Does the regional dimension matter as regards finance and entrepreneurship?

This article investigates the interrelationships between finance and entrepreneurship by exploring regional discrepancies in France. The focus is (1) on regional differences in financial relationships, (2) on the way these relations influence financial constraints on new firms and (3) on the complementary/substitutable effects between funds. No path of exclusion is identified. Rather, firms that are self-constraining or suffer from a weak credit rationing are the ones that later on develop intensive relationships with banks. Substitution exists in almost all the French regions. Results suggest the departure point of an original pecking order theory according to the entrepreneurial intensity of regions.financial constraints, credit rationing, financial relationships, new firms, regional development, regional disparities

Digital Storytelling and History Lines: Community Engagement in a Master-Planned Development

The introduction of new media and information and communication technology enables a greater variety of formats and content beyond conventional texts in the application and discourse of public history projects. Multimedia and personalised content requires public historians and cultural community developers to grasp new skills and methods to make representations of and contributions to a collective community memory visible. This paper explores the challenge of broadening and reinvigorating the traditional role of the public historian working with communities via the facilitation, curation and mediation of digital content in order to foster creative expression in a residential urban development. It seeks to better understand the role of locally produced and locally relevant content, such as personal and community images and narratives, in the establishment of meaningful social networks of urban residents. The paper discusses the use of digital storytelling and outlines the development of a new community engagement application we call History Lines

Financial Constraints on New Firms:Looking for Regional Disparities

Financial constraints affecting new firms are some of the factors most cited forimpeding entrepreneurial dynamics from flourishing. This article introduces the problem ofregional patterns of financial constraints. The research is conducted with regard to the Frenchregions and the new French firms being tracked at the firm level. It refers to entrepreneurialprojects that are concretized in new firms. General entrepreneurial intentions in the Frenchpopulation that are aborted due to financial constraints are not reported. The point is ofimportance as the firm financing conditions are considered. First, an assessment of theregional banking activity leads to the conclusion of a relatively homogeneous situation, theactivity in the core-region Île-de-France appearing however more contrasted. Second, thefinancial constraints affecting new firms are distinguished according to a four-case typologyof credit rationing. It appears, inter alia, that a majority of firms is not facing credit rationing,but also that a non-negligible share is “self-constrained”. The classification is, third andfinally, differentiated according to the regions. Despite the relatively homogeneous bankingsupply, some differences may still be at work. The explanations are hypothetical at this stage butevidence suggests that the regional dimension should definitely deserve further attention.Financial constraints; Credit rationing; New Firms; Regional Disparities

Properties of Cosmological Filaments extracted from Eulerian Simulations

Using a new parallel algorithm implemented within the VisIt framework, we analysed large cosmological grid simulations to study the properties of baryons in filaments. The procedure allows us to build large catalogues with up to $\sim 3 \cdot 10^4$ filaments per simulated volume and to investigate the properties of cosmic filaments for very large volumes at high resolution (up to $300^3 ~\rm Mpc^3$ simulated with $2048^3$ cells). We determined scaling relations for the mass, volume, length and temperature of filaments and compared them to those of galaxy clusters. The longest filaments have a total length of about $200 ~\rm Mpc$ with a mass of several $10^{15} M_{\odot}$. We also investigated the effects of different gas physics. Radiative cooling significantly modifies the thermal properties of the warm-hot-intergalactic medium of filaments, mainly by lowering their mean temperature via line cooling. On the other hand, powerful feedback from active galactic nuclei in surrounding halos can heat up the gas in filaments. The impact of shock-accelerated cosmic rays from diffusive shock acceleration on filaments is small and the ratio of between cosmic ray and gas pressure within filaments is of the order of $\sim 10-20$ percent.Comment: 27 pages, 24 figures, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Main Journa

The 2d Gross-Neveu Model at Finite Temperature and Density with Finite Corrections

We use the linear $\delta$ expansion, or optimized perturbation theory, to evaluate the effective potential for the two dimensional Gross-Neveu model at finite temperature and density obtaining analytical equations for the critical temperature, chemical potential and fermionic mass which include finite $N$ corrections. Our results seem to improve over the traditional large-N predictions.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure

A journey into the entrepreneurial society

Entrepreneurship is the engine of economic development, which in turn impacts upon the challenges facing future entrepreneurs. This timely book explores institutional, behavioural and policy issues of primary importance to understanding the entrepreneurial society. Topics covered include entrepreneurship in relation to formal and informal institutions; entrepreneurial choice, orientation and success; entrepreneurial behaviours; entrepreneurial finance, growth and economic crises; and entrepreneurship, social dimensions and outcomes

Is the growth of the child of a smoking mother influenced by the father's prenatal exposure to tobacco? A hypothesis generating longitudinal study

OBJECTIVES: Transgenerational effects of different environmental exposures are of major interest, with rodent experiments focusing on epigenetic mechanisms. Previously, we have shown that if the study mother is a non-smoker, there is increased mean birth weight, length and body mass index (BMI) in her sons if she herself had been exposed prenatally to her mother's smoking. The aim of this study was to determine whether the prenatal smoke exposure of either parent influenced the growth of the fetus of a smoking woman, and whether any effects were dependent on the fetal sex. DESIGN: Population-based prebirth cohort study. SETTING: Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. PARTICIPANTS: Participants were residents of a geographic area with expected date of delivery between April 1991 and December 1992. Among pregnancies of mothers who smoked during pregnancy, data were available concerning maternal and paternal prenatal exposures to their own mother smoking for 3502 and 2354, respectively. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Birth weight, length, BMI and head circumference. RESULTS: After controlling for confounders, there were no associations with birth weight, length or BMI. There was a strong adjusted association of birth head circumference among boys whose fathers had been exposed prenatally (mean difference −0.35 cm; 95% CI −0.57 to −0.14; p=0.001). There was no such association with girls (interaction p=0.006). Similar associations were found when primiparae and multiparae were analysed separately. In order to determine whether this was reflected in child development, we examined the relationships with IQ; we found that the boys born to exposed fathers had lower IQ scores on average, and that this was particularly due to the verbal component (mean difference in verbal IQ −3.65 points; 95% CI −6.60 to −0.70). CONCLUSIONS: Head size differences concerning paternal fetal exposure to smoking were unexpected and, as such, should be regarded as hypothesis generating