Investigation of the effect of the career management system and succession plan on employees' work stress and feelings of entrapment.

BACKGROUND: Work stress and feeling of entrapment are harmful physical and emotional results for employees when the workload demands exceed their capacities. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to investigate the effects of the career management system and succession plan on employees' work stress and feelings of entrapment in hopes of improving employees' well-being to promote business continuity. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, the convenient sampling method was adopted. The research was conducted with the participation of call center agents (n = 621) of three call centers in Turkey. The Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) path analysis was performed on the collected data for hypothesis testing. RESULTS: Both career management systems (CMS) and succession plans (SP) reduce employees' work stress and feelings of entrapment. Work stress was found to mediate the effects of CMS and SP on the Feeling of Entrapment. The CMS reduces the work stress of employees with university degrees than those with a high school diploma. Meanwhile, SP reduces more of the feeling of entrapment for employees newly starting their jobs (with 0-2 years of seniority) than the workers with three or more years of seniority. CONCLUSION: Empirically, the feeling of entrapment seems higher among the employees with three or more years of seniority, suggesting that human resource management should focus on employees' work stress and feeling of job insecurity issues and offer possible and timely solutions. Furthermore, organizations showing care to newly arriving staff and giving them job assurance is believed crucial to improving employees' recruitment and retention.

Apoptosis induced by bovine ephemeral fever virus.

The potential significance of bovine ephemeral fever virus (BEFV)-induced apoptosis and involved viral molecules was fully unknown. In the present study, evidence is provided demonstrating that bovine ephemeral fever virus induces apoptosis in several cell lines. Five types of assays for apoptosis were used in examining BEFV-infected cells. (1) Assay for DNA fragmentation, (2) nuclear staining with acridine orange, (3) ELISA detection of cytoplasmic histone-associated DNA fragment, (4) terminal deoxynucleotidyltransferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick-end labelling (TUNEL) assay of BEFV-infected cells, (5) observation of blebbing of the plasma membrane and the formation of apoptotic bodies of apoptic cells by scanning electron microscope. The level of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) in BEFV-infected cells was increased significantly after 20-25 h post-infection. Caspases-2, -3, -4, -6, -8, -9, and -10 were activated in BEFV-infected BHK-21 cells. To determine further whether BEFV-induced apoptosis was caspase-dependent, the effect of the tripeptide pan-ICE (caspase) inhibitor N-benzyloxycarbonyl-Val-Ala-Asp-fluoromethyketone on the inhibition of apoptosis in BEFV-infected BHK-21 cells, was investigated. Apoptosis could be blocked by the caspase inhibitor (Z-VAD-fmk), indicating that BEFV induces caspase-dependent apoptosis in cultured cells.

Characterization of a novel bleeding disorder with isolated prolonged bleeding time and deficiency of platelet microvesicle generation.

Platelet prothrombinase activity and microvesicle (MV) generation were measured in four patients from three unrelated families with a life-long bleeding disorder associated with slightly prolonged bleeding time and isolated defective serum prothrombin consumption, without platelet function abnormality or von Willebrand factor defect. MV generation was reduced in all the patients either after thrombin plus collagen or A23187 calcium ionophore stimulation, whereas, at variance with Scott syndrome, prothrombinase activity was normal. This abnormality constitutes a new bleeding disorder, which provides new insights into the possible role of platelet microvesicles in health and disease. Furthermore, the results of this study suggest that MV generation should be investigated in patients with a bleeding history and apparently isolated prolonged bleeding time when prothrombin consumption in serum is defective and all other investigations are normal.