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Shagufta Zada,1,2 Jawad Khan,3 Imran Saeed,4 Huifang Wu,1 Yongjun Zhang,1 Abdullah Mohamed5 1Business School, Henan University, Kaifeng, 475000, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences Ilma University Pakistan, Karachi, Pakistan; 3Department of Business Administration, Iqra National University, Peshawar, Pakistan; 4IBMS, the University of Agriculture, Peshawar, Pakistan; 5Research Centre, Future University in Egypt, New Cairo, 11835, EgyptCorrespondence: Huifang Wu, Business School, Henan University, Kaifeng, People’s Republic of China, Email lemonwhf@163.comPurpose: One of the most exciting aspects of organisational psychology is the study of shame and the factors that lead up to it. The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between supervisor negative feedback and task performance. Further, we examined the mediating role of shame between supervisor negative feedback and task performance and the moderating role of self-esteem.Methods: Employees working full-time in educational institutions across Pakistan were selected to collect data from the respondents. By using a convenience sampling technique, 258 employees participated in the study. The data were collected in three phases to reduce the problem of the common variance bias. Direct paths were tested by using simple linear regression (SPSS V.25). Hayes (2017) PROCESS macro model 4 was used for mediation and model 1 for moderation.Results: The findings revealed that negative feedback from supervisors is linked positively with employees’ task performance. Further, shame partially mediates the relation between supervisor negative feedback and tas performance. When self-esteem is high, negative feedback and task performance were more strongly associated than low.Discussion: This study has theoretical and practical implications and is based on the well-known theory of psychology ie affective events theory (AET), which states that workplace events cause emotions, influencing work attitudes and actions. This study fills the gap which is unknown to the scholars and practitioners in understanding that supervisor negative feedback is helpful to enhance employee task performance via feeling shame.Keywords: shame, supervisor negative feedback, self-esteem, task performance

Muhammad Zada,1 Shagufta Zada,1,2 Jawad Khan,3 Imran Saeed,4 Yong Jun Zhang,1 Alejandro Vega-Muñoz,5 Guido Salazar-Sepúlveda6 1Business School Henan University, Kaifeng, 475000, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences, Ilma University, Karachi, Pakistan; 3Department of Business Administration, Iqra National University, Peshawar, Pakistan; 4IBMS, The University of Agriculture, Peshawar, Pakistan; 5Public Policy Observatory, Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Santiago, 7500912, Chile; 6Departamento de Ingeniería Industrial, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, Concepción, 4090541, ChileCorrespondence: Yong Jun Zhang, Business School Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan, 475000, People’s Republic of China, Email 10090055@vip.henu.edu.cnPurpose: This study aims to investigate the impact of servant leadership on the psychological distress of healthcare staff during the Covid-19 crisis. The authors propose that work engagement mediates and mindfulness moderates the direct relationship between servant leadership and psychological distress.Methods: Time-lagged data were collected from 277 healthcare staff working at different hospitals in Pakistan. Process Macro version 3.1 on SPSS 23 was used for statistical analysis. For model fitness, we used AMOS V 22.Results: The results show that servant leadership is negatively related to psychological distress. Furthermore, work engagement mediates the relationship between servant leadership and psychological distress. Moreover, mindfulness is anticipated to moderate the direct relationship between servant leadership and psychological distress, drawing on the social exchange and conservation of resources theory.Discussion: This study finds that servant leadership is vital for the mental health of healthcare staff. Thus, it extends the utility of the concept of servant leadership to the psychology and crisis management literature.Keywords: servant leadership, mindfulness, Covid-19 crisis, work engagement, psychological distress, healthcare staff

