Світоглядні аспекти феномену лідерства: до постановки проблеми

In the new millennium, the urgent need for effective leadership becomes more apparent than ever before. Rapidly developing processes of globalization, in the context of societies moving from modernity toward postmodernity, generate more and more contradictory effects. The contemporary world requires a new generation of leaders in education, business, government and non-governmental structures, responsible, open, integral, courageous, capable of critical thinking individuals who recognize the common mission of all humankind and seek to contribute to a better future. The paper attempts to analyze certain worldview aspects of leadership phenomenon.У новому тисячолітті нагальна потреба в ефективному лідерстві стає очевидною як ніколи раніше. Глобалізація як процес і наростаюча тенденція нашого часу стрімко набуває загальносвітового масштабу, породжуючи нові суперечливі наслідки. Сучасний світ потребує нового покоління лідерів в освіті, бізнесі, урядових та неурядових структурах, відповідальних, відкритих, цілісних, мужніх, здатних до критичного мислення особистостей, які визнають спільну місію всього людства і прагнуть зробити свій внесок у створення кращого майбутнього. У статті зроблено спробу проаналізувати певні світоглядні аспекти феномену лідерства.

Decrease of the maximum speed in highway tunnels as a measure to foster energy savings and sustainability

The high energy consumption of the lighting installations in highway tunnels has become a hot topic in the last few years due to the high figures in terms of money, consumed energy, use of raw materials, emissions of greenhouse gases due to the remarkable number of manufactured elements, and maintenance, among others. In spite of the different strategies proposed up to date and their savings, the potential benefits of decreasing the maximum speed allowed in tunnels have not been considered in depth as a complementary measure yet. In this work, the impact of such a decrease in terms of energy consumption, number projectors, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and yearly costs in energy is analyzed and discussed. The results strongly suggest the convenience of introducing maximum speed reduction in traffic regulations which, in addition, could create positive synergies with traffic safety

Heavy minerals as detritus provenance indicators for the Jurassic pre-Callovian palaeokarst infill from the Czatkowice Quarry (Kraków-Wieluń Upland, Poland)

Heavy mineral assemblages from the infill of Jurassic pre-Callovian palaeokarst in the Czatkowice Quarry, in the Kraków–Wieluń Upland, are zircon dominated. They contain also garnet, tourmaline, rutile and scarce grains of kyanite, staurolite and single chromian spinel. The textural features of the heavy minerals suggest that certain types of source rocks supplied the clastic material infilling in the karst studied. Most of the heavy minerals were derived from sedimentary or metasedimentary rocks as suggested by the high degree of roundness of the grains and also by high ZTR (zircon–tourmaline–rutile) index values. Rounded minerals may derive from Carboniferous, Permian and Triassic clastic rocks occurring in the area surrounding the Czatkowice Quarry. The chemical compositions of rounded detrital garnet and tourmaline grains suggest metamorphic and igneous rocks as initial sources, perhaps located in the Bohemian Massif. However, a hypothetical landmass located south of the Kraków–Wieluń Upland might have been an additional source area. The euhedral zircon and garnet grains were transported directly from crystalline rocks, which may have been Carboniferous-Permian volcanic rocks and crystalline basement elevations of Brunovistulicum exposed during Jurassic pre-Callovian sedimentation in the Czatkowice area

Source rocks for heavy minerals in lower part of Menilite formation of Skole Nappe (Polish Flysch Carpathians), based on study of detrital garnet and tourmaline

The study focused on the chemistry of detrital garnet and tourmaline from sediments of the Boryslav and Kliva Sandstone types in the Oligocene part of the Menilite Formation of the Skole Nappe (Western Outer Carpathians, Poland), with regard to provenance. Almandine and almandine-pyrope compositional varieties are the most common garnets, with minor almandine-pyrope-grossular garnet. Scarce garnet grains, with grossular and spessartine as the dominant end-members, are also present. The tourmaline belongs to the alkali tourmaline principal group and represents the schörl-dravite series. The detrital garnet and tourmaline display strong, compositional similarities to minerals, occurring in igneous and metamorphic rocks of the Bohemian Massif, as well as to detrital grains, deposited within the internal basins of the massif. This suggests that the primary rocks for the garnet and tourmaline may be crystalline complexes of the Bohemian Massif. However, other uplifted areas, similar to the complexes of the Bohemian Massif, cannot be ruled out. Such hypothetical areas could be located in the northern foreland of the Carpathian basins. Euhedral tourmaline and other minerals, occurring in the heavy- mineral assemblages studied, most probably were derived from eroded and presently not exposed, crystalline complexes, originally situated in the Skole Basin foreland or within the basin

