Negative affectivity is a general dimension of subjective distress and unpleasurable engagement that subsumes a variety of aversive mood states, including anger, contempt, disgust, guilt, fear, and nervousness. Individuals high in negative affectivity are characterized by distress, un-pleasurable engagement, and nervousness. Low negative affect is characterised by a state of calmness and serenity.

It has been defined as a mood-dispositional dimension that reflects pervasive individual differences in negative emotionality and self-concept. People who express high negative affectivity view themselves and a variety of aspects of the world around them in generally negative terms. Negative affectivity may influence the relationships between variables in organizational research.

Negative affectivity represents an affective state dimension. Research has demonstrated that individuals differ in negative emotional reactivity. Trait negative affectivity roughly corresponds to the dominant personality factor of anxiety and neuroticism within the major personality traits. Research shows that negative affectivity relates to different classes of variables: Self-reported stress and poor coping skills, health complaints, and frequency of unpleasant events.

Individuals high in negative affect will exhibit, on average, higher levels of anxiety and dissatisfaction, and tend to focus on the unpleasant aspects of themselves, the world, the future, and other people. In fact, the content similarities between these affective traits and life satisfaction have led some researchers to view negative affectivity and life satisfaction as specific indicators of the broader construct of subjective well-being.

Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together in an intersection of common goals — for example, an intellectual endeavor that is creative in nature — by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus. Most collaboration requires leadership, although the form of leadership can be social leadership within a decentralized and egalitarian group. In particular, teams that work collaboratively can obtain greater resources, recognition and reward when facing competition for finite resources. Collaboration is also present in opposing goals exhibiting the notion of adversarial collaboration, though this is not a common case for using the term.

Structured methods of collaboration encourage introspection of behavior and communication. These methods specifically aim to increase the success of teams as they engage in collaborative problem solving. Forms, rubrics, charts and graphs are useful in these situations to objectively document personal traits with the goal of improving performance in current and future projects.

Musical collaboration occurs when musicians in different places or groups work on the same album or song. Collaboration between musicians, especially with regards to jazz, is often heralded as the epitome of complex collaborative practice. Special software has been written to facilitate musical collaboration over the Internet. Websites have also been created to enable creative music collaboration over the Internet.

Due to the complexity of today’s business environment, collaboration in technology encompasses a broad range of tools that enable groups of people to work together including social networking, instant messaging, team spaces, web sharing, audio conferencing, video, and telephony. Broadly defined, any technology that facilitates linking of two or more humans to work together can be considered a collaborative tool. Wikipedia, Blogs, even Twitter are collaborative tools. Many large companies are developing enterprise collaboration strategies and standardizing on a collaboration platform to allow their employees, customers and partners to intelligently connect and interact.

Visioning is a popular method in the studies of desirable futures that gives emphasis to values. The visioning process is based on the assumption that images of the future lead peoples’ present behaviours, guide choices and influence decisions. Images of the future can be positive or negative and cause different responses according to the perceptions.

Vision is usually seen as a positive, desirable image of the future and can be defined as a compelling, inspiring statement of the preferred future that the authors and those who subscribe to the vision want to create.

There are a number of issues that need to be addressed while using the visioning method. Vision comprises peoples’ values, wishes, fears and desires. In order to make the visioning process work it is necessary to ensure that it is not making an idealistic wish list, that vision is an image of the future shared by a whole community, and that the vision is translatable into reality.

Vision building is thinking in the future and determining where a person or organization wants to go. Individually, a vision will be different from visioning with a group. This way of visioning may work in this linear form of visioning, but there is a more powerful way of visioning which is called Field Process Visioning. It is a way of thinking about the vision as a surrounding field. 

The epitome of Field Process Visioning is captured in Cervantes’ statement, “The road is more important than the inn.” Here goals are minimized, and the road or the field is emphasized. In so doing, the ubiquitous nature of the vision arises into the present moment. Instead of having a destination to pull a person or organization forward, Field Process Vision permeates and guides the individual and the organization.

Clarity between the difference of vision and mission is essential. Vision is knowing where you want to go or what you want to become. Vision includes both tangibles, such as what products define you in the world, as well as intangible products such as the surrounding values, virtues and culture. Vision is like a collage of you and your family, or you and your organization, and you are all standing in the present while unfolding the future intention.

Peter Senge, in The Fifth Disciple Field Book, says “The test of a vision is not in the statement, but in the directional force it gives the organization.” Mission is the reason for being and the work being pursued to realize the vision. 

