There are many existing programs and initiatives in Uganda supporting small businesses, but tend to suffer from a number of weaknesses. In particular typically small businesses find it difficult to do research and development; commercialize their results in markets (innovation) as fast as they should. For micro, small & medium enterprises to be dully competitive in a competitive economic environment requires that they develop internal capabilities to effectively assimilate, use and adapt product and process technologies for their businesses to survive on an ongoing basis. To overcome this drawback, the concept of Business Incubation has been proposed. This concept has gained large interest in the research community. The key idea is to create and nurture new businesses for growth by providing services and infrastructure required by utilizing the external knowledge sources (open innovation) and triple-helix model which assist formation of business and industrial clusters. A business incubator is an organization that supports the creation and growth of new businesses by providing services and infrastructure that is required by the targeted clients. Given that most firms in developing countries start too small to compete especially in international markets, a pre-requisite to industrial development, governments and policy makers should give particular attention to the constraints and needs of MSMEs. This can be done by adopting a mix of policies and framework conditions to reduce on the obstacles that hamper technological innovation, collaboration and business growth. In particular is access to finance and enhancing technology and business capacity development through training, linkages and networks. This Licentiate thesis discusses and reviews the initiatives and programs aimed at supporting the development of MSMEs with a view to stimulate industrial development in Uganda. The main aim of this research is to examine the process of business incubation and explain the contribution of open innovation business incubators to entrepreneurs/ start-up firms within the broader context of developing entrepreneurship, promoting science, technology and innovation and creating employment. This research focuses on the roles and relationships of government, university and research institutions and the private sector as sources of knowledge for technological innovations. Literature review, theory understanding, and participatory methods including group discussions with questionnaires, meetings and interviews, were used to achieve the objectives. From the findings, it was revealed among MSMEs that due to their sizes, limited managerial and technological skills, and inadequate functional business support services have had adverse effects on their upgrading and growth. There was little linkage and follow up between industry and other public research sectors i.e. government agencies and higher institutions although there are quite a number of support institutions with poor coordination. The research analyzed a wide range of issues that are related to the desired structural transformation of the Ugandan economy towards industrialization process. Finally it will propose strategies for the most appropriate model for Uganda.

The aim of this study is to examine incubators which were formed by Innovation Center Iceland right after the financial crisis hit in 2008. The question is whether a new concept can be defined, or a new phenomenon, called “crisis incubation”. This is a concept that has not been studied before. This research is carried out by comparing the incubators formed in Iceland with incubators in six other European countries before the crisis hit, and see if there are any differences between the entrepreneurial processes. According to the study, the main differences between traditional incubators and crisis incubators are the following: Access to crisis incubators is much easier, incubatees within crisis incubators are much less likely to experience problems after they have entered the incubators, and they are much more likely to solve problems they experience. The only problem that incubatees in a crisis incubator are more likely to experience is obtaining finance. The study also finds some similarities between traditional incubators and crisis incubators. Overall, the main results strongly indicate that the differences between the two concepts are so great, that a new phenomenon can be defined, although further research is needed.

Incubation of avian eggs is an energy demanding process. Incubating parent faces a conflict between investment into optimal thermal conditions for developig embryos and meeting of own energy requirements. This applies especially in uniparental incubators such as ducks. During incubation, female utilizes energy from fat storage or actual food intake. The proportion of energy used from food than may reflect the time spent by female on the nest. The utilizing of these both sources ratio plays a role in time spent on nest. The aim of the thesis was to describe an incubation rhythm in females of Common Pochard (Aythya ferina) and relate them to climatic variables and changes in body mass. Data were collecetd for three years in the Poodříí Landscape Protected Area at free-living females. We placed a weighting mechanism under the nest with conected datalogger recording voltage variations, which offered me an information about female body mass and time and duration of recesses. Incubation rhytm of females was described by time spent on time ("incubation constancy"), recess frequency and recess duration. Females left the nest most grequently at night-time and during dawn and dusk. Probable explanation of this pattern is better food availability in the night-time and lower risk of nest predation by predators...

The use of viable and reliable tissue preparations allows for experimental approaches in vitro that would not be possible in vivo. In this experiment, gills were isolated from gulf killifish, Fundulus grandis, and subjected to various incubation conditions. A combination of two types of media and two incubation apparatuses were compared in their ability to sustain tissues, as measured by the vital stain trypan blue (TB) and percent lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) leakage. Trypan Blue analysis indicated no significant difference in tissue viability, regardless of the treatment or incubation time. However, percent LDH leakage analysis revealed that the two most influential variables were the medium and apparatus in which the gills were incubated. Interestingly, incubation time did not have a statistically significant influence on gill viability as measured by LDH leakage. The results of LDH leakage analysis suggest that incubation using SW in the 4 ml apparatus is the best combination tested.

