Entrepreneurship: an assessment

This article reviews evidence of the impact of entrepreneurship on job creation, gender and race discrimination, university spin-offs, growth, economic geography, finance and the public sector. It defines entrepreneurship, corrects some conventional wisdoms about it and discusses policy implications of the evidence on its determinants and effects. The article suggests that the distinctive nature of entrepreneurship raises theoretical, empirical and policy issues that the existing literature has not even begun to address to date

Formation of a heterometallic Al^III/Sm^III complex involving a novel [EtAl(2-py)<inf>2</inf>O]^2- ligand (2-py = 2-pyridyl)

Controlled O2-oxidation of the Sm(II) sandwich compound [{EtAl(2-py)3}2Sm] (1a) gives the Sm(III)/Al(III) compound [{EtAl(2-py)3}{EtAl(2-py)2O}Sm]2 (2), containing the novel multifunctional dianionic ligand [EtAl(2-py)2O]2-. The formation of an O-bridged Al-O-Sm arrangement in the structure of 2 is potentially relevant to the catalytic epoxidation of styrene with dry air using heterobimetallic sandwich compounds like 1a.We gratefully acknowledge the EU (Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Programme for R.G.-R., Advanced Investigator Award for D.S.W., studentship for H.R.S.).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from ACS at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/om5009132

Flexible Bonding of the Phosph(V)azane Dianions [S(E)P(µ-NtBu)]22-

Oxidation of the P(III) dianion [S-P(µ-NtBu)]22- (1) with elemental sulphur, selenium and tellurium gives the P(V) dianions [(S)(E)P(µ-NtBu)]22- (E = S (6a), Se (6b), Te (6c)). Although 6c proves to be too unstable, the S,S-dianion 6a and ambidentate S,Se-dianion 6b are readily transferred intact to main group and transition metal elements, producing a range of new cage and coordination compounds. While their coordination characteristics are in many ways similar to closely-related isoelectronic phosph(V)azane anions [(E)(RN=)P(µ-NtBu)]22-, the sterically unhindered nature of 6 introduces an expanded range of coordination modes, i.e., facial S,S- and Se,Se-bonding as well as side-on S,Se-coordination. All of these bonding modes are observed for the amibidentate S,Se dianion 6b.We thank the EU (ERC Advanced Grant for DSW, Erasmus grant for AJP), Cambridge Australia Scholarships (FJR) and the Cambridge Trust (AJP, FJR) and the PPF (AJP) for funding and the Spanish MINECO-AEI and the European Union (ESF) for a Ramon y Cajal contract (RG-R, RYC-2015–19035)

A non-chiral lithium aluminate reagent for the determination of enantiomeric excess of chiral alcohols

Here we illustrate a new method for the rapid determination of ee’s of chiral alcohols using the thermally-stable, non-chiral lithium aluminate reagent [EtAl(6-Me-2-py)$_3$Li] (1). $\textit{In situ}$ reaction of the alcohols with 1 produces robust dimers in solution, present as diastereomeric pairs ($\textit{SS/RR}$ and $\textit{RS}$) with distinct resonances in their $^1$H and $^7$Li NMR spectra. The ee can be calculated simply from integration of the $^1$H and/or $^7$Li NMR spectra.We thank the EU for a Marie Curie Intra European Fellowship within the seventh European Community Framework Programme (R. G. R.) and an Advanced Investigator Award (D. S. W.). We also thank the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie and the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes (Scholarships for S. H.)

Neo-Aristotelian Naturalism and the Evolutionary Objection: Rethinking the Relevance of Empirical Science

Neo-Aristotelian metaethical naturalism is a modern attempt at naturalizing ethics using ideas from Aristotle’s teleological metaphysics. Proponents of this view argue that moral virtue in human beings is an instance of natural goodness, a kind of goodness supposedly also found in the realm of non-human living things. Many critics question whether neo-Aristotelian naturalism is tenable in light of modern evolutionary biology. Two influential lines of objection have appealed to an evolutionary understanding of human nature and natural teleology to argue against this view. In this paper, I offer a reconstruction of these two seemingly different lines of objection as raising instances of the same dilemma, giving neo-Aristotelians a choice between contradicting our considered moral judgment and abandoning metaethical naturalism. I argue that resolving the dilemma requires showing a particular kind of continuity between the norms of moral virtue and norms that are necessary for understanding non-human living things. I also argue that in order to show such a continuity, neo-Aristotelians need to revise the relationship they adopt with empirical science and acknowledge that the latter is relevant to assessing their central commitments regarding living things. Finally, I argue that to move this debate forward, both neo-Aristotelians and their critics should pay attention to recent work on the concept of organism in evolutionary and developmental biology

