources organization operating across 44 countries, interviews, observations, and a quantitative 2-wave survey revealed a great deal of variability between teams in how formalization processes were enacted. Only those formalization processes that promoted knowledge sharing were instrumental in improving team effectiveness. Implementing rules and procedures in the set-up of the teams and projects, rather than during interactions, and utilizing protocols to help establish the global team as a source of identity increased this knowledge sharing. Finally, we found members’ personal need for structure moderated the effect of team formalization on how meaningful individuals found their work within the team. These findings have significant implications for theory and practice in multinational organizations

Knowledge Exchange Processes in Multicultural Teams: Linking Organizational Diversity Climates to Teams’ Effectiveness

We developed an evidence-based model illuminating team knowledge exchange processes as a key link between organizational diversity climate and the effectiveness of multicultural teams (MCTs). Our analysis is based on 143 in-depth interviews and extensive observations of team interactions that occurred in 48 teams from 11 companies. Our findings revealed that teams that oscillated between assertive and cooperative knowledge exchange processes were more effective. We also found such dual processes were more prevalent in organizations that had an engagement-focused diversity climate characterized by utilization of diversity to inform and enhance work processes based on the assumption that cultural differences give rise to different knowledge, insights, and alternative views. Based on our findings we developed specific propositions about optimizing MCT knowledge-exchange processes to guide future research and practice

Water isotopes in desiccating lichens

The stable isotopic composition of water is routinely used as a tracer to study water exchange processes in vascular plants and ecosystems. To date, no study has focussed on isotope processes in non-vascular, poikilohydric organisms such as lichens and bryophytes. To understand basic isotope exchange processes of non-vascular plants, thallus water isotopic composition was studied in various green-algal lichens exposed to desiccation. The study indicates that lichens equilibrate with the isotopic composition of surrounding water vapour. A model was developed as a proof of concept that accounts for the specific water relations of these poikilohydric organisms. The approach incorporates first their variable thallus water potential and second a compartmentation of the thallus water into two isotopically distinct but connected water pools. Moreover, the results represent first steps towards the development of poikilohydric organisms as a recorder of ambient vapour isotopic composition

The Variant rs1867277 in FOXE1 Gene Confers Thyroid Cancer Susceptibility through the Recruitment of USF1/USF2 Transcription Factors

In order to identify genetic factors related to thyroid cancer susceptibility, we adopted a candidate gene approach. We studied tag- and putative functional SNPs in genes involved in thyroid cell differentiation and proliferation, and in genes found to be differentially expressed in thyroid carcinoma. A total of 768 SNPs in 97 genes were genotyped in a Spanish series of 615 cases and 525 controls, the former comprising the largest collection of patients with this pathology from a single population studied to date. SNPs in an LD block spanning the entire FOXE1 gene showed the strongest evidence of association with papillary thyroid carcinoma susceptibility. This association was validated in a second stage of the study that included an independent Italian series of 482 patients and 532 controls. The strongest association results were observed for rs1867277 (OR[per-allele] = 1.49; 95%CI = 1.30–1.70; P = 5.9×10−9). Functional assays of rs1867277 (NM_004473.3:c.−283G>A) within the FOXE1 5′ UTR suggested that this variant affects FOXE1 transcription. DNA-binding assays demonstrated that, exclusively, the sequence containing the A allele recruited the USF1/USF2 transcription factors, while both alleles formed a complex in which DREAM/CREB/αCREM participated. Transfection studies showed an allele-dependent transcriptional regulation of FOXE1. We propose a FOXE1 regulation model dependent on the rs1867277 genotype, indicating that this SNP is a causal variant in thyroid cancer susceptibility. Our results constitute the first functional explanation for an association identified by a GWAS and thereby elucidate a mechanism of thyroid cancer susceptibility. They also attest to the efficacy of candidate gene approaches in the GWAS era