Measuring the effect of business incubation in Oslo : an empirical study on performance, survival, and access to public subsidies

This paper examines the effect of participation in a business incubation program in Oslo, Norway, measured in terms of economic performance, survival rates, and access to public subsidies. Our research involves incubated companies entering an incubator from 2011 and 2016, matching with comparable companies with similar characteristics. Furthermore, we use the data available for these companies in the period 2011-2018 to analyse the effect incubators have on the incubated companies. To measure the effect of incubator participation, we construct a representative control group by using coarsened exact matching combined with nearest Mahalanobis distance. We then use difference-in-differences estimation (DiD) to estimate the effect of the incubator program on the incubated companies. We find that, in terms of performance, the only positive significant effect of incubator participation is on the number of employees. We find no significant effects on value creation or sales revenues. However, we also find some evidence of negative effects on operating profits for the incubated companies. Further, we find no evidence that the group of incubated companies experience higher survival rates or better access to public subsidies, compared to the group of control companies.nhhma

A novel 2- and 3-choice touchscreen-based continuous trial-unique nonmatching-to-location task (cTUNL) sensitive to functional differences between dentate gyrus and CA3 subregions of the hippocampus.

RATIONALE: The touchscreen continuous trial-unique non-matching-to-location task (cTUNL) has been developed to optimise a battery of tasks under NEWMEDS (Novel Methods leading to New Medication in Depression and Schizophrenia, http://www.newmeds-europe.com ). It offers novel task features of both a practical and a theoretical nature compared to existing touchscreen tasks for spatial working memory. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to determine whether the cTUNL task is sufficiently sensitive to differentiate between dentate gyrus (DG) and CA3 hippocampal subregion contributions to performance. METHODS: The effect of DG and CA3 dysfunction on memory for locations in the cTUNL task was tested. Rats were assessed on versions of the task-two-choice and three-choice-that differed in memory load. Performance was challenged using manipulations of delay and the spatial separation between target and sample locations. RESULTS: Dysfunction of the DG disrupts performance across both delay and spatial separations in two-choice cTUNL when the delay is variable and unpredictable. Increasing the working memory load (three stimuli) increases sensitivity to DG dysfunction, with deficits apparent at fixed, short delays. In contrast, CA3 dysfunction did not disrupt performance. CONCLUSION: Acquisition of cTUNL was rapid, and the task was sensitive to manipulations of delays and separations. A three-choice version of the task was found to be viable. Finally, both the two- and three-choice versions of the task were able to differentiate between limited dysfunction to different areas within the hippocampus. DG dysfunction affected performance when using unpredictable task parameters. CA3 dysfunction did not result in impairment, even at the longest delays tested.This work was supported by the Innovative Medicine Initiative Joint Undertaking under grant agreement no. 115008 of which resources are composed of EFPIA inkind contribution and financial contribution from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013). As part of this project, CAO was funded by Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., of Johnson & Johnson.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00213-015-4019-

Leptospirosis severity may be associated with the intensity of humoral immune response

Leptospirosis severity may be increasing, with pulmonary involvement becoming more frequent. Does this increase result from an intense immune response to leptospire? Notice that renal failure, thrombocytopenia and pulmonary complications are found during the immune phase. Thirty-five hospitalized patients with Weil's disease had 5 blood samples drawn, from the 15th day to the 12th month of symptoms, for ELISA-IgM, -IgG and -IgA specific antibody detection. According their 1st IgG titer, the patients were divided into: group 1 (n = 13) titer >; 1:400 (positive) and group 2 (n = 22) titerA gravidade da leptospirose parece estar aumentando principalmente quanto ao envolvimento pulmonar. Essa maior gravidade poderia ser decorrente de uma resposta imunológica mais intensa, já que tanto a insuficiência renal, quanto a plaquetopenia e as lesões pulmonares são encontradas na fase imune da doença. Para investigar esta hipótese foram detectados por ELISA anticorpos IgM, IgG e IgA específicos em amostras de sangue de 35 pacientes internados com síndrome de Weil colhidas a partir de cerca de 15 dias do início dos sintomas até 1 ano após a alta. Os pacientes foram divididos em 2 grupos conforme o seu título de IgG na primeira amostra, colhida com até 2 semanas de sintomas: grupo 1 (n = 13) com título >;1:400 (positivo) e grupo 2 (n = 22) com títul

