Impact of perception of COVID-19 on NPI, job satisfaction, and customer orientation: Highlighting three types of NPIs for the airline industry

Without vaccines or pharmaceutical treatments for a viral pandemic, non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as washing hands and wearing masks are likely the most effective ways to control infections at airports and on airplanes. Although the aviation market is a major entry point for viruses, little is known about how flight attendants view the risk of COVID-19 and whether they follow individual-organizational-governmental NPI protocols. Guided by protection motivation theory (Rogers, 1975), this study proposed an NPI model tailored specifically to the airline industry and examined how an extended NPI would affect job satisfaction and customer orientation of Korean flight attendants (n = 371). Results revealed that perceptions of COVID-19 are positively related to three types of NPIs, which in turn positively influenced job satisfaction and customer orientation. Given that the examined three types of NPIs had not been paid attention in previous research, the study's proposed conceptual model should better guide the airline industry in protecting its flight attendants with NPI strategies inside and outside aircraft.

Environmental effects of the technology transformation from hard-disk to solid-state drives from resource depletion and toxicity management perspectives

Solid-state drives (SSDs) are used as data storage systems in various electronic devices in place of hard-disk drives (HDDs) due to their higher speed and durability and lower noise and power consumption. Although SSDs have these advantages, the environmental consequences of the technology transformation from HDD to SSD need to be examined from resource depletion and toxicity management perspectives because most electronic components and devices contain rare, precious, and toxic metals. Thus, the objective of this study was to assess and compare resource depletion and toxicity potentials from metals in an HDD and an SSD on a same capacity basis. The environmental impact potentials were evaluated based on the metal contents and masses of the drives and environmental impact characterization factors used in life cycle impact assessments. The SSD had 86% to 94% lower resource depletion potentials than the HDD, due primarily to the lower contents of Au, Cu, Pd, Ru, and Pt, whereas the SSD had 33% higher potential for only In. The SSD also had 87% to 94% lower toxicity potentials due primarily to the lower contents of Ni, Pb, Cu, and Cr. Thus, this study showed that the technology transformation is environmentally desirable to conserve resources and to protect human and ecological health. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2019;15:292-298. © 2019 SETAC.

Dibutyryl cyclic AMP and forskolin inhibit phosphatidylinositol hydrolysis, Ca2+ influx and contraction in vascular smooth muscle

Dibutyryl cyclic AMP and forskolin inhibited the contraction induced by norepinephrine (NE) more strongly than the high K(+)-induced contraction in isolated rat aorta. These inhibitors inhibited the 45Ca2+ influx stimulated by NE but not that by high K+, and they inhibited NE-induced inositol monophosphate accumulation. These results suggest that cAMP inhibits NE-induced contraction, at least partly, by inhibiting the alpha-adrenoceptor-mediated signal transduction and high K(+)-induced contraction by decreasing Ca2+ sensitivity but not Ca2+ influx.