Firm Location Decisions and Information Needs

A significant portion of Georgia's economic development policy is targeted towards attracting businesses to locate in Georgia. In this process, businesses weigh their alternatives and select a location based on certain criteria. In order for businesses to accurately assess location alternatives, they must have appropriate information to assist in their decision process. In Georgia, a portion of this information comes from the Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism, and/or another economic development entity within the state. There is a gap in our knowledge, however, about how business prospects considering a location in Georgia perceive both the information that Georgia provides and the incentives that are offered in actual economic development deals. Business prospects include not only actual firms, but also the group of professional site location consultants around the country. In order to place Georgia in its most competitive position as well as to provide the most useful information to business prospects, it is important to understand the viewpoint of business prospects and the prospecting community in their business location decision process. This report documents the information needs of businesses seeking to relocate and perceptions of the usefulness of information provided in that process. Report #9

Activity of glucose oxidase functionalized onto magnetic nanoparticles

BACKGROUND: Magnetic nanoparticles have been significantly used for coupling with biomolecules, due to their unique properties. METHODS: Magnetic nanoparticles were synthesized by thermal co-precipitation of ferric and ferrous chloride using two different base solutions. Glucose oxidase was bound to the particles by direct attachment via carbodiimide activation or by thiophene acetylation of magnetic nanoparticles. Transmission electron microscopy was used to characterize the size and structure of the particles while the binding of glucose oxidase to the particles was confirmed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. RESULTS: The direct binding of glucose oxidase via carbodiimide activity was found to be more effective, resulting in bound enzyme efficiencies between 94–100% while thiophene acetylation was 66–72% efficient. Kinetic and stability studies showed that the enzyme activity was more preserved upon binding onto the nanoparticles when subjected to thermal and various pH conditions. The overall activity of glucose oxidase was improved when bound to magnetic nanoparticles CONCLUSION: Binding of enzyme onto magnetic nanoparticles via carbodiimide activation is a very efficient method for developing bioconjugates for biological application

Flexible resources allocation techniques: characteristics and modelling

At the interface between engineering, economics, social sciences and humanities, industrial engineering aims to provide answers to various sectors of business problems. One of these problems is the adjustment between the workload needed by the work to be realised and the availability of the company resources. The objective of this work is to help to find a methodology for the allocation of flexible human resources in industrial activities planning and scheduling. This model takes into account two levers of flexibility, one related to the working time modulation, and the other to the varieties of tasks that can be performed by a given resource (multi–skilled actor). On the one hand, multi–skilled actors will help to guide the various choices of the allocation to appreciate the impact of these choices on the tasks durations. On the other hand, the working time modulation that allows actors to have a work planning varying according to the workload which the company has to face

A greedy heuristic approach for the project scheduling with labour allocation problem

Responding to the growing need of generating a robust project scheduling, in this article we present a greedy algorithm to generate the project baseline schedule. The robustness achieved by integrating two dimensions of the human resources flexibilities. The first is the operators’ polyvalence, i.e. each operator has one or more secondary skill(s) beside his principal one, his mastering level being characterized by a factor we call “efficiency”. The second refers to the working time modulation, i.e. the workers have a flexible time-table that may vary on a daily or weekly basis respecting annualized working strategy. Moreover, the activity processing time is a non-increasing function of the number of workforce allocated to create it, also of their heterogynous working efficiencies. This modelling approach has led to a nonlinear optimization model with mixed variables. We present: the problem under study, the greedy algorithm used to solve it, and then results in comparison with those of the genetic algorithms

Sector organization, governance, and the inefficiency of African water utilities

The authors analyze the determinants of the efficiency levels reached by twenty one African water utilities. They assess efficiency through the estimation of a production frontier for the sector in Africa. The efficiency estimates confirm much of the common perceptions from partial productivity indicators. They point to a great heterogeneity in the African water utilities'performances, the predominance of constant returns to scale, and the great rate of technological progress. And the authors show that the institutional capacity of the country, as well as its governance quality, are significant driving factors in the performance of each firm.Water and Industry,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water Conservation,Decentralization,Health Economics&Finance,Town Water Supply and Sanitation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Water and Industry,Health Economics&Finance

FOREIGN AID, INEQUALITY, AND POVERTY: IS THE EFFECT IN SUB- SAHARAN AFRICA DIFFERENT?

AN ABSTRACT OF THE RESEARCH PAPER OF Kouassi Aziafo Magnon, for the Masters of Science degree in Economics, presented on February 20, 2012 at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: FOREIGN AID, INEQUALITY, AND POVERTY: IS THE EFFECT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA DIFFERENT? MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Kevin Sylwester The purpose of this paper is to examine if the impact of foreign aid on inequality and poverty differs in sub-Saharan Africa compared to other regions. Using cross sectional and panel data analysis, we find that there is no strong evidence that foreign aid differently affects income disparity and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. These findings seem to coincide with the main conclusions of the literature on foreign aid’s effectiveness

Lutte contre la maladie du jaunissement mortel au Ghana : research of resistant varieties among thirty coconut varieties (Cocos nucisfera L.)

Les maladies du jaunissement mortel qui dévastent les cocoteraies sont connues en Amérique Latine et en Afrique. Au Ghana, la maladie est apparue en 1932 dans la zone du Cap Saint Paul. Elle s'est étendue à la Western région qui représente près de 90% de la cocoteraie ghanéenne. La recherche épidémiologique n'a pas encore permis de développer de méthode de lutte chimique, biologique ou intégrée. Afin de rechercher des sources de résistance variétale, trente 30 cultivars issus de la collection internationale de Côte d'Ivoire ont été plantés entre 1981 et 1983 au Ghana. Tous ces cultivars se sont révélés sensibles à l'exception du Nain Vert Sri Lanka et du Grand Vanuatu. Des croisements issus de ces deux cultivars sont développés en vue de créer des hybrides résistants et hauts producteurs. D'autres recherches visent à créer de nouveaux cultivars nains ayant la tolérance du Nain Vert Sri Lanka et présentant de meilleures caractéristiques agronomiques que ce dernier. (Résumé d'auteur