Situational judgment tests (SJTs) are low-fidelity simulations that are often used in personnel selection. Previous research has provided evidence that the ability to identify criteria (ATIC)—individuals' capability to detect underlying constructs in nontransparent personnel selection procedures—is relevant in simulations in personnel selection, such as assessment centers and situational interviews. Building on recent theorizing about response processes in SJTs as well as on previous empirical results, we posit that ATIC predicts SJT performance. We tested this hypothesis across two preregistered studies. In Study 1, a between-subjects planned-missingness design (N = 391 panelists) was employed and 55 selected items from five different SJTs were administered. Mixed-effects-modeling revealed a small effect for ATIC in predicting SJT responses. Results were replicated in Study 2 (N = 491 panelists), in which a complete teamwork SJT was administered with a high- or a low-stakes instruction and showed either no or a small correlation with ATIC, respectively. We compare these findings with other studies, discuss implications for our understanding of response processes in SJTs, and derive avenues for future research.
Weniger anzeigenThe Imperial Japanese Army imposed martial law (gunritsu) in areas occupied during each of the full-scale conflicts it fought between 1894 and 1945. This article traces changes and continuities in the purpose, function, and content of martial law during the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, and the Asia-Pacific War to advance our historical knowledge of a much-understudied aspect of Japanese warfare. In so doing, it details the development and evolution of martial law as an instrument of military power showing how regulations were also influenced by and, therefore, tended to reflect the different wartime priorities and macro-level policies of the (military) leadership. It also highlights that the character of martial law remained largely unchanged and reveals that many of the legal practices utilized during the Asia-Pacific War were rooted in earlier conflicts. It ultimately argues, however, that wartime context and immediate military objectives took precedence over any longer-term political ambitions in Asia and, more crucially, over the welfare of civilians under occupation.
Weniger anzeigenThe ongoing growth of cities due to better job opportunities is leading to increased labour-related commuter flows in several countries. On the one hand, an increasing number of people commute and move to the cities, but on the other hand, the labour market indicates higher unemployment rates in urban areas than in the surrounding areas. We investigate this phenomenon on regional level by an alternative definition of unemployment rates in which commuting behaviour is integrated. We combine data from the Labour Force Survey with dynamic mobile network data by small area models for the federal state North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. From a methodical perspective, we use a transformed Fay–Herriot model with bias correction for the estimation of unemployment rates and propose a parametric bootstrap for the mean squared error estimation that includes the bias correction. The performance of the proposed methodology is evaluated in a case study based on official data and in model-based simulations. The results in the application show that unemployment rates (adjusted by commuters) in German cities are lower than traditional official unemployment rates indicate.
Weniger anzeigenCreative processes within and across organizations have not only been associated with freedom but also with constraints. By taking a dialectical process perspective, we examine how creatives actually engage with constraints and how constraints thereby emerge, unfold and terminate over time. Based on ethnographic observations and interviews with popular music songwriting teams, we found that collaborators do not simply experience but also actively utilize constraints. Doing so enables songwriters to process constraints and to organize for an oscillation between stable, generative, and flexible constraint characterizations, fueling the creative process. Notwithstanding the persistent nature of some structural constraints, these findings contribute to research on organizing creativity by conceptualizing constraints as intertwined, malleable and even transformable by actors as they unfold. Thereby, the findings extend the current understanding of creativity with constraints by pointing to the crucial role of certain constraint characterizations that need to alternate procedurally between stability and fluidity.
Weniger anzeigenIn this article we report evidence from a series of semi-structured interviews with a broad sample of people living in Denmark (n = 21), about their perspectives on the future during the first months of the global Covid-19 pandemic. The thematic and discursive analyses, based on an abductive ontology, illustrate imaginings of the future along two vectors: individual to collective and descriptive to moral. On a descriptive and individual level, people imagined getting through the pandemic on a myopic day-by-day basis; on a descriptive and collective level, people imagined changes to work and socializing. Their future was bound and curtailed by their immediate present. On a moral and individual level, respondents were less detailed in their reports, but some vowed to change their behaviors. On a moral and collective level, respondents reported what the world should be like and discussed changes to environmental behaviors such as traveling, commuting, and work. The model suggests the domain of individual moral imaginings is the most difficult domain for people to imagine beyond the practicalities of their everyday lives. The implications of this model for comprehending imaginations of the future are discussed.
