The effects of leader microbreaks on transformational leadership behavior and follower job satisfaction: LMX as a cross-level moderator

Microbreaks have been receiving growing scholarly attention as an effective energy management strategy at work. As previous research has mostly examined microbreaks to show their within-person benefits for individuals’ well-being and task performance, this study turns to interpersonal effects of microbreaks and their boundary conditions. Integrating Affective Events Theory and the Emotion As Social Information model, the study tests the crossover effects of leaders’ microbreaks to explain how microbreaks influence not only actors themselves but also their follower. An experience sampling method was used to collect three daily surveys from 118 leader-member dyads (236 full-time employees) for five workdays (n = 511 day-level observations). Multilevel path analysis results found that on days when leaders take more morning microbreaks at work, they have higher levels of state positive affect in the afternoon, which in turn is linked to greater transformational leadership behavior (reported by follower) as well as the follower’s own job satisfaction in the afternoon. Overall, the findings suggest that leaders’ microbreaks can be positive affective events for both leader and follower. Importantly, leader-member exchange (LMX) moderated (strengthened) the indirect effects of leader microbreaks on the two dependent variables via the leader’s increased positive affect. The indirect effects of leader microbreaks on transformational leadership behavior and follower job satisfaction via the leader’s positive affect, were much stronger for employees in high LMX than employees in low LMX. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed

Wastewater surveillance for bacterial targets: current challenges and future goals

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) expanded rapidly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the public health emergency has ended, researchers and practitioners are looking to shift the focus of existing wastewater surveillance programs to other targets, including bacteria. Bacterial targets may pose some unique challenges for WBE applications. To explore the current state of the field, the National Science Foundation-funded Research Coordination Network (RCN) on Wastewater Based Epidemiology for SARS-CoV-2 and Emerging Public Health Threats held a workshop in April 2023 to discuss the challenges and needs for wastewater bacterial surveillance. The targets and methods used in existing programs were diverse, with twelve differentdifferentdifferenttargets and nine different methods listed. Discussions during the workshop highlighted the challenges in adapting existing programs and identified research gaps in four key areas: choosing new targets, relating bacterial wastewater data to human disease incidence and prevalence, developing methods, and normalizing results. To help with these challenges and research gaps, the authors identified steps the larger community can take to improve bacteria wastewater surveillance. This includes developing data reporting standards and method optimization and validation for bacterial programs. Additionally, more work is needed to understand shedding patterns for potential bacterial targets to better relate wastewater data to human infections. Wastewater surveillance for bacteria can help provide insight into the underlying prevalence in communities, but much work is needed to establish these methods

The effects of leader microbreaks on transformational leadership behavior and follower job satisfaction: LMX as a cross-level moderator

Microbreaks have been receiving growing scholarly attention as an effective energy management strategy at work. As previous research has mostly examined microbreaks to show their within-person benefits for individuals’ well-being and task performance, this study turns to interpersonal effects of microbreaks and their boundary conditions. Integrating Affective Events Theory and the Emotion As Social Information model, the study tests the crossover effects of leaders’ microbreaks to explain how microbreaks influence not only actors themselves but also their follower. An experience sampling method was used to collect three daily surveys from 118 leader-member dyads (236 full-time employees) for five workdays (n = 511 day-level observations). Multilevel path analysis results found that on days when leaders take more morning microbreaks at work, they have higher levels of state positive affect in the afternoon, which in turn is linked to greater transformational leadership behavior (reported by follower) as well as the follower’s own job satisfaction in the afternoon. Overall, the findings suggest that leaders’ microbreaks can be positive affective events for both leader and follower. Importantly, leader-member exchange (LMX) moderated (strengthened) the indirect effects of leader microbreaks on the two dependent variables via the leader’s increased positive affect. The indirect effects of leader microbreaks on transformational leadership behavior and follower job satisfaction via the leader’s positive affect, were much stronger for employees in high LMX than employees in low LMX. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.LimitedAuthor requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD syste

Are your vitals ok? Revitalizing vitality of nurses through relational caring for patients

10.3390/healthcare9010046Healthcare (Switzerland)914

The effectiveness of three strategies to reduce the influence of bias in evaluations of female leaders

This study tests the effectiveness of three strategies [structured free recall (SFR), source monitoring, and error management] to reduce the impact of raters\u27 stereotypes on evaluations of female leaders. Results reveal several three-way interactions indicating that that the strategies became more effective as raters\u27 implicit bias decreased. Findings show that the source monitoring and SFR methods were more effective than the error management strategy. The results have implications for improving opportunities for women to advance through the leadership ranks. This study adds to the literature by comparing multiple strategies to reduce the influence of individuals\u27 biases in evaluations of women in leadership positions and revealing the importance of considering raters\u27 implicit gender biases in evaluations

Effect of SARS-CoV-2 digital droplet RT-PCR assay sensitivity on COVID-19 wastewater based epidemiology

