Getting The Job Done: Moderating Conflict In Culturally Diverse Teams

Conflict literature reveals that team diversity influences team member satisfaction mediated through affective conflict. This research proposal argues that the team diversity and affective conflict reduction (TDACR) model can moderate the negative influence of affective conflict by introducing a moderating variable, team ontology, which measures team functionality and member role comprehension. This proposal recommends collecting data from a culturally diverse airplane manufacturing plant, which utilizing teams that perform routine and non—routine tasks to test the hypotheses. The leadership implications of the TDACR model suggest increasing team ontology or decreasing team diversity to maintain positive levels of team member satisfaction

Streamlining Rich Media Communications In A Non-Profit organization: Making Meetings Meaningful

This study is an organizational diagnosis of a highly centralized non-profit organization, which desired to reduce the number of monthly committee meetings. Using an emergent design flexibility strategy. the findings revealed that because the members of the organization were accustomed to receiving frequent rich media communication, they may resist a reduction in meetings. Therefore, the study offers four recommendations to reduce the number of meetings to increase member satisfaction. Because of contradictory findings compared to existing research, two areas within the study of leadership are offered further research

Exploring The Role of Spirituality Within Intense Interpersonal Conflicts

The foundation for determining the approach to manage interpersonal conflict extends across two poles of consideration: the concern for self and the concern for others. This assumption has influenced the calculated response people would exhibit when experiencing an intense interpersonal conflict. However, recent findings within the realm of spirituality challenge these foundational assumptions. Spirituality literature contends that individuals may place substantial emphasis upon transcendent concerns rather than temporal concerns such as self and others. This study explores whether spirituality plays a role in the conflict management process through a phenomenological research investigation. The researcher interviewed 10 participants, who served as faculty members in the philosophy and religion department at a college in the Midwest. The results of the data analysis suggest that spirituality serves a crucial role in the conflict management process. When a stimulus violates the spirituality of an individual, an intense interpersonal conflict may erupt. This study offers a structural model of the conflict management process and implications of the role spirituality serves within the management of interpersonal conflicts for managers and leaders

Ecohydraulic Investigation of Diatoms in a Bedrock-Controlled Stream

Recent studies within the past decade or so have shown the importance of algae in geomorphic and hydrologic processes of lotic systems. However, the ecohydraulic role of algae in bedrock systems has largely been ignored. In addition, the utility of algae as indicators of channel dynamics have often been assumed by geomorphologists, but relatively few studies have examined this relationship. The purpose of this study was to determine whether algae, specifically diatoms, are useful indicators of channel geomorphological dynamics, and to examine if distinct habitats or biotopes typical in fluviokarst and bedrock systems provide unique habitat space for diatoms, and to address the potential ecohydraulic implications. The investigation was performed in a 100 m reach of Shawnee Run, a limestone, fluviokarst tributary to the Kentucky River in Mercer County, KY. The results of the study showed that periphyton are not useful indicators of channel dynamics, and that biotopes and other distinct habitats, including riffles, bedforms, and fine sediment, do not provide unique habitat in terms of diatom community composition

Autonomous Learning in a Virtual Environment

The educational community is seizing the opportunity to link interdependent members from distant locations. Universities, colleges, and other adult education media are supplementing traditional classroom settings with virtual classrooms thereby broadening their local and regional markets. The authors argue a virtual learning paradigm can satisfy efficacious autonomous learning more effectively when social support and affective management conditions are available. Based on a qualitative analysis of data from a group of doctoral students required to engage in learning through asynchronous communications, the authors recommend conditions that are most conducive to efficacious autonomous learning

An Fe-N_2 Complex That Generates Hydrazine and Ammonia via Fe═NNH_2: Demonstrating a Hybrid Distal-to-Alternating Pathway for N_2 Reduction