The Leeway of Shipping Containers at Different Immersion Levels

The leeway of 20-foot containers in typical distress conditions is established through field experiments in a Norwegian fjord and in open-ocean conditions off the coast of France with wind speed ranging from calm to 14 m/s. The experimental setup is described in detail and certain recommendations given for experiments on objects of this size. The results are compared with the leeway of a scaled-down container before the full set of measured leeway characteristics are compared with a semi-analytical model of immersed containers. Our results are broadly consistent with the semi-analytical model, but the model is found to be sensitive to choice of drag coefficient and makes no estimate of the cross-wind leeway of containers. We extend the results from the semi-analytical immersion model by extrapolating the observed leeway divergence and estimates of the experimental uncertainty to various realistic immersion levels. The sensitivity of these leeway estimates at different immersion levels are tested using a stochastic trajectory model. Search areas are found to be sensitive to the exact immersion levels, the choice of drag coefficient and somewhat less sensitive to the inclusion of leeway divergence. We further compare the search areas thus found with a range of trajectories estimated using the semi-analytical model with only perturbations to the immersion level. We find that the search areas calculated without estimates of crosswind leeway and its uncertainty will grossly underestimate the rate of expansion of the search areas. We recommend that stochastic trajectory models of container drift should account for these uncertainties by generating search areas for different immersion levels and with the uncertainties in crosswind and downwind leeway reported from our field experiments.Comment: 25 pages, 11 figures and 5 tables; Ocean Dynamics, Special Issue on Advances in Search and Rescue at Sea (2012

Characterization of the yeast ionome: a genome-wide analysis of nutrient mineral and trace element homeostasis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

BACKGROUND: Nutrient minerals are essential yet potentially toxic, and homeostatic mechanisms are required to regulate their intracellular levels. We describe here a genome-wide screen for genes involved in the homeostasis of minerals in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Using inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES), we assayed 4,385 mutant strains for the accumulation of 13 elements (calcium, cobalt, copper, iron, potassium, magnesium, manganese, nickel, phosphorus, selenium, sodium, sulfur, and zinc). We refer to the resulting accumulation profile as the yeast 'ionome'. RESULTS: We identified 212 strains that showed altered ionome profiles when grown on a rich growth medium. Surprisingly few of these mutants (four strains) were affected for only one element. Rather, levels of multiple elements were altered in most mutants. It was also remarkable that only six genes previously shown to be involved in the uptake and utilization of minerals were identified here, indicating that homeostasis is robust under these replete conditions. Many mutants identified affected either mitochondrial or vacuolar function and these groups showed similar effects on the accumulation of many different elements. In addition, intriguing positive and negative correlations among different elements were observed. Finally, ionome profile data allowed us to correctly predict a function for a previously uncharacterized gene, YDR065W. We show that this gene is required for vacuolar acidification. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate the power of ionomics to identify new aspects of mineral homeostasis and how these data can be used to develop hypotheses regarding the functions of previously uncharacterized genes

