Core affect and subjective wellbeing: a rebuttal to Moum and Land

This paper is a rebuttal to the reviews of Moum and Land. Publication has been facilitated by Journal policy (see Instructions to authors ‘Procedure when the authors and reviewers disagree’ on the Journal website) which details the procedure to be followed in the case of disputed manuscripts. Our reply is in two parts. The first concerns issues of theory and the second issues of methodology. Each point of critique raised by the reviewers has been answered and shown either to be false or irrelevant. We contend that our original conclusion still stands. Subjective wellbeing is dominated by Core Affect.

Attachments between directors and auditors: do they affect engagement tenure?

Auditors and directors may develop personal attachments over time based on trust and familiarity, and these personal ties seem important for the maintenance of long-term auditor-client relationships. This study examines the tenure of the audit engagement in the presence of these links, which is expected to be longer than auditor-client relationships not so linked. Results indicate director-auditor links are positively associated with auditor tenure and the retention of auditors beyond the critical four-year period identified by Levinthal and Fichman (1988).

The effect of affect in organizational settings

The study of emotion and affect on organizational settings has been steadily gaining momentum for much of the last decade. Important catalysts in this process have been the Emonet e-mail discussion group and the biannual International Conferences on Emotions and Organizational Life. The articles in this volume represent a selection of the best papers presented at the fourth Conference (which was conducted in London, England, in June, 2004), together with invited papers by some of the leading scholars in the field.
The theme of the book, "the effect of affect in organizations," was chosen to capture the centrality of emotion and affect in everyday organizational life. The opening chapter, co-authored by Howard Weiss, one of the inventors of "Affective Events Theory" (AET), sets the scene. At the heart of AET is the idea that organizational members experience daily hassles and uplifts that are reflected in their attitudes and behaviours. Following chapters flesh out the way that AET can be applied, covering a variety of constructs that relate to organizational life, including emotional intelligence, motivation, employee monitoring of web access, and emotional regulation. Other chapters deal with other aspects of emotion in organizations, such as loneliness, leader-member relationships in teams, organizational justice, negative behaviour, creativity, and organizational reactions to crisis situations. In the final chapter, Rob Briner and his colleagues round out the theme in a critical account of emotion in organizations.

Somatic encounters: affect, presence and value in aesthetic practice

Reproduced with the specific permission of the copyright owner.

Truncation of Plasmodium berghei merozoite surface protein 8 does not affect in vivo blood-stage development

Merozoite surface protein 8 (MSP8) has shown promise as a vaccine candidate in the Plasmodium yoelii rodent malaria model and has a proposed role in merozoite invasion of erythrocytes. However, the temporal expression and localisation of MSP8 are unusual for a merozoite antigen. Moreover, in Plasmodium falciparum the MSP8 gene could be disrupted with no apparent effect on in vitro growth. To address the in vivo function of full-length MSP8, we truncated MSP8 in the rodent parasite Plasmodium berghei. PbΔMSP8 disruptant parasites displayed a normal blood-stage growth rate but no increase in reticulocyte preference, a phenomenon observed in P. yoelii MSP8 vaccinated mice. Expression levels of erythrocyte surface antigens were similar in P. berghei wild-type and PbΔMSP8-infected erythrocytes, suggesting that a parasitophorous vacuole function for MSP8 does not involve global trafficking of such antigens. These data demonstrate that a full-length membrane-associated form of PbMSP8 is not essential for blood-stage growth.

Cage colour and post-harvest K+ concentration affect skin colour of Australian snapper Pagrus auratus (Bloch & Schneider, 1801)

In an attempt to improve post-harvest skin colour in cultured Australian snapper Pagrus auratus, a two-factor experiment was carried out to investigate the effects of a short-term change in cage colour before harvest, followed by immersion in K⁺-enriched solutions of different concentrations. Snapper supplemented with 39 mg unesterified astaxanthin kg⁻¹ for 50 days were transferred to black (for 1 day) or white cages (for 1 or 7 days) before euthanasia by immersing fish in seawater ice slurries supplemented with 0, 150, 300, 450 or 600 mmol L⁻¹ K⁺ for 1 h. Each treatment was replicated with five snapper (mean weight=838 g) held individually within 0.2 m³ cages. L*, a* and b* skin colour values of all fish were measured after removal from K⁺ solutions at 0, 3, 6, 12, 24 and 48 h. After immersion in K⁺ solutions, fish were stored on ice. Both cage colour and K⁺ concentration significantly affected post-harvest skin colour (P<0.05), and there was no interaction between these factors at any of the measurement times (P>0.05). Conditioning dark-coloured snapper in white surroundings for 1 day was sufficient to significantly improve skin lightness (L*) after death. Although there was no difference between skin lightness values for fish held for either 1 or 7 days in white cages at measurement times up to 12 h, fish held in white cages for 7 days had significantly higher L* values (i.e. they were lighter) after 24 and 48 h of storage on ice than those held only in white cages for 1 day. K⁺ treatment also affected (improved) skin lightness post harvest although not until 24 and 48 h after removal of fish from solutions. Before this time, K⁺ treatment had no effect on skin lightness. Snapper killed by seawater ice slurry darkened (lower L*) markedly during the first 3 h of storage in contrast with all K⁺ treatments that prevented darkening. After 24 and 48 h of storage on ice, fish exposed to 450 and 600 mmol L⁻¹ K⁺ were significantly lighter than fish from seawater ice slurries. In addition, skin redness (a*) and yellowness (b*) were strongly dependent on K⁺ concentration. The initial decline in response to K⁺ was overcome by a return of a* and b* values with time, most likely instigated by a redispersal of erythrosomes in skin erythrophores. Fish killed with 0 mmol L⁻¹ K⁺ maintained the highest a* and b* values after death, but were associated with darker (lower L*) skin colouration. It is concluded that a combination of conditioning snapper in white surroundings for 1 day before harvest, followed by immersion in seawater ice slurries supplemented with 300–450 mmol L⁻¹ K⁺ improves skin pigmentation after >24 h of storage on ice.

Short-term changes in endogenous estrogen levels and consumption of soy isoflavones affect working and verbal memory in young adult females

Estrogen is known to modulate certain cognitive functions, most notably improving working memory and verbal memory. Soy foods contain isoflavones, phytoestrogens structurally similar to estrogen that weakly bind to estrogen receptors.We investigated the effects of natural variations in estrogen levels and short-term dietary supplementation with soy isoflavones on cognitive function in 28 young women. Performance was examined across a range of cognitive tasks on three occasions during separate menstrual cycles: during a menses phase (low estrogen), during a luteal phase (highest estrogen), and once during a menses phase after a 3-day phytoestrogen-rich dietary intervention. Soy supplementation during menses led to an improvement in working memory and verbal memory. The menstrual cycle effects were mixed, with high estrogen improving performance on a verbal memory task but not on working memory. Our results suggest that soy phytoestrogens may improve working memory through estrogen-independent mechanisms.