Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2006. / Title from PDF title page screen. Advisor: Carolyn Riehl; submitted to the School of Education. Includes bibliographical references (p. 141-153).

The peel test is a commonly used testing method for adhesive strength evaluation. The test involves peeling a pressure sensitive tape away from a substrate and measuring the peel force that is applied to rupture the adhesive bond. In the present study, the mechanics of the peel test is analyzed based on a cohesive zone model. Cohesive failure is assumed to prevail in the vicinity of the peel front, that is, the adhesive fails not by debonding from the adherends but by splitting of the adhesive itself. Generally, the failure of the adhesive is accompanied with a process of cavitation and fibrillation. Therefore, the cohesive zone is modeled as a continuous fibrillated region. A Maxwell model is employed to characterize the viscoelastic behavior of the adhesive. The governing equation and boundary conditions that describe the mechanics of the peel test are derived. Numerical results are obtained under steady state conditions. The model predicts the peel force in terms of the peel rate, the peel angle, the nature of the adhesive, and the properties of the backing and the substrate. The traction distribution on the substrate surface is found to depend on various test parameters. Finally, finite element analysis is performed using the commercial software package ABAQUS. The results from FEA are compared with those from the mathematical method to evaluate the validity of the present model. The effective range of the present model is found to be related to the ratio of the critical fibril length to the extent of the cohesive zone. Given the nature of the adhesive as well as the properties of the backing and the substrate, the proposed model is able to predict the peel force and the traction distribution in terms of the peel rate and the peel angle, and thus provides a measure of the strength of the adhesive bond.

Entrepreneurial failure, in this thesis defined as bankruptcy, is an area within the entrepreneurship research where little or no emphasis has been placed. By combining entrepreneurial failure and learning, it is possible to provide a more balanced view as well as point to the fact that a bankruptcy does not necessarily have to be of negative nature as valuable learning outcomes might be gained. The purpose of this thesis was thus to explore the learning outcomes and its implications from an individual entrepreneur’s failure. A qualitative approach, in the form of a case study, was taken. Seven semi-structured face-to-face interviews were performed to gather primary data which was analyzed. Three research questions helped to fulfill the task, by covering the pragmatic and psychosocial responses, the personal and professional learning outcomes and also the ways that these learning outcomes are used and applied. The respondents reacted to the bankruptcy by blaming external factors, such as the environment, the strategy/structure or the available resources. Through deeper analysis, we found that the entrepreneurs themselves had a clear impact on the bankruptcy. The fact that most of the entrepreneurs rather blamed factors out of their control, than realizing their own involvement, can constitute a barrier for constructive reflection on the failure, which ultimately forms the basis for learning. Most of the learning outcomes, seen from a personal and professional perspective, were classified as corrective. That is; they involved improvement of professional skills and not the personal life. Further, the respondents also showed insight in terms of reforming and intrinsic learning. While the corrective learning outcomes were firm specific, the intrinsic ones were more focused on personal insight. Further, the reforming learning outcomes pointed to issues that had a big impact on both the personal and professional lives of the entrepreneurs. The unproportionally low number of cursory learning outcomes indicate that opportunities of learning from a bankruptcy exist and are large both in terms of personal and professional aspects. Lastly, the majority of the entrepreneurs make use of their learning since they have passed the double loop in Argyris and Schön’s (1996) Single and Double loop learning model. This indicates that an entrepreneurial failure is an important experience and the learning out-comes that can be drawn from it is applied in the entrepreneurs’ daily life in the form of new firms and projects, consultancy firms or even in new ways of living. The conclusions drawn in this section point to the importance of realizing that a failure is not always negative. By this, we suggest that through conscious and honest reflection, a failed entrepreneur can gain insights that could not possibly be gained without going trough a setback.

