Development of a new scale to measure subjective career success: A mixed‐methods study

Career success is a main focus of career scholars as well as organizational stakeholders. Historically, career success has been conceptualized and measured in an objective manner, mainly as salary, rank, or number of promotions. However, the changing nature of work has also necessitated a change in the way many employees view success, adding a more subjective component. Although there has been theoretical discussion and calls to develop a comprehensive measure of subjective career success, no contemporary comprehensive quantitative measure exists. The goal of this study was to create and validate a measure of subjective career success, titled the Subjective Career Success Inventory (SCSI). The SCSI includes 24 items that address subjective career success via eight dimensions. The scale was developed and validated through four phases of data collection, beginning with interviews and focus groups, followed by item sorting tasks, then item refinement through confirmatory factor analysis, and finally convergent and discriminant validity quantitative analysis. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Economic viability and optimization of solar microgrids with hybrid storage in a non-interconnected zone in Colombia

Environment, Development and Sustainability - A developing country that does not have adequate energy solutions in non-interconnected zones (ZNIs) undoubtedly experiences adverse effects in terms...     

When experts disagree: the need to rethink indicator selection for assessing sustainability of agriculture

Sustainability indicators are well recognized for their potential to assess and monitor sustainable development of agricultural systems. A large number of indicators are proposed in various sustainability assessment frameworks, which raises concerns regarding the validity of approaches, usefulness and trust in such frameworks. Selecting indicators requires transparent and well-defined procedures to ensure the relevance and validity of sustainability assessments. The objective of this study, therefore, was to determine whether experts agree on which criteria are most important in the selection of indicators and indicator sets for robust sustainability assessments. Two groups of experts (Temperate Agriculture Research Network and New Zealand Sustainability Dashboard) were asked to rank the relative importance of eleven criteria for selecting individual indicators and of nine criteria for balancing a collective set of indicators. Both ranking surveys reveal a startling lack of consensus amongst experts about how best to measure agricultural sustainability and call for a radical rethink about how complementary approaches to sustainability assessments are used alongside each other to ensure a plurality of views and maximum collaboration and trust amongst stakeholders. To improve the transparency, relevance and robustness of sustainable assessments, the context of the sustainability assessment, including prioritizations of selection criteria for indicator selection, must be accounted for. A collaborative design process will enhance the acceptance of diverse values and prioritizations embedded in sustainability assessments. The process by which indicators and sustainability frameworks are established may be a much more important determinant of their success than the final shape of the assessment tools. Such an emphasis on process would make assessments more transparent, transformative and enduring.     

Historical carbon fluxes in the expanding deforestation frontier of Southern Brazilian Amazonia (1985–2012)

In tropical areas, pioneer occupation fronts steer the rapid expansion of deforestation, contributing to carbon emissions. Up-to-date carbon emission estimates covering the long-term development of such frontiers depend on the availability of high spatial–temporal resolution data. In this paper, we provide a detailed assessment of carbon losses from deforestation and potential forest degradation from fragmentation for one expanding frontier in the Brazilian Amazon. We focused on one of the Amazonia’s hot-spots of forest loss, the BR-163 highway that connects the high productivity agricultural landscapes in Mato Grosso with the exporting harbors of the Amazon. We used multi-decadal (1984–2012) Landsat-based time series on forested and non-forested area in combination with a carbon book-keeping model. We show a 36% reduction in 1984s biomass carbon stocks, which led to the emission of 611.5 TgCO₂ between 1985 and 1998 (43.6 TgCO₂ year⁻¹) and 959.8 TgCO₂ over 1999–2012 (68.5 TgCO₂ year⁻¹). Overall, fragmentation-related carbon losses represented 1.88% of total emissions by 2012, with an increasing relevance since 2004. We compared the Brazilian Space Agency deforestation assessment (PRODES) with our data and found that small deforestation polygons not captured by PRODES had increasing importance on estimated deforestation carbon losses since 2000. The comparative analysis improved the understanding of data-source-related uncertainties on carbon estimates and indicated disagreement areas between datasets that could be subject of future research. Furthermore, spatially explicit, annual deforestation and emission estimates like the ones derived from this study are important for setting regional baselines for REDD+ or similar payment for ecosystem services frameworks.

     

Spatial variability of precipitation in Spain

The spatial variability of annual and seasonal precipitation in the conterminous land of Spain has been evaluated by using correlation decay distance analysis (CDD). The CDD analysis essentially explores how the correlation between neighbouring stations varies according to distance. We analysed CDD independently for the decades 1956–1965, 1966–1975, 1976–1985, 1986–1995, and 1996–2005 using only those stations with no missing values for each decade. To this end, 972, 1,174, 1,242, 773 and 695 complete series were used for each decade, respectively. In particular, for each station and decade, we calculated the threshold distance at which the common variance between target (i) and neighbour series is higher than 50 % (r ²  = 0.5) to evaluate whether current density of the climate data set captures the spatial variability of precipitation within the study area. Results indicate that, at an annual scale, neighbouring stations with 50 % of common variance are restricted on average to about 105 km, but this distance can vary from 28 to 251 km within the study area. The lowest variability is located to the SW and in winter, while the higher spatial variability is found to the north, in the Cantabrian area, and to the east, in the Mediterranean and Pyrenees, during summer. Our results suggest that current density of climate stations (those operating in 2005) is good enough to study precipitation variability at an annual scale for winter, spring and autumn, but not enough for summer.     

