Conflict Management Styles Among Public Sector Managers in Malaysia.

This study examined the competence-based approach to conflict management from the Malaysian perspective especially on the effectiveness and appropriateness of the conflict management styles as perceived by dyads of superiors-subordinates. In the process, this study set out to determine the conflict management styles used by Administrative and Diplomatic Services (ADS) officers in handling interpersonal conflicts with their subordinates. In addition, it looked at the moderating effects of individual attribute, professional profile and management styles on the effectiveness and appropriateness of the conflict management styles used as reported by the superiors and subordinates. Self-administered questionnaires were used to gather data. The sample consisted of 383 dyads of superiors-subordinates selected randomly from the 28 Ministries/Department. The quantitative data were analysed using various statistical and exploratory data analysis methods, descriptive tests, ANOVAs, Chi-square test of independence, and MANOVA.The findings indicated that ADS officers used integrating, compromising and dominating styles to handle interpersonal conflicts with their subordinates. The least used style was the obliging style. The 9,9 management style was the most frequently used style followed by 1,9 management style. The least used style was the 1 ,I management style. Both the superiors and subordinates rated the integrating style as the most effective, most relationally appropriate and most situationally appropriate style. The obliging style was rated as the least effective and least situationally appropriate style by both the superiors and subordinates while the dominating style was reported as the least relationally appropriate. The findings revealed that the subordinates were relatively satisfied with the level of supervision. However, there were no significant findings on the moderating effects of individual attribute, professional profile and management styles on the effectiveness and appropriateness of the conflict management styles used as reported by superiors and subordinates. Further research was recommended, in particular on the competence-based approach to conflict management involving a social setting within an Eastern environment

Rubber Impact on 3D Textile Composites

A low velocity impact study of aircraft tire rubber on 3D textile-reinforced composite plates was performed experimentally and numerically. In contrast to regular unidirectional composite laminates, no delaminations occur in such a 3D textile composite. Yarn decohesions, matrix cracks and yarn ruptures have been identified as the major damage mechanisms under impact load. An increase in the number of 3D warp yarns is proposed to improve the impact damage resistance. The characteristic of a rubber impact is the high amount of elastic energy stored in the impactor during impact, which was more than 90% of the initial kinetic energy. This large geometrical deformation of the rubber during impact leads to a less localised loading of the target structure and poses great challenges for the numerical modelling. A hyperelastic Mooney-Rivlin constitutive law was used in Abaqus/Explicit based on a step-by-step validation with static rubber compression tests and low velocity impact tests on aluminium plates. Simulation models of the textile weave were developed on the meso- and macro-scale. The final correlation between impact simulation results on 3D textile-reinforced composite plates and impact test data was promising, highlighting the potential of such numerical simulation tools

Microhabitat and plant structure of Compsopogon coeruleus (Compsopogonaceae, Rhodophyta) populations in streams from São Paulo State, southeastern Brazil

Microhabitat distribution was investigated in three populations of C. coeruleus to determine the distributional patterns and their controlling factors, as well as morphometric adaptations to varying conditions on a scale of a few centimetres. Morphometric variations and their relations with physical variables (current velocity, irradiance, depth and type of substratum) revealed some particular characteristics for each population and indicate particular adaptations. However, some trends were clear: 1) larger plants (length and/or diameter) produced a higher quantity of monosporangia in the three populations; 2) plant length and diameter were positively correlated in two populations; 3) plant diameter was positively correlated with current velocity in two populations; 4) higher percent cover was associated with substrata composed of macrophytes in two populations. C. coeruleus occurred under relatively wide microhabitat conditions and had high niche width values, suggesting a tolerance to considerable variation in physical variables. These characteristics contribute to the species' wide distribution in Brazilian streams, both spatial (at distinct scales) and seasonal. (C) ADAC / Elsevier, Paris

Wind sea and swell characteristics off east coast of india during southwest Monsoon

The waves along the east coast of India during south-west monsoon have great importance due to the prevailing rough conditions. Significant Wave height (Hs) and other wave conditions are measured at a location of 20m water depth off east coast of India during south-west monsoon 2009. Wind-sea (Hsw) and swell (Hss) components are separated from the measured data, to look into the characteristics of the waves at the measured location. It is observed that the sea-state is dominated by swells arriving from south-east (SE) to south (S). The maximum measured Hs is 2.62 m. Good positive correlation of 0.84 is observed between Hss and Hs. The contribution of Hss to Hs is 63.2 and remaining is due to Hsw. Wave age shows the presence of young sea with significant occurrence of swell. The spectral band width parameter (e), calculated from the measured data indicates that the wave components cover wide range of frequencies. The high values of spectral narrowness parameter (v) and peakedness parameter (Qp) are observed during the study period

Reverse image search for scientific data within and beyond the visible spectrum

The explosion in the rate, quality and diversity of image acquisition instruments has propelled the development of expert systems to organize and query image collections more efficiently. Recommendation systems that handle scientific images are rare, particularly if records lack metadata. This paper introduces new strategies to enable fast searches and image ranking from large pictorial datasets with or without labels. The main contribution is the development of pyCBIR, a deep neural network software to search scientific images by content. This tool exploits convolutional layers with locality sensitivity hashing for querying images across domains through a user-friendly interface. Our results report image searches over databases ranging from thousands to millions of samples. We test pyCBIR search capabilities using three convNets against four scientific datasets, including samples from cell microscopy, microtomography, atomic diffraction patterns, and materials photographs to demonstrate 95% accurate recommendations in most cases. Furthermore, all scientific data collections are released