We developed and implemented a framework for examining how molecular assay sensitivity for a viral RNA genome target affects its utility for wastewater-based epidemiology. We applied this framework to digital droplet RT-PCR measurements of SARS-CoV-2 and Pepper Mild Mottle Virus genes in wastewater. Measurements were made using 10 replicate wells which allowed for high assay sensitivity, and therefore enabled detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA even when COVID-19 incidence rates were relatively low (~10−5). We then used a computational downsampling approach to determine how using fewer replicate wells to measure the wastewater concentration reduced assay sensitivity and how the resultant reduction affected the ability to detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA at various COVID-19 incidence rates. When percent of positive droplets was between 0.024% and 0.5% (as was the case for SARS-CoV-2 genes during the Delta surge), measurements obtained with 3 or more wells were similar to those obtained using 10. When percent of positive droplets was less than 0.024% (as was the case prior to the Delta surge), then 6 or more wells were needed to obtain similar results as those obtained using 10 wells. When COVID-19 incidence rate is low (~ 10−5), as it was before the Delta surge and SARS-CoV-2 gene concentrations are <104 cp/g, using 6 wells will yield a detectable concentration 90% of the time. Overall, results support an adaptive approach where assay sensitivity is increased by running 6 or more wells during periods of low SARS-CoV-2 gene concentrations, and 3 or more wells during periods of high SARS-CoV-2 gene concentrations

Lossless Immunocytochemistry Based on Large-Scale Porous Hydrogel Pellicle for Accurate Rare Cell Analysis

Rare cells, such as circulating tumor cells or circulating fetal cells, provide important information for the diagnosis and prognosis of cancer and prenatal diagnosis. Since undercounting only a few cells can lead to significant misdiagnosis and incorrect decisions in subsequent treatment, it is crucial to minimize cell loss, particularly for rare cells. Moreover, the morphological and genetic information on cells should be preserved as intact as possible for downstream analysis. The conventional immunocytochemistry (ICC), however, fails to meet these requirements, causing unexpected cell loss and deformation of the cell organelles which may mislead the classification of benign and malignant cells. In this study, a novel ICC technique for preparing lossless cellular specimens was developed to improve the diagnostic accuracy of rare cell analysis and analyze intact cellular morphology. To this end, a robust and reproducible porous hydrogel pellicle was developed. This hydrogel encapsulates cells to minimize cell loss from the repeated exchange of reagents and prevent cell deformation. The soft hydrogel pellicle allows stable and intact cell picking for further downstream analysis, which is difficult with conventional ICC methods that permanently immobilize cells. The lossless ICC platform will pave the way for robust and precise rare cell analysis toward clinical practice. © 2023 American Chemical Society.FALS

Wireless portable bioelectronic nose device for multiplex monitoring toward food freshness/spoilage

© 2022 Elsevier B.V.Monitoring food freshness/spoilage is important to ensure food quality and safety. Current methods of food quality monitoring are mostly time-consuming and labor intensive processes that require massive analytical equipment. In this study, we developed a portable bioelectronic nose (BE-nose) integrated with trace amine-associated receptor (TAAR) nanodiscs (NDs), allowing food quality monitoring via the detection of food spoilage indicators, including the biogenic amines cadaverine (CV) and putrescine (PT). The olfactory receptors TAAR13c and TAAR13d, which have specific affinities for CV and PT, were produced and successfully reconstituted in ND structures. TAAR13 NDs BE-nose-based side-gated field-effect transistor (SG-FET) system was constructed by utilizing a graphene micropattern (GM) into which two types of olfactory NDs (TAAR13c ND and TAAR13d ND) were introduced, and this system showed ultrahigh sensitivity for a limit of detection (LOD) of 1 fM for CV and PT. Moreover, the binding affinities between the TAAR13 NDs and the indicators were confirmed by a tryptophan fluorescence quenching assay and biosimulations, in which the specific binding site was confirmed. Gas-phase indicators were detected by the TAAR13 NDs BE-nose platform, and the LODs for CV and PT were confirmed to be 26.48 and 7.29 ppb, respectively. In addition, TAAR13 NDs BE-nose was fabricated with commercial gas sensors as a portable platform for the measurement of NH3 and H2S, multiplexed monitoring was achieved with similar performance, and the change ratio of the indicators was observed in a real sample. The integration of commercial gas sensors on a BE-nose enhanced the accuracy and reliability for the quality monitoring of real food samples. These results indicate that the portable TAAR13 NDs BE-nose can be used to monitor CV and PT over a wide range of concentrations, therefore, the electronic nose platform can be utilized for monitoring the freshness/spoilage step in various foods.N

Time series of SARS-CoV-2 N gene concentration in wastewater solids.

(Top to bottom) X = 1, 3, 6, for wastewater SARS-CoV-2 gene concentration (cp/g dry weight) and 7 day centered smoothed average laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 incidence rate for each of the four POTWs from June 1, 2021 to August 31, 2021. Note that the SARS-CoV-2 N gene concentrations are displayed in log10-scale format for ease of visualization. Each wastewater data point represents median SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentration for a single sample obtained from 1000 simulations; for X = 10, each data point is the concentration obtained by merging 10 wells. Samples that resulted in ND were substituted with zero. A figure showing all possible numbers of merged wells is included in the SI (Fig D in S3 Text).</p

Example output of simulation results to calculate the final concentration in wastewater solids.

(Top) SARS-CoV-2 N gene in June 1, 2021 sample during low COVID-19 incidence, (middle) SARS-CoV-2 N gene in August 31, 2021 sample during high COVID-19 incidence, and (bottom) for PMMoV in June 6, 2021 sample. For X = 1–9, the circle in the box represents the median, and the top and bottom of the box represent 75th and 25th percentile, respectively. Any X that resulted in ND in all simulations are marked with an unfilled circle. For X = 10, the circle in the red box represents the software reported concentration from merging all ten wells, and the top and bottom of the box represent upper and lower confidence intervals, respectively, from 68% total error as given by the instrument software, which includes errors associated with the Poisson distribution and variability among replicate wells. Percentage of positive droplets in 10 wells is shown in boxes within each plot.</p