Grupos en las organizaciones: herramienta básica para gestionar la incertidumbre y ambigüedad crecientes

El mundo del trabajo y de las organizaciones ha sufrido una transformación fundamental en los últimos años: hay mucha más incertidumbre. La respuesta organizativa a dicha incertidumbre ha sido la de diseñar organizaciones más complejas fundamentadas en el trabajo en equipo. Pero no todas las tareas requieren del trabajo en equipo ni todos los grupos de trabajo son auténticos equipos. En este trabajo repasaremos las investigaciones que venimos realizando para clarificar cómo entender operativamente la incertidumbre de las tareas que ha de hacer el equipo, el nivel de desarrollo que pueden alcanzar los equipos de trabajo y cómo el ajuste entre uno y otro (a mayor incertidumbre en las tareas más necesario su abordaje en equipos) es determinante en la efectividad que dichos equipos consiguen. Ofrecemos también guías para la intervención profesional si el objetivo es diseñar y dirigir equipos de trabajo eficaces

Geology and geophysics at the archeological park of Vulci

The Vulci archeological site was object of interest by the Soprinten- denza ai beni culturali dell’Etruria meridionale (Italian government department responsible for southern Etruria’s cultural heritage) since the beginning of the 20th century. In 2001, the Ministero dei Beni Cul- turali (Italian ministry of cultural heritage) along with the local au- thorities, opened a natural-archeological park. In this area, it lies most of the ancient Etruscan city of Velch (today known by its Latin name, Vulci) including the Osteria Necropolis that is the object of this study. Recently, new archaeological excavations were made and the local au- thorities needed major geological information about the volcanic litho- types where the Etruscans used to build their necropolis. The aim of this study is to define the geological and geophysical characteristics of the rock lithotypes present in the Vulci park. For this purpose, a geo- logical map of the area (1:10000) has been realized. Moreover, two dif- ferent geophysical methods were applied: measurements of magnetic susceptibility and electrical resistivity tomography. Magnetic suscep- tibility analyses clearly identify magnetic contrasts between different lithotypes; the characteristics of the pyroclastic flow that originated the Sorano unit 2 and its vertical facies variations are well recorded by this parameter that along with lithostratigraphic observations provides information about the depositional conditions. Two electrical resistiv- ity tomographies were performed, which show the Sorano unit 2 thick- ness to be of c. 7 m with resistivity values ranging from 200 to 400 Ω·m. This kind of multidisciplinary approach resulted to be suitable to study this type of archaeological sites, revealing that areas charac- terized by a relevant thickness and wide areal extension of volcanic lithotypes can be a potential site where Etruscans might have excavated their necropolis

Growth laws and self-similar growth regimes of coarsening two-dimensional foams: Transition from dry to wet limits

We study the topology and geometry of two dimensional coarsening foams with arbitrary liquid fraction. To interpolate between the dry limit described by von Neumann's law, and the wet limit described by Marqusee equation, the relevant bubble characteristics are the Plateau border radius and a new variable, the effective number of sides. We propose an equation for the individual bubble growth rate as the weighted sum of the growth through bubble-bubble interfaces and through bubble-Plateau borders interfaces. The resulting prediction is successfully tested, without adjustable parameter, using extensive bidimensional Potts model simulations. Simulations also show that a selfsimilar growth regime is observed at any liquid fraction and determine how the average size growth exponent, side number distribution and relative size distribution interpolate between the extreme limits. Applications include concentrated emulsions, grains in polycrystals and other domains with coarsening driven by curvature

Immunization and Aging: a Learning Process in the Immune Network

The immune system can be thought as a complex network of different interacting elements. A cellular automaton, defined in shape-space, was recently shown to exhibit self-regulation and complex behavior and is, therefore, a good candidate to model the immune system. Using this model to simulate a real immune system we find good agreement with recent experiments on mice. The model exhibits the experimentally observed refractory behavior of the immune system under multiple antigen presentations as well as loss of its plasticity caused by aging.Comment: 4 latex pages, 3 postscript figures attached. To be published in Physical Review Letters (Tentatively scheduled for 5th Oct. issue

Trypanosomatid comparative genomics: Contributions to the study of parasite biology and different parasitic diseases

In 2005, draft sequences of the genomes of Trypanosoma brucei, Trypanosoma cruzi and Leishmania major, also known as the Tri-Tryp genomes, were published. These protozoan parasites are the causative agents of three distinct insect-borne diseases, namely sleeping sickness, Chagas disease and leishmaniasis, all with a worldwide distribution. Despite the large estimated evolutionary distance among them, a conserved core of ~6,200 trypanosomatid genes was found among the Tri-Tryp genomes. Extensive analysis of these genomic sequences has greatly increased our understanding of the biology of these parasites and their host-parasite interactions. In this article, we review the recent advances in the comparative genomics of these three species. This analysis also includes data on additional sequences derived from other trypanosmatid species, as well as recent data on gene expression and functional genomics. In addition to facilitating the identification of key parasite molecules that may provide a better understanding of these complex diseases, genome studies offer a rich source of new information that can be used to define potential new drug targets and vaccine candidates for controlling these parasitic infections

Validity of the Human System Audit Transformational Leadership Short Scale (HSA-TFL) in four European countries

This study aimed to clarify the validity of the short scale of Transformational Leadership used by the Human System Audit (short HSA-TFL). The need of today's enterprises for combined assessment of transformational leadership and quality-related performance in wider contexts requires short instruments based on scientific research. Convergent, construct and criterion validity of the short HSA-TFL were analyzed. Comparison of the short HSA-TFL with the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ-5X) showed high convergent validity. Exploratory factor analysis with hospital workers in Spain (N=625) showed the single factor structure of the Spanish version of the HSA-TFL. Confirmatory factor analysis using three further samples of hospital workers (N= 776) from different european countries confirmed a single factor. As regards criterion validity, the results indicated that the short HSA-TFL is positively related in all four countries to subjective performance. In sum, the results provide empirical evidence for the validity of the short HSA-TFL scale

Human System Audit (HSA) for the analysis of human behaviour in organizations

This paper presents a description of Human System Audit (HSA), as an integrated proposal for the assessment of intangibles,for quality assessment in excellence models and, in general, for diagnosis and intervention in the human system in organizations, as well as for research on organizational human behaviour. The HSA consists of a theoretical model, a battery of instruments, and a system for management control. The article also describes some applications of HSA to human resource management

Automated Analysis of MUTEX Algorithms with FASE

In this paper we study the liveness of several MUTEX solutions by representing them as processes in PAFAS s, a CCS-like process algebra with a specific operator for modelling non-blocking reading behaviours. Verification is carried out using the tool FASE, exploiting a correspondence between violations of the liveness property and a special kind of cycles (called catastrophic cycles) in some transition system. We also compare our approach with others in the literature. The aim of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, we want to demonstrate the applicability of FASE to some concrete, meaningful examples; on the other hand, we want to study the impact of introducing non-blocking behaviours in modelling concurrent systems.Comment: In Proceedings GandALF 2011, arXiv:1106.081