Is Entrepreneurship Only About Entering A New Business

To most people entrepreneurship is solely about innovation and entering a new venture. For example, Hisrich and Peters (2002) define entrepreneurship as “the process of creating something new with value by devoting the necessary time and effort, assuming the accompanying financial, psychic, and social risks, and receiving the resulting rewards of monetary and personal satisfaction and independence.†According to Kuratko and Welsch (1994) “Many people now regard entrepreneurship as „pioneership? on the business frontier.†Bygrave (1994) begins with Schumpeter?s definition of an entrepreneur and continues to argue that only a few businesses would have the potential to fit Schumpeterian definition on entrepreneurship, destroying the existing economic order by introducing new product and services. Instead, he argues that “the vast majority of new businesses enter existing markets.†To him, an entrepreneur is “someone who perceives an opportunity and creates an organization to pursue it†and the entrepreneurship involves “all the functions, activities, and actions associated with perceiving opportunities and creating organizations to pursue them.†In all these discussions, exiting from a market is not considered as part of entrepreneurial activities

Perception-aware Tag Placement Planning for Robust Localization of UAVs in Indoor Construction Environments

Tag-based visual-inertial localization is a lightweight method for enabling autonomous data collection missions of low-cost unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in indoor construction environments. However, finding the optimal tag configuration (i.e., number, size, and location) on dynamic construction sites remains challenging. This paper proposes a perception-aware genetic algorithm-based tag placement planner (PGA-TaPP) to determine the optimal tag configuration using 4D-BIM, considering the project progress, safety requirements, and UAV's localizability. The proposed method provides a 4D plan for tag placement by maximizing the localizability in user-specified regions of interest (ROIs) while limiting the installation costs. Localizability is quantified using the Fisher information matrix (FIM) and encapsulated in navigable grids. The experimental results show the effectiveness of our method in finding an optimal 4D tag placement plan for the robust localization of UAVs on under-construction indoor sites.Comment: [Final draft] This material may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Journal of Computing in Civil Engineerin

Sovereign Wealth Funds: An Exploratory Study of Their Behavior

Sovereign wealth funds have recently moved to the front and center of discussion, both within the investment world and the political arena. In this paper we evaluate the differences and common features of these funds. Utilizing an ownership database, we probe the ownership, geographic, and industry concentration of the funds deployed by these entities. We also compare and contrast the main features of two of the largest sovereign wealth funds

Hydatid Disease in the Central Region of Iran: A 5-year Epidemiological and Clinical Overview

Introduction: Hydatid cyst is caused by an infection by the larval stage of Echinococcus granulosus. Patients with cystic echinococcosis often remain asymptomatic until the hydatid cysts grow large enough to cause symptoms and signs. The cysts grow in the course of several years before reaching maturity and the rate of growth depends on the location of the cyst. Methods: This study was conducted in the Central region of Iran and involved all patients diagnosed with hydatid disease from 2012 to 2016 with the records identifed from 10 centers for disease control. Descriptive statistics including range and percentage were used in analyzing the patient characteristics. Results: Hydatid disease was confirmed in 84 cases. The mean age of patients was (23.1±5.1) years (range: 15-53 years) and 55.9% of cases were female. Single organ involvement was found in 86.9% of cases. 98.8% cases were successfully treated. The most common sites of infection were lung (42.9%), followed by liver (38.1%), and joint liver/lung (10.7%). The diagnosis was established by abdominal ultrasound, abdominal CT, and serology in all patients. The diagnosis was confirmed by histology in 80 (95.2%) of cases. All of cases were treated with albendazole, and 80 (95.2%) of cases had surgical intervention. The prevalence of human hydatidosis in our study was 1.16 per 100,000 population. Conclusions: Hydatid disease is common in Iran and should be a focus of public health interventions. The organ sites affected in this study include lung and liver

Affirmative Disclosure in Fast Food Advertisements: Its Effect on Attitudes Toward the Ad, Attitude Toward the Brand and Purchase Intentions

The present study examined the literature in consumer attitudes and behavior toward ads and the impact of nutrition and health disclosures of food products on consumers’ evaluations and perceptions of products. Three experiments were conducted using two different fast food restaurants; one perceived to be healthy (Subway) and the other perceived to be unhealthy (Burger King). The first study investigated the different effects of affirmative disclosure in ads on attitude toward ad and brand and purchase intentions. Study 2 compared the effect of two types of disclosures on attitudes and purchase intentions: one-sided and two-sided messages. Study 3 focused on consumers’ dietary habits and the difference it makes on their attitudes and behaviors when affirmative disclosure appears in ads. Affirmative disclosure has different effects on the two fast foods. Overall disclosure has greater effect on consumers of healthier fast food. However, when comparing one-sided versus two-sided disclosures, the findings suggest that one-sided messages are more effective for the fast foods perceived as healthy, like Subway. Consumers who follow healthy dietary habits have more favorable attitudes when exposed to disclosure compared to those that follow an unhealthy lifestyle. The findings suggest innovative strategies for advertisers, marketers, managers and public policy makers searching for ways to make ads more persuasive and specifically more effective in fighting unhealthy eating and obesity

Random Cost Functions and Production Decisions

Cost Functions; Cost; Production

Analytical study on the seismic performance of steel braced frames with masonry infill

Special Concentrically Braced Frames (CBFs) are widely used as efficient lateral-load resisting systems in seismic regions. In this study, experimentally validated FE models are used to investigate the effects of masonry infill and gusset-plate configuration on the seismic performance of CBFs. It is shown that the presence of masonry infill can increase the initial stiffness and ultimate strength of CBFs by up to 35% and 52%, respectively. However, the frame-infill interaction imposes high plastic strain demands at the horizontal re-entrant corner of gusset plate connections, which may lead to premature failure of fillet welds under strong earthquakes. While using tapered gusset plates can significantly increase the fracture potential at fillet welds, gusset plates with elliptical clearance of eight times the plate thickness can lead to up to 54% lower equivalent plastic strain demands at both gusset plate connections and brace elements. While the effects of masonry infill are usually ignored in the seismic design process, the results highlight the importance of considering those effects in the seismic design of CBF elements and gusset plate connections

Thyroid Function in Epileptic Children who Receive Carbamazepine, Primidone, Phenobarbital and Valproic Acid

ObjectiveIn this study, we investigated the changes of the serum levels of thyroidhormones including Thyroxine (T4), Triiodothyronine (T3), T3 resin uptake andThyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) in epileptic children during treatment withanti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) including carbamazepine (CBZ), primidone (PRM),phenobarbital and valproic acid (VPA).Materials and MethodsThis study consisted of four case-series comparisons, was conducted on 115epileptic children (37 girls and 78 boys with an age range between 2 monthsand 15 years, mean: 62.06 ± 44.97 months). These children were divided into4 groups who took either phenobarbital (n=29), PRM (n=28), CBZ (n=29), orVPA (n=29) for 3 months. Thyroid hormone levels (T3, T3 resin uptake, T4 andTSH) were measured at the beginning and three months after starting the study.ResultsAt first, all patients were euthyroid and there were no clinical or laboratoryfindings suggestive of hypothyroidism. Regarding thyroid hormones before andafter the administration of phenobarbital, carbamazepine, valproic acid andprimidone, there were no significant changes in serum T3, T4, T3 resin uptakeand TSH levels.ConclusionOur findings showed that short term therapy with phenobarbital, carbamazepine,valproic acid and primidone had no effect on thyroid function etsts.Key words: Anti-epileptic drugs; Thyroid hormones; Epileptic children.