Cross-cultural comparison of mental health between Japanese and Dutch workers: Relationships with mental health shame, self-compassion, work engagement and motivation

The primary purpose of this descriptive study was to compare the levels of, and relationships among mental health problems, mental health shame, self-compassion, work engagement, and work motivation between workers in Japan (collectivistic and success-driven culture) and the Netherlands (individualistic and quality-oriented culture). A cross-sectional design, where convenience samples of 165 Japanese and 160 Dutch workers completed self-report measures about mental health problems, shame, self-compassion, engagement and motivation, was used. Welch t-tests, correlation and regression analyses were conducted to compare i) the levels of these variables, ii) relationships among these variables, and iii) predictors of mental health problems, between the two groups. Dutch workers had higher levels of mental health problems, work engagement and intrinsic motivation, and lower levels of shame and amotivation than Japanese workers. Mental health problems were associated with shame in both samples. Mental health problems were negatively predicted by self-compassion in Japanese, and by work engagement in Dutch employees. The novelty of this study relates to exploring differences in work mental health between those two culturally contrasting countries. Our findings highlight potential cultural differences such as survey responding (Japanese acquiescent responding vs Dutch self-enhancement) and cultural emphases (Japanese shame vs Dutch quality of life). Job crafting, mindfulness and enhancing ikigai (meaningfulness in life) may be helpful to protect mental health in these workers, relating to self-compassion and work engagement. Findings from this study would be particularly useful to employers, managers, and staff in human resources who work with cross-cultural workforce.N/

Drammatic breaks:Break recovery experiences as mediators between job demands and affect in the afternoon and evening

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Daily sleep in relation to subjective and physiological stress in an occupational context: Daily vigor as a mediator

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Private life telepressure and workplace cognitive failure among hospital nurses : the moderating role of mobile phone presence

Aim: To examine whether the presence of a mobile phone has a moderating role in the relationship between nurses' private life telepressure and workplace cognitive failure. Design: Cross-sectional quantitative study using self-report questionnaires. Methods: Data were collected between December 2019 - January 2020. In total, 849 Registered Nurses from three Belgian hospitals completed the online survey. Data were analysed with hierarchical regression analyses and simple slope tests. Results: Overall, the positive relationship between private life telepressure and workplace cognitive failure was moderated by mobile phone presence. Specifically, the experience of private life telepressure did only relate to higher workplace cognitive failure when nurses kept their mobile phone nearby (i.e. in their pockets). Additional exploratory analyses revealed that this moderation effect only held among nurses in young adulthood and regardless of the notification settings of their mobile phone. Conclusions: The present findings indicate the unintended risk of mobile phone presence at work as it relates to higher workplace cognitive failure in nurses who experience private life telepressure. Ensuring there are clear organizational policies and practises in place to store away personal belongings of healthcare personnel during work hours would therefore seem beneficial for hospitals. Impact: Considering the increased presence of mobile phones nowadays, a more detailed understanding is necessary on how these devices might distract personnel in a healthcare setting. The present study gives further insight into this topic and shows that in particular nurses in young adulthood who experience telepressure towards personal messages report more cognitive failure when their personal mobile phones are present, even when they do not actually use these devices. This furnishes additional evidence in support of hospitals' formal policy to forbid personal mobile phones of healthcare personnel when at work

Förbättran av Quality of Service för högbelastade Node.js-webbapplikationer genom effektivare operativsystem

