The relationship between leadership styles and job performance : the moderating role of performance appraisal politics

Drawing upon the leader-member exchange theory and equity, fairness and justice theory, the present study examined the role of performance appraisal politics in moderating both relationships between transactional and transformational leadership styles with job performance. This study also examined the corresponding dimensions of transactional and transformational leadership styles in relation to job performance. Using the quantitative inquiry, the survey method employed had collected a total of 266 responses from bank managers of six large banks in Sindh, Pakistan. They were selected using the stratified random sampling technique. The PLS-SEM analyses revealed that the study supported both the hypothesized relationships between transactional leadership, transformational leadership styles and job performance. Specifically, positive relationships were found between two dimensions of transactional leadership (contingent reward and management by exception [active]) with job performance. Conversely, the significance of relationship between management by exception (passive) and job performance was not supported. However, except intellectual stimulation, remaining four dimensions of transformational leadership styles, namely, idealized influence (attributed), idealized influence (behavior), inspirational motivation, and individualized consideration, were found positively related to job performance. Additionally, while performance appraisal politics moderated the relationship between transformational leadership style and job performance, the reverse was found for the relationship between transactional leadership style and job performance. In general, the results suggested that transformational leadership indeed plays an integral role in facilitating job performance; this relationship is strengthened in the presence of the moderating variable, performance appraisal politics. Finally, the theoretical, methodological, and practical implications were also include

Scheduling Electric Vehicle Charging for Grid Load Balancing

In recent years, electric vehicles (EVs) have been widely adopted because of their environmental benefits. However, the increasing volume of EVs poses capacity issues for grid operators as simultaneously charging many EVs may result in grid instabilities. Scheduling EV charging for grid load balancing has a potential to prevent load peaks caused by simultaneous EV charging and contribute to balance of supply and demand. This paper proposes a user-preference-based scheduling approach to minimize costs for the user while balancing grid loads. The EV owners benefit by charging when the electricity cost is lower, but still within the user-defined preferred charging periods. On the other hand, the approach reduces the pressure on the grid by balancing the grid load. Two methods, the greedy algorithm and nonlinear programming, are considered along with users’ charging preferences and durations. For scheduling small numbers of charging activities, the nonlinear programming model achieves better load balancing than the greedy algorithm; however, for scheduling medium to large numbers of charging activities, the greedy algorithm has a clear advantage in terms of time complexity

Male Obesity and Reproductive Health

Obesity has reached epidemic proportions globally, and all this evidence suggests that the situation is likely to get worse ahead. A combination of an increasingly sedentary lifestyle and unfavorable diet in the western world has resulted in increasing numbers of overweight and obese children and adults. According to the WHO, approximately 1.6 billion adults were classed as being overweight and 400 million adults were obese in 2005. Also gaining attention is the reported decline in semen quality and male reproductive potential over the past 50 years. Surprisingly, such decreases have not been reported in regions where obesity is less prevalent. Since this decline in fertility has occurred in parallel with increasing rates of obesity, the possibility that obesity is a cause of male infertility and reduced fecundity should be addressed. Effects of obesity on female fertility have been studied extensively. Weight loss in anovulatory women restores fertility and increases the likelihood of ovulation and conception. In contrast to the extensive knowledge of the effects of obesity on female fertility, male factor infertility as a result of obesity has been overlooked, even after the discovery of a threefold increase in the incidence of obesity in patients with male factor infertility, demanding the concern over m ale obesity with respect to infertility

The large scale structure formation in an expanding universe

In this paper, we will analyze the effects of expansion on the large scale structure formation in our universe. This will be done by incorporating a cosmological constant term in the gravitational partition function. This gravitational partition function with a cosmological constant would be used for analyzing the thermodynamics for this system. We will analyze the viral expansion for this system, and obtain its equation of state. It is observed that the equation of state is the Van der Waals equation. We also analyze a gravitational phase transition in this system. This will be done using the mean field theory for this system. We construct the cosmic energy equation for this system of galaxies, and compare it with observational data. We also analyze the distribution function for this system, and compare it with the observational data.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figure

