Is Job Enrichment Really Enriching?

This study uses a survey of Canadian workers with rich, matched data on job characteristics to examine whether “enriched” job design, with features like quality circles, feedback, suggestion programs, and task teams, affects job satisfaction. We identify two competing hypotheses on the relationship between enriched jobs and job satisfaction. The “motivation hypothesis,” implies that enrichment will generally increase satisfaction and the “intensification hypothesis,” implies that enrichment may decrease satisfaction by increasing the intensity and scope of work. Our results show that several forms of enrichment, specifically suggestion programs, information sharing, task teams, quality circles and training, raise satisfaction. Therefore we argue that the data support the motivation hypothesis. Partitioning the data by education level or union membership further supports this conclusion, while a direct test of the intensification hypothesis does not support the competing hypothesis.Job Satisfaction; Job Enrichment; Human Resource Practices

Service Delivery in Rural Municipalities: Privatize, Cooperate, or Go It Alone?

Choices in production and contracting arrangements for a wide range of services were studied using data from approximately 1,000 small, mostly rural municipalities from Illinois, New Hampshire and Wisconsin. Results suggest the use of both for-profit contractors and cooperative agreements with other governments correlate negatively with population. Small municipalities are less likely to use competitive bidding processes, compare costs between production options, or report that privatization produces savings. Median income, rural geography, and ideology show statistically-significant associations with contracting choices. Respondents generally consider themselves ―satisfied‖ with services provided by contract, although satisfaction levels are lower than those associated with self-provision. Satisfaction associated with services provided by other governments is lower than satisfaction with services provided by private contractors, suggesting no tradeoff in service quality directly attributable to ―for-profit‖ contractors.privatization, municipal services, cooperation, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Public Economics,

BackPack Food Programs Linked to Higher Test Scores for School Children

Nationwide, over half a million children live in households that report very low food security among children, meaning a child is not eating enough, going hungry, skipping a meal, or not eating for a full day because the household can’t afford food. School meals cannot alleviate this need outside of school hours. To mitigate food insecurity on days when free school meals are unavailable, foodbanks have partnered with schools to create weekend feeding, or “BackPack,” programs that provide children with a bag of nonperishable food to nourish them over the weekend. In this brief, authors Michael Kurtz, Karen Conway, and Robert Mohr summarize their recently published article at the Economics of Education Review, which aimed to understand how these BackPack programs relate to academic success. This research uses data from Northwestern North Carolina tracking the first adoptions and subsequent rapid growth of the BackPack program across schools there. The authors combine participation data with restricted administrative student and school data, which allow them to observe how economically disadvantaged students in schools with and without such programs performed on end-of-grade tests in reading and mathematics. Results provide strong evidence that the introduction of the BackPack program resulted in increased end-of-grade test scores for economically disadvantaged primary school students. The impacts on both reading and math appear strongest for the youngest and lowest performing students

Daily Mood-Drinking Slopes as Predictors: a New Take on Drinking Motives and Related Outcomes

Motivational models of alcohol consumption have articulated the manner in which positive and negative experiences motivate drinking in unique social contexts (e.g., Cooper, Frone, Russell & Mudar, 1995). Daily process methodology, in which daily events, moods and drinking behaviors are reported daily or multiple times per day, has been used to examine behavioral patterns that are consistent with discrete motivations. We advance the notion that repeated patterns of drinking in various social contexts as a function of positive or negative mood increases can provide evidence of individual-level if-then drinking signatures, which in turn can predict drinking-related outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine the utility of slopes to predict longer term drinking motivations and alcohol problems, employing a daily process study of non-clinical moderate alcohol drinkers (N=47; 49% women). Participants responded to thrice daily interviews administered via handheld computer for 30 days, followed by a longitudinal telephone survey for 12 months. Participants’ daily mood-drinking relationships were extracted from HLM and employed as predictors of 12-month outcomes in multiple regression analyses. Daily mood-drinking patterns demonstrated significant variability across persons, such that moderate drinkers could be reliably differentiated based on those patterns in terms of distinct drinking-related outcomes. Among the results, negative mood-solitary drinking slopes were associated with lower subsequent coping motives; yet, positive mood-solitary drinking slopes were predictive of higher coping and lower social motives. Conversely, positive mood-social drinking associations were predictive of higher enhancement motives and b-MAST scores. Results are interpreted in light of motivational models of consumption

The impact of bound states on similarity renormalization group transformations

We study a simple class of unitary renormalization group transformations governed by a parameter f in the range [0,1]. For f=0, the transformation is one introduced by Wegner in condensed matter physics, and for f=1 it is a simpler transformation that is being used in nuclear theory. The transformation with f=0 diagonalizes the Hamiltonian but in the transformations with f near 1 divergent couplings arise as bound state thresholds emerge. To illustrate and diagnose this behavior, we numerically study Hamiltonian flows in two simple models with bound states: one with asymptotic freedom and a related one with a limit cycle. The f=0 transformation places bound-state eigenvalues on the diagonal at their natural scale, after which the bound states decouple from the dynamics at much smaller momentum scales. At the other extreme, the f=1 transformation tries to move bound-state eigenvalues to the part of the diagonal corresponding to the lowest momentum scales available and inevitably diverges when this scale is taken to zero. We analyze the shift mechanism analytically in a 3x3 matrix model, which displays the essense of this RG behavior.Comment: 27 pages, 3 figure