With the influx of state-funded business development programs and organizations, it is of increasing relevance to understand the success and value creation of said programs and organizations. Sweden is one of the states in the world with the highest number of incubators per capita, and has an extensive knowledge network surrounding incubation. However, the success of them is hard to predict at best, owing to different incubator practices and selection processes for different industries, for example. This creates the question of whether incubators are a worthwhile investment strategy to create growth, and how this should be assessed. Prior literature on the field have used a range of different measures, such as survival rate over time, but we are more interested in the long-term growth caused by incubators by their graduated firms. Thus, this study’s purpose is to assess whether Northern Swedish incubator graduates see stronger growth than comparable non-incubated firms over time. The approach taken has been to study the 5-year cumulative average employee and turnover growth rates of firms in IT & non-digital technology in Northern Sweden. Quantitative firm data was analyzed deductively in accordance to hypotheses developed on prior theory on the field. The incubator firm sample had been affiliated with either Uminova Innovation or Arctic Business Incubator (ABI), as the 3rd incubator in Northern Sweden, Bizmaker, had no suitable firms for our study. The comparable reference firms were from all counties related to Northern Sweden, Norrland Land. Analyzing the data revealed a significantly higher turnover growth rate for incubator graduates in the region, as opposed to the numbers of non-incubated firms. Incubated IT firms seemed to have a quicker turnover growth than that of incubated non-digital technology firms as well. However, this was not the case regarding employee growth, where no significant relation was between that and incubation, or lack thereof. The data suggests that incubators create some lasting economic growth, at the very least, but cannot show to great growth in things such as employment, societal growth, and creation of other kinds of value like environmental and social. The suggested course of action for further actors in the field is to expand the study, e.g. by using different time spans, regions and researched types of value. Incubators do seem to have an effect on their firms, but it is difficult to pinpoint and harder to assign a value to in comparison to the resources spent on them.

A geração de grande quantidade de vinhaça resultante da produção de etanol induziu questionamentos a respeito de sua disposição e possível armazenamento. No Estado de São Paulo, a norma P4.231 da CETESB restringiu a aplicação de vinhaça em muitos solos, resultando na necessidade de distribuí-la em áreas distantes da usina. Porém, devido a grande quantidade de água no resíduo, o transporte torna-se inviável do ponto de vista econômico. Uma alternativa para diminuir os custos de transporte é reduzir o volume por evaporação, originando a vinhaça concentrada (VC). No entanto, as temperaturas altas durante o processo de concentração provocam modificações na matéria orgânica, consequentemente, alterando a dinâmica das transformações do N no solo e, considerando ainda que a sua aplicação é realizada na linha de plantio, diferentemente da vinhaça não concentrada (VNC) que é aplicada em área total, pouco se conhece sobre os efeitos no solo e a sua eficiência agronômica. Com o objetivo de (1) conhecer algumas propriedades físico-químicas da VC e compará-la com a VNC, (2) avaliar os efeitos das doses de VC na fertilidade do solo, percolação de íons, produtividade de soqueira de cana-de-açúcar e qualidade tecnológica dos colmos e (3) determinar a mineralização líquida do N (Nm) foram: (I) coletadas amostras de VC e VNC em duas usinas entre os anos de 2010 e 2011, (II) realizado um experimento na cidade de Batatais, SP, em uma área comercial de cana-de-açúcar, (III) conduzido um experimento de incubação aeróbia com os objetivos de determinar o Nm e, através do ajuste a equação de primeira ordem, determinar a mineralização potencial do N (N0), a constante de mineralização do N (k) e (4) parametrizar o módulo SoilN do modelo APSIM para solo que recebeu aplicação de vinhaça. Verificou-se que o processo de concentração da vinhaça promove grande variação no teor de alguns elementos, especialmente o Na+ e as formas de nitrogênio amoniacal e nítrica. A aplicação de 30 m3 ha-1 de VC na linha da cana promoveu aumento nas concentrações de Cl-, NO3 -, Ca+2, Mg+2 e SO4 -2 nas soluções coletadas pelos extratores a 0,80 m de profundidade. De maneira geral foi observado aumento do pH, CTC e dos teores dos cátions trocáveis em função das doses, ao mesmo tempo que os valores de m% decresceram, resultando dessa forma em maior disponibilidade de nutrientes, aumento da fertilidade do solo e consequentemente aumento de produtividade, pois os tratamentos com VC promoveram ganhos de 8 Mg ha-1 em relação ao tratamento controle e, mesmo pela grande quantidade de K+ concentrado na linha de plantio as características tecnológicas dos colmos não foram prejudicadas. Com base nos valores de Nm, N0 e k, pode-se concluir que ocorreu imobilização do N mineral pela biomassa microbiana nos tratamentos com VC. O módulo SoilN do APSIM apresentou bom desempenho em simular a produção de NO3 -, pois a nitrificação calculada diariamente a partir do modelo se ajustou adequadamente aos valores de nitrato observados nas incubações; o modelo foi bem sucedido em calcular as perdas de N no tratamento com a maior dose de VNC a partir dos valores da curva de retenção e do volume de água aplicada no solo. / In São Paulo State, the legislation from CETESB restricts the application of vinasse in many soils, resulting in the need to distribute it in areas distant from the mill. However, due to the large amount of waste water, the transport becomes unfeasible economically. An alternative is to reduce the volume by evaporation, resulting in the concentrated vinasse (CV). But, high temperatures during the evaporation cause changes in the organic matter. So, considering that its application is in the row of sugarcane, unlike the not concentrated vinasse (NCV) which is applied in the total area, the objectives were (1) study some physicochemical properties of the CV and compare it with NCV, (2) evaluate the effects of CV in soil fertility, ions percolation, productivity, and technological quality of stems and (3) evaluate the net N mineralization (Nm). (I) Samples of CV and NCV were collected at two sugarcane mills in 2010 and 2011, (II) an experiment was conducted in São Paulo, in a commercial sugarcane area, (III) an aerobic incubation was conducted to determine Nm, potential N mineralization (N0), rate of N mineralization (k) and (IV) parameterize SoilN APSIM model for soil with vinasse application. It was found that the evaporation of the vinasse leads to greater variation in the concentration of some elements, especially Na+ and ammoniacal and nitrate nitrogen. 30 m3 ha-1 of CV applied in the sugarcane line caused high concentration of Cl-, NO3 -, Ca +2, Mg+2 and SO4 -2 in the soil solutions collected at 0.80 m. There were increase in pH, CEC and the content of the cations, while the values of m% decreased, resulting in availability of nutrient, increasing the soil fertility and productivity. CV promoted gains of 8 Mg ha-1 compared to control and, even the large amount of K+ concentrated in the sugarcane line, the technological characteristics of the stems were not impaired. Based on the values of Nm, k and N0, we can conclude that the mineral N was immobilized by microbial biomass in CV treatments. The APSIM showed good performance to simulate NO3 - production. The nitrification calculated daily from the model was successful to fit to the values observed. The model was successful to calculate N losses in treatment with the highest dose of NCV.

