Constructing women’s leadership representation in the UK press during a time of financial crisis : gender capitals and dialectical tensions

A continuing challenge for organizations is the persistent underrepresentation of women in senior roles, which gained a particular prominence during the global financial crisis (GFC). The GFC has raised questions regarding the forms of leadership that allowed the crisis to happen and alternative proposals regarding how future crises might be avoided. Within this context women’s leadership has been positioned as an ethical alternative to styles of masculinist leadership that led to the crisis in the first place. Through a multimodal discursive analysis this article examines the socio-cultural assumptions sustaining the gendering of leadership in the popular press to critically analyse how women’s leadership is represented during the GFC of 2008–2012. Highlighting the media’s portrayal of women’s leadership as a gendered field of activity where different forms of gender capital come into play, we identify three sets of dialectics: women as leaders and women as feminine, women as credible leaders and women as lacking in credibility, and women as victims and women as their own worst enemies. Together, the dialectics work together to form a discursive pattern framed by a male leadership model that narrates the promise of women leaders, yet the disappointment that they are not men. Our study extends understandings regarding how female and feminine forms of gender capital operate dialectically, where the media employs feminine capital to promote women’s positioning as leaders yet also leverages female capital as a constraint. We propose that this understanding can be of value to organizations to understand the impact and influence of discourse on efforts to promote women into leadership roles

GAPscreener: An automatic tool for screening human genetic association literature in PubMed using the support vector machine technique

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Synthesis of data from published human genetic association studies is a critical step in the translation of human genome discoveries into health applications. Although genetic association studies account for a substantial proportion of the abstracts in PubMed, identifying them with standard queries is not always accurate or efficient. Further automating the literature-screening process can reduce the burden of a labor-intensive and time-consuming traditional literature search. The Support Vector Machine (SVM), a well-established machine learning technique, has been successful in classifying text, including biomedical literature. The GAPscreener, a free SVM-based software tool, can be used to assist in screening PubMed abstracts for human genetic association studies.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The data source for this research was the HuGE Navigator, formerly known as the HuGE Pub Lit database. Weighted SVM feature selection based on a keyword list obtained by the two-way z score method demonstrated the best screening performance, achieving 97.5% recall, 98.3% specificity and 31.9% precision in performance testing. Compared with the traditional screening process based on a complex PubMed query, the SVM tool reduced by about 90% the number of abstracts requiring individual review by the database curator. The tool also ascertained 47 articles that were missed by the traditional literature screening process during the 4-week test period. We examined the literature on genetic associations with preterm birth as an example. Compared with the traditional, manual process, the GAPscreener both reduced effort and improved accuracy.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>GAPscreener is the first free SVM-based application available for screening the human genetic association literature in PubMed with high recall and specificity. The user-friendly graphical user interface makes this a practical, stand-alone application. The software can be downloaded at no charge.</p

How women in the executive influence government stability

Does the gender of prime ministers and cabinet ministers influence cabinet duration? We argue that the risk for early termination of cabinets decreases with women’s presence in the executive. As scholars of social psychology indicate, women apply more consensual and compromise-oriented conflict resolution strategies. Disputes between or within governing parties, which ultimately lead to early termination, should therefore be less likely to emerge and escalate if the government is led by a woman or includes numerous female members. To test this rationale, we analyse a newly compiled, comprehensive dataset covering 676 governments in 27 European countries between 1945 and 2018 by relying on event history analysis. The results suggest that cabinets with a higher proportion of female cabinet members experience a lower risk of early cabinet termination. This article contributes to the study of women as political leaders through additional evidence for the gendered nature of leadership styles

Large-eddy simulation of kerosene spray combustion in a model scramjet chamber

Large-eddy simulation (LES) of kerosene spray combustion in a model supersonic combustor with cavity flame holder is carried out. Kerosene is injected through the ceiling of the cavity. The subgrid-scale (SGS) turbulence stress ensor is closed via the Smagorinsky’s eddyviscosity model, chemical source terms are modelled by a finite rate chemistry (FRC) model, and a four-step reduced kerosene combustion kinetic mechanism is adopted. The chamber wallpressure predicted from the LES is validated by experimental data reported in literature. The test case has a cavity length of 77mm and a depth of 8mm. After liquid kerosene is injected through the orifice, most of the droplets are loaded with recirculation fluid momentum inside the cavity. Due to lower velocity of the carrier fluid inside the cavity, sufficient atomization and evaporation take place during the process of droplet transportation, resulting in a rich fuel mixture of kerosene vapour accumulating inside the cavity. These rich fuel mixtures are mixed with fresh air by the approachmixing layer at the front of the cavity and are thus involved in burning accompanied with the approach boundary layer separation extending towards upstream. The combustion flame in the downstream impinges onto the rear wall of the cavity and is then reflected back to the front of the cavity. During the recirculation of hot flow, heat is compensated for evaporation of droplets. The circulation processes mentioned above provide an efficient flame-holdingmechanism to stabilize the flame.Comparisons with results froma shorter length of cavity (cavity length of 45mm) show that, due to insufficient atomization and evaporation of the droplets in the short distance inside the cavity, parts of the droplets are carried out of the cavity through theboundary layer fluctuation and evaporated in the hot flame layer, thus resulting in incomplete air fuel mixing and worse combustion performance. The flow structures inside the cavity play an important role in the spray istribution, thus determining the combustion performance