Dr. Michael Beckwith states that “Visioning is a process by which we train ourselves to be able to hear, feel, see, and catch God’s plan for our life or for any particular project we’re working on. It is based on the idea that we’re not here to tell God what do or to ask God for things, but to absolutely be available for what God is already doing, to open ourselves up to what’s already happening.”

When Einstein said, “I want to know the thoughts of the creator, the rest is a detail,” he was demonstrating the difference between leadership and management. Management is concerned with the details of the vision, leadership with goals and values. Both are important and both have their place in the creative process in which an individual or organization is engaged as one brings dreams into actuality.

Punctuation is everything in written language other than the actual letters or numbers. Punctuation marks are symbols that correspond to neither sounds of a language nor to words and phrases, but which serve to indicate the structure and organization of writing, as well as intonation and pauses to be observed when reading aloud.

In English, punctuation is vital to disambiguate the meaning of sentences. For example, “woman, without her man, is nothing,” and “woman: without her, man is nothing,” have greatly different meanings, as do “eats shoots and leaves” and “eats, shoots and leaves.”

The rules of punctuation vary with language, location and time, and are constantly evolving. Certain aspects of punctuation are stylistic and are thus the author or editor’s choice. Tachygraphic language forms, such as those used in online chat and text messages, may have wildly different rules.

The earliest writing had no capitalization, no spaces and no punctuation marks. This worked as long as the subject matter was restricted to a limited range of topics. Expanding the use of writing to more abstract concepts required some way to disambiguate meanings. Until the 18th century, punctuation was principally an aid to reading aloud. After that time its development was as a mechanism for ensuring that the text made sense when read silently.

Punctuation developed dramatically when large numbers of copies of the Christian Bible started to be produced. These were designed to be read aloud and the copyists began to introduce a range of marks to aid the reader, including indentation, various punctuation marks and an early version of initial capitals. St Jerome and his colleagues, who produced the Vulgate translation of the Bible into Latin, developed an early system. This was considerably improved on by Alcuin. The marks included the forward slash and dots in different locations. The dots were centered in the line, raised or in groups.

The use of punctuation was not standardized until after the invention of printing. Credit for introducing a standard system is generally given to Aldus Manutius and his grandson. They popularized the practice of ending sentences with the colon or full stop, invented the semicolon, made occasional use of parentheses and created the modern comma by lowering the virgule.

The standards and limitations of evolving technologies have exercised further pragmatic influences. For example, minimisation of punctuation in typewritten matter became economically desirable in the 1960s and 1970s for the many users of carbon film ribbons, since a period or comma consumed the same length of expensive non reusable ribbon as did a capital letter.

Although texts in the Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages were often left unpunctuated until the modern era, there has been evidence of punctuation usage in ancient China since the 3rd century BC. In unpunctuated texts, the grammatical structure of sentences in classical writing is inferred from context. Most punctuation marks in modern Chinese, Japanese and Korean have similar functions to their English counterparts, however, they often look different and have different customary rules. 

A knowledge worker is someone who is employed due to his or her knowledge of a subject matter, rather than their ability to perform manual labor. It includes those in the information technology fields, such as computer programmers, systems analysts, technical writers and so forth. The term can also refer to people outside of information technology but who are hired for their knowledge of some subject, such as lawyers, teachers, and scientists.

The term was coined by Peter Drucker in 1959, as one who works primarily with information or one who develops and uses knowledge in the workplace. To emphasise the collaborative nature of knowledge work, and distinguish knowledge workers from other jobs that require skill and experience, the theory of human interaction management replaces the term knowledge worker with the term interaction worker.

Due to the constant industrial growth in North America and globally, there is increasing need for an academically capable workforce. In direct response to this, Knowledge Workers are now estimated to outnumber all other workers in North America by at least a four to one margin.

Alvin Toffler observed that typical knowledge workers such as research and development scientists, engineers, and technology managers in the age of knowledge economy and society must have some system at their disposal to create, process and enhance their own technological knowledge. In some cases they also manage the technical knowledge of their coworkers.

The third wave of human socioeconomic development is described by Charles Savage in Fifth Generation Management. The first wave was the Agricultural Age with wealth defined as ownership of land. In the second wave, the Industrial Age, wealth was based on ownership of Capital such as factories. In the Knowledge Age, wealth is based upon the ownership of knowledge and the ability to use that knowledge to create or improve goods and services. Product improvements include cost, durability, suitability, timeliness of delivery, and security.

