Graduate Entrepreneurs: Intentions, Barriers & Solutions

Purpose This paper investigates the factors that influenced seven graduates in the creative and digital industries to start their own businesses in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK - an area with lack of employing establishments and locally registered businesses. Design/methodology/approach Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews identified the constraining and enabling factors graduates may encounter when attempting to start a business, and explored the impact of support provided. Findings Perceived constraining factors were: lack of general business knowledge, contradictory advisory support from external agencies, lack of sector-specific mentors, lack of finance, and experience of familial entrepreneurship. Perceived enabling factors were: co-mentoring from business partners, course content, financial gain, creativity and innovative ideas, control and risk taking, and the overarching package of support. Linkages between internal and external support could be improved. Research limitations/implications The study provided insights into constraints and enablers to self-employment for a small cohort of recent graduates looking to start-up in the creative and digital industries. Further studies are required to explore the suggested effect of the ‘creative identity’, and of sector-specific family entrepreneurial background. Practical implications The support provided by universities can facilitate the transition from early stage ideas to actual graduate business start-up. Issues such as provision of specialist advice and links with external parallel and follow-on support need to be considered. Originality/Value University start-up units provide an important contribution to the development of graduate entrepreneurs and their role in the growth of national and global economy. Suggestions for improvements in performance, such as closer links with external business development agencies and support providers, are discussed. Keywords Student and graduate business start-up, Regeneration, Entrepreneurship educatio

Super No-Scale F-SU(5): A Dynamic Determination of M_{1/2} and tan beta

We study the Higgs potential in No-Scale F-SU(5), a model built on the tripodal foundations of the Flipped SU(5) x U(1)_X Grand Unified Theory, extra F-theory derived TeV scale vector-like particle multiplets, and the high scale boundary conditions of No-Scale Supergravity. V_min, the minimum of the potential following radiative electroweak symmetry breaking, is a function at fixed Z-Boson mass of the universal gaugino boundary mass M_{1/2} and tan{\beta}, the ratio of Higgs vacuum expectation values. The No-Scale nullification of the bilinear Higgs soft term B_mu at the boundary reduces V_min(M_{1/2}) to a one dimensional dependency, which may be secondarily minimized. This "Super No-Scale" condition dynamically fixes tan beta and M_{1/2} at the local minimum minimorum of V_min. Fantastically, the walls of this theoretically established secondary potential coalesce in descent to a striking concurrency with the previously phenomenologically favored "golden point" and "golden strip".Comment: V2, As accepted to Physics Letters B; 8 Pages, 2 Plots, 1 Tabl

Generalizing Minimal Supergravity

In Grand Unified Theories (GUTs), the Standard Model (SM) gauge couplings need not be unified at the GUT scale due to the high-dimensional operators. Considering gravity mediated supersymmetry breaking, we study for the first time the generic gauge coupling relations at the GUT scale, and the general gaugino mass relations which are valid from the GUT scale to the electroweak scale at one loop. We define the index k for these relations, which can be calculated in GUTs and can be determined at the Large Hadron Collider and the future International Linear Collider. Thus, we give a concrete definition of the GUT scale in these theories, and suggest a new way to test general GUTs at future experiments. We also discuss five special scenarios with interesting possibilities. With our generic formulae, we present all the GUT-scale gauge coupling relations and all the gaugino mass relations in the SU(5) and SO(10) models, and calculate the corresponding indices k. Especially, the index k is 5/3 in the traditional SU(5) and SO(10) models that have been studied extensively so far. Furthermore, we discuss the field theory realization of the U(1) flux effects on the SM gauge kinetic functions in F-theory GUTs, and calculate their indices k as well.Comment: RevTex4, 14 pages, 4 tables, references added, version in PL

Patient preferences for models of care for fibromyalgia : A discrete choice experiment

Peer reviewe

Biting the bullet: a call for action on lead-contaminated meat in food-banks

Each year in the United States, food banks receive more than one million kilograms of donated hunted game meat. The National Rifle Association’s (NRA’s) Hunters for the Hungry initiative has established programs in more than 40 states for hunters to take their harvested game animal to a meat processing facility and indicate intent to donate the resulting processed and packaged meat to a local food bank. Most donated game meat is ground deer meat (venison); other donated game includes wild hog and goose. Even though the presence of ammunition-derived metallic lead fragments in donated firearms-hunted meat has been recognized for more than a decade, most of the donated hunted meat is not inspected to discard meat containing lead fragments. An underlying lack of food safety standards for adulterated donated food increases risks to low-income recipients, who are already disproportionately affected by elevated blood lead levels (BLLs).2 Primary prevention is needed for this overlooked source of lead exposure.publishedVersio

Investigating generalizability of results from a randomized controlled trial of the management of chronic widespread pain : the MUSICIAN study

The MUSICIAN trial was supported by an award from Arthritis Research UK, Chesterfield, UK. Grant number: 17292. Ethical approval for the study was granted by Cheshire NHS Research Ethics Committee; reference number: 07/Q1506/61. All participants provided written consent.Peer reviewedPublisher PD