A Strained Research team

Based on the skills approach, how would you assess Dr. Wood’s leadership and his relationship to the members of the Elder Care Project team? Will the project be successful? Dr. Adam Wood is the main investigator of a 3year project called the Elder Care Project. Reading about his behavior, it is visible that Dr. Wood has no human skills which may end up affecting his team and lead to a failure of the project. 2. Does Dr. Wood has the skills necessary to be an effective leader of this research team? Dr. Wood has excellent technical skills and conceptual skills. For this project in particular, he would give advice on research design, methodology question, theoretical formulations, and besides that he could see the big picture on research projects. But human skills are very important to make people work as a team, and keep them motivated and focused to achieve the goals. To be a leader of a research team there is definitely a need for someone that can have that skill to keep the team up and doing the work. Since there is no one doing that job, it explains why people are frustrated. They are working hard and they don’t find incentive, motivational words, or good comments on the big effort they are making. That’s one of the biggest reasons as to why the project may lead to failure. 3. The skills model describes three important competencies for leaders: problem-solving skills, social judgment skills, ad knowledge. If you were to coach Dr. Wood using this model, what competencies would you address with him? What Changes would you suggest that he make in his leadership? Dr. Wood has important knowledge but his social judgment and problem solving skills seems to be very weak, and this is definitely something that he needs to work on as a leader. Those social judgments skills are the ones that will help to improve his interaction with the colleagues and make him understand how they see things and what their needs are. I suggest that he starts talking positively about his project and how successful it will be when it is finished. He should also start praising the members on their hard work, encourage them to share knowledge and point of view, and convince them that the goals are feasible, achievable, and attainable. Even though the members were spending 20%-30% more time in this project than what was expected, the team still believed in the project until their main leader started to put all the motivation down by his comments.

The Greenpower Car Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

The Greenpower Car - Assignment Example Introduction The components that will be analyzed here will heretofore include: 1) the brake disc which is made out of metal; and 2) the tyre which is made out of rubber. The Metal The metal on the brake disc is key as a component. The metal that is usually used on cars is metal that is made out of various kinds of metals that are mixed together—often known as combined metals. Brake discs made out of these metals are made with various different types of metal mixed together because the recombinant metals are stronger when mixed with each other. So, instead of just using pure silver—which is very soft, by itself and in its most purest form—a little bit of silver may be mixed with large amounts of other types of metals, including copper, bronze, and iron, in varying amounts. It really depends upon what the exact type of object is that is being formed, but, without a doubt—for brake discs, mixed or recombinant metals are definitely a major factor in deciding how to put a product together. Without a doubt, the metal that is used in brake discs goes a long way in terms of determining what type of metal will be therefore utilized for the ultimate design of the car. The Rubber Tyres are obviously going to be a big component of the car. And of course, the main focus about the tyre is going to be on the rubber in the tyres. Usually, rubber is used for various parts of the car that require a malleable material to produce a product. Rubber is actually a form of plastic—and it can be highly useful in terms of designing a car. For tyres, rubber can be extremely helpful in determining how a car part will be produced. Rubber is an at-times harder form of plastic which is useful in the production of several various auto parts—including, of course, the tyres. Of course, it would definitely depend upon the car part being produced, but generally speaking, for tyres, rubber is perfect for being integrated in the actual car part itself. Rub ber has many uses where car manufacturers simply do not want or need to have very expensive parts utilized—and this is especially true of tyres, which can turn out to be very expensive. Further, it is better to place rubber products in a car where metals are not necessary. It’s very difficult to ascertain, but usually where plastic or rubber will suffice, it is used at every turn. For certain, it is probably most important that either plastic or rubber can be used for several various purposes, and that is why it is so helpful as a substance. Conclusion Whether it is metal or rubber that is used for brake disc(s) and tyre(s), both of these substances have most certainly had a profound effect on the way cars have been produced. Metals—usually combined metals—are utilized in order to make several different parts of the car. Of course, metal is not to be outrivaled by rubber—and also, alternatively, plastic—when it comes to having to use it in o rder to put extra parts on a car. Metal and rubber are both invaluable parts of any car for brake discs and tyres respectively, and it is hoped that these elements will be more utilized in the future in order to compete in a global economy. Metal and rubber are two very necessary substances in order to produce cars. Therefore, the production of metal and rubber must continue to be encouraged in foreign countries where such substances are supposedly produced more cheaply. No

Context and Discourse Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Context and Discourse - Essay Example Such technicians proceed to use this information to create context-aware software. Close attention to these several definitions and explanations might, however, reveal a common ground upon which a universal concept of context might be built. Though context is often used and understood, it is such a broad and encompassing term that it can hardly be properly defined in a sentence or two. Though it deals with the surrounding condition of a situation, those conditions can take the form of several things, and perhaps that is why context shows up in so many disciplines. And, as it regards discourse analysis, it will be seen that reliance upon context is indispensable in gaining a complete and comprehensive understanding of the intricacies of any text, passage, speech, or other of the forms in which discourse presents itself. In education, especially reading, context is tangled up with prior knowledge and schema, and the study of it is in an effort to determine its use in the decoding of passages. Here, context is placed in relation to the written word, and it is defined by one as "the belief-revised integration of the reader's prior knowledge with the reader's internalized (co-)text" (Rappaport, 4). Here co-text refers to written text that surrounds the problematic word or phrase whose meaning the reader currently struggles to decode. In this discipline, experts often refer to "context clues," which direct the student to the passage being read, delineating it as the context. One researcher cites six kinds of context clues in what is known as contextual analysis. Students are expected to gain insight into the text using hints provided by the context, and those hints come in the form of definition clues, synonym or comparison clues, contrast clues, example clues, and explanation clues. In addition to thes e clues from the text, context (as mentioned before) is extended to include inferential clues, which come not from the text being read but from the prior experiences of the reader (Doyle). So that context according to this view has both an internal and external aspect. However, once the text becomes internalized, context may be considered to be in the domain of the mind. In engineering, some consider context a "filter" that determines the meaning to be applied to certain terms or actions in a given situation. In fact, according to Yaser Bishr who seeks to prepare a foundation on which to base a contextual theory of geospatial applications, any definition of context must include such measures as follow. Contexts should define what is common to any input in a given situation. It should be restrictive, in that it allows only certain meanings of any vocabulary involved to actually be admitted as meaning to be derived from the situation. The truth of any statement of fact should depend upon "a collection of assumption which implicitly define context" (Bishr, 2), and all "facts" are understood to be factual only when a context is defined. Therefore, though the statement "all birds can fly" is untrue in Antarctica, it is true in the context of Brazil, where no penguins exist. This view of context also asserts that thought and interpretation across contexts is allowable; however, "when several contexts occur in a discussion, there