Organizational management of intra-group behaviour based on conflict analysis of activities

The article is aimed at solving an important theoretical and experimental problem associated with the search for constructive ways of organizational management of intra-group behaviour based on the official activity analysis. On the ground of ergonomic concepts of purposeful systems, some strategies for eliminating and preventing conflicts are considered based on the materials taken from the domestic and foreign publications. The empirical data obtained on a representative sample of employees related to conflict interactions, status-role positions, and the socio-psychological climate in the team are analyzed. The article outlines further research on organizational management of conflict resolution strategies in official activities

What Is the Role of A Student Music Therapist in a Community Music Setting?

<p>This qualitative research project set out to explore my role as a student music therapist within a community music setting. I am a student music therapist, working with a community music company involved in a variety of community music groups and projects. I wanted to understand what I might offer the community music company by bringing a community music therapy perspective to the work. The research involved an exploration into the literature relating to Community Music Therapy as well as Community Music and required me to regularly question the reasoning and philosophy behind Community Music Work. To answer my question I engaged in secondary analysis of data generated during the first 24 weeks at this community music placement. The data included session notes, audio recordings of supervision sessions, and my reflective journal. The literature includes examples of collaboration between community music therapists and community musicians, and I sought to experience this at my placement. The hoped for collaboration did take place during the period of data collection, enabling detailed reflections of it. This exploration therefore helped me to develop as a community musician and music therapy student. The practice was broad and involved regular transitions in role, often within the same session. These included participant, accompanist, song-leader, community music therapist, and drum circle facilitator. Findings suggest that Community Music and Community Music Therapy are disciplines with many similarities in appearance and structure, but tend to diverge when looking at goals and overall objectives and foci. Social equality seems to be commonly shared value between Community Music and Community Music Therapy. The ways in which this value is acted upon is also explored. Performance and Performativity as aspects of group behaviour was found to be mentioned in the literature, and again this was mentioned in the data collected as part of the researcher’s placement.</p>

What Is the Role of A Student Music Therapist in a Community Music Setting?

<p>This qualitative research project set out to explore my role as a student music therapist within a community music setting. I am a student music therapist, working with a community music company involved in a variety of community music groups and projects. I wanted to understand what I might offer the community music company by bringing a community music therapy perspective to the work. The research involved an exploration into the literature relating to Community Music Therapy as well as Community Music and required me to regularly question the reasoning and philosophy behind Community Music Work. To answer my question I engaged in secondary analysis of data generated during the first 24 weeks at this community music placement. The data included session notes, audio recordings of supervision sessions, and my reflective journal. The literature includes examples of collaboration between community music therapists and community musicians, and I sought to experience this at my placement. The hoped for collaboration did take place during the period of data collection, enabling detailed reflections of it. This exploration therefore helped me to develop as a community musician and music therapy student. The practice was broad and involved regular transitions in role, often within the same session. These included participant, accompanist, song-leader, community music therapist, and drum circle facilitator. Findings suggest that Community Music and Community Music Therapy are disciplines with many similarities in appearance and structure, but tend to diverge when looking at goals and overall objectives and foci. Social equality seems to be commonly shared value between Community Music and Community Music Therapy. The ways in which this value is acted upon is also explored. Performance and Performativity as aspects of group behaviour was found to be mentioned in the literature, and again this was mentioned in the data collected as part of the researcher’s placement.</p>

