Measuring Political Perceptions in Organizations: Assessing Reliability and Validity of POPS across Cultures

This study addresses the reliability and validity across cultures of the perceptions of organizational politics scale (POPS) developed by Kacmar and Carlson (1997). First, POPS is discussed generally by tracing the development of previous scales and how POPS fits into that stream of research. Subsequently, reliability and validity are addressed from across cultural settings. Reliability of POPS is assessed using Cronbach’s alpha; validity is discussed by considering discriminate and concurrent validities. The general finding of this study is that POPS is consistently reliable across cultural settings and consistently demonstrates strong correlations with criterion variables related to POPS from within the nomological network. However, concerns about the discriminate validity of POPS in relation to perceptions of organizational support and organizational justice are shown to exist across cultural settings. In conclusion, suggestions are made for ways to build a stronger case for the reliability and validity of POPS within future research

On identity: Contemporary music research in the Asia-Pacific region. Introduction

Anthropology, as the study of human societies, has always been inclusive of music in some form or another, whether simply referencing a culture’s music through evocative book titles or delving in detail into musical forms and performances themselves. Music is acknowledged as a gateway to understanding a people’s experience*in particular song, which gives voice to human expression not always possible in everyday language. From another angle, music research has increasingly engaged with anthropology and this has occurred most notably in the development of the discipline of ethnomusicology, which grew from comparative musicology, and the publication of one of its key texts, Alan Merriam’s The Anthropology of Music(1964). This issue of The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology(TAPJA) contributes with a special focus on contemporary music research in the Asia Pacific region

Island precipitation enhancement and the diurnal cycle in radiative-convective equilibrium

To understand why tropical islands are rainier than nearby ocean areas, we explore how a highly idealized island, which differs from the surrounding ocean only in heat capacity, might respond to the diurnal cycle and influence the tropical climate, especially the spatial distribution of rainfall and the thermal structure of the troposphere. We perform simulations of three-dimensional radiative-convective equilibrium with the System for Atmospheric Modeling (SAM) cloud-system-resolving model, with interactive surface temperature, where a highly idealized, low heat capacity circular island is embedded in a slab-ocean domain. The calculated precipitation rate over the island can be more than double the domain average value, with island rainfall occurring primarily in an intense, regular thunderstorm system that forms in the afternoon to early evening each day. Island size affects the magnitude of simulated island rainfall enhancement, the intensity of the convection, and the timing of the rainfall maximum relative to solar noon. A combination of dynamic and thermodynamic mechanisms leads to a monotonic enhancement of domain-averaged tropospheric temperature with increasing fraction of island surface, which may contribute to localization of ascent over the Maritime Continent and its relationship to the Walker Circulation.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant AGS 1136466)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant AGS 1136480

Vaginal epithelial dysfunction is mediated by the microbiome, metabolome, and mTOR signaling

Summary: Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is characterized by depletion of Lactobacillus and overgrowth of anaerobic and facultative bacteria, leading to increased mucosal inflammation, epithelial disruption, and poor reproductive health outcomes. However, the molecular mediators contributing to vaginal epithelial dysfunction are poorly understood. Here we utilize proteomic, transcriptomic, and metabolomic analyses to characterize biological features underlying BV in 405 African women and explore functional mechanisms in vitro. We identify five major vaginal microbiome groups: L. crispatus (21%), L. iners (18%), Lactobacillus (9%), Gardnerella (30%), and polymicrobial (22%). Using multi-omics we show that BV-associated epithelial disruption and mucosal inflammation link to the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway and associate with Gardnerella, M. mulieris, and specific metabolites including imidazole propionate. Experiments in vitro confirm that type strain G. vaginalis and M. mulieris supernatants and imidazole propionate directly affect epithelial barrier function and activation of mTOR pathways. These results find that the microbiome-mTOR axis is a central feature of epithelial dysfunction in BV