Does coerced volunteering undermine the public service motivation of volunteers? A moderated mediation model

There has been an the increase within the past 20 years of mandatory volunteering programs within many school systems and in the past year in the UK’s Community Work Placement program. Consequently, there is the potential problem for volunteer coordinators who are managing individuals who have been coerced into volunteering. This coercion may undermine the motivation of volunteers and result in decreased performance. This study addresses the issue by examining the public service motivation (PSM) of 416 volunteers in southwestern UK. We use a moderated mediation model to test if coerced individuals have a poor person-organization fit (P-O fit) and thus a lower level of effort exerted. We found that those individuals who were coerced, but had low levels of PSM reported greater volunteer intensity then their non-coerced volunteers who also had low PSM levels. Whereas, when obligated, it strengthened the relationship between PSM and P-O fit. Consequently, this gives non-profit managers a clearer understanding of how to overcome the challenges coerced volunteers may present

Combined Working Media-Based Forming on a Pneumo-Mechanical High Speed Forming Machine

Quasi-static working media-based forming processes (WMF) permit the production of complex sheet metal parts with relatively little expense. The associated need for very high pressures and hence complex tools and machines for the production of fine geometrical details is often problematic. The use of high speed forming processes (HSF) can offer many benefits, including a reduced financial outlay on equipment and better part properties in this case. But these processes also have disadvantages, of course, such as if they are used for the production of complex large-surface parts. Consequently, a combination of both approaches would be ideal. This paper describes a new approach to combining high pressure sheet metal forming (HPF) and pneumo-mechanical HSF for the production of complex sheet metal parts

The Public Service Motivated Volunteer: Devoting Time or Effort?

Non-profit organizations, corporate volunteer programs, and government workplace schemes are asking volunteers for their time and effort. But, with the changes in how people volunteer, such as episodic, micro, and cyber volunteering, those managing volunteers need to understand whether they should focus on encouraging volunteers to donate more time or effort. Using public service motivation to measure volunteer\u2019s propensity to engage in volunteering, we compare three outcomes: time spent volunteering, frequency of volunteering, and volunteering intensity. In a sample of 411 volunteers, we find public service motivation is associated with more time spent volunteering, increased frequency, and higher levels of volunteering intensity. However, volunteering intensity explains the most variance. These findings suggest that how the individual perceives they exert volunteering intensity may be useful among public service motivated volunteers

Haptic identification of objects using a modular soft robotic gripper

This work presents a soft hand capable of robustly grasping and identifying objects based on internal state measurements. A highly compliant hand allows for intrinsic robustness to grasping uncertainty, but the specific configuration of the hand and object is not known, leaving undetermined if a grasp was successful in picking up the right object. A soft finger was adapted and combined to form a three finger gripper that can easily be attached to existing robots, for example, to the wrist of the Baxter robot. Resistive bend sensors were added within each finger to provide a configuration estimate sufficient for distinguishing between a set of objects. With one data point from each finger, the object grasped by the gripper can be identified. A clustering algorithm to find the correspondence for each grasped object is presented for both enveloping grasps and pinch grasps. This hand is a first step towards robust proprioceptive soft grasping

Early life adversity and serotonin transporter gene variation interact at the level of the adrenal gland to affect the adult hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis

The short allelic variant of the serotonin transporter (5-HTT) promoter-linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR) has been associated with the etiology of major depression by interaction with early life stress (ELS). Furthermore, 5-HTTLPR has been associated with abnormal functioning of the stress-responsive hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Here, we examined if, and at what level, the HPA-axis is affected in an animal model for ELS × 5-HTTLPR interactions. Heterozygous and homozygous 5-HTT knockout rats and their wild-type littermates were exposed daily at postnatal days 2–14 to 3 h of maternal separation. When grown to adulthood, plasma levels of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), and the major rat glucocorticoid, corticosterone (CORT), were measured. Furthermore, the gene expression of key HPA-axis players at the level of the hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal glands was assessed. No 5-HTT genotype × ELS interaction effects on gene expression were observed at the level of the hypothalamus or pituitary. However, we found significant 5-HTT genotype × ELS interaction effects for plasma CORT levels and adrenal mRNA levels of the ACTH receptor, such that 5-HTT deficiency was associated under control conditions with increased, but after ELS with decreased basal HPA-axis activity. With the use of an in vitro adrenal assay, naïve 5-HTT knockout rats were furthermore shown to display increased adrenal ACTH sensitivity. Therefore, we conclude that basal HPA-axis activity is affected by the interaction of 5- HTT genotype and ELS, and is programmed, within the axis itself, predominantly at the level of the adrenal gland. This study therefore emphasizes the importance of the adrenal gland for HPA-related psychiatric disorders

Competition-based model of pheromone component ratio detection in the moth

For some moth species, especially those closely interrelated and sympatric, recognizing a specific pheromone component concentration ratio is essential for males to successfully locate conspecific females. We propose and determine the properties of a minimalist competition-based feed-forward neuronal model capable of detecting a certain ratio of pheromone components independently of overall concentration. This model represents an elementary recognition unit for the ratio of binary mixtures which we propose is entirely contained in the macroglomerular complex (MGC) of the male moth. A set of such units, along with projection neurons (PNs), can provide the input to higher brain centres. We found that (1) accuracy is mainly achieved by maintaining a certain ratio of connection strengths between olfactory receptor neurons (ORN) and local neurons (LN), much less by properties of the interconnections between the competing LNs proper. An exception to this rule is that it is beneficial if connections between generalist LNs (i.e. excited by either pheromone component) and specialist LNs (i.e. excited by one component only) have the same strength as the reciprocal specialist to generalist connections. (2) successful ratio recognition is achieved using latency-to-first-spike in the LN populations which, in contrast to expectations with a population rate code, leads to a broadening of responses for higher overall concentrations consistent with experimental observations. (3) when longer durations of the competition between LNs were observed it did not lead to higher recognition accuracy

Microstructural analysis of sands with varying degrees of internal stability

Internal erosion involves the migration of particles through a geotechnical structure. Internal erosion poses a significant hazard to embankment dams and flood embankments. The fundamental mechanisms operate at the particle scale and a thorough understanding of these mechanisms can inform the filter design and specification process and reduce the hazard that internal erosion is known to pose to many engineered embankment structures. Engineers have long acknowledged the importance of the grain scale interactions, but until recently, explanations of the mechanisms have been purely hypothetical, as direct observation of the internal structure of filters was not possible. Recent research has used the discrete-element method to establish a particle-scale basis for Ke´zdi’s filter internal stability criterion. The discrete-element method can provide significant useful data on soil microstructure, so a discrete-element method model is inherently ideal. This study therefore examines a number of real sand samples with varying degrees of internal stability at the particle scale using high-resolution microcomputed tomography. The correlation between coordination number and internal stability is confirmed, with the coordination number values being significantly higher for the real material