Employees’ feelings about more meetings: An overt analysis and recommendations for improving meetings

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify how employees feel about having more meetings and what can be done to improve employees’ feelings about their work meetings. Design/methodology/approach – Data were obtained from three samples of working adults. The first was a convenience sample recruited by undergraduate students (n = 120), the second was a stratified random sample from a metropolitan area in the southern USA (n = 126), and the third was an internet-based panel sample (n = 402). Constant comparative analysis of responses to open-ended questions was used to investigate the overarching research questions. Findings – It is found that employees enjoy meetings when they have a clear objective, and when important relevant information is shared. Consistent with conservation of resources theory, most employees are unhappy with meetings when they reduce their work-related resources (e.g. meetings constrain their time, lack structure and are unproductive). Practical implications – The data suggest that meetings appear to be both resource-draining and resource-supplying activities in the workplace. Researchers and managers should consider overtly asking about how people feel about meetings, as a means of identifying areas for future research inquiry and targets for improvement in the workplace generally. Originality/value – The paper describes one of the few studies on meetings that ask the participants overtly what their feelings are regarding their workplace meetings. Additionally, the paper illustrates the usefulness of qualitative data analysis as a means for further understanding workplace activities viewing respondents as informants. Keywords United States of America, Employees behaviour, Employees attitudes, Employees participation, Meetings, Meeting demands, Qualitative research, Thematic analysi

Conserved chromatin and repetitive patterns reveal slow genome evolution in frogs

Frogs are an ecologically diverse and phylogenetically ancient group of anuran amphibians that include important vertebrate cell and developmental model systems, notably the genus Xenopus. Here we report a high-quality reference genome sequence for the western clawed frog, Xenopus tropicalis, along with draft chromosome-scale sequences of three distantly related emerging model frog species, Eleutherodactylus coqui, Engystomops pustulosus, and Hymenochirus boettgeri. Frog chromosomes have remained remarkably stable since the Mesozoic Era, with limited Robertsonian (i.e., arm-preserving) translocations and end-to-end fusions found among the smaller chromosomes. Conservation of synteny includes conservation of centromere locations, marked by centromeric tandem repeats associated with Cenp-a binding surrounded by pericentromeric LINE/L1 elements. This work explores the structure of chromosomes across frogs, using a dense meiotic linkage map for X. tropicalis and chromatin conformation capture (Hi-C) data for all species. Abundant satellite repeats occupy the unusually long (~20 megabase) terminal regions of each chromosome that coincide with high rates of recombination. Both embryonic and differentiated cells show reproducible associations of centromeric chromatin and of telomeres, reflecting a Rabl-like configuration. Our comparative analyses reveal 13 conserved ancestral anuran chromosomes from which contemporary frog genomes were constructed

Modeling wave impact on salt marsh boundaries

Wind‐wave attack is the fundamental cause of erosion of salt marsh boundaries. Tidal forcing acts as a proxy determining at which elevation waves pound against the marsh edge and conditioning the propagation and transformation of wave trains as they move toward these boundaries. The objective of the present work is to evaluate, through analysis of the results of a numerical model, the effect of wave action on marsh boundaries as a function of tidal elevation and wave height for different edge configurations. In order to link numerical simulations to field conditions, the model inputs are based on topographical and hydrodynamical surveys conducted at a study site at the Virginia Coast Reserve (VCR), VA. Model results show that the wave thrust on the marsh scarp strongly depends on tidal level. The thrust increases with tidal elevation until the marsh is submerged and then rapidly decreases. The wave thrust is maximum for a vertical scarp and minimum for a terraced scarp. Similarly, wave energy dissipation is maximized just above the marsh platform elevation, when wave reflection is reduced and wave breaking occurs at the marsh edge