INVESTIGATION OF WORK-LIFE BALANCE PRACTICES AS MODERATOR BETWEEN THE RELATIONSHIP OF WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT AND SATISFACTION AMONG FACULTY STAFF OF OMAN

In the current competitive academic environment, work-family conflict among faculty members is very common. The higher educational institutes adopt various policies and practices to enable staff to overcome such work-family conflict. One common strategy is work-life balance practices (WLB). In the present study, the effects of work-family conflict and its employee outcomes are investigated with moderating role of WLB. By design, the study is cross-sectional and survey-based. The sampling method is used to collect data from selected HEI staff in Oman (n=138). The analysis is based on two stages including Confirmatory Factor Analysis for establishing reliability and validity of the measures involved; and path analysis for hypotheses testing. The key findings are that work-family conflict exert a negative and significant influence on satisfaction towards family life (Beta=-.214, P<.05); and satisfaction towards work-life (Beta=-.237, P<.05). Furthermore, WLB positively influences satisfaction towards family life (Beta=.323, P<.05); and satisfaction towards work-life (Beta=.275, P<.05). Additionally, moderation analysis shows that WLB significantly moderate the work-family conflict and satisfaction relationship. Based on these findings, we conclude that WLB is important for faculty staff and must be offered.  Keywords: Work-Life Balance, Family, Work, Conflict, Faculty, Higher Education, Oman

THE EFFECTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE ON EMPLOYEE COUNTER WORK BEHAVIOR MEDIATED BY EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT; A CASE OF MANUFACTURING SECTOR EMPLOYEES

Employee counterwork behavior (CWB) is a negative behavior exerted by employees. Every year, organizations around the world suffer financially and operationally due to the employee involvement in CWB. In present study, we investigate this issue by using the organizational justice and employee engagement perspective. The study aims to test the effects of organizational justice on employee CWB and employee engagement. Additionally, we tested if employee engagement function as a mediator in organizational justice and employee CWB relationship. The study utilized quantitative and cross-sectional approach. Data was collected from manufacturing sector staff (n=212). Validity and reliability was established using the Confirmatory Factor Analysis performed by AMOS. Path analysis was performed for hypotheses testing. Our key findings are that organizational justice dimensions including distributive justice (Beta=-.086, P<.05); procedural justice (Beta=-.084, P<.05); and interactional justice (Beta=-.075, P<.05) has negative and significant effects on employee CWB. We also found that organizational justice dimensions including procedural justice (Beta=.073, P<.05); and interactional justice (Beta=.075, P<.05) has positive and significant effects on employee engagement while result for distributive justice turned out to be insignificant. We also found positive but insignificant effects of employee engagement on CWB (Beta=.032, P>.05). Additionally, we tested the employee engagement as mediator and found that employee engagement significantly mediates between distributive and procedural justice and employee CWB relationship. Based on these findings, we concluded that employee involvement in CWB is not only influenced by personality factors but also influenced by organizational related factors. Keywords: Justice, Engagement, Counter Work Behavior, Deviance, Manufacturing, Oman

DESIGN, OPTIMIZATION, FORMULATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF ATORVASTATIN NANOCRYSTALS

The most tedious challenge currently faced by formulation scientists is that of formulation of poorly water-soluble drug moieties. According to literature reports, more than 40% of the drugs being introduced into the formulation research pipeline have poor water solubility. Developments of the drug into nanosized formulations have helped overcome the bioavailability problems of many a poorly water soluble drugs belonging to BCS Class II and IV. One category of such nanosized formulations comprise of nanoscaled drug particles stabilized by a suitable stabilizer or surfactant, referred to as “Nanocrystals.”Attempts were made to improve the solubility of atorvastatin so as to improve itsoral bioavailability.A very important issue in nanocrystal formulation is the choice of the stabilizers, which are required to prevent nanoparticle aggregation. Pharmaceutical excipients that can be used as stabilizers include the cellulosics, such as hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC) and hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose (HPMC), povidone (PVP K30), and pluronics (F68 and F127); as well as surfactant stabilizers which can be non-ionic, such as polysorbate (Tween 80), or anionic, such as sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) and docusate sodium (DOSS)

