The relationship between hotel managers’ communication styles and subordinate employee attitudes and personal relationships

Assertiveness and responsiveness are two qualities managers must possess to maintain an organizational work environment with employees. Using McCroskey and Richmond’s Assertiveness-Responsiveness test, subordinate employees’ perceptions of their managers’ communication styles were assessed to determine if there was any relationship with employee perceptions and personal relationships with managers. Subordinate employees at the Holiday Inn Rochester Airport and the RIT Inn and Conference Center served as a convenience sample. The results show that overall, employees like more responsive managers. Although statistically nonsignificant, assertiveness was positively related to having a good relationship. The results, overall, indicate that the assertiveness and responsiveness relate to one another in the fact that they do not overall affect the manager-subordinate personal relationship

Basolateral carbonic anhydrase IV in the proximal tubule is a glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored protein

Carbonic anhydrase (CA) IV facilitates HCO3 reabsorption in the renal proximal tubule by catalyzing the reversible hydration of CO2. CAIV is tethered to cell membranes via a glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) lipid anchor. As there is basolateral as well as apical CAIV staining in proximal tubule, the molecular identity of basolateral CAIV was examined. Biotinylation of confluent monolayers of rat inner medullary collecting duct cells stably transfected with rabbit CAIV showed apical and basolateral CAIV, and in the cell transfectants expressing high levels of CAIV, a transmembrane form was targeted to the basolateral membrane. Basolateral expression of CAIV (∼46kDa) was confirmed in normal kidney tissue by Western blotting of vesicle fractions enriched for basolateral membranes by Percoll density fractionation. We examined the mode of membrane linkage of basolaterally expressed CAIV in the kidney cortex. CAIV detected in basolateral or apical membrane vesicles exhibited similar molecular size by sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis following deglycosylation, and was equally sensitive to phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C digestion, indicating that CAIV is expressed on the basolateral membrane as a GPI-anchored protein. Half of the hydratase activity of basolateral vesicles was resistant to SDS denaturation, compatible with being CAIV. Thus, GPI-anchored CAIV resides in the basolateral membrane of proximal tubule epithelia where it may facilitate HCO3 reabsorption via association with kNBC1

Dopamine Injections to the Midbrain Periaqueductal Gray Inhibit Vocal-Motor Production in a Teleost Fish

Across vertebrates, the midbrain periaqueductal gray (PAG) plays a critical role in social and vocal behavior. Dopaminergic neurotransmission also modulates these behaviors, and dopaminergic innervation of the PAG has been well documented. Nonetheless, the potential role of dopamine in shaping vocal production at the level of the PAG is not well understood. Here, we tested the hypothesis that dopamine modulates vocal production in the PAG, using a well-characterized vertebrate model system for the study of vocal communication, the plainfin midshipman fish, Porichthys notatus. We found that focal dopamine injections to the midshipman PAG rapidly and reversibly inhibited vocal production triggered by stimulation of known vocal-motor structures in the preoptic area / anterior hypothalamus. While dopamine inhibited vocal-motor output, it did not alter behaviorally-relevant parameters of this output, such as vocalization duration and frequency. Dopamine-induced inhibition of vocal production was prevented by the combined blockade of D1- and D2-like receptors but was unaffected by isolated blockade of either D1-receptors or D2-receptors. Our results suggest dopamine neuromodulation in the midshipman PAG may inhibit natural vocal behavior, in courtship and/or agonistic social contexts

SNSF Career Tracker Cohorts (CTC) Newsletter 2022/2

As in our previous newsletter, we explore our first longitudinal dataset to give insights on working conditions and changes of professional values in the last years. The data include the first four waves (2018–2021) of the CTC-18 cohort, which consists of people who applied for Early Postdoc.Mobility or Postdoc.Mobility in fall 201

Ca2+ Entry Units in a Superfast Fish Muscle

Over the past two decades, mounting evidence has demonstrated that a mechanism known as store-operated Ca2+ entry (SOCE) plays a crucial role in sustaining skeletal muscle contractility by facilitating Ca2+ influx from the extracellular space during sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) Ca2+ depletion. We recently demonstrated that, in exercised fast-twitch muscle from mice, the incidence of Ca2+ entry units (CEUs), newly described intracellular junctions between dead-end longitudinal transverse tubular (T-tubule) extensions and stacks of sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) flat cisternae, strictly correlate with both the capability of fibers to maintain contractions during fatigue and enhanced Ca2+ influx via SOCE. Here, we tested the broader relevance of this result across vertebrates by searching for the presence of CEUs in the vocal muscles of a teleost fish adapted for extended, high-frequency activity. Specifically, we examined active vs. inactive superfast sonic muscles of plainfin midshipman (Porichthys notatus). Interestingly, muscles from actively humming territorial males had a much higher incidence of CEU SR stacks relative to territorial males that were not actively vocalizing, strengthening the concept that assembly of these structures is dynamic and use-dependent, as recently described in exercised muscles from mice. Our results support the hypothesis that CEUs represent a conserved mechanism, across vertebrates, for enabling high levels of repetitive muscle activity, and also provide new insights into the adaptive mechanisms underlying the unique properties of superfast midshipman sonic muscles

SNSF Career Tracker Cohorts (CTC) Newsletter 2022/1

This newsletter shows the first results of a longitudinal analysis of the CTC-18 cohort, which consists of people who applied for Early Postdoc.Mobility and Postdoc.Mobility in fall 2018. The following results are preliminary as the data preparation has not been completed ye