Which SMEs seek external support? Business characteristics, management behaviour and external influences in a contingency approach

To improve SME growth and competitiveness, governments often encourage business owner-managers to make use of external sources of support. Whether they seek this depends on the degree to which they perceive themselves to need assistance. Additionally its use can be constrained by market failures. In this paper, we model whether SME owner-managers seek information and advice from formal sources, including public and private providers. In 2011, the researchers conducted a telephone survey of 1202 SMEs (1-249 employees) in England to assess the use and non-use of external support between 2008 and 2011. Using a contingency approach, we model various influences on the use and non-use of formal support and identify those owner-managers who face more concerns but have less confidence in their capabilities. We find the demand for support, especially from private providers, is fuelled by a firm’s objective to grow and a size threshold, although this is moderated by various concerns which increase the likelihood of using public sources. The willingness to take informal advice can act as a stepping stone to using formal sources. Whilst market failures affected less than a fifth of firms, those with women directors were particularly affected as were newly founded firms

Physical Acoustics

Contains reports on four research projects.U. S. Navy (Office of Naval Research) under Contract Nonr- 1841(42

A roadmap for China to peak carbon dioxide emissions and achieve a 20% share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy by 2030

As part of its Paris Agreement commitment, China pledged to peak carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions around 2030, striving to peak earlier, and to increase the non-fossil share of primary energy to 20% by 2030. Yet by the end of 2017, China emitted 28% of the world's energy-related CO2 emissions, 76% of which were from coal use. How China can reinvent its energy economy cost-effectively while still achieving its commitments was the focus of a three-year joint research project completed in September 2016. Overall, this analysis found that if China follows a pathway in which it aggressively adopts all cost-effective energy efficiency and CO2 emission reduction technologies while also aggressively moving away from fossil fuels to renewable and other non-fossil resources, it is possible to not only meet its Paris Agreement Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) commitments, but also to reduce its 2050 CO2 emissions to a level that is 42% below the country's 2010 CO2 emissions. While numerous barriers exist that will need to be addressed through effective policies and programs in order to realize these potential energy use and emissions reductions, there are also significant local environmental (e.g., air quality), national and global environmental (e.g., mitigation of climate change), human health, and other unquantified benefits that will be realized if this pathway is pursued in China

Novel insights into host-fungal pathogen interactions derived from live-cell imaging

Acknowledgments The authors acknowledge funding from the Wellcome Trust (080088, 086827, 075470 and 099215) including a Wellcome Trust Strategic Award for Medical Mycology and Fungal Immunology 097377 and FP7-2007–2013 grant agreement HEALTH-F2-2010-260338–ALLFUN to NARG.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 35, No. 3

• The First German Broadside and Newspaper Printing of the American Declaration of Independence • An Overview of Flax and Linen Production in Pennsylvania • A Civil War Soldier\u27s Tale • Samuel W. Pennypacker\u27s Translation of the Haslibacher Hymn • An Autobiographical Sketch of Mrs. Sarah Hunter • In Memoriam: Earl F. Robacker, 1904-1985 • Aldes un Neies / Old & Newhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/pafolklifemag/1111/thumbnail.jp

Search for Neutral Higgs Bosons in e+e- Collisions at sqrt(s) ~189GeV

A search for neutral Higgs bosons has been performed with the OPAL detector at LEP, using approximately 170 pb-1 of e+e- collision data collected at sqrt(s)~189GeV. Searches have been performed for the Standard Model (SM) process e+e- to H0Z0 and the MSSM processes e+e- to H0Z0, A0h0. The searches are sensitive to the b b-bar and tau antitau decay modes of the Higgs bosons, and also to the MSSM decay mode h0 to A0A0. OPAL search results at lower centre-of-mass energies have been incorporated in the limits we set, which are valid at the 95% confidence level. For the SM Higgs boson, we obtain a lower mass bound of 91.0 GeV. In the MSSM, our limits are mh>74.8GeV and mA>76.5GeV, assuming tan(beta)>1, that the mixing of the scalar top quarks is either zero or maximal, and that the soft SUSY-breaking masses are 1 TeV. For the case of zero scalar top mixing, we exclude values of tan(beta) between 0.72 and 2.19.Comment: 38 pages, 15 figures, submitted Euro. Phys. J.