Nos últimos anos, vem crescendo consideravelmente a criação de animais silvestres no Brasil, com a finalidade de se evitar o desaparecimento de espécies ameaçadas de extinção e a de produção comercial. A ema (Rhea americana) destaca-se devido ao seu alto potencial reprodutivo e produtos de excelente qualidade, muito procurados no mercado mundial, como; carne, couro, pluma e gordura. Existem dois sistemas de incubação de ovos e criação de filhotes até os 90 dias de idade, o artificial e o natural. O sistema artificial consiste em retirar diariamente os ovos dos piquetes de reprodução e incubá-los em máquinas incubadouras. Após o nascimento, os filhotes são criados em recintos e tratados por pessoas treinadas para esta função. O sistema natural permite que o macho choque os ovos no seu próprio ninho e depois da eclosão, ele e os seus filhotes vão para outro recinto, onde o pai cria-os. Diante destes dois sistemas, foram analisadas as suas influências nos índices produtivos mais significativos para a espécie. Os sistemas de incubação e criação não influenciaram a porcentagem de ovos férteis e a de ovos contaminados e nem o peso dos filhotes no nascimento. Por outro lado, o sistema natural apresentou melhores índices nas porcentagens de ovos eclodidos e de filhotes vivos até os 90 dias de idade, e o sistema artificial promoveu maiores porcentagens de ovos com morte embrionária, de filhotes natimortos e que vieram à óbito devido à retenção de saco vitelino, rotação tíbio-társica e paralisia gástrica, e também, influenciou no maior peso dos filhotes aos 90 dias de idade e no maior ganho de peso diário dos filhotes até os 90 dias de idade. / During the past years, in order to avoid the extinction of endangered species and also for commercial purposes there was a considerable increase on the number of wild animals breeders. Due to its high reproductive potential and superior quality of products, the greater rhea (Rhea americana) is of prominence importance. Products such as rhea meat, leather, feather and fat are of great acceptance all over the world. There are two systems of eggs incubation and breeding of chicks till they are 90 days old, the artificial and the natural. The artificial system consists in withdrawing the eggs of the reproduction farmyards every day and keep them in incubation machines. After the eggs outbreak, the chicks are raised in sites and treated by persons trained particularly for this function. The natural system consists of allowing the male to incubate the eggs on its own nest and also to raise the chicks after they born. The influences of both systems were evaluated taking into account the most significant productive traits of this specie. No effect of the systems of incubation and breeding was observed in the percentage of fertile eggs, contaminated eggs and weight of the chicks when they are born. The natural system showed better results when evaluating the percentage of outbreaked eggs and survival of the chicks till 90 days old. On the other hand, the artificial system showed higher percentages of embryonic death, born death chicks and chicks that died due to yolk sac retention, tibio tarsic rotation and gastric paralysis, and chicks raised through the artificial system were heavier when they were 90 days old and showed higher daily weight gain till 90 days old.