Pressure Groups Under MMP: a Study of Behaviour and Influence

<p>This thesis examines the impact of MMP on pressure group behaviour and strategies. MMP altered the distribution of public policy decision-making power. As a consequence, it was expected to influence the strategies and behaviours of pressure groups seeking to influence public policy. The thesis finds that most expectations of pressure groups under MMP have been borne out. In particular, pressure groups have developed a wider range of political relationships and access points, have achieved more success through engagement with select committees and have been more willing to lobby and campaign publicly in opposition to Executive policy. In addition, it finds pressure groups have adopted an increasingly flexible and politically independent mentality and it finds there has been a blurring of boundaries between insider and outsider pressure groups. Finally, it concludes that policy influence has become more complex under MMP and created the need for increased pressure group sophistication. Chapter 1 introduces New Zealand's pluralist traditions as well as the history and importance of pressure group activity. It describes the rationale for the adoption of MMP and the relationship between this electoral system and the public policy process - "the rules of the game" - within which pressure groups operate and seek to influence. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the core political theory that underpins pressure group behaviour under different electoral systems - including theories of state structure and of weak and strong legislatures. It outlines the various methods of influence available to pressure groups and reviews the international literature to identify the main themes, strategies and tendencies that might be expected of pressure groups in an MMP environment. These include a drift in emphasis from Ministers and the bureaucracy to Parliament and a broadening of Parliamentary relationships, a stronger focus on select committees, increased media and mobilisation activity, as well as some additional emphasis on quality information and political gamesmanship. These expectations are set out as five hypotheses for examination. Chapter 3 discusses and reviews the extent and nature of structural change to public policy decision-making in New Zealand under MMP - as an important context for the analysis of pressure group behaviour. It finds that MMP has delivered substantial structural change to the distribution of decision-making power, but that this has been highly variable and changed from one term of government to the next. Chapter 4 first describes the methodology used for researching and reviewing pressure group behaviour and strategies under MMP. It sets out a qualitative approach that involved a mixture of expert interviews and public policy case studies. Chapter 5 returns to and examines the five hypotheses set out in Chapter 2 and concludes that most expectations have been met, particularly the development of broader Parliamentary relationships by pressure groups. Chapter 6 sets out those key conclusions and underlying themes beyond examination of the five hypotheses.</p>

Pressure Groups Under MMP: a Study of Behaviour and Influence

<p>This thesis examines the impact of MMP on pressure group behaviour and strategies. MMP altered the distribution of public policy decision-making power. As a consequence, it was expected to influence the strategies and behaviours of pressure groups seeking to influence public policy. The thesis finds that most expectations of pressure groups under MMP have been borne out. In particular, pressure groups have developed a wider range of political relationships and access points, have achieved more success through engagement with select committees and have been more willing to lobby and campaign publicly in opposition to Executive policy. In addition, it finds pressure groups have adopted an increasingly flexible and politically independent mentality and it finds there has been a blurring of boundaries between insider and outsider pressure groups. Finally, it concludes that policy influence has become more complex under MMP and created the need for increased pressure group sophistication. Chapter 1 introduces New Zealand's pluralist traditions as well as the history and importance of pressure group activity. It describes the rationale for the adoption of MMP and the relationship between this electoral system and the public policy process - "the rules of the game" - within which pressure groups operate and seek to influence. Chapter 2 provides an overview of the core political theory that underpins pressure group behaviour under different electoral systems - including theories of state structure and of weak and strong legislatures. It outlines the various methods of influence available to pressure groups and reviews the international literature to identify the main themes, strategies and tendencies that might be expected of pressure groups in an MMP environment. These include a drift in emphasis from Ministers and the bureaucracy to Parliament and a broadening of Parliamentary relationships, a stronger focus on select committees, increased media and mobilisation activity, as well as some additional emphasis on quality information and political gamesmanship. These expectations are set out as five hypotheses for examination. Chapter 3 discusses and reviews the extent and nature of structural change to public policy decision-making in New Zealand under MMP - as an important context for the analysis of pressure group behaviour. It finds that MMP has delivered substantial structural change to the distribution of decision-making power, but that this has been highly variable and changed from one term of government to the next. Chapter 4 first describes the methodology used for researching and reviewing pressure group behaviour and strategies under MMP. It sets out a qualitative approach that involved a mixture of expert interviews and public policy case studies. Chapter 5 returns to and examines the five hypotheses set out in Chapter 2 and concludes that most expectations have been met, particularly the development of broader Parliamentary relationships by pressure groups. Chapter 6 sets out those key conclusions and underlying themes beyond examination of the five hypotheses.</p>

Parasite infection impairs the shoaling behaviour of uninfected shoal members under predator attack