Sugar Beet Root Storage Properties Are Unaffected by Cercospora Leaf Spot

© 2023 The American Phytopathological Society. This is the accepted manuscript version of an article which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1094/PDIS-09-22-2156-RECercospora leaf spot (CLS; causal agent Cercospora beticola Sacc.) is endemic in many sugar beet production regions due to the widespread distribution of C. beticola and the inability of current management practices to provide complete control of the disease. Roots harvested from plants with CLS, therefore, are inevitably incorporated into sugar beet root storage piles, even though the effects of CLS on root storage properties are largely unknown. Research was conducted to determine the effects of CLS on storage properties including root respiration rate, sucrose loss, invert sugar accumulation, loss in recoverable sucrose yield, and changes in sucrose loss to molasses with respect to CLS disease severity and storage duration. Roots were obtained from plants with four levels of CLS severity in each of three production years, stored at 5°C and 95% relative humidity for up to 120 days, and evaluated for storage characteristics after 30, 90 and 120 days storage. No significant or repeatable effects of CLS on root respiration rate, sucrose loss, invert sugar accumulation, loss in recoverable sucrose yield, or change in sucrose loss to molasses were detected after 30, 90 or 120 days storage regardless of the severity of CLS disease symptoms. Therefore, no evidence was found that CLS accelerates sugar beet storage losses, and it is concluded that roots harvested from plants with CLS can be stored without additional or specialized precaution, regardless of CLS symptom severity.Peer reviewe

Regge description of two pseudoscalar meson production in antiproton-proton annihilation

A Regge-inspired model is used to discuss the hard exclusive two-body hadronic reactions (pbar p ----> pi+ pi-, pi0 pi0, K+ K-, Kbar0 K0) for the FAIR facility project at GSI with the Panda detector. The comparison between the differential cross sections predictions and the available data is shown to determine the values of the few parameters of the model.Comment: 9 pages, 13 figure

PISA: a political project and a research agenda

PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) is one of two large scale international comparative projects of student assessment that now exert considerable influence upon school science education policy, the other being TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study). This paper focuses on PISA, now the most influential study. This article outlines the origins of PISA, identifies some of the challenges in its construction and the claims made for it. It argues that while the statistical and methodological aspects of PISA have received much research attention, other elements of PISA have been largely ignored. In particular, there are several outcomes of PISA testing that point towards a significant research agenda. In addition, the political, ideological and economic assumptions underpinning the PISA project have implications for school science curriculum policy that deserve closer scrutiny and debate

Ocean Futures Under Ocean Acidification, Marine Protection, and Changing Fishing Pressures Explored Using a Worldwide Suite of Ecosystem Models

Ecosystem-based management (EBM) of the ocean considers all impacts on and uses of marine and coastal systems. In recent years, there has been a heightened interest in EBM tools that allow testing of alternative management options and help identify tradeoffs among human uses. End-to-end ecosystem modeling frameworks that consider a wide range of management options are a means to provide integrated solutions to the complex ocean management problems encountered in EBM. Here, we leverage the global advances in ecosystem modeling to explore common opportunities and challenges for ecosystem-based management, including changes in ocean acidification, spatial management, and fishing pressure across eight Atlantis (atlantis.cmar.csiro.au) end-to-end ecosystem models. These models represent marine ecosystems from the tropics to the arctic, varying in size, ecology, and management regimes, using a three-dimensional, spatially-explicit structure parametrized for each system. Results suggest stronger impacts from ocean acidification and marine protected areas than from altering fishing pressure, both in terms of guild-level (i.e., aggregations of similar species or groups) biomass and in terms of indicators of ecological and fishery structure. Effects of ocean acidification were typically negative (reducing biomass), while marine protected areas led to both “winners” and “losers” at the level of particular species (or functional groups). Changing fishing pressure (doubling or halving) had smaller effects on the species guilds or ecosystem indicators than either ocean acidification or marine protected areas. Compensatory effects within guilds led to weaker average effects at the guild level than the species or group level. The impacts and tradeoffs implied by these future scenarios are highly relevant as ocean governance shifts focus from single-sector objectives (e.g., sustainable levels of individual fished stocks) to taking into account competing industrial sectors\u27 objectives (e.g., simultaneous spatial management of energy, shipping, and fishing) while at the same time grappling with compounded impacts of global climate change (e.g., ocean acidification and warming)