Characterisation of heavy metal discharge into the Ria of Huelva

The Ria of Huelva estuary, in SW Spain, is known to be one of the most heavy metal contaminated estuaries in the world. River contribution to the estuary of dissolved Cu, Zn, Mn, Cr, Ni, Cd, and As were analysed for the period 1988-2001. The obtained mean values show that this contribution, both because of the magnitude of total metals (895.1 kg/h), composition, toxicity (8.7 kg/h of As+Cd+Pb) and persistence, is an incomparable case in heavy metal contamination of estuaries. The amount and typology of heavy metal discharge to the Ria of Huelva are related to freshwater flow (and, consequently, to rainfall); as a result, two different types of heavy metal discharge can be distinguished in the estuary: during low water (50% of the days), with only 19.3 kg/h of heavy metals, and during high water or flood (17% of the days), where daily maximum discharge of 72,475 kg of heavy metals were recorded, from which 1481 kg were of As, 470 kg of Pb, and 170 kg of Cd. In the most frequent situation (77% of the days), the Odiel River discharges from 90% to 100% of the freshwater received by the estuary. Despite this, the high concentration of heavy metals in the Tinto River water causes this river to discharge into the Ria of Huelva 12.5% of fluvial total dissolved metal load received by the estuary.     

Effects of Zr substitution on soot combustion over cubic fluorite-structured nanoceria: Soot-ceria contact and interfacial oxygen evolution

Ceria is widely used as a catalyst for soot combustion, but effects of Zr substitution on the reaction mechanism is ambiguous. The present work elucidates effects of Zr substitution on soot combustion over cubic fluorite-structured nanoceria. The nanostructured CeO₂, Ce_0.92Zr_0.08O₂, and Ce_0.84Zr_0.16O₂ composed of 5–6 nm crystallites display T_m-CO2 (the temperature at maximum CO₂ yield) at 383, 355, and 375°C under 10 vol.% O₂/N₂, respectively. The size of agglomerate decreases from 165.5 to 51.9–57.3 nm, which is beneficial for the soot-ceria contact. Moreover, Zr increases the amount of surface oxygen vacancies, generating more active oxygen (O₂^? and O^?) for soot oxidation. Thus, the activities of Ce_0.92Zr_0.08O₂ and Ce_0.84Zr_0.16O₂ in soot combustion are better than that of CeO₂. Although oxygen vacancies promote the migration of lattice O^2?, the enriched surface Zr also inhibits the mobility of lattice O^2?. Therefore, the T_m-CO2 of Ce_0.84Zr_0.16O₂ is higher than that of Ce_0.92Zr_0.08O₂. Based on reaction kinetic study, soot in direct contact with ceria preferentially decomposes with low activation energy, while the oxidation of isolated soot occurs through diffusion with high activation energy. The obtained findings provide new understanding on the soot combustion over nanoceria.     

Synthesis and application of graphene oxide as a nanoadsorbent to remove Cd (II) and Pb (II) from water: adsorption equilibrium,kinetics, and regeneration

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - In this work, graphene oxide (GO) was synthesized by the modified Hummers method. The nanomaterial was characterized by FTIR and Raman spectroscopy,...     

Energy-ecological efficiency of dual-fuel series plug-in hybrid electric vehicle considering WTW emissions

Environmental Science and Pollution Research - This paper discussed the possibility of replacing the internal combustion engine of the series plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) powered by...     

Sediment distribution on the continental shelf in relation to stream inputs and contamination: hydrodynamic,chemical, mineralogical,and sedimentological characteristics (Ligurian Sea,Italy)

River estuaries, continental shelf, and sediment contamination are closely linked from the point of view of sediment transport and diffusion that is governed by different factors such as sea waves and currents, river flows and floods, and sediment characteristics. Taking these factors into consideration, we have examined marine environmental and marine bottom sediments off the mouth of a stream to highlight the main ways of sediment and contaminant transport and diffusion on the continental shelf. For this purpose, we followed a multidisciplinary approach, studying circulation of water masses, hydrological characteristics of water column, distribution and main characteristics of sediment grain size, sediment mineralogical composition, and metal concentrations of bottom sediments. Our results allowed identifying the presence of preferential ways of sediment deposition and areas of sediment spread for the Entella Stream, as well as the origin of some metals.