Quantification of myelin loss in frontal lobe white matter in vascular dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and dementia with Lewy bodies

The aim of this study was to characterize myelin loss as one of the features of white matter abnormalities across three common dementing disorders. We evaluated post-mortem brain tissue from frontal and temporal lobes from 20 vascular dementia (VaD), 19 Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and 31 dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) cases and 12 comparable age controls. Images of sections stained with conventional luxol fast blue were analysed to estimate myelin attenuation by optical density. Serial adjacent sections were then immunostained for degraded myelin basic protein (dMBP) and the mean percentage area containing dMBP (%dMBP) was determined as an indicator of myelin degeneration. We further assessed the relationship between dMBP and glutathione S-transferase (a marker of mature oligodendrocytes) immunoreactivities. Pathological diagnosis significantly affected the frontal but not temporal lobe myelin attenuation: myelin density was most reduced in VaD compared to AD and DLB, which still significantly exhibited lower myelin density compared to ageing controls. Consistent with this, the degree of myelin loss was correlated with greater %dMBP, with the highest %dMBP in VaD compared to the other groups. The %dMBP was inversely correlated with the mean size of oligodendrocytes in VaD, whereas it was positively correlated with their density in AD. A two-tier regression model analysis confirmed that the type of disorder (VaD or AD) determines the relationship between %dMBP and the size or density of oligodendrocytes across the cases. Our findings, attested by the use of three markers, suggest that myelin loss may evolve in parallel with shrunken oligodendrocytes in VaD but their increased density in AD, highlighting partially different mechanisms are associated with myelin degeneration, which could originate from hypoxic–ischaemic damage to oligodendrocytes in VaD whereas secondary to axonal degeneration in AD

Disruption of arterial perivascular drainage of amyloid-β from the brains of mice expressing the human APOE ε4 allele

Failure of elimination of amyloid-β (Aβ) from the brain and vasculature appears to be a key factor in the etiology of sporadic Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA). In addition to age, possession of an apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele is a strong risk factor for the development of sporadic AD. The present study tested the hypothesis that possession of the APOE ε4 allele is associated with disruption of perivascular drainage of Aβ from the brain and with changes in cerebrovascular basement membrane protein levels. Targeted replacement (TR) mice expressing the human APOE3 (TRE3) or APOE4 (TRE4) genes and wildtype mice received intracerebral injections of human Aβ40. Aβ40 aggregated in peri-arterial drainage pathways in TRE4 mice, but not in TRE3 or wildtype mice. The number of Aβ deposits was significantly higher in the hippocampi of TRE4 mice than in the TRE3 mice, at both 3- and 16-months of age, suggesting that clearance of Aβ was disrupted in the brains of TRE4 mice. Immunocytochemical and Western blot analysis of vascular basement membrane proteins demonstrated significantly raised levels of collagen IV in 3-month-old TRE4 mice compared with TRE3 and wild type mice. In 16-month-old mice, collagen IV and laminin levels were unchanged between wild type and TRE3 mice, but were lower in TRE4 mice. The results of this study suggest that APOE4 may increase the risk for AD through disruption and impedance of perivascular drainage of soluble Aβ from the brain. This effect may be mediated, in part, by changes in age-related expression of basement membrane proteins in the cerebral vasculature

Cerebral hypoperfusion accelerates cerebral amyloid angiopathy and promotes cortical microinfarcts

