Victorious and Hierarchical: Past Performance as a Determinant of Team Hierarchical Differentiation

Hierarchies emerge as collectives attempt to organize themselves toward successful performance. Consequently, research has focused on how team hierarchies affect performance. We extend existing models of the hierarchy-performance relationship by adopting an alternative: Performance is not only an output of hierarchy but also a critical input, as teams’ hierarchical differentiation may vary based on whether they are succeeding. Integrating research on exploitation and exploration with work on group attributions, we argue that teams engage in exploitation by committing to what they attribute as the cause of their performance success. Specifically, collectives tend to attribute their success to individuals who wielded greater influence within the team; these individuals are consequently granted relatively higher levels of influence, leading to a higher degree of hierarchy. We additionally suggest that the tendency to attribute, and therefore grant more influence, to members believed to be the cause of success is stronger for teams previously higher (versus lower) in hierarchy, as a higher degree of hierarchical differentiation provides clarity as to which members had a greater impact on the team outcome. We test our hypotheses experimentally with teams engaging in an online judgement task and observationally with teams from the National Basketball Association. Our work makes two primary contributions: (a) altering existing hierarchy-performance models by highlighting performance as both an input and output to hierarchy and (b) extending research on the dynamics of hierarchy beyond individual rank changes toward examining what factors increase or decrease hierarchical differentiation of the team as a whole.

Unexpected soil amplification effect on seismic performance of highway bridges during the Aegean earthquake of October 2020, Mw 6.6

On October 30, 2020, an earthquake about 70 km away from the city center of Izmir with a 4.3 million population has shaken the city tremendously and has resulted in destruction of many building type of structures due to an unexpected high soil-amplified vibrations very similar to the Mexico City earthquake in 1985. The bridges at the soil-amplified sites has performed in elastic range with no damage at all. In the city of Izmir, the 42 year old twin bridges located on the main transportation route, were tremendously shaken by the earthquake had observed to have no seismic induced damage. Surprisingly twin bridges suffering from the alkali silica reaction (ASR) over the years did not even pound to each other despite the small size of longitudinal gap between them. As it has been known, the past performance of Turkish designed bridges are typically succesfull with almost no damage as observed in the Van 2011 and Sivrice 2020 earthquake mainly due to allowing movements at their joints and to flexible type of framing. The focus of the paper is given to understand the successful performance of bridges and to investigate the non-pounded twin bridges of the Izmir city. In this scope, a bridge inspection has been performed and the twin bridges have been analyzed for the recorded ground motion. The results have indicated that the structures have been subjected to 0.3 g at their vibration modes and the twin bridges have a synchronized motion due to having the identical vibration mode shape with a period of 1.5 seconds

Evaluating the Parameters of a Systematic Long-Term Measurement of the Concentration and Mobility of Air Ions in the Environment inside Císařská Cave

Determining the concentration and mobility of light air ions is an indispensable task to ensure the successful performance and progress of various operations within multiple fields and branches of human activity. This article discusses a novel methodology for measuring air ions in an environment with high relative humidity, such as that of a cave. Compared to common techniques, the proposed method exhibits a lower standard deviation and analyses the causes of spurious oscillations in the measured patterns obtained from FEM-based numerical simulations on the one hand and a model with concentrated parameters on the other. The designed ion meter utilises a gerdien tube to facilitate long-term measurement in cold and very humid spaces, an operation that can be very problematic if executed with other devices. Importantly, the applied procedure for calculating the mobility spectra of air ions from the acquired saturation characteristics is insensitive to fluctuations and noises in the measured patterns, and it also enables us to confirm the presence of very mobile air ions generated by fragmenting water droplets. During the sensing cycles, the concentration of light negative ions was influenced by the active gerdien tube. For the investigated cave, we had designed a measuring sequence to cover not only the time dependence of the concentration of light negative ions but also their mobility; this approach then allowed monitoring the corresponding impact of the patients’ presence in the cave, an effect neither described nor resolved thus far. Such comprehensive research, especially due to its specific character, has not been frequently conducted or widely discussed in the literature; the efforts characterised herein have therefore expanded the relevant knowledge and methodology, thus contributing towards further advancement in the field.

A Stoic Ethics for Attention (Seneca Letter 56)

Seneca’s Letters sketch a theory of attentive action according to which distraction is caused by inconsistent beliefs about values, such that the degree of an agent’s attention to an endorsed action is proportionate to the consistency of her beliefs about value, i. e. her proximity to virtue. The agent’s activity of attentive action is co-ordinated with a state of alertness to her interests, which accordingly triggers switches in attention that sustain the endorsed action in single-minded agents or cause distraction if the new interest is irrelevant to it. Seneca’s theory reflects the older Stoic conception of the tensional mental strength of the virtuous agent, which Chrysippus identified as the causal factor over and above virtue that ensures her successful performance of right action.

An Inspection and Classification System for Automotive Component Remanufacturing Industry Based on Ensemble Learning

This paper presents an automated inspection and classification system for automotive component remanufacturing industry, based on ensemble learning. The system is based on different stages allowing to classify the components as good, rectifiable or rejection according to the manufacturer criteria. A study of two deep learning-based models’ performance when used individually and when using an ensemble of them is carried out, obtaining an improvement of 7% in accuracy in the ensemble. The results of the test set demonstrate the successful performance of the system in terms of component classification.

