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EntREsilience, a five-country longitudinal qualitative study, was launched in 2020 in China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and the UK to understand how entrepreneurs manifested resilience in response to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis events from March 2020 to February 2022. EntREsilience proposed a resilience-manifestation process model describing how entrepreneurs responded to the COVID-19 disruption, aided by external and internal enablers, adjusting their businesses to stabilise and even hunting for opportunities to grow their businesses. The present research adds to the findings of EntREsilience by analysing the strategies applied by entrepreneurs in their response to the crisis. This exploratory study focused on the entrepreneurs’ community interactions and studied the effects of these interactions on the response measures adopted by the entrepreneurs. The results describe how the awareness of their stakeholder challenges shaped the entrepreneurial response. Realising the importance of stakeholder well-being to the sustainability of their enterprise motivated the entrepreneurs to develop sustainability competencies towards their stakeholder challenges, innovating solutions for their mutual well-being. By extending the resilience-manifestation process model, this paper proposes a transformation model depicting the process of entrepreneurs transforming into sustainable leaders triggered by stakeholder challenge awareness and moderated by contextual factors.

EntREsilience, a five-country longitudinal qualitative study, was launched in 2020 in China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and the UK to understand how entrepreneurs manifested resilience in response to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis events from March 2020 to February 2022. EntREsilience proposed a resilience-manifestation process model describing how entrepreneurs responded to the COVID-19 disruption, aided by external and internal enablers, adjusting their businesses to stabilise and even hunting for opportunities to grow their businesses. The present research adds to the findings of EntREsilience by analysing the strategies applied by entrepreneurs in their response to the crisis. This exploratory study focused on the entrepreneurs’ community interactions and studied the effects of these interactions on the response measures adopted by the entrepreneurs. The results describe how the awareness of their stakeholder challenges shaped the entrepreneurial response. Realising the importance of stakeholder well-being to the sustainability of their enterprise motivated the entrepreneurs to develop sustainability competencies towards their stakeholder challenges, innovating solutions for their mutual well-being. By extending the resilience-manifestation process model, this paper proposes a transformation model depicting the process of entrepreneurs transforming into sustainable leaders triggered by stakeholder challenge awareness and moderated by contextual factors.

Drug and alcohol dependence are global problems with substantial societal costs. There are few treatments for relapse prevention and therefore a pressing need for further study of brain mechanisms underpinning relapse circuitry. The Imperial College Cambridge Manchester (ICCAM) platform study is an experimental medicine approach to this problem: using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques and selective pharmacological tools, it aims to explore the neuropharmacology of putative relapse pathways in cocaine, alcohol, opiate dependent, and healthy individuals to inform future drug development. Addiction studies typically involve small samples because of recruitment difficulties and attrition. We established the platform in three centres to assess the feasibility of a multisite approach to address these issues. Pharmacological modulation of reward, impulsivity and emotional reactivity were investigated in a monetary incentive delay task, an inhibitory control task, and an evocative images task, using selective antagonists for µ-opioid, dopamine D3 receptor (DRD3) and neurokinin 1 (NK1) receptors (naltrexone, GSK598809, vofopitant/aprepitant), in a placebo-controlled, randomised, crossover design. In two years, 609 scans were performed, with 155 individuals scanned at baseline. Attrition was low and the majority of individuals were sufficiently motivated to complete all five sessions ( n=87). We describe herein the study design, main aims, recruitment numbers, sample characteristics, and explain the test hypotheses and anticipated study outputs.

Drug and alcohol dependence are global problems with substantial societal costs. There are few treatments for relapse prevention and therefore a pressing need for further study of brain mechanisms underpinning relapse circuitry. The Imperial College Cambridge Manchester (ICCAM) platform study is an experimental medicine approach to this problem: using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques and selective pharmacological tools, it aims to explore the neuropharmacology of putative relapse pathways in cocaine, alcohol, opiate dependent, and healthy individuals to inform future drug development. Addiction studies typically involve small samples because of recruitment difficulties and attrition. We established the platform in three centres to assess the feasibility of a multisite approach to address these issues. Pharmacological modulation of reward, impulsivity and emotional reactivity were investigated in a monetary incentive delay task, an inhibitory control task, and an evocative images task, using selective antagonists for µ-opioid, dopamine D3 receptor (DRD3) and neurokinin 1 (NK1) receptors (naltrexone, GSK598809, vofopitant/aprepitant), in a placebo-controlled, randomised, crossover design. In two years, 609 scans were performed, with 155 individuals scanned at baseline. Attrition was low and the majority of individuals were sufficiently motivated to complete all five sessions ( n=87). We describe herein the study design, main aims, recruitment numbers, sample characteristics, and explain the test hypotheses and anticipated study outputs.

