The Secret of Outlier Ventures : Developing Interpretive Capacity to Scale Up

A growing body of research seeks to understand why and how some ventures scale up while others do not. Ventures that succeed in scaling are outliers in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, recognized for adopting distinctive strategies to achieve exceptional growth. While emerging accounts suggest that scaling requires managing knowledge and synchronizing organizational development with growth, prior literature has paid limited attention to how outlier ventures create and mobilize knowledge, and how this process shapes their ability to scale. This study draws on a multiple-case study of three scaleups to show that scaling is rooted in the development of interpretive capacity: the process of attributing meaning to ambiguous or fragmented external information and spreading it across the organization to inform decision-making and guide action. We identify scoping, interpretive, and enabling practices that support the development of interpretive capacity in scaling ventures. Building on these findings, we respond to recent calls for theory on scaling and outliers, and extend the organizational learning literature to the context of new venture scaling. We also offer actionable implications for entrepreneurs, educators, and policymakers by illustrating how interpretive capacity can be purposefully developed through organizational practices

Implications of the dissemination of healthy lifestyle advice for Afghan adults without histories of hypertension diagnosis or treatment

Objectives: This study explored the relationship between receiving healthy lifestyle advice from healthcare providers and hypertension among undiagnosed individuals in Afghanistan, defined as adults with no previous hypertension diagnosis or treatment history. Materials and Methods: Data were extracted from the 2018–19 Afghanistan National Non-Communicable Diseases Risk Factors Survey, comprising 2,838 participants. Outcomes included hypertension (systolic blood pressure ≥130 mmHg or diastolic blood pressure ≥80 mmHg) and elevated blood pressure (systolic blood pressure 120–129 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure <80 mmHg). Bivariate and multivariable multinomial logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess associated factors. Results: Among the 2,838 participants, 1,344 (47.4%) had hypertension and 344 (12.1%) had elevated blood pressure. Most participants were aged <40 years (63.8%), male (55.8%), and ever-married (80.2%). Multivariable analysis revealed that not receiving healthy lifestyle advice was significantly associated with hypertension (adjusted relative risk ratio [aRRR]=1.24; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.04–1.47) and elevated blood pressure (aRRR=1.40; 95% CI: 1.08–1.81). Sociodemographic and behavioral factors such as age, sex, marital status, education, occupation, fruit consumption, physical activity, and excess weight were significantly associated with hypertension, whereas only sex and excess weight were significantly associated with elevated blood pressure. Conclusion: Our findings underscore the association between receiving healthy lifestyle advice from healthcare providers and a lower prevalence of hypertension among undiagnosed Afghan adults. Accordingly, healthcare providers should recommend lifestyle changes to help manage hypertension among adults

Interfacial Degradation Processes in Electrochemical Energy Storage and Conversion

The comprehensive usage of clean energy is the biggest challenge of society in the 21st century. Advanced energy storage and conversion systems play a critical role in this vision, and electrochemical energy storage and conversion are the most promising candidates. However, their premature ageing limits their wider application. One of the biggest issues is the active material dissolution under electrochemical conditions, but the limited availability of characterization methods hinders an in-depth understanding of the process as well as mitigation strategies. In this thesis, we develop real-time/in-situ/operando electrochemical techniques to study the degradation processes and mechanisms happening at the electrode-electrolyte interfaces within the Li-ion battery and water electrolyzer. We first establish online inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (online ICP-OES) for real-time electrolyte analysis, enabling the direct detection of transition metal dissolution from Li-ion cathodes, taking LiMn2O4 (LMO) as an example. Then, we apply the rotating ring-disc electrode (RRDE) technique for real-time speciation of the dissolving transition metal ions, which is the basis of a comprehensive understanding of the dissolution mechanism, and supplements findings from online ICP-OES, which could provide extraordinary detection limits for multiple elements but is blind to the oxidation states of the dissolving species. We focus on Mn, and combine voltammetry on stationary and rotating electrodes with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy. With the understanding of Mn behaviour on the ring and disc electrodes, respectively, we then investigate LMO dissolution and speciation on the ring electrode in real-time. One of the widely reported Mn dissolution mitigation strategies is to replace one-fourth of the Mn in LMO with Ni, which then forms LiNi0.5Mn1.5O4 (LNMO). We compared the chemical composition, morphology, crystal structure, and electrochemical properties including cycling capacity, stability, and rate capability of 2 commercial and 3 lab-synthesized LNMO samples. Their dynamic phase transformation during (dis)charging was observed by operando Raman spectroscopy, aimed at studying the dynamic cathode-electrolyte interphase (CEI) changes under different electrochemical conditions and their impact on cycling and rate performances. Water electrolysis is considered to be the most promising way to generate green hydrogen as the next-generation energy carrier. Such a process includes the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) on the cathode and the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) on the anode. The complexity and sluggish kinetics of OER make it often the limit of the whole process and thus usually requires advanced electrocatalysts. Ideal OER electrocatalysts should have both excellent activity and stability. While the former can be directly observed electrochemically, the latter is usually hard to characterize due to the lack of available techniques. We here employed online ICP-OES for direct detection of active material dissolution of several promising candidates of OER electrocatalysis, which provide direct evidence of the stability of the electrocatalysts. To summarize, we established several real-time/in-situ/operando electrochemical techniques for studying the electrode-electrolyte interface in electrochemical energy storage and conversion systems. These results will help to better understand and mitigate the premature ageing of those systems