A Technology Literate Knowledge Worker is educated when it comes to the correct applications of technology. The individual understands what type of technology best suits the company by knowing the technology available and weighing the benefits of each option before making the final decision. The worker is also aware that there must be adequate technological infrastructure in order for the product to work effectively. The worker’s most important ability is the knowledge of when to apply technology. If the Technology Literate Knowledge Worker applies technology at the correct time it can make, or save the organization a significant amount, while using technology when it isn’t needed can be costly.

An example of a Technology Literate Worker is a database administrator who is responsible for ensuring that the databases are functioning properly, while attempting to maximize the databases value to the organization. The database administrator must incorporate a database management system that is compatible with the company’s existing systems and goals. Their primary objective is to maintain a system that is effective and efficient, while keeping it easy to operate. They are also given the task of remaining current with the new technologies available, so that any opportunity to improve the company’s technology can be capitalized on immediately.

A credit card is a system of payment named after the small plastic card issued to users of the system. In the case of credit cards, the issuer lends money to the consumer to be paid later to the merchant. It is different from a charge card which requires the balance to be paid in full each month. In contrast, credit cards allow the consumers to ‘revolve’ their balance, at the cost of having interest charged. Most credit cards are issued by local banks or credit unions, and are the same shape and size.

The concept of using a card for purchases was described in 1887 by Edward Bellamy in his utopian novel Looking Backward. Bellamy used the term credit card eleven times in this novel. He also predicted music being available in the home through cable transmission.

The modern credit card was the successor of a variety of merchant credit schemes. It was first used in the 1920s in the United States to sell gasoline to a growing number of automobile owners. Some charge cards were printed on paper card stock but were easily counterfeited.

The Charga-Plate was an early predecessor to the credit card and first used during the 1930. It was a rectangle of sheet metal similar to a military dog tag that was embossed with the customer’s name, city and state, but no address. It held a small paper card for a signature. It was laid in an imprinter first, then a charge slip was placed on top of it, onto which an inked ribbon was pressed. Charga-Plates were issued by merchants to their regular customers, much like department store credit cards of today. In some cases, the plates were kept in the issuing store rather than held by customers. When an authorized user made a purchase, a clerk retrieved the plate from the store’s files and then processed the purchase. Charga-Plates speeded back-office bookkeeping that was done manually in paper ledgers in each store, before computers.

The concept of paying different merchants using the same card was invented in 1950 with the Diners Club. The Diners Club produced the first general purpose charge card and required the entire bill to be paid with each statement. This was followed by American Express which created a world wide credit card network.

Bank of America created the BankAmericard in 1958, which eventually evolved into the Visa system. MasterCard came to being in 1966 when a group of credit issuing banks established the MasterCharge system. The fractured nature of the U.S. banking system meant that credit cards became an effective way for those who were traveling around the country to move their credit to places where they could not directly use their banking facilities.

There are now countless variations on the basic concept of revolving credit for individuals issued by banks and honored by a network of financial institutions, including organization branded credit cards, corporate user credit cards, store cards and so on.

It is important to note that many cultures were much more cash oriented in the latter half of the twentieth century. In these places, the adoption of credit cards was initially much slower. In many countries acceptance still remains poor as the use of a credit card system depends on the banking system being perceived as reliable. In contrast, because of the legislative framework surrounding banking systems, some countries were much faster to develop and adopt computer chip based credit cards which are now seen as major anti-fraud credit devices.

The low security of the credit card system presents countless opportunities for fraud. This opportunity has created a huge black market in stolen credit card numbers, which are generally used quickly before the cards are reported stolen.

The goal of the credit card companies is not to eliminate fraud, but to reduce it to manageable levels. This implies that high cost low return fraud prevention measures will not be used if the cost exceeds the potential gains from fraud reduction.

Most internet fraud is done through the use of stolen credit card information which is obtained by copying information from retailers, either online or offline. Despite efforts to improve security for remote purchases using credit cards, systems with security holes are usually the result of poor implementations of card acquisition by merchants. For example, a website that uses SSL to encrypt card numbers from a client may simply email the number from the webserver to someone who manually processes the card details at a card terminal. Naturally, anywhere card details become human readable before being processed at the acquiring bank, a security risk is created. However, many banks offer systems where encrypted card details captured on a merchant’s webserver can be sent directly to the payment processor.

