The Role of Technology Support Centres in stimulating Entrepreneurship and Innovation in SME Clusters

The Innovative Product Development Centre (IPDC) was established at the University of Wolverhampton in the West Midlands region of the UK with a mission “to help small and medium sized companies improve their business, secure jobs and contribute to the economic regeneration of the West Midlands Region”. Since 2000, the IPDC has helped several hundred enterprises to develop their businesses through innovation and new product development. Demand for help is high, which reflects a healthy desire by the SMEs to innovate. The assistance given is time limited, but its impact on the business is extremely varied. This paper will discuss the role that a university based product development and technology centre can play in supporting a regional agenda for developing entrepreneurship and innovation in SMEs. Using case studies drawn from the experiences of working with SMEs from the West Midlands region, the paper will consider key issues such as: • Entrepreneurial leadership in SMEs • Formalised approaches for managing NPD • Technology support for innovation • Product innovation • Business networks and entrepreneurial clusters The paper will conclude that university based centres like IPDC can play a vital role in regional development programmes by helping minimise the risks for entrepreneurs to develop new products or adopt new process technologies. Importantly, investments in such centres by regional development agencies can be pivotal for stimulating access to new technology for the exploitation of entrepreneurial clusters and creating attractive inward investment opportunities

The role of technology support centres in stimulating entrepreneurship and innovation in SME clusters

The Innovative Product Development Centre (IPDC) was established at the University of Wolverhampton in the West Midlands region of the UK with a mission “to help small and medium sized companies improve their business, secure jobs and contribute to the economic regeneration of the West Midlands Region”. Since 2000, the IPDC has helped several hundred enterprises to develop their businesses through innovation and new product development. Demand for help is high, which reflects a healthy desire by the SMEs to innovate. The assistance given is time limited, but its impact on the business is extremely varied. This paper will discuss the role that a university based product development and technology centre can play in supporting a regional agenda for developing entrepreneurship and innovation in SMEs. Using case studies drawn from the experiences of working with SMEs from the West Midlands region, the paper will consider key issues such as: • Entrepreneurial leadership in SMEs • Formalised approaches for managing NPD • Technology support for innovation • Product innovation • Business networks and entrepreneurial clusters The paper will conclude that university based centres like IPDC can play a vital role in regional development programmes by helping minimise the risks for entrepreneurs to develop new products or adopt new process technologies. Importantly, investments in such centres by regional development agencies can be pivotal for stimulating access to new technology for the exploitation of entrepreneurial clusters and creating attractive inward investment opportunities

Managing Hazardous Household Products

This is a guide to assessing risks of use, storage, and disposal of household chemicals, and to developing an action plan to reduce potential impacts of these materials

Using Velocity Dispersion to Estimate Halo Mass: Is the Local Group in Tension with Λ\LambdaCDM?

Satellite galaxies are commonly used as tracers to measure the line-of-sight velocity dispersion ($\sigma_{\rm LOS}$) of the dark matter halo associated with their central galaxy, and thereby to estimate the halo's mass. Recent observational dispersion estimates of the Local Group, including the Milky Way and M31, suggest $\sigma\sim$50 km/s, which is surprisingly low when compared to the theoretical expectation of $\sigma\sim$100s km/s for systems of their mass. Does this pose a problem for $\Lambda$CDM? We explore this tension using the {\small{SURFS}} suite of $N$-body simulations, containing over 10000 (sub)haloes with well tracked orbits. We test how well a central galaxy's host halo velocity dispersion can be recovered by sampling $\sigma_{\rm LOS}$ of subhaloes and surrounding haloes. Our results demonstrate that $\sigma_{\rm LOS}$ is biased mass proxy. We define an optimal window in $v_{\rm LOS}$ and projected distance ($D_p$) -- $0.5\lesssim D_p/R_{\rm vir}\lesssim1.0$ and $v_{\rm LOS} \lesssim0.5V_{\rm esc}$, where $R_{\rm vir}$ is the virial radius and $V_{\rm esc}$ is the escape velocity -- such that the scatter in LOS to halo dispersion is minimised - $\sigma_{\rm LOS}=(0.5\pm0.1)\sigma_{v,{\rm H}}$. We argue that this window should be used to measure line-of-sight dispersions as a proxy for mass, as it minimises scatter in the $\sigma_{\rm LOS}-M_{\rm vir}$ relation. This bias also naturally explains the results from \cite{mcconnachie2012a}, who used similar cuts when estimating $\sigma_{\rm LOS,LG}$, producing a bias of $\sigma_{\rm LG}=(0.44\pm0.14)\sigma_{v,{\rm H}}$. We conclude that the Local Group's velocity dispersion does not pose a problem for $\Lambda$CDM and has a mass of $\log M_{\rm LG, vir}/M_\odot=12.0^{+0.8}_{-2.0}$.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publicatio

Mapping Your House and Yard to Identify Pollution Risks

Although intended primarily for schoolchildren, this guide can help increase homeowners' awareness of pollution risks

Rainwater Catchment Systems

Maintenance and pollution risks associated with good rainwater catchment system construction and management are briefly described

Minimizing Pollution Risk from Nutrient Management

Assessing pollution risks from applications of organic and inorganic nutrient sources is described

Determining the Relative Criticality of Diverse Exploration Risks in NASA's Human Research Program

The mission of NASA s Human Research Program (HRP) is to understand and reduce the risk to crew health and performance in exploration missions. The HRP addresses 27 specific risks, primarily in the context of Continuous Risk Management. Each risk is evaluated in terms of two missions (a six month stay on the Moon and a thirty month round trip to Mars) and three types of consequences (in-mission crew health, post-mission crew health, and in-mission performance). The lack of a common metric between the three consequence scales, such as financial costs or quality adjusted life years lost, makes it difficult to compare the relative criticality of the risks. We are, therefore, exploring the use of a ternary scale of criticality based on the common metric of influencing an operational decision. The three levels correspond to the level of concern the risk generates for a "go/no-go" decision to launch a mission: 1) no-go; 2) go with significant reservations; 3) go. The criticality of each of the 27 risks is scored for the three types of consequence in both types of mission. The scores are combined to produce an overall criticality rating for each risk. The overall criticality rating can then be used to guide the prioritization of resources to affect the greatest amount of risk reduction

Indoor Air Quality

Sources of indoor air pollution and their levels of risk are discussed

Pet Waste Management

Potential problems with the wastes of household pets, particularly dogs and cats, and suggestions for minimizing them, are described