Human Resource Dimensions for Environment Management System: Evidence from Two Indian Fertilizer Firms

While economists and business leaders argue at length about economic regimes and policy implementations as key drivers of growth and sustainability patterns in firms, it is the less immediate causal links -- like the environment -- that often get elided or underwritten in the process. Notwithstanding such elisions, the issue has had a way of coming back to the center, as evidenced from changing trends in social and consumer expectations and also corresponding intricacy of global environmental conventions. Environment Management Systems (EMS) is now integrated into the structural framework of firm operations as a preventive tool that can better control the impact a firm has on the environment. Having said this, it is also true that a major input in operationalizing EMS comes from factors driven through Human Resource (HR) functions. This paper attempts to empirically test this interactive relationship between EMS and HR dimensions. Key words: Policy implementations, Sustainability, Environment Management Systems, Preventive too

Explorations of Strategic Orientation (SO) Dimensions on Small Firm Growth and the Challenge of Resources

The strategy-firm growth relationship has been a problematical one for researchers in spite of the significant conceptual, empirical, and theoretical contributions made in this area. While strategy as a broad term signals the maximization of available inputs for a firm, it is the distinctive choices that are available within strategy formulation, termed as Strategic Orientation (SO) by Venkatraman, that has elicited little consensus. The six dimensions of SO construct, as conceptualized by Venkatraman (1989), are analysis, pro-activeness, riskiness, aggressiveness, futurity, and defensiveness. This paper argues that it is the specific SO dimensions or their combinations that contribute to small firm growth depending upon their context rather than the either or approach advanced by Miles & Snow (1978) & Porter (1980) in their strategy type framework. Increasingly, researchers have stressed the need to integrate SO and Resource Based View (RBV) as the choice of resources is an important pre-requisite for small firm growth. At the same time, small firms are resource constrained and SO is a resource consuming orientation which leaves us with the questions: how do resources impact choice of strategy dimensions in small firms? What would enable small firms to create an effective combination of choice of strategy and resources? Key-Words: Strategic Orientation; Small Firm Growth; Resources; Strategy Choic

So What do We do: Identify an Emotionally Intelligent Person or Create an Emotionally Intelligent Organization?

Is Emotional Intelligence when it comes to leadership in strategic thinking a pejorative term? What makes one company gain against competitors is a question to be answered much beyond the strategy making, implementation and control issues. A firm is rarely saved by serendipity but inevitably by putting people, process and practice together. Every manager struggles to put these 3 Ps in alignment to the vision and values of the organization. The challenge of effective decision making not only emanates from being able to estimate the environmental dimensions of change, it is also defined by the need to manage effectively the heterogeneity among people constituting groups and teams in the organization. Keywords: Strategy, leadership, emotional intelligence, decision-makin

So what do we do: Identify an emotionally intelligent person or create an emotionally intelligent organization?

Is Emotional Intelligence when it comes to leadership in strategic thinking a pejorative term? What makes one company gain against competitors is a question to be answered much beyond the strategy making, implementation and control issues. A firm is rarely saved by serendipity but inevitably by putting people, process and practice together. Every manager struggles to put these 3 Ps in alignment to the vision and values of the organization. The challenge of effective decision making not only emanates from being able to estimate the environmental dimensions of change, it is also defined by the need to manage effectively the heterogeneity among people constituting groups and teams in the organization. Key words: Strategy, leadership, emotional intelligence, decision-makin

Comparison of cerebrospinal fluid Cytochrome-c and Caspase-9 as biomarkers for newborns with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy with non-asphyxiated babies and followup of these biomarkers after day 7

Background: There are very less previous study for cytochrome–c and caspase-9, the key players in apoptotic cell death, in human newborns. The objective was to measure the level of cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers cytochrome –c and caspase -9 in newborns with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy and comparison with clinically suspected sepsis controls and to compare these after 7 days. Methods: We compared 50 hypoxic babies with 20 newborns with clinically suspected sepsis at median age of day-3 and 9 in cases and day-1 in controls. Results: In the present study in sample-1 we observed a significant increase in the levels of cases cytochrome c (1.46 ± 0.71 ng⁄mL) and caspase- 9 (0.29 ± 0.27 ng⁄mL) when compared to controls cytochrome-c (1.02+0.27 ng⁄mL) and caspase -9 (0.13+0.16 ng⁄mL) with significant p-value of 0.001 and 0.009 respectively. In sample -1 Cytochrome-c, P- value was significant when compared stage –III (1.74 ± 0.68) with stage-I (0.82 ± 0.43) and stage –II (0.99 ± 0.18). Similarly in Caspas-9 P-value was significant when compared between stage-III (0.38 ± 0.30) with stage-I (0.11 ± 0.07). In sample -2 P- value was significant when compared stage –III (1.68 ± 0.50) with stage-I (1.01 ± 0.14) and stage –II (0.94 ± 0.38). Similarly in Caspas-9 P-value was significant when compared between stage-III (4.84 ± 2.44) with stage-I (0.13 ± 0.10) and stage –II (0.13 ± 0.11). Conclusions: First time done in human newborns with asphyxia, showing that CSF Cytochrome- c and Caspase 9 increases significantly. In sample-2, the caspase 9 levels showed a further increase, whereas cytochrome c levels decreased from the sample 1 value indicating that neuroprotection time should be increased.

