4.2 'Biological control' We are also guilty of importing exotic species, some of which, like the rhododendron (imported from Asia to Europe), have run riot in the absence of natural predators or primary consumers, and so have tended to out-compete native plants. Sometimes introductions have been accidental; rats and many disease-causing organisms have spread around the world via relatively modern transportation such as sailing ships. However, deliberate introductions, such as the rhododendron, have been made with wor
Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: define and use, or recognize definitions and applications of, each of the terms in bold in the text understand the complexity of the interdependence between organisms and their environment describe some of the consequences for health of pollution explain why it is difficult to gain international agreements to secure biodiversity and reduce pollution.
Acknowledgements Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence The material acknowledged below is contained in: Ordering the International: History, Chan
8 Further reading For a wide-ranging, accessible and powerful defence of the idea of universal human rights and their role in the international system, see Chapters 1, 5, 6 and 7 of Beetham, D. (1999) Democracy and Human Rights, Cambridge, Polity Press. For a brilliant feminist discussion of the claims of culture and the claims of universal rights, set in a context of a range of concrete, contemporary examples, see Benhabib, S. (2002) The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global
5.2 Human rights in the international arena The UN's 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserted that the ‘recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world’. It further affirmed that human rights should be protected by the rule of law, that they were ‘essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations’, that these fundamental human rights include the equal rights between men
3.2.2 The protection of intellectual property: the costs of TRIPS Apart from the internal redistribution of income resulting from greater exposure to the world economy, the effects of one of the UR agreements in particular have achieved a certain notoriety because the agreement clearly imposes huge costs on farmers and consumers in developing countries, to the benefit of corporations in developed countries. This is the agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which strengthens international rules governing patents, tradema
Approaches to software development
This free course, Approaches to software development, presents an engineering approach to the development of software systems – a software engineering approach. The course pays particular attention to issues of software quality, in terms of both product (what is built) and process (how we build it). First published on Mon, 18 Jun 2018 as Author(s):
3.2 Sub-state forms of nationalism The advancement of democracy in contemporary Western nation-states and the intensification of globalisation processes have encouraged the re-emergence of nationalist movements representing oppressed or silenced nations that demand the right to self-determination. In the case of ethnic groups formed by people of immigrant origin, democracy has provided them with the tools to pursue the right to develop and practice their indigenous culture and language alongside those of the host country. One
2.3 How things change with temperature The temperature-dependent effects used in most thermometers have a fairly steady change over a good range of temperature (Figure 3a). By contrast, phase changes, of which melting and boiling are the common examples, happen at sharply critical temperatures (
Acknowledgements Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions). This content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence
5.2.2 Owning problems Problem ownership is a tricky issue. It's also an issue that good leaders get right instinctively, and poor leaders get wrong consistently. The point is that there are two distinct classes of problems faced by leaders. The first consists of problems which are owned by the group members. Examples include when some additional resources are required, when instructions are not understood or when members complain that something is wrong. Under these conditions the leader's function is to provide p
4.2 Project life cycles Earlier I said that a project is: 'a unique venture with a beginning and an end' (Boddy and Buchanan, 1992, p. 8). But it must have a middle, too. We say that a project has a 'life cycle'. This is based on an analogy with living things which are born, live for a period of time, doing things like consuming food and water, breathing, moving, etc., and then finally end (die). There is much discussion about whether there is only one 'true' model of a project life cycle or many, and whether any of
3.2.2 Group size Another significant feature of a work group is its size. To be effective it should be neither too large nor too small. As membership increases there is a trade-off between increased collective expertise and decreased involvement and satisfaction of individual members. A very small group may not have the range of skills it requires to function well. The optimum size depends partly on the group's purpose. A group for information sharing or decision making may need to be larger than one for prob
5.5 Other forms of diabetes By far the three most common types of diabetes are Type 1, Type 2 and gestational. There are other forms of diabetes but we will not be covering them in any more detail. These are forms due to: disease of the pancreas (pancreatitis) an excess of hormones that increase blood glucose levels, e.g. excess growth hormone drugs, for example, steroid therapy, which tend to oppose the action of insulin abnorm
2.3.4 The contract team The contract team is brought in from outside in order to do the project work. Here, the responsibility to deliver the project rests very firmly with the project manager. The client will find such a team harder to control directly. On the other hand, it is the client who will judge the success of the project, so the project manager has to keep an eye constantly on the physical outcomes of the project. A variant of this is the so-called 'outsourced supply team', which simply means that the team
2.3.2 The project (single) team The project, or single, team consists of a group of people who come together as a distinct organisational unit in order to work on a project or projects. The team is often led by a project manager, though self-managing and self-organising arrangements are also found. Quite often, a team that has been successful on one project will stay together to work on subsequent projects. This is particularly common where an organisation engages repeatedly in projects of a broadly similar nature – for e
2.3.1 The functional team The hierarchical structure described above divides groups of people along largely functional lines: people working together carry out the same or similar functions. A functional team is a team in which work is carried out within such a functionally organised group. This can be project work. In organisations in which the functional divisions are relatively rigid, project work can be handed from one functional team to another in order to complete the work. For example, work on a new product can
2.3 Types of teams Different organisations or organisational settings lead to different types of team. The type of team affects how that team is managed, what the communication needs of the team are and, where appropriate, what aspects of the project the project manager needs to emphasise. A work group or team may be permanent, forming part of the organisation's structure, such as a top management team, or temporary, such as a task force assembled to see through a particular project. Members may work as a group
2.2 What is a team? Write your own definition of a 'team' (in 20 words or less). You probably described a team as a group of some kind. However, a team is more than just a group. As noted above, wh
Activity 1
1 course outline The focus of this course is on relating to groups of other people rather than one-to-one relationships. Reading 1 develops some general concepts about 'groups' and 'teams', not just those at work. The later readings look at groups from particular perspectives or contexts, with the aim of discovering ideas about how to make them function more effectively. This is, in fact, the main aim of this course: to help you understand how you might function more effectively in a group by improving
