Pathways through organizational socialization: a longitudinal qualitative study based on the psychological contract

In this study, we explore different pathways during organizational socialization through the lens of the psychological contract using in-depth longitudinal qualitative methods. Analysis of 112 critical incident interviews with 27 newcomers across their first year of work reveals five distinct psychological contract pathways through socialization, within which fulfilment and breach influence adjustment by facilitating or restricting opportunities to learn and integrate, as well as influencing attitudes and behavior. The analysis reveals that whilst perceived psychological contract fulfilment facilitates newcomer adjustment, perceived breach can disrupt the process. We provide a detailed account of the way socialization and the psychological contract unfold for newcomers over time, and show that psychological contract events can significantly alter the course of adjustment

Basal metabolic rate as a potential determinant in risk sensitive foraging.

In foraging, there are many possible determinants of an individual’s sensitivity to risk, such as an animal’s learning or various biological imperatives. However, few studies on risk sensitivity incorporate information about an animal’s metabolism. One measure of metabolic rate is basal metabolic rate (BMR), or the minimum rate at which metabolism must produce energy to maintain homeostasis, which is highly plastic. Therefore, we investigated a potential relationship between risk sensitivity and BMR. This metaanalysis revealed little to no relationship between BMR and risk sensitivity, perhaps because of the high intraspecific variation of each of these traits

Some rare and new caddis flies recorded for the Netherlands (Trichoptera)

Contains fulltext : 35412.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Since Higler published his list of extinct and endangered caddis flies species in 1995 a number of new and rare species were recorded for the Netherlands. These new findings can be partly attributed to the growing interest among researchers to study caddis flies, which has resulted in a more thorough investigation of certain water types. Other records of rare species were discovered by collecting and identifying pupae and adults, such as Hydroptila vectis and Oxyethira falcata. Some rare species, which have not been recorded since 1950, are common nowadays, possibly caused by the improved water quality of the river systems in the Netherlands. Other new species to the Dutch fauna are the result of new taxonomic insights

Three levels at which the user's cognition can be represented in artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) plays an important role in modern society. AI applications are omnipresent and assist many decisions we make in daily life. A common and important feature of such AI applications are user models. These models allow an AI application to adapt to a specific user. Here, we argue that user models in AI can be optimized by modeling these user models more closely to models of human cognition. We identify three levels at which insights from human cognition can be—and have been—integrated in user models. Such integration can be very loose with user models only being inspired by general knowledge of human cognition or very tight with user models implementing specific cognitive processes. Using AI-based applications in the context of education as a case study, we demonstrate that user models that are more deeply rooted in models of cognition offer more valid and more fine-grained adaptations to an individual user. We propose that such user models can also advance the development of explainable AI

Mapping EU support for sanitation in Africa

This study addresses a number of key concerns of AMCOW, the European Union (EU) and other donors around the need to increase support to sanitation in order to accelerate the progress of national plans, Africawide goals, and the attainment of the MDG target on sanitation. The purpose of the study is to obtain an overview of the status of the involvement of EU Member States and the European Commission in sanitation-related activities in Africa. It is anticipated that the findings of this work will have the potential to be used for both arguing for greater priority for sanitation within the international architecture and also for individual donors to use in discussing their own Official Development Assistance (ODA). The work is complementary to the report from 2008 on mapping EU development assistance to the water sector in Africa. This earlier report had a much wider remit and as such, the Sanitation Mapping report can be considered as being supplementary to it

European Union support for sanitation in sub-Saharan Africa: aid flows and effectiveness