A key benefit of sociality is a reduction in predation risk. Cohesive group behaviour and rapid collective decision making are essential for reducing predation risk in groups. Parasite infection might reduce an individuals’ grouping behaviours and thereby change the behaviour of the group as a whole. To investigate the relationship between parasite infection and grouping behaviours, we studied groups of three-spined sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus, varying the number of individuals experimentally infected with the cestode Schistocephalus solidus. We studied groups of six sticklebacks containing 0, 2, 3, 4 or 6 infected individuals before and after a simulated bird attack. We predicted that infected individuals would have reduced shoaling and swimming speed and that the presence of infected individuals within a group would reduce group cohesion and speed. Uninfected fish increased shoaling and reduced swimming speed more than infected fish after the bird attack. In groups containing both infected and uninfected fish, the group behaviours were dominated by the more frequent character (uninfected versus infected). Interestingly, groups with equal numbers of uninfected and infected fish showed the least shoaling and had the lowest swimming speeds, suggesting that these groups failed to generate a majority and therefore displayed signs of indecisiveness by reducing their swimming speed the most. Our results provide evidence for a negative effect of infection on a group’s shoaling behaviour, thereby potentially deteriorating collective decision making. The presence of infected individuals might thus have far-reaching consequences in natural populations under predation risk. Significance statement Parasite-infected individuals often show deviating group behaviours. This might reduce the anti-predator benefits of group living. However, it is unknown whether such deviations in group behaviour might influence the shoaling behaviour of uninfected group members and thereby the behaviour of the group as a whole. By experimentally infecting sticklebacks and investigating groups varying in infection rates, we show that infected sticklebacks differ in their shoaling behaviours from uninfected sticklebacks. Additionally, the presence of infected sticklebacks within the group affected the behaviour of uninfected shoal members. We show that shoals of infected fish are less cohesive and move slower compared to shoals of uninfected fish. Furthermore, we show that the infection rate of the shoal is crucial for how the group behaves.

An Unsupervised Approach for Detecting Group Shilling Attacks in Recommender Systems Based on Topological Potential and Group Behaviour Features

To protect recommender systems against shilling attacks, a variety of detection methods have been proposed over the past decade. However, these methods focus mainly on individual features and rarely consider the lockstep behaviours among attack users, which suffer from low precision in detecting group shilling attacks. In this work, we propose a three-stage detection method based on strong lockstep behaviours among group members and group behaviour features for detecting group shilling attacks. First, we construct a weighted user relationship graph by combining direct and indirect collusive degrees between users. Second, we find all dense subgraphs in the user relationship graph to generate a set of suspicious groups by introducing a topological potential method. Finally, we use a clustering method to detect shilling groups by extracting group behaviour features. Extensive experiments on the Netflix and sampled Amazon review datasets show that the proposed approach is effective for detecting group shilling attacks in recommender systems, and the F1-measure on two datasets can reach over 99 percent and 76 percent, respectively.

Investigating the science of mind: How does neuroscience fit into society and law?

This article interrogates the limits of integration of neuroscience and law. Brain studies offer substantial support to series of human experiences and behaviour. The intervention based on the understanding of the brain offered an explanation to the concept of mind, individual and group behaviour in society, and offering neurological explanations to the legal domain about the defendant. The brain studies offering technical explanations to the human mind and behaviour may further be used to attribute people from different social groups in a stereotypical way. Neuroscience is not limited to the laboratory and neuroimages but it has wider social implications. Discussing brain and law through the sociocultural and social identity perspective gives better understanding of mind, society and law. Keywords: Brain, common sense, image, social groups, behaviour, society, law

Group behaviour process and learning: a review and assessment of emerging online technologies in executive education

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the interaction of the relationships between group behaviour, group process and learning outcomes in online executive education. Design/methodology/approach A systematic review of literature in the relevant conceptual domains is performed. Findings A framework is proposed from the systematic review and proposes a dynamic classroom environment where instructor capability interacts with group process and behaviour to generate new learning outcomes. The impact of institutional context and technology infrastructure are highlighted as drivers of both the classroom and instructor effectiveness. Research limitations/implications The systematic review highlights several future research trajectories posing the questions: How disruptive innovation impacts on instructor capability development? How alternative theories explain the routines underpinning instructor capability? What is the role of external partners in the development of learning in context? What is the nature of instructor innovation capability? and How does instructor technology capability impact on learning outcomes? Practical implications Human resource development practitioners are presented with insights as to their existing and potential future roles in enhancing group behaviour, process and learning outcomes in executive classrooms impacted by technological change. The subsequent potential for practitioner enabled learning innovation is highlighted. Originality/value This paper contributes to contemporary debates regarding the interaction of emerging technologies and the executive online classroom, specifically focusing on the area of group behaviour process and learning.