Exits

Dit rapport schetst een beeld van het gedrag van ondernemers die hun bedrijf beëindigen. Er wordt onder meer ingegaan op de vraag welke factoren van invloed zijn op bedrijfsbeëindiging op macro-, meso- en microniveau.

Self-assembly of "Mickey Mouse" shaped colloids into tube-like structures: experiments and simulations

The self-assembly of anisotropic patchy particles with triangular shape was studied by experiments and computer simulations. The colloidal particles were synthesized in a two-step seeded emulsion polymerization process, and consist of a central smooth lobe connected to two rough lobes at an angle of $\sim$90$^{\circ}$, resembling the shape of a "Mickey Mouse" head. Due to the difference in overlap volume, adding an appropriate depletant induces an attractive interaction between the smooth lobes of the colloids only, while the two rough lobes act as steric constraints. The essentially planar geometry of the "Mickey Mouse" particles is a first geometric deviation of dumbbell shaped patchy particles. This new geometry is expected to form one-dimensional tube-like structures rather than spherical, essentially zero-dimensional micelles. At sufficiently strong attractions, we indeed find tube-like structures with the sticky lobes at the core and the non-sticky lobes pointing out as steric constraints that limit the growth to one direction, providing the tubes with a well-defined diameter but variable length both in experiments and simulations. In the simulations, we found that the internal structure of the tubular fragments could either be straight or twisted into so-called Bernal spirals

Environmental management accounting in Europe: current practice and future potential

This paper reports and analyses the results of a trans-European project to investigate the present and potential future links between the environmental management and management accounting functions of a company or business. A taxonomy of four broad but distinct approaches to environmental accounting is identified from the literature: external financial reporting; social accountability reporting; energy and materials accounting; and environmental management accounting. This project focuses on the latter the generation, analysis and use of financial and related non-financial information, in order to support management within a company or business, in integrating corporate environmental and economic policies and building sustainable business. The research involved interviews with accountants1 and environmental managers at eighty-four companies in Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and the UK, and detailed case studies of fifteen companies in those four countries. The paper summarizes the findings of the research and their implications for four core hypotheses, goes on to discuss international differences, and concludes by reviewing the implications of the results for likely future developments.

The database of the PREDICTS (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems) project

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used this evidence base to develop global and regional statistical models of how local biodiversity responds to these measures. We describe and make freely available this 2016 release of the database, containing more than 3.2 million records sampled at over 26,000 locations and representing over 47,000 species. We outline how the database can help in answering a range of questions in ecology and conservation biology. To our knowledge, this is the largest and most geographically and taxonomically representative database of spatial comparisons of biodiversity that has been collated to date; it will be useful to researchers and international efforts wishing to model and understand the global status of biodiversity