Startups – Tom Eisenmann analyzes the most prevalent failure patterns and how to avoid them

Purpose The Fail-Safe Startup: Your Roadmap for Entrepreneurial Success, the new book by entrepreneurship researcher Tom Eisenmann, sets out to help improve the odds by looking more closely at the most prevalent causes of startup failure and how to avoid them. Design/methodology/approach Eisenmann research led him to identify six distinct patterns that explain a large proportion of startup failures, three relating to early stage failures and three to late stage. Findings Strong demand from early adopters may lead a founder to scale up prematurely. Practical/implications Entrepreneurs must research differences in the needs of likely early adopters and mainstream customers during the upfront customer discovery phase. Originality/value Entrepreneurs must research differences in the needs of likely early adopters and mainstream customers during the upfront customer discovery phase. 10; 10;The line between visionary entrepreneur and cult leader can become blurry, and a founder?s ?reality distortion field--useful for motivating others to help pursue the founder?s dream?can become a liability.

Decreasing Falls through Shared Governance

In October 2018, at the unit based forum meeting, clinical nurses evaluated patient fall rates and noticed an increase in patient falls in the Q3 2018. The Q3 2018 fall rate was 6.20. Then nurses analyzed each fall including reviewing CCTV to determine possible causes. One of the falls was due to a slip in the shower. The shower floor was tiled and became slippery when wet. Additional falls occurred in the hallway of the unit and possible causes included reality distortion, unsteady gait due to age, medications, and physical condition. In some cases they noticed the CCTV did not capture a fall because there was no camera in that section of the hallway. The clinical nurses discussed this information with the Clinical Manager, at the November 2018 staff meeting. They suggested re-surfacing the floor to prevent slipping, additional cameras mounted in the hallways, and a second monitor at the other nurses station in an effort to prevent patient falls. After implementing these interventions along with CCTV monitoring the fall rate for Q1 2020 was 2.07 and Q2 2020 was 2.66. Through shared governance, evidence based practice implementation and environment of care enhancements the fall rate decreased by 40%.

Dynamic interplay between life events and course of psychotic disorders: 10-year longitudinal study following first admission

Background Life events (LEs) are a risk factor for first onset and relapse of psychotic disorders. However, the impact of LEs on specific symptoms – namely reality distortion, disorganization, negative symptoms, depression, and mania – remains unclear. Moreover, the differential effects of negative v. positive LEs are poorly understood. Methods The present study utilizes an epidemiologic cohort of patients (N = 428) ascertained at first-admission for psychosis and followed for a decade thereafter. Symptoms were assessed at 6-, 24-, 48-, and 120-month follow-ups. Results We examined symptom change within-person and found that negative events in the previous 6 months predicted an increase in reality distortion (β = 0.07), disorganized (β = 0.07), manic (β = 0.08), and depressive symptoms (β = 0.06), and a decrease in negative symptoms (β = −0.08). Conversely, positive LEs predicted fewer reality distortion (β = −0.04), disorganized (β = −0.04), and negative (β = −0.13) symptoms, and were unrelated to mood symptoms. A between-person approach to the same hypotheses confirmed that negative LEs predicted change in all symptoms, while positive LEs predicted change only in negative symptoms. In contrast, symptoms rarely predicted future LEs. Conclusions These findings confirm that LEs have an effect on symptoms, and thus contribute to the burden of psychotic disorders. That LEs increase positive symptoms and decrease negative symptoms suggest at least two different mechanisms underlying the relationship between LEs and symptoms. Our findings underscore the need for increased symptom monitoring following negative LEs, as symptoms may worsen during that time.

Introduction

A brief overview of the main topics discussed throughout the book, with a focus on the emotional roots of today’s geopolitical disorder. More and more countries are becoming trapped in a past that no longer exists. Nostalgia offers relief from socio-economic angst and becomes an emotional weapon in the political debate used by jingoist leaders. Although nostalgic nationalism is a global phenomenon, it is Brexit that epitomizes it in its purest form. Only in the United Kingdom is it possible to identify the three moments of a periodizing nostalgic narrative: the “golden days”; the “great rupture”; and the “present discontent”. The golden age is represented by the imperial era. The rupture came not only with the slow demise of the British Empire, but also with the decision to join the European project in 1973. The present discontent is caused by the unwillingness of many Britons to come to terms with Britain’s transformation into an ordinary nation-state. The rest of the chapter discusses the structure of the book. The first section looks at how nostalgia is abused to build national myths capable of mobilizing a country toward a common goal. The second dismantles some of the reality distortion created by Brexiteers’ nostalgic rhetoric.

Common Taxonomy of Traits and Symptoms: Linking Schizophrenia Symptoms, Schizotypy, and Normal Personality

The associations among normal personality and many mental disorders are well established, but it remains unclear whether and how symptoms of schizophrenia and schizotypal traits align with the personality taxonomy. This study examined the joint factor structure of normal personality, schizotypy, and schizophrenia symptoms in people with psychotic disorders (n = 288) and never-psychotic adults (n = 257) in the Suffolk County Mental Health Project. First, we evaluated the structure of schizotypal (positive schizotypy, negative schizotypy, and mistrust) and normal traits. In both the psychotic-disorder and never-psychotic groups, the best-fitting model had 5 factors: neuroticism, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and psychoticism. The schizotypy traits were placed on different dimensions: negative schizotypy went on (low) extraversion, whereas positive schizotypy and mistrust went on psychoticism. Next, we added symptoms to the model. Numerous alternatives were compared, and the 5-factor model remained best-fitting. Reality distortion (hallucinations and delusions) and disorganization symptoms were placed on psychoticism, and negative symptoms were placed on extraversion. Models that separated symptom dimensions from trait dimensions did not fit well, arguing that taxonomies of symptoms and traits are aligned. This is the first study to show that symptoms of psychosis, schizotypy, and normal personality reflect the same underlying dimensions. Specifically, (low) extraversion, negative schizotypy, and negative symptoms form one spectrum, whereas psychoticism, positive schizotypy, and positive and disorganized symptoms form another. This framework helps to understand the heterogeneity of psychosis and comorbidity patterns found in psychotic disorders. It also underscores the importance of traits to understanding these disorders.

PSYCHO-SEMANTIC APPROACHES ?? INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

The article presents a psychosemantic approach to interpersonal relations, which is based on the theoretical concepts of O. Harvey, D. Hunt, & H. Schroeder, as well as, L.Vygotski, A. N. Leontev, D.N. Leontev, V. Nalimov, and others. A psychosemantic approach to interpersonal relations manifests through the concepts of person’s conceptual system, gestalt-concepts, conceptual dissonance, common conceptual space, and conceptual flexibility. The main pathogenic strategies of conceptual dissonance smoothing, like distortion of existing reality, distortion of the laws and principles offormal logic, and rejection of previous experience, are also discussed.