Success criteria for international joint ventures: the experience of Malaysian contractors in the Middle East

The overall objective of this paper is to produce success criteria considered critical in international joint ventures (IJV), specifically between Malaysian and foreign contractors outside Malaysia. The recognition of such criteria will contribute to the identification of non-viable projects and will enable improvements to be made to the IJV and other similar economies. Data specific to the present study was collected through face-to-face interviews, which were carried out with the General Manager of the respective companies to provide detailed information on their company structure, management and experience of any joint venture projects undertaken outside Malaysia. The main findings from the interviews are that the critical factors in IJV partner selection criteria were related to the reputation, inter-partner trust, experience, personal knowledge of the partner organizations, commitment and human resources management. The employment of Malaysian sub-contractors also lessened the complexity of management. This is largely due to the familiarity of working with fellow Malaysians in the Middle East

Non-Extremal Rotating Black Holes in Five-Dimensional Gauged Supergravity

Supersymmetric black holes in five-dimensional gauged supergravity must necessarily be rotating, and so in order to study the passage to black holes away from supersymmetry, it is of great interest to obtain non-extremal black holes that again have non-zero rotation. In this paper we find a simple framework for describing non-extremal rotating black holes in five-dimensional gauged supergravities. Using this framework, we are able to construct a new solution, describing the general single-charge solution of N=2 gauged supergravity, with arbitrary values for the two rotation parameters. Previously-obtained solutions with two or three equal charges also assume a much simpler form in the new framework, as also does the general solution with three unequal charges in ungauged N=2 supergravity. We discuss the thermodynamics and BPS limit of the new single-charge solutions, and we discuss the separability of the Hamilton-Jacobi and Klein-Gordan equations in these backgrounds.Comment: Latex, 12 pages. Mis-statement about separability of Hamilton-Jacobi and Klein-Gordon equations correcte

The Home Market Effect and Bilateral Trade Patterns

We test for home-market effects using a difference-in-difference gravity specification. The home-market effect is the tendency for large countries to be net exporters of goods with high transport costs and strong scale economies. It is predicted by models of trade based on increasing returns to scale but not by models of trade based on comparative advantage. In our estimation approach, we select pairs of exporting countries that belong to a common preferential trade area and examine their exports of goods with high transport costs and strong scale economies relative to their exports of goods with low transport costs and weak scale economies. We find that home-market effects exist and that the nature of these effects depends on industry transport costs. For industries with very high transport costs, it is national market size that determines national exports. For industries with moderately high transport costs, it is neighborhood market size that matters. In this case, national market size plus market size in nearby countries determine national exports.

The Home Market Effect and Bilateral Trade Patterns

We test for home-market effects using a difference-in-difference gravity specification. The home-market effect is the tendency for large countries to be net exporters of goods with high transport costs and strong scale economies. It is predicted by models of trade based on increasing returns to scale but not by models of trade based on comparative advantage. In our estimation approach, we select pairs of exporting countries that belong to a common preferential trade area and examine their exports of goods with high transport costs and strong scale economies relative to their exports of goods with low transport costs and weak scale economies. We find that home-market effects exist and that the nature of these effects depends on industry transport costs. For industries with very high transport costs, it is national market size that determines national exports. For industries with moderately high transport costs, it is neighborhood market size that matters. In this case, national market size plus market size in nearby countries determine national exports.

The vertical metal insulator semiconductor tunnel transistor: A proposed Fowler-Nordheim tunneling device

We propose a new field-effect transistor, the vertical metal insulator semiconductor tunnel transistor (VMISTT) which operates using gate modulation of the Fowler-Nordheim tunneling current through a metal insulator semiconductor (M-I-S) diode. The VMISTT has significant advantages over the metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor in device scaling. In order to allow room-temperature operation of the VMISTT, the tunnel oxide has to be optimized for the metal-to-insulator barrier height and the current-voltage characteristics. We have grown TiO2 layers as the tunnel insulator by oxidizing 7 and 10 nm thick Ti metal films vacuum-evaporated on silicon substrates, and characterized the films by current-voltage and capacitance-voltage techniques. The quality of the oxide films showed variations, depending on the oxidation temperatures in the range of 450-550 degrees C. Fowler-Nordheim tunneling was observed at low temperatures at bias voltage of 2 V and above and a barrier height of approximately 0.4 eV was calculated. Leakage currents present were due Schottky-barrier emission at room-temperature, and hopping at liquid nitrogen temperature

Trade Intensity and Business Cycle Synchronization: Are Developing Countries any Different?

Some key criteria in the optimal currency area literature are that countries should join a currency union if they have closer international trade links and more symmetric business cycles. However, both criteria are endogenous. Frankel and Rose (1998) find that trade intensity increases cycle correlation among industrial countries. We study whether the same result holds true for the case of developing countries, as their different patterns of international trade and specialization may lead to cyclical asymmetries among them and between industrial and developing countries. We gather annual information for 147 countries for 1960-99 (33,676 country pairs) and find: (i) countries with higher bilateral trade exhibit higher business cycle synchronization, with an increase of one standard deviation in bilateral trade intensity raising the output correlation from 0. 05 to 0. 09 for all country pairs; (ii) countries with more asymmetric structures of production exhibit a smaller business cycle correlation; (iii) the impact of trade integration on business cycles is higher for industrial countries than both developing and industrial-developing country pairs; (iv) a one standard deviation increase in bilateral trade intensity leads to surges in output correlation from 0. 25 to 0. 39 among industrial countries, from 0. 08 to 0. 10 for our sample of industrial-developing country pairs, and from 0. 03 to 0. 06 among developing countries; (v) the impact of trade intensity on cycle correlation is smaller the greater the production structure asymmetries between the countries.

su(2) and su(1,1) displaced number states and their nonclassical properties

We study su(2) and su(1,1) displaced number states. Those states are eigenstates of density-dependent interaction systems of quantized radiation field with classical current. Those states are intermediate states interpolating between number and displaced number states. Their photon number distribution, statistical and squeezing properties are studied in detail. It is show that these states exhibit strong nonclassical properties.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure