A Critical Analysis of Springboard Theory via an International Comparative Analysis of the Strategic Asset Seeking Foreign Direct Investments of Emerging and Developed Market MNEs

The aim of this thesis was to revisit the current International Business theories of emerging market MNEs (EMNEs), with the primary focus on 'Springboard Theory' (Luo & Tung, 2018) which contrasts EMNEs with developed market MNEs (DMNEs). Few empirical studies have systematically compared EMNEs with DMNEs, although the FDI strategies of EMNEs in asset-seeking, has been examined in the literature. In the present study, advanced empirical methodologies using datasets from Zephyr/BVD Orbis and fDi Markets were employed to undertake an international comparative analysis based on large samples. The focus of the analysis concerned the shifts in FDI establishment modes: the decline in strategic asset seeking cross-border mergers and acquisitions (SAS CBMAs), and the rise in greenfield FDI related to R&D offshoring by EMNEs, as well as the outcomes of such FDI strategies. The results show that Springboard Theory omits a now crucial aspect of EMNE catch-up strategy, namely the use of greenfield FDI to establish foreign R&D hubs in global innovation centres. Springboard Theory assumes that acquired strategic assets residing in target firms are largely non-location bounded, and that these strategic assets are portable, however, the findings also indicate that location boundedness (i.e., ‘stickiness’) of strategic assets may be more common than is generally recognised. As such, the SAS CBMAs process is arguably more complex, and the evidence suggests that Springboard EMNE acquirers, expend considerable efforts to grow such location-bound foreign target intangible assets in situ. Contrary to the idea of SAS involving a ‘looting’ process, the findings suggest that EMNEs bring considerable resources and market opportunities to target firms, and when conditions for Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection are strong, the EMNEs commitment to the target’s intangible asset performance is stronger. This supports ‘institutional arbitrage’ as an important strategy for EMNEs hoping to catch-up. Institutions are, however, location bounded and cannot be transferred to the EMNEs home market, which is an inconsistency in Springboard Theory, which assumes EMNE seek better institutions (which may facilitate innovation, for example) when, in fact, they also transfer strategic assets home. The capability to generate strategic assets in the longer term, however, is tied to these location bounded institutions, leading to the need for significant investments in the target firm. The results also show that EMNE’ parent firms engaging in greenfield SAS related FDI, actually outperform those doing SAS CMBAs, which casts further doubt on another underlying premise of Springboard Theory, that CBMAs are used as the main means of accelerated catch-up for EMNEs. The findings clearly evidence that greenfield SAS related FDI projects are more common in EMNEs than DMNEs, pointing towards alternative, possibly more viable, routes for EMNE catch-up in the current geopolitical climate dominated by strong techno-nationalist policies and shaped by economic confrontation between the US, Europe and China

Solar Thermal Water Heater Requirements For Typical Malaysian House

As one of renewable resources of energy, solar energy has great potential to be developed in Malaysia because the country receives 4000- 5000 W/m2 daily radiation and monthly average daily sunshine duration ranging from 4 hours to 8 hours. The utilization of solar energy would reduce dependency on the fossil fuel which its price keeps fluctuating and also creates environmental pollution from emission of greenhouse gas (GHG) such as carbon monoxide, CO and nitrogen oxide, NOx. Solar photovoltaic (PV) and Solar Water Heater (SWH) are examples of solar energy applications that could be used in Malaysia.Solar Water Heater uses solar energy to produce hot water needed in households. The objectives of this study are to simulate the transient heating characteristics of solar thermal collector, to determine optimum design parameters of the solar thermal collector system based on year performance under meteorological data of Penang, Malaysia, to develop a TRNSYS simulation model of the flat plate collector system and to investigate the effects of collector area and mass flow rate on outlet temperature and heat transfer rate of solar collector. Simulation using TRNSYS software had been done to investigate the performance of the solar water heater by using typical meteorological year (TMY) data for Penang, Malaysia. Results obtained from simulations shows that 8m2 solar thermal collector with 70kglhr mass flow rate is the most optimum parameters for the system. This is considering the cost for the solar thermal water heater system. Larger solar collector area will needs more cost for the system. The highest collector outlet temperature was achieved in January, November and December which is 80°C. The heat transfer rate in solar collector also highest in these months ranging from 22500W to 24000W. Increasing in mass flow rate resulting in decreases of collector outlet temperature. This is due to higher volume of water need to be heated with the same amount of solar energy absorbed by .the solar collector. For future research, it is recommended that the study also look into the effect of solar collector tilted angle on the outlet temperature and heat transfer rate, and CFD analysis of the solar collector.Economic analysis of the solar water heater also need to be studied in detail