A comparative study of two separate analytical techniques for the simultaneous determination of diclofenac sodium and diacerein from combined dosage form

Diclofenac sodium (DS) and diacerein (DC) have emerged as a potential combination therapy for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis. Therefore a validated analytical method is essential for the simultaneous estimation of both from combined dosage form. A ratio derivative spectrophotometric and a chromatographic technique have been developed for the simultaneous determination of DS and DC. The quantification was done at 263.00 nm for DC and 304.50 nm for DS in the first method, whereas 257 nm for DC and at 274 nm for DS for LC-DAD analysis in chromatographic method using acetate buffer and methanol as the mobile phase at a flow-rate 0.50 mL/min. Both of these methods are found to be linear in the concentration range under study with r2 value 0.999 and 0.996 for DS and DC respectively in ratio derivative spectroscopy and 0.998 and 0.999 for DS and DC respectively in LC-DAD study. Both of these methods are found to be accurate and precise, though greater robustness and precision is observed with chromatographic analysis over the ratio derivative spectroscopy. Statistically there was no significant difference between proposed ratio derivative spectrophotometric and LC-DAD methods

Network analysis reveals common host protein/s modulating pathogenesis of neurotropic viruses

Network analysis through graph theory provides a quantitative approach to characterize specific proteins and their constituent assemblies that underlie host-pathogen interactions. In the present study, graph theory was used to analyze the interactome designed out of 50 differentially expressing proteins from proteomic analysis of Chandipura Virus (CHPV, Family: Rhabdoviridae) infected mouse brain tissue to identify the primary candidates for intervention. Using the measure of degree centrality, that quantifies the connectedness of a single protein within a milieu of several other interacting proteins, DJ-1 was selected for further molecular validation. To elucidate the generality of DJ-1’s role in propagating infection its role was also monitored in another RNA virus, Japanese Encephalitis Virus (JEV, Family: Flaviviridae) infection. Concurrently, DJ-1 got over-expressed in response to reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation following viral infection which in the early phase of infection migrated to mitochondria to remove dysfunctional mitochondria through the process of mitophagy. DJ-1 was also observed to modulate the viral replication and interferon responses along with low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor expression in neurons. Collectively these evidences reveal a comprehensive role for DJ-1 in neurotropic virus infection in the brain

Japanese encephalitis virus induces human neural stem/progenitor cell death by elevating GRP78, PHB and hnRNPC through ER stress

Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV), which is a causative agent of sporadic encephalitis, harbours itself inside the neural stem/progenitor cells. It is a well-known fact that JEV infects neural stem/progenitor cells and decreases their proliferation capacity. With mass spectrometry-based quantitative proteomic study, it is possible to reveal the impact of virus on the stem cells at protein level. Our aim was to perceive the stem cell proteomic response upon viral challenge. We performed a two-dimensional gel electrophoresis-based proteomic study of the human neural stem cells (hNS1 cell line) post JEV infection and found that 13 proteins were differentially expressed. The altered proteome profile of hNS1 cell line revealed sustained endoplasmic reticulum stress, which deteriorated normal cellular activities leading to cell apoptosis. The proteomic changes found in hNS1 cell line were validated in vivo in the subventricular zone of JE infected BALB/c mice. Congruent alterations were also witnessed in multipotent neural precursor cells isolated from human foetus and in autopsy samples of human brain clinically diagnosed as cases of JE patients. Endoplasmic reticulum resident chaperone GRP78, mitochondrial protein Prohibitin and heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein hnRNPC (C1/C2) have been shown to interact with viral RNA. Hence it is proposed that these are the principle candidates governing endoplasmic reticulum stress-induced apoptosis in JEV infection