Lahore University of Management Sciences

About: Lahore University of Management Sciences is a education organization based out in Lahore, Pakistan. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Fixed point & Metric space. The organization has 1524 authors who have published 3015 publications receiving 42665 citations. The organization is also known as: LUMS.

Rewards and employee creative performance: Moderating effects of creative self‐efficacy, reward importance, and locus of control

Abstract: Summary The effects of extrinsic rewards on creative performance have been controversial, and scholars have called for the examination of the boundary conditions of such effects. Drawing upon expectancy theory, we attend to both reinforcement and self-determination pathways that reveal the informational and controlling functions of creativity-related extrinsic rewards. We further identify the individual dispositions that moderate these two pathways. Specifically, we propose that extrinsic rewards for creativity positively predict creative performance only when employees have high creative self-efficacy and regard such rewards as important. We likewise propose that extrinsic rewards positively affect the intrinsic motivation of employees with an internal locus of control, thus enhancing their creative performance. Results based on a sample of 181 employee–supervisor dyads largely supported these expectations. The current analysis enriches the creativity literature by combining different perspectives in a coherent framework, by demonstrating the positive effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation, and by demonstrating that the rewards–creativity relationship varies across employees depending on their individual differences. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Catalytic Hydrogenolysis of Aryl Ethers: A Key Step in Lignin Valorization to Valuable Chemicals

Abstract: Lignin is a robust biomacromolecule (or a polymer) that gives structural integrity to plants and constitutes 25–35% of the woody biomass Lignin is inedible, barely used, and contains mostly aromatic building blocks Because of these features, lignin is considered an important renewable feedstock for the production of fine chemicals (or fuels) and the only significant feedstock providing aromatic compounds The C–O bonds of aryl ethers are the most abundant linkages in the framework of lignin In this Perspective, the state-of-the-art of selective hydrogenolysis (HGL) of C–O bonds of aryl ethers is discussed Particularly, progress made recently and ethers relevant to lignin valorization are reviewed

NMR Imaging of Catalytic Hydrogenation in Microreactors with the Use of para-Hydrogen

Abstract: Catalysis is vital to industrial chemistry, and the optimization of catalytic reactors attracts considerable resources. It has proven challenging to correlate the active regions in heterogeneous catalyst beds with morphology and to monitor multistep reactions within the bed. We demonstrate techniques, using magnetic resonance imaging and para-hydrogen (p-H2) polarization, that allow direct visualization of gas-phase flow and the density of active catalyst in a packed-bed microreactor, as well as control over the dynamics of the polarized state in space and time to facilitate the study of subsequent reactions. These procedures are suitable for characterizing reactors and reactions in microfluidic devices where low sensitivity of conventional magnetic resonance would otherwise be the limiting factor.

Peak-to-Average Ratio Constrained Demand-Side Management With Consumer's Preference in Residential Smart Grid

Abstract: In a smart grid network, demand-side management plays a significant role in allowing consumers, incentivized by utilities, to manage their energy consumption. This can be done through shifting consumption to off-peak hours and thus reducing the peak-to-average ratio (PAR) of the electricity system. In this paper, we begin by proposing a demand-side energy consumption scheduling scheme for household appliances that considers a PAR constraint. An initial optimization problem is formulated to minimize the energy cost of the consumers through the determination of the optimal usage power and operation time of throttleable and shiftable appliances, respectively. We realize that the acceptance of consumers of these load management schemes is crucial to its success. Hence, we then introduce a multi-objective optimization problem which not only minimizes the energy cost but also minimizes the inconvenience posed to consumers. In addition to solving the proposed optimization problems in a centralized manner, two distributed algorithms for the initial and the multi-objective optimization problems are also proposed. Simulation results show that the proposed demand-side energy consumption schedule can provide an effective approach to reducing total energy costs while simultaneously considering PAR constraints and consumers' preferences.

Environmentally responsive genome-wide accumulation of de novo Arabidopsis thaliana mutations and epimutations.

Abstract: Evolution is fueled by phenotypic diversity, which is in turn due to underlying heritable genetic (and potentially epigenetic) variation. While environmental factors are well known to influence the accumulation of novel variation in microorganisms and human cancer cells, the extent to which the natural environment influences the accumulation of novel variation in plants is relatively unknown. Here we use whole-genome and whole-methylome sequencing to test if a specific environmental stress (high-salinity soil) changes the frequency and molecular profile of accumulated mutations and epimutations (changes in cytosine methylation status) in mutation accumulation (MA) lineages of Arabidopsis thaliana. We first show that stressed lineages accumulate ∼100% more mutations, and that these mutations exhibit a distinctive molecular mutational spectrum (specific increases in relative frequency of transversion and insertion/deletion [indel] mutations). We next show that stressed lineages accumulate ∼45% more differentially methylated cytosine positions (DMPs) at CG sites (CG-DMPs) than controls, and also show that while many (∼75%) of these CG-DMPs are inherited, some can be lost in subsequent generations. Finally, we show that stress-associated CG-DMPs arise more frequently in genic than in nongenic regions of the genome. We suggest that commonly encountered natural environmental stresses can accelerate the accumulation and change the profiles of novel inherited variants in plants. Our findings are significant because stress exposure is common among plants in the wild, and they suggest that environmental factors may significantly alter the rates and patterns of incidence of the inherited novel variants that fuel plant evolution.