Durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L. var. durum) root system response to drought and salt stresses and genetic characterization for root-related traits.

Abiotic stresses such as drought and salt are significant threats to crop productivity. The root system adaptation and tolerance to abiotic stresses are regulated by many biochemical reactions, which create a complex and multigenic response. The present study aims to evaluate the diversity of root responses to cyclic abiotic stress in three modern durum wheat varieties and one hydric stress-tolerant landrace in a pot experiment from seedling to more advanced plant development stages. The genotypes responded to abiotic stress during the whole experiment very differently, and at the end of the experiment, nine out of the 13 traits for the landrace J. Khetifa were significantly higher than other genotypes. Moreover, single sequence repeat (SSR) genetic analysis revealed high polymorphism among the genotypes screened and interesting private alleles associated with root system architecture traits. We propose that the markers used in this study could be a resource as material for durum wheat breeding programs based on marker-assisted selection to increase the vegetal material with high drought and salt stress tolerance and to identify candidates with strong early vigor and efficient root systems. This study provides appropriate genetic materials for marker-assisted breeding programs as well as a basic study for the genetic diversity of root traits of durum wheat crops.

The Lithuanian version of the Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT-LT): psychometric characteristics of the primary and secondary symptoms scales.

The Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT) is a new measure of burnout that was developed to address the shortcomings of existing burnout instruments. This study investigates the psychometric properties of the Lithuanian version of the Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT-LT). In total, 408 adult workers were surveyed (the mean age was 35.94 years; 68.6 per cent were female; 43.9 per cent held managerial positions). Participants came from different sectors of economic activity. The results showed that BAT-LT had good factorial validity, indicating that BAT-LT's four subscales (exhaustion, cognitive impairment, emotional impairment, and mental distance) can be combined into a single burnout score. Moreover, Cronbach's alpha values indicate good reliability for all six core and secondary burnout symptoms scales. Furthermore, the results confirmed that BAT-LT could be differentiated from job boredom, workaholism, work engagement and depression. Finally, measurement invariance across managerial status and the sector was observed. The results of this study provide solid evidence for BAT-LT's reliability and factorial and construct validity.

Phenotypic and Genotypic Diversity of Roots Response to Salt in Durum Wheat Seedlings.

Soil salinity is a serious threat to food production now and in the near future. In this study, the root system of six durum wheat genotypes, including one highly salt-tolerant (J. Khetifa) used as a check genotype, was evaluated, by a high-throughput phenotyping system, under control and salt conditions at the seedling stage. Genotyping was performed using 11 SSR markers closely linked with genome regions associated with root traits. Based on phenotypic cluster analysis, genotypes were grouped differently under control and salt conditions. Under control conditions, genotypes were clustered mainly due to a root angle, while under salt stress, genotypes were grouped according to their capacity to maintain higher roots length, volume, and surface area, as J. Khetifa, Sebatel, and Azeghar. SSR analysis identified a total of 42 alleles, with an average of about three alleles per marker. Moreover, quite a high number of Private alleles in total, 18 were obtained. The UPGMA phenogram of the Nei (1972) genetic distance clusters for 11 SSR markers and all phenotypic data under control conditions discriminate genotypes almost into the same groups. The study revealed as the combination of high-throughput systems for phenotyping with SSR markers for genotyping it's a useful tool to provide important data for the selection of suitable parental lines for salt-tolerance breeding. Nevertheless, the narrow root angle, which is an important trait in drought tolerance, is not a good indicator of salt tolerance. Instated for salt tolerance is more important the amount of roots.

The LIVES Daily Hassles Scale and Its Relation to Life Satisfaction.

Although daily hassles have been of interest since the 1980s, only a few tools have been developed to assess them. Most of them are checklists or open-ended questions that are demanding for participants in panel surveys. Therefore, to facilitate daily hassles integration into large surveys, the aim of this study was to present a new tool assessing daily hassles, the LIVES-Daily Hassles Scale (LIVES-DHS), and to examine its relation to life satisfaction, in a sample of 1,170 French- and German-speaking adults living in Switzerland. In a first random subsample, we conducted a principal axis factor analysis, and the results suggested a five-factor solution. Furthermore, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis on a second random subsample, and it supported the hierarchical factor structure of the scale. The LIVES-DHS consists of 18 items represented by five factors that describe five sources of daily hassles: financial, physical, relational, environmental, and professional. The bivariate correlations showed that the LIVES-DHS could differentiate the concept of daily hassles from associated concepts. Finally, the hierarchical regression showed that daily hassles negatively predicted life satisfaction and added a significant incremental variance beyond that accounted for by age, gender, household income, education level, and personality traits.