Weniger anzeigenFusion crusts form during the atmospheric entry heating of meteorites and preserve a record of the conditions that occurred during deceleration in the atmosphere. The fusion crust of the Winchcombe meteorite closely resembles that of other stony meteorites, and in particular CM2 chondrites, since it is dominated by olivine phenocrysts set in a glassy mesostasis with magnetite, and is highly vesicular. Dehydration cracks are unusually abundant in Winchcombe. Failure of this weak layer is an additional ablation mechanism to produce large numbers of particles during deceleration, consistent with the observation of pulses of plasma in videos of the Winchcombe fireball. Calving events might provide an observable phenomenon related to meteorites that are particularly susceptible to dehydration. Oscillatory zoning is observed within olivine phenocrysts in the fusion crust, in contrast to other meteorites, perhaps owing to temperature fluctuations resulting from calving events. Magnetite monolayers are found in the crust, and have also not been previously reported, and form discontinuous strata. These features grade into magnetite rims formed on the external surface of the crust and suggest the trapping of surface magnetite by collapse of melt. Magnetite monolayers may be a feature of meteorites that undergo significant degassing. Silicate warts with dendritic textures were observed and are suggested to be droplets ablated from another stone in the shower. They, therefore, represent the first evidence for intershower transfer of ablation materials and are consistent with the other evidence in the Winchcombe meteorite for unusually intense gas loss and ablation, despite its low entry velocity.
Weniger anzeigenThe educational disadvantages of migrant students are a persistent problem in many Western countries. Against this background, policymakers often call for more diversity in the teacher workforce, arguing that migrant students might benefit from being taught by migrant teachers. Despite the popularity of this claim, there is almost no research-based rationale for increasing the diversity of teachers in Europe. This paper is a step toward filling this research gap for Germany, aiming to assess whether migrant teachers reduce ethnic educational disadvantages. Our analyses are based on a nationally representative large-scale assessment of ninth graders that provides information on the migration status of both students and teachers, with achievement tests and teacher-assigned grades in German as dependent variables. The results run contrary to widely held expectations, indicating little evidence that migrant students benefit from being taught by migrant teachers.
Weniger anzeigenTwo-dimensional polymeric networks are a new class of polymers with interesting physicochemical and biological properties. They promise a wide range of future biomedical applications including pathogen interactions, drug delivery, bioimaging, photothermal, and photodynamic therapy, owing to their unique features, such as high surface area and multivalent interactions at nano-biointerfaces. In this work, a thermosensitive two-dimensional polymeric network consisting poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (pNIPAM) chains that are mechanically interlocked by a polyglycerol platform was synthesized and used for bacteria incapacitation. Two-dimensional hyperbranched polyglycerol (2D-hPG) was synthesized by a graphene-assisted strategy and used for encapsulation of azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN). Radical polymerization of N-isopropylacrylamide by encapsulated AIBN resulted in thermoresponsive platforms with ~ 500 nm lateral size and 20–50 nm thickness. Due to its porous structure, 2D-PNPG was able to efficiently load antibiotics, such as tetracycline (TC) and amoxicillin (AMX). The rate of release of antibiotics from 2D-PNPG and the antibacterial activity of the system correlated with the variation of temperature as a result of the thermosensitivity of 2D-PNPG. This study shows that two-dimensional polymers are efficient platforms for future biomedical applications including drug delivery and bacteria incapacitation.
Weniger anzeigenThis paper presents a case study of German ‘Nazi internationalism’ as part of a broader, transnational counter-reaction to liberal and communist internationalism in the 1930s. It offers an analysis of the activities and main ideas of the Nationalist International (Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Nationalisten; IAdN), headed by the German jurist Hans Keller and active from 1934 to 1941. The IAdN promoted concepts such as Volk nationalism and a Third Europe as a solution to the European crisis, and attempted to establish an alternative law of nations to replace the post-1919 liberal order. The IAdN illustrates an early attempt to reconcile völkisch ideas with international cooperation, thus foreshadowing ‘ethno-pluralist’ concepts of the New Right in the post-war period.
Weniger anzeigenSemitic loanwords and transcriptions of longer phrases are considered in Greek inscriptions from Judaea-Palestine. Complementing recent studies in neighboring parts of the Near East, on Syria, Phoenicia, and Arabia, select examples illustrate how local languages, Hebrew and Aramaic, survived the rise of Greek to epigraphic dominance in a partially assimilated form in loanwords and transcriptions. These local languages owed a debt for this role, as did Greek, to the epigraphic habit—or varieties of epigraphic culture and mode—fostered in the region particularly under Rome and resulting in a proliferation of writing in daily life. As in neighboring areas, evidence for Judaea-Palestine clusters in the religious domain but is not limited to it. A marginal or liminal status assigned to Semitic loanwords and transcriptions in recent literature should be reexamined through considerations of distribution and context, in particular, orientation towards a real or imagined community as audience.
