Entrepreneurial intentions among students: towards a re-focused research agenda

Purpose – This paper aims to address the need for a re-focused research agenda in relation to graduate entrepreneurship. An important theme for some years has been the effort to monitor attitudes and intentions of students towards starting up their own businesses. It is timely, however, to raise some questions about both the impact of this research and likewise the general approach it has taken in understanding the phenomenon of graduate entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on a large data set (over 8,000 students) from one UK region. Specifically, it presents data from the 2007/2008 Entrepreneurial Intentions (EI) survey within the Yorkshire and Humberside region and reflects back over previous iterations of this research. Findings – The paper identifies three key outcomes. First, it establishes that across all years of the survey a substantial minority of students consistently hold relatively strong start-up intentions. Second, the paper highlights that, despite considerable efforts to increase the numbers moving to start-up, little impact is discernible. Third, the paper suggests that, although the EI survey is useful as a stock-taking exercise, it fails to address critical questions around the impact of higher education on entrepreneurship and the transition from entrepreneurial intent to the act of venture creation. Originality/value – The paper provides an important positioning perspective on the relationship between higher education and graduate entrepreneurship. While highlighting the importance of the EI research, the paper establishes the need for a re-focused research agenda; one that is conceptually robust and with a focus on the student journey from higher education to graduate entrepreneur

On the relationship between inflation persistence and temporal aggregation

This paper examines the impact of temporal aggregation on alternative definitions of inflation persistence. Using the CPI and the core PCE deflator of the US, our results show that temporal aggregation from the monthly to the quarterly to the annual frequency induces persistence in the inflation series.

Counting fixed points and rooted closed walks of the singular map x↦xxnx \mapsto x^{x^n} modulo powers of a prime

The "self-power" map $x \mapsto x^x$ modulo $m$ and its generalized form $x \mapsto x^{x^n}$ modulo $m$ are of considerable interest for both theoretical reasons and for potential applications to cryptography. In this paper, we use $p$-adic methods, primarily $p$-adic interpolation, Hensel's lemma, and lifting singular points modulo $p$, to count fixed points and rooted closed walks of equations related to these maps when $m$ is a prime power. In particular, we introduce a new technique for lifting singular solutions of several congruences in several unknowns using the left kernel of the Jacobian matrix.Comment: 18 pages. Version 2 shortens proofs, reduces redundancy, and introduces new technique for counting rooted closed walks. Version 3 updates title to agree with journal publicatio

Localization of response functions of spiral waves in the FitzHugh-Nagumo system

Dynamics of spiral waves in perturbed, e. g. slightly inhomogeneous or subject to a small periodic external force, two-dimensional autowave media can be described asymptotically in terms of Aristotelean dynamics, so that the velocities of the spiral wave drift in space and time are proportional to the forces caused by the perturbation. The forces are defined as a convolution of the perturbation with the spiral's Response Functions, which are eigenfunctions of the adjoint linearised problem. In this paper we find numerically the Response Functions of a spiral wave solution in the classic excitable FitzHugh-Nagumo model, and show that they are effectively localised in the vicinity of the spiral core.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figure

Soliton-like phenomena in one-dimensional cross-diffusion systems: a predator-prey pursuit and evasion example

We have studied properties of nonlinear waves in a mathematical model of a predator-prey system with pursuit and evasion. We demonstrate a new type of propagating wave in this system. The mechanism of propagation of these waves essentially depends on the ``taxis'', represented by nonlinear ``cross-diffusion'' terms in the mathematical formulation. We have shown that the dependence of the velocity of wave propagation on the taxis has two distinct forms, ``parabolic'' and ``linear''. Transition from one form to the other correlates with changes in the shape of the wave profile. Dependence of the propagation velocity on diffusion in this system differs from the square-root dependence typical of reaction-diffusion waves. We demonstrate also that, for systems with negative and positive taxis, for example, pursuit and evasion, there typically exists a large region in the parameter space, where the waves demonstrate quasisoliton interaction: colliding waves can penetrate through each other, and waves can also reflect from impermeable boundaries.Comment: 15 pages, 18 figures, submitted to Physica

The effect of on/off indicator design on state confusion, preference, and response time performance, executive summary

Investigated are five designs of software-based ON/OFF indicators in a hypothetical Space Station Power System monitoring task. The hardware equivalent of the indicators used in the present study is the traditional indicator light that illuminates an ON label or an OFF label. Coding methods used to represent the active state were reverse video, color, frame, check, or reverse video with check. Display background color was also varied. Subjects made judgments concerning the state of indicators that resulted in very low error rates and high percentages of agreement across indicator designs. Response time measures for each of the five indicator designs did not differ significantly, although subjects reported that color was the best communicator. The impact of these results on indicator design is discussed