Why does using personal strengths at work increase employee engagement; who makes the most out of it; and how?

Engaging in behaviors that take advantage of one's personal strengths at work can promote employee flourishing in the workplace and mental health. Personal strengths use has thus gained increasing attention within occupational psychology and positive organizational scholarship. In this article, we first integrate work on personal strengths use with the latest developments in the job demands-resources theory (and its extensions) to develop a conceptual model explaining how and why personal strengths use on the job increases work engagement. Specifically, we propose that feelings of inspiration and meaningfulness explain the relationship between personal strengths use and work engagement. Second, we identify two mechanisms through which employees can amplify the benefits associated with personal strengths use at work; that is, we propose that the increased engagement associated with strengths use makes employees more likely to capitalize on the positive aspects of their work by engaging in work-family interpersonal capitalization and positive work reflection. Further, our model predicts that employees' psychological capital moderates the effects of personal strengths use. We tested our theoretical predictions in a sample of 160 full-time employees who provided ratings that comprise a three-level data set (person, week, and day) comprising 943 matched weekly ratings and 2,787 daily ratings. Our hypotheses were largely supported by these data. Implications for theory, practice, and future research are discussed. <br/

Vortex Depinning in a Two-Dimensional Superfluid

\ua9 The Author(s) 2024.We employ the Gross–Pitaevskii theory to model a quantized vortex depinning from a small obstacle in a two-dimensional superfluid due to an imposed background superfluid flow. We find that, when the flow’s velocity exceeds a critical value, the vortex drifts orthogonally to the flow before subsequently moving parallel to it away from the pinning site. The motion of the vortex around the pinning site is also accompanied by an emission of a spiral-shaped sound pulse. Through simulations, we present a phase diagram of the critical flow velocity for vortex depinning together with an empirical formula that illustrates how the critical velocity increases with the height and width of the pinning site. By employing a variety of choices of initial and boundary conditions, we are able to obtain lower and upper bounds on the critical velocity and demonstrate the robustness of these results

Reforms, entry and productivity: Some evidence from the Indian manufacturing sector

It is now stylized that, while the impact of ownership on firm productivity is unclear, product market competition can be expected to have a positive impact on productivity, thereby making entry (or contestability of markets) desirable. Traditional research in the context of entry has explored the strategic reactions of incumbent firms when threatened by the possibility of entry. However, following De Soto (1989), there has been increasing emphasis on regulatory and institutional factors governing entry rates, especially in the context of developing countries. Using 3-digit industry level data from India, for the 1984-97 period, we examine the phenomenon of entry in the Indian context. Our empirical results suggest that during the 1980s industry level factors largely explained variations in entry rates, but that, following the economic federalism brought about by the post-1991 reforms, variations entry rates during the 1990s were explained largely by state level institutional and legacy factors. We also find evidence to suggest that, in India, entry rates were positively associated with growth in total factor productivity

Work-related helping and family functioning: a work-home resources perspective

Using the work–home resources (W-HR) model as an overarching framework, our study seeks to examine the interplay between employees’ provision and receipt of interpersonal organizational citizenship behaviours (OCB-I; i.e. helping behaviours), and its spillover effects on two family outcomes (family performance and marital withdrawal behaviours). Further, we simultaneously test resource depletion (emotional exhaustion) and resource generation (personal accomplishment) mechanisms linking OCB-Is and the family domain. Based on a time-lagged, dual-source study of 320 employees, we found that OCB-I enactment is positively related to both exhaustion (only for those who receive low OCB-Is from colleagues) and personal accomplishment at work (regardless of OCB-I receipt), which interferes with and enriches employees’ family lives, respectively. We discuss the theoretical contributions of these findings to OCB research and the W-HR model

H3S28P Antibody Staining of Okinawan Oikopleura dioica Suggests the Presence of Three Chromosomes [version 2; peer review: 2 approved]

Oikopleura dioica is a ubiquitous marine zooplankton of biological interest owing to features that include dioecious reproduction, a short life cycle, conserved chordate body plan, and a compact genome. It is an important tunicate model for evolutionary and developmental research, as well as investigations into marine ecosystems. The genome of north Atlantic O. dioica comprises three chromosomes. However, comparisons with the genomes of O. dioica sampled from mainland and southern Japan revealed extensive sequence differences. Moreover, historical studies have reported widely varying chromosome counts. We recently initiated a project to study the genomes of O. dioica individuals collected from the coastline of the Ryukyu (Okinawa) Islands in southern Japan. Given the potentially large extent of genomic diversity, we employed karyological techniques to count individual animals’ chromosomes in situ using centromere-specific antibodies directed against H3S28P, a prophase-metaphase cell cycle-specific marker of histone H3. Epifluorescence and confocal images were obtained of embryos and oocytes stained with two commercial anti-H3S28P antibodies (Abcam ab10543 and Thermo Fisher 07-145). The data lead us to conclude that diploid cells from Okinawan O. dioica contain three pairs of chromosomes, in line with the north Atlantic populations. The finding facilitates the telomere-to-telomere assembly of Okinawan O. dioica genome sequences and gives insight into the genomic diversity of O. dioica from different geographical locations. The data deposited in the EBI BioImage Archive provide representative images of the antibodies’ staining properties for use in epifluorescent and confocal based fluorescent microscopy

Nanoencapsulation for Probiotic Delivery

Gut microbiota dynamically participate in diverse physiological activities with direct impact on the host's health. A range of factors associated with the highly complex intestinal flora ecosystem poses challenges in regulating the homeostasis of microbiota. The consumption of live probiotic bacteria, in principle, can address these challenges and confer health benefits. In this context, one of the major problems is ensuring the survival of probiotic cells when faced with physical and chemical assaults during their intake and subsequent gastrointestinal passage to the gut. Advances in the field have focused on improving conventional encapsulation techniques in the microscale to achieve high cell viability, gastric and temperature resistance, and longer shelf lives. However, these microencapsulation approaches are known to have limitations with possible difficulties in clinical translation. In this Perspective, we present a brief overview of the current progress of different probiotic encapsulation methods and highlight the contemporary and emerging single-cell encapsulation strategies using nanocoatings for individual probiotic cells. Finally, we discuss the relative advantages of various nanoencapsulation approaches and the future trend toward developing coated probiotics with advanced features and health benefits