Extreme Diversity

During the past decade, most corporations have made considerable efforts to become more efficient, or “better.” Frenzied global competition and the recent economic downturn have revealed that efficiency efforts have limitations, and corporations must also become “different.” That difference is their capacity to innovate. Innovation is based on a continuous stream of new and fresh ideas that come from a diverse cadre of employees. Corporations historically have believed that a uniform workforce promotes harmony, unity, and efficiency, and have relied on homosocial reproduction and innovation antibodies to maintain the traditional corporate trajectory. This paper contends that the scope of diversity present in a corporation’s employee base and the volume of valuable innovative ideas bubbling up from inside the company are correlated. In order to more fully leverage the broad expertise of an intentionally diverse workforce, organizations may wish to consider reorganization, refocusing compensation from individuals to teams, and expanding institutional learning programs. To effectively lead an appropriately diverse organization, executives must provide clear objectives supported by simple metrics, encourage employees to focus their extraordinary capabilities on customers and on worthwhile experiments to ascertain customer needs, and to channel and productively use creative abrasion that naturally occurs between talented people to propel corporate innovation.diversity; extreme diversity; innovation; homosocial reproduction; innovation antibodies.

Video-Based Information Systems in Academic Library Media Centers

published or submitted for publicatio

Variations of the earth's magnetic field and rapid climatic cooling: A possible link through changes in global ice volume

A possible relationship between large scale changes in global ice volume, variations in the earth's magnetic field, and short term climatic cooling is investigated through a study of the geomagnetic and climatic records of the past 300,000 years. The calculations suggest that redistribution of the Earth's water mass can cause rotational instabilities which lead to geomagnetic excursions; these magnetic variations in turn may lead to short-term coolings through upper atmosphere effects. Such double coincidences of magnetic excursions and sudden coolings at times of ice volume changes have occurred at 13,500, 30,000, 110,000, and 135,000 YBP

Improved resource efficiency and cascading utilisation of renewable materials

In light of various environmental problems and challenges concerning resource allocation, the utilisation of renewable resources is increasingly important for the efficient use of raw materials. Therefore, cascading utilisation (i.e., the multiple material utilisations of renewable resources prior to their conversion into energy) and approaches that aim to further increase resource efficiency (e.g., the utilisation of by-products) can be considered guiding principles. This paper therefore introduces the Special Volume “Improved Resource Efficiency and Cascading Utilisation of Renewable Materials”. Because both research aspects, resource efficiency and cascading utilisation, belong to several disciplines, the Special Volume adopts an interdisciplinary perspective and presents 16 articles, which can be divided into four subjects: Innovative Materials based on Renewable Resources and their Impact on Sustainability and Resource Efficiency, Quantitative Models for the Integrated Optimisation of Production and Distribution in Networks for Renewable Resources, Information Technology-based Collaboration in Value Generating Networks for Renewable Resources, and Consumer Behaviour towards Eco-friendly Products. The interdisciplinary perspective allows a comprehensive overview of current research on resource efficiency, which is supplemented with 15 book reviews showing the extent to which textbooks of selected disciplines already refer to resource efficiency. This introductory article highlights the relevance of the four subjects, presents summaries of all papers, and discusses future research directions. The overall contribution of the Special Volume is that it bridges the resource efficiency research of selected disciplines and that it presents several approaches for more environmentally sound production and consumption

Assessment of coercive persuasion: the Scale of Detection of Coercive Persuasion in Group Contexts (EDPC)