Weniger anzeigenAmong the engraved gemstones which served as personal ornament for women or men in Antiquity, a series of motifs relate to procreation and fertility. This paper will analyze the iconographic composition of three groups of intaglios with astrological themes involving the phases of the moon, fertility, and hence possibly the wish of having a child. These examples will be used to discuss how to identify the gender of the owner of that type of gem and of gems in general. Are themes like procreation related to a specific gender? This study will also allow us to address the perception of the responsibility, male or female, for fertility and infertility in Greco-Roman times.
Weniger anzeigenPublication of an early Roman offering table for the woman Tasouchion. The table probably came from the Fayum and was inscribed with a rare bilingual Hieroglyphic-Greek inscription. The Hieroglyphic text contains a ritual, while the Greek text offers a Greek version of the wellknown and wide-spread Latin epitaph sit tibi terra levis. Both texts are analyzed in the context of ancient funerary practices.
Creativity and organization are usually considered as contradictory or even paradoxical (e.g. DeFillippi et al., 2007), not only in the arts but also in the sciences. For creativity implies the creation of something novel and, at least potentially useful (Shalley et al., 2004) and, as such, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for innovation widely praised to guarantee the survival of organizations if not societies. Creativity is traditionally assumed to be fostered by individual freedom and slack resources. By contrast, organization – or organizing – with its emphasis on formality, rules, routines and systemness does not seem to foster but rather to hinder the unfolding of creativity in time and space. While temporary as well as partial forms of organizations are considered principally more supportive in this respect (Burke and Morely, 2016; Ahrne and Brunsson, 2018), I will argue in the following that any analysis of creative processes in and across organizations has to focus on both freedom and constraints – as well as on the tensions and contradiction arising from there, no matter whether these are of a truly paradoxical nature or not. Any process research on creativity, of a strong or more moderate nature (Fortwengel et al., 2017), should not only study “patterns in events” (Langley, 1999: 692) but focus on the interrelating of the two poles of the tensions, more appropriately conceived as a duality than a dualism. For Giddens (1984), whose work has been quite well received by economic geographers with respect to his concept of duality of structure and agency (e.g. Bathelt and Glückler, 2014), a duality is a melding of opposites. In more concrete terms, and following the definition by Graetz and Smith (2008), a duality comprises “the simultaneous presence of competing and ostensibly contradictory” (p. 270) properties, not unlike in a paradox. Ashforth and Reingen (2014), in a recent study of the relationships of idealist and pragmatists in a natural food cooperative, not only build on this definition and differentiation. Rather, these authors rightly emphasize that “the notions of ostensible contradiction and unified whole provide more conceptual space for exploring how the elements may in fact be complementary” (p. 475). With regard to such complementarities, or even supplementaries in a Derridean sense, including the more often than not productive role of (even self-imposed) constraints in creative processes (Ortmann and Sydow, 2018), we do need a more reflective and balanced account of organization and organizing – one which was already asked for by Adler and Borys (1996) more than two decades ago with regard to the enabling and constraining effects of bureaucratic structures. In fact, the four papers accepted for publication in this themed issue reflect to a large extent the long-needed move towards recognizing the importance of such a focus on tensions and contradictions as dualities (Farjoun, 2017). As correctly emphasized by Hautala and Ibert (2018) in their introduction to this theme issue these papers even share a processual approach to such dualities. In what follows, I will recap the tensions which not only of the four papers but also the commentary by Grabher (2018) address and inquire into exactly how they address them, for instance by unearthing the concepts these authors mobilize to theorize them. I will conclude that, from an organization theory perspective, economic geography seems on a good way to a more balanced and conflict-sensitive, even dialectical process understanding of creativity and organization that could well be pushed a bit further into this direction by not only considering tensions and contradictions as conditions and outcomes of organizing for creativity but also as important means. In addition, a more explicit study of tensions and contradictions and their role in creative processes in arts and sciences across different levels of analysis may be useful. At the same time, organization research has, despite some attempts to consider spatiality more seriously (e.g. Clegg and Kornberger, 2006), to learn a lot from economic geography about the multidimensional character of spatiality of creative processes.
