Speaking up about workplace safety: An experimental study on safety leadership

In this study, we test whether dierent types of safety leadership styles predict dierent employees\u2019 change-oriented discretionary communications about safety (i.e., safety voice) after controlling for proactive personality disposition to improve organizational sustainability. Building upon a multidimensional model of safety voice, which attempts to conceptualize dierent ways in which employees make suggestions about safety procedures, we developed four realistic scenarios in which we manipulated the supervisor\u2019s safety leadership style, including: (1) transformational safety leadership, (2) transactional safety leadership, (3) passive safety leadership, and (4) control group (i.e., no leadership at all). We randomly assigned 103 participants to two of four scenarios and measured four facets of safety voice and proactive personality dispositions. The findings showed that after controlling for the respondents\u2019 proactive personality, transformative safety leadership predicted promotive safety voice, transactional safety leadership predicted preventive safety voice, and passive safety leadership predicted hostile safety voice. These findings have a number of implications for our understanding of safety leadership and employees\u2019 safety communications

CumuloNimbo: Una plataforma como servicio con procesamiento transaccional altamente escalable.

El modelo de computaci¿on en la nube (cloud computing) ha ganado mucha popularidad en los últimos años, prueba de ello es la cantidad de productos que distintas empresas han lanzado para ofrecer software, capacidad de procesamiento y servicios en la nube. Para una empresa el mover sus aplicaciones a la nube, con el fin de garantizar disponibilidad y escalabilidad de las mismas y un ahorro de costes, no es una tarea fácil. El principal problema es que las aplicaciones tienen que ser rediseñadas porque las plataformas de computaci¿on en la nube presentan restricciones que no tienen los entornos tradicionales. En este artículo presentamos CumuloNimbo, una plataforma para computación en la nube que permite la ejecución y migración de manera transparente de aplicaciones multi-capa en la nube. Una de las principales características de CumuloNimbo es la gestión de transacciones altamente escalable y coherente. El artículo describe la arquitectura del sistema, así como una evaluaci¿on de la escalabilidad del mismo

Work-related stress mediate the relationship between safety climate and safety performance.

During the last few years the approach to prevention of injury has focused more on the human factor, highlighting the important role that work-related stress, safety climate and safety culture play in preventing work accidents (Fogarty, 2004). The main aim of the present study was to test Fogarty\u2019s (2004) proposition that the link between safety climate and errors is mediated by psychological health and that psychological stress has an important role as being among the immediate causes of accidents. For these reasons safety climate, safety performance and work-related stress were assessed in 98 metal and mechanical workers employed in two different companies in the north-east of Italy. The validated Integrated Organizational Safety Climate Questionnaire was used to assess three safety climate measures (Organizational, Supervisor and Co-worker). Each item on each measure has a 7-point scale that ranges from 1 = never to 7 = always. The Italian version of the HSE Management Standards Indicator Tool was used to asses work related stress. Each item has a 5-point scale that ranges from 1 = never to 5 = always. A Structural equation model showed that work related stress seemed to mediate the relationship between safety climate and safety performance. More data must to be collected to confirm the model. The results suggest the importance for management to monitor both safety climate and individual health variables to avoid accidents and errors

A multi-resource load balancing algorithm for cloud cache systems

With the advent of cloud computing model, distributed caches have become the cornerstone for building scalable applications. Popular systems like Facebook [1] or Twitter use Memcached [5], a highly scalable distributed object cache, to speed up applications by avoiding database accesses. Distributed object caches assign objects to cache instances based on a hashing function, and objects are not moved from a cache instance to another unless more instances are added to the cache and objects are redistributed. This may lead to situations where some cache instances are overloaded when some of the objects they store are frequently accessed, while other cache instances are less frequently used. In this paper we propose a multi-resource load balancing algorithm for distributed cache systems. The algorithm aims at balancing both CPU and Memory resources among cache instances by redistributing stored data. Considering the possible conflict of balancing multiple resources at the same time, we give CPU and Memory resources weighted priorities based on the runtime load distributions. A scarcer resource is given a higher weight than a less scarce resource when load balancing. The system imbalance degree is evaluated based on monitoring information, and the utility load of a node, a unit for resource consumption. Besides, since continuous rebalance of the system may affect the QoS of applications utilizing the cache system, our data selection policy ensures that each data migration minimizes the system imbalance degree and hence, the total reconfiguration cost can be minimized. An extensive simulation is conducted to compare our policy with other policies. Our policy shows a significant improvement in time efficiency and decrease in reconfiguration cost

CumuloNimbo: A highly-scalable transaction processing platform as a service.

