Productivity spillovers from foreign affiliates and domestic firm internationalization: firm-level evidence for Belgium.

We examine to what extent local firms can reap productivity gains from knowledge spillovers due to the presence of manufacturing affiliates of multinational firms, taking into account that domestic firms' internationalization through import and export activities may also lead to productivity growth. We examine spillovers occurring within sectors as well as those potentially occurring across industries due to client or supply relations of local firms with foreign-owned affiliates in downstream and upstream sectors, respectively. Fixed affects panel analysis on a sample of 4594 local Belgian firms during 2000-2007 reveal significant positive effects of horizontal and backward spillovers on the productivity levels of local firms. Evidence of productivity benefits due to forward linkages from foreign-owned affiliates supplying local firms is only be found for local firms with no export or import activities. Both importing and exporting activities are associated with higher productivity. In general, backward spillovers are weaker for exporting firms, and forward spillovers do not benefit importing firms, suggesting that local spillovers from client/supply relations with foreign multinationals and internationalization can be seen as alternative ways in which internationalization of an economy can enhance productivity performance.

PVC pipes in gas distribution: still going strong!

In the Netherlands (impact-modified) PVC is the preferred material for low-pressure (30 and 100 mbar) gas distribution systems. More than 50% of the total length (about 122,000 km) of this system is rigid PVC or impact-modified PVC. The installation of rigid PVC (uPVC) pipelines started about 50 years ago. Presently, about 22,500 km of rigid PVC is still in operation. In this paper the good experiences with rigid PVC gas distribution systems in the Netherlands will be illustrated by results of regular leak surveys and test results on pipe samples taken from the gas grid. It will be shown that the leakage rate of uPVC pipe systems is very low and about equal to that of PE and steel pipe systems. Impact tests show no significant decrease in ductility with respect to time of use. Furthermore, the ductility of the PVC pipeline materials which have been in use for many years is shown to be mainly dependent on the (initial) quality (degree of gelation). The good performance of PVC gas pipeline systems is also proven by modelling studies. It will be shown that the long-term failure behaviour of uPVC is determined by the ability to yield. Failure will occur if a certain critical value of the plastic strain is surpassed. Using this model the long-term behaviour under internal pressure of rigid PVC pipes can be predicted quantitatively

International and domestic technology transfers and productivity growth: Firm level evidence.

We examine the drivers of international and domestic technology transfer strategies of firms and the impact of these transfers on firms’ productivity performance in a sample of 440 Flemish innovating firms during 2003-2006. Technology transfers may occur through R&D contracting, purchase of licenses and know how, purchase of specialized machinery, hiring of specialized personnel, and various informal channels. Analysis of the drivers of technology sourcing strategies shows that combined technology sourcing strategies are more likely to be adopted by firms that 1) face resource limitations in their innovative effort 2) have a basic research orientation and conduct more R&D 3) successfully use various technology protection strategies to appropriate the benefits of innovation efforts 4) are engaged in international R&D collaboration. Estimates of a dynamic productivity model show that firms engaging in international knowledge sourcing strategies record substantially and significantly higher productivity growth. The largest impact is found for firms combining foreign transfer strategies with local technology acquisition, suggesting that a diverse external technology strategy combining local technologies as well as know how from abroad is most likely to improve firm performance.Technology transfer; Productivity; Multinational Firms;

A Two-level Stochastic Model to Estimate Vessel Throughput Time

A good estimate of the vessel sojourn time is essential for better planning and scheduling Of container terminal resources,such as berth scheduling,quay crane(qc)assignment And scheduling,and fleet size planning. However,estimating the expected vessel so journ Time is a complex exercise because the time is dependent on several terminal operating Parameters such as the size of the vessel,the number of containers to be loaded and Unloaded,and the through put of the qcs. The through put of the qcs in turn depends On the type and number of transport vehicles,number of stack blocks,the topology of The vehicle travel path,the layout of the terminal,and several event uncertainties. To Address the modelling complexity, we propose a two-level stochastic model to estimate The expected vessel so journ time. The higher level model consists of a continuous-time Markovchain(ctmc)that captures the effect of qc assignment and scheduling on vessel Sojourn time. The lower level model is a multi class closed queuing network(cqn)that Models the dynamic interactions among the terminal resources and provides an estimate Of the transition rate input parameters to the higher level ctmc model. We estimate the Expected vessel sojourn times for several container load and unload profiles and discuss The effect of terminal layout parameters on vessel so journ times

STATIC AND DYNAMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF COMPOSITE ONE·PIECE HOCKEY STICKS

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the differE:nces in slatic and dynamic characteristics of one-piece composite hockey sticks of different brands and models. Earlier studies had only evaluated two-pieces sticks of different materials. Even if some static results present many similarities with those disclosed by earlier researchers, torsion tests have demonstrated one-piece composite sticks to be much more torsion resistant than two-pieces and wooden sticks. Furthermore, dynamic evaluations have disclosed very interesting puck-blade interactions, including multiple puck-blade impacts in actual slap shot situations

Analysis of Class-based Storage Strategies for the Mobile Shelf-based Order Pick System

Mobile Shelf-based Order Pick (MSOP) systems are gaining significant in- terest for e-commerce fulfillment due to their rapid deployment capability and dynamic organization of storage pods based on item demand profiles. In this research, we model the MSOP system with class-based storage strategies and alternate pod storage policies using multi-class closed queuing networks. We observe that though closest-open location pod storage policy do not allow to efficiently use the storage spaces in comparison to random location pod storage policy in an aisle, it increases the system throughput for all item classes