Generalization Mediates Sensitivity to Complex Odor Features in the Honeybee

Animals use odors as signals for mate, kin, and food recognition, a strategy which appears ubiquitous and successful despite the high intrinsic variability of naturally-occurring odor quantities. Stimulus generalization, or the ability to decide that two objects, though readily distinguishable, are similar enough to afford the same consequence [1], could help animals adjust to variation in odor signals without losing sensitivity to key inter-stimulus differences. The present study was designed to investigate whether an animal's ability to generalize learned associations to novel odors can be influenced by the nature of the associated outcome. We use a classical conditioning paradigm for studying olfactory learning in honeybees [2] to show that honeybees conditioned on either a fixed- or variable-proportion binary odor mixture generalize learned responses to novel proportions of the same mixture even when inter-odor differences are substantial. We also show that the resulting olfactory generalization gradients depend critically on both the nature of the stimulus-reward paradigm and the intrinsic variability of the conditioned stimulus. The reward dependency we observe must be cognitive rather than perceptual in nature, and we argue that outcome-dependent generalization is necessary for maintaining sensitivity to inter-odor differences in complex olfactory scenes

Reflections and Experiences of a Co-Researcher involved in a Renal Research Study

Background Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) is seen as a prerequisite for health research. However, current Patient and public involvement literature has noted a paucity of recording of patient and public involvement within research studies. There have been calls for more recordings and reflections, specifically on impact. Renal medicine has also had similar criticisms and any reflections on patient and public involvement has usually been from the viewpoint of the researcher. Roles of patient and public involvement can vary greatly from sitting on an Advisory Group to analysing data. Different PPI roles have been described within studies; one being a co-researcher. However, the role of the co-researcher is largely undefined and appears to vary from study to study. Methods The aims of this paper are to share one first time co-researcher's reflections on the impact of PPI within a mixed methods (non-clinical trial) renal research study. A retrospective, reflective approach was taken using data available to the co-researcher as part of the day-to-day research activity. Electronic correspondence and documents such as meeting notes, minutes, interview thematic analysis and comments on documents were re-examined. The co-researcher led on writing this paper. Results This paper offers a broad definition of the role of the co-researcher. The co-researcher reflects on undertaking and leading on the thematic analysis of interview transcripts, something she had not previously done before. The co-researcher identified a number of key themes; the differences in time and responsibility between being a coresearcher and an Advisory Group member; how the role evolved and involvement activities could match the co-researchers strengths (and the need for flexibility); the need for training and support and lastly, the time commitment. It was also noted that it is preferable that a co-researcher needs to be involved from the very beginning of the grant application. Conclusions The reflections, voices and views of those undertaking PPI has been largely underrepresented in the literature. The role of co-researcher was seen to be rewarding but demanding, requiring a large time commitment. It is hoped that the learning from sharing this experience will encourage others to undertake this role, and encourage researchers to reflect on the needs of those involved.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Growth dynamics and the evolution of cooperation in microbial populations

Microbes providing public goods are widespread in nature despite running the risk of being exploited by free-riders. However, the precise ecological factors supporting cooperation are still puzzling. Following recent experiments, we consider the role of population growth and the repetitive fragmentation of populations into new colonies mimicking simple microbial life-cycles. Individual-based modeling reveals that demographic fluctuations, which lead to a large variance in the composition of colonies, promote cooperation. Biased by population dynamics these fluctuations result in two qualitatively distinct regimes of robust cooperation under repetitive fragmentation into groups. First, if the level of cooperation exceeds a threshold, cooperators will take over the whole population. Second, cooperators can also emerge from a single mutant leading to a robust coexistence between cooperators and free-riders. We find frequency and size of population bottlenecks, and growth dynamics to be the major ecological factors determining the regimes and thereby the evolutionary pathway towards cooperation.Comment: 26 pages, 6 figure

Toward High-Precision Measures of Large-Scale Structure

I review some results of estimation of the power spectrum of density fluctuations from galaxy redshift surveys and discuss advances that may be possible with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. I then examine the realities of power spectrum estimation in the presence of Galactic extinction, photometric errors, galaxy evolution, clustering evolution, and uncertainty about the background cosmology.Comment: 24 pages, including 11 postscript figures. Uses crckapb.sty (included in submission). To appear in ``Ringberg Workshop on Large-Scale Structure,'' ed D. Hamilton (Kluwer, Amsterdam), p. 39