Agile Practices and Intention to Stay: Mediation Effects Through Job Characteristics

Agile methods of software development have been used widely over the last decade, and the majority of organizations have now embraced them in their projects. Thus, the current study explored the positive influence of agile practices on individuals' intentions to stay at their employment. In accordance with this objective, the study looked at the role of job characteristics in mediating the association between agile methods and intention to stay. A sample of 486 employees was contacted through online survey using the Google Forms platforms during the period of September 2021 who practice the agile methods while working at their organizations. They provided data on the questionnaires of agile practices, job characteristics, and intention to stay. Findings postulated that agile practices have significant impact on employees’ intention to stay. Results further reported the significant mediation through job characteristics between agile practices and intention to stay. Findings showed that the job when is designed on feedback, skill variety, job autonomy, task identity and task significance mediate an impact of practising agile methods on intention to stay.

Computational Analysis of Metabolic Pathways and Protien-Protien Interactions Ppls of Clinically Significant Pathogens, and Identification of Inhibitors of Ppls

Salmonella enterica is a Gram-negative facultative anaerobic bacteria. It belongs to the family of Enterobacteriaceae. Infections caused by Salmonella species are major threat to the human and animal health. After 1-3 days of ingestion of contaminated food, the patient develops diarrhea, fever, vomiting, and abdominal cramps. The situation is exacerbated if not treated promptly. Whole genome sequencing projects of clinically significant serovars of S. enterica have opened new perspectives of medical research. Using the genomic data, novel approaches are being employed throughout the world to find new protein targets for drug designing and screening. Targeting the essential metabolic pathways of the bacteria is the approach which we have focused in our study. The protein sequence and metabolic pathway data of the core proteome of S. enterica was analyzed in comparison to that of Homo sapiens. Various computational tools (BLASTp, CD-HIT, and Shell scripting) and datasets (NCBI, DEG, and KEGG) were extensively utilized to find non-homologous and essential enzymes of the pathogen. We discovered 73 enzymes belonging to metabolic pathways found only in the bacteria but not in H. sapiens, and proposed them as potential drug targets. Later, we selected an essential outer membrane protein complex (LptD/E) of S. enterica involved in lipopolysaccharide assembly, as a target in search of an inhibitor of the PPI complex. Druggable sites at the interface of PPI were identified by PocketQuery followed by virtual screening of the ZINC database of commercially available compounds using the ZINCPharmer tool. Energy minimization and scoring of short-listed compounds was performed using SMINA. A rational screening of >10,000 compounds resulted in 3 compounds depicting favorable polar interactions and optimal conformation for binding with the LptD protein. We propose that this interaction may lead to block the LptD interaction with LptE and lipid molecules and in result may block the LPS assembly.