Design of 3D Scaffolds for Hard Tissue Engineering: From Apatites to Silicon Mesoporous Materials

Advanced bioceramics for bone regeneration constitutes one of the pivotal interests in the multidisciplinary and far-sighted scientific trajectory of Prof. Vallet Regí. The different pathologies that affect osseous tissue substitution are considered to be one of the most important challenges from the health, social and economic point of view. 3D scaffolds based on bioceramics that mimic the composition, environment, microstructure and pore architecture of hard tissues is a consolidated response to such concerns. This review describes not only the different types of materials utilized: from apatite-type to silicon mesoporous materials, but also the fabrication techniques employed to design and adequate microstructure, a hierarchical porosity (from nano to macro scale), a cell-friendly surface; the inclusion of different type of biomolecules, drugs or cells within these scaffolds and the influence on their successful performance is thoughtfully reviewed.

A Pragma- Stylistic Analysis of Formal Congratulatory Letters in English and Arabic

Politeness strategies are of significant importance to maintain the face of the addressee. Senders of formal congratulatory letters seek to create a positive image in the minds of their addresses by performing particular illocutionary acts and face-saving acts (FSAs) in the form of written texts. To the best knowledge of the researcher, this topic received little attention from linguistic researchers, especially on the pragma-stylistic level. The importance of this study arises from the fact that congratulatory formal letters are an effective tool in the successful performance of foreign relations and thus deserve investigation. The current study investigates the pragma-stylistic aspects of illocutionary acts and FSA Politeness Strategies in some selected English and Arabic formal congratulatory letters written by English and Arabic officials. Findings reveal that assertive constitutes the highest frequency in English data, while expressive occurs more in Arabic. Besides, the FSA politeness strategy (Use appropriate forms of address) includes most of the total frequency in both English and Arabic data, which still it appeared more in English. Additionally, (Exaggerate interest, sympathy with H) comes next in Arabic, while (Be optimistic) appeared more in English. In addition, results show that exaggeration (Hyperbole) is the prevalent stylistic device used in Arabic. Arabic officials usually exaggerate the glorification of people in authoritative positions, while English high officials tend to be more moderate. The findings will be helpful in cross-cultural comparative studies and other related fields.

Comparative evaluation between the “All on Four” and “Four on Pillars” techniques in 3D virtual planning associated with guided surgery on atrophic jaws

Thorough technical knowledge and anatomical understanding are critical for optimal surgical results. The difficulty of complete maxillary surgery can vary significantly depending on the complexity of the anatomy or bone defect. In this work, we analyze and compare two methods of software-guided planning for the manipulation of dental implants, associated with the All on Four (ALL) and Four on pillars (FOUR) techniques used in patients with atrophic maxillae. Forty-two images of totally edentulous patients were analyzed, and surgical planning was performed using both methods. The average area of the Four on pillars technique is 4.9x (p<0.0001) greater than the average area of the All on four technique, this represents a difference of 489%. This means that, for the same force applied by the jaw, we will have a 4.9x smaller pressure, that is, a better distribution of forces on the jaws. It was not possible to notice a statistical difference between the success proportions (p=0.2542), this means that both techniques have a non-different (similar) success proportion. We conclude that the area of the polygon formed in the Four on pillars surgical plan is larger than in the All on four plan and this results in significantly less pressure on the implants. We also concluded that it was not possible to notice a statistical difference between the proportions of success, which shows that there is no technique with successful performance advantages over the other.

Use of videos for teaching a foreign language to cadets of higher military educational institutions and servicemen

The relevance of the research is conditioned by the necessity to acquire knowledge of a foreign language by cadets of higher military educational institutions and servicemen for successful performance of official duties. In the article, the scientific and methodological literature on the use of video materials for teaching a foreign language has been analyzed. The aim of the article was to define the importance and necessity of using video materials for teaching English to cadets of higher military educational institutions and servicemen. The requirements of English knowledge in listening and speaking for servicemen, whose knowledge of English corresponds to the standardized speech level ‘functional’, have been considered. It has been found that servicemen have to understand conversations on both everyday and professional topics and to be able to communicate effectively in everyday and standard working situations. Based on the analysis of the literature, the advantages of the use of video materials for teaching a foreign language have been determined; the main techniques of using video materials (watching video materials without sound, listening to the plot without watching a video file, watching a video file with stops, partial watching (when a part of the screen is closed and cadets / servicemen have to guess what was closed), division of cadets into two groups) and requirements for selecting video files have been characterized. In the article, the necessity to teach to understand the real speech of native speakers has been highlighted; the description of oral informal spontaneous speech has been given; the practice of selective ignoring the heard information has been clarified. The examples of websites, which correspond to topics of teaching of cadets / servicemen have been given (U.S. Army Talent Management, VSB Defense, Military Comparisons, Defense Forces and Military Center). Taking into account the received information, the recommendations on the work with video materials have been given. The necessity of teaching cadets / servicemen how to work with video materials and how to develop the ability to learn English independently with the help of video materials was specified.