An Analysis of Transformations in West Lancashire's Economy and Society c1660-1740, Principally Sourced from Probate Records.

This thesis presents an investigation into economic and social changes which were evolving in the west of Lancashire during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The agriculturally productive sub-region of the Lancashire plains, which lie to the north and south of the estuary of the river Ribble have formerly been somewhat under-represented in regional historiographies. Discussions have tended to focus either on the latter decades of the eighteenth century and/or the economic transformation of Manchester and its neighbouring towns in the centre and east. However, on the western plains the traditionally husbanded landscape of spatially integrated small ports and rural market towns had also been evolving its own gradual metamorphosis from which economic activities accelerated in the second half of the 1600s. In the following chapters, I have evaluated the compass of this evolution, principally through quantitative analyses of the livestock, crops, goods and activities evinced from male probate inventories. These have been selected as whole sets of extant records from six adjoining townships north and sixteen townships south of the river Ribble, with inventories from Ormskirk and Liverpool similarly transcribed and represented. The principal focus falls upon the decades between c.1660-1740, although the period south of the Ribble prior to the midcentury is referenced also. The inventories have been drawn from the depository of probate bundles held at Lancashire Archives. This resource, which otherwise remains largely untapped, contains inventories, wills, and administrators’ accounts. Analysis of these documents has been supplemented in the text by additional contemporaneous material in the form of diaries, ships’ provisioning ledgers and early town surveys. Each of these primary sources indicate that industrious and commercially focussed economic activities were evolving in rural townships in the seventeenth century to a greater extent than has formerly been acknowledged. This thesis demonstrates that the impetus for these transformative economic effects were founded upon a sound agrarian base during an extended period of relative economic buoyancy which, when coupled with the commercial opportunities occasioned by the inexorable rise of Liverpool from c.1670s onwards enabled even relatively small rural producers to thrive. Occasioned by the combined dynamics of agrarian rationalisation, trades specialisations, technological progress and the importation of novel goods and commodities through Liverpool, a consumer culture rapidly emerged. Analysis of whole sets of probate documents has provided opportunities for contextualisation with earlier regional discussions and facilitates engagement with more recent analyses concerning trades specialisations, the nature of rural industrialisation and urban integration. The temporal span also represents the core of an extended period of irreversible transformation, one which immediately preceded the rapid acceleration of industrialisation and urbanisation, which from the mid-eighteenth century onwards, occasioned economic and population expansion in towns across Lancashire. Therefore, evidence is presented herein which suggests that a sub-regional dynamism prevailed and evolved here in the early phases of the pre-industrial dawn. Such evidence suggests that revisions may need to be considered to established texts and that our inherited perceptions of the west of Lancashire during the early modern period require reorientation. Therefore, the activities and motivations of men and women during these decades of transition, before the factories and mills of Lancashire had been built is deserving of renewed analysis