Bose-Einstein Correlations in e+e- to W+W- at 172 and 183 GeV

Bose-Einstein correlations between like-charge pions are studied in hadronic final states produced by e+e- annihilations at center-of-mass energies of 172 and 183 GeV. Three event samples are studied, each dominated by one of the processes W+W- to qqlnu, W+W- to qqqq, or (Z/g)* to qq. After demonstrating the existence of Bose-Einstein correlations in W decays, an attempt is made to determine Bose-Einstein correlations for pions originating from the same W boson and from different W bosons, as well as for pions from (Z/g)* to qq events. The following results are obtained for the individual chaoticity parameters lambda assuming a common source radius R: lambda_same = 0.63 +- 0.19 +- 0.14, lambda_diff = 0.22 +- 0.53 +- 0.14, lambda_Z = 0.47 +- 0.11 +- 0.08, R = 0.92 +- 0.09 +- 0.09. In each case, the first error is statistical and the second is systematic. At the current level of statistical precision it is not established whether Bose-Einstein correlations, between pions from different W bosons exist or not.Comment: 24 pages, LaTeX, including 6 eps figures, submitted to European Physical Journal

W+W- production and triple gauge boson couplings at LEP energies up to 183 GeV

A study of W-pair production in e+e- annihilations at Lep2 is presented, based on 877 W+W- candidates corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 57 pb-1 at sqrt(s) = 183 GeV. Assuming that the angular distributions of the W-pair production and decay, as well as their branching fractions, are described by the Standard Model, the W-pair production cross-section is measured to be 15.43 +- 0.61 (stat.) +- 0.26 (syst.) pb. Assuming lepton universality and combining with our results from lower centre-of-mass energies, the W branching fraction to hadrons is determined to be 67.9 +- 1.2 (stat.) +- 0.5 (syst.)%. The number of W-pair candidates and the angular distributions for each final state (qqlnu,qqqq,lnulnu) are used to determine the triple gauge boson couplings. After combining these values with our results from lower centre-of-mass energies we obtain D(kappa_g)=0.11+0.52-0.37, D(g^z_1)=0.01+0.13-0.12 and lambda=-0.10+0.13-0.12, where the errors include both statistical and systematic uncertainties and each coupling is determined setting the other two couplings to the Standard Model value. The fraction of W bosons produced with a longitudinal polarisation is measured to be 0.242+-0.091(stat.)+-0.023(syst.). All these measurements are consistent with the Standard Model expectations.Comment: 48 pages, LaTeX, including 13 eps or ps figures, submitted to European Physical Journal

Measurements of Flavour Dependent Fragmentation Functions in Z^0 -> qq(bar) Events

Fragmentation functions for charged particles in Z -> qq(bar) events have been measured for bottom (b), charm (c) and light (uds) quarks as well as for all flavours together. The results are based on data recorded between 1990 and 1995 using the OPAL detector at LEP. Event samples with different flavour compositions were formed using reconstructed D* mesons and secondary vertices. The \xi_p = ln(1/x_E) distributions and the position of their maxima \xi_max are also presented separately for uds, c and b quark events. The fragmentation function for b quarks is significantly softer than for uds quarks.Comment: 29 pages, LaTeX, 5 eps figures (and colour figs) included, submitted to Eur. Phys. J.

Bose-Einstein Correlations of Three Charged Pions in Hadronic Z^0 Decays

Bose-Einstein Correlations (BEC) of three identical charged pions were studied in 4 x 10^6 hadronic Z^0 decays recorded with the OPAL detector at LEP. The genuine three-pion correlations, corrected for the Coulomb effect, were separated from the known two-pion correlations by a new subtraction procedure. A significant genuine three-pion BEC enhancement near threshold was observed having an emitter source radius of r_3 = 0.580 +/- 0.004 (stat.) +/- 0.029 (syst.) fm and a strength of \lambda_3 = 0.504 +/- 0.010 (stat.) +/- 0.041 (syst.). The Coulomb correction was found to increase the \lambda_3 value by \~9% and to reduce r_3 by ~6%. The measured \lambda_3 corresponds to a value of 0.707 +/- 0.014 (stat.) +/- 0.078 (syst.) when one takes into account the three-pion sample purity. A relation between the two-pion and the three-pion source parameters is discussed.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX, 5 eps figures included, accepted by Eur. Phys. J.