The participation of women in multidisciplinary action teams

This paper argues the case for increasing the participation of women in multidisciplinary action teams as a means for making better use of gender diversity. We argue that conventional diversity management practices involve a narrow approach towards increasing women’s participation in employment. We suggest it is imperative that organisations and multidisciplinary action teams learn to integrate skilled and talented women and men into a single, cohesive work culture that enhances teams’ performing capacities. Based on recent work by the authors, we then build on the belief that women are a key resource for improving the integrative and interpretive abilities of teams, including the capacity of the team generally to deal with difficult and complex scenarios. The paper builds a relationship between feminine values, team-member diversity, and communication skills such as listening and speaking up. In particular, we examine some evidence relating to the communication patterns of women and how they may assist multi-disciplinary action teams.diversity management; feminine values; teams; women

Observations through gendered lenses: experiences of managerial women

This paper explores how gendered contexts within and around Australian organisations over a 12-year period restrict and place boundaries around women's managerial aspirations. The study finds that three types of gendered lenses typically depict various systems of oppression: mono-cultural, statistical, and structural. The discussion explores the relationships between each type noting that particular characteristics work to reinforce and interlink each to the other. The network effects are discussed and different coping strategies employed by women in management outlined over the period. A number of metaphors appropriately capture the essence of gender struggles and inequality over the three stages of the study: early (1995-1998), transition (1999-2002), and emergent (2003-2006).bounded networks; contexts; gender; management; metaphors

Evidence for Partial Taylor Relaxation from Changes in Magnetic Geometry and Energy during a Solar Flare

Solar flares are powered by energy stored in the coronal magnetic field, a portion of which is released when the field reconfigures into a lower energy state. Investigation of sunspot magnetic field topology during flare activity is useful to improve our understanding of flaring processes. Here we investigate the deviation of the non-linear field configuration from that of the linear and potential configurations, and study the free energy available leading up to and after a flare. The evolution of the magnetic field in NOAA region 10953 was examined using data from Hinode/SOT-SP, over a period of 12 hours leading up to and after a GOES B1.0 flare. Previous work on this region found pre- and post-flare changes in photospheric vector magnetic field parameters of flux elements outside the primary sunspot. 3D geometry was thus investigated using potential, linear force-free, and non-linear force-free field extrapolations in order to fully understand the evolution of the field lines. Traced field line geometrical and footpoint orientation differences show that the field does not completely relax to a fully potential or linear force-free state after the flare. Magnetic and free magnetic energies increase significantly ~ 6.5-2.5 hours before the flare by ~ 10^31 erg. After the flare, the non-linear force-free magnetic energy and free magnetic energies decrease but do not return to pre-flare 'quiet' values. The post-flare non-linear force-free field configuration is closer (but not equal) to that of the linear force-free field configuration than a potential one. However, the small degree of similarity suggests that partial Taylor relaxation has occurred over a time scale of ~ 3-4 hours.Comment: Accepted for Publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics. 11 pages, 11 figure

Automated Coronal Hole Identification via Multi-Thermal Intensity Segmentation

Coronal holes (CH) are regions of open magnetic fields that appear as dark areas in the solar corona due to their low density and temperature compared to the surrounding quiet corona. To date, accurate identification and segmentation of CHs has been a difficult task due to their comparable intensity to local quiet Sun regions. Current segmentation methods typically rely on the use of single EUV passband and magnetogram images to extract CH information. Here, the Coronal Hole Identification via Multi-thermal Emission Recognition Algorithm (CHIMERA) is described, which analyses multi-thermal images from the Atmospheric Image Assembly (AIA) onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to segment coronal hole boundaries by their intensity ratio across three passbands (171 \AA, 193 \AA, and 211 \AA). The algorithm allows accurate extraction of CH boundaries and many of their properties, such as area, position, latitudinal and longitudinal width, and magnetic polarity of segmented CHs. From these properties, a clear linear relationship was identified between the duration of geomagnetic storms and coronal hole areas. CHIMERA can therefore form the basis of more accurate forecasting of the start and duration of geomagnetic storms

Minimising the gender status effects on performance for women in leadership

This study explores how different workplace structures are institutionalised such that women in leadership are better able to address lower status assessments associated with the gender stereotype. Using a sample of 27 women leaders across industries, the study found that legitimate workplace structures such as opportunities for promotion into high status roles, increased opportunities to participate, equality and mentoring practices embedded in HRM policies, confuse and challenge the subliminal status effects of gender on perceived task or role performance. For instance, when institutionalised practices were prevalent, the study found that the link between the subliminal gender status and performance was irrelevant and inconsequential with women leaders displaying as much influence as men. When workplace structures were absent by comparison, women leaders had to work harder to overcome common stereotypes that they were less competent and less suited to senior roles. The study outcomes have major benefits for organisations wishing to legitimise HRM policies that help to formalise workplace structures and counter prevailing gender stereotypes

Can institutionalized workplace structures benefit senior women leaders?

Drawing on interviews conducted with a sample of 27 senior women leaders from across Australian industries, this study found that legitimate workplace structures disrupt and challenge the subliminal status effects of gender on perceived task or role performance. This related to structures such as increased opportunities for promotion into higher status roles and opportunities to participate in unstructured group-task roles. These findings were in stark contrast to traditional workplace structures where senior women leaders relied on their ability alone to reach the top. Our findings have significant implications for organizations wishing to legitimize and replicate HRM policy levers that help to formalize workplace structures of equality and counter prevailing gender stereotypes

Extracting and re-using research data from chemistry e-theses: the SPECTRa-T project

Scientific e-theses are data-rich resources, but much of the information they contain is not readily accessible. For chemistry, the SPECTRa-T project has addressed this problem by developing data-mining techniques to extract experimental data, creating RDF (Resource Description Framework) triples for exposure to sophisticated Semantic Web searches. We used OSCAR3, an Open Source chemistry text-mining tool, to parse and extract data from theses in PDF, and from theses in Office Open XML document format. Theses in PDF suffered data corruption and a loss of formatting that prevented the identification of chemical objects. Theses in .docx yielded semantically rich SciXML that enabled the additional extraction of associated data. Chemical objects were placed in a data repository, and RDF triples deposited in a triplestore. Data-mining from chemistry e-theses is both desirable and feasible; but the use of PDF, the de facto format standard for deposit in most repositories, prevents the optimal extraction of data for semantic querying. In order to facilitate this, we recommend that universities also require deposition of chemistry e-theses in an XML document format. Further work is required to clarify the complex IPR issues and ensure that they do not become an unwarranted barrier to data extraction and re-use

CMLLite: a design philosophy for CML.

CMLLite is a collection of definitions and processes which provide strong and flexible validation for a document in Chemical Markup Language (CML). It consists of an updated CML schema (schema3), conventions specifying rules in both human and machine-understandable forms and a validator available both online and offline to check conformance. This article explores the rationale behind the changes which have been made to the schema, explains how conventions interact and how they are designed, formulated, implemented and tested, and gives an overview of the validation service.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are