Nanotechnology in Therapeutics: hydrogels and beyond

Nanotechnology in Therapeutics: Current Technology and Applications, Edited by Nicholas A. Peppas, J. Zach Hilt and J. Brock Thomas (Horizon Bioscience, 2007) contains seventeen chapters written by leading specialists in the field of polymeric materials for drug delivery and holds wealth of background as well as state of the art material divided into four sections: "Intelligent Therapeutics and Responsive Delivery Systems for Improved Absorption and Delivery", "Therapeutic Micro- and Nanodevices", "Nanostructured Therapeutic Materials" and "Nanoparticulate Systems in Intelligent Therapy". This newly published volume provides a stimulating read and a good point of reference to researchers wishing to explore the interdisciplinary fusion of nnanotechnology and medical therapeutics. The following gives brief summary and critically reviews the book

Garnet provenance in mixed first-cycle and poly-cycle heavy-mineral assembleges of the Ropianka and Menilite formations (Skole Nappe, Polish Flysch Carpathians) : contraints from chemical composition and grain morphology

Garnet in heavy-mineral assemblages, occurring in sandstones of the Campanian-Maastrichtian part of the Ropianka (Late Cretaceous-Palaeocene) and Menilite (Oligocene) formations of the Skole Nappe, is present as first-cycle and poly-cycle grains, derived from a proximal source, remote areas and/or from sedimentary rocks of the Skole Basin foreland. The garnets in the formations are compositionally similar, suggesting an origin from the same source rocks. Relatively large amounts of garnet, represented by euhedral or slightly rounded, weakly etched or unetched almandine and spessartine-almandine garnet, and minor pyrope-enriched almandine, were derived directly from a source close to the Skole Basin. These garnets are from sediments, metamorphosed at low- to medium-grade conditions (such as mica-schists, gneisses) and perhaps also granitic bodies. Rounded and variously etched garnets, especially high pyrope-almandine and pyrope-almandine-grossular varieties, but also partly almandine-dominated varieties, are suggested to have been derived from distant sources, such as sedimentary rocks of the Upper Silesian and Małopolska blocks. Rocks, forming uplifted parts of the crystalline basement of Brunovistulicum and/or crystalline domains of the Bohemian Massif, could have been protoliths for part of the almandine-dominated garnet population, whereas pyrope-grossular-almandine garnets may originate from the granulitic, eclogitic or metabasic rocks of the Bohemian Massif. The study shows that analyses of garnet composition, combined with observations on grain textural features and data on the lithology of clasts and pebbles, can permit the determination of sources for different garnet varieties in mixed-provenance populations

Advantages and limitations of interpretations of external morphology of detrital zircon : a case study of the Ropianka and Menilite formations (Skole Nappe, Polish Flysch Carpathians)

The zircon populations from the Campanian-Maastrichtian part of the Ropianka (Upper Cretaceous- Palaeocene) and Menilite (Oligocene-lower Miocene) formations in the northern part of the Skole Nappe in Poland were examined to evaluate interpretations of the external morphology of detrital zircon in provenance research. The advantage of the zircon typology method, supplemented with elongation measurements, is that it may be applied successfully to comparisons of euhedral zircon populations from sedimentary deposits of different ages and unknown provenance. The zircon typology method, along with elongation measurements of zircons, contributes valuable data that supplement conventional heavy-mineral analyses. It also permits the recognition of potential source areas and rock types for further comparative research

Parameters affecting the efficiency of a heat transformer with a particular focus on the heat solution

The heat transformer is a reverse cycle absorption machine, suitable for the direct exploitation of heat wastes and solar energy. Part of these wastes are “transformed” into thermal energy at a higher temperature than the one provided. Hence some studies concern the evaluation of the performances of the working fluids used. They must ensure a high level of efficiency which, as for the conventional absorption machines, depends on several parameters. One of these parameters is the heat solution: it is defined as the heat absorbed when a mole of a given component is mixed with the amount of the other component required to generate the desired solution at a certain temperature and pressure. This is the reason why the decision was to examine its influence with respect to machines exerting two different fluids which are generally used. The first one is NH3-H2O, whereas the second is H2O-LiBr; they used as refrigerating substances ammonia and water respectively and as absorption substances water and lithium bromide. Through an analytical modeling and the processing of experimental data provided by the bibliography, it was possible to show how, for these fluids, the terms of the sensible heat represent a moderate fraction of the global energy balance, at one condition though: highly efficient recovery exchangers must be present. Moreover there were reported values of the refrigeration effect of the order of thousands of kJ/kg with satisfying responses energetically speaking. Then a high stability of the fluid NH3-H2O was revealed, as testified by the high value of the difference between the concentration of the refrigerator in the absorber and the concentration of the refrigerator in the generato

