Youngstown State University

About: Youngstown State University is a education organization based out in Youngstown, Ohio, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Hydrogen bond & Galaxy. The organization has 2073 authors who have published 3625 publications receiving 65339 citations.

A measure of styles of handling interpersonal conflict

Abstract: The article discusses a research on various styles of handling interpersonal conflict. For the measurement of conflict styles, seven non-random samples were used to generate and select suitable items. Five factorially independent and reliable scales for conflict styles from a national sample were constructed. These were used to test further validities of the scales against the measures of role status and sex. Results indicated that the test-retest and internal consistency reliability coefficients are satisfactory and compare favorably with other existing instruments.

Making sense of 3-D printing: Creating a map of additive manufacturing products and services

Abstract: Given the attention around additive manufacturing (AM), organizations want to know if their products should be fabricated using AM. To facilitate product development decisions, a reference system is shown describing the key attributes of a product from a manufacturability stand-point: complexity, customization, and production volume. Complexity and customization scales enable the grouping of products into regions of the map with common levels of the three attributes. A geometric complexity factor developed for cast parts is modified for a more general application. Parts with varying geometric complexity are then analyzed and mapped into regions of the complexity, customization, and production volume model. A discrete set of customization levels are also introduced. Implications for product development and manufacturing business approaches are discussed.

Managing Organizational Conflict: A Model for Diagnosis and Intervention:

Abstract: Summary.-Conflicts occurring in or as a result of membership in organizations can be classified into three major categories: intrapersonal, intragroup, and intergroup. Conflicts in each category result from various personal-cultural and organizational structure factors. These factors may be identified through appropriate diagnosis and their effects on and implications for each of the three levels of conflicts established. Such a diagnosis is a prerequisite for the appropriate development and implementation of intervention strategies. The management of organizational conflicts involves diagnosis and intervention to maintain a moderate amount of conflict and help the organizarional members learn various styles for effective handling of different conflict situations. Even though conflict is often said to be functional for organizations, most recommendations for those relating to organizational conflict still fall within the "conflict resolution," reduction, or minimization realm. Insofar as we could determine, the literamre on organizational conflict is deficient on several points. ( 1) There is no diagnostic tool or method for the identification, typology, or taxonomy of conflicts occurring within an organization or its participants. (2) There is no clear set of rules to suggest when conflicts ought to be maintained at a certain level, when reduced, and when ignored. (3) There is no clear set of guidelines to suggest how interpersonal conflicts ought to be handled in different situations. This paper attempts to address these issues to develop a design for the management of conflict at the individual, group, and intergroup levels. It has been suggested that the management of organizational conflict involves the maintenance of a moderate amount of conflict at these levels by altering the behavioral and structural sources of conflict and enabling che organizational participants to learn the various conflict-handling styles to deal with different conflict situations effectively.

Nitrogen-doped graphene foams as metal-free counter electrodes in high-performance dye-sensitized solar cells.

Abstract: Owing to their low-cost production, simple fabrication, and high energy conversion efficiency, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have attracted much attention since Oregan and Gr tzel s seminal report in 1991. A typical DSSC device consists of a dye-adsorbed TiO2 photoanode, counter electrode, and iodide electrolyte. The counter (cathode) electrode plays a key role in regulating the DSSC device performance by catalyzing the reduction of the iodide–triiodide redox species used as a mediator to regenerate the sensitizer after electron injection. The ideal counter electrode material should possess a low sheet resistance, high reduction catalytic activity, good chemical stability, and low production costs. Because of its excellent electrocatalytic activity for the iodine reduction, high conductivity, and good chemical stability, platinum has been widely used as a counter electrode in DSSCs. However, the high costs of Pt and its limited reserves in nature have been a major concern for the energy community. Recently, much effort has been made to reduce or replace Pt-based electrodes in DSSCs. In particular, carbon black, carbon nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, and graphene nanosheets have been studied as the counter electrode in DSSCs. However, their electrical conductivities and reduction catalytic activities still cannot match up to those of platinum. To improve the device performance for DSSCs with a carbon-based counter electrode, it is important to balance its electrical conductivity and the electrocatalytic activity. Since the electrocatalytic activity of graphene for the triiodide reduction often increases with increasing number of defect sites (e.g., oxygen-containing functional groups in reduced graphene oxide), a perfect graphene sheet may have a low charge-transfer resistance (Rct), but a limited number of active sites for catalyzing the triiodide reduction. Unlike chemical functionalization of graphene to introduce electrocatalytic active sites by damaging the conjugated structure in the graphitic basal plan with a concomitant decrease in the electrical conductivity, doping the carbon network with heteroatoms (e.g., N, B, and P) can introduce electrocatalytic active sites with a minimized change of the conjugation length. Furthermore, heteroatom doping has also been demonstrated to enhance the electrical conductivity and surface hydrophilicity to facilitate charge-transfer and electrolyte–electrode interactions, respectively, and even impart electrocatalytic activities. Indeed, our recent articles, along with articles of others, on nitrogen doping of carbon nanotubes and graphene have clearly shown that nitrogen-doped carbon nanomaterials can act as metal-free electrodes to show even higher electrocatalytic activities, better long-term operation stability, and more tolerance to crossover/poisoning effects relative to a platinum electrode used for oxygen reduction in fuel cells. The newly discovered electrocatalytic reduction activities, together with the doping-enhanced electrical conductivities and surface hydrophilicity, made N-doped carbon nanomaterials ideal as low-cost, but very effective, counter electrodes in DSSCs. To our best knowledge, however, the possibility for N-doped carbon nanomaterials to be used as metal-free electrocatalysts at the counter electrode for triiodide reduction in DSSCs has not been exploited. In the present study, we prepared three-dimensional (3D) N-doped graphene foams (N-GFs) with a nitrogen content as high as 7.6% by annealing the freeze-dried graphene oxide foams (GOFs) in ammonia, and used the resultant 3D N-GFs supported by fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) glass substrates as the counter electrode in DSSCs. We found that the resultant DSSCs with the foamlike N-doped graphene counter electrode showed a power conversion efficiency as high as 7.07%, a value which is among the highest efficiencies reported for DSSCs with a metal-free carbon-based counter electrode and is comparable to that of DSSCs with a Pt counter electrode (7.44%) constructed under the same condition. The observed superb performance of DSSCs with the newly developed 3D N-GF metal-free counter electrode can be attributed to the heteroatom doping-induced high [*] Dr. Y. Xue, Dr. H. Chen, Dr. J. Qu, Prof. L. Dai Institute of Advanced Materials for Nano-Bio Applications, School of Ophthalmology and Optometry, Wenzhou Medical College 270 Xueyuan Xi Road, Wenzhou, Zhejiang 325027 (China) E-mail: jia.qu@163.com