The future shape of Hong Kong's economy: why low technology manufacturing in China will remain a sustainable strategy

"In dem vorliegenden Papier wird die aktuelle Diskussion über die Entwicklungspfade junger Industrienationen im asiatischen Raum aufgegriffen. Kritisch setzt sich der Autor mit dem High Tech-Argument auseinander, nachdem internationale Wettbewerbsfähigkeit ausgeprägte Investitionen im Hochtechnologiesektor erfordert. So zeige jedoch das Beispiel Hong Kong eindrucksvoll, dass auch eine Wirtschaft Produktivitätssprünge und Wachstumserfolge erzielen kann, die sich bislang auf arbeitsintensive Produktionsprozesse und geringe F&E-Aufwendungen beschränkt habe. Ermöglicht werden diese durch eine effiziente Kombination von 'high IQ and low technology', deren Charakteristika Kurzfristigkeit, Flexibilität, ein großes Reservoir unqualifizierter Arbeitskräfte, kurze Anlernzeiten und die traditionellen Strukturen asiatischer Familienunternehmen sind. Da die wirtschaftlichen Zuwachsraten Hong Kong's teilweise deutlich über denen anderer Industrienationen im Pazifikraum liegen, kommt der Autor zu dem Schluss, dass die Notwendigkeit einer High Tech-Ausrichtung Südost-Asiens bisher deutlich überschätzt worden ist und eine Orientierung hierauf für Hong Kong möglicherweise in eine Sackgasse führen kann." (Autorenreferat)"Hong Kong's economy has shown impressive improvements in productivity arising from technical progress. This is despite the fact that Hong Kong has spent very little on R&D and that its industry has been concentrated in labour-intensive sectors with limited technological opportunity. Businessmen and government have been critized for decades over their supposed short-sightedness and lack of support for technology. The characteristics of Hong Kong´s economy are short-termism, flexibility, tight control of unskilled labour, use of general assets only, little spendings on training, family business. What the record of productivity performance shows is that this combination of 'high IQ and low technology' can deliver improvements in efficiency which have not been achieved in more 'technophile' Asian economies. This suggests that the need for high technology industry in East Asia has been exaggerated and that policies and business strategies built on the perception of that need are misguided." (author's abstract

Trading in higher education with the EU will not be easy post-Brexit

Universities occupy a complicated position in the post-Brexit landscape. Howard Davies says that rolling over existing arrangements, as the government is confident of doing, will not be easy or automatic. The future is unclear and he advises caution

Mean link versus average plaquette tadpoles in lattice NRQCD

We compare mean-link and average plaquette tadpole renormalization schemes in the context of the quarkonium hyperfine splittings in lattice NRQCD. Simulations are done for the three quarkonium systems $c\bar c$, $b\bar c$, and $b\bar b$. The hyperfine splittings are computed both at leading and at next-to-leading order in the relativistic expansion. Results are obtained at a large number of lattice spacings. A number of features emerge, all of which favor tadpole renormalization using mean links. This includes much better scaling of the hyperfine splittings in the three quarkonium systems. We also find that relativistic corrections to the spin splittings are smaller with mean-link tadpoles, particularly for the $c\bar c$ and $b\bar c$ systems. We also see signs of a breakdown in the NRQCD expansion when the bare quark mass falls below about one in lattice units (with the bare quark masses turning out to be much larger with mean-link tadpoles).Comment: LATTICE(heavyqk) 3 pages, 2 figure

Numerical representations of fluid mixing

The work contained within this thesis is concerned with a theoretical investigatiop of both laminar and thermally driven types of cavity flow, together with an analysis of their associated mixing processes which find applications to Industrial mixing and also to the environment. The mixing efficiency has been viewed from two perspectives namely the tracking of a selection of fluid particles, and also the simulation of the dispersive mixing of a coloured fluid element as carried along by the flow. This thesis also incorporates features of both Newtonian and a wide range of non-Newtonian fluids

Perturbative coefficients for improved actions by Monte Carlo at large β\beta

Perturbative estimates of operator coefficients for improved lattice actions are becoming increasingly important for precision simulations of many hadronic observables. Following previous work by Dimm, Lepage, and Mackenzie, we consider the feasibility of computing operator coefficients from numerical simulations deep in the perturbative region of lattice theories. Here we introduce a background field technique that may allow for the computation of the coefficients of clover-field operators in a variety of theories. This method is tested by calculations of the renormalized quark mass in lattice NRQCD, and of the $O(\alpha_s)$ clover coefficient for Sheikholeslami-Wohlert fermions. First results for the coefficient of the magnetic moment operator in NRQCD are also presented.Comment: 3 Pages, LaTeX (espcrc2.sty, uses \psfig), 3 Postscript figures, Talk presented at LATTICE'97, Edinburg

Understanding the information needs of users of public information about higher education

Report to HEFCE by Oakleigh Consulting and Staffordshire University. "This study's aims were to carry out research into understanding the needs of intended users (primarily prospective students but with some focus on their advisors and employers) of public information on higher education (HE). The work focussed on England, but also took into account Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland where relevant." - Page 1

B_s Mesons using Staggered Light Quarks

Last year we proposed using staggered fermions as the light quarks, combined with nonrelativistic heavy quarks, in simulations of heavy-light mesons. A first round of tests which focuses on the B_s meson has been completed using quenched lattices, and results are presented here for the kinetic B_s mass, the B_s^* - B_s splitting, and f_{B_s}. The next project, already underway, is to compute the B and B_s decay constants and spectra on the n_f = 2+1 and 3 MILC lattices. We report on progress with one set of these configurations.Comment: Talk presented by M.W. at Lattice2002(heavyquark