Family boundary permeability, difficulties detaching from work, and work-home conflict: what comes first during the lockdown?

The challenges posed by the urgent demand of the lockdown to start working from home and successfully manage work-family interface have also triggered the increased boundary permeability, difficulties detaching from work and work-home conflict. However, little is known about the temporal dynamics between these challenges, therefore more research-based data could facilitate not only a better understanding of the risks for employee well-being but also finding the best practices to counteract work-home conflict when working from home. Our study aimed to examine the direction of cross-lagged effects among family boundary permeability, psychological detachment, and work-home conflict in the context of the pandemic. In all, 375 employees participated in a two-wave study. We used structural equation modelling to test and compare several models that were deployed for describing the hypothesised temporal relationships. The results of our study revealed that psychological detachment predicted boundary permeability and work-family conflict four months later, but not vice versa. Thus, the ability to detach from work should not be considered a consequence of low family boundary permeability. Instead, it seems to serve as a strategy to keep work and non-work spheres separate, eventually, to avoid work-family conflict. As a result, practical efforts should focus on helping remote workers to detach from work when they are not working rather than on the prevention of boundary-blurring. Finally, the discussion of the results of the impact of both, the context of the pandemic and the nature of the mandatory transition to working from home is presented and practical guidelines on how organisations may help employees better manage the work and home interface in telework settings are offered.

Analyses of MADS-box Genes Suggest HvMADS56 to Regulate Lateral Spikelet Development in Barley.

MADS-box transcription factors are crucial regulators of inflorescence and flower development in plants. Therefore, the recent interest in this family has received much attention in plant breeding programs due to their impact on plant development and inflorescence architecture. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of HvMADS-box genes in lateral spikelet development in barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). A set of 30 spike-contrasting barley lines were phenotypically and genotypically investigated under controlled conditions. We detected clear variations in the spike and spikelet development during the developmental stages among the tested lines. The lateral florets in the deficiens and semi-deficiens lines were more reduced than in two-rowed cultivars except cv. Kristina. Interestingly, cv. Kristina, int-h.43 and int-i.39 exhibited the same behavior as def.5, def.6, semi-def.1, semi-def.8 regarding development and showed reduced lateral florets size. In HOR1555, HOR7191 and HOR7041, the lateral florets continued their development, eventually setting seeds. In contrast, lateral florets in two-rowed barley stopped differentiating after the awn primordia stage giving rise to lateral floret sterility. At harvest, the lines tested showed large variation for all central and lateral spikelet-related traits. Phylogenetic analysis showed that more than half of the 108 MADS-box genes identified are highly conserved and are expressed in different barley tissues. Re-sequence analysis of a subset of these genes showed clear polymorphism in either SNPs or in/del. Variation in HvMADS56 correlated with altered lateral spikelet morphology. This suggests that HvMADS56 plays an important role in lateral spikelet development in barley.

Deconstructing Job Insecurity: Do its Qualitative and Quantitative Dimensions Add Up?

Despite substantial interest in job insecurity as a severe workplace stressor, the way in which its qualitative and quantitative dimensions co-occur is not fully understood. As a result, the variety of their combinations and potentially differential effects that they produce remain underexplored. The current study aimed to address this gap in two ways. First, we hypothesized that quantitative job insecurity would manifest in a cumulated form along with qualitative job insecurity but not vice versa. Second, we aimed to test whether different combinations of quantitative and qualitative job insecurity differentially reflect in employees' occupational characteristics and health and well-being outcomes. Latent profile analyses were conducted on two different samples of employees (N = 1077 and N = 608). The findings from both samples supported a three-profile solution of qualitative and quantitative job insecurity resulting in the balanced low, balanced high, and qualitative job insecurity dominant profiles. As expected, the probability of temporary and part-time employment was the highest in the balanced high (i.e., cumulated) job insecurity profile. Moreover, both the balanced high and the qualitative job insecurity dominant profiles were linked to significantly lower mental health and well-being than the low job insecurity profile, suggesting that substantially detrimental effects may occur even if experiencing qualitative job insecurity only. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s41542-021-00096-3.