In the last decade, there has been a great increase in the number of mergers and acquisitions all over the world. This enhancement of the number of transactions is included in the most of the previous studies but moreover, many of these studies show that the majority of the mergers and acquisitions fail in the objective of creating value for the shareholders. This failure ratio is the reason which leads us to the next research question: why do the majority of mergers and acquisitions fail? In this study, we introduce the basic concepts that must be known before answering the research question and the reasons that other authors have pointed out for explaining this failure ratio. After this theoretical background, we conduct a comparative research of four cases, some of them with a successful result and some others with a failure one, in order to determine the key factors that explain the reasons why some of the mergers and acquisitions fail or success. The study shows that there is a wide range of features when determining this failure or success. The analysis of the four case studies indicates that most of the reasons for this failure or success were previously considered by other authors, but some new reasons will be presented.

An entrepreneur is an innovator, someone who transforms innovations and ideas intoeconomically viable entities; independent on whether in the process she creates oroperates a firm (Baumol 1993). When these firms are created however, sometimes theydo not achieve a viable sustainability; they often face problems and are forced to gobankrupt. When Bankruptcy occurs the entrepreneur is logically affected not onlyeconomically but also mentally and emotionally. Different situations have differenteffects on the entrepreneur´s emotions. Lazarus´ Cognitive Appraisal Theory states that when faced with a problem or situationpeople "appraise" or perceive it in different ways. The Primary Appraisal happens whenthe entrepreneur first comes into the realization of the problem; she can view itdifferently, either as an event that deserves indifference, an opportunity, or as a harmfulthreat. The Secondary Appraisal happens when the entrepreneur analyses what resourceshe has available and what strategy he will proceed to use in order to tackle the situation.Furthermore, during the course of the situation the entrepreneur may come into therealization of new information that might change his way of perceiving things, this iscalled an Appraisal. The Cognitive Appraisal Theory is closely linked to the CopingTheory which talks about how entrepreneurs "cope" or deal emotionally with theiradversities. Coping can be divided into two types, Problem focused and Emotion focusedCoping. Problem focused coping intents on coming up with viable and practical solutionsto improve the situation, whereas Emotion focused intends on externalizing the blame andreacting with a worsened emotional state that does not help the situation in the long run. This report is an exploratory research and bases its empirical data on the case studyapproach of five different cases of entrepreneurs leaving in Sweden who had theexperience of engaging in an enterprise that ended up in bankruptcy. During the course ofthis investigation a qualitative method was used and the empirical findings wheregathered by engaging in interviews that were later analyzed and correlated with thetheoretical framework. In the Analysis we take apart the information gathered in the interviews and try tocorrelate the events to the theories while at the same time striving to find similarities ordifferences between the subjects. We also try to find patterns that may help us understandmore about the subject and finally allows us to address the problem and achieve thepurpose of this report which is to understand how an entrepreneur copes when faced witha business failure. In our conclusion we came to the realization that people tend to follow specific patterns ofemotional reaction that concretely support the pre established theories. This report servesas a base or foundation of a tool for entrepreneurs. We find that if entrepreneurs hadprevious knowledge of ways to deal with failure they might be more prompt to avoid itentirely and consequently this can be an invaluable tool for them..3

