The graduation performance of technology business incubators in China's three tier cities: the role of incubator funding, technical support, and entrepreneurial mentoring

This study examines the effects of technology business incubator (TBI)’s funding, technical support and entrepreneurial mentoring on the graduation performance of new technology-based firms in China’s three tier cities. Using new dataset on all TBIs and incubated new technology-based firms from government surveys conducted over five consecutive years from 2009 to 2013 combined with archival and hand-collected data, we find the effects of incubator services on the early growth of new technology-based firms vary according to the local context. Technical support facilities and entrepreneurial mentoring from TBIs are found to have significantly and positively influenced the early development of the firms in the four most affluent tier 1 cities, whilst these effects become less pronounced for the tier 2 and tier 3 cities. These two services are also found to influence graduation performance in the government and university types of TBI respectively. Results support the notion that the effectiveness of an incubators services is shaped by the level of a city’s socio-economic development and that the city location of a TBI does impact the graduation performance of its incubatees

ON THE DESIGN OF PSEUDOELASTIC SPRINGS AND SPRING SYSTEMS

The stress-strain curves of pseudoelastic alloys are non-linear and temperature dependent. So are the force-displacement characteristics of helical coil springs of these materials. For design purposes it is necessary to be able to calculate the spring properties as a function of spring dimensions. The nonlinearity of the characteristics and their temperature dependence are complicating factors. Force-displacement characteristics were determined on helical coil springs of a beta Cu-Zn-Al alloy. Both spring geometry and temperature were considered as parameters. It was found that it is possible to predict the characteristics of springs with different geometry once one set of characteristics is determined for one spring geometry at different temperatures. Use can be made of the pseudoelastic and shape-memory behaviour of the pseudoelastic springs by building them into a spring system. Different working principles of pseudoelastic spring systems are presented. One can design the spring system in such a way that a desired response, such as force, displacement, at given temperatures is realized

Experimental Characterisation of the Bainitic Transformation Kinetics of Residual Austenite in Mn-Si TRIP-Assisted Multiphase Steels

Recent studies on TRIP-assisted multiphase steels have emphasised the drastic importance of the bainitic transformation in the optimisation of properties. Bainitic ageing is necessary for the stabilisation of austenite with respect to the martensitic transformation. This metastable retained austenite can still transform to martensite when plastically deformed (TRIP effect). The present work deals with the bainitic reaction kinetics of the austenite obtained by intercritical annealing in two low carbon Mn-Si steels. Bainitic transformation was followed by dilatometry and SEM observations. X-ray diffraction and Mössbauer spectrometry allowed the measurement of the amount of residual austenite and of the carbon enrichment in austenite. The tempering temperature was found to influence the kinetics of austenite transformation and decomposition