One Hundred Candidate Genes and Their Roles in Drought and Salt Tolerance in Wheat.

Drought and salinity are major constraints to agriculture. In this review, we present an overview of the global situation and the consequences of drought and salt stress connected to climatic changes. We provide a list of possible genetic resources as sources of resistance or tolerant traits, together with the previous studies that focused on transferring genes from the germplasm to cultivated varieties. We explained the morphological and physiological aspects connected to hydric stresses, described the mechanisms that induce tolerance, and discussed the results of the main studies. Finally, we described more than 100 genes associated with tolerance to hydric stresses in the Triticeae. These were divided in agreement with their main function into osmotic adjustment and ionic and redox homeostasis. The understanding of a given gene function and expression pattern according to hydric stress is particularly important for the efficient selection of new tolerant genotypes in classical breeding. For this reason, the current review provides a crucial reference for future studies on the mechanism involved in hydric stress tolerance and the use of these genes in mark assistance selection (MAS) to select the wheat germplasm to face the climatic changes.

On the Dynamics of the Psychosocial Work Environment and Employee Well-Being: A Latent Transition Approach.

The current study investigates employee well-being in stable versus changing psychosocial working conditions, using the Job Demand-Control theoretical framework. It thereby addresses a gap in the literature dealing with how the dynamics of the work environment may affect different aspects of well-being, such as job satisfaction, work stress, mental health complaints, and overall quality of life. The study was carried out on a large heterogeneous sample of employees in Switzerland (N = 959) and was based on two measurement points. Latent profile and latent transition analyses were used to analyse the data. The findings revealed three commonly encountered and temporally quite stable patterns of job characteristics (i.e., latent profiles), defined by low, average, or high job control and average job demands. The average demand-low control combination was the most precarious, whereas a combination of average demands and high control was the most beneficial and it clearly outperformed the balanced average demands-average control pattern. Furthermore, our results partially supported the claim that employee well-being is contingent on the dynamics (i.e., transition scenarios) of the psychosocial work environment. They particularly highlight the central role of job resources in preventing the deleterious effects on well-being, which may occur even in relatively mild situations where job demands are not excessive.

Proactive strategies for countering the detrimental outcomes of qualitative job insecurity in academia.

Against the backdrop of various and sometimes unexpected transformations of working conditions, qualitative job insecurity has become increasingly prevalent in academia and beyond. As a result, there is a great need for identifying factors that may mitigate its detrimental outcomes on employee well-being. To do so, the current study aimed to investigate the role of two proactive participation strategies-participatory decision-making and job crafting-as a means of counteracting the effects of qualitative job insecurity on burnout, work engagement and job satisfaction. The study was based on a sample of higher education employees in Belgium and Switzerland (N = 915). To test the hypotheses, moderation analyses were conducted in the overall sample and across different staff categories (i.e., senior and junior academic staff, administrative employees). Around 30% of the tested moderation effects were statistically significant, revealing that the negative outcomes of job insecurity were less salient at high values of the moderators. In particular, our findings suggest that encouraging participative decision-making may serve as a means to maintain academic employees' job satisfaction and prevent burnout in turbulent times. Moreover, job crafting may be additionally targeted at preserving work engagement, even though its moderator effects were not universal.

Investigation of Phenolic Composition and Anticancer Properties of Ethanolic Extracts of Japanese Quince Leaves.

Glioblastoma multiforme is an aggressive and invasive disease with no efficient therapy available, and there is a great need for finding alternative treatment strategies. This study aimed to investigate anticancer activity of the extracts of the Japanese quince (JQ) cultivars 'Darius', 'Rondo', and 'Rasa' leaf extracts on glioblastoma C6 and HROG36 cells. As identified by ultra high performance liquid chromatography electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry, the extracts contained three prevailing groups of phenols: hydroxycinnamic acid derivatives; flavan-3-ols; and flavonols. Sixteen phenols were detected; the predominant compound was chlorogenic acid. The sum of detected phenols varied significantly between the cultivars ranging from 9322 µg/g ('Rondo') to 17,048 µg/g DW ('Darius'). Incubation with the extracts decreased the viability of glioblastoma HROG36 cells with an efficiency similar to temozolomide, a drug used for glioblastoma treatment. In the case of C6 glioblastoma cells, the extracts were even more efficient than temozolomide. Interestingly, primary cerebellar neuronal-glial cells were significantly less sensitive to the extracts compared to the cancer cell lines. The results showed that JQ leaf ethanol extracts are rich in phenolic compounds, can efficiently reduce glioblastoma cell viability while preserving non-cancerous cells, and are worth further investigations as potential anticancer drugs.