Causal Network Representations in Factor Investing

This paper explores the application of causal discovery algorithms to factor investing, addressing recent criticisms of correlation‐based models. We create novel causal network representations of the S&P 500 universe and apply them to three investment scenarios. Our findings suggest that causal approaches can complement traditional methods in areas such as stock peer group identification, factor construction, and market timing. While causal networks offer new insights and sometimes outperform correlation‐based methods in terms of risk‐adjusted returns, they do not consistently surpass traditional approaches. The causal method though shows promise in identifying unique market relationships and potential hedging opportunities. However, its practical implementation presents challenges due to computational complexity and interpretation difficulties. Our study demonstrates the potential value of causal discovery in factor investing, while also identifying areas for further research and refinement

DUNE Software and Computing Research and Development

The international collaboration designing and constructing the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) at the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility (LBNF) has developed a two-phase strategy toward the implementation of this leading-edge, large-scale science project. The ambitious physics program of Phase I and Phase II of DUNE is dependent upon deployment and utilization of significant computing resources, and successful research and development of software (both infrastructure and algorithmic) in order to achieve these scientific goals. This submission discusses the computing resources projections, infrastructure support, and software development needed for DUNE during the coming decades as an input to the European Strategy for Particle Physics Update for 2026. The DUNE collaboration is submitting four main contributions to the 2026 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics process. This submission to the 'Computing' stream focuses on DUNE software and computing. Additional inputs related to the DUNE science program, DUNE detector technologies and R&D, and European contributions to Fermilab accelerator upgrades and facilities for the DUNE experiment, are also being submitted to other streams

Meeting of minds : Imagining the future of child and youth mental health research from an early career perspective

Child and youth mental health is an international public health and research priority. We are an interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral network of UK-based early career researchers (ECRs) with an interest in child and youth mental health research. In this paper, we reflect on ongoing challenges and areas for growth, offering recommendations for key stakeholders in our field including researchers, institutions, and funders. We present a vision from an ECR perspective of what child and youth mental health research could look like moving forward and we explore how the research infrastructure can support ECRs and the wider research field in making this vision a reality. We focus specifically on a) embracing complexity; b) centering diverse voices; and c) facilitating sustainable research environments and funding systems. We present recommendations for all key partners to consider alongside their local contexts and communities to actively and collaboratively drive progress and transformative change

Lightweight Continuous Authentication via IMU Fingerprinting for V2X

Inertial measurement unit (IMU) fingerprinting is a promising physical authentication technique based on hardware imperfections produced during sensor manufacturing. This paper presents a two-stage feature extraction process that combines feature selection and mapping; the proposed approach is tailored for the lightweight vehicle-to-everything (V2X) application scenario. Specifically, the selected features are transformed into images via Gramian angular difference field (GADF), Gramian angular summation field (GASF), and Markov transition field (MTF) mappings, as well as feature extraction implemented via a convolutional neural network (CNN). Owing to the advances provided by the proposed scheme, a lightweight feature extraction system achieves satisfactory accuracy levels above 99.10% with fewer sample data and a short training time. The effectiveness and robustness of the developed approach were validated under various driving conditions via 20 IMU sensors, Arduino, and a Raspberry Pi across 20 vehicles. Additionally, tests conducted across different deep learning models demonstrated the generalizability of the proposed preprocessing and mapping methods

Flexible Use of Word Learning Strategies : Monolingual and Bilingual Children’s Word Learning Under Different Language Contexts

Monolingual children tend to assume that a word labels only one object, and this mutual exclusivity supports referent selection and retention of novel words. Bilingual children accept two labels for an object (lexical overlap) for referent selection more than monolingual children, but in these previous studies, information about speakers’ language backgrounds was minimal. We investigated monolingual and bilingual 4-year-old children’s ability to apply mutual exclusivity and lexical overlap flexibly when objects were labelled either by one or two speakers with the same or different language backgrounds. We tested referent selection and retention of word–object mappings. Both language groups performed similarly for mutual exclusivity, were more likely to accept lexical overlap in the two-language than one-language condition, and performance was similar for referent selection and later retention. Monolingual and bilingual children can adapt their word-learning strategies to cope with the demands of different linguistic contexts