Um experimento foi conduzido com os objetivos de avaliar a influência de diferentes tempos de aquecimento antes do armazenamento e diferentes tempos de armazenamento de ovos férteis de matrizes Cobb 500 com 44 semanas antes da incubação, sobre a eclodibilidade e características de pintos de um dia. Utilizou-se o delineamento inteiramente ao acaso em arranjo fatorial 3x3, com os fatores: aquecimento antes do armazenamento (37ºC por 0, 6 e 12h) e armazenamento antes da incubação (12ºC por 4, 9 e 14 dias), totalizando nove tratamentos com 22 repetições de 10 ovos cada. O procedimento de incubação foi o convencional adotado pela avicultura industrial. Avaliaram-se as características de eclosão (480 e 498h), peso do pintainho, perda de peso dos ovos durante o aquecimento e armazenamento, temperatura de superfície da casca, embriodiagnóstico, peso relativo de órgãos e características morfométricas e histológicas intestinais. O aquecimento por 6h não prejudicou a eclodibilidade em comparação ao não aquecimento dos ovos. O aquecimento por 12h resultou em menores taxas de eclosão. O peso dos pintainhos não foi influenciado pelo tempo de armazenamento dos ovos, no entanto, os ovos aquecidos por 0 e 6h produziram pintainhos com pesos superiores quando comparados com aqueles ovos aquecidos por 12h. As características de vilosidades intestinais não foram influenciadas pelos tratamentos, com exceção da profundidade de cripta. Conclui-se que o aquecimento pré-incubação de ovos férteis a 37ºC por 6h é adequado em manter as taxas normais de eclosão sem prejudicar as características de pintos de um dia, quando os ovos são armazenados por até quatro dias. / An experiment was carried out to evaluate the influence of different heating times before storage and different storage times of the fertile eggs from Cobb 500 broiler breeders, aged 44 weeks, before incubation on hatchability and day-old chicks characteristics. The experimental design was randomly assigned in a 3x3 factorial scheme: egg heating before storage (37ºC for 0, 6 and 12h) and egg storage before incubation (12ºC for 4, 9 and 14 days), totalizing nine treatments with 22 replicates of ten eggs each. The incubation procedure was the same used by the poultry industry. It was evaluated the hatchability characteristics (480 and 498h), day-old chick weight, egg weight loss during heating and storage, superficial eggshell temperature, and intestine morphologic and histological characteristics. The heating time of 6h did not impair hatchability of the eggs when compared to the control treatment (no heating 0h). On the other hand, heating eggs for 12h was observed significantly reduction of the hatchability. Day-old chicks weight was not influenced by the storage time, however, the eggs heated for 0 and 6h provided heavier day-old chicks than eggs heated for 12h. There were not influences of the treatments on intestine villous characteristics, except for crypt height. It was concluded that the pre-incubation fertile eggs heating at 37ºC for 6h is adequate to maintain normal rates of hatchability without impair day-old chicks characteristics when eggs are stored up to four days.

Micromechanical simulations are conducted to quantify the influence of microstructure attributes to the formation of small fatigue cracks. Three wrought aluminum alloys (7075-T651, 2024-T3, virtual material) with fractured particle are studied to quantify the influence of material’s yield strength and ultimate strength to material’s fatigue resistance. Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS) material with pores of various spatial distribution and particles are simulated for the microplasticity and its effects on fatigue incubation. A cohesive zone model is used to study the interface cohesive behavior’s influence to the cyclic driving mechanisms. Different simulations based on different interfacial crack geometries and particle shapes are studied. A cohesive law with unloading-reloading cyclic behavior is introduced. A damage factor D is proposed to study the possibility of interfacial crack propagation. With this factor, plastic wake zone behind the debonding is studied.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the effects of awareness on experimentally induced anxiety. Forty college undergraduates were conditioned with a mild electric shock as the UCS (unconditioned stimulus) and a tone a s the CS (conditioned stimulus). After conditioning, the experimental group was taught to discriminate between the CS and six other tones which were both higher and lower in frequency than the CS. The control group was not given these learning trials. After learning to discriminate the tones, the experimental subjects had a higher GSR (Galvanic Skin Response) to the seven tones as compared to the control group. The discrimination process thus facilitated an association among the tones. This increase in anxiety was relatively greater with the passage of time as the experimental subjects also had a higher GSR to the seven tones 24 hours after conditioning compared with 30 minutes after conditioning. These increases, however, were not significant in all cases.