Abstract Rechargeable zinc batteries have emerged as an inexpensive and safe post-lithium-ion battery technology and have received increasing research interest. Developing suitable electrolytes and understanding their transport properties lie at the heart of successful zinc battery technologies as the battery behaviour is a strong function of ion transport in the electrolytes. To accelerate the research and development process, herein we demonstrate a low-cost and high-throughput approach to measure the diffusion in zinc electrolytes at different concentrations simultaneously. The new approach combines Raman microspectroscopy and a multiplexed microfluidic chip with integrated micromixers, concentration gradient generators and a Y-sensor array. Aqueous-based zinc sulphate electrolytes, widely used in zinc batteries, were used for a proof-of-concept. The measured diffusion coefficients for different electrolyte concentrations show good agreement with literature values. With four electrolyte samples in this study, the developed approach requires minimum 0.5 mL of the electrolyte solutions and 30 mins, which is over ten times faster than a typical diffusion measurement with the conventional electrochemical approach in restricted-diffusion cells. The microfluidic chip is readily scalable to further increase the throughput, and can be extended to for use of measuring different (i.e. organic and aqueous) and even mixtures of electrolytes (i.e. ethylene carbonate and dimethyl carbonate) as well as salts (Li+, Na+, Mg2+, etc.).

Abstract Rechargeable zinc batteries have emerged as an inexpensive and safe post-lithium-ion battery technology and have received increasing research interest. Developing suitable electrolytes and understanding their transport properties lie at the heart of successful zinc battery technologies as the battery behaviour is a strong function of ion transport in the electrolytes. To accelerate the research and development process, herein we demonstrate a low-cost and high-throughput approach to measure the diffusion in zinc electrolytes at different concentrations simultaneously. The new approach combines Raman microspectroscopy and a multiplexed microfluidic chip with integrated micromixers, concentration gradient generators and a Y-sensor array. Aqueous-based zinc sulphate electrolytes, widely used in zinc batteries, were used for a proof-of-concept. The measured diffusion coefficients for different electrolyte concentrations show good agreement with literature values. With four electrolyte samples in this study, the developed approach requires minimum 0.5 mL of the electrolyte solutions and 30 mins, which is over ten times faster than a typical diffusion measurement with the conventional electrochemical approach in restricted-diffusion cells. The microfluidic chip is readily scalable to further increase the throughput, and can be extended to for use of measuring different (i.e. organic and aqueous) and even mixtures of electrolytes (i.e. ethylene carbonate and dimethyl carbonate) as well as salts (Li+, Na+, Mg2+, etc.).

Although future climate is predicted to have more extreme heat conditions, the available evidence on the impact of these conditions on pregnancy length is very scarce and inconclusive.We investigated the impact of maternal short-term exposure to extreme ambient heat on the length of pregnancy.This study was based on a cohort of births that occurred in a major university hospital in Barcelona during 2001-2005. Three indicators of extreme heat conditions based on 1-day exposure to an unusually high heat-humidity index were applied. Each mother was assigned the measures made by the meteorological station closest to maternal residential postcodes. A two-stage analysis was developed to quantify the change in pregnancy length after maternal exposure to extreme heat conditions adjusted for a range of covariates. The second step was repeated for lags 0 (delivery date) to 6 days.We included data from 7,585 pregnant women in our analysis. We estimated a 5-day reduction in average gestational age at delivery after an unusually high heat-humidity index on the day before delivery.Extreme heat was associated with a reduction in the average gestational age of children delivered the next day, suggesting an immediate effect of this exposure on pregnant women. Further studies are required to confirm our findings in different settings.