Affective States and Work Attitudes Linking Abusive Supervision to Employee Performance and the Impact of Ethical Climate on Abusive Supervision and Work Attitudes

Prior research indicates that abusive supervision (AS, Tepper, 2000) is associated with employee job performance. On the other hand, ethical organizational climate (EOC; Victor & Cullen, 1988) has yet to be investigated in the context of AS. The objective of the present study is to evaluate, within a general sample of US employees, (1) the relative strength of specific indirect effects of AS on performance via positive (PA) and negative (NA) affect, and via work-related attitudes (Leader-member exchange, LMX; Interactional justice, IJ; Perceived organizational support, POS; Affective organizational commitment, AOC), and (2) the relationship between EOC, AS, and the same work-related attitudes. It was expected that the indirect effects of AS on performance would be stronger via affect (PA, NA) than via attitudes referencing the supervisor (LMX, IJ), which would in turn be stronger than the indirect effects via attitudes referencing the organization (AOC, POS). Moreover, EOC was expected to show a negative association with AS, a positive association with each work-related attitude, and to moderate the effects of AS on the work-related attitudes. Data was collected using web-based questionnaires. Employees completed attitude measures and rated how frequently they experienced AS and affective states in the prior month. Coworkers rated job performance. Analyses take a nonparametric approach due to departures from multivariate normality. Indirect effects and pairwise contrasts between specific indirect effects were evaluated using bootstrap confidence intervals. Hypotheses involving moderation were analyzed using moderated multiple regression. Mediation analyses generally confirm prior findings when indirect effects were analyzed separately. When modeled in parallel however, only the indirect effects via NA and AOC are significant. Pairwise contrast generally failed to show significant differences between specific indirect effects. Consistent with predictions, EOC was negatively associated with AS and positively associated with each work-related attitude. Interestingly, EOC also moderated the effects of AS on work-related attitudes, albeit in a direction inconsistent with predictions. Implications for future research are discussed

Effects of pyruvate administration on infarct volume and neurological deficits following permanent focal cerebral ischemia in rats

Recent experimental evidences indicate that pyruvate, the final metabolite of glycolysis, has a remarkable protective effect against different types of brain injury. The purpose of this study was to assess the neuroprotective effect and the neurological outcome after pyruvate administration in a model of ischemic stroke induced by permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion (pMCAO) in rats. Three doses of pyruvate (250, 500 and 1000 mg/kg, i.p.) or vehicle were administered intraperitoneally 30 min after pMCAO. In other set of experiments, pyruvate was given either before, immediately after ischemia or in a long-term administration paradigm. Functional outcome, mortality and infarct volume were determined 24 h after stroke. Even when the lowest doses of pyruvate reduced mortality and neurological deficits, no concomitant reduction in infarct volume was observed. The highest dose of pyruvate increased cortical infarction by 27% when administered 30 min after pMCAO. In addition, when pyruvate was given before pMCAO, a significant increase in neurological deficits was noticed. Surprisingly, on the contrary of what was found in the case of transient global ischemia, present findings do not support a great neuroprotective role for pyruvate in permanent focal cerebral ischemia, suggesting two distinct mechanisms involved in the effects of this glycolytic metabolite in the ischemic brain

Post-ischaemic treatment with the cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitor nimesulide reduces blood-brain barrier disruption and leukocyte infiltration following transient focal cerebral ischaemia in rats

Several studies suggest that cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 plays a pivotal role in the progression of ischemic brain damage. In the present study, we investigated the effects of selective inhibition of COX-2 with nimesulide (12 mg/kg) and selective inhibition of COX-1 with valeryl salicylate (VAS, 12-120 mg/kg) on prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) levels, myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity, Evans Blue (EB) extravasation and infarct volume in a standardized model of transient focal cerebral ischemia in the rat. Postischemic treatment with nimesulide markedly reduced the increase in PGE2 levels in the ischemic cerebral cortex 24 h after stroke and diminished infarct size by 48 % with respect to vehicle-treated animals after 3 days of reperfusion. Furthermore, nimesulide significantly attenuated the blood-brain barrier (BBB) damage and leukocyte infiltration (as measured by EB leakage and MPO activity, respectively) seen at 48 h after the initial ischemic episode. These studies provide the first experimental evidence that COX-2 inhibition with nimesulide is able to limit BBB disruption and leukocyte infiltration following transient focal cerebral ischemia. Neuroprotection afforded by nimesulide is observed even when the treatment is delayed until 6 h after the onset of ischemia, confirming a wide therapeutic window of COX-2 inhibitors in experimental stroke. On the other hand, selective inhibition of COX-1 with VAS had no significant effect on the evaluated parameters. These data suggest that COX-2 activity, but not COX-1 activity, contributes to the progression of focal ischemic brain injury, and that the beneficial effects observed with non-selective COX inhibitors are probably associated to COX-2 rather than to COX-1 inhibition

Neuroprotective efficacy of nimesulide against hippocampal neuronal damage following transient forebrain ischemia

Cyclooxygenase-2 is involved in the inflammatory component of the ischemic cascade, playing an important role in the delayed progression of the brain damage. The present study evaluated the pharmacological effects of the selective cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitor nimesulide on delayed neuronal death of hippocampal CA1 neurons following transient global cerebral ischemia in gerbils. Administration of therapeutically relevant doses of nimesulide (3, 6 and 12 mg/kg; i.p.) 30 min before ischemia and at 6, 12, 24, 48 and 72 h after ischemia significantly (P<0.01) reduced hippocampal neuronal damage. Treatment with a single dose of nimesulide given 30 min before ischemia also resulted in a significant increase in the number of healthy neurons in the hippocampal CA1 sector 7 days after ischemia. Of interest is the finding that nimesulide rescued CA1 pyramidal neurons from ischemic death even when treatment was delayed until 24 h after ischemia (34+/-9% protection). Neuroprotective effect of nimesulide is still evident 30 days after the ischemic episode, providing the first experimental evidence that cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitors confer a long-lasting neuroprotection. Oral administration of nimesulide was also able to significantly reduce brain damage, suggesting that protective effects are independent of the route of administration. The present study confirms the ability of cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitors to reduce brain damage induced by cerebral ischemia and indicates that nimesulide can provide protection when administered for up to 24 h post-ischemia

