Diversity

Spanische und deutsche Referenten werden mit den Teilnehmern die vielfach diskutierte Rolle einer gesellschaftlichen Identität in der europäischen Gemeinschaft und das Thema Diversity im Arbeitsalltag diskutieren. Die Informationsveranstaltung ermöglicht es Referenten und Deutschland-Alumni, miteinander in Kontakt zu treten.

Diversity selection is a common task in multiple real-world problems. The maximum diversity problem traditionally consists in selecting a subset of items from a given set, such that a measure of the diversity present in the subset of selected elements is maximized. In literature are reported several variants of this problem, according to the diversity function considered, in this investigation it solves a new problem, called the Max-mean model, which maximizes the average diversity between elements in the subset selected, and in on which the number of elements selected is also a decision variable, we show that finding an optimal solution to this problem is strongly NP-hard. The characteristics of the inter-element distances considered in the new model has applications in the selection of groups of people representative of a population, or in the selection of a group of institutions, etc. In the first part of this research, this new model is proposed, we study some of its properties, and is designed a highly efficient algorithm to solve it, based on a hybridization of metaheuristics with good performance in other similar combinatorial problems, to estimate the efficiency of the proposed method are adapted the best algorithms to solve similar problems, as reported in literature. In the second part of this research extends the optimization problem considered, an additional constraint is added: want also select the best items, the best according to some criterion. In this context, with this additional objective, the optimization problem becomes a classical multiobjective optimization problem. With simple processing techniques this problem can be transformed into the problem uniobjective above, for which we developed a very efficient method. This will solve the general problem of selecting the best and most diverse.

This research examines Higher Education Entrepreneurship Education (HEEE) and its influence on foreign female student experiences in regards to their social positioning from a critical pedagogy, intersectional, feminist and cultural perspectives using narrative interviews. Those were used to reveal neo-liberal discourses that individualise risks and reproduce social positioning in HEEE gender-neutral production line; as well as to understand how and if the inferior positioning imposed in entrepreneurship research and theory plays a role in the participants perceived reality and in the process of shaping their entrepreneurial identity.

The high diversity of Peruvian carnivore species may pose problems when deciding to which taxa and topics new research efforts should be directed. In this publication, we evaluated the research effort made on each taxa -by assessing the number of publications per species-, point out the knowledge gaps that are important to the conservation of each species and present the first evaluation of research priorities for this group of animals to the country. We registered 145 publications about Peruvian carnivores made since 1943. The number of publications is significantly different between taxa, between subjects and between ecoregions where the research was conducted. According to the proposed priority scale, the species to be studied with greater priority is Nasua olivacea and the lowest priority is for Leopardus pardalis. The results of our study highlight the urgent need to conduct research on certain species of carnivores about which there are few published data, locally and globally, and which occupy a low number of ecoregions in the country. Both the scale of research priorities and the list of knowledge gaps presented here will be useful to guide logistical and financial efforts, for individual researchers as well as for private or governmental institutions.

This article proposes and tests a theoretical model articulating when and why differences in devaluation and avoidance of individuals with non-normative characteristics emerge between East Asian and Western cultural contexts. Four main studies examined this theoretical model. In a pilot study, relative to Americans, Koreans devalued a target individual with a non-normative characteristic, and in Study 1 the target’s efforts to forestall disruption of group processes eliminated the devaluation in Korea, with perceived selfishness mediating this process. In Study 2, Koreans, relative to Americans, devalued and avoided coworkers with non-normative characteristics, particularly when the non-normative characteristic was controllable. Study 3 further showed that perceived selfishness mediates this effect with a behavioral dependent variable. Study 4 tested the generalizability to positively valenced characteristics and found that Koreans (relative to Americans) also devalue individuals with positive characteristics at non-normative levels. Implications for individuals with non-normative characteristics, organizational diversity, and cross-cultural interaction are discussed.

"The determinants of mite diversity in soil and the reasons why so many species coexist are poorly understood. There is evidence that niche differentiation (i.e. microhabitat complexity) in the litter layers of forest floors is important, however, little is known for deeper horizons since mite density and diversity in deeper soil layers have been rarely studied. In order to address this dearth of information, we collected microarthropods from both the forest floor and the mineral soil to a depth of 1m in two deciduous forest locations. The density exceeded 8
105 microarthropods/m2 in one location, and a number of individuals were collected from
deep in the soil. No species was exclusively living in mineral horizons. Measurements of porosity spectrum, pH, water content, total C and total N were made at each depth and related to mite diversity and species richness. Meso- and microporosity were strongly correlated with species distribution while macroporosity and pH were correlated to density and species richness."

