Investigating the validity of the short form Burnout Assessment Tool:: A job demands-resources approach

The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the short form Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT-12). As a result of the pandemic, job stress has been compounded and the use of conceptually grounded and accurate measures is needed to identify burnout risks within specific organisations and the overall workforce. The study sample comprised 660 employees from various occupational settings who filled out an online survey. Latent variable methods with ordinal categorical data were implemented to model the data and to test the hypotheses for the study. Results showed that the proposed second-order factor model of the BAT-12 showed a good fit to the data and was invariant across gender and ethnicity. In addition, burnout – as operationalised with the BAT-12 – played the hypothesised mediating role in the Job Demands-Resources model. The BAT-12 also showed convergent validity with the Maslach Burnout Inventory. The authors conclude that BAT-12 is a robust instrument with adequate psychometric properties to measure burnout risk and present a freely available online application for employees to estimate their risk of burnout

Additive manufacturing of alumide jewellery

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has been used for various jewellery applications in the recent past - both through direct and indirect use of AM products. The typical trend for direct manufactured jewellery has however, been dominated by metals-based applications. Materialise, through their MGX collection, has helped to set a new trend of doing functional design / functional art through amongst others, direct laser sintered polymers. They have created a significant demand for direct manufactured products that are not possible to manufacture with conventional technologies. More importantly, some of these designs enable an element of personalisation, to lead to "bespoke art". Within a collaborative research project between De Montfort University (UK), Loughborough University (UK) and Vaal University of Technology (SA), one of the specific research outcomes was aimed at producing designs for direct AM jewellery in AlumideTM, an Aluminum and Nylon matrix. The objective was to go beyond complex shapes, to also create innovative techniques for insertion of gemstones in these designs, to result in limited production of "bespoke jewellery series". The paper and associated presentation will report on work in progress from the collaborative project, and will discuss first results, problem areas and future possibilities

Search for Tensor, Vector, and Scalar Polarizations in the Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background

The detection of gravitational waves with Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo has enabled novel tests of general relativity, including direct study of the polarization of gravitational waves. While general relativity allows for only two tensor gravitational-wave polarizations, general metric theories can additionally predict two vector and two scalar polarizations. The polarization of gravitational waves is encoded in the spectral shape of the stochastic gravitational-wave background, formed by the superposition of cosmological and individually unresolved astrophysical sources. Using data recorded by Advanced LIGO during its first observing run, we search for a stochastic background of generically polarized gravitational waves. We find no evidence for a background of any polarization, and place the first direct bounds on the contributions of vector and scalar polarizations to the stochastic background. Under log-uniform priors for the energy in each polarization, we limit the energy densities of tensor, vector, and scalar modes at 95% credibility to Ω0T<5.58×10-8, Ω0V<6.35×10-8, and Ω0S<1.08×10-7 at a reference frequency f0=25 Hz. © 2018 American Physical Society

On the progenitor of binary neutron star merger GW170817

On 2017 August 17 the merger of two compact objects with masses consistent with two neutron stars was discovered through gravitational-wave (GW170817), gamma-ray (GRB 170817A), and optical (SSS17a/AT 2017gfo) observations. The optical source was associated with the early-type galaxy NGC 4993 at a distance of just ∼40 Mpc, consistent with the gravitational-wave measurement, and the merger was localized to be at a projected distance of ∼2 kpc away from the galaxy's center. We use this minimal set of facts and the mass posteriors of the two neutron stars to derive the first constraints on the progenitor of GW170817 at the time of the second supernova (SN). We generate simulated progenitor populations and follow the three-dimensional kinematic evolution from binary neutron star (BNS) birth to the merger time, accounting for pre-SN galactic motion, for considerably different input distributions of the progenitor mass, pre-SN semimajor axis, and SN-kick velocity. Though not considerably tight, we find these constraints to be comparable to those for Galactic BNS progenitors. The derived constraints are very strongly influenced by the requirement of keeping the binary bound after the second SN and having the merger occur relatively close to the center of the galaxy. These constraints are insensitive to the galaxy's star formation history, provided the stellar populations are older than 1 Gyr

Investigating the validity of the short form Burnout Assessment Tool:: A job demands-resources approach

