Fault diagnosis in discrete event systems is studied using a state-based framework. Faults can be either intermittent or permanent. For intermittent faults, system may recover from faulty behaviour through reset. To diagnose such intermittent faults, fault counters are introduced. Fault counters record the number of intermittent faults which must have occurred according to the output observations. This provides the main diagnosis. They also record the number of possible intermittent faults which may have occurred but cannot be confirmed. This provides auxiliary diagnostic information. Fault diagnosability is then studied. Since faults may be intermittent, they may occur repeatedly. Three different notions are studied: 1-diagnosability, 1,k-diagnosability, and 1,infty-diagnosability, and criteria for each of these notions are obtained. The criteria are expressed in terms of fault counters and extend the diagnosability criteria for permanent faults. The concept of a resonant path is introduced, which plays an important role in studying diagnosability.

Fault diagnosis in discrete event systems is studied using a state-based framework. Faults can be either intermittent or permanent. For intermittent faults, system may recover from faulty behaviour through reset. To diagnose such intermittent faults, fault counters are introduced. Fault counters record the number of intermittent faults which must have occurred according to the output observations. This provides the main diagnosis. They also record the number of possible intermittent faults which may have occurred but cannot be confirmed. This provides auxiliary diagnostic information. Fault diagnosability is then studied. Since faults may be intermittent, they may occur repeatedly. Three different notions are studied: 1-diagnosability, 1,k-diagnosability, and 1,infty-diagnosability, and criteria for each of these notions are obtained. The criteria are expressed in terms of fault counters and extend the diagnosability criteria for permanent faults. The concept of a resonant path is introduced, which plays an important role in studying diagnosability.

This report is the result of a master thesis with a focus on risk analysis of production location decisions. The project is a part of “PROLOC-manufacturing footprint during the product’s life cycle”. The main aim of this thesis is to point out how current applicable risk analysis techniques evaluate the risks involved in production location decisions and then underline the most important risks involved in production location decisions and elicit strengths and weaknesses of these methods.A systematic review of literature with a focus on journal papers of risk analysis and production fields is conducted by using the content analysis and coding technique. The current risk analysis techniques identified are failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), life cycle cost (LCC) analysis, and system based techniques like multiobjective analysis, decision tree analysis, and analytic hierarchy process (AHP). In addition two identified frameworks of foreign direct investment (FDI) and international production are the research fields that have contributed extensively in identifying various risks of production location decisions.Having reviewed the literature, it is realized that majority of companies take a short sighted vision in choosing production location and consider just cost based issues like cheaper raw material and low labour cost in some countries and simply ignore uncertainties that can be sources of political, economic, social, competitive, and seismic risks. Low cost countries are usually situated in politically instable areas that can cause long production halts or expropriation. Political risk is mainly identified in FDI literature and is usually triggered by a political turmoil, coup d’état, or revolution. On the other hand cheap labour does not necessarily mean decrease in costs and might bring about quality issues and damage company prestige among customers which results in time and monetary loss. Currency exchange and inflation in costs often causes the initial forecast and cost analysis go wrong. Supply risks are because of disruption of ties with raw material or part suppliers in home country and might result in risk of misuse by new suppliers or partners. Also the seismic risk is introduced as a separate category of risks of production location decisions which can be considered a matter of more investigation and requires further research.The study also presents a review of strengths and weaknesses of existing risk analysis techniques of production location decisions. The lack of consistency, vagueness of information, unfamiliarity with design to cost concept are among the major weaknesses of risk analysis techniques of production location decisions. The study concludes with the fact that just considering the cost oriented factors like cheap labour and raw material by production companies exposed them to various risk and might make the whole investment in vain. Suggestions for further study on techniques and risks of production location decisions are also proposed.

There is a reasonable amount of literature and discussions among scholars on the effect of host country corporate taxation on the inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI). This study is an attempt to analyse this effect in 25 high income OECD countries over the period of 1996 until 2009. The main objective of the paper is to prove statistically whether there is significant and negative relationship between the inflows of FDI and corporate taxation in the selected sample of OECD countries during the specified time span. This relationship is investigated with OLS regression analysis with pooled panel data to find to what extent the selected explanatory variable effective tax rate (ETR) along with trade openness, long term interest rate, share of internet users and labour cost have an impact on the dependent variable - FDI relative to GDP. Finally, it is proved that the elasticity between corporate taxation and FDI is positive at a level below the average effective tax rate and negative above the average level of effective tax rate. In addition, all other important variables included in the regression model are found to be significant determinants of FDI. The study is based on relevant literature and the statistical analysis is made in regard to the models described in scientific articles in the paper.