Parasitism of Corn Earworm, Helicoverpa zea (Boddie) (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), by Tachinid Flies in Cultivated Hemp

In a survey on hemp grown in western Kentucky we found an average of 27.8 CEW larvae per plant. We recorded 45% parasitism of CEW in these fields by two species of tachinid flies, Winthemia rufopicta and Lespesia aletiae. Most parasitized larvae were third to sixth instars at the time of collection. We found up to 22 tachinid eggs per host larva, 89% of which typically bore between 1 and 5 eggs on the thorax. 45.9% of CEW bearing eggs died. The number of tachinid eggs per host was unrelated to host body mass, but both the number of tachinid eggs and caterpillar body mass influenced CEW survival. Larger CEW often survived parasitism and the number of fly eggs was negatively related to survival rate. The emergence of adult flies was positively correlated with the number of eggs, but no influence of the host size was found. High mortality of CEW larvae and the parasitoids developing within them in this system suggests that secondary chemicals (or poor nutrition) of the hemp diet may be negatively affecting host and parasitoid development and influencing their interactions

A characteristic oxygen abundance gradient in galaxy disks unveiled with CALIFA

The authors thank the Viabilidad, Diseño, Acceso y Mejorafunding program, ICTS-2009-10, for supporting the initial development of this project. S.F.S., F.F.R.O. and D. Mast thank the Plan Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo funding programs, AYA2010-22111-C03-03 and AYA2010-10904E, of the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, for their support for this project. S.F.S thanks the Ramón y Cajal project RyC-2011-07590 of the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, for their support for this project. S.F.S. and B.J. acknowledge support from the grants No. M100031241 and M100031201 of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (ASCR Internal support program of international cooperation projects – PIPPMS) and by the Czech Republic program for the long-term development of the research institution No. RVO67985815. R.G.D., E.P., and R.G.B. thank the Plan Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo funding program AYA2010-15081. F.F.R.O. acknowledges the Mexican National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) for financial support under the program Estancias Posdoctorales y Sabáticas al Extranjero para la Consolidación de Grupos de Investigación, 2010-2012. I.M. and J.P. acknowledge financial support from the Spanish grant AYA2010-15169 and Junta de Andalucía TIC114 and Excellence Project P08-TIC-03531. D.M. and A.M.-I. are supported by the Spanish Research Council within the program JAE-Doc, Junta para la Ampliación de Estudios, cofunded by the FSE. R.A. Marino was also funded by the Spanish program of the International Campus of Excellence Moncloa (CEI). J.I.-P., J.M.V., A.M.-I., and C.K. have been partially funded by the projects AYA2010-21887 from the Spanish PNAYA, CSD2006 – 00070 “1st Science with GTC” from the CONSOLIDER 2010 program of the Spanish MICINN, and TIC114 Galaxias y Cosmología of the Junta de Andalucía (Spain). M.A.P.T. acknowledges support by the Spanish MICINN through grant AYA2012-38491-C02-02 and by the Autonomic Government of Andalusia through grants P08-TIC-4075 and TIC-126. CJW acknowledges support through the Marie Curie Career Integration Grant 303912. Polychronis Papaderos is supported by a Ciencia 2008 contract, funded by FCT/MCTES (Portugal) and POPH/FSE (EC). Jean Michel Gomes is supported by a grant SFRH/BPD/66958/2009 from FCT (Portugal).We present the largest and most homogeneous catalog of H II regions and associations compiled so far. The catalog comprises more than 7000 ionized regions, extracted from 306 galaxies observed by the CALIFA survey. We describe the procedures used to detect, select, and analyze the spectroscopic properties of these ionized regions. In the current study we focus on characterizing of the radial gradient of the oxygen abundance in the ionized gas, based on the study of the deprojected distribution of H II regions. We found that all galaxies without clear evidence of an interaction present a common gradient in the oxygen abundance, with a characteristic slope of aO/H = -0.1 dex/re between 0.3 and 2 disk effective radii (re), and a scatter compatible with random fluctuations around this value, when the gradient is normalized to the disk effective radius. The slope is independent of morphology, the incidence of bars, absolute magnitude, or mass. Only those galaxies with evidence of interactions and/or clear merging systems present a significantly shallower gradient, consistent with previous results. The majority of the 94 galaxies with H II regions detected beyond two disk effective radii present a flattening in the oxygen abundance. The flattening is statistically significant. We cannot provide a conclusive answer regarding the origin of this flattening. However, our results indicate that its origin is most probably related to the secular evolution of galaxies. Finally, we find a drop/truncation of the oxygen abundance in the inner regions for 26 of the galaxies. All of them are non-interacting, mostly unbarred Sb/Sbc galaxies. This feature is associated with a central star-forming ring, which suggests that both features are produced by radial gas flows induced by resonance processes. Our result suggests that galaxy disks grow inside-out, with metal enrichment driven by the local star formation history and with a small variation galaxy-by-galaxy. At a certain galactocentric distance, the oxygen abundance seems to be correlated well with the stellar mass density and total stellar mass of the galaxies, independently of other properties of the galaxies. Other processes, such as radial mixing and inflows/outflows seem to have a limited effect on shaping of the radial distribution of oxygen abundances, although they are not ruled out.Peer reviewe