Group Maintenance Behaviors in the Decision-Making Styles of Self-Organizing Distributed Teams

Businesses, universities, and other organizations are increasingly reliant on self-organizing, distributed teams which are enabled by information and communication technologies (ICTs). However, inherent geographical, organizational, and social limitations of ICTs challenge the relationships necessary for groups to make effective decisions. Understanding how group maintenance plays out within the context of different styles of decision making may provide insight into social tactics undertaken in such teams. Group maintenance is defined as discretionary, relation-building behavior that enables group members to trust and cooperate with one another more easily [1]. Decision style refers to the extent to which group decision making involves a broad contribution from group members other than leaders. It may range from the most autocratic style where a decision is made by one or a few individuals, to truly collaborative where every member has the opportunity to affect the decision. This study examines group maintenance within decision-making behaviors of Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development teams as examples of distributed teams. Most FLOSS software is developed by such teams that are both dynamic and self-organizing, comprised of professionals, users, and other volunteers working in a loosely coupled manner [2-4]. These teams are nearly entirely virtual in that developers contribute from around the world, meet face-to-face infrequently (if at all), and coordinate their activities primarily through computer-mediated communications (CMC) [6, 7]

Directed Acyclic Subgraph Problem Parameterized above the Poljak-Turzik Bound

An oriented graph is a directed graph without directed 2-cycles. Poljak and Turzik (1986) proved that every connected oriented graph G on n vertices and m arcs contains an acyclic subgraph with at least m/2+(n-1)/4 arcs. Raman and Saurabh (2006) gave another proof of this result and left it as an open question to establish the parameterized complexity of the following problem: does G have an acyclic subgraph with least m/2 + (n-1)/4 + k arcs, where k is the parameter? We answer this question by showing that the problem can be solved by an algorithm of runtime (12k)!n^{O(1)}. Thus, the problem is fixed-parameter tractable. We also prove that there is a polynomial time algorithm that either establishes that the input instance of the problem is a Yes-instance or reduces the input instance to an equivalent one of size O(k^2)

Depicting What Really Matters: Using Episodes to Study Latent Phenomenon

Research on processes and practices around information systems is often best conducted in naturalistic setting. To conduct valid and reliable research in such settings, researchers must find ways to reliably bound the phenomenon in which they are interested. In this paper we propose that researchers use episodes—events or processes occurring over a specified period of time—to isolate that which interests them from the vast set of related human behavior. The paper discusses the nature of episodes in the literature and suggests particular research settings in which episodes can be useful. The paper describes a three stage methodology to identify episodes for systematic data collection and analysis. The paper presents an example study using episodes to study group learning process in distributed groups

The generation of upstream-propagating waves in astrophysically-relevant laboratory plasmas

The primary focus in this thesis is on the production and detection of upstream-propagating waves in laser-laboratory plasmas. Upstream waves are a feature of shocks in plasmas; launched at or just ahead of the shock, they travel against the flow into the unshocked medium. Despite the importance of upstream waves in understanding the properties of the Earth’s bow shock, and the foreshock region just ahead of the shock, upstream waves have not previously been investigated in the laboratory. The laboratory shock waves are produced by laser-matter interaction, and allowed to propagate into a nitrogen atmosphere, immersed in a magnetic field. One-dimensional numerical simulations of the fluid enable the construction of the whistler dispersion function; a mode unstable to growth is identified. The mode is compared with observations taken by a magnetic field probe, understood by a wavelet analysis. Agreement between observation and prediction is found