This thesis investigates the feasibility of porting Node.js, a JavaScript web application framework and server, to IX, a dataplane operating system specifically developed to meet the needs of high performance microsecond-computing type of applications in a datacentre setting. We show that porting requires extensions to the IX kernel to support UDS polling, which we implement. We develop a distributed load generator to benchmark the framework. The results show that running Node.js on IX improves throughput by up to 20.6\%, latency by up to 5.23×, and tail latency by up to 5.68× compared to a Linux baseline. We show how server side request level reordering affect the latency distribution, predominantly in cases where the server is load saturated. Finally, due to various limitations of IX, we are unable at this time to recommend running Node.js on IX in a production environment, despite improved metrics in all test cases. However, the limitations are not fundamental, and could be resolved in future work.Detta exjobb undersöker möjligheterna till att använda IX, ett specialiserat dataplansoperativsystem avsett för högpresterande datacentertillämpningar, för att köra Node.js, ett webapplikationramverk för JavaScript-applikationer. För att porta Node.js till IX krävs att vi utvidgar IX med funktionalitet för samtidig pollning av Unix Domain Sockets och nätverksflöden, vilket visas samt genomförs. Vidare utvecklas en distribuerad lastgenerator för att utvärdera applikationsramverket under IX jämfört baslinje som utgörs av en omodifierad Linuxdistribution. Resultaten visar att throughput förbättras med upp till 20.6\%, latens upp till 5.23× och tail latency upp till 5.68×. Sedermera undersöker vi huruvida latensvariansen ökat på grund av request-omordningar på serversidan, vilket tycks vara fallet vid hög serverbelastning, även om andra faktorer tycks ha större inverkan vid låg serverbelastning. Slutligen, även om alla storheter förbättrats vid alla observerade mätpunkter, kan ännu inte vidspredd adoption av IX för att köra Node.js applikationer rekommenderas, främst på grund av problem med horisontal skalning samt problem att ingå som frontend-server i en klassisk tiered-datacentre arkitektur

Perseverative Cognition as an Explanatory Mechanism in the Relation Between Job Demands and Sleep Quality

Purpose The aim of this longitudinal three-wave study was to examine (i) reciprocal associations among job demands, work-related perseverative cognition (PC), and sleep quality; (ii) PC as a mediator in-between job demands and sleep quality; and (iii) continuous high job demands in relation to sleep quality and work-related PC over time. Method A representative sample of the Swedish working population was approached in 2010, 2012, and 2014, and 2316 respondents were included in this longitudinal full-panel survey study. Structural equation modelling was performed to analyse the temporal relations between job demands, work-related PC, and sleep quality. Additionally, a subsample (N = 1149) consisting of individuals who reported the same level of exposure to job demands during all three waves (i.e. stable high, stable moderate, or stable low job demands) was examined in relation to PC and sleep quality over time. Results Analyses showed that job demands, PC, and poor sleep quality were positively and reciprocally related. Work-related PC mediated the normal and reversed, direct across-wave relations between job demands and sleep quality. Individuals with continuous high job demands reported significantly lower sleep quality and higher work-related PC, compared to individuals with continuous moderate/low job demands. Conclusion This study substantiated reciprocal relations between job demands, work-related PC, and sleep quality and supported work-related PC as an underlying mechanism of the reciprocal job demands-sleep relationship. Moreover, this study showed that chronically high job demands are a risk factor for low sleep quality

Private life telepressure and workplace cognitive failure among hospital nurses: The moderating role of mobile phone presence

Aim: To examine whether the presence of a mobile phone has a moderating role in the relationship between nurses' private life telepressure and workplace cognitive failure. Design: Cross-sectional quantitative study using self-report questionnaires. Methods: Data were collected between December 2019 - January 2020. In total, 849 Registered Nurses from three Belgian hospitals completed the online survey. Data were analysed with hierarchical regression analyses and simple slope tests. Results: Overall, the positive relationship between private life telepressure and workplace cognitive failure was moderated by mobile phone presence. Specifically, the experience of private life telepressure did only relate to higher workplace cognitive failure when nurses kept their mobile phone nearby (i.e. in their pockets). Additional exploratory analyses revealed that this moderation effect only held among nurses in young adulthood and regardless of the notification settings of their mobile phone. Conclusions: The present findings indicate the unintended risk of mobile phone presence at work as it relates to higher workplace cognitive failure in nurses who experience private life telepressure. Ensuring there are clear organizational policies and practises in place to store away personal belongings of healthcare personnel during work hours would therefore seem beneficial for hospitals. Impact: Considering the increased presence of mobile phones nowadays, a more detailed understanding is necessary on how these devices might distract personnel in a healthcare setting. The present study gives further insight into this topic and shows that in particular nurses in young adulthood who experience telepressure towards personal messages report more cognitive failure when their personal mobile phones are present, even when they do not actually use these devices. This furnishes additional evidence in support of hospitals' formal policy to forbid personal mobile phones of healthcare personnel when at work