Courses related to medical and engineering fields are quite extensive and demanding, which often lead to stress and anxiety among students. As optimism was hypothesized to reduce anxiety and enhance academic achievement, the purpose of the current study was to assess the level of anxiety and its relation with optimism and academic achievement among medical and engineering students. Since these two courses differ in many aspects and the gender roles in the society are changing, the secondary objective of the study was to find differences in anxiety, optimism and academic achievement across genders and academic majors. A total of 346 students (171 medical and 175 engineering) from 3 medical and 4 engineering colleges of Uttar Pradesh, India participated in the study. Academic results of the latest two semesters were considered as academic achievement of the students, whereas anxiety and optimism were tested using Sinha's Comprehensive Anxiety Test (SCAT, 2007), and Learned Optimism Scale (LOS, 2000) respectively. Both measures are constructed and standardized on Indian students. Results revealed that anxiety had a significant negative relationship with optimism and academic achievement, whereas a significant positive relationship was found between optimism and academic achievement. Significant differences were revealed between medical and engineering students, but the gender differences in the variables under study were insignificant. The results of this study provide insights for faculty members and institutions for better academic performance of the students.

Purpose Pharmaceuticals supply chain management (SCM) requires special expertise to transport the medicinal products because of weird features of their demand, supply and sensitivity towards quality. The purpose of this study is to establish the linkage of pharmaceutical quality system requirements with the SCM principles. The study enables the collaborative approach of technical, transport, logistics and supply chain teams within the pharmaceutical industry. Design/methodology/approach The methodology followed for this study is literature review and survey. The study is supplemented with data obtained through the structured questionnaire. Findings Through this study, an exclusive perspective for pharmaceutical good transportation practice (GTP) has been propagated in alignment with seven principles of SCM by Anderson. This study offers guidance to pharmaceutical industry for transportation of products by conceptualizing basic supply chain features such as segmentation, customization of requirement, market signals, differentiation, technology orientation and channel spanning performance. Research limitations/implications Here is limited information available about the transportation failures in the pharmaceutical industry. Application of supply chain principles to pharmaceutical transportation is sometimes affected by technical knowledge bias of the researcher. Practical implications The study has successfully expounded the practical aspects of pharmaceutical GTP for supply chain professionals. Social implications The study facilitates the patients and pharmaceutical consumers to get quality products in a timely manner across the globe. Originality/value The application of SCM principles to the pharmaceutical GTP is the result of novel research and has not been studied earlier.

Quality of pharmaceutical product largely depends upon the environment controls during its storage and handling. Each pharmaceutical product should be handled and stored under specified storage condition labelled on product information data sheet or product pack. Hence the temperature excursions during receipt of raw materials, manufacturing of pharmaceutical products and distribution should be managed during entire product life cycle with holistic approach. The research is based on primary data and exploratory study through literature review. The temperature excursion may be observed during transportation of raw materials manufacturing as well as distribution of pharmaceutical products, which have potential to deteriorate the product quality. Temperature excursion in pharmaceutical industry should be recorded and reported to the manufacturer for further investigation and risk analysis. The concept of temperature excursions, its reasons, consequences and handling mechanism should be well understood to ensure the concerted efforts under the aegis of Quality Management System. Based on the reasons and consequences of temperature excursions during pharmaceutical operations, a system based quality management has been envisaged through this study. The concept and procedure to handle temperature excursion have evolved after this study which shall be useful to pharmaceutical industry as well as to medicine distributors and consumers.

Studies have revealed that emotional intelligence (EI) influences an individual's job performance in terms of organizational commitment and job satisfaction. But prior studies were limited mostly to the corporate sector. Therefore the present study was conducted to understand the correlation between EI and teaching performance in the case of faculty members at medical and engineering colleges, as courses related to these two fields are quite extensive and demanding which often leads to stress among students (Saipanish, 2003;Foster & Spencer, 2003;Schneider, 2007;Ray and Joseph, 2010). A total of 250 faculty members from three medical and four private engineering colleges of Uttar Pradesh, India, participated in the study. Emotional intelligence scale (EIS, 2007), Teacher Effectiveness Scale (TES, 2010) and Teacher Rating Scale (TRS, 2003) were administered to measure the emotional intelligence, self-reported teacher effectiveness and student rated teacher effectiveness of the faculty members respectively. All materials used in the study are constructed and standardized on Indian population. The study revealed a positive correlation between EI and teacher effectiveness, both self-reported and students rated. Among ten components of EI considered in the study; emotional stability, self-motivation, managing relations, self-awareness and integrity emerged as the best predictors of teacher effectiveness. Gender differences on the scores of EI and Teacher Effectiveness was insignificant. The EI and self-reported teacher effectiveness of engineering faculty members were relatively higher than those of medical faculty. However, according to students' rating there was no significant difference in teacher effectiveness among the two groups. Implications of this research from the perspective of training faculty members are discussed.

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