Entrepreneurs are often perceived to be creative and risk taking (Kreuger, 2002). The purpose of this paper is to investigate entrepreneurs’ response to a failure namely a bankruptcy. People react differently to a bankruptcy and tend to blame different things as the cause. Some blame themselves while others blame things out of their control. These differences can have an impact on the learning process and how easy the entrepreneur moves on after the failure. These findings can be used for situations when dealing with failures and entrepreneurial activities. There is no single theory already existing for this topic, therefore several theories have been looked at and used for the analysis. The theories can be divided into five main areas: entrepreneurship, failure, entrepreneurial response to failure, factors affecting responses to failure and learning. Entrepreneurship is treated as the creation of new economic activity (Davidsson, 2004) and entrepreneurial traits (Kreuger, 2002) are considered in the analysis. Locus of control is an important trait since it shows the ability of the entrepreneur to think that they are in control of the environment. (Rotter, 1966) In order to explain the cause of a bankruptcy people tend to use certain attributions. Locus of causality refers to whether a person blames internal or external causes and stability whether these causes are changeable in the future or not. (Martinko, 1995) Several factors will influence the response to a bank-ruptcy and in this thesis motivation for the start-up, culture and separation of the company are looked upon. After a failure an entrepreneur can learn false lessons (McGrath & Cardon, 1997) and stop any entrepreneurial activities. However failure can also be positive if something true has been learnt. (Wiklund, 2006) This report is an exploratory type of study and a case study was conducted where five cases were used with entrepreneurs that have run companies that have gone bankrupt. A qualitative method was used and the empirical findings were gathered trough interviews which were then analysed with the support from the theoretical framework. In the analysis new models were created that showed patterns we found comparing the in-terviews. It also includes discussion about how culture affects the blaming factors of fail-ure. The factors that an entrepreneur is blaming the failure on are much depending on to what degree they possess entrepreneurial traits. This paper also suggest that how personally an entrepreneur takes his/her failure depends mostly on how financially dependent they were on their company and also how experienced they were from failure. Another finding was also that all the participants agreed that it is not a supportive business culture in the Jönköping region. Another conclusion is that entrepreneurs that blame their failure on in-ternal factors learn more from it, but this learning can be less significant due to earlier ex-perience from failure.

Given the present situation of environmental problems, clean technologies or cleantech is considered a way of reaching global sustainability and at the same time also seen as an engine of economic growth and fulfilling commitments to social and environmental welfare. Under this background, Swedish cleantech sector have not achieved that much commercial success yet that they are supposed to be while maintaining a reputation of top technological innovative country. The Swedish cleantech sector is dominated by small medium-sized firms (SMEs) and often limited to resources at their disposition. Thus, the Swedish government has designed various policies and export support programs to promote this sector but somehow firms could not reach up to them. Hence, it has become necessary to study the Swedish cleantech firms in order to analyze the existing gap. The purpose of this study is to run an investigation about individual cleantech firms and analyze how they are experiencing Swedish governmental export support programs. On the other hand, this study has also tried to find out what firms really expect from these programs so that it will help to reduce the gap. Based on the study of four cases and one independent interview, the study has shown two different scenarios. In one hand, micro level SMEs specially which are in initial phase of their internationalization process cannot reach up to governmental export support programs due to high acquiring cost and inflexible pre-requirements. On the other hand, small level SMEs which are in mature phase of their internationalization process have faced completely reverse experience than initial phase micro firms but not satisfied with the provided service quality. The study has also revealed that firms with relatively new technology face problems to get support from governmental agencies due to uncertain market performance. The study has further showed, this is not always the high acquiring cost and inflexible conditions, participation in governmental export support programs is also depend on firm’s owns mindset and their business strategy. So, in order to reduce the gap between Swedish governmental export support programs and cleantech firms’ expectations, the studied firms have suggested to implement a proper business model that fits into each type of firms’ needs based on their position in the internationalization process, create a separate institution or agency and Science Park that only deals with cleantech firms issues, and co-operation among the different state cleantech firms and the universities.

