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Previous research suggests that workplace deviance, one of the most pressing problems for today's organizations, tends to decline as employees age. However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying the age-deviance relationship. Using aggregated 5-day daily diary data in a sample of 158 Chinese full-time employees, the present study examined age differences in the use of emotional labor strategies (i.e. surface acting and deep acting) and how these age differences relate to employee workplace deviance via organizational cynicism. Results found that age was negatively related to the use of both surface acting and deep acting. Emotional labor strategies (i.e. surface acting and deep acting) and organizational cynicism serially mediated the relationship between employee age and workplace deviance. The current research deepens our understanding of the process by which employee age relates to workplace deviance. This study also has implications for the management of an increasingly age-diverse workforce and can guide future interventions aiming at reducing workplace deviance, an issue of increasing concern to both organizations and society in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brownmillerite‐type oxides are a large family of structural and functional materials that are of great concern. In this study, the occupancy mechanism of Fe and Al ions in brownmillerite Ca2FeAlO5 is revealed and the specific configuration of Ca2FeAlO5 is proposed for the first time. Through the energy analysis of a series of conjectured models based on well‐defined ab initio calculations, we find that the distribution of Al and Fe in Ca2FeAlO5 follows the "homogeneous layer principle", namely, Al and Fe tend to form homogeneous octahedral layers or tetrahedral chains rather than mixed layers or chains of two elements along the b axis. The theoretical Ca2FeAlO5 structure with specific atomic occupancy is proposed based on energy analysis and previous experiments, which is of fundamental significance for further study of its physical and chemical properties. Moreover, the influence of entropy increment on the stability of Ca2FeAlO5 crystal is clarified, which paves the way to investigate the structures and properties of Ca2FeAlO5 and other brownmillerite members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Myeloid‐derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) are functionally immunosuppressive cells that are persistently increased in abundance and associated with adverse clinical outcomes in sepsis. Here, we investigated the therapeutic potential of an anaplastic lymphoma kinase inhibitor, LDK378, in cecal ligation and puncture (CLP)‐induced polymicrobial sepsis and examined its effects on the recruitment of MDSCs. LDK378 significantly improved the survival of CLP‐induced polymicrobial septic mice, which was paralleled by reduced organ injury, decreased release of inflammatory cytokines and decreased recruitment of MDSCs to the spleen. Importantly, LDK378 inhibited the migration of MDSCs to the spleen by blocking the CLP‐mediated upregulation of CC chemokine receptor 2 (CCR2), a chemokine receptor critical for the recruitment of MDSCs. Mechanistically, LDK378 treatment blocked the CLP‐induced CCR2 upregulation of MDSCs via partially inhibiting the phosphorylation of p38 and G‐protein‐coupled receptor kinase‐2 (GRK2) in bone marrow MDSCs of septic mice. Furthermore, in vitro experiments also showed that lipopolysaccharide (LPS)‐induced migration of MDSCs was similarly owing to the activation of GRK2 and upregulation of CCR2 by LPS, whereas the treatment with LDK378 partially blocked the LPS‐induced phosphorylation of p38 and GRK2 and decreased the expression of CCR2 on the cell surface, therefore leading to the suppression of MDSC migration. Together, these findings unravel a novel function of LDK378 in the host response to infection and suggest that LDK378 could be a potential therapeutic agent for sepsis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molybdenum clusters consisting of 2–55 atoms were investigated using density functional theory calculations with a plane-wave basis set. The results show that the linear and planar molybdenum clusters have a strong tendency to form dimers. This tendency results in the formation of alternate short and long bonds within a linear cluster, in which the strength of these short bonds is covalent. Therefore, the linear and planar Mo clusters exhibit significant nonmetallic characteristics. Furthermore, the linear and planar Mo clusters show a strong even-odd effect in binding energy with the even-numbered clusters being more stable than their neighboring odd-numbered clusters. On the other hand, the even-odd effect in the energy gap between the highest occupied and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals, i.e., the HOMO-LUMO energy gap, for the linear and the planar clusters is different. The odd-numbered linear clusters and even-numbered planar clusters have larger HOMO-LUMO energy gaps than their corresponding neighboring clusters. © 2004 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A systematic investigation of palladium nanoparticles of up to 55 atoms (1.4 nm) has been conducted using density functional theory with a plane wave basis set. The stability of these nanoparticles increases with cluster size and dimensionality. It also depends strongly on the cluster structures through two factors, the coordination numbers of atoms and the strength of the single bonds. Both the energy gap between the highest occupied and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals and the magnetic moment change oscillatorily with cluster size. Furthermore, highly magnetic clusters tend to have large energy gaps. Analysis of the atom-resolved magnetic moment reveals that the local magnetism of a cluster depends mainly on the atomic bonding environments. A simple approach is proposed to predict relative stabilities of various structures for larger clusters. In addition, a structure factor is defined to correlate quantitatively various properties of the Pd clusters with their structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Density-functional theory with a plane wave basis set was used to study ruthenium clusters of up to 64 atoms. The study revealed that atoms in similar bonding environments have similar binding energies.

As a special type of linear codes, minimal linear codes have important applications in secret sharing. Up to now, only a few infinite families of minimal binary linear codes with wmin/wmax≤1/2 were reported in the literature, while vast knowledge exists on the ones with wmin/wmax>1/2. Herein, wmin and wmax respectively denote the minimum and maximum nonzero Hamming weights in a linear code. Recently, several classes of linear codes with certain properties were constructed by Zhou et al. from a generic construction. The objective of this paper is to obtain four families of minimal binary linear codes with wmin/wmax≤1/2 from those linear codes proposed by Zhou et al. The parameters of our minimal linear codes are quite different from known ones. Based on the properties of Krawtchouk polynomials, the weight distributions of all these four families of binary linear codes are established. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Converting renewable biomass and their derivatives into chemicals and fuels has received much attention to reduce the dependence on fossil resources. Photocatalytic ethanol dehydrogenation–acetalization to prepare value‐added 1,1‐diethoxyethane and H2 was achieved over non‐precious metal CdS/Ni‐MoS2 catalyst under visible light. The system displays an excellent production rate and high selectivity of 1,1‐diethoxyethane, 52.1 mmol g−1 h−1 and 99.2 %, respectively. In‐situ electron spin resonance, photoluminescence spectroscopy and transient photocurrent responses were conducted to investigate the mechanism. This study provides a promising strategy for a green application of bioethanol. Remove hydrogen and acetalize: Photocatalytic ethanol dehydrogenation–acetalization to prepare value‐added 1,1‐diethoxyethane and H2 was achieved over non‐precious metal CdS/Ni‐MoS2 catalyst under visible light. This work provides a promising strategy for a green atom‐economic application of bioethanol. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]