Three improvements to card security have been introduced to the more common credit card networks but none has proven to help reduce credit card fraud so far. First, the on-line verification system used by merchants is being enhanced to require a 4 digit Personal Identification Number (PIN) known only to the card holder. Second, the cards themselves are being replaced with similar-looking tamper-resistant smart cards which are intended to make forgery more difficult. Third, an additional 3 or 4 digit code is now present on the back of most cards, for use in transactions when the card is not present.

In recent times, credit card portfolios have been very profitable for banks, largely due to the booming economy of the late nineties. However, in the case of credit cards, such high returns go hand in hand with risk, since the business is essentially one of making uncollateralized loans, and thus dependent on borrowers not to default in large numbers.

Ants are social insects that evolved from ancestors in the Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. Today, more than 12,000 species are classified with upper estimates of about 14,000 species.

Ants form colonies that range in size from a few tens of predatory individuals living in small natural cavities to highly organized colonies which may occupy large territories and consist of millions of individuals that are mostly sterile females forming castes of workers, soldiers, or other specialised groups. The colonies are sometimes described as superorganisms because ants appear to operate as a unified entity, collectively working together to support the colony.

Ant societies have division of labour, communication between individuals, and an ability to solve complex problems. These parallels with human societies have long been an inspiration and subject of study. Many human cultures make use of ants in cuisine, medication, and rituals. Some species are valued in their role as biological pest control agents. However, their ability to exploit resources brings ants into conflict with humans as they can damage crops and invade buildings. Some species, such as the red fire ant, are regarded as invasive species, since they can spread rapidly into new areas.

Ants communicate with each other using pheromones. These chemical signals are more developed in ants than in other insect groups. They perceive smells with their long, thin and mobile antennae. The paired antennae provide information about the direction and intensity of scents. Since most ants live on the ground, they use the soil surface to leave pheromone trails that can be followed by other ants.

In species that forage in groups, a forager that finds food marks a trail on the way back to the colony. This trail is followed by other ants, and these ants then reinforce the trail when they head back with food to the colony. When the food source is exhausted, no new trails are marked by returning ants and the scent slowly dissipates. This behaviour helps ants deal with changes in their environment. For instance, when an established path to a food source is blocked by an obstacle, the foragers leave the path to explore new routes. If an ant is successful, it leaves a new trail marking the shortest route on its return. Successful trails are followed by more ants, reinforcing better routes and gradually finding the best path. But ants use pheromones for more than just making trails. A crushed ant emits an alarm pheromone that sends nearby ants into an attack frenzy and attracts more ants from further away. Several ant species even use propaganda pheromones to confuse enemy ants and make them fight among themselves.

Pheromones are also exchanged mixed with food and passed among members of the community, transferring information within the colony. This allows other ants to detect what task group other colony members belong to. In ant species with queen castes, workers begin to raise new queens in the colony when the dominant queen stops producing a specific pheromone.

Many animals can learn behaviours by imitation but ants may be the only group apart from mammals where interactive teaching has been observed. One species of ant leads a nest mate to newly discovered food by the excruciatingly slow process of tandem running. The follower obtains knowledge through its leading tutor. Both leader and follower are acutely sensitive to the progress of their partner with the leader slowing down when the follower lags, and speeding up when the follower gets too close. Controlled experiments with some colonies suggest that individuals may choose nest roles based on their previous experience.

An entire generation of identical workers was divided into two groups whose outcome in food foraging was controlled. One group was continually rewarded with prey, while it was made certain that the other failed. As a result, members of the successful group intensified their foraging attempts while the unsuccessful group ventured out less and less. A month later, the successful foragers continued in their role while the others moved to specialise in brood care.

Ants perform many ecological roles that are beneficial to humans, including the suppression of pest populations and aeration of the soil. The use of weaver ants in citrus cultivation in southern China is considered one of the oldest known applications of biological control. On the other hand, ants can become nuisances when they invade buildings or cause economic losses.

In some parts of the world, large ants are used as surgical sutures. The wound is pressed together and ants are applied along it. The ant seizes the edges of the wound in its mandibles and locks in place. The body is then cut off and the head and mandibles remain in place to close the wound. Some ants have toxic venom and are of medical importance.

In South Africa, ants are used to help harvest rooibos, which are small seeds used to make an herbal tea. The plant disperses its seeds widely, making manual collection difficult. Black ants collect and store these and other seeds in their nest, where humans can gather them. Up to half a pound of seeds can be collected from one ant mound.