Quality and Work Force Practices: The Managerial Performance Implication

This paper examines the managerial performance impact of work force management practices appropriate for manufacturing environments when quality is highly emphasized. The hypotheses are tested using data from 483 individuals in 99 manufacturing plants in the United States. The results indicate that when the emphasis is high on quality, certain work force management practices seem to play an important role in managerial performance in manufacturing settings

Converting Faculty Performance Evaluations Into Merit Raises: A Spreadsheet Model

One of the most important, yet difficult tasks of any academic department chairperson is to evaluate the annual performance of individual faculty members and then to convert the array of performance evaluations into a structure of merit raises.  Building on previous literature, this paper presents a spreadsheet model to convert qualitative performance evaluations into merit raises subject to 1) a limited pool of funds for salary adjustments and 2) a requirement that the relative structure of percentage raises match the relative structure of performance evaluations as defined by a linear evaluation scale.  The contribution of the paper is its practical nature in that the proposed spreadsheet can immediately be put to use by academic chairpersons, is readily understandable by the faculty, and is useful for all institutions with various combinations of teaching, research, and service expectations for the faculty.   To match the structure of raises with that of performance evaluations, qualitative evaluations in each of the three areas of faculty performance—teaching, research, and service—are first converted into numeric equivalents based on a linear evaluation key.  Next, the numeric equivalents are weighted according to a weighting scheme dependent on the amount of release time provided to the faculty member for research and/or service, in order to generate an overall numeric evaluation for each faculty member.  Finally, the weighted numeric evaluations are converted into percentage merit raises subject to a finite salary adjustment pool using the Goal Seek function in Microsoft Excel.  The model is illustrated using a hypothetical department of ten faculty members with varying teaching loads and thus different amounts of release time for research and/or service.&nbsp

Strategic transformation process: Toward purpose, people, process and power

Across the world, public and non-profit sector leaders face an extremely turbulent socio-political-economic environment. This environment creates additional risks and uncertainties for organizations and may hinder a leader’s ability to act strategically. Addressing these complex, constantly evolving conditions requires leaders to develop processes that involve the organization’s stakeholders and that create organizational conditions for self-generation, creativity, resilience and action planning. In this paper we provide an organizational-level, integrative framework for the strategic transformation of public and non-profit organizations to assist leaders who are committed to effective stewardship of their organizations. The Strategic Transformation Process involves an intense dialogue among organizational stakeholders designed to create a new vision, negotiate priorities, minimize risk, and create action plans and a commitment for change

Hagiographic Jest in Quevedo: Tradition and Departure

Several of Francisco de Quevedo's hagiographic poems are puzzling because of their irreverent tone. Edward M. Wilson and Jose Manuel Blecua both noted that "la relacion entre las dos caras de un Quevedo es cuestión difícil y delicada para los modernos;" indeed, the writer's particular blend of "las burlas con las veras" has attracted attention since the eighteenth century. One cannot say why Quevedo chose to allow the contradictory impulses of mirth and awe to cohabit in these hagiographic poems. What can be shown, however, is that Quevedo's poem to Saint Lawrence (San Lorenzo) follows rather closely the tradition of Roman martyrological legend, while the poems to Mary Magdalene and Saint Peter echo the conventions of the "literature of tears" tradition

Travesías peligrosas: escritos marítimos en España durante la Época Imperial, 1492-1650

This chapter is the product of a Keynote Address that Dr. Davis offered at the VII Conference of the Asociación Internacional Siglo de Oro which took place at Robinson College, Cambridge, 18-22 July, 2005. Here the author examines a variety of kinds of early modern Spanish maritime writing (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries)

"Woman, Why Weepest Thou?" Re-Visioning the Golden Age Magdalen

This article examines Mary Magdalene's biblical identity and poetic representation in selected sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish texts. An alternative reading or "re-visioning" (Adrienne Rich's term) of the narratives that tell her story reclaims her figure from masculinist characterizations of Mary Magdalene that have made an enduring impact on Western culture. The representative texts are by Francisco de Quevedo, Lope de Vega Carpio, Cristóbal de Mesa, the Marquis of Berlanga, Diego de Hojeda, and Sor María de Santo Domingo. While most of these narratives show a thoroughly conventional portrait of the woman from Magdala, others offer partially dissenting views that subvert the dominant representation of the female figure