Comunicación presentada en las Jornadas Internacionales ICSA 2017 sobre Dinámicas sectarias y radicalizaciónCoercive persuasion refers to the control and manipulation developed by abusive groups, through different aggressive strategies that influence changes in the environment of its members, distorting cognition, altering emotions and generating significant psychosocial damage. It is a subtle, gradual and powerful force that affects around 500,000 Spanish victims of cultic groups (Cuevas & Perlado, 2011; Cuevas, 2012). Attaining power is one of the main goals of these groups, being the control and exploitation of the individual a part of the process. This derives to individuals giving up their own goals, freedom, material possessions, family and social networks, health or even life itself (Rodríguez-Carballeira, Saldaña, Almendros, Martin-Peña, Escartín, & Porrúa-Garcia, 2015). Such strategies are often implemented in a planned, graduate way and using deceit, difficulting that people who targeted are able to detect their evident aggressiveness and the generated damage. If there is an obvious shortage of instruments measuring psychological abuse in different fields (partner violence, harassment, bullying, etc.), the development of tools to assess the presence of such strategies in group contexts is even more scarce (Almendros, Gámez-Guadix, Carrobles & Rodríguez Carballeira, 2011). One of those assessment tools, the Interview for Detection of Coercive Persuasion (Cuevas & Canto, 2006) contains a wide range of coercive and abusive practises taking place within manipulative group. It has been applied in Spain in the forensic field in prosecutions of abusive groups (Dharma Tradición, Casa Yoga, Miguelianos, Revelance, etc.). The main objective of this recently validated tool (Cuevas, 2016) was to identify and provide evidences of the systematic application of coercive persuasion techniques on victims of abusive groups (Cuevas, 2012, 2016). Deriving from this instrument, sharing objectives, a new scale of 40 items and validated in Spanish population: the Scale of Detection of Coercive Persuasion in Group Contexts, or EDPC (Cuevas, 2016 ). To validate the EDPC, a Spanish sample of 134 people who identified themselves as having been abused or having been overly controlled by a group was selected. To assess criterion validity of the instrument, other different instruments (BSI MOS-SSS, RSE, SLEQ, ICP and EDS) were used. The group psychological abuse scale GPA (Chambers, Langone, Dole, & Grice, 1994), Spanish modified version (Almendros et al.,2004; Almendros et al., 2009) was used to assess the convergent validity of the instrument. The EDPC showed appropriate psychometric properties. In respect to reliability, the standardized Cronbach alpha coefficient reached a value of 0.97. The exploratory factorial analysis indicated the presence of a factor (coercive persuasion), establishing the suitability of a one-dimensional model. This scale aims to be useful in clinical and forensic fields, in order to assess the control and manipulation exercised in group contexts. Using it could be relevant to provide evidences of coercive groups practises, helping at trying to determinate the relationship between damage on the victims and the specific actions taken by groups or individuals who perform the abusive behaviors.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Pleistocene Geology of Block Island

Guidebook to geologic field studies in Rhode Island and adjacent areas: The 73rd annual meeting of the New England Intercollegiate Geological Conference, October 16-18, 1981: Trip A-

The 2008 Federal Obscenity Conviction of Paul Little and What It Reveals About Obscenity Law and Prosecutions

This Article provides an inside perspective on the 2008 obscenity trial and conviction of veteran adult movie producer Paul Little, who is known in the adult industry as Max Hardcore. Little was sentenced by a federal judge to nearly four years in prison after a twelve-person jury in Tampa, Florida found him guilty of multiple counts of selling and distributing obscene content via the U.S. Mail and Internet. The Article centers around comments and remarks drawn from four exclusive interviews conducted in person by the authors with: (1)Jeffrey Douglas, the California-based attorney who represented and defended Paul Little in United States v. Little; (2) H. Louis Sirkin, the Ohio-based attorney who represented and defended the corporate entities controlled by Paul Little in United States v. Little; (3) Mark Kernes, Senior Editor of Adult Video News, a leading adult entertainment industry trade publication, and the journalist who covered the trial of Paul Little; and (4) Larry Flynt, the publisher of Hustler magazine and head of the LFP, Inc. adult entertainment empire. Each interview was conducted subsequent to Paul Little\u27s June 2008 conviction by the jury in Tampa but prior to his sentencing in October 2008. The Article contextualizes the case within the framework of the Bush administration\u27s efforts to target adult content for obscenity prosecutions