Entrepreneurship and social capital: examining the association in deprived urban neighbourhoods

Spatial approaches to examining entrepreneurship have increasingly built on theories of social capital. However, the nature and extent of local social capital in less successful deprived communities remains under-researched and inadequately understood. The paper examines the association between social capital and entrepreneurship in a deprived urban neighbourhood in the city of Leeds, UK as a means of contributing to an improved theoretical understanding of how space moderates this association. It is found that social capital has a strong association with patterns of entrepreneurship in deprived urban neighbourhoods, with the potential impacts being both positive and negative. The forms of social capital are found to differ from that found in more affluent localities, with a prevalence of bonding social capital as the key facilitator of entrepreneurship, which may help in the early stages of venture development, but which over time may become a constraint. Also, a lack of the bridging social capital associated with entrepreneurial success is found within the locality. From a policy perspective, it is recommended that policy makers responsible for entrepreneurship in deprived urban neighbourhoods should seek to enhance initiatives for developing social capital which incorporate local businesses, residents and local government agencies

Interconnecting Governments, Businesses and Citizens – A Comparison of Two Digital Infrastructures

Part 2: Services and InteroperabilityInternational audiencePublic and private organizations in various areas are setting up digital Information Infrastructures (IIs) for interconnecting government, businesses and citizens. IIs can create value by sharing and integrating data of multiple actors. This can be the basis for value added services and especially collaborations of public and private partners can make IIs thrive. Easier access to integrated services and products (jointly) offered by government and businesses may stimulate transparency and innovations. IIs are under development in many domains, including for open data and international trade. However, there are notable differences in the design, characteristics and implementation of the IIs. The objective of this paper is to compare two diverse IIs in order to obtain a better understanding of common and differing elements in the IIs and their impact. Among the differences are the roles of government, businesses and users, in driving, developing and exploitation of the IIs

A Pre-Landing Assessment of Regolith Properties at the InSight Landing Site

This article discusses relevant physical properties of the regolith at the Mars InSight landing site as understood prior to landing of the spacecraft. InSight will land in the northern lowland plains of Mars, close to the equator, where the regolith is estimated to be ≥3--5 m thick. These investigations of physical properties have relied on data collected from Mars orbital measurements, previously collected lander and rover data, results of studies of data and samples from Apollo lunar missions, laboratory measurements on regolith simulants, and theoretical studies. The investigations include changes in properties with depth and temperature. Mechanical properties investigated include density, grain-size distribution, cohesion, and angle of internal friction. Thermophysical properties include thermal inertia, surface emissivity and albedo, thermal conductivity and diffusivity, and specific heat. Regolith elastic properties not only include parameters that control seismic wave velocities in the immediate vicinity of the Insight lander but also coupling of the lander and other potential noise sources to the InSight broadband seismometer. The related properties include Poisson’s ratio, P- and S-wave velocities, Young’s modulus, and seismic attenuation. Finally, mass diffusivity was investigated to estimate gas movements in the regolith driven by atmospheric pressure changes. Physical properties presented here are all to some degree speculative. However, they form a basis for interpretation of the early data to be returned from the InSight mission.Additional co-authors: Nick Teanby and Sharon Keda

Implications of meltwater pulse events for soil biology and biogeochemical cycling in a polar desert

The McMurdo Dry Valleys are one of the most arid environments on Earth. Over the soil landscape for the majority of the year, biological and ecosystem processes in the dry valleys are constrained by the low temperatures and limited availability of water. The prevalence of these physical limitations in controlling biological and ecosystem processes makes the dry valleys a climate-sensitive system, poised to experience substantial changes following projected future warming. Short-duration increases in summer temperatures are associated with pulses of water from melting ice reserves, including glaciers, snow and permafrost. Such pulses alter soil geochemistry by mobilizing and redistributing soil salts (via enhanced weathering, solubility and mobility), which can alter habitat suitability for soil organisms. Resulting changes in soil community composition or distribution may alter the biogeochemical processes in which they take part. Here, we review the potential impacts of meltwater pulses and present new field data documenting instances of meltwater pulse events that result from different water sources and hydrological patterns, and discuss their potential influence on soil biology and biogeochemistry. We use these examples to discuss the potential impacts of future climate change on the McMurdo Dry Valley soil ecosystem