Perceptions of Age Discrimination, Organizational Justice, and Employee Attitudes on Intentions to Leave in the Engineering Industry

The U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (2006) reported that the annual turnover rate for employees of U.S. firms rose to 41% in 2005. Employee intentions to leave among young adults are a concern in many industries where the demand for skilled employees begins to exceed the supply. This is especially true in the engineering industry, because talented and knowledgeable employees are difficult to replace. Employee turnover represents a practical dilemma for many businesses due to the loss of qualified personnel and additional recruitment and training costs. Although little is known about employee turnover intention within the engineering industry, studies have supported that perceptions of inequity are among the chief causes associated with turnover intention. Extensive examination of empirical studies has supported that young adult employee\u27s perceptions of age discrimination, organizational justice, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment may be contributing factors to their intention to leave a job. The purposes of this correlational and comparative study were to explain the relationship among demographic and work characteristics, perceived age discrimination against young adults, organizational justice, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intention among members of the Florida Engineering Society. A sample of 251 engineers associated with the Florida Engineering Society completed an online survey. Two research questions and four hypotheses were developed. Descriptive statistics, independent t-tests, Mann Whitney U test, ANOVAs with post hoc comparisons (Bonferroni test), curvilinear simple regression analyses, and hierarchical multiple regression analyses answered research questions and tested hypothesized relationships among socio-demographic and work profile characteristics, perceived age discrimination, organizational justice, employee attitudes, and intention to turnover using the Perceived Age Discrimination Scale, Organizational Justice Scale, Overall Job Satisfaction Questionnaire, Organizational Commitment Questionnaire, and the Employee Intentions to Leave Scale. Results of the psychometric characteristics of the survey instruments indicated good estimates of reliability and validity were established. All four hypotheses in this study were partially supported. Findings indicated that age was a significant predictor of age discrimination and that both variables revealed a non-linear relationship. Younger engineers (below the age of 40) perceived significantly more age discrimination than their older counterparts. Gender, race, ethnicity, social status, existence of a talent development program or succession planning program in the workplace, occupation level, organizational size, geographic location, tenure, and annual personal income were found to be explanatory variables of the dependent measures. Perceived age discrimination, organizational justice, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organization size, annual personal income, location of North Florida, and presence of a succession planning program were all found to be explanatory variables of intentions to leave. Limitations, practical implications, conclusions, and recommendations for future research are also discussed

Feasability of Preventing Encrustation of Urinary Catheters

Colonization of urinary catheters by bacteria which produce urease leads to an increase in urine pH, followed by deposition of the minerals struvite and hydroxyapatite. Adhesion of these encrusting deposits can be reduced, but not prevented, by using catheters with a smooth surface finish. Chemical methods for preventing encrustation are not completely satisfactory. A better way of preventing encrustation would be to prevent colonization of the catheter by bacteria. This might be achieved by controlled release of antimicrobial agents directly into the urine from the catheter itself. Preliminary experiments have demonstrated the feasibility of controlled release from solid silicone. However, a simpler approach is diffusion of an antimicrobial agent from a solution within the retention balloon of the catheter. Further experiments are required to determine the concentrations required and whether they are achievable in practice

A downward revision to the distance of the 1806-20 cluster and associated magnetar from Gemini near-Infrared spectroscopy

We present H- and K-band spectroscopy of OB and Wolf-Rayet (WR) members of the Milky Way cluster 1806-20 (G10.0-0.3), to obtain a revised cluster distance of relevance to the 2004 giant flare from the SGR 1806-20 magnetar. From GNIRS spectroscopy obtained with Gemini South, four candidate OB stars are confirmed as late O/early B supergiants, while we support previous mid WN and late WC classifications for two WR stars. Based upon an absolute Ks-band magnitude calibration for B supergiants and WR stars, and near-IR photometry from NIRI at Gemini North plus archival VLT/ISAAC datasets, we obtain a cluster distance modulus of 14.7+/-0.35 mag. The known stellar content of the 1806-20 cluster suggests an age of 3-5 Myr, from which theoretical isochrone fits infer a distance modulus of 14.7+/-0.7 mag. Together, our results favour a distance modulus of 14.7+/-0.4 mag (8.7^+1.8_-1.5 kpc) to the 1806-20 cluster, which is significantly lower than the nominal 15 kpc distance to the magnetar. For our preferred distance, the peak luminosity of the December 2004 giant flare is reduced by a factor of three to 7 X 10^46 erg/s, such that the contamination of BATSE short gamma ray bursts (GRB's) from giant flares of extragalactic magnetars is reduced to a few percent. We infer a magnetar progenitor mass of ~48^+20_-8 Msun, in close agreement with that obtained recently for the magnetar in Westerlund 1.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for MNRAS Letter

The trimeric organisation of photosystem I is not necessary for the iron-stress induced CP43′ protein to functionally associate with this reaction centre

AbstractA mutant of Synechocystis PCC 6803 lacking the PsaL subunit of photosystem I (PSI) has been grown in iron-deficient media to induce the expression of the isiA gene, which encodes the chlorophyll a-binding protein CP43′. The purpose of this was to establish whether or not the formation of an 18-mer CP43′-PSI supercomplex reported for wild type Synechocystis cells [Nature 412 (2001) 743–745] was dependent on the trimeric conformation of the cyanobacterial PSI reaction centre. Structural characterisation by electron microscopy and single particle image analysis has revealed that the PsaL-mutant does not form trimers of PSI. However, despite this, CP43′ was found to associate with the PSI monomer. The PSI monomer bound six or seven copies of CP43′ along one edge of the PSI monomer and can be compared with one segment of the trimeric 18-mer CP43′-PSI supercomplex. We therefore conclude that the trimeric nature of cyanobacterial PSI is not required for the assembly of the CP43′ antenna system under iron-deficient conditions

Contamination of short GRBs by giant magnetar flares: significance of downwards revision in distance to SGR 1806-20

We highlight how the downward revision in the distance to the star cluster associated with SGR1806-20 by Bibby et al. reconciles the apparent low contamination of BATSE short GRBs by intense flares from extragalactic magnetars without recourse to modifying the frequency of one such flare per 30 years per Milky Way galaxy. We also discuss the variety in progenitor initial masses of magnetars based upon cluster ages, ranging from ~50 Msun for SGR 1806-20 and 1E 1647-455 in Westerlund 1 to ~15 Msun for SGR 1900+14 and presumably 1E 1841-045 if it originated from one of the massive RSG clusters #2 or #3

Contacting the spirits of the dead: paranormal belief and the teenage worldview

A number of previous studies have examined both the overall level of belief expressed by young people in the paranormal and the major demographic predictors of such belief. Building on this research tradition, the present study examines how one specific paranormal belief concerning contact with the spirits of the dead integrates with the wider teenage worldview. Data provided by 33,982 pupils age 13 to 15 years throughout England and Wales demonstrated that almost one in three young people (31%) believed that it is possible to contact the spirits of the dead. Compared with young people who did not share this belief, the young people who believed in the possibility of contacting the spirits of the dead displayed lower psychological wellbeing, higher anxiety, greater isolation, greater alienation, less positive social attitudes, and less socially conforming lifestyles. Overall, paranormal beliefs seem to be associated with a less healthy worldview, in both personal and social terms