Government policy and competitive advantages of foreign-financed firms in the Guangdong province of southern China

This paper investigates the impact of various Chinese government policies on the competitive advantages of foreign-financed manufacturing firms in Guangdong province of southern China. The objectives of various government sector-specific policies are to lubricate the factor markets in labour, capital and products and to facilitate the operation of foreign-financed firms. However, the actual effects are often quite different: the ambiguity, complexity and inflexibility of policies impose higher transaction costs on foreign-financed firms. These disadvantages offset some economic benefits gained under the central government's preferential foreign direct investment policy and thus damages the competitive advantages of foreign-financed firms based in Guangdong. Worse still, the lack of co-ordination among various bureaux further hampers arbitration between government bureaux and foreign investors

New insights into the internationalization of producer services:Organizational strategies and spatial economies for global headhunting firms

This paper uses the exemplar of global headhunting firms to provide new insights into the intricacies of internationalization and related ‘spatial economies’ of producer services in the world economy. In particular, we unpack the complex relationships between the organisational rationale for, the selected mode of, and future benefits gained by internationalization, as headhunting firms seek and create new geographical markets. We achieve this through an analysis of headhunting firm-specific case study data that details the evolving way such firms organize their differential strategic growth (organic, merger and acquisition, and alliances/network) and forms (wholly-owned, networked or hybrid). We also highlight how, as elite labour market intermediaries, headhunters are important, yet understudied, actors within the (re)production of a ‘softer’, ‘knowledgeable’ capitalism. Our argument, exemplified through detailed mapping of the changing geographies of headhunting firms between 1992 and 2005, demonstrates the need for complex and blurred typologies of internationalization and similarly complex internationalization theory

Development of novel drug formulation using microfluidic device

Poster introduction: Biosorbable poly(lactic acid) (PLA) microspheres have been used for controlled drug release, as ultrasound contrast agents, for cell cultivation in tissue engineering, fabrication of scaffolds, composite coatings, etc. Coherent PLA particles can be fabricated via single emulsion route. First, PLA is dissolved in a volatile organic solvent (DCM) and this solution is emulsified in an aqueous surfactant solution. In the next stage, the resultant droplets are solidified by evaporation of solvent. Porous PLA particles can be produced via W/O/W emulsion route, where first, an inner water phase is dispersed in a mixture of PLA and DCM in the presence of oil-soluble surfactant form a W/O emulsion. This emulsion is then dispersed drop-wise into an aqueous surfactant solution to form a W/O/W emulsion. W/O particles are formed by evaporation of DCM

A comment on the construction of the maximal globally hyperbolic Cauchy development

Under mild assumptions, we remove all traces of the axiom of choice from the construction of the maximal globally hyperbolic Cauchy development in general relativity. The construction relies on the notion of direct union manifolds, which we review. The construction given is very general: any physical theory with a suitable geometric representation (in particular all classical fields), and such that a strong notion of "local existence and uniqueness" of solutions for the corresponding initial value problem is available, is amenable to the same treatment.Comment: Version 2: 9 (+epsilon; depending on compiler) pages; updated references. Version 3: switched to revtex, 6 pages, version accepted for publicatio