"The study of soil microarthropod biodiversity is illustrative of problems that are related to other soil organisms (fungi, for instance) or that can be found in other environments (canopy, oceanic sediments, hosts accommodating parasites, etc.). Indeed, the contribution of the soil fauna to global biodiversity remains an enigma even though, in recent years, it has received considerable attention. Our contention is that the debate on soil biodiversity will remain open – and even sterile – as long as adequate sampling methodologies are not set up, critically evaluated and largely used.
First, a critical review of the sampling strategies used for soil microarthropods is presented. In addition to an extensive compilation of publications on extraction method efficiency, articles from two journals devoted to soil biology are compared for two five-year periods (before and after Erwin’s papers and before and after Rio). The most frequently used extraction methods (over 90% of studies) have a poor numerical efficiency (e.g. 7–26% for the Berlese-Tullgren funnels) and also are selective with respect to their efficiency for certain taxa (variable taxonomic and functional efficiency), 75% of studies are restricted to the upper 10 cm of soil and therefore overlook largely the microarthropod populations, some groups are often neglected, however diversified they are, and the taxonomic resolution tends to become impoverished in recent years. In the second part of our study, the importance of bias induced by inadequate or restricted sampling strategies on biodiversity estimates is evaluated: densities are dramatically underestimated (down to 14 times less); conversely species aggregation, a factor advocated to explain the existence of numerous soil species, is overestimated; some functional groups may be quite overlooked; the species distribution along a gradient deduced from the sampling may be rather different from that really existing in the soil and interfere with the evaluation of
-diversity; species richness is often crudely underestimated (down to 50%).
Overall, at most 10% of soil microarthropod populations have been explored and 10% of species described. Obviously, much has still to be done to evaluate soil microarthropod biodiversity and a fortiori understand the mechanisms underlying it. Improving and renewing the soil sampling strategy is thus a prerequisite to any real advance in our knowledge of this fascinating and obscure domain."

"O  presente  artigo  busca  analisar  a  vivência  de  sexualidade  para  trabalhadores  nãoheterossexuais a partir de suas reflexões acerca dos limites, possibilidades e consequências do processo  de  assunção  de  suas  sexualidades  no  ambiente organizacional.  Assim,  revisitamos pesquisas sobre os homossexuais no ambiente de trabalho, discutimos sobre a diversidade nas organizações  e  no  trabalho,  o  coming  out  e  a  busca  de  valorização  da  identidade  dos homossexuais.  Trata-se  de  uma  pesquisa  qualitativa,  utilizamos  a  história  oral  com  foco  na trajetória  profissional  para  as  entrevistas  e  apreciamos  os  dados  por  meio  da  análise  de conteúdo temática qualitativa por duas categorias: identidade e estigma, e diversidade e  coming out.  De  modo  geral,  enfatizamos  alguns  fatores  que  facilitam  ou  dificultam  a  assunção  e  os impactos desta para os participantes da pesquisa. Destacamos a busca de uma visão reflexiva e humanista quanto aos não-heterossexuais nas organizações e no trabalho.

This article aims to examine sexuality exercise to not-heterosexual workers starting from their considerations  about  limits,  possibilities  and  consequences  of  showing  their  sexualities  at organizational context. Thus, we revisit research on homosexuals in the workplace, we discuss diversity  in  organizations  and  at  work,  coming  out  and  seeking  recovery  of  the  identity  of homosexuals.  This  is  a  qualitative  research  we  used  oral  history  focusing  on  career  paths  for interviews,  and  appreciate  the  data  through  qualitative  thematic  content  analysis  into  two categories:  identity  and  stigma,  and  diversity  and  coming  out  In  general,  we  emphasize  some factors that facilitate or hinder the impact of this assumption and to research participants. We highlight  a  vision  reflective  and  humanistic  regarding  non-heterosexual  in  organizations  and work."

"Using a conceptual framework drawn from contingent theory (Donaldson, 2001),
institutional change theory (Chang, 2002), and diversity leadership theory (Kezar, 2008),
this study used a comparative-case analysis to provide insight into how leaders of
graduate school preparation programs for STEM develop, manage, and sustain their
programs and how their particular institutional context shapes and constrains the
strategies they use to recruit and retain graduate students of color within STEM fields."

School-based psychological interventions which require students and pupils to think of counter-stereotypic individuals (e.g., a female mechanic, a Black President) have been shown to reduce stereotyping and prejudice. But while these interventions are increasingly popular, no one has tested whether tasks like this can have benefits beyond promoting tolerance, particularly with respect to the way individuals think and solve problems. We looked at one such intervention and asked whether this task could, in addition to decreasing propensities to stereotype others, contribute to more flexible and original performance. We expected that because exposure to people who disconfirm stereotypes compels students to think “out of the box”, they will subsequently not only rely less on stereotypes, but in more general thinking rely less on easily accessible knowledge structures and be more flexible and creative. As predicted, being encouraged to think counter-stereotypically not only decreased stereotyping, but also, on a divergent creativity task, lead to the generation of more creative ideas – but only for individuals who initially reported a lower personal need for structure (PNS).