Does It Really Work? Re-Assessing the Impact of Pre-Departure Cross-Cultural Training on Expatriate Adjustment

Cultural adjustment is considered to be a prerequisite for expatriate success abroad. One way to enhance adjustment is to provide employees with knowledge and awareness of appropriate norms and behaviors of the host country through cross-cultural training (CCT). This article analyzes the impact of pre-departure CCT on expatriate adjustment and focuses on variations in participation, length and the comprehensiveness of training. Unlike previous research, the study focuses on the effectiveness of pre-departure CCT for non-US employees expatriated to a broad range of host country settings. Employing data from 339 expatriates from 20 German Multinational Corporations (MNCs) the study finds CCT has little if any effect on general, interactional or work setting expatriate adjustment. However, a significant impact of foreign language competence was found for all three dimensions of expatriate adjustment. We used interviews with 20 expatriates to supplement our discussion and provide further implications for practice

Saturn Atmospheric Structure and Dynamics

2 Saturn inhabits a dynamical regime of rapidly rotating, internally heated atmospheres similar to Jupiter. Zonal winds have remained fairly steady since the time of Voyager except in the equatorial zone and slightly stronger winds occur at deeper levels. Eddies supply energy to the jets at a rate somewhat less than on Jupiter and mix potential vorticity near westward jets. Convective clouds exist preferentially in cyclonic shear regions as on Jupiter but also near jets, including major outbreaks near 35°S associated with Saturn electrostatic discharges, and in sporadic giant equatorial storms perhaps generated from frequent events at depth. The implied meridional circulation at and below the visible cloud tops consists of upwelling (downwelling) at cyclonic (anti-cyclonic) shear latitudes. Thermal winds decay upward above the clouds, implying a reversal of the circulation there. Warm-core vortices with associated cyclonic circulations exist at both poles, including surrounding thick high clouds at the south pole. Disequilibrium gas concentrations in the tropical upper troposphere imply rising motion there. The radiative-convective boundary and tropopause occur at higher pressure in the southern (summer) hemisphere due to greater penetration of solar heating there. A temperature “knee ” of warm air below the tropopause, perhaps due to haze heating, is stronger in the summer hemisphere as well. Saturn’s south polar stratosphere is warmer than predicted by radiative models and enhanced in ethane, suggesting subsidence-driven adiabatic warming there. Recent modeling advances suggest that shallow weather laye

International Thermal Spray Conference (ITSC)

Cold spray has been successfully used to produce WC-Co coatings in recent years, showing great potential. However, due to the lack of sufficient Comatrix phase for plastic deformation, the fabrication of cold sprayed WC-Co coating naturally requires expensive propulsive gas or very high working parameters, significantly increasing the manufacturing difficulty and cost.This paper aims to use conventional highpressure cold spray to fabricate high-performance and cost-effective WC-Co-Ni coatings, and to clarify its formation mechanism.To achieve this objective, mechanically mixed porous WC-17Coand dense Ni powders were selected as the feedstock with differentWC mass fraction, F1 (41.5 wt.%), F2 (64.5 wt.%) and F3 (74.7 wt.%).Working parameters were set at a moderatelevel (nitrogen, 3.0MPa and 350?C)to controlthe experimentalcost. Experimental results showed that WC reinforcementshad no phase transformation and were completely retained in the WC-Co-Ni coatings. The highest WC mass fractionwas present in the F3 coating,reachingapproximately 75% (equivalent to the feedstock), quite close to the cold sprayed WC-25Co coating. Fracture of WC-Co particles during the depositionprocesswas found to be the reason for such high WC retainability, dominating the coating formation mechanism

What Is Approximate Reasoning? ⋆

Abstract. Approximate reasoning for the Semantic Web is based on the idea of sacrificing soundness or completeness for a significant speedup of reasoning. This is to be done in such a way that the number of introduced mistakes is at least outweighed by the obtained speed-up. When pursuing such approximate reasoning approaches, however, it is important to be critical not only about appropriate application domains, but also about the quality of the resulting approximate reasoning procedures. With different approximate reasoning algorithms discussed and developed in the literature, it needs to be clarified how these approaches can be compared, i.e. what it means that one approximate reasoning approach is better than some other. In this paper, we will formally define such a foundation for approximate reasoning research. We will clarify – by means of notions from statistics – how different approximate algorithms can be compared, and ground the most fundamental notions in the field formally. We will also exemplify what a corresponding statistical comparison of algorithms would look like.