132 research outputs found

    Antecedents and Outcomes of Duty Orientation Among Salespeople

    Get PDF
    This study analyzed the relationship among ethical leadership, duty orientation, perceived organizational support (PSS), organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) and job performance among a sample of 45 sales managers and 203 salespeople. Duty orientation and perceived organizational support were found to mediate the relationship between ethical leadership and performance outcomes. Ethical leadership was a direct predictor of OCBs but not job performance. This study shows the importance of analyzing ethical leadership, duty orientation, and PSS and their relationship with OCBs and job performance in the salesforce

    The influence of Job Embeddedness on Voluntary Salesforce Turnover

    Get PDF
    Turnover is a critical issue encountered by organizations. However, salesforce turnover is especially important for companies given the vital role played by salespeople. This study developed and tested a model of turnover among a sample of 331 business-to-business salespeople. The results indicate that perceived supervisor support, perceived organizational support, and supervisor satisfaction are important variables indirectly impacting salespersons’ search behavior and voluntary turnover through job embeddedness

    The Effect of Organizational Justice on Salespersons’ Perceived Ethical Climate, Organizational Commitment and Turnover Intentions

    Get PDF
    Developing an ethical work climate is important fororganizations. This study analyzed how organizationaljustice influences salespersons’ perceptions of the degreeto which their work environment is ethical. Resultsindicated that two aspects of organizational justice,distributive and procedural justice, had a directrelationship on salespersons’ perception of an ethicalwork climate and their organizational commitment. Anethical work climate was related to organizationalcommitment and turnover intentions. The results indicatethat perceived fairness has an important influence onsalespersons’ perception of ethical work climate

    Maturity associated differences in match running performance in elite male youth soccer players

    Get PDF
    Purpose: To investigate the influence of maturation on match running performance in elite male youth soccer players. Methods: A total of 37 elite male youth soccer participants from an English professional soccer academy from the U14s, U15s, and U16s age groups were assessed over the course of 1 competitive playing season (2018-2019). Relative biological maturity was assessed using percentage of predicted adult height. A global positioning system device was used between 2 and 30 (mean = 8 [5]) times on each outfield player. The position of each player in each game was defined as defender, midfielder, or attacker and spine or lateral. A total of 5 match-running metrics were collected total distance covered, high-speed running distance, very high-speed running distance, maximum speed attained, and number of accelerations. Results: Relative biological maturity was positively associated with all global positioning system running metrics for U14s. The U15/16s showed variation in the associations among the global positioning system running metrics against maturity status. A multilevel model which allowed slopes to vary was the best model for all parameters for both age groups. In the U14 age group, advanced maturation was associated with greater high-speed running distance. However, maturation did not contribute toward variance in any of the indices of running performance in the U15/16s. In the U15/16 age group, significance was observed in the spine/lateral playing positions when undertaking actions that required covering distance at high speeds. Conclusions: Maturation appeared to have an impact on match-running metrics within the U14s cohort. However, within the U15/16s, the influence of maturation on match-running metrics appeared to have less of an impact

    Consumption prediction with privacy concern:Application and evaluation of Federated Learning

    Get PDF
    In this paper, we propose privacy-friendly electricity consumption prediction models based on Federated Learning (FL). Federated Learning provides a novel framework for Artificial Neural Network training. It decouples data storage from model training from decentralized data sources. A central server does not need to collect raw training data from individual clients but only the model parameters, like the gradients or weights updates. The sensitive raw data can be safely stored and used by end-users themselves. We improve the accuracy of the FL model by first clustering households, and training a personalized model for each cluster. We also analyze the Deep Leakage from Gradients (DLG) attack in our study case with three scenarios. Our simulations suggest that the DLG attack can barely succeed in consumption prediction. In this way, the FL model can guarantee clients’ privacy by design. We use a large-scale dataset that contains 3590 households’ 1.5 years of consumption to test the FL model’s performance. Several clustering algorithms are tested for the following experiments. To comprehensively test the FL model’s performance, we propose several popular neural network models: the simple Deep Neural Network, Long Short-Term Memory, Convolutional Neural Network, and WaveNet. These models are both trained under the centralized and federated framework. The federated trained models slightly sacrifice the model’s accuracy while guaranteeing the client’s data privacy. Meanwhile, the federated model shows remarkable scalability. Under the FL framework, new clients can obtain their prediction 6 times faster. Moreover, the federated model has strong robustness against missing or damaged training data. With a certain percentage of missing data in the training set, the centralized model’s accuracy gets 27% worse, while the federated model’s accuracy only gets 2% worse.<br/

    The main and interactive effects of biological maturity and relative age on physical performance in elite youth soccer players

