Assessing the effectiveness of business support services in England: evidence from a theory based evaluation

In England, publicly supported advisory services for small firms are organised primarily through the Business Link (BL) network. Based on the programme theory underlying this business support services we develop four propositions and test these empirically using data from a new survey of over 3,000 English small firms. Our empirical results provide a broad validation of the programme theory underlying BL assistance for small firms in England during 2003, and more limited support for its effectiveness. More specifically, we find strong support for the value of BL operators maintaining a high profile as a way of boosting take-up. We also find some support for the approach to market segmentation adopted by BL allowing more intensive assistance to be targeted on younger firms and those with limited liability status. In terms of the outcomes of BL support, and allowing for issues of sample selection, we find no significant effects on growth from ‘other’ assistance but do find positive and significant employment growth effects from intensive assistance. This provides partial support for the programme theory assertion that BL support will lead to improvements in business growth performance and stronger support for the proposition that there would be differential outcomes from intensive and other assistance. The positive employment growth outcomes identified here from intensive assistance, even allowing for sample selection, suggest something of an improvement in the effectiveness of the BL network since the late 1990s

Pb isotopic variability in melt inclusions from the EMI–EMII–HIMU mantle end-members and the role of the oceanic lithosphere

Melt inclusions from four individual lava samples representing the HIMU (Mangaia Island), EMI (Pitcairn Island) and EMII (Tahaa Island) end member components, have heterogeneous Pb isotopic composition larger than that defined by the erupted lavas in each island. The broad linear trend in ^(207)Pb/^(206)Pb–^(208)Pb/^(206)Pb space produced by the melt inclusions from Mangaia, Tahaa and fPitcairn samples reproduces the entire trend defined by the Austral chain, the Society islands and the Pitcairn island and seamount groups. The inclusions preserve a record of melt composition of far greater isotopic diversity than that sampled in whole rock basalts. These results can be explained by mixing of a common depleted component with the HIMU, EMI and EMII lavas, respectively. We favor a model that considers the oceanic lithosphere to be that common component. We suggest that the Pb isotopic compositions of the melt inclusions reflect wall rock reaction of HIMU, EMI and EMII melts during their percolation through the oceanic lithosphere. Under these conditions, the localized rapid crystallization of olivine from primitive basalt near the reaction zone would allow the entrapment of melt inclusions with different isotopic composition

Maternal effects on anogenital distance in a wild marmot population

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Lunar Outgassing, Transient Phenomena and The Return to The Moon, I: Existing Data

Herein the transient lunar phenomena (TLP) report database is subjected to a discriminating statistical filter robust against sites of spurious reports, and produces a restricted sample that may be largely reliable. This subset is highly correlated geographically with the catalog of outgassing events seen by the Apollo 15, 16 and Lunar Prospector alpha-particle spectrometers for episodic Rn-222 gas release. Both this robust TLP sample and even the larger, unfiltered sample are highly correlated with the boundary between mare and highlands, as are both deep and shallow moonquakes, as well as Po-210, a long-lived product of Rn-222 decay and a further tracer of outgassing. This offers another significant correlation relating TLPs and outgassing, and may tie some of this activity to sagging mare basalt plains (perhaps mascons). Additionally, low-level but likely significant TLP activity is connected to recent, major impact craters (while moonquakes are not), which may indicate the effects of cracks caused by the impacts, or perhaps avalanches, allowing release of gas. The majority of TLP (and Rn-222) activity, however, is confined to one site that produced much of the basalt in the Procellarum Terrane, and it seems plausible that this TLP activity may be tied to residual outgassing from the formerly largest volcanic ffusion sites from the deep lunar interior. With the coming in the next few years of robotic spacecraft followed by human exploration, the study of TLPs and outgassing is both promising and imperiled. We will have an unprecedented pportunity to study lunar outgassing, but will also deal with a greater burden of anthropogenic lunar gas than ever produced. There is a pressing need to study lunar atmosphere and its sources while still pristine. [Abstract abridged.]Comment: 35 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Icarus. Other papers in series found at http://www.astro.columbia.edu/~arlin/TLP

Long-wavelength approximation for string cosmology with barotropic perfect fluid

The field equations derived from the low energy string effective action with a matter tensor describing a perfect fluid with a barotropic equation of state are solved iteratively using the long-wavelength approximation, i.e. the field equations are expanded by the number of spatial gradients. In the zero order, a quasi-isotropic solution is presented and compared with the general solution of the pure dilaton gravity. Possible cosmological models are analyzed from the point of view of the pre-big bang scenario. The second order solutions are found and their growing and decaying parts are studied.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figur

Earth science: Redox state of early magmas

International audienceA study of cerium in zircon minerals has allowed an assessment of the redox conditions that prevailed when Earth's earliest magmas formed. The results suggest that the mantle became oxidized sooner than had been though

Maximal regularity for non-autonomous equations with measurable dependence on time

In this paper we study maximal $L^p$-regularity for evolution equations with time-dependent operators $A$. We merely assume a measurable dependence on time. In the first part of the paper we present a new sufficient condition for the $L^p$-boundedness of a class of vector-valued singular integrals which does not rely on H\"ormander conditions in the time variable. This is then used to develop an abstract operator-theoretic approach to maximal regularity. The results are applied to the case of $m$-th order elliptic operators $A$ with time and space-dependent coefficients. Here the highest order coefficients are assumed to be measurable in time and continuous in the space variables. This results in an $L^p(L^q)$-theory for such equations for $p,q\in (1, \infty)$. In the final section we extend a well-posedness result for quasilinear equations to the time-dependent setting. Here we give an example of a nonlinear parabolic PDE to which the result can be applied.Comment: Application to a quasilinear equation added. Accepted for publication in Potential Analysi

Rapid progression of prostate cancer in men with a BRCA2 mutation.

Men with BRCA2 mutations have been found to be at increased risk of developing prostate cancer. There is a recent report that BRCA2 carriers with prostate cancer have poorer survival than noncarrier prostate cancer patients. In this study, we compared survival of men with a BRCA2 mutation and prostate cancer with that of men with a BRCA1 mutation and prostate cancer. We obtained the age at diagnosis, age at death or current age from 182 men with prostate cancer from families with a BRCA2 mutation and from 119 men with prostate cancer from families with a BRCA1 mutation. The median survival from diagnosis was 4.0 years for men with a BRCA2 mutation vs 8.0 years for men with a BRCA1 mutation, and the difference was highly significant (P<0.01). It may be important to develop targeted chemotherapies to treat prostate cancer in men with a BRCA2 mutation