Do goal orientations really influence performance?

Purpose: The creativity of retail employees seems to be of the utmost importance for ensuring the performance of organizations in service settings. This paper contributes to the existing theory by investigating the direct and indirect effects of goal orientations on the creativity and performance of retail employees. The authors propose a framework depicting the relationships between goal orientations and employee creativity and performance, including the intervening effects of self-efficacy and customer orientation. Design/methodology/approach: The study was conducted with retail frontline employees of a large retail bank in Portugal. The sample consists of 267 valid responses. Structural equations are used by applying the maximum likelihood method to test the conceptual framework. Findings: Results are broadly supportive of the hypotheses. Learning orientation is, directly and indirectly, related to creativity, but only indirectly to performance. As to performance orientation, it is indirectly related to creativity through self-efficacy and customer orientation, and directly as well as indirectly, to performance. The authors investigate the extent to which the effects of goal orientations on creativity and performance are mediated by self-regulatory mechanisms, namely self-efficacy, and customer orientation. Originality/value: The results recognize that learning and performance goals are neither mutually exclusive nor contradictory, which collide with past empirical evidence showing that learning goals are generally associated with more favorable outcomes and performance goals with more negative or equivocal ones. These outcomes underscore the need and relevance for managers to foster both goal orientations to promote the creativity and performance of retail employees, representing a particularly salient issue in retail businesses characterized by significant interpersonal interactions.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Assessing exposure to environmental contaminants in portuguese mother-infant pairs: the project ARTEMIS

Objective: Today chemicals play a major role in our daily lives, being present in the air we breathe, in the food we eat and in the products we use. As such, it is essential to know the levels of chemicals present in our bodies and assess the risks associated. For that, Human Biomonitoring (HBM), the measurement of the concentrations of chemicals in human biological samples, is a very useful technique. Nevertheless, Portuguese HBM data is scarce and more knowledge on the exposure to chemicals of the Portuguese population is needed. It is then proposed to develop a study to assess the current environmental exposure of Portuguese children and women of childbearing age, vulnerable groups of the population, to selected chemicals, particularly metals and endocrine disruptors. Methods: The project ARTEMIS will evaluate exposure of children aged 6-11 years old and their mothers aged 45 years or less residing in four selected rural and urban areas in Portugal (LVT and Alentejo regions). Recruitment will be done through schools. Urine and hair samples will be collected for the analysis of exposure biomarkers, namely of metals (including mercury, cadmium and arsenic), bisphenols and cotinine. Additionally, saliva samples will be collected for the analysis of effect biomarkers (salivary proteome). Questionnaire data on socio-demographic characteristics, lifestyle, nutrition, health, and specific information on exposure to the selected chemicals will be collected using CATI (Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing). A biobank will also be established to allow further analysis of the samples. Expected results: ARTEMIS will be an innovative project that will not only produce much needed data on the current exposure of the Portuguese population to chemicals, but also allow to evaluate time trends of exposure to some chemicals by comparison with the results from previous projects and to study the association of exposure with biomarkers of effect.ARTEMIS financiado pelo CHRC Research Grants 2022N/

Interactions between U and V sex chromosomes during the life cycle of Ectocarpus

In many animals and flowering plants, sex determination occurs in the diploid phase of the life cycle with XX/XY or ZW/ZZ sex chromosomes. However, in early diverging plants and most macroalgae, sex is determined by female (U) or male (V) sex chromosomes in a haploid phase called the gametophyte. Once the U and V chromosomes unite at fertilization to produce a diploid sporophyte, sex determination no longer occurs, raising key questions about the fate of the U and V sex chromosomes in the sporophyte phase. Here, we investigate genetic and molecular interactions of the UV sex chromosomes in both the haploid and diploid phases of the brown alga Ectocarpus. We reveal extensive developmental regulation of sex chromosome genes across its life cycle and implicate the TALE-HD transcription factor OUROBOROS in suppressing sex determination in the diploid phase. Small RNAs may also play a role in the repression of a female sex-linked gene, and transition to the diploid sporophyte coincides with major reconfiguration of histone H3K79me2, suggesting a more intricate role for this histone mark in Ectocarpus development than previously appreciated.</p