The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the short form Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT-12). As a result of the pandemic, job stress has been compounded and the use of conceptually grounded and accurate measures is needed to identify burnout risks within specific organisations and the overall workforce. The study sample comprised 660 employees from various occupational settings who filled out an online survey. Latent variable methods with ordinal categorical data were implemented to model the data and to test the hypotheses for the study. Results showed that the proposed second-order factor model of the BAT-12 showed a good fit to the data and was invariant across gender and ethnicity. In addition, burnout – as operationalised with the BAT-12 – played the hypothesised mediating role in the Job Demands-Resources model. The BAT-12 also showed convergent validity with the Maslach Burnout Inventory. The authors conclude that BAT-12 is a robust instrument with adequate psychometric properties to measure burnout risk and present a freely available online application for employees to estimate their risk of burnout

New and Interesting Fungi. 4

An order, family and genus are validated, seven new genera, 35 new species, two new combinations, two epitypes, two lectotypes, and 17 interesting new host and / or geographical records are introduced in this study. Validated order, family and genus: Superstratomycetales and Superstratomycetaceae (based on Superstratomyces). New genera: Haudseptoria (based on Haudseptoria typhae); Hogelandia (based on Hogelandia lambearum); Neoscirrhia (based on Neoscirrhia osmundae); Nothoanungitopsis (based on Nothoanungitopsis urophyllae); Nothomicrosphaeropsis (based on Nothomicrosphaeropsis welwitschiae); Populomyces (based on Populomyces zwinianus); Pseudoacrospermum (based on Pseudoacrospermum goniomae). New species: Apiospora sasae on dead culms of Sasa veitchii (Netherlands); Apiospora stipae on dead culms of Stipa gigantea (Spain); Bagadiella eucalyptorum on leaves of Eucalyptus sp. (Australia); Calonectria singaporensis from submerged leaf litter (Singapore); Castanediella neomalaysiana on leaves of Eucalyptus sp. (Malaysia); Colletotrichum pleopeltidis on leaves of Pleopeltis sp. (South Africa); Coniochaeta deborreae from soil (Netherlands); Diaporthe durionigena on branches of Durio zibethinus (Vietnam); Floricola juncicola on dead culm of Juncus sp. (France); Haudseptoria typhae on leaf sheath of Typha sp. (Germany); Hogelandia lambearum from soil (Netherlands); Lomentospora valparaisensis from soil (Chile); Neofusicoccum mystacidii on dead stems of Mystacidium capense (South Africa); Neomycosphaerella guibourtiae on leaves of Guibourtia sp. (Angola); Niesslia neoexosporioides on dead leaves of Carex paniculata (Germany); Nothoanungitopsis urophyllae on seed capsules of Eucalyptus urophylla (South Africa); Nothomicrosphaeropsis welwitschiae on dead leaves of Welwitschia mirabilis (Namibia); Paracremonium bendijkiorum from soil (Netherlands); Paraphoma ledniceana on dead wood of Buxus sempervirens (Czech Republic); Paraphoma salicis on leaves of Salix cf. alba (Ukraine); Parasarocladium wereldwijsianum from soil (Netherlands); Peziza ligni on masonry and plastering (France); Phyllosticta phoenicis on leaves of Phoenix reclinata (South Africa); Plectosphaerella slobbergiarum from soil (Netherlands); Populomyces zwinianus from soil (Netherlands); Pseudoacrospermum goniomae on leaves of Gonioma kamassi (South Africa); Pseudopyricularia festucae on leaves of Festuca californica (USA); Sarocladium sasijaorum from soil (Netherlands); Sporothrix hypoxyli in sporocarp of Hypoxylon petriniae on Fraxinus wood (Netherlands); Superstratomyces albomucosus on Pycnanthus angolensis (Netherlands); Superstratomyces atroviridis on Pinus sylvestris (Netherlands); Superstratomyces flavomucosus on leaf of Hakea multilinearis (Australia); Superstratomyces tardicrescens from human eye specimen (USA); Taeniolella platani on twig of Platanus hispanica (Germany), and Tympanis pini on twigs of Pinus sylvestris (Spain)