Effective Leadership in a Service Center Setting: an Analysis of how to Increase Tenure Among Employees through a Blended Leadership Model

Service Centers experience high turnover rates among employees. Creating a healthy working environment through effective leadership in a service center setting can be difficult due to the particular features of a service center. This analysis of the organizational literature on service centers leads to the development of a blended leadership model. Using the Transformational and Transactional Leadership models with an emphasis on role clarity, empowerment, trust, approachability of the leader, employee/leader relationship, contingent versus non-contingent behavior, and monitoring, the blended leadership model incorporates these concepts to provide an ideal type that would guide a call center leader in helping the group reach their shared purpose and decrease employee turnover The central claim of the analysis is: the advantage of the blended leadership model is that it helps create a healthy working environment for people to grow in their respective roles and as a group because it focuses on creating good relationships with individual employees and offering leadership and empowerment specific to their needs while communicating a group vision

Constraints on Kinetically Modified Inflation from WMAP5

Single field inflationary models with a non-minimal kinetic term (also called k-inflationary models) can be characterised by the so-called sound flow functions, which complete the usual Hubble flow hierarchy. These parameters appear in the primordial power spectra of cosmological perturbations at leading order and, therefore, affect the resulting Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies. Using the fifth year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP5) data, we derive the marginalised posterior probability distributions for both the sound and Hubble flow parameters. In contrast to the standard situation, these parameters remain separately unbounded, and notably there is no longer any upper limit on epsilon_1, the first Hubble flow function. Only special combinations of these parameters, corresponding to the spectral index and tensor-to-scalar ratio observables, are actually constrained by the data. The energy scale of k-inflation is nevertheless limited from above to Hinf/mpl < 6x10^(-6) at two-sigma level. Moreover, for the sub-class of Dirac-Born-Infeld models, by considering the non-gaussianity bounds on the sound speed, we find a weak limit epsilon_1 < 0.08 at 95% confidence level.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, uses RevTe

The influence of light attenuation on the biogeomorphology of a marine karst cave: a case study of Puerto Princesa Underground River, Palawan, the Philippines

Karst caves are unique biogeomorphological systems. Cave walls offer habitat for microorganisms which in-turn have a geomorphological role via their involvement in rock weathering, erosion and mineralisation. The attenuation of light with distance into caves is known to affect ecology, but the implications of this for biogeomorphological processes and forms have seldom been examined. Here we describe a semi-quantitative microscopy study comparing the extent, structure, and thickness of biocover and depth of endolithic penetration for samples of rock from the Puerto Princesa Underground River system in Palawan, the Philippines, which is a natural UNESCO World Heritage Site. Organic growth at the entrance of the cave was abundant (100% occurrence) and complex, dominated by phototrophic organisms (green microalgae, diatoms, cyanobacteria, mosses and lichens). Thickness of this layer was 0.28 ± 0.18 mm with active endolith penetration into the limestone (mean depth = 0.13 ± 0.03 mm). In contrast, phototrophs were rare 50 m into the cave and biofilm cover was significantly thinner (0.01 ± 0.01 mm, p &lt; 0.000) and spatially patchy (33% occurrence). Endolithic penetration here was also shallower (&lt; 0.01 mm, p &lt; 0.000) and non-uniform. Biofilm was found 250 m into the cave, but with a complete absence of phototrophs and no evidence of endolithic bioerosion. We attribute these findings to light-induced stress gradients, showing that the influence of light on phototroph abundance has knock-on consequences for the development of limestone morphological features. In marine caves this includes notches, which were most well-developed at the sheltered cave entrance of our study site, and for which variability in formation rates between locations is currently poorly understood

Geometrically Consistent Approach to Stochastic DBI Inflation

Stochastic effects during inflation can be addressed by averaging the quantum inflaton field over Hubble-patch sized domains. The averaged field then obeys a Langevin-type equation into which short-scale fluctuations enter as a noise term. We solve the Langevin equation for a inflaton field with Dirac Born Infeld (DBI) kinetic term perturbatively in the noise and use the result to determine the field value's Probability Density Function (PDF). In this calculation, both the shape of the potential and the warp factor are arbitrary functions, and the PDF is obtained with and without volume effects due to the finite size of the averaging domain. DBI kinetic terms typically arise in string-inspired inflationary scenarios in which the scalar field is associated with some distance within the (compact) extra dimensions. The inflaton's accessible range of field values therefore is limited because of the extra dimensions' finite size. We argue that in a consistent stochastic approach the distance-inflaton's PDF must vanish for geometrically forbidden field values. We propose to implement these extra-dimensional spatial restrictions into the PDF by installing absorbing (or reflecting) walls at the respective boundaries in field space. As a toy model, we consider a DBI inflaton between two absorbing walls and use the method of images to determine its most general PDF. The resulting PDF is studied in detail for the example of a quartic warp factor and a chaotic inflaton potential. The presence of the walls is shown to affect the inflaton trajectory for a given set of parameters.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figure

Development of a general PAT strategy for online monitoring of complex mixtures: on the example of natural product extracts from bearberry leaf (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi)

For the first time, a universally applicable and methodical approach from characterization to a PAT concept for complex mixtures is conducted—exemplified on natural products extraction processes. Bearberry leaf (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) extract is chosen as an example of a typical complex mixture of natural plant origin and generalizable in its composition. Within the quality by design (QbD) based process development the development and implementation of a concept for process analytical technology (PAT), a key enabling technology, is the next necessary step in risk and quality-based process development and operation. To obtain and provide an overview of the broad field of PAT, the development process is shown on the example of a complex multi-component plant extract. This study researches the potential of different process analytical technologies for online monitoring of different component groups and classifies their possible applications within the framework of a QbD-based process. Offline and online analytics are established on the basis of two extraction runs. Based on this data set, PLS models are created for the spectral data, and correlations are conducted for univariate data. In a third run, the prediction potential is researched. Conclusively, the results of this study are arranged in the concept of a holistic quality and risk-based process design and operation concept

Workplace mental health: An international review of guidelines

The aim of this systematic review was to determine the quality and comprehensiveness of guidelines developed for employers to detect, prevent, and manage mental health problems in the workplace. An integrated approach that combined expertise from medicine, psychology, public health, management, and occupational health and safety was identified as a best practice framework to assess guideline comprehensiveness. An iterative search strategy of the grey literature was used plus consultation with experts in psychology, public health, and mental health promotion. Inclusion criteria were documents published in English and developed specifically for employers to detect, prevent, and manage mental health problems in the workplace. A total of 20 guidelines met these criteria and were reviewed. Development documents were included to inform quality assessment. This was performed using the AGREE II rating system. Our results indicated that low scores were often due to a lack of focus on prevention and rather a focus on the detection and treatment of mental health problems in the workplace. When prevention recommendations were included they were often individually focused and did not include practical tools or advice to implement. An inconsistency in language, lack of consultation with relevant population groups in the development process and a failure to outline and differentiate between the legal/minimum requirements of a region were also observed. The findings from this systematic review will inform translation of scientific evidence into practical recommendations to prevent mental health problems within the workplace. It will also direct employers, clinicians, and policy-makers towards examples of best-practice guidelines