Examining variables of the job context as predictors of nurses’ demand appraisals

Scientific Conference (2023, May 26)

Research goals: The present study examined whether (a) time-related factors of the job context, namely working time and job tenure, predict nurses’ challenge/hindrance appraisals alongside job demands ... [more ▼]

Research goals: The present study examined whether (a) time-related factors of the job context, namely working time and job tenure, predict nurses’ challenge/hindrance appraisals alongside job demands themselves, and whether (b) both factors might act as boundary conditions of nurses’ workplace stressor appraisals. Theoretical background: Based on the transactional theory of stress (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), studies have so far examined employees’ subjective evaluations of workplace stressors as challenging and/or hindering and their associations to different well-being outcomes (e.g., Webster et al., 2011). Although these studies have helped us to get a more nuanced insight into work-related demands and how they may affect employees, little is known on the question of whether the job context itself might shape how employees experience certain workplace stressors (LePine, 2022). Yet, knowing whether contextual factors of the job might impact employees’ stress appraisal may help us to handle the negative effects of such job stressors (LePine, 2022). Thus, the current study aimed to investigate the role specific contextual variables of the job play as regards to nurses’ subjective appraisals of job demands as challenges and/or hindrances. Design/Methodology/Approach/Intervention: The current study was conducted as part of a broad scientific project on nurses’ working conditions in Luxemburg. Cross-sectional data was collected via an online survey (French/German). The effective sample consisted of 460 nurses (76.9 % female, n = 352; Mage = 39.40, SDage = 9.95). Statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS (version 25) and the PROCESS macro for SPSS (Hayes, 2018). To examine the associations between job demands, contextual variables and appraisals, a total of four simple moderation analyses (Model#2; Hayes, 2018) were conducted with challenge and hindrance appraisal as the criterion variables. Per criterion variable we performed two moderation analyses (i.e., one including time pressure as predictor, one including emotional demands as predictor). Working time and job tenure were specified as the moderator variables and were jointly introduced into the regression models. Predictor and moderator variables were mean centered prior analysis. Results: Regression analyses showed that time pressure and emotional demands significantly related to their challenge (for time pressure: b = -.19, p < .001; for emotional demands: b = -.11, p < .05) and hindrance appraisals (for time pressure: b = .33, p <.001; for emotional demands: b = .32, p < .001). Moreover, job tenure significantly predicted nurses’ appraisal of time pressure as challenging (b = -.001, p < .05). In other words, an increased job tenure went along with a decreased perception of time pressure as challenging. Yet, working time did not significantly predict nurses’ appraisals of job demands (i.e., time pressure, emotional demands). Furthermore, we did not detect significant interaction effects. Limitations: The current study focused on two time-related factors of the job context (job tenure and working time) as predictors of nurses’ appraisals. Yet, other contextual factors of the job (e.g., shift work, breaks) might affect how employees appraise certain demands. Moreover, we implemented a cross-sectional design precluding a causal interpretation. Conclusions: The current research identified time-related, contextual factors of the job, which contribute to how nurses appraise specific job demands. Results suggest that nurses with a higher job tenure experience time pressure at work as less of a challenge. This might suggest that they may be better at coping/dealing with time pressure at work than their colleagues with fewer years working in nursing. Note, however, that nurses’ self-reported working time was unrelated to their challenge and hindrance appraisals of job demands. These findings suggest that scholars might need to adopt a more differentiated perspective when conducting research on time-related, contextual factors of the job and their role within the stress appraisal process. [less ▲]

Exploring the History of Digital History: Setting an Agenda

Presentation (2023, May 25)

Presentation for the ZZF PhD colloquium of my current (new) book project which explores the history and genealogies of digital history, set within the broader context of the ways in which technology has ... [more ▼]

Presentation for the ZZF PhD colloquium of my current (new) book project which explores the history and genealogies of digital history, set within the broader context of the ways in which technology has shaped historical research practices and knowledge production since the late 19th century. The aim is to investigate the intellectual underpinnings of the field we now call digital history by attending to the longue durée of the human-machine encounter in historical research. For over a century, historians have reflected upon the impact of various mechanical aids and computing on their discipline. Along the way, they have debated key epistemological and methodological questions that have resurfaced in our current era of ‘digital history’, yet this is often forgotten. If we accept, however, that historical research practices and knowledge production have always been affected by technology, then how can we qualify what is new in the current moment and what is not? In other words, how can we work towards a self-understanding of the field of digital history that is truly grounded in history? [less ▲]

Quel modèle de coopératives comme support des plateformes coopératives ?

Scientific Conference (2023, May 24)

The impact of cerebral visual impairment in school related competences in elementary school children

Scientific Conference (2023, May 22)

Cerebral vision impairment (CVI) refers to a disturbance in visual processing related to damage to the visual areas in the brain and/or visual pathways. It is often assumed that CVI underlies functional ... [more ▼]

Cerebral vision impairment (CVI) refers to a disturbance in visual processing related to damage to the visual areas in the brain and/or visual pathways. It is often assumed that CVI underlies functional vision difficulties. Previous research estimated that around 3% of mainstream educated elementary school children have CVI, potentially compromising these students’ school related performance. This study aimed to clarify how CVI impacts children’s performance in school competence tests. As part of the Luxembourgish school monitoring, the complete cohort of first graders (N = 5536) participated in three competence tests (mathematics, early literacy and listening comprehension) and student/parent questionnaires (background information). From this cohort, a representative sample (n = 1129) also participated individually in a visual competences’ screening (Evaluation of Visuo-Attentional Abilities battery, optometric measures). For this study, the sample was divided into children with CVI (n = 38) and children without CVI (n = 890) based on the clinical screening outcome. Children with other diagnoses were excluded from the sample (n = 201). Results from multiple regressions showed that CVI children obtained significantly lower scores than children without CVI for mathematics and early literacy but not for listening comprehension, when controlling for background characteristics (gender, socio-economic status, migration background, parental education, and home language). Listening comprehension was however a significant predictor for mathematics and early literacy for both groups when controlling for background measures. More specifically, the explained variance of these models was higher for CVI children suggesting that they highly rely on auditory compensation strategies to complete written achievement tests. The prevalence rate for CVI was 3% within the representative sample confirming internationally reported rates. These results show the impact of CVI on school related performances and the need for the implementation of a systematic early identification of children at risk. [less ▲]