Karakoram mountain range contains the tallest mountain peaks of the world with thousands of glaciers which are microbiologically untapped. This is a pioneer approach of isolation and characterization of fungi from Batura glacier, Karakoram, Pakistan. Total number (CFU/mL or g) was determined at 4 °C and 15 °C to isolate psychrophilic and psychrotrophic fungi, respectively. About 33 different fungi were isolated from sediment (29), ice (2) and water (2) and were identified morphologically and by sequencing of specific internal transcribed spacer region of the species through internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS1) and internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) primers. Mostly, the fungal isolates belonged to genus Penicillium, followed by Cladosporium, Geomyces, Cordyceps, Mrakia, Cadophora, Tetracladium, Eupenicillium, Trametes, Mortierella, Scopulariopsis, Beauveria, Candida and Pseudogymnoascus. They showed growth at wide temperature range from 4-37 °C, few at 45 °C as well. Most of the isolates were able to grow at pH 1- 13. Fungal isolates were able to grow in 2-26% NaCl, with the highest tolerance (26%) by Mrakia robertii. All study isolates showed inhibitory activity against Staphylococcus sp., and four industrially important enzymes (cellulase, DNase, lipase and phosphatase) were produced by Mrakia robertii. The fungal isolates of such cold habitats are potential sources of various industrial and environmental application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Murree and Ayubia hills are parts of the lower Himalaya Mountain range in Pakistan. The rocks of these hills are younger and mostly limestone in nature. In this study, geomicrobiological investigation of the selected samples collected from Murree and Ayubia hills was carried out. The rock samples were spread on nutrient agar plates and endolithic and epilithic bacteria were isolated on the basis of colony morphology and studied further. All the isolates were screened for different industrially important hydrolytic enzymes. Study isolates were identified through 16S rRNA gene sequencing. These endoliths and epiliths were assayed for antimicrobial activities against clinical isolates S. aureus, P. aeuroginosa and E. coli. Total 31 bacterial isolates were recovered of which 15 were endolithic and 16 were epilithic. 16S rRNA gene sequencing revealed major culturable groups colonizing these rocks were clustered in four major groups, Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Actinobacteria and Bacteroidetes which inlcude Alcaligenes, Lysinibacillus, Actinobacteria, Pseudomonas, Pusillimonas, Streptomyces, Fluviicola, Serratia, Flavobacterium, Stenotrophomonas and Brevindomonas species. The sequences were deposited in NCBI for acquisition of accession numbers. The bacterial isolates were efficient producers of oxidase, catalase, protease, amylase and gelatinase. The endolithic isolates N4 (Pseudomonas sp. KT223616) and N28 (Streptomyces sp. KT004386) exhibited good activity against all the three clinically isolated target strains. The study revealed the rocks of Murree and Ayubia hills have a rich microbial ecology that besides having an important role in weathering and mineralization processes may also be potential source of biotechnological applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Influenza A virus poses a continuous threat to global public health. Design of novel universal drugs and vaccine requires a careful analysis of different strains of Influenza A viral genome from diverse hosts and subtypes. We performed a systematic in silico analysis of Influenza A viral segments of all available Influenza A viral strains and subtypes and grouped them based on host, subtype, and years isolated, and through multiple sequence alignments we extrapolated conserved regions, motifs, and accessible regions for functional mapping and annotation. Results Across all species and strains 87 highly conserved regions (conservation percentage > = 90%) and 19 functional motifs (conservation percentage = 100%) were found in PB2, PB1, PA, NP, M, and NS segments. The conservation percentage of these segments ranged between 94 - 98% in human strains (the most conserved), 85 - 93% in swine strains (the most variable), and 91 - 94% in avian strains. The most conserved segment was different in each host (PB1 for human strains, NS for avian strains, and M for swine strains). Target accessibility prediction yielded 324 accessible regions, with a single stranded probability > 0.5, of which 78 coincided with conserved regions. Some of the interesting annotations in these regions included sites for protein-protein interactions, the RNA binding groove, and the proton ion channel. Conclusions The influenza virus has evolved to adapt to its host through variations in the GC content and conservation percentage of the conserved regions. Nineteen universal conserved functional motifs were discovered, of which some were accessible regions with interesting biological functions. These regions will serve as a foundation for universal drug targets as well as universal vaccine design.

Abstract Background Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a worldwide health problem with no vaccine and the only approved therapy is Interferon-based plus Ribavarin. Response prediction to treatment has health and economic impacts, and is a multi-factorial problem including both host and viral factors (e.g: age, sex, ethnicity, pre-treatment viral load, and dynamics of the HCV non-structural protein NS5A quasispecies). We implement a novel approach for extracting features including informative markers from mutations in the non-structural 5A protein (NS5A), specifically its Interferon sensitivity determining region (ISDR) and V3 regions, and use a novel bioinformatics approach for pattern recognition on the NS5A protein and its motifs to find biomarkers for response prediction using class association rules and comparing the predictability of the different features. Results A total of 58 sequences from sustained responders and 94 from non-responders were downloaded from the HCV LANL database. Site-specific signatures for response prediction from the NS5A protein were extracted from the alignments. Class association rules were generated (e.g.: sustained response is associated with position A2368T in subtype 1a (support 100% and confidence 52.19%); in subtype 1b, response is associated with E2356G/D/K (support 76.3% and confidence 67.3%). Conclusion The V3 region was a more accurate biomarker than the ISDR region. Subtype-specific class association rules gave better support and confidence than profile hidden Markov models HMMs scores, genetic distances or number of variable sites, and would thus aid in the prediction of prognostic biomarkers and improve the accuracy of prognosis. Sites-specific class association rules in the V3 region of the NS5A protein have given the best support and confidence.