Towards electronic structure-based ab-initio molecular dynamics simulations with hundreds of millions of atoms

We push the boundaries of electronic structure-based ab-initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) beyond 100 million atoms. This scale is otherwise barely reachable with classical force-field methods or novel neural network and machine learning potentials. We achieve this breakthrough by combining innovations in linear-scaling AIMD, efficient and approximate sparse linear algebra, low and mixed-precision floating-point computation on GPUs, and a compensation scheme for the errors introduced by numerical approximations. The core of our work is the non-orthogonalized local submatrix method (NOLSM), which scales very favorably to massively parallel computing systems and translates large sparse matrix operations into highly parallel, dense matrix operations that are ideally suited to hardware accelerators. We demonstrate that the NOLSM method, which is at the center point of each AIMD step, is able to achieve a sustained performance of 324 PFLOP/s in mixed FP16/FP32 precision corresponding to an efficiency of 67.7% when running on 1536 NVIDIA A100 GPUs

A study protocol for a multicentre, prospective, before-and-after trial evaluating the feasibility of implementing targeted SEDation after initiation of mechanical ventilation in the emergency department (The ED-SED Pilot Trial)

INTRODUCTION: Sedation is a cornerstone therapy in the management of patients receiving mechanical ventilation and is highly influential on outcome. Early sedation depth appears especially influential, as early deep sedation is associated with worse outcome when compared with light sedation. Our research group has shown that patients receiving mechanical ventilation in the emergency department (ED) are exposed to deep sedation commonly, and ED sedation depth is impactful on intensive care unit (ICU) care and clinical outcomes. While extensive investigation has occurred for patients in the ICU, comparatively little data exist from the ED. Given the influence that ED sedation seems to carry, as well as a lack of ED-based sedation trials, there is significant rationale to investigate ED-based sedation as a means to improve outcome. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This is a multicentre (n=3) prospective, before-and-after pilot trial examining the feasibility of implementing targeted sedation in the immediate postintubation period in the ED. A cohort of 344 patients receiving mechanical ventilation in ED will be included. Feasibility outcomes include: (1) participant recruitment; (2) proportion of Richmond Agitation-Sedation Scale (RASS) scores in the deep sedation range; (3) reliability (agreement) of RASS measurements performed by bedside ED nurses; and (4) adverse events. The proportion of deep sedation measurements before and after the intervention will be compared using the χ ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The Human Research Protection Office at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine has approved the study. The publication of peer-reviewed manuscripts and the presentation of abstracts at scientific meetings will be used to disseminate the work. REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT04410783; Pre-results

The Uncertainty in Newton's Constant and Precision Predictions of the Primordial Helium Abundance

The current uncertainty in Newton's constant, G_N, is of the order of 0.15%. For values of the baryon to photon ratio consistent with both cosmic microwave background observations and the primordial deuterium abundance, this uncertainty in G_N corresponds to an uncertainty in the primordial 4He mass fraction, Y_P, of +-1.3 x 10^{-4}. This uncertainty in Y_P is comparable to the effect from the current uncertainty in the neutron lifetime, which is often treated as the dominant uncertainty in calculations of Y_P. Recent measurements of G_N seem to be converging within a smaller range; a reduction in the estimated error on G_N by a factor of 10 would essentially eliminate it as a source of uncertainty in the calculation of the primordial 4He abundance.Comment: 3 pages, no figures, fixed typos, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Mindfulness based interventions in multiple sclerosis: a systematic review

<b>Background</b> Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a stressful condition; depression, anxiety, pain and fatigue are all common problems. Mindfulness based interventions (MBIs) mitigate stress and prevent relapse in depression and are increasingly being used in healthcare. However, there are currently no systematic reviews of MBIs in people with MS. This review aims to evaluate the effectiveness of MBIs in people with MS.<p></p> <b>Methods</b> Systematic searches were carried out in seven major databases, using both subject headings and key words. Papers were screened, data extracted, quality appraised, and analysed by two reviewers independently, using predefined criteria. Study quality was assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration risk of bias tool. Perceived stress was the primary outcome. Secondary outcomes include mental health, physical health, quality of life, and health service utilisation. Statistical meta-analysis was not possible. Disagreements were adjudicated by a third party reviewer.<p></p> <b>Results</b> Three studies (n = 183 participants) were included in the final analysis. The studies were undertaken in Wales (n = 16, randomised controlled trial - (RCT)), Switzerland (n = 150, RCT), and the United States (n = 17, controlled trial). 146 (80%) participants were female; mean age (SD) was 48.6 (9.4) years. Relapsing remitting MS was the main diagnostic category (n = 123, 67%); 43 (26%) had secondary progressive disease; and the remainder were unspecified. MBIs lasted 6–8 weeks; attrition rates were variable (5-43%); all employed pre- post- measures; two had longer follow up; one at 3, and one at 6 months. Socio-economic status of participants was not made explicit; health service utilisation and costs were not reported. No study reported on perceived stress. All studies reported quality of life (QOL), mental health (anxiety and depression), physical (fatigue, standing balance, pain), and psychosocial measures. Statistically significant beneficial effects relating to QOL, mental health, and selected physical health measures were sustained at 3- and 6- month follow up.<p></p> <b>Conclusion</b> From the limited data available, MBIs may benefit some MS patients in terms of QOL, mental health, and some physical health measures. Further studies are needed to clarify how MBIs might best serve the MS population.<p></p&gt