A Just Transition in an Unjust World: Perspectives From the Global South

Speeches/Talks (2023)

Over the past few years, and in response to the climate emergency that we find ourselves in, significant momentum has built around the idea of a just transition. The ILO defines a just transition as ... [more ▼]

Over the past few years, and in response to the climate emergency that we find ourselves in, significant momentum has built around the idea of a just transition. The ILO defines a just transition as “greening the economy in a way that is as fair and inclusive as possible to everyone concerned, creating decent work opportunities, and leaving no one behind.” One significant development towards a just transition is the recent wave of mandatory Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence Laws (mHREDD) that have taken Europe by storm in the recent past. Diverse countries such as France, Germany and Norway have enacted due diligence laws imposing mandatory obligations on in-scope companies. In addition, the EU is currently in the process of drafting a Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) that will likely catalyze legislative action in EU countries that are yet to enact due diligence laws, and even beyond the EU as a result of the “Brussels effect.” Arguably, an integral part of these mHREDD laws is the notion of a just transition, particularly through the “creation of decent work and quality jobs in the context of the implementation of climate change mitigation policies.” Yet, in this regard, legitimate concerns can and should be raised about how progress towards a just transition can be made, given the structural imbalances and power asymmetries that plague the global order, often pitting the interests of global South rightsholders against large and powerful global North Transnational Corporations (TNCs). This paper will interrogate the progress towards binding due diligence obligations in Europe in order to offer some tentative insights on whether such laws are capable of fulfilling their just transition targets, given the continuing disenfranchisement of global south rightsholders from the law making and implementation processes. In other words, the analysis will revolve around whether it is possible to contribute to a just transition (within the context of due diligence laws) given the unjust structure of the global legal order that continues to privilege TNCs at the expense of global south rightsholders. [less ▲]

Augmented Reality: an attractive way to teach languages for the new pre-service teachers’ generation?

Scientific Conference (2023, May 15)

Enabling Resilient and Efficient Communication for the XRP Ledger and Interledger

Doctoral thesis (2023)

The blockchain technology is relatively new and still evolving. Its development was fostered by an enthusiastic community of developers, which sometimes forgot about the lessons from the past related to ... [more ▼]

The blockchain technology is relatively new and still evolving. Its development was fostered by an enthusiastic community of developers, which sometimes forgot about the lessons from the past related to security, resilience and efficiency of communication which can impact network scalability, service quality and even service availability. These challenges can be addressed at network level but also at operating system level. At network level, the protocols and the architecture used play a major role, and overlays have interesting advantages like custom protocols and the possibility of arbitrary deployments. This thesis shows how overlay networks can be designed and deployed to benefit the security and performance in communication for consensus-validation based blockchains and blockchain inter-operativity, taking as concrete cases the XRP ledger and respectively the Interledger protocol. XRP Ledger is a consensus-validation based blockchain focused on payments which currently uses a flooding mechanism for peer to peer communication, with a negative impact on scalability. One of the proposed overlays is based on Named Data Networking, an Internet architecture using for propagation the data name instead of data location. The second proposed overlay is based on Spines, a solution offering improved latency on lossy paths, intrusion tolerance and resilience to routing attacks. The system component was also interesting to study, and the contribution of this thesis centers around methodologies to evaluate the system performance of a node and increase the security from the system level. The value added by the presented work can be synthesized as follows: i) investigate and propose a Named Data Networking-based overlay solution to improve the efficiency of intra-blockchain communication at network level, taking as a working case the XRP Ledger; ii) investigate and propose an overlay solution based on Spines, which improves the security and resilience of inter-blockchain communication at network level, taking as a working case the Interledger protocol; iii) investigate and propose a host-level solution for non-intrusive instrumentation and monitoring which helps improve the performance and security of inter-blockchain communication at the system level of machines running Distributed Ledger infrastructure applications treated as black-boxes, with Interledger Connectors as a concrete case. [less ▲]

TRIGGER: A Lightweight Universal Jamming Gripper for Aerial Grasping

in IEEE Access (2023)

Genome-wide structural variant analysis identifies risk loci for non-Alzheimer’s dementias

in Cell Genomics (2023)

We characterized the role of structural variants, a largely unexplored type of genetic variation, in two non-Alzheimer’s dementias, namely Lewy body dementia (LBD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD ... [more ▼]

We characterized the role of structural variants, a largely unexplored type of genetic variation, in two non-Alzheimer’s dementias, namely Lewy body dementia (LBD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD)/amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). To do this, we applied an advanced structural variant calling pipeline (GATK-SV) to short-read whole-genome sequence data from 5,213 European-ancestry cases and 4,132 controls. We discovered, replicated, and validated a deletion in TPCN1 as a novel risk locus for LBD and detected the known structural variants at the C9orf72 and MAPT loci as associated with FTD/ALS. We also identified rare pathogenic structural variants in both LBD and FTD/ALS. Finally, we assembled a catalog of structural variants that can be mined for new insights into the pathogenesis of these understudied forms of dementia. [less ▲]

Asymptotic covariances for functionals of weakly stationary random fields

E-print/Working paper (2023)