IVF laboratory management in COVID-19 pandemic

Background: Since the first report of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), widely known as COVID-19, in late December 2019, it has spread worldwide. The eventual return of new normal has started to happen in most countries where the COVID-19 curve has flattened, and Assisted reproduction technology (ART) services are eventually resuming. Well-organized ART (embryology/andrology) laboratories safeguard the wellbeing of all staff, patients, and their gametes/embryos. Main body: A well-organized pandemic management plan must be implemented in anticipation of possible subsequent COVID-19 waves. Apart from local and national guidelines, some mandatory changes need to be taken into considerations that will allow us to overcome the fear of this deadly pandemic, work smoothly and stop any possible transmission without comprising the quality control for successful treatment. These mandatory changes include conserving different supplies, reducing manpower needs, and various protective measures for non-clinical and clinical staff, patients, and gametes/embryos. Conclusion: The current pandemic of COVID-19 suggests a well-organized action-oriented emergency plan to assure the wellbeing of all stakeholders

Transfer Learning by Similarity Centred Architecture Evolution for Multiple Residential Load Forecasting

The development from traditional low voltage grids to smart systems has become extensive and adopted worldwide. Expanding the demand response program to cover the residential sector raises a wide range of challenges. Short term load forecasting for residential consumers in a neighbourhood could lead to a better understanding of low voltage consumption behaviour. Nevertheless, users with similar characteristics can present diversity in consumption patterns. Consequently, transfer learning methods have become a useful tool to tackle differences among residential time series. This paper proposes a method combining evolutionary algorithms for neural architecture search with transfer learning to perform short term load forecasting in a neighbourhood with multiple household load consumption. The approach centres its efforts on neural architecture search using evolutionary algorithms. The neural architecture evolution process retains the patterns of the centre-most house, and later the architecture weights are adjusted for each house in a multihouse set from a neighbourhood. In addition, a sensitivity analysis was conducted to ensure model performance. Experimental results on a large dataset containing hourly load consumption for ten houses in London, Ontario showed that the performance of the proposed approach performs better than the compared techniques. Moreover, the proposed method presents the average accuracy performance of 3.17 points higher than the state-of-the-art LSTM one shot method

Impact of investment behaviour on financial markets during COVID-19: a case of UK

This study aims to determine the impact of investment behavior on financial markets during COVID-19 with respect to the UK. This study is quantitative, where the data has been gathered from the primary sources of information, i.e., through a survey questionnaire. The researcher adopted the non-probability convenience sampling through which 337 responses were gathered. The questionnaire was self-administered, which was based on 7 points Likert scale. Concerning the analysis, the SEM technique has been adopted in which CFA and path analysis were carried out to determine the impact of variables. The study’s analysis determined significant moderation of COVID-19 uncertainty over the relationship of risk perception and general risk to tolerance. Similarly, the moderation of COVID-19 uncertainty over the relationship of risk perception and financial risk to tolerance was also determined. Additionally, the profitability rate’s effect was determined by the financial risk tolerance and general risk tolerance. Moreover, the effect of risk perception was also determined over the financial risk to tolerance. Lastly, the effect of satisfaction was determined to be significant over the general risk to tolerance

Dermatophytosis in patients referred for evaluation at a tertiary care teaching hospital in Kashmir, India

Background: Dermatophytoses invade the stratum corneum of the skin and other keratinized tissues derived from the epidermis. They are quite common and can be fairly accurately identified by a simple laboratory test. We conducted this study to identify the common dermatophytic infections in our setting.Methods: Clinically suspected tinea infections were referred to the Department of Microbiology of SKIMS Medical College Hospital, a tertiary-care teaching hospital in Srinagar, Kashmir. The affected area was cleaned with 70% alcohol, and scrapings were obtained. 10% KOH was used for keratinolysis. Samples were thoroughly examined for the presence of filamentous, septate, branched hyphae.Results: A total of 206 samples were analyzed. The overall KOH positivity rate was 44.7%. Of the 206 patients, 119 (57.8%) were males, and 142 (68.9%) resided in rural areas. The mean age of the patients was 32 years (range 4-72). Tinea corporis was the typical clinical manifestation (58.3%).Conclusions: Young and middle-aged males and people living in rural areas are at a higher risk of dermatophyte infections

Non-Local Deformation of a Supersymmetric Field Theory

In this paper, we will analyse a supersymmetric field theory deformed by generalized uncertainty principle and Lifshitz scaling. It will be observed that this deformed supersymmetric field theory contains non-local fractional derivative terms. In order to construct such deformed N=1 supersymmetric theory, a harmonic extension of functions will be used. However, the supersymmetry will be only preserved for a free theory and will be broken by the inclusion of interaction terms.Comment: 12 pages, pulished versio