[Review of] Mitsuye Yamada and Sarie Sachie Hylkema, eds. Sowing Ti Leaves: Writings by Multi-Cultural Women

Sowing Ti Leaves gathers together personal narratives, poems, essays, and a scholarly study which were produced during the Multi-Cultural Women Writers (MCWW) of Orange County\u27s nine-year existence. Coeditor Mitsuye Yamada states in her introduction that the writing group was formed to provide a common reference point and a forum for expression. While MCWW\u27s ancestral ties are diverse (Argentinian, Chinese, East Indian, Hawaiian, Italian, Japanese, Jewish, Lebanese, Okinawan), its members share experiences as women living within the majority culture. The writing process is used to enable minority women to understand their culture(s) and to proclaim their identities. MCWW provides a space for mutual support, criticism, and growth, and recollections or personal anecdotes shared with the group are often the initial inspiration for the pieces collected here

The Ascent of America's High-Growth Companies: An Analysis of the Geography of Entrepreneurship

This report offers the first-ever deep dive into the geographic trends of America's fastest growing private companies -- the Inc. 500. Inc. magazine's annual ranking, which began in 1982, has become an important point of pride for high-achieving companies and a source of research for economists. Not until now, however, has anyone dissected the past thirty years of comprehensive data from these high-growth companies. Through a partnership with Inc. magazine, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has done just that. In this, one of a set of studies examining Inc. 500 data over time, we offer a geographic analysis of how regional characteristics are associated with fast-growing companies and innovations. Tracing hundreds of Inc. firms per year and thousands per decade, we have captured a range of innovations and analyzed the regions that continuously produce fast-growing companies. Knowing that very little is understood about the geography of high-growth companies, we approached this analysis with a range of questions: where are the fast-growing Inc. firms located at the state and metropolitan levels? How have they shifted over time? Do we find greater geographic concentration of Inc. firms over time? How is the geography of Inc. firms different from commonly associated growth factors, such as high-tech industries, venture capital firms, and research universities?As you review the findings of this report, keep in mind that the creation of another ranking is not our primary objective. It is more important to demonstrate different regions with different sectors and strengths, in contrast to previously identified areas that have been highlighted as strong producers of high-tech companies. Thus, our objective is to shed light on formerly understudied areas of economic development

Screening and Fabrication of Half-Heusler phases for thermoelectric applications

Half-Heusler phases have gained recently much interest as thermoelectric materials. Screening of possible systems was performed by ab-initio simulation using VASP-software. The energy-versus-Volume (E(V)) curves were calculated and calibrated. For TiCoSb, NbNiSn, FeMoSb the stability of Half-Heusler phase against concurrent crystal structures like TiNiSi, ZrCoAl, ZrBeSi, FeSiV, ZrNiP and Full Heusler was confirmed. However, the thermo-dynamical driving force as calculated from the difference in lattice energies is less than 0.1eV/atom. Hence, the fabrication of Half Heusler phases is a challenge and requires three steps, surface activation of the raw material by ball milling, arc-melting of pressed pellets and finally long-term annealing treatment in a vacuum furnace. On doped TiCoSb specimens, Seebeck coefficients up to 0.1 mV/K, on NiNbSn 0.16 mV/K were measured, although the microstructure was not yet optimized.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, 2 table

Beyond Metropolitan Startup Rates: Regional Factors Associated with Startup Growth

Understanding what fosters -- and hinders -- firm formation and growth at the metropolitan level across the United States is a challenge. Entrepreneurship can be measured by a variety of indicators, and they each can tell somewhat different stories. Furthermore, because entrepreneurship can refer to the growth of firms from a startup stage to mid- or large-scale, no one dataset covers the full range of companies that fall in this category. This report contributes to the Kauffman Foundation's recent series of analyses on the rate of business creation in metropolitan areas. Going beyond identifying metropolitan areas with higher rates of entrepreneurship, we analyze what regional factors are associated, or unassociated, with entrepreneurial activity. Understanding what drives entrepreneurship at the regional level -- especially high-growth business creation -- will help policymakers and entrepreneurship supporters know where to invest their efforts