Visions of continuity as visions of change

The most effective visions of change given by leaders in organisations are those that assure employees of the things that won’t change rather than the things that will. For employees, ensuring the continuity of organisational identity is not only reassuring but also essential

Demystifying Visionary Leadership: In search of the essence of effective vision communication

Vision communication has been heralded as the most defining aspect of outstanding leadership, yet what makes for effective vision communication has eluded leadership scholars so far. Indeed, while vision communication is the only leader behavior that is specified in all influential leadership theories, it remains unclear which elements of leader vision and how these elements are conducive to the mobilization of followers toward action. Accordingly, the goal of the current dissertation was to clarify part of the mystery surrounding these issues. In this dissertation I highlight two ways by which vision communication can provide followers with a viable basis for action and motivation. The first way involves the use of emotional displays by leaders during vision communication. Specifically, I show that leader emotional displays provide useful for leaders by impacting the motivational lens through which followers interpret and respond to the leader’s vision. The second way involves the assurance of collective continuity. Specifically, I show that leaders can effectively motivate followers to help realizing intended change by communicating a vision which assures them that – despite objective change – the most defining features of the collective will remain unchanged. This dissertation concludes by reflecting on these results from the view that regards leadership as the management of meaning

The value of emotion in visionary leadership

__Abstract__ New research shows that emotional displays from leaders can have a profound and influencing effect on the way that employees think, feel and behave relative to an organisation’s visionary goals

Constraints on Variation of the Weak Scale from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis

Recently, the EMPRESS collaboration has included new data in the extraction of the primordial $^4$He abundance from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN), resulting in a determination that differs from the previous value and from theoretical expectations. There have been several studies attempting to explain this anomaly which involve variation of fundamental constants between the time of BBN and the present. Since the Higgs vacuum expectation value (vev) is the only dimensionful parameter in the Standard Model and it is already known to vary during the electroweak phase transition, we consider the possibility that the vev is slightly different during BBN compared to its present value. A modification of the vev changes not only particle masses but also affects, through mass thresholds, the QCD confinement scale. We use the recently developed PRyMordial program to study this variation and its impact on the $^4$He and deuterium abundances. We find that bounds on $|{\delta v}/{v}|$ are approximately $0.01$, and that the EMPRESS result can be explained within $2\sigma$ if $0.008 < {\delta v}/{v}< 0.02$, but at the cost of worsening the current $2\sigma$ discrepancy in the deuterium abundance to over $3\sigma$.Comment: Version to be published in PRD, 12 pages, 4 figure

Production and purification of L-lactic acid in lab and pilot scales using sweet sorghum juice

Sweet sorghum juice (SSJ) was evaluated as fermentation substrate for the production of l-lactic acid. A thermophilic Bacillus coagulans isolate was selected for batch fermentations without the use of additional nutrients. The first batch of SSJ (Batch A) resulted on higher lactic acid concentration, yield and productivity with values of 78.75 g·L−1, 0.78 g·g−1 and 1.77 g·L−1 h−1, respectively. Similar results were obtained when the process was transferred into the pilot scale (50 L), with corresponding values of 73 g·L−1, 0.70 g·g−1 and 1.47 g·L−1 h−1. A complete downstream process scheme was developed in order to separate lactic acid from the fermentation components. Coarse and ultra-filtration were employed as preliminary separation steps. Mono- and bipolar electrodialysis, followed by chromatography and vacuum evaporation were subsequently carried out leading to a solution containing 905.8 g·L−1 lactic acid, with an optical purity of 98.9%. The results of this study highlight the importance of the downstream process with respect to using SSJ for lactic acid production. The proposed downstream process constitutes a more environmentally benign approach to conventional precipitation methods

Teacher Classroom Management Practices in an Inclusive Virtual Setting

The main purpose of this study is to explore the special education teacher’s classroom management strategies engagement in an inclusive virtual setting among the selected teachers in Region VII and one City in Region VIII during remote learning. Five respondents from two regions of Visayas were chosen using convenience and purposive sampling techniques. The researchers of this study used Descriptive Qualitative research design following Colaizzi’s method in thematic analysis. An online interview questionnaire was distributed to the respondents through Google forms and thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. The results indicated that teacher classroom management strategies undeniably played a vital role to maximize students’ engagement in an inclusive virtual classroom. On this basis, it is recommended that teacher classroom management practices should also investigate the variables that limit students\u27 willingness to participate, as well as the importance of the entire class population in students’ engagement. And since our study solely identifies best practices and strategies to maximize student engagement, further study is needed to emphasize assessing teachers’ ICT skills, the parental factors, and appropriate assessment methods to give a greater understanding of the nature of why student engagement is declining in this new mode of learning

Spontaneous time reversal symmetry breaking in the pseudogap state of high-Tc superconductors

When matter undergoes a phase transition from one state to another, usually a change in symmetry is observed, as some of the symmetries exhibited are said to be spontaneously broken. The superconducting phase transition in the underdoped high-Tc superconductors is rather unusual, in that it is not a mean-field transition as other superconducting transitions are. Instead, it is observed that a pseudo-gap in the electronic excitation spectrum appears at temperatures T* higher than Tc, while phase coherence, and superconductivity, are established at Tc (Refs. 1, 2). One would then wish to understand if T* is just a crossover, controlled by fluctuations in order which will set in at the lower Tc (Refs. 3, 4), or whether some symmetry is spontaneously broken at T* (Refs. 5-10). Here, using angle-resolved photoemission with circularly polarized light, we find that, in the pseudogap state, left-circularly polarized photons give a different photocurrent than right-circularly polarized photons, and therefore the state below T* is rather unusual, in that it breaks time reversal symmetry11. This observation of a phase transition at T* provides the answer to a major mystery of the phase diagram of the cuprates. The appearance of the anomalies below T* must be related to the order parameter that sets in at this characteristic temperature .Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure