Increased Ambiguity and Resistance While New College Leaders Learn Their Roles

This article explores tolerance of ambiguity and its effect on change resistance from the perception of new higher education presidents who often feel overwhelmed by the level of perceived resistance while they learn a new environment. Two separate yet complementary studies were compared for resistance to change: one qualitative and one quantitative. The qualitative study used a phenomenological approach to explore a new higher education leaders’ perspective of facing resistance during the change process. The quantitative study examined the 36-question survey results of individual higher education employees affected by higher education change. The intersection of the two studies explored, through different lenses, how leaders face perceived resistance versus how employees perceive change and then exhibit resistant-like behavior. Results included that the majority of higher education employees were intolerant to ambiguity, and that uncertainty due to new leadership exacerbated this condition. The authors argued against the prevailing advice of putting vision delivery on hold. Rather, the authors recommend that new leaders clearly communicate the vision formation process while maintaining intentional and transparent collaboration with the community

Examining the generalizability of research findings from archival data

This initiative examined systematically the extent to which a large set of archival research findings generalizes across contexts. We repeated the key analyses for 29 original strategic management effects in the same context (direct reproduction) as well as in 52 novel time periods and geographies; 45% of the reproductions returned results matching the original reports together with 55% of tests in different spans of years and 40% of tests in novel geographies. Some original findings were associated with multiple new tests. Reproducibility was the best predictor of generalizability—for the findings that proved directly reproducible, 84% emerged in other available time periods and 57% emerged in other geographies. Overall, only limited empirical evidence emerged for context sensitivity. In a forecasting survey, independent scientists were able to anticipate which effects would find support in tests in new samples

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Socioeconomic Status and the Co-Development of Executive Function and Academic Achievement in Elementary School Students

This study used latent growth curve modeling to examine the co-development of executive function and academic achievement in students who progressed from Kindergarten to Grade 4. It also examined (a) growth trajectories of students with high and low initial levels of working memory, (b) the associations of seven common indicators of socioeconomic status with executive function and academic achievement growth factors, and (c) the growth trajectories of students form different levels of household poverty. The first analysis found that higher initial status on the EF measures was, on average, associated with higher initial status on the achievement measures. Faster growth on the EF measures was also, on average, associated with faster growth on the achievement measures, except for attentional shifting in Grades 2-4. However, higher initial working memory and achievement was associated with slower growth on both the EF and achievement measures. The first analysis also examined within-person associations. It found that within-person associations tended to be small, but the size and direction of associations differed across the sample and subsamples. The second analysis investigated the association between socioeconomic status and the co-development of executive function and academic achievement. Specifically, it examined the associations of seven common indicators of socioeconomic status with executive function and academic achievement initial status and growth. It found that lower socioeconomic status was generally associated with lower initial status but faster growth in executive function and academic achievement. However, variation patterns across indicators that choice of SES indicator can have important consequences for research and decision-making. The relative merits of the different indicators are discussed. The study also tested co-developmental models of executive function and academic achievement on students from households with different poverty levels. It found that covariance structures and within-person effects differed according to student poverty-level, highlighting the need for more research on the causes and characteristics of SES-related differences in growth

southeastern Alaska in 1998

Abundance, range and movements of a feeding aggregation o