Interactions between U and V sex chromosomes during the life cycle of Ectocarpus

In many animals and flowering plants, sex determination occurs in the diploid phase of the life cycle with XX/XY or ZW/ZZ sex chromosomes. However, in early diverging plants and most macroalgae, sex is determined by female (U) or male (V) sex chromosomes in a haploid phase called the gametophyte. Once the U and V chromosomes unite at fertilization to produce a diploid sporophyte, sex determination no longer occurs, raising key questions about the fate of the U and V sex chromosomes in the sporophyte phase. Here, we investigate genetic and molecular interactions of the UV sex chromosomes in both the haploid and diploid phases of the brown alga Ectocarpus. We reveal extensive developmental regulation of sex chromosome genes across its life cycle and implicate the TALE-HD transcription factor OUROBOROS in suppressing sex determination in the diploid phase. Small RNAs may also play a role in the repression of a female sex-linked gene, and transition to the diploid sporophyte coincides with major reconfiguration of histone H3K79me2, suggesting a more intricate role for this histone mark in Ectocarpus development than previously appreciated.</p

Dissemination of mycobacteria to the thymus renders newly generated T cells tolerant to the invading pathogen

The ability of the thymus to generate a population of T cells that is, for the most part, self-restricted and self-tolerant depends to a great extent on the Ags encountered during differentiation. We recently showed that mycobacteria disseminate to the thymus, which raised the questions of how mycobacteria within the thymus influence T cell differentiation and whether such an effect impacts host-pathogen interactions. Athymic nude mice were reconstituted with thymic grafts from Mycobacterium avium-infected or control noninfected donors. T cells generated from thymi of infected donors seemed generally normal, because they retained the ability to reconstitute the periphery and to respond to unspecific stimuli in vitro as well as to antigenic stimulation with third-party Ags, such as OVA, upon in vivo immunization. However, these cells were unable to mount a protective immune response against a challenge with M. avium. The observation that thymic infection interferes with T cell differentiation, generating T cells that are tolerant to pathogen-specific Ags, is of relevance to understand the immune response during chronic persistent infections. In addition, it has potential implications for the repertoire of T cells generated in patients with a mycobacterial infection recovering from severe lymphopenia, such as patients coinfected with HIV and receiving antiretroviral therapy.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (PIC/IC/83313/2007; PTDC/SAU-MII/101663/2008) and the American-Portuguese Biomedical Research Fund. C.N., S.R., and C.N.-A. are recipients of PhD fellowships from Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologi

The Pseudoautosomal Regions of the U/V Sex Chromosomes of the Brown Alga Ectocarpus Exhibit Unusual Features

International audienceThe recombining regions of sex chromosomes (pseudoautosomal regions, PARs) are predicted to exhibit unusual features due to their being genetically linked to the nonrecombining, sex-determining region. This phenomenon is expected to occur in both diploid (XY, ZW) and haploid (UV) sexual systems, with slightly different consequences for UV sexual systems because of the absence of masking during the haploid phase (when sex is expressed) and because there is no homozygous sex in these systems. Despite a considerable amount of theoretical work on PAR genetics and evolution, these genomic regions have remained poorly characterized empirically. We show here that although the PARs of the U/V sex chromosomes of the brown alga Ectocarpus recombine at a similar rate to autosomal regions of the genome, they exhibit many genomic features typical of nonrecombining regions. The PARs were enriched in clusters of genes that are preferentially, and often exclusively, expressed during the sporophyte generation of the life cycle, and many of these genes appear to have evolved since the Ectocarpales diverged from other brown algal lineages. A modeling-based approach was used to investigate possible evolutionary mechanisms underlying this enrichment in sporophyte-biased genes. Our results are consistent with the evolution of the PAR in haploid systems being influenced by differential selection pressures in males and females acting on alleles that are advantageous during the sporophyte generation of the life cycle

Evolutionary dynamics of sex-biased gene expression in a young XY system : insights from the brown alga genus Fucus

publishedVersio

Revisiting the chemistry of apple pomace polyphenols

Hot water is an easily implementable process for polyphenols extraction. To evaluate the effect of this process on apple pomace, the overall polyphenolic composition was assessed before and after hot water extraction, followed by extractions with aqueous/organic solutions. As determined by UHPLC-DAD, flavan-3-ols were the main apple native polyphenols. Their amount decreased 50% after hot water extraction, while the other classes remained unchanged. Dihydrochalcones and hydroxycinnamic acid oxidation products, were also observed, alongside with non-extractable oxidised procyanidins that represented more than 4-fold the amount of native apple polyphenols in the pomace. Microwave superheated-water extraction of the insoluble cell wall material in water/acetone solutions and the high amounts of polyphenols that were insoluble in water/ethanol solutions suggested that oxidised procyanidins could be covalently linked to polysaccharides. These complexes represented up to 40% of the available polyphenols from apple pomace, potentially relevant for agro-food waste valuation.publishe