Service Competitiveness – An Anglo-US Study

This article reports on the latest in a series of international comparisons of management practices and performance outcomes of industries in various countries. Here, it is the service industries in the UK and the US which come under the microscope. Among the companies surveyed, there were more world-class performers in the US than the UK, but also more low performers. The concluding part of the article is diagnostic – the authors also suggest measures which could improve performance.     

UNIT MANAGEMENT BUYOUTS, STOCKHOLDER WEALTH, AND SELLING FIRMS' CHARACTERISTICS

Previous research on unit management buyouts, UMBs, has shown that selling firms benefit from the selloff transaction. The current research demonstrates that when the selling firm has either poor liquidity or poor earnings, selling firm shareholders do not benefit as much. We hypothesize that the unit managers have knowledge about the selling firm's difficulties so they do not pay as large a premium for the assets. Since the unit managers technically are employed by the selling firm shareholders, their bargaining to achieve a better price is an agency cost. Finally, selloff frequency does not affect seller abnormal returns.     

Method of calculating varying discharges in branch canals with bilateral division of the flow

Translated from Gidrotekhnicheskoe Stroitel'stvo, No. 5, pp. 28–29, May, 1995.     

Calculating nitrogen-removal efficiency with a one-dimensional nitrogen budget model of a reed-wetland soil system.

A simple one-dimensional model that can evaluate the transport and fate of nitrogen in wetland soil-vegetation systems was developed to calculate the nitrogen-removal efficiencies of reed-bed wetlands. A common wetland plant, Phragmites australis, was the focus of this study. Seasonal variations of temperature, seasonal changes of nitrogen uptake by vegetation, the vertical distribution of root biomasses and oxygen transport into the soil by vegetation were considered in the model. Field observations were conducted to determine some model parameters and to validate the model, although most of the parameters were adopted from data published in Europe and North America. Field observations were carried out at the Minuma-Tanbo wetland (35 degrees 52' N, 139 degrees 43' E) in Japan. The calculated concentrations of NH4-N in the soils were about 10 times larger than those of the observational results. On the other hand, calculated NO3-N concentrations were about half of the observational data. However, the calculated nitrogen-removal efficiencies indicated the same trends as previous studies. It was found that the hydraulic loading rate played a key role in relation to nitrogen removal and nitrogen transformation in reed wetland systems.     

Analytical approaches to characterising fish tainting potential of oil sands process waters.

A three-stage study has been carried out with rainbow trout (Oncorhyncus mykiss) to develop analytical approaches which can provide a fingerprint for tainting by oil sands chemicals from process-affected waters and natural sources. The objective was to find a simpler alternative to sensory evaluation. In the first stage, a set of seven test compounds was added to fish tissue which was analysed by headspace and solvent (dichloromethane, DCM) extraction followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). In the second stage, fingerlings (5-20 g) were exposed for 96 hours to the test compound mixture at 1.0 and 0.5 times the estimated tainting threshold concentrations. In the final stage, fingerlings were exposed for 96 hours to an oil sands process water at 5, 10, 20 and 50% concentrations in clean water. None of the test compounds was identified in DCM extracts of tissue from exposed fish. Two long-chain aldehydes, hexadecanal and 9-octadecenal, were tentatively identified in these extracts by matching of mass spectra with library spectra.     

A new design of flocculation tank: the Turbomix applied to weighted flocculation.

As far as flocculation is concerned, the agglomeration of suspended particles into flocs is highly linked to the hydraulic behaviour of the agitation. The Turbomix is a special design of mixing tank; its design was developed to better control the flow during the flocculation stage. It enables a significant decrease in footprint of the process. The combination of the Turbomix and ballasted flocculation has been studied during pilot trials in terms of treatment efficiency. Its controlled hydraulic behaviour explains the efficiency of the process as proved by CFD investigation.     

Long-time risk of groundwater/drinking water pollution with sulphuric compounds beneath burned peatlands in Indonesia.

Smoke-haze episodes caused by vegetation and peat fires affect parts of Indonesia every year with significant impacts on human health and climate. The forest fires 1997/1998 were by far the largest in Indonesian history, burning between 5 and 8 million hectares before they were stopped by the monsoon rains in December 1997. Fires sprang up again in 1998 on Kalimantan when monsoon rain paused. Peat forests and peatlands are in particular severely affected. In the 1997/1998 haze event, 2.1-2.5 million hectare of peat swamp forest burnt in Indonesia. The remaining ash contains high concentrations of sulphur and sulphuric compounds which eventually leach into the groundwater, thus polluting groundwater and drinking water. The thicker the peat layer is and the higher the number of fires in the respective area the more sulphuric compounds will leach into the groundwater. Risk areas for the sulphur loads of the ash are identified.     

Estrogenic personal care products in a greywater reuse system.

The occurrence and fate of parabens in a greywater system was assessed. The potential for removal of residual paraben concentrations in effluent greywater with chlorine dioxide was also investigated. The influent to the greywater plant was characterised by considerable variation, with concentrations from below the detection limit to 40 microg/L and the five commonly used parabens in consumer products were frequently detected. After the biological treatment only two paraben were detected with concentration from 65-120 ng/L. Chlorine dioxide treatment of the biologically treated effluent with dosages down to 0.75 mg/L resulted in more than 97% reduction of all parabens. Formation of the by-product chloroform was insignificant from the chlorine dioxide treatment.     

Fiscal sustainability and solvency: theory and recent experience in Indonesia

A major challenge for Indonesian economic policy makers is to avoid the recurrence of conditions that could trigger a new economic crisis. One of the important dimensions of this challenge will be to conduct fiscal policy in a way that is sustainable, given the level of interest rates and the rate of growth of the economy. This paper synthesises various approaches to the measurement of fiscal sustainability that have appeared in the economic literature, relates these measures to the fundamental concept of fiscal solvency, and applies the framework to Indonesia over the period 1991–2003. The domestic and foreign debt positions of the central government are treated separately, to capture the influence of exchange rate changes on the relative costs of domestic and foreign borrowing. The empirical analysis indicates that Indonesia has met the fiscal sustainability criterion in recent years, except when the rupiah has depreciated heavily.