Energizing middle managers' practice in organizational learning

Purpose This paper aims to consider middle managers' influence on organizational learning by exploring how they cope with demands and tensions in their role and whether their practice affects available team energy. Design/methodology/approach In total, 43 managers from three large organizations involved in major change assessed their group's energy using a tested and validated instrument, the OEQ12©. This generated six distinct categories of team energy, from highly productive to corrosive. Thirty-four of these managers, spread across the six categories, completed a Twenty Statements Test and a follow-up interview to explore their cognitive, affective and behavioural responses to coping with resource constraints and tensions in their role. Findings The research provides preliminary insights into what distinguishes a middle manager persona co-ordinating teams with highly productive energy from those managing groups with less available energy to engage with knowledge and learning. It considers why these distinctions may affect collective sensitivities in the organizational learning process. Research limitations/implications Informants were not equally distributed across the six team energy categories; therefore, some middle manager personas are more indicative than others. Practical implications This research suggests areas where middle manager development could potentially improve organizational learning. Originality/value This study offers early empirical evidence that middle managers' orientation to their role is entangled with the process of energizing their teams in organizational learning during change

Investigation into alternatives to psychiatric disorders

Section A The first part of the review explored what the literature suggests should be the key characteristics of an alternative to diagnosis. It found that an alternative should attempt to de-emphasise biological causation, classify problems, attend to individual experience, be developed in line with the evidence-base and the views of key stakeholders, and serve practical functions. The second part of the review presented six alternative models that have been proposed so far. To identify possible ways forward, the review explored how the proposals might fulfil the various functions currently fulfilled by diagnosis. The review concluded by outlining clinical and research implications. Section B The empirical paper explored participants’ experiences of receiving a psychiatric diagnosis and their views about utilising the ICD-11 experiential codes as a possible alternative. Thirteen participants were interviewed, and the data were analysed using thematic analysis. The results outlined six themes, including identifying and characterising the problem, communication with professionals, personal impact, support and recovery, response from others, and implementation. The findings were discussed in the context of current research, and the clinical and research implications were highlighted

Breast Milk Composition, Milk Intake, and Their Relationship to Infant Weight Gain

An infant’s growth pattern over the first year of life sets the trajectory for growth during childhood. Rapid weight gain in infancy is a risk factor for childhood obesity in both breastfed and formula-fed infants. However, due to variation among mother-infant pairs, it is unclear how milk macronutrient composition and infant milk intake, as well as other maternal factors, contribute to infant growth in the first year of life. Milk samples were collected and infant milk intake over a 24-hour period was measured at 6 weeks postpartum from healthy mother-infant pairs (N = 122) enrolled in the STRONG Kids 2 cohort at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Infants weighed an average of 7.8 ± 1.0 pounds at birth, with 74.6% delivered vaginally and 24.6% by cesarean section. At the time of sample collection, 77.8% of infants were breastfeeding, 13.9% were fed both human milk and formula (combined-feeding) and 6.7% were formula-feeding. Mothers were 31 ± 4.4 years old and had a BMI of 28.4 ± 6.6 kg/m2 at 6 weeks postpartum. Milk protein, fat, carbohydrate, and dry matter are being analyzed and the amount of each macronutrient consumed by infants over 24 h will be calculated. Ongoing analysis will investigate the relationship between milk composition, milk intake, and infant weight over the first year of life.Dairy Research InstituteGerber FoundationOpe

Phase diagrams of vortex matter with multi-scale inter-vortex interactions in layered superconductors

It was recently proposed to use the stray magnetic fields of superconducting vortex lattices to trap ultracold atoms for building quantum emulators. This calls for new methods for engineering and manipulating of the vortex states. One of the possible routes utilizes type-1.5 superconducting layered systems with multi-scale inter-vortex interactions. In order to explore the possible vortex states that can be engineered, we present two phase diagrams of phenomenological vortex matter models with multi-scale inter-vortex interactions featuring several attractive and repulsive length scales. The phase diagrams exhibit a plethora of phases, including conventional 2D lattice phases, five stripe phases, dimer, trimer, and tetramer phases, void phases, and stable low-temperature disordered phases. The transitions between these states can be controlled by the value of an applied external field.Comment: 16 pages, 20 figure

Effective redress of grievance in data protection : an illusion?

This article questions whether the current data protection legislative framework in the EU to provide effective redress of grievance for those who are affected by a breach of data protection law. It considers the extent to which the principle of effective judicial protection is satisfied where judicial redress is sought and also considers whether supervisory authorities are able to grant adequate administrative redress. In undertaking this analysis the article seeks to demonstrate that there are a number of areas where judicial protection is uncertain. There is a lack of consistency in the award of compensation, particularly in cases of non-pecuniary loss and some uncertainty as to what an ‘effective remedy’ might be in some data protection cases. Furthermore, substantial procedural differences exist between Member States for those seeking to bring data protection cases before national courts resulting in a situation where the conditions of access to judicial remedy are uneven