Career effectiveness and its determinants

Study of careers has become an important aspect in the fast changing organizational context. It has come to be increasingly recognized at present, that career management is the responsibility of both the individual as well as the organization. This empirical study tries to understand the important elements of individual and organizational career practices that affect an employee’s career effectiveness. Most of the previous studies have used the objective terms of career success such as remuneration and position as the criterion variable. But since career outcome expectations vary across individuals and also since the concept of career itself has evolved over time, it was decided to use a more comprehensive concept of career outcome namely career effectiveness as the outcome variable. Career effectiveness as defined by Hall (2002) has both long-term orientation such as identity and adaptability as well as short-term orientation such as career attitudes and performance. Further both behavioral aspects such as performance and adaptability and individual subjective aspects such as identity and attitudes make it a more comprehensive way of assessing career outcome. The results of this research study indicate that individual determinants such as career planning and knowledge of organizational politics and organizational level determinants such as training and development support, quality of performance feedback and supervisory support explain significant variances in the determination of employee career effectiveness.

Diversification of Fish Culture and Exports among Major Shrimp-producing Countries of Asia: A Spatial and Temporal Analysis

Asian countries contribute nearly 90 per cent to global production of culture fisheries. Diversification of species is not happening in fish culture because of the high value shrimp commands in the export market. Shrimp farming is on the increase in all the major shrimp-producing Asian countries. Higher the growth in shrimp production, higher is the instability in production due to production risks associated with ecosystem complexities and disease incidences. Most of the shrimp-producing countries have been moving towards specialization of shrimp production for export because of the high price that the shrimp asserts in the international market. A comparison between the Asian countries for the period 1976-2002 has revealed that Malaysia has maintained low growth and low instability and higher diversification, and Bangladesh and Vietnam have diversified in fish exports. In a country-level comparison, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines have shown moderate growth in production and export of shrimp. The instability associated with their shrimp production has also been moderate. Diversification in fish production as well as exports has been suggested for assured income to farmers and the country. It has been pointed that replacing, supplementing or rotating the shrimp farming with culture of other high-value fish species like Asian sea bass (Lates calcarifer), grouper (Epinephelus spp), mullets (Mugil spp) and milk fish (Chanos spp) culture may ease the risks in mono-cropping of shrimp.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Analytical Quality Control in the Production of Nuclear Grade Zirconium and its Alloys

The chief application of zirconium metal and zircaloys is in nuclear reactor engineering as cladding material for the fuel elements and as structural material in the construction of reactor cores. The selection is based on considerations of low neutron absorption cross section, fabricability, corrosion resistance and mechanical stre-ngth at elevated temperatures. These properties are however sensitive to impurity levels and alloying compo-sitions.For example, for neutroneconomy the hafnium and boron contents should be within 200 ppm and 0.5 ppm respectively; for corrosion resistance the aluminium, carbon and nitrogen tolerances are respectively only 75 ppm, 500 ppm and 50 ppm; and for ease of fabrication the maximum permissible oxygen content is 1500 ppm. In the large scale production of zirconium sponge and zircaloy ingots, it becomes therefore essential to have a strict control of impurity levels in the successive stages of the batchwise production, in order to ensure consistency of quality and performance in the finished product

Analytical Quality Control in the Production of Nuclear Grade Zirconium and its Alloys

The chief application of zirconium metal &zircaloys is in nuclear reactor engineering as cladding material for the fuel elements and as structural material in the construction of reactor cores. The selection is based on considerations of low neutron absorption cross section, fabricability, corrosion resistance and mechanical stre-ngth at elevated temperatures. These properties are however sensititive to impurity levels and alloying compositions. For example, for neutron economy the hafn-ium and boron contents should be within 200 ppm and 0.5 ppm respectively; for corrosion resistance the aluminium, carbon and nitrogen tolerances are respectively only 75ppm, and 500ppm and 50ppm; and for ease of fabrication the maximim permissible oxygen content is 1500 ppm. In the large scale production of zirconium sponge and zircaloy ingots, it becomes therefore essential to have a strict control of impurity levels in the successive stages of the batchwise production, in order to ensure consistency of quality and performance in the finished product