Cortical microinfarcts (CMIs) observed in brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease tend to be located close to vessels afflicted with cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA). CMIs in Alzheimer’s disease are preferentially distributed in the arterial borderzone, an area most vulnerable to hypoperfusion. However, the causal association between CAA and CMIs remains to be elucidated. This study consists of two parts: (1) an observational study using postmortem human brains (n = 31) to determine the association between CAA and CMIs, and (2) an experimental study to determine whether hypoperfusion worsens CAA and induces CMIs in a CAA mouse model. In postmortem human brains, the density of CMIs was 0.113/cm2 in mild, 0.584/cm2 in moderate, and 4.370/cm2 in severe CAA groups with a positive linear correlation (r = 0.6736, p < 0.0001). Multivariate analysis revealed that, among seven variables (age, disease, senile plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, CAA, atherosclerosis and white matter damage), only the severity of CAA was a significant multivariate predictor of CMIs (p = 0.0022). Consistent with the data from human brains, CAA model mice following chronic cerebral hypoperfusion due to bilateral common carotid artery stenosis induced with 0.18-mm diameter microcoils showed accelerated deposition of leptomeningeal amyloid β (Aβ) with a subset of them developing microinfarcts. In contrast, the CAA mice without hypoperfusion exhibited very few leptomeningeal Aβ depositions and no microinfarcts by 32 weeks of age. Following 12 weeks of hypoperfusion, cerebral blood flow decreased by 26% in CAA mice and by 15% in wild-type mice, suggesting impaired microvascular function due to perivascular Aβ accumulation after hypoperfusion. Our results suggest that cerebral hypoperfusion accelerates CAA, and thus promotes CMIs

The effects of timing of fine needle aspiration biopsies on gene expression profiles in breast cancers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>DNA microarray analysis has great potential to become an important clinical tool to individualize prognostication and treatment for breast cancer patients. However, with any emerging technology, there are many variables one must consider before bringing the technology to the bedside. There are already concerted efforts to standardize protocols and to improve reproducibility of DNA microarray. Our study examines one variable that is often overlooked, the timing of tissue acquisition, which may have a significant impact on the outcomes of DNA microarray analyses especially in studies that compare microarray data based on biospecimens taken <it>in vivo </it>and <it>ex vivo</it>.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>From 16 patients, we obtained paired fine needle aspiration biopsies (FNABs) of breast cancers taken before (PRE) and after (POST) their surgeries and compared the microarray data to determine the genes that were differentially expressed between the FNABs taken at the two time points. qRT-PCR was used to validate our findings. To examine effects of longer exposure to hypoxia on gene expression, we also compared the gene expression profiles of 10 breast cancers from clinical tissue bank.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using hierarchical clustering analysis, 12 genes were found to be differentially expressed between the FNABs taken before and after surgical removal. Remarkably, most of the genes were linked to FOS in an early hypoxia pathway. The gene expression of FOS also increased with longer exposure to hypoxia.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our study demonstrated that the timing of fine needle aspiration biopsies can be a confounding factor in microarray data analyses in breast cancer. We have shown that FOS-related genes, which have been implicated in early hypoxia as well as the development of breast cancers, were differentially expressed before and after surgery. Therefore, it is important that future studies take timing of tissue acquisition into account.</p

Acute Pain and a Motivational Pathway in Adult Rats: Influence of Early Life Pain Experience

The importance of neonatal experience upon behaviour in later life is increasingly recognised. The overlap between pain and reward pathways led us to hypothesise that neonatal pain experience influences reward-related pathways and behaviours in adulthood

Examining the role of three sets of innovation attributes for determining adoption of the interbank mobile payment service

The interbank mobile payment service (IMPS) is a very recent technology in India that serves the very critical purpose of a mobile wallet. To account for the adoption and use of IMPS by the Indian consumers, this study seeks to compare three competing sets of attributes borrowed from three recognized pieces of work in the area of innovations adoption. This study aims to examine which of the three sets of attributes better predicts the adoption of IMPS in an Indian context. The research model is empirically tested and validated against the data gathered from 323 respondents from different cities in India. The findings are analysed using the SPSS analysis tool, which are then discussed to derive the key conclusions from this study. The research implications are stated, limitations listed and suggestions for future research on this technology are then finally made