Weniger anzeigenThis study aims to estimate the surface runoff and examine the impact of climate change on water resources in the Upper Kabul River Basin (UKRB). A hydrological model was developed using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) from 2009 to 2019. The monthly calibration was conducted on streamflow in six stations for the period from 2010 to 2016, and the results were validated from 2017 to 2018 based on available observed data. The hydrological sensitivity parameters were further prioritized using SWAT-CUP. The uncertainty of the model was analyzed by the 95% Prediction Uncertainty (95PPU). Future projections were analyzed for the 2040s (2030–2049) and 2090s (2080–2099) compared to the baseline period (1986–2005) under two representation concentration pathways (RCP4.5, RCP8.5). Four Regional Climate Models (RCMs) were bias-corrected using the linear scaling bias correction method. The modeling results exhibited a very reasonable fit between the estimated and observed runoff in different stations, with NS values ranging from 0.54 to 0.91 in the calibration period. The future mean annual surface runoff exhibited an increase in the 2040s and 2090s compared to the baseline under both RCPs of 4.5 and 8.5 due to an increase in annual precipitation. The annual precipitation is projected to increase by 5% in the 2040s, 1% in the 2090s under RCP4.5, and by 9% in the 2040s and 2% in the 2090s under RCP8.5. The future temperature is also projected to increase and consequently lead to earlier snowmelt, resulting in a shift in the seasonal runoff peak to earlier months in the UKRB. However, the shifts in the timing of runoff could lead to significant impacts on water availability and exacerbate the water stress in this region, decreasing in summer runoff and increasing in the winter and spring runoffs. The future annual evapotranspiration is projected to increase under both scenarios; however, decreases in annual snowfall, snowmelt, sublimation, and groundwater recharge are predicted in the UKRB.
Weniger anzeigenFrom 2016 to 2020, the “PraeRi” study, conducted by three German veterinary universities, was aimed at enhancing animal health and welfare in dairy farms. With 765 dairy farms visited and 101,307 animals examined, this study provided a basis for improving animal health and welfare. The study population comprised three different regions representing a broad variety of characteristics. To ensure representative estimates, a sample size of 250 farms was determined for each region, employing a stratified sampling plan based on farm size. According to the information provided by the farmers, the most commonly occurring disease in their herds was mastitis without general disorder (14.2% to 16.3% of the herd—depending on the region). For most disorders, prevalence data were lowest for the region South compared with the two remaining regions. Multivariable regression analyses were performed to identify risk factors for various target variables, and the results were communicated through individual reports and benchmarking flyers to participating farmers. The authors encountered challenges in management and communication due to the project’s size in terms of personnel, data, and farms examined. Harmonizing data management and hypothesis testing across all involved parties added complexity.
Weniger anzeigenCitrate-coated electrostatically stabilized very small superparamagnetic iron oxide particles (VSOPs) have been successfully tested as magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) contrast agents and are promising tools for molecular imaging of atherosclerosis. Their repeated use in the background of pre-existing hyperlipidemia and atherosclerosis has not yet been studied. This study aimed to investigate the effect of multiple intravenous injections of VSOPs in atherosclerotic mice. Taurine-formulated VSOPs (VSOP-T) were repeatedly intravenously injected at 100 µmol Fe/kg in apolipoprotein E-deficient (ApoE KO) mice with diet-induced atherosclerosis. Angiographic imaging was carried out by in vivo MRI. Magnetic particle spectrometry was used to detect tissue VSOP content, and tissue iron content was quantified photometrically. Pathological changes in organs, atherosclerotic plaque development, and expression of hepatic iron-related proteins were evaluated. VSOP-T enabled the angiographic imaging of heart and blood vessels with a blood half-life of one hour. Repeated intravenous injection led to VSOP deposition and iron accumulation in the liver and spleen without affecting liver and spleen pathology, expression of hepatic iron metabolism proteins, serum lipids, or atherosclerotic lesion formation. Repeated injections of VSOP-T doses sufficient for MRA analyses had no significant effects on plaque burden, steatohepatitis, and iron homeostasis in atherosclerotic mice. These findings underscore the safety of VSOP-T and support its further development as a contrast agent and molecular imaging tool.
Weniger anzeigenElectrochemical fluorination on nickel anodes, also known as the Simons’ process, is an important fluorination method used on an industrial scale. Despite its success, the mechanism is still under debate. One of the proposed mechanisms involves higher valent nickel species formed on an anode acting as effective fluorinating agents. Here we report the first attempt to study fluorination by means of first principles investigation. We have identified a possible surface model from the simplest binary nickel fluoride (NiF2). A twice oxidized NiF2(F2) (001) surface exhibits higher valent nickel centers and a fluorination source that can be best characterized as an [F2]− like unit, readily available to aid fluorination. We have studied the adsorption of CH4 and the co-adsorption of CH4 and HF on this surface by means of periodic density functional theory. By the adsorption of CH4, we found two main outcomes on the surface. Unreactive physisorption of CH4 and dissociative chemisorption resulting in the formation of CH3F and HF. The co-adsorption with the HF gave rise to four main outcomes, namely the formation of CH3F, CH2F2, CH3 radical, and also physisorbed CH4.
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