The Interaction between Histone Lysine Methyltransferase GLP and EZH2

Recent studies have implicated that H3K9 lysine methyltransferases (KMTs) and polycomb repressive complex2 (PRC2) act in a cross-talk. However, a connection between GLP, one of the well-known H3K9 KMTs and the EZH2, one of the core members of PRC2, has not been established. Here we not only demonstrated that there was interaction between the GLP and the EZH2 proteins in vivo, but also provided evidence that the activity of EZH2 was effected by down-regulation of GLP. In light of these observations, western blotting, co-immunoprecipitation and qRT-PCR were performed to explore in GLP siRNA KGN cells. The specific interaction between GLP and EZH2 was demonstrated with co-immunoprecipitation. Our results also indicate that the decreased level of GLP participate in the modulation of EZH2 function in vivo.Taken together, our findings identified that an unanticipated interplay between the two histone lysine methyltransferases, which is implicated in regulating of a subset of developmental genes

New Li+ ion conducting solid electrolytes based on the LISICON structure.

PhD ThesisThree LISICON-based systems, Li3PO4-Li4GeO4, Li2MoO4-Li4GeO4 and Li2WO4-Li4GeO4, have been systematically investigated. Details of the phase behaviour, crystal structure and defect structure have been studied by powder X-ray and neutron diffraction and solid-state NMR, reverse Monte Carlo (RMC) modelling of neutron total scattering data and molecular dynamics simulations. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements have been used to characterise the electrical properties. In the Li3PO4-Li4GeO4 system, a solid solution Li3+xGexPl-xO4, isostructural with the end member γ-Li3PO4 is found in the compositional range 0.00 ≤ x ≤ 0.90. Two main types of defect are identified and clustering of these defects is proposed. Conductivity measurements show the x = 0.75 composition exhibits the best total conductivity (σ250°C = ~ 1.8 x 10-2 S cm-1) with a low activation energy of 0.42 eV. In the Li4-2xGe1-xMoxO4 system, compositions in the range 0.1 ≤ x ≤ 0.5, exhibit LISICON-type structures. Both the β and γ phase LISICON type polymorphs are observed in this system, the relative amounts of which vary with temperature. In this system, the highest conductivity (σ250°C = ~ 5.0 x 10-3 S cm-1) is obtained in the x = 0.2 composition with an activation energy of 0.67 eV. In the Li2WO4-Li4GeO4 system, the solid solution only extends between 0.10 ≤ x ≤ 0.25. Low activation energy and high electric conductivity are observed throughout this system. The highest elevated temperature conductivity values are seen in the x = 0.15 composition (σ250°C = ~ 3.12 x 10-2 S cm-1). Molecular dynamics simulations suggest an order of magnitude higher conductivity values could be achieved through reduction of grain boundary resistances

Interpretable-by-Design Text Classification with Iteratively Generated Concept Bottleneck

Deep neural networks excel in text classification tasks, yet their application in high-stakes domains is hindered by their lack of interpretability. To address this, we propose Text Bottleneck Models (TBMs), an intrinsically interpretable text classification framework that offers both global and local explanations. Rather than directly predicting the output label, TBMs predict categorical values for a sparse set of salient concepts and use a linear layer over those concept values to produce the final prediction. These concepts can be automatically discovered and measured by a Large Language Model (LLM), without the need for human curation. On 12 diverse datasets, using GPT-4 for both concept generation and measurement, we show that TBMs can rival the performance of established black-box baselines such as GPT-4 fewshot and finetuned DeBERTa, while falling short against finetuned GPT-3.5. Overall, our findings suggest that TBMs are a promising new framework that enhances interpretability, with minimal performance tradeoffs, particularly for general-domain text

Gender semiology in folklore traditions: Russia, China and Adygea

The article presents an analytical analysis of the linguosemiotic features of the female portrait in the folklore fund of the linguocultures of Russia, the North Caucasus and China in the aspect of the intergender dichotomy "male-female" as the implementation of the policy of "soft power" of the ethnos to preserve its vitality. Hypothesis: The dichotomy of masculinity and femininity in traditional culture is presented as the result of the interaction of ethno-cultural strategies of the ancestral cult, in which the role of a woman is defined as the keeper of the knowledge of the people with the competencies of a housewife who needs help and care from a man. The relevance of the study is due to the growing research interest in the vitality of traditional cultures, which continue to influence the lives of modern women. Chinese, Adyghe and Russian folklore for the first time becomes the object of comparative analysis of the linguosemiotic characteristics of the image of femininity in the form of "feminine" folkloratives identified for the first time. The methodology uses a linguosemiotic approach and the theory of complex metagraphs in modeling the speech-behavioral gender matrix of women through the prism of folklore. The results show that folklore is a reproducible mechanism of "soft power" of gender regulation in the ethno-cultural practice of folk art

A new species of the Pholcus phungiformes species group (Araneae, Pholcidae) from Liaoning, China, with identification keys to four closely related species

A new species of pholcid spiders, Pholcus fengmeii Zhang, He & Yao, sp. nov. (♂♀), is described from Liaoning Province, China. The new species belongs to the speciose phungiformes species group. Taxonomic keys to four closely related species are provided