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Entrepreneurial orientation is a concept that captures the importance of how and why certain individuals decide to take higher risks than the average small business owner so as to increase their return on assets deployed. Entrepreneurial orientation is linked to the concept of control aversion, which is used to explain why certain individuals refrain from using external financing to expand their firms. Control aversion suggests that most small business owners prefer to maintain total control rather than invite in the potentially disruptive influence of an external owner/investor. This study combines these two concepts in an attempt to introduce financing and investors into the discussion of entrepreneurial orientation and performance. Equity investors are shown to have a major influence on entrepreneurial performance, because business owners with an entrepreneurial orientation gain substantially from interaction with investors through the transfer of knowledge. The model was tested with a LInear Structural RELations (LISREL) analysis on a sample of 459 Swedish small and medium-sized enterprises.

In this paper, we introduce a wider perspective in Rotor Angle Stability (RAS) analysis, by mapping parts of state-space boundary of interest to parameter space boundary points. These points are obtained using the Time Domain Simulation (TDS), the Closest Unstable Equilibrium Point (UEP) approximation, and the Potential Energy Boundary Surface (PEBS) concepts. Then analytical parameter-space boundaries are constructed using polynomial regression model with optimal fit coefficients in least squares terms. Security boundaries constructed in this manner directly give information about critical clearing times for different faults and operating states, and are suitable as an on-line tool for transient stability assessment., QC 20160601

Background Fear of hypoglycaemia is common in patients with type 1 diabetes and many patients deliberately aim at higher blood glucose than recommended to avoid hypoglycaemia. Patient empowerment is a process whereby patients have the skills, attitudes, and self-awareness necessary to influence the quality of their lives. An empowered patient has sufficient knowledge to take relevant decisions about their illness, medical treatment and their own health. Aim The aim was to study empowerment, fear of hypoglycaemia and problem areas among patients with type1 diabetes. Method Four hundred fifty-seven patients, mean age 48.5 (±15.4) years, completed an questionnaire including questions on the duration of diabetes, episodes of severe hypoglycaemias and metabolic control, the Swedish Diabetes Empowerment Scale – 23 (Swe-DES-23), Fear of Hypoglycaemia Survey (HFS) and the Problem Areas in Diabetes scale (SWE-PAID-20) . Results The level of HbA1c was not associated with fear of hypoglycaemia while patients with newly diagnosed (0-5 years) diabetes had significantly lower (p=0.001) fear of hypoglycaemia than those with longer duration. Episodes of severe hypoglycaemia during the last year also influenced the rating on HFS. HFS was 24.7(11.6) in those with no episodes, 30.5(13.9) 1 episode, 33.0(15.4) 2-4 episodes (all p<0.01). Patients with HbA1c ≥ 8.0 % rated lower empowerment (SWE-DES-23) compared to those who had an HbA1c between 6.1-7.9% (p=0.02) and compared to those with HbA1c lower or equal to 6.0 % (p<0.001). On the SWE-PAID-20 patients with HbA1c ≥8 % scored in average 32.2(20.5) while those with HbA1c ≤6.0% scored 20.0(17.6) (p<0.001) (higher value indicates more emotional distress related to diabetes). Conclusion Patients with poor metabolic control, HbA1c ≥8 % are less empowered and also experiences more emotional distress related to their diabetes. Fear of hypoglycaemia was lowest in patient with up to 5 years duration of type 1 diabetes. HbA1c was not a

This contribution gives a case study on the deformations of anchor back-tied steel sheet pile walls and retained soils at deep excavations in soft soils overlying bedrock in Stockholm. Instrumentation results show the deformation of the retained soils is larger than that from similar case histories. The monitored anchor stresses increase quickly in the early stages of excavation and decease gradually to a constant value during later stages, while the lateral displacements of the sheet pile walls increase gradually. The results of both monitoring and numerical analysis show that this dynamic feature becomes weak as the thickness of the underlying soils is small. The decrease of the anchor stresses is mainly due to the flectional behavior of the sheet pile wall and the stress rotation in the retained soils., QC 20140827

Two extra-long tunnels, with two tubes each, were excavated in a corridor of about 200 m in Qinling Mountain in the central part of China, for railway and road lines from Xi'an to Ankang, respectively. During tunnel excavations, severe rockbursts have occurred in several gneiss sections. The rockburst features indicate the pronounced effect of the fabric of the schistous structure of gneiss on the strength and deformation characteristics of intact rocks. The analysis on the geological conditions in terms of initial geostatic stress, rock strength and the occurrence of the gneiss foliation planes indicates that the schistous structure of gneiss is in favor to the severe rockburst in the section of magmatic gneiss with large overburden. The influence of anisotropic feature of the gneiss on the rockburst becomes significant on the condition that a large initial principal stress is nearly parallel to the foliation planes and the foliation structure composed mainly of biotite and quartz provides a weak plane to brittle failure., QC 20190320

The deformation of retained soil is of importance for the design of a deep excavation in soft soil. The influence of bedrock underlying the soils on the behavior of the retaining wall needs proper evaluation. This contribution shows a case study on deep excavation in soft soil overlying bedrock at the South Link Infrastructure Project in Stockholm. The behavior of sheet pile walls at the South Link shows that both lateral displacement and settlement are larger than the magnitude from similar case histories. Exemplified by section 1/840N, the features of lateral displacement increment are analyzed with monitoring and PLAXIS simulating results. The analysis results indicate that the beneficial influence of bedrock may be overshadowed by the low strength of soils in which excavation occurs., QC 20141014

The concept of NATM has been widely accepted in the fields of both tunnel and underground structure design and construction in China since 1980s. Similarly in the world wide, there are several definitions and explanations in both academy and construction markets. In practice, there is usually a big gap between involved parties in understanding the meaning of NATM. In this contribution, the concept of NATM in China is first reviewed. The influence of the concept of NATM on the numerical analyses on tunnel design and construction is briefly described in terms of FEM. Based on the practical situation in China, discussion focuses on the disadvantage of NATM application. The main causation is due to the different meaning under same name in practice. Suggestions are proposed to the educators who are disseminating the concept of NATM., QC 20141017