Stress at Work: Any Potential Redirection From an African Sample?

Research on workplace stress has generated a massive interest and following in the management and behavioural literature in the Western world, but not much data has come out of Africa. This study explored the relationship among Perceived stress, Perception of sources of stress, Satisfaction, Core self-evaluation, Perceived health and Well being. Survey data was collected from 355 employees in Botswana. Result from descriptive data and correlational analysis indicates significant links between Perceived stress, Satisfaction, Core self-evaluation and Well being. Overall, much of our findings are consistent with what has been reported in the literature. Managerial implications of the findings were discussed

A survey on tidal analysis and forecasting methods for Tsunami detection

Accurate analysis and forecasting of tidal level are very important tasks for human activities in oceanic and coastal areas. They can be crucial in catastrophic situations like occurrences of Tsunamis in order to provide a rapid alerting to the human population involved and to save lives. Conventional tidal forecasting methods are based on harmonic analysis using the least squares method to determine harmonic parameters. However, a large number of parameters and long-term measured data are required for precise tidal level predictions with harmonic analysis. Furthermore, traditional harmonic methods rely on models based on the analysis of astronomical components and they can be inadequate when the contribution of non-astronomical components, such as the weather, is significant. Other alternative approaches have been developed in the literature in order to deal with these situations and provide predictions with the desired accuracy, with respect also to the length of the available tidal record. These methods include standard high or band pass filtering techniques, although the relatively deterministic character and large amplitude of tidal signals make special techniques, like artificial neural networks and wavelets transform analysis methods, more effective. This paper is intended to provide the communities of both researchers and practitioners with a broadly applicable, up to date coverage of tidal analysis and forecasting methodologies that have proven to be successful in a variety of circumstances, and that hold particular promise for success in the future. Classical and novel methods are reviewed in a systematic and consistent way, outlining their main concepts and components, similarities and differences, advantages and disadvantages

Presentation of Suitable Topologies to Create a Generic Ultrasonic Puls Generator for Nondestructive Flaw Detection

I detta examinationsarbetesrapport för högskoleingenjörsexamen inom Elektronik, presenteras en utredning för att svara på vad som skulle vara den mest generiska pulsgeneratorn för ultraljudstestning inom det klassiska intervallet 0.5 till 15 MHz. Det presenteras flera variabler i teorin, som påverkar en testsignal och varför det inte går att beräkna vad en generisk pulsgenerator bör åstadkomma. Denna rapport presenterar vilka pulsgeneratorer det finns och vad de mer högpresterande pulsgeneratorerna beskrivna i vetenskapliga forskningsresultat har presterat. Samt vilka tekniker som finns och varför vissa tekniker inte är lämpliga. Vid slutet av denna examinationsarbetesrapport presenteras, med hjälp av några antaganden om vad en generisk pulsgenerator behöver prestera, dras en slutsats om vilken av de föreslagna pulsgeneratorerna som är mest generisk.This bachelor thesis, is a trial in answering what would be a generic pulse generator for ultrasonic testing in the classic test range of 0.5 to 15 MHz. It also goes through multiple variables that affects a test signal and why it really isn't possible to precalculate what a generical pulse generators should achive, in the theory chapter. This thesis also goes through what different types of pulse generators there is and what some of the more high performance pulse generators proposed in scientific articles have achieved and what techniques that have been used and why some techniques are not suitable. In the end of this thesis there is a trial with some assumptions about what a generical pulse generator should achieve, to come to a conclusion about which pulse generator from the proposed ones would be the best generical pulse generator to go with

Association of beta2 adrenergic receptor polymorphisms and related haplotypes with triglyceride and LDL-cholesterol levels.

Adrenergic receptors regulate lipid mobilization, energy expenditure and glycogen breakdown. The beta(2) adrenergic receptor (beta(2)-AR) gene may constitute a potential candidate gene to explain part of the genetic predisposition to human obesity and correlated traits. With regard to the association between beta(2)-AR gene polymorphisms and obesity-related metabolic disorders, published reports give conflicting results. We investigated the role of three polymorphisms, and related haplotypes of the beta(2)-AR in the obesity and related traits in a cohort of overweight/obese subjects. We characterized one single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the promoter region (5'LC-Cys19Arg) and two in the coding region (Gly16Arg and Gln27Glu) of the beta(2)-AR in 642 consecutively recruited overweight/obese subjects in whom extensive clinical and biochemical analysis was performed. The effect of the polymorphisms on quantitative variables was investigated using multiple linear regression analysis. 5'LC-Cys19 homozygous showed higher triglyceride and LDL-cholesterol levels compared to 5'LC-Arg19 homozygous (P=0.03 and P=0.01, respectively). Similar increase in triglyceride and LDL-cholesterol levels was observed for Arg/Arg genotype compared to Gly/Gly genotype of Gly16Arg polymorphism (P=0.02 and P=0.01, respectively) and for Gln/Gln genotype compared to Glu/Glu genotype of the Gln27Glu polymorphism (P=0.01 and P=0.03, respectively). The 5'LC-Cys(19)Arg(16)Gln(27) haplotype determined a significant increase in triglyceride and LDL-cholesterol levels compared to 5'LC-Arg(19)Gly(16)Glu(27) haplotype (P=0.05 and P=0.02, respectively). Our findings provide additional weight to previous observations on the influence of these three genetic variants on lipid phenotypes; particularly on the increase of triglycerides and LDL-cholesterol levels in overweight/obese subjects carrying the 5'LC-Cys(19)Arg(16)Gln(27) haplotype