Within sub-Saharan Africa, 569 million people, amounting to 69% of the population, do not use improved sanitation. This study presents an overview of European Union (EU) donor support to sanitation in sub-Saharan Africa and proposes a method for investigating the effectiveness of national sanitation programmes through linking aid flows to sanitation outcomes in terms of trends in open defecation; this can be used to locate the relative performance of different countries. The work addresses key concerns of the African Ministers' Council on Water and the European donors around the need to increase support to sanitation. Results show that EU donors are the major source of external finance for sanitation in sub-Saharan Africa. Case studies from Mozambique, Uganda and Burkina Faso show that the majority of national planned expenditure on sanitation comes from donor sources, with EU donors being the substantive contributors. National policies on subsidy for sanitation and expenditure allocations vary extremely widely and do not necessarily align with sanitation outcomes. EU member states' donor policies on sanitation are consistent and well-aligned with those of the African Union; this is a major achievement for Europe and Africa. Inadequate national monitoring of sanitation expenditure remains a constraint to determining programme effectiveness

Causal Loop Analysis of coastal geomorphological systems

As geomorphologists embrace ever more sophisticated theoretical frameworks that shift from simple notions of evolution towards single steady equilibria to recognise the possibility of multiple response pathways and outcomes, morphodynamic modellers are facing the problem of how to keep track of an ever-greater number of system feedbacks. Within coastal geomorphology, capturing these feedbacks is critically important, especially as the focus of activity shifts from reductionist models founded on sediment transport fundamentals to more synthesist ones intended to resolve emergent behaviours at decadal to centennial scales. This paper addresses the challenge of mapping the feedback structure of processes controlling geomorphic system behaviour with reference to illustrative applications of Causal Loop Analysis at two study cases: (1) the erosion-accretion behaviour of graded (mixed) sediment beds, and (2) the local alongshore sediment fluxes of sand-rich shorelines. These case study examples are chosen on account of their central role in the quantitative modelling of geomorphological futures and as they illustrate different types of causation. Causal loop diagrams, a form of directed graph, are used to distil the feedback structure to reveal, in advance of more quantitative modelling, multi-response pathways and multiple outcomes. In the case of graded sediment bed, up to three different outcomes (no response, and two disequilibrium states) can be derived from a simple qualitative stability analysis. For the sand-rich local shoreline behaviour case, two fundamentally different responses of the shoreline (diffusive and anti-diffusive), triggered by small changes of the shoreline cross-shore position, can be inferred purely through analysis of the causal pathways. Explicit depiction of feedback-structure diagrams is beneficial when developing numerical models to explore coastal morphological futures. By explicitly mapping the feedbacks included and neglected within a model, the modeller can readily assess if critical feedback loops are included

Dimensions of fluvial-tidal meanders: Are they disproportionally large?

This is the final version. Available from Geological Society of America via the DOI in this record.GSA Data Repository item 2018343, supplementary figures, tables, and a .kml file with the recorded polygons of fluvial-tidal meanders, is available online at http://www.geosociety.org/datarepository/2018/ or on request from [email protected] of the world’s major river systems seemingly have one or a few disproportionally large meanders, with tight bends, in the fluvial-tidal transition (e.g., the Thames in the UK, and the Salmon River in Canada). However, quantitative studies on meanders have so far primarily focused on rivers without tidal influence or on small tidal meanders without river inflow, providing relations between channel geometry and meander characteristics (length, amplitude, and sinuosity). Physics-based predictions of meander size and shape for the fluvial-tidal transition zone remain untested for a lack of data. Therefore, it remains unclear whether the dimensions of meanders in the fluvial-tidal transition zone are indeed disproportionally large, and whether meander characteristics can be used as an indicator for tidal influence. Here, data from 823 meanders in 68 fluvial-tidal transition zones worldwide are presented that reveal broad-brush relations between channel geometry and meander dimensions. Our results show that fluvial-tidal meanders indeed become larger in the seaward direction, but the dimensions are proportional to local channel width, as in rivers. Sinuosity maxima are an exception, rather than the rule, in the fluvial-tidal transition zone. Surprisingly, the width of the upstream river correlates with estuarine channel width and tidal meander size even though river discharge constitutes only a fraction of the tidal prism. The new scaling relations can be used to constrain dimensions of rivers and estuaries and their meanders.Dutch Technology Foundation Toegepaste en Technische Wetenschappe