    Get PDF
    Abstract The main and interactive effect of biological maturity and relative age upon physical performance in adolescent male soccer players was considered. Consistent with previous research, it was hypothesised that participants of greater maturity or born earlier in the selection year would perform better in terms of physical performance tests. This cross-sectional study consisted of 84 male participants aged between 11.3 – 16.2 years from a professional soccer academy in the English Premier League. Date of birth, height, weight and parental height were collected. Sprint, change of direction, counter-movement jump and reactive strength index was considered for physical performance. Relative age was based on birth quarter for the selection year. Maturity status was based upon percentage of predicted adult height attained. Linear regression models highlighted that maturation was associated with performance on all but one of the physical performance tests, reactive strength index. In contrast, relative age only served as a significant predictor of performance on the countermovement jump. This study showed that physical performance (in the tests studied) seems to be related to the biological maturity status of a player but not their relative age. This finding is important because the paper suggests early maturing players perform better in the majority of physical performance tests, and the commonly held belief that relative age effect influences performance may be overstated

    Sparsity enables estimation of both subcortical and cortical activity from MEG and EEG

    Get PDF
    Subcortical structures play a critical role in brain function. However, options for assessing electrophysiological activity in these structures are limited. Electromagnetic fields generated by neuronal activity in subcortical structures can be recorded noninvasively, using magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG). However, these subcortical signals are much weaker than those generated by cortical activity. In addition, we show here that it is difficult to resolve subcortical sources because distributed cortical activity can explain the MEG and EEG patterns generated by deep sources. We then demonstrate that if the cortical activity is spatially sparse, both cortical and subcortical sources can be resolved with M/EEG. Building on this insight, we develop a hierarchical sparse inverse solution for M/EEG. We assess the performance of this algorithm on realistic simulations and auditory evoked response data, and show that thalamic and brainstem sources can be correctly estimated in the presence of cortical activity. Our work provides alternative perspectives and tools for characterizing electrophysiological activity in subcortical structures in the human brain

    A class of residual distribution schemes and their relation to relaxation systems

    Full text link
    Residual distributions (RD) schemes are a class of of high-resolution finite volume methods for unstructured grids. A key feature of these schemes is that they make use of genuinely multidimensional (approximate) Riemann solvers as opposed to the piecemeal 1D Riemann solvers usually employed by finite volume methods. In 1D, LeVeque and Pelanti [J. Comp. Phys. 172, 572 (2001)] showed that many of the standard approximate Riemann solver methods (e.g., the Roe solver, HLL, Lax-Friedrichs) can be obtained from applying an exact Riemann solver to relaxation systems of the type introduced by Jin and Xin [Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 48, 235 (1995)]. In this work we extend LeVeque and Pelanti's results and obtain a multidimensional relaxation system from which multidimensional approximate Riemann solvers can be obtained. In particular, we show that with one choice of parameters the relaxation system yields the standard N-scheme. With another choice, the relaxation system yields a new Riemann solver, which can be viewed as a genuinely multidimensional extension of the local Lax-Friedrichs scheme. This new Riemann solver does not require the use Roe-Struijs-Deconinck averages, nor does it require the inversion of an m-by-m matrix in each computational grid cell, where mm is the number of conserved variables. Once this new scheme is established, we apply it on a few standard cases for the 2D compressible Euler equations of gas dynamics. We show that through the use of linear-preserving limiters, the new approach produces numerical solutions that are comparable in accuracy to the N-scheme, despite being computationally less expensive.Comment: 46 pages, 14 figure

    A novel satellite mission concept for upper air water vapour, aerosol and cloud observations using integrated path differential absorption LiDAR limb sounding

    Get PDF
    We propose a new satellite mission to deliver high quality measurements of upper air water vapour. The concept centres around a LiDAR in limb sounding by occultation geometry, designed to operate as a very long path system for differential absorption measurements. We present a preliminary performance analysis with a system sized to send 75 mJ pulses at 25 Hz at four wavelengths close to 935 nm, to up to 5 microsatellites in a counter-rotating orbit, carrying retroreflectors characterized by a reflected beam divergence of roughly twice the emitted laser beam divergence of 15 µrad. This provides water vapour profiles with a vertical sampling of 110 m; preliminary calculations suggest that the system could detect concentrations of less than 5 ppm. A secondary payload of a fairly conventional medium resolution multispectral radiometer allows wide-swath cloud and aerosol imaging. The total weight and power of the system are estimated at 3 tons and 2,700 W respectively. This novel concept presents significant challenges, including the performance of the lasers in space, the tracking between the main spacecraft and the retroreflectors, the refractive effects of turbulence, and the design of the telescopes to achieve a high signal-to-noise ratio for the high precision measurements. The mission concept was conceived at the Alpbach Summer School 2010

    Precision Measurement of the Beam-Normal Single-Spin Asymmetry in Forward-Angle Elastic Electron-Proton Scattering

    Get PDF
    A beam-normal single-spin asymmetry generated in the scattering of transversely polarized electrons from unpolarized nucleons is an observable related to the imaginary part of the two-photon exchange process. We report a 2% precision measurement of the beam-normal single-spin asymmetry in elastic electron-proton scattering with a mean scattering angle of theta_lab = 7.9 degrees and a mean energy of 1.149 GeV. The asymmetry result is B_n = -5.194 +- 0.067 (stat) +- 0.082 (syst) ppm. This is the most precise measurement of this quantity available to date and therefore provides a stringent test of two-photon exchange models at far-forward scattering angles (theta_lab -\u3e 0) where they should be most reliable
    • …
    corecore