Biological N_2 fixation to NH_3 may proceed at one or more Fe sites in the active-site cofactors of nitrogenases. Modeling individual e–/H+ transfer steps of iron-ligated N_2 in well-defined synthetic systems is hence of much interest but remains a significant challenge. While iron complexes have been recently discovered that catalyze the formation of NH_3 from N_2, mechanistic details remain uncertain. Herein, we report the synthesis and isolation of a diamagnetic, 5-coordinate Fe═NNH_2+ species supported by a tris(phosphino)silyl ligand via the direct protonation of a terminally bound Fe-N_2– complex. The Fe═NNH_2+ complex is redox-active, and low-temperature spectroscopic data and DFT calculations evidence an accumulation of significant radical character on the hydrazido ligand upon one-electron reduction to S = 1/2 Fe═NNH_2. At warmer temperatures, Fe═NNH_2 rapidly converts to an iron hydrazine complex, Fe-NH_2NH_2+, via the additional transfer of proton and electron equivalents in solution. Fe-NH_2NH_2+ can liberate NH_3, and the sequence of reactions described here hence demonstrates that an iron site can shuttle from a distal intermediate (Fe═NNH_2+) to an alternating intermediate (Fe-NH_2NH_2+) en route to NH_3 liberation from N_2. It is interesting to consider the possibility that similar hybrid distal/alternating crossover mechanisms for N_2 reduction may be operative in biological N_2 fixation

Compared to what? The effects of different comparisons on conceptual knowledge and procedural flexibility for equation solving

Researchers in both cognitive science and mathematics education emphasize the importance of comparison for learning and transfer. However, surprisingly little is known about the advantages and disadvantages of what types of things are being compared. In this experimental study, 162 7th- and 8th-grade students learned to solve equations by comparing equivalent problems solved with the same solution method, by comparing different problem types solved with the same solution method, or by comparing different solution methods to the same problem. Students' conceptual knowledge and procedural flexibility were best supported by comparing solution methods, and to a lesser extent by comparing problem types. The benefits of comparison are augmented when examples differ on relevant features, and contrasting methods may be particularly useful in mathematics learning

It pays to compare: An experimental study on computational estimation

Comparing and contrasting examples is a core cognitive process that supports learning in children and adults across a variety of topics. In this experimental study, we evaluated the benefits of supporting comparison in a classroom context for children learning about computational estimation. Fifth- and sixth-grade students (n = 157) learned about estimation either by comparing alternative solution strategies or by reflecting on the strategies one at a time. At posttest and retention test, students who compared were more flexible problem solvers on a variety of measures. Comparison also supported greater conceptual knowledge, but only for students who already knew some estimation strategies. These findings indicate that comparison is an effective learning and instructional practice in a domain with multiple acceptable answers

Catalytic conversion of nitrogen to ammonia by an iron model complex

The reduction of nitrogen (N_2) to ammonia (NH_3) is a requisite transformation for life. Although it is widely appreciated that the iron-rich cofactors of nitrogenase enzymes facilitate this transformation, how they do so remains poorly understood. A central element of debate has been the exact site or sites of N_2 coordination and reduction. In synthetic inorganic chemistry, an early emphasis was placed on molybdenum because it was thought to be an essential element of nitrogenases and because it had been established that well-defined molybdenum model complexes could mediate the stoichiometric conversion of N_2 to NH_3 (ref. 9). This chemical transformation can be performed in a catalytic fashion by two well-defined molecular systems that feature molybdenum centres. However, it is now thought that iron is the only transition metal essential to all nitrogenases, and recent biochemical and spectroscopic data have implicated iron instead of molybdenum as the site of N_2 binding in the FeMo-cofactor. Here we describe a tris(phosphine)borane-supported iron complex that catalyses the reduction of N_2 to NH_3 under mild conditions, and in which more than 40 per cent of the proton and reducing equivalents are delivered to N_2. Our results indicate that a single iron site may be capable of stabilizing the various N_xH_y intermediates generated during catalytic NH_3 formation. Geometric tunability at iron imparted by a flexible iron–boron interaction in our model system seems to be important for efficient catalysis. We propose that the interstitial carbon atom recently assigned in the nitrogenase cofactor may have a similar role, perhaps by enabling a single iron site to mediate the enzymatic catalysis through a flexible iron–carbon interaction