The role of experiential knowledge in foreign market commitment: A process perspective on the internationalisation of Australian services SMEs

The Uppsala internationalisation model established some foundations for research in international business. But since the introduction of this internationalisation process model in mid-1970s, the business environment has changed significantly. It is important to reflect on how these changes affect the interplay between experiential learning and foreign market commitment, a key plank in the Uppsala model. This thesis focuses on a core assumption that underlies the model: that a high degree of foreign market commitment results from rational decisions that firms take during a learning process based on complete knowledge and information. In 2009, the protagonists of the Uppsala model offered a much more nuanced perception of a firm’s learning process, when they stressed that firms rely of a wider range of relationships, interactions and contexts that impact on their accumulation of experiential knowledge. Some studies have used proxy variables to capture this process through variance-based quantitative analysis. This thesis uses a process approach, conceptualised on the basis of several theories to understand the complexity of the learning process that underlies the internationalisation of firms. The true process approach to studying the internationalisation of the firm has been neglected for some time and the field of international business studies had been dominated by variance-based studies. Inevitably, this has led to a situation where ‘we see far too many “rigorous” studies with little originality and, at best, a marginal contribution’, as Johanson and Vahlne (2014: 173) expressed it. The process approach conceptualised, developed and applied in the analysis in this thesis may be a better instrument to understand causal relationships between experiential knowledge accumulation or learning and foreign market commitment, as well as other internationalisation processes that take place over periods of time. This research is focused on the micro-foundations of internationalisation attempts of firms. These processes are analysed in light of relevant spatiotemporal context. The findings document the key aspects of the internationalisation process without devoting the analysis to what Outhwaite (1987: 7-12) has labelled the positivist ‘law-explanation orthodoxy’. Instead, this thesis relies on abductive reasoning and longitudinal case studies to contextualise learning processes and changes in such processes over a period of time throughout the internationalisation process. It analyses the internationalisation of seven Australian services SMEs in order to provide causal explanations for a specific sequence of critical events that influenced the foreign market commitments of these firms. An additional methodological contribution of this thesis is the implementation of content analysis, clustering and multidimensional scaling of the contents of interviews, which accounts for relevant context without undermining the scientific explanation and rigour of the approach. By studying case histories and the chronology of critical events in the internationalisation attempts of these firms, we demonstrate that an accommodating learning style is most closely associated with the foreign market commitment of firms. Nonetheless, experiential learning is dynamic in nature and often requires decision makers to touch all bases of the learning cycle. As expected, the key sources of knowledge are relevant business and people-to-people networks, as well as prior learning experiences of decision makers that often go beyond the lifespan of the firm. Experiential learning is found to be a context-dependent process that is utterly complex in nature. The thesis demonstrates how critical events trigger experiential learning as well as explain what the decision makers learn as part of this learning process. Rather than measuring the stock of experiential knowledge, the thesis demonstrates how learning processes alter individual perceptions of foreign market opportunities. The findings reconfirm that change processes (i.e. experiential learning, building business networks and trust) are continuous, while market commitment decisions (i.e. market entry mode, degree of internationalisation) are intermittent. These findings precisely challenge the results of variance-based studies that rely on limited firm-level indicators to capture and analyse experiential learning processes. This thesis builds on the call of Johanson and Vahlne (2014) to broaden our understanding of the practice of the internationalisation of firms by focusing on the behavioural aspects of human decision-making, such as the role of business networks and trust. To date, there are few studies that explain what exactly is learnt as part of the internationalisation process and how this information and/or knowledge actually affects foreign market opportunity recognition. Experiential knowledge remains the pivotal aspect of the internationalisation process and this research helps to conceptualise and operationalise relevant theory and provide causal explanations

Contemporary Ukraine: an Essay on the Asymmetry of State Policy in the Field of Librarianship

It is necessary to establish a new paradigm of organization and functioning of the libraries within the context of globalization and information revolution. The basis of these changes is democratization of the national program of librarianship development in Ukraine based on modernization of libraries in all its forms: from library staff trainings to funding for the material maintenance of the library. Investment in library infrastructure is the contribution to human future. This paper attempts to identify vectors of the state policy and prospects for the improvement in the field of librarianship in Ukraine