1,299 research outputs found
Direct investment and Belgiumâs attractiveness
Belgium, which has long had direct investment links with other countries, is participating fully in the increasingly global economy. At the end of 2005, almost half of the equity capital invested in Belgian companies as a whole was owned directly or indirectly by foreign shareholders. The purpose of the article is to analyse Belgiumâs foreign direct investment (FDI) and the incoming investment from abroad, and to view it in perspective, both over time and in relation to other developed countries, especially neighbouring countries. In addition, it aims to identify the main factors determining recent developments and Belgiumâs relative position in 2005, the latest year for which data on FDI stocks are available. Although influenced by the same factors as those which determine the development of FDI on a global scale, direct investment links in Belgium differ from those in other developed economies in their magnitude. In fact, the ratio between FDI flows or stocks and GDP is significantly higher in Belgium than in the majority of other developed countries, for both incoming and outgoing FDI. The scale of Belgiumâs direct investment links with foreign countries reflects both its function as a financial centre, particularly via the activities of the coordination centres, and its status as a small, open economy in a European Union where integration began earlier â and has progressed farther â than in other free trade areas. In the past ten years, Belgiumâs FDI has expanded constantly and at a faster pace than domestic economic activity. While outgoing FDI has, like that of other developed countries, focused more on developing countries, driven by the search for new markets and lower costs, particularly for labourintensive activities, it is nevertheless still concentrated mainly on the developed countries, including the new EU members. The main protagonists in these capital transfers, effected partly via mergers and acquisitions, are Belgian firms active in the service sector. Over the same period, incoming FDI seems to have grown a little more slowly. In terms of stock, it actually stagnated in the early years of this century. However, the recent dynamism of FDI in Belgium has been at least as favourable as in the other European countries taken as a whole, and especially the neighbouring countries. Looking at greenfield investments, which actually lead to the creation or expansion of activities, the number of projects launched in Belgium has been rising, and at a similar rate to those developed in the EU as a whole. Belgiumâs main strengths in terms of activity are chemicals â including life sciences â and transport and communications, particularly logistics and distribution. In general, the main motive for FDI projects in Belgium appears to be to serve the European market, or at least its most highly developed core, which includes Belgium. When a location is being selected for a project, Belgium is therefore competing with other EU countries and, more particularly, with neighbouring countries whose economic characteristics are comparable, notably in regard to their standard of living. Compared to other EU countries, especially the new members whose economies are less advanced, Belgium has a handicap in terms of hourly labour costs but, at the same time, it offers high productivity and various advantages as regards environmental and operational criteria, especially the quality of its infrastructures.foreign direct investment, attractiveness
Dynamics of the topological structures in inhomogeneous media
We present a general review of the dynamics of topological solitons in 1 and
2 dimensions and then discuss some recent work on the scattering of various
solitonic objects (such as kinks and breathers etc) on potential obstructions.Comment: based on the talk given by W.J. Zakrzewski at QTS5. To appear in the
Proceedings in a special issue of Journal of Physics
Dynamics of the topological structures in inhomogeneous media
We present a general review of the dynamics of topological solitons in 1 and
2 dimensions and then discuss some recent work on the scattering of various
solitonic objects (such as kinks and breathers etc) on potential obstructions.Comment: based on the talk given by W.J. Zakrzewski at QTS5. To appear in the
Proceedings in a special issue of Journal of Physics
Dynamics of the topological structures in inhomogeneous media
We present a general review of the dynamics of topological solitons in 1 and
2 dimensions and then discuss some recent work on the scattering of various
solitonic objects (such as kinks and breathers etc) on potential obstructions.Comment: based on the talk given by W.J. Zakrzewski at QTS5. To appear in the
Proceedings in a special issue of Journal of Physics
Formation of singularities for equivariant 2+1 dimensional wave maps into the two-sphere
In this paper we report on numerical studies of the Cauchy problem for
equivariant wave maps from 2+1 dimensional Minkowski spacetime into the
two-sphere. Our results provide strong evidence for the conjecture that large
energy initial data develop singularities in finite time and that singularity
formation has the universal form of adiabatic shrinking of the degree-one
harmonic map from into .Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, final version to be published in Nonlinearit
Chern-Simons Solitons, Toda Theories and the Chiral Model
The two-dimensional self-dual Chern--Simons equations are equivalent to the
conditions for static, zero-energy solutions of the -dimensional gauged
nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation with Chern--Simons matter-gauge dynamics. In
this paper we classify all finite charge solutions by first
transforming the self-dual Chern--Simons equations into the two-dimensional
chiral model (or harmonic map) equations, and then using the Uhlenbeck--Wood
classification of harmonic maps into the unitary groups. This construction also
leads to a new relationship between the Toda and chiral model
solutions
Baby Skyrme models for a class of potentials
We consider a class of (2+1) dimensional baby Skyrme models with potentials
that have more than one vacum. These potentials are generalisation of old and
new baby Skyrme models;they involve more complicated dependence on phi_3.We
find that when the potential is invariant under phi_3 -> -phi_3 the
configuration corresponding to the baby skyrmions lying "on top of each other"
are the minima of the energy. However when the potential breaks this symmetry
the lowest field configurations correspond to separated baby skyrmions. We
compute the energy distributions for skyrmions of degrees between one and eight
and discuss their geometrical shapes and binding energies. We also compare the
2-skyrmion states for these potentials. Most of our work has been performed
numerically with the model being formulated in terms of three real scalar
fields (satisfying one constraint).Comment: LaTeX, 14 pages, 10 figure
Gravitating monopoles in SU(3) gauge theory
We consider the Einstein-Yang-Mills-Higgs equations for an SU(3) gauge group
in a spherically symmetric ansatz. Several properties of the gravitating
monopole solutions are obtained an compared with their SU(2) counterpart.Comment: 7 pages, Latex, 3 figure
The Casimir energy of skyrmions in the 2+1-dimensional O(3)-model
One-loop quantum corrections to the classical vortices in 2+1 dimensional
O(3)-models are evaluated. Skyrme and Zeeman potential terms are used to
stabilize the size of topological solitons. Contributions from zero modes,
bound-states and scattering phase-shifts are calculated for vortices with
winding index n=1 and n=2. For both cases the S-matrix shows a pronounced
series of resonances for magnon-vortex scattering in analogy to the
well-established baryon resonances in hadron physics, while vortices with n>2
are already classically unstable against decay. The quantum corrections
destabilize the classically bound n=2 configuration. Approximate independence
of the results with respect to changes in the renormalization scale is
demonstrated.Comment: 24 pages LaTeX, 14 figure
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