Japanese Quince (Chaenomeles japonica) as a Potential Source of Phenols: Optimization of the Extraction Parameters and Assessment of Antiradical and Antimicrobial Activities.

The value of fruits is determined by the quantity and variety of biologically active compounds they contain, and their benefits on human health. This work presents the first study of the biochemical composition and antibacterial activity of the new Japanese quince (JQ) cultivars 'Darius', 'Rondo', and 'Rasa' fruits. The total phenolic content (TPC) was determined using the Folin-Ciocalteu method and each compound was identified by HPLC High Performance Liquid Chromatography. The antimicrobial activity against three Gram-positive and three Gram-negative bacteria, and one yeast strain, was evaluated by the agar well diffusion method using three different concentrations. The free radical scavenging activity was determined using DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) and ABTS (2,2'-azino-bis-3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) methods and ranged from 99.1 to 115.9 µmolTE/100 g, and from 372 to 682 µmolTE/100 g, respectively. TPC ranged from 3906 to 4550 mgGAE/100 g, and five compounds, isoquercitrin, rutin, (+)-catechin, (-)-epicatechin, and chlorogenic acid were identified. All JQ extracts possessed antimicrobial activity against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, and Enterococcus faecalis (ATCC 29212) was the most sensitive strain. These results indicate that JQ fruits are a significant source of bio-compounds, which can enrich the diet with strong antioxidants, and they are very promising as a substitute for chemical preservatives in the food and cosmetic industry.

The Fatty Acid Composition and Quality of Oils from Post-Industrial Waste of Quince Chaenomeles japonica.

In the food industry, quince seeds are discarded as waste in the production process. Their use therefore creates added value and opens up the possibility of using no-waste processing technologies. Three types of waste were investigated: after juicing, after the manufacture of puree and syrup. The results showed that the yield of quince seeds (Chaenomeles japonica (Thunb.) Lindl. ex Spach from waste left after different production methods varies from 29.8 to 38.3 %. The cold pressed oil yield ranges from 4.9±0.03 to 7.1±0.06 %. The oil yield obtained by Soxhlet extraction varies from 14.6±0.64 to 17.3±0.9 %. Unsaturated fatty acid, especially polyunsaturated fatty acid is predominant in quince seed oil. The linoleic acid content of the quince seed oils was between 47.12 % and 58.49 % of the total fatty acids. The fatty acid composition of oils from post-industrial waste is more appropriate in the skin care industry than in the food industry because of the high ratio of omega-6/omega-3 and high linoleic acid content.

Perceived job insecurity and self-rated health: Testing reciprocal relationships in a five-wave study.

RATIONALE: The present study aims to investigate the pattern of cross-lagged relationships between job insecurity and self-rated health over a period of five years. While health complaints are usually seen as one of the detrimental outcomes of job insecurity, the question of the direction of the job insecurity-health relationship has not yet been fully resolved. Only a few longitudinal studies have explicitly aimed to test the possibility of reciprocal or reverse effects, and even fewer studies have used multi-wave designs to examine the pattern of these relationships. OBJECTIVE: The current study aims to address this gap by testing how cross-lagged relationships between job insecurity and self-rated health status unfold over time. METHOD: We conducted this study with a sample of the working population in Switzerland (N = 928), using the data from five consecutive measurement occasions, each separated by a one year lag. Cross-lagged structural equation modelling was performed to examine the direction of the effects. RESULTS: The results revealed an interchangeable direction of the relationship between job insecurity and health over time. T1 job insecurity predicted lower ratings of health at T2, which then predicted job insecurity at T3, which, in turn, was related to lower health at T4. The only exception was observed in the last follow-up (i.e., T4 to T5), where no evidence of cross-lagged relationships between job insecurity and self-rated health was found. CONCLUSIONS: These findings contribute to the literature suggesting that, not only may job insecurity predict later health impairment, but that in some cases, the reverse may be possible too. Researchers and policy makers need to consider this important message because the observed lagged reciprocal effects between job insecurity and health seem to form a negative cycle over time, thereby implying a dual process in the development of workplace vulnerabilities.