Psychological training for entrepreneurs to take action

Entrepreneurship is one of the most effective means to alleviate poverty in developing countries. Effective entrepreneurship requires psychological approaches—in particular, active (i.e., agentic) approaches. We introduce an action-regulation training approach, focusing on self-regulation and active behavior in entrepreneurship as a bottom-up solution for poverty reduction. We present two different training interventions. The first focuses on enhancing personal initiative in entrepreneurs from developing countries. The second aims at boosting startup rates in these countries by enhancing participants’ entrepreneurial skills and motivation. We describe underlying theoretical assumptions, structures, and effects of both training interventions and discuss evaluation studies with randomized pretest-posttest control-group designs showing that action-regulation training is a successful means to promote entrepreneurship in developing countries

Los efectos del work engagement y la auto-efi cacia en la iniciativa personal y el desempeño.

Background: Two popular concepts, work engagement and personal initiative, are different but related constructs. This study is based on and extends the Frese and Fay (2001) model of personal initiative (PI) by including work engagement (WE) and self-effi cacy as antecedents of PI, and performance as a consequence. Method: Two studies (study 1, with a cross-sectional design using N = 396 participants from 22 organizations, and study 2, with a longitudinal design conducted in two waves with N = 118 participants from 15 organizations) test the hypotheses. Results: Structural equation modeling and the PROCESS SPSS Macro were used to test the hypothesized mediating role of personal initiative in work engagement and performance, and the results show the indirect effect of WE on performance through PI. Conclusions: The results of these two studies confi rmed our hypotheses: WE and self-effi cacy lead to higher PI, which, in turn, leads to higher performance. In addition to considering WE as an antecedent of PI, the results lead to considering PI as an antecedent of performance.Los efectos del work engagement y la auto-efi cacia en la iniciativa personal y el desempeño. Antecedentes: los conceptos work engagement e iniciativa personal están relacionados pero son conceptos diferentes. Este trabajo se basa en el modelo de la iniciativa personal de Frese y Fay (2001) y lo amplía incluyendo el work engagement como antecedente de la iniciativa personal, junto con la autoefi cacia y el desempeño como resultado. Método: se realizaron dos estudios (estudio 1 con un diseño transversal N = 396 participantes de 22 organizaciones y estudio 2 con un diseño longitudinal con dos tiempos y N = 118 participantes de 15 organizaciones) para contrastar las hipótesis. Resultados: se utilizaron modelos de ecuaciones estructurales y el Macro de SPSS Process para contrastar el rol mediador de la iniciativa perosnal entre el work engagement y el desempeño, mostrando los resultados los efectos indirectos del work engagement sobre el desempeño a través de la iniciativa personal. Conclusión: los resultados de los dos estudios confi rman nuestras hipótesis. Work engagment y autoefi cacia llevan a una mayor iniciativa personal, que implica una mejora del desempeño. Junto a considerar el work engagment un antecedente de la iniciativa personal, los resultados permiten considerar a la iniciativa un antecedente del desempeño

Role of Physical Therapists in the Management of Individuals at Risk for or Diagnosed With Venous Thromboembolism: Evidence-Based Clinical Practice Guideline

The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), in conjunction with the Cardiovascular & Pulmonary and Acute Care sections of APTA, have developed this clinical practice guideline to assist physical therapists in their decision-making process when treating patients at risk for venous thromboembolism (VTE) or diagnosed with a lower extremity deep vein thrombosis (LE DVT). No matter the practice setting, physical therapists work with patients who are at risk for or have a history of VTE. This document will guide physical therapist practice in the prevention of, screening for, and treatment of patients at risk for or diagnosed with LE DVT. Through a systematic review of published studies and a structured appraisal process, key action statements were written to guide the physical therapist. The evidence supporting each action was rated, and the strength of statement was determined. Clinical practice algorithms, based on the key action statements, were developed that can assist with clinical decision making. Physical therapists, along with other members of the health care team, should work to implement these key action statements to decrease the incidence of VTE, improve the diagnosis and acute management of LE DVT, and reduce the long-term complications of LE DVT

Application of MACH2 to explosive magnetic flux compression generators: Improvements in detonation modeling. Final report

Dramatic improvements have been made to the detonation modeling capability recently incorporated into MACH2. These improvements significantly improve the flexibility of the detonation model, allow for accurate depiction of real explosives, and permit highly efficient modeling of long, coaxial generators. In this document, we will first describe these improvements in some detail. We will then discuss the calibration of the detonation model to two explosive materials, PBX9501 and PBXN110. Finally, we will demonstrate the code`s capability for modeling long, coaxial magnetocumulative generators

Strategies, Uncertainty and Performance of Small Business Startups

Personal strategies of owners/founders of small business startups are related to performance and to environmental uncertainty. This is done using a longitudinal data set of some 50 Dutch startups. The results suggest a dynamic process between strategy and performance. A discrimination is made between four strategies (reactive, critical point, complete planning and opportunistic). The role of uncertainty is discussed. The dynamic process is embedded in the PERSUADE model

Calicivirus Non-structural Proteins:Potential Functions in Replication and Host Cell Manipulation

The Caliciviridae are a family of viruses with a single-stranded, non-segmented RNA genome of positive polarity. The ongoing discovery of caliciviruses has increased the number of genera in this family to 11 (Norovirus, Nebovirus, Sapovirus, Lagovirus, Vesivirus, Nacovirus, Bavovirus, Recovirus, Salovirus, Minovirus, and Valovirus). Caliciviruses infect a wide range of hosts that include fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and marine and land mammals. All caliciviruses have a genome that encodes a major and a minor capsid protein, a genome-linked viral protein, and several non-structural proteins. Of these non-structural proteins, only the helicase, protease, and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase share clear sequence and structural similarities with proteins from other virus families. In addition, all caliciviruses express two or three non-structural proteins for which functions have not been clearly defined. The sequence diversity of these non-structural proteins and a multitude of processing strategies suggest that at least some have evolved independently, possibly to counteract innate and adaptive immune responses in a host-specific manner. Studying these proteins is often difficult as many caliciviruses cannot be grown in cell culture. Nevertheless, the study of recombinant proteins has revealed many of their properties, such as intracellular localization, capacity to oligomerize, and ability to interact with viral and/or cellular proteins; the release of non-structural proteins from transfected cells has also been investigated. Here, we will summarize these findings and discuss recent in silico studies that identified previously overlooked putative functional domains and structural features, including transmembrane domains that suggest the presence of viroporins