The impact of values and future orientation on intention formation within sustainable entrepreneurship

Intentions have been identified as one of the main drivers of sustainable entrepreneurial opportunity recognition and ultimately activity. However, research has not provided sufficient explanation for how the inherent complexities of simultaneously generating social, environmental and economic value as well as considering the needs of future generations might influence the intention formation process of sustainable entrepreneurs. The aim of this study is therefore to investigate the impacts of values and future orientation on said intention formation process. This study uses structural equation modeling to quantitatively analyze an adapted model of the theory of planned behavior based on survey data of 407 students collected within two European countries. The empirical results highlight the importance of self-transcending values and future orientation to understand attitudes towards sustainable entrepreneurship. Attitudes and perceived behavioral control, in turn, positively influence intentions to become a sustainable entrepreneur. On a practical note, the results suggest that educational and other practitioners could stimulate sustainable entrepreneurial intentions through value activation strategies to raise attitudes. It is further recommended that, as a matter of policy, governmental programs should help strengthen subjective norms as a different route to stimulating intention formation

Decadal and multi-decadal variability of Labrador Sea Water in the north-western North Atlantic Ocean derived from tracer distributions: Heat budget, ventilation, and advection

Time series of profiles of potential temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, and planetary potential vorticity at intermediate depths in the Labrador Sea, the Irminger Sea, and the Iceland Basin have been constructed by combining the hydrographic sections crossing the sub-arctic gyre of the North Atlantic Ocean from the coast of Labrador to Europe, occupied nearly annually since 1990, and historic hydrographic data from the preceding years since 1950. The temperature data of the last 60 years mainly reflect a multi-decadal variability, with a characteristic time scale of about 50 years. With the use of a highly simplified heat budget model it was shown that this long-term temperature variability in the Labrador Sea mainly reflects the long-term variation of the net heat flux to the atmosphere. However, the analysis of the data on dissolved oxygen and planetary potential vorticity show that convective ventilation events, during which successive classes of Labrador Sea Water (LSW) are formed, occurring on decadal or shorter time scales. These convective ventilation events have performed the role of vertical mixing in the heat budget model, homogenising the properties of the intermediate layers (e.g. temperature) for significant periods of time. Both the long-term and the near-decadal temperature signals at a pressure of 1500 dbar are connected with successive deep LSW classes, emphasising the leading role of Labrador Sea convection in running the variability of the intermediate depth layers of the North Atlantic. These signals are advected to the neighbouring Irminger Sea and Iceland Basin. Advection time scales, estimated from the 60 year time series, are slightly shorter or of the same order as most earlier estimates, which were mainly based on the feature tracking of the spreading of the LSW(94) class formed in the period 1989-1994 in the Labrador Sea

Generalized tetanus in a 4-year old boy presenting with dysphagia and trismus: a case report

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Construction costs, chemical composition and payback time of high- and low-irradiance leaves

The effect of irradiance on leaf construction costs, chemical composition, and on the payback time of leaves was investigated. To enable more generalized conclusions, three different systems were studied: top and the most-shaded leaves of 10 adult tree species in a European mixed forest, top leaves of sub-dominant trees of two evergreen species growing in small gaps or below the canopy in an Amazonian rainforest, and plants of six herbaceous and four woody species grown hydroponically at low or high irradiance in growth cabinets. Daily photon irradiance varied 3-6-fold between low- and high-light leaves. Specific leaf area (SLA) was 30-130% higher at low light. Construction costs, on the other hand, were 1-5% lower for low-irradiance leaves, mainly because low-irradiance leaves had lower concentrations of soluble phenolics. Photosynthetic capacity and respiration, expressed per unit leaf mass, were hardly different for the low- and high-light leaves. Estimates of payback times of the high-irradiance leaves ranged from 2-4 d in the growth cabinets, to 15-20 d for the adult tree species in the European forest. Low-irradiance leaves had payback times that were 2-3 times larger, ranging from 4 d in the growth cabinets to 20-80 d at the most shaded part of the canopy of the mixed forest. In all cases, estimated payback times were less than half the life span of the leaves, suggesting that even at time-integrated irradiances lower than 5% of the total seasonal value, investment in leaves is still fruitful from a carbon-economy point of view. A sensitivity analysis showed that increased SLA of low-irradiance leaves was the main factor constraining payback times. Acclimation in the other five factors determining payback time, namely construction costs, photosynthetic capacity per unit leaf mass, respiration per unit leaf mass, apparent quantum yield, and curvature of the photosynthetic light-response-curve, were unimportant when the observed variation in each factor was examine

Addition of AT1 blocker fails to overcome resistance to ACE inhibition in adriamycin nephrosis

Addition of AT1 blocker fails to overcome resistance to ACE inhibition in adriamycin nephrosis.BackgroundAngiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors provide renoprotection, but there is considerable interindividual variability in therapeutic efficacy, with residual proteinuria and progressive renal function loss in many individuals. This requires additional strategies to optimize therapy response, particularly for individuals with a poor response to ACE inhibition. We studied whether co-treatment with an angiotensin II subtype 1 (AT1) receptor antagonist (AII-A) improves the individual antiproteinuric response of maximal ACE inhibition in established adriamycin nephrosis.MethodsRats were instituted on lisinopril (75 mg/L) six weeks after disease induction. After two weeks rats were re-stratified for residual proteinuria to continue this regimen, to a higher dose of lisinopril (150 mg/L) or to co-treatment with the AII-A L 158,809 for another four weeks. Groups on monotherapy AII-A and vehicle served as controls (all groups N = 15).ResultsLisinopril lowered proteinuria by 63% from 741 to 246 g/day (range of percentage change -90 to +2%). Neither increasing the dose of the ACE inhibitor nor addition of AII-A to ACE inhibition improved the antiproteinuric efficacy on a group or individual level: non-responders remained non-responders. All drug categories reduced hard end-points of focal glomerulosclerosis to a similar degree.ConclusionsACE inhibition has variable renal protective efficacy in the adriamycin model. Neither increasing the dose of the ACE inhibitor beyond the optimal level nor co-treatment with AII-A overcome the individual therapy resistance. Thus, in established adriamycin nephrosis, blockade of the renin-angiotensin system at two different levels offers no additional benefit over ACE inhibition alone, either on the group or individual level