Women-owned small and medium enterprises in England: analysis of factors influencing the growth process

Practical implications – This research has implications for government or other business development agencies seeking to understand the growth patterns and problems of women-owned enterprises in the East of England. Originality/value – There are few British studies that have focussed on growth oriented women-owned businesses. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by attempting to understand the nature and activities of such business, by analysing the main growth factors and their influence on different growth strategies.Purpose – This study attempts to understand the nature and activities of growth-oriented women-owned businesses in the East of England by highlighting the problems faced by women entrepreneurs during the growth process. Design/methodology/approach – The approach analysed the main growth factors and their influence on the adoption of different growth strategies. An online questionnaire was designed using Snap survey software™, with results exported to SPSS™ for analysis. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected via a variety of scaled, open-ended, rank order, dichotomous, multiple choice and open questions. Findings – The research indicates that most do not opt to develop growth-oriented businesses, choosing instead small, non-scalable, locally focused businesses providing services or operating in low-tech industries. Women who are growth-oriented appear to be inhibited due to a lack of access to, and control over such resources as, capital, business premises, information and technology, production inputs, appropriate childcare, qualifications, experience, training facilities and appropriate assistance from business development agencies. Non-effective accumulation and use of social capital hinders access to appropriate decision-making circles, and limits the probability of accessing critical management and financing resources, especially through the venture capital industry

Origins of organic matter in meteorites

Several abiotic chemical processes acting in several different astrophysical and cosmogonic environments have contributed to the population of organic compounds preserved in carbonaceous meteorites. Those environments include interstellar molecular clouds and the near-surface regions of asteroid-sized objects in the early solar system. There is little evidence for synthesis of organic compounds from the primordial solar-nebular gas

Redesigning Stewardship

The workshop provided an opportunity for UK Public Bodies invested in public engagement around estates, and practice researchers in Arts & Humanities to come together, to present and discuss interests, approaches and ambitions.   Arts & Humanities researchers introduced practices and interests related to stewardship and public engagement, setting some context for core issues. Representatives from the National Trust, Forestry Commission and the Canal and Rivers Trust presented their ambitions around Arts approaches to public engagement with estates and assets. Public engagement officers also discussed their own ambitions for Goldsmiths. The session took an inventive and open approach, with an ambition to foster intellectual excitement and creative possibility, while also considering concrete constraints and opportunities. What novel formats of stewardship, in relation to participatory encounters with the estates and assets of public bodies, might be supported through Arts & Humanities practice research

Anatomy of a failure: how we knew when our design went wrong, and what we learned from it

In this paper, we describe the failure of a novel sensor-based system intended to evoke user interpretation and appropriation in domestic settings. We contrast participants' interactions in this case study with those observed during more successful deployments to identify 'symptoms of failure' under four themes: engagement, reference, accommodation, and surprise and insight. These themes provide a set of sensitivities or orientations that may complement traditional task-based approaches to evaluation as well as the more open-ended ones we describe here. Our system showed symptoms of failure under each of these themes. We examine the reasons for this at three levels: problems particular to the specific design hypothesis; problems relevant for input-output mapping more generally; and problems in the design process we used. We conclude by noting that, although interpretive systems such as the one we describe here may succeed in a myriad of different ways, it is reassuring to know that they can also fail, and fail incontrovertibly, yet instructively

Nitrogen isotopic signatures in agglutinates from breccia 79035

Agglutinates in the size range 125-175 microns from regolith breccia 79035 are substantially depleted in N compared with bulk 79035. Isotopically, agglutinate N closely resembles that found previously in ilmenite separates. The minimum (delta)N-15 value found during stepwise pyrolysis of agglutinates is significantly heavier than that observed for bulk 79035. The major host phase for trapped N in 79035, and the host phase of the lightest isotopic component(s), remain unidentified

Ozone profile retrievals from the ESA GOME instrument

The potential of the ESA Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) to produce ozone profile information has been examined by carrying out two sample retrievals using simulated GOME data. The first retrieval examines the potential of the GOME instrument to produce stratospheric ozone profiles using the traditional back-scatter ultraviolet technique, while the second examines the possibility of obtaining tropospheric profile information, and improving the quality of the stratospheric profile retrievals, by exploiting the temperature dependence of the ozone Huggins bands

The Prayer Companion

An electronic device developed by the Interaction Research Studio, in the Department of Design at Goldsmiths, University of London has been introduced into the lives of a group of nuns in York who otherwise abide by medieval traditions

Carbon-Based Compounds and Exobiology

The Committee for Planetary and Lunar Explorations (COMPLEX) posed questions related to exobiological exploration of Mars and the possibility of a population of carbonaceous materials in cometary nuclei to be addressed by future space missions. The scientific objectives for such missions are translated into a series of measurements and/or observations to be performed by Martian landers. These are: (1) A detailed mineralogical, chemical, and textural assessment of rock diversity at a landing site; (2) Chemical characterization of the materials at a local site; (3) Abundance of Hydrogen at any accessible sites; (4) Identification of specific minerals that would be diagnostic of aqueous processes; (5) Textual examination of lithologies thought to be formed by aqueous activity; (6) Search for minerals that might have been produced as a result of biological processes; (7) Mapping the distribution, in three dimensions, of the oxidant(s) identified on the Martian surface by the Viking mission; (8) Definition of the local chemical environment; (9) Determination of stable-isotopic ratios for the biogenic elements in surface mineral deposits; (10) Quantitative analysis of organic (non-carbonate) carbon; (11) Elemental and isotopic composition of bulk organic material; (12) Search for specific organic compounds that would yield information about synthetic mechanisms, in the case of prebiotic evolution, and about possible bio-markers, in the case of extinct or extant life; (13) and Coring, sampling, and detection of entrained gases and cosmic-ray induced reaction products at the polar ice cap. A discussion of measurements and/or observations required for cometary landers is included as well

The Prayer Companion (Overview)

An electronic device developed by the Interaction Research Studio, in the Department of Design at Goldsmiths, University of London has been introduced into the lives of a group of nuns in York who otherwise abide by medieval traditions

Threshold devices: looking out from the home

Threshold devices present information gathered from the home’s surroundings to give new views on the domestic situation. We built two prototypes of different threshold devices and studied them in field trials with participant households. The Local Barometer displays online text and images related to the home’s locality depending on the local wind conditions to give an impression of the sociocultural surroundings. The Plane Tracker tracks aircraft passing overhead and imagines their flights onscreen to resource an understanding of the home’s global links. Our studies indicated that the experiences they provided were compelling, that participants could and did interpret the devices in various ways, that their form designs were appropriate for domestic environments, that using ready- made information contributed to the richness of the experiences, and that situating the information they provided with respect to the home and its locality was important for the ways people engaged with them