Employee Well-Being During COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Adaptability, Work-Family Conflict, and Organizational Response

Well-being has always been a topic of interest for individuals, organizations, and policy-makers. COVID-19 pandemic made it tremendously relevant as employees were forced to work from home due to the successive lockdowns that governments have implemented to curb the spread of the virus. This crisis has raised concerns about employees’ well-being due to the implementation of these tight measures. In the present study, we examined the direct and indirect effects of employees’ adaptability, work-family conflict, and organizational response on employees’ well-being through the mediating role of perceived stress. Data have been collected from 184 employees working in various organizations in Malaysia and analyzed using Smart-PLS Structural Equation Modeling with the bootstrapping procedure. The results indicated that organizational response, work-family conflict, and adaptability directly affect perceived stress and well-being, except for organizational response, which has no direct effect on well-being. Furthermore, it was found that perceived stress mediates the relationship of organizational response and work-family conflict with well-being but not adaptability

Vanishing of the upper critical field in Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+\delta} from Landau-Ott scaling

We apply Landau-Ott scaling to the reversible magnetization data of Bi$_2$Sr$_2$CaCu$_2$O$_{8+\delta}$ published by Y. Wang et al. [\emph{Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{95} 247002 (2005)}] and find that the extrapolation of the Landau-Ott upper critical field line vanishes at a critical temperature parameter, T^*_c, a few degrees above the zero resistivity critical temperature, T_c. Only isothermal curves below and near to T_c were used to determine this transition temperature. This temperature is associated to the disappearance of the mixed state instead of a complete suppression of superconductivity in the sample.Comment: 3 figure

Resource Allocation Policies for Battery Constrained Energy Harvesting Communication Systems with Co-Channel Interference

This paper studies resource allocation policies for energy harvesting (EH) multi-user multiple input single output (MU- MISO) communication systems. The multi-antenna EH base station (BS) is equipped with a limited-capacity battery. Though employing the multi-antenna at the BS provides the channel diversity, this leads to the co-channel interference which makes the resource allocation problem hard to solve. For this challenging scenario, we first consider off-line policies based on full channel state information (CSI) and energy arrival information (EAI) to obtain the best performance for any feasible resource allocation policies. We propose an iterative algorithm using generalized linear fractional programming to obtain an optimal policy. To achieve a low-complexity sub-optimal policy, we propose another iterative algorithm using the successive convex approximation. Based on the off-line policies, we develop on-line policies in which only statistical CSI and EAI are available. The complexity of the proposed policies is derived. Finally, simulation results evaluate the performance of the proposed approaches and show that the proposed polices outperform the benchmark

Spectrum and diffusion for a class of tight-binding models on hypercubes

We propose a class of exactly solvable anisotropic tight-binding models on an infinite-dimensional hypercube. The energy spectrum is analytically computed and is shown to be fractal and/or absolutely continuous according to the value hopping parameters. In both cases, the spectral and diffusion exponents are derived. The main result is that, even if the spectrum is absolutely continuous, the diffusion exponent for the wave packet may be anything between 0 and 1 depending upon the class of models.Comment: 5 pages Late

A comparative study of high-field diamagnetic fluctuations in deoxygenated YBa2Cu3O(7-x) and polycrystalline (Bi-Pb)2Sr2Ca3O(10)

We studied three single crystals of YBa2Cu3O{7-x} with Tc= 62.5, 52, and 41 K, and a textured specimen of (Bi-Pb)2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10 with Tc=108 K, for H//c axis. The reversible data were interpreted in terms of 2D lowest-Landau-level fluctuation theory. The data were fit well by the 2D LLL expression for magnetization obtained by Tesanovic etal., producing reasonable values of kappa but larger values of dHc2/dT. Universality was studied by obtaining a simultaneous scaling of Y123 data and Bi2223. An expression for the 2D x-axis LLL scaling factor used to obtain the simultaneous scaling was extracted from theory, and compared with the experimental values. The comparison between the values of the x-axis produced a deviation of 40% which suggests that the hypothesis of universality of the 2D-LLL fluctuations is not supported by the studied samples. We finaly observe that Y123 magnetization data for temperatures above $T_c$ obbey a universal scaling obtained for the diamagnetic fluctuation magnetization from a theory considering non-local field effects. The same scaling was not obbeyed by the corresponding magnetization calculated from the two-dimensional lowest-Landau-level theory.Comment: 7 pages 5 figures, accept in Journ. Low Temp. Phy

Urinary tract infection in renal transplant recipients

Introduction: Urinary tract infection (UTI) is the commonest bacterial infection occurring in renal transplant recipients, and it is associated with significant morbidity. This study aimed to assess the characteristics of all UTI episodes diagnosed in renal transplant patients who attended regularly for follow up in the nephrology department of National Heart Center, Tripoli, Libya. Methods: Data were collected by retrospective review of patients' medical records. UTI was defined as a urine culture containing more than 105 colonies/ml and pyuria (10 leukocytes /HPF). Results: Out of a total of 112 kidney transplant patients, UTI was diagnosed in 33 patients (29.5%). The mean age of affected patients was 43±20 years with a range of 20-63 years. Most of the episodes (72%) occurred during the first 3 months after transplantation, and 60.6% of affected patients had more than one episode of infection. A larger proportion of females were affected than males (40.8% versus 20.6% respectively, P=0.02). No significant difference was detected in the proportion of affected patients whether the donor was live-unrelated or live-related (32.3% versus 28.4% respectively, P=0.43). The commonest causative microorganism was E. coli (38.7%), followed by klebsiella (25.8%), Staphylococcus (25.8%), and others (9.7%). The commonest drug used for treatment was ciprofloxacin (51.6%), followed by amoxicillin-clavulinic acid (22.6%), meropenem (12.9%), and others (12.9%). Conclusion: The prevalence of UTI in our cohort of patients is similar to that reported by others. The commonest causative agent was E. coli, and ciprofloxacin was the most commonly used drug. Keywords: Kidney transplant recipients; Libya; Urinary tract infection