Reversible protein phosphorylation is an essential component of metazoan signaling and cardiovascular physiology. Protein kinase activity is required for regulation of cardiac ion channel and membrane receptor function, metabolism, and transcription, and aberrant kinase function is widely observed across disparate cardiac pathologies. In fact, multiple generations of cardiac therapies (eg. beta-adrenergic receptor blockers) have targeted cardiac kinase regulatory cascades. In contrast, essentially nothing is known regarding the mechanisms that regulate cardiac phosphatase activity at baseline or in cardiovascular disease. Protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) is a key phosphatase with multiple roles in cardiac physiology. Here we demonstrate the surprisingly complex regulatory platforms that control PP2A holoenzyme activity in heart. We present the first full characterization of the expression and regulation of the PP2A family of polypeptides in heart. We identify the expression of seventeen different PP2A genes in human heart and define their differential expression and distribution across species and in different cardiac chambers. We show unique subcellular distributions of PP2A regulatory subunits in myocytes, strongly implicating the regulatory subunit in conferring PP2A target specificity in vivo. We report striking differential regulation of PP2A scaffolding, regulatory, and catalytic subunit expression in multiple models of cardiovascular disease as well as in human heart failure samples. Importantly, we demonstrate that PP2A regulation in disease extends far beyond expression and subcellular location, by identifying and describing differential post-translational modifications of the PP2A holoenzyme in human heart failure. Furthermore, we go to characterize a mechanism for this method of post-translational modification that may represent a pathway capable of being therapeutically manipulated in human heart failure. Lastly we provide evidence that dysregulation of phosphatase activity contributes to the cellular pathology associated with a previously described inheritable human arrhythmia syndrome, highlighting the importance of the PP2A in cardiovascular physiology and disease. Together, our findings provide new insight into the functional complexity of PP2A expression, activity, and regulation in heart and in human cardiovascular disease and identify potentially new and specific gene and subcellular targets for the treatment of human arrhythmia and heart failure.

Heart failure is a chronic condition that increases the risk for death and disability. Beta blockers and ACE inhibitors have become standard treatments in heart failure because clinical trials have demonstrated their beneficial effect on mortality and morbidity in these patients. As not much is known about adherence to these medications, the main objectives of this project were to determine long term adherence to ACE inhibitors and beta blockers and determine how various degrees of adherence to a beta blocker can affect major health outcomes in patients with heart failure.<p> Data was obtained from Saskatchewan health from January 1, 1994 to December 31, 2003 for all heart failure patients from their first hospitalization for heart failure. Adherence was calculated using the fill frequency measure of adherence, and all survival analyses were completed using the Cox proportional hazards model.<p>Although 14, 000 patients were admitted to hospital for a first admission for heart failure, only 1143 subjects started a beta blocker and 5084 subjects started an ACE inhibitor within 3 months of the index hospitalization. Within the first year, adherence was excellent for both beta blockers (80.8 percent) and ACE inhibitors (82.5 percent). The proportion of patients remaining adherent slowly decreased to reach approximately 60 percent, for both medication classes, after 4 years. There was no significant difference in all-cause mortality between patients with high adherence and low adherence, but there appeared to be a trend towards decreased survival time in those remaining adherent throughout the study period [HR = 1.18 (95% CI: 0.98 to 1.43; p=0.07)].<p>Since the overall rate of adherence to beta blockers was excellent in most patients during the first year, it is possible that non-adherence is not responsible for a significant burden of mortality in Saskatchewan heart failure patients, and perhaps and the focus of quality improvement should be optimal prescribing of evidence-based therapies, and continued adherence over time.

The tumour suppressor p27kip1 (p27) is a potent inhibitor of cell growth and proliferation. We identified NF-κB activator, IKKα, as a novel interacting partner of p27 in a protein microarray screen. Both the IKKα and IKKβ components of the IKK complex were mapped to the C-terminal domain of p27. To investigate the physiological function of the p27-IKK interaction, we employed a well-established model of LPS-induced sepsis which is known to activate the IKK/NF-κB pathway. Lentivirally-mediated overexpression of p27 blocked LPS activation of NF-κB. Furthermore, in LPS-injected animals transduced with TAT-p27, a significant improvement in the left ventricular function of the heart was observed. TAT-p27 treatment was also shown to attenuate the endotoxin effect and significantly improve survival compared to both saline and TAT-LacZ controls. Our results indicate that p27 attenuates inflammation, possibly through inhibiting the IKK-dependent activation of NF-κB, thus supporting a novel link between both cell cycle regulation and inflammation.