Conquistas de las Indias de Dios: Early Poetic Appropriations of the Indies by the Spanish Renaissance

Professor Davis's early article on appropriations of the Indies by Spanish poets who remained in Spain invites us to contemplate a body of poetry that plays the idea of American treasures against the value of true, spiritual riches

Comparing the SF-12 and SF-36 Health Status Questionnaires in Patients With and Without Obesity

Objective: To assess how well the SF-36, a well-validated generic quality of life (QOL) instrument, compares with its shorter adaptation, the SF-12, in capturing differences in QOL among patients with and without obesity. Methods: We compared the correlation between the physical (PCS) and mental (MCS) component summary measures of the SF-12 and SF-36 among 356 primary care patients using Pearson coefficients (r) and conducted linear regression models to see how these summary measures captures the variation across BMI. We used model R$^{2}$ to assess qualitatively how well each measure explained the variation across BMI. Results: Correlations between SF-12 and SF-36 were higher for the PCS in obese (r = 0.89) compared to overweight (r = 0.73) and normal weight patients (r = 0.75), p < 0.001, but were similar for the MCS across BMI. Compared to normal weight patients, obese patients scored 8.8 points lower on the PCS-12 and 5.7 points lower on the PCS-36 after adjustment for age, sex, and race; the model R$^{2}$ was higher with PCS-12 (R$^{2}$ = 0.22) than with PCS-36 (R$^{2}$ = 0.16). BMI was not significantly associated with either the MCS-12 or MCS-36. Conclusion: The SF-12 correlated highly with SF-36 in obese and non-obese patients and appeared to be a better measure of differences in QOL associated with BMI

Experiential Learning Process: Exploring Teaching and Learning of Strategic Management Framework Through The Winter Survival Exercise

This article examines an attempt to introduce experiential learning methods in a business strategy course. In organizational behavior and industrial/organizational psychology, experiential teaching methods have been so widely adopted that some authors have suggested dropping the distinction between experiential and traditional teaching. Although intuitively appealing, experiential methods have not yet become popular among professors teaching strategy to traditional-age undergraduate students. It seems that heavy reliance on case-based teaching has resulted in a lack of emphasis on experiential learning tools for strategic management. In this study, the Winter Survival Exercise was used to introduce, concisely and effectively, the strategic management framework to 97 traditional-age undergraduate strategic management students in three different sections over three semesters. Statistical analysis supported the efficacy of this teaching method. Implications for teaching business strategy using experiential methods as a complement to rather than a substitute for traditional case studies are discussed

An H4K16 histone acetyltransferase mediates decondensation of the X chromosome in C. elegans males

Abstract Background In C. elegans, in order to equalize gene expression between the sexes and balance X and autosomal expression, two steps are believed to be required. First, an unknown mechanism is hypothesized to upregulate the X chromosome in both sexes. This mechanism balances the X to autosomal expression in males, but creates X overexpression in hermaphrodites. Therefore, to restore the balance, hermaphrodites downregulate gene expression twofold on both X chromosomes. While many studies have focused on X chromosome downregulation, the mechanism of X upregulation is not known. Results To gain more insight into X upregulation, we studied the effects of chromatin condensation and histone acetylation on gene expression levels in male C. elegans. We have found that the H4K16 histone acetyltransferase MYS-1/Tip60 mediates dramatic decondensation of the male X chromosome as measured by FISH. However, RNA-seq analysis revealed that MYS-1 contributes only slightly to upregulation of gene expression on the X chromosome. These results suggest that the level of chromosome decondensation does not necessarily correlate with the degree of gene expression change in vivo. Furthermore, the X chromosome is more sensitive to MYS-1-mediated decondensation than the autosomes, despite similar levels of H4K16ac on all chromosomes, as measured by ChIP-seq. H4K16ac levels weakly correlate with gene expression levels on both the X and the autosomes, but highly expressed genes on the X chromosome do not contain exceptionally high levels of H4K16ac. Conclusion These results indicate that H4K16ac and chromosome decondensation influence regulation of the male X chromosome; however, they do not fully account for the high levels of gene expression observed on the X chromosomes.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134665/1/13072_2016_Article_97.pd