One of the main challenges facing next generation Cloud platform services is the need to simultaneously achieve ease of programming, consistency, and high scalability. Big Data applications have so far focused on batch processing. The next step for Big Data is to move to the online world. This shift will raise the requirements for transactional guarantees. CumuloNimbo is a new EC-funded project led by Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) that addresses these issues via a highly scalable multi-tier transactional platform as a service (PaaS) that bridges the gap between OLTP and Big Data applications

The challenge of learning to program: motivation and achievement emotions in an extreme apprenticeship experience

The importance of the education in informatics, also in non-vocational curricula, was recognized in the Italian school system many years ago. The introduction of the new discipline in a complex and articulated educational organization is still a work in development and its implementation may differ a lot across schools. Hence, computing background of bachelor students is really diverse. The teacher in this situation has to manage very different levels of skills and students often have to cope with failures and frustration. So, also motivation and emotions could have a role in determining performance. In this work, we present an early stage analysis of the connection between motivation, emotions and performance in initial learning of programming for bachelor students in Applied Mathematics in Verona. Performance in programming correlated positively with believes on control and negatively with anger and hopelessness. This finding supports the relevance of intervention programs promoting efficient motivational strategies and a positive emotional climate during learning of programming

Is the pain just physical? The role of psychological distress, quality of life, and autistic traits in ehlers–danlos syndrome, an internet-based survey in italy

Background: Ehlers–Danlos syndromes (EDS) have been associated with psychological distress, comorbid psychiatric disorders, and worsening in quality of life (QoL). Among the neurodevelopmental disorders, autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have shown the highest rates of co-occurrence with EDS. The reasons for these associations are unknown and a possible role of pain in increasing the risk of psychiatric disorders in EDS has been suggested. However, a detailed picture of an Italian EDS sample is still lacking. Methods: We conducted a web-based survey in a third level center for the diagnosis of EDS in northern Italy, to investigate psychological distress, QoL, and the presence of autistic traits. Furthermore, we correlated the psychometric data with some clinical variables. Results: We observed a high rate of psychological distress with 91% of the responders at high risk of common mental disorders, low QoL, and high prevalence of autistic traits in EDS patients. Specifically, patients lacking a specific genetic test, diagnosed as suspects of EDS appeared to be at greater risk and reported worse psychological QoL. Pain was significantly associated with both psychological distress and worse QoL. Conclusions: Our findings support the need of further research and of a multi-disciplinary approach to EDS including psychological and psychiatric liaison

Substrate-dependent modulation of the enzymatic catalytic activity: Reduction of nitrate, chlorate and perchlorate by respiratory nitrate reductase from Marinobacter hydrocarbonoclasticus 617

The respiratory nitrate reductase complex (NarGHI) from Marinobacter hydrocarbonoclasticus 617 (Mh, formerly Pseudomonas nautica 617) catalyzes the reduction of nitrate to nitrite. This reaction is the first step of the denitrification pathway and is coupled to the quinone pool oxidation and proton translocation to the periplasm, which generates the proton motive force needed for ATP synthesis. The Mh NarGH water-soluble heterodimer has been purified and the kinetic and redox properties have been studied through in-solution enzyme kinetics, protein film voltammetry and spectropotentiometric redox titration. The kinetic parameters of Mh NarGH toward substrates and inhibitors are consistent with those reported for other respiratory nitrate reductases. Protein film voltammetry showed that at least two catalytically distinct forms of the enzyme, which depend on the applied potential, are responsible for substrate reduction. These two forms are affected differentially by the oxidizing substrate, as well as by pH and inhibitors. A new model for the potential dependence of the catalytic efficiency of Nars is proposed.Fil: Marangon, Jacopo. Universidade Nova de Lisboa; PortugalFil: Paes De Sousa, Patrícia M.. Universidade Nova de Lisboa; PortugalFil: Moura, Isabel. Universidade Nova de Lisboa; PortugalFil: Brondino, Carlos Dante. Universidad Nacional del Litoral. Facultad de Bioquímica y Ciencias Biológicas. Departamento de Física; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe; ArgentinaFil: Moura, José J. G.. Universidade Nova de Lisboa; PortugalFil: González, Pablo J.. Universidade Nova de Lisboa; Portuga

Efficacy of IV Immunoglobulins on Psychiatric Symptoms: A Case Report

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a fairly common psychiatric illness with a prevalence between 1.8% and 2% in the general population..

The mechanism of formate oxidation by metal-dependent formate dehydrogenases

J Biol Inorg Chem (2011) 16:1255–1268 DOI 10.1007/s00775-011-0813-8Metal-dependent formate dehydrogenases (Fdh) from prokaryotic organisms are members of the dimethyl sulfoxide reductase family of mononuclear molybdenum-containing and tungsten-containing enzymes. Fdhs catalyze the oxidation of the formate anion to carbon dioxide in a redox reaction that involves the transfer of two electrons from the substrate to the active site. The active site in the oxidized state comprises a hexacoordinated molybdenum or tungsten ion in a distorted trigonal prismatic geometry. Using this structural model, we calculated the catalytic mechanism of Fdh through density functional theory tools. The simulated mechanism was correlated with the experimental kinetic properties of three different Fdhs isolated from three different Desulfovibrio species. Our studies indicate that the C–H bond break is an event involved in the rate-limiting step of the catalytic cycle. The role in catalysis of conserved amino acid residues involved in metal coordination and near the metal active site is discussed on the basis of experimental and theoretical results