Developing countries are dependent upon foreign capital since they lack adequate domestic means to save and invest in order to grow and develop. This thesis aims to evaluate the role of foreign capital inflows in enhancing economic growth in a sample of 90 developing countries between the years 1991 and 2006. Even though FDI is recognized as the most attractive key in economic development strategies, numerous international help organizations call for increased ODA flows since many developing countries do not seem to benefit from FDI. This study will closely look into the issue where FDI and ODA are incorporated into the same model to identify the different effects they bring upon economic growth. Is capital given by the altruistic intention to assist developing nations in the form of ODA more beneficial than capital given through FDI by Multi-National Corporations (MNC) with their egoistic profit-seeking incentives, in the matter of enhancing economic growth? The obtained results from our cross-sectional OLS-regression are coherent with previous studies where FDI promotes economic growth, while ODA has a negative impact. This implies that FDI do actually play a more important role in developing countries than ODA in increasing growth in GDP per capita.

Background: In today’s business climate, a growing number of corporations have chosen to explore markets outside their national boundaries. There has been a shift in marketing strategies from a domestic perspective to a global one. Of all the methods available for firms to internationalize, Foreign Direct Investment possesses several advantages; it stimulates employment; raises wages, and replaces declining market sectors. It acts as a stimulant for infrastructure development and technology transfer. For Sweden Saudi Arabia is the most important export market in the Middle East. As Saudi Arabia is a country that presents both huge business opportunities and challenges for Swedish firms, it is important to study how some firms have succeeded in entering this market and what attracted them there in the first place. Purpose: The author’s intent is to identify the advantages and disadvantages for Swedish firms of carrying out FDI in Saudi Arabia. Method: this thesis is based on a case study of two Swedish firms with operations in Saudi Arabia. The author has chosen to use a qualitative research method. Empirical data was gathered by e-mails and phone interviews. Conclusions:  To author answers the research questions; Why did Swedish firms decide to establish themselves in Saudi Arabia? & How did they manage to establish themselves through FDI in that region?  Swedish firms get into the Saudi market because of advantages related the economy, the considerable market size and revenue, improved business climate, business opportunities, their global marketing strategy and their ownership specific advantages. As for how they succeeded to establish their FDI, it was through an incremental approach aided by a good knowledge of the market, the ability of the firm, proactive steps to reduce the impact of cultural differences and the country of origin effect. Suggestions for future research: Future research could focus on doing broader studies involving a larger sample, focusing on one or a few FDI determinants to investigate how they affect the investment decision as well as the managerial implications of cultural distance.

This paper estimates a labor demand equation based on the panel data of manufacturing industry in the Central and Eastern European Countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, and Romania) in order to test the effect of domestic factors (wages and output) and international factors (exports, imports, and FDI) on employment during the era of post -transition recovery. The findings indicate that employment does not respond to wages in more than half of the cases. The output elasticity of labor demand is mostly positive, but low, with a number of cases where employment is completely de-linked from output. An impressive speed of integration to the European economic sphere through FDI and international trade has not prevented job losses in the manufacturing industry. While there are very few cases of positive effects, insignificant effects of trade and FDI dominate the findings with some evidence of negative effects as well. (author's abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Foreign Direct Investment is seen as a critical source of capital inflow and a stimulant of economic growth in many developing nations. It brings with it benefits such as job creation, technology and knowledge transfers just to mention a few. Thus many African countries are keen in finding ways of attracting FDI. The main objective of this paper is to empirically examine the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) by incorporating an econometric method based on cross-sectional data from 41 African countries over the period 2002-2007. More precisely, this research intends to answer the following question: what are the relevant determinants that promote FDI inflows in Africa? Among the several determinants of FDI, the finding suggests that market size and natural resource predominance are the main determinants of FDI into Africa.

The last two centuries have been distinguished by technological innovation, liberalization and globalization of the world economy. Out of this environment the multinational enterprises (MNEs) have arisen -seeking the best profit opportunities around the world without consideration to poverty and equality in the host countries. This has raised the interest of the present study where the objective is to assess the impact MNEs have on the host country in terms of transferring know-how. By testing two hypotheses, the study attempts to analyze whether MNEs entail a transfer of skills and also identifies the extent to which MNEs are a potential source of skill-upgrading. The research is realized by a qualitative minor field study in Dakar where 24 semi-structured interviews are carried out at three MNEs and three Senegalese enterprises. The interviews are jointly analyzed with a theoretical framework in order to determinate if there are significant differences between the two types of enterprises concerning the wage-setting, working conditions as well as transfer of know-how. The result shows that MNEs have more training opportunities then local enterprises, the working conditions do not differ significantly. Further there is no evidence found for MNEs paying higher wages then local enterprises judged by the general attitude of the interviewees. It is therefore assumed to be some labor mobility, implying that the training contributed by MNEs might work a source of skill-upgrade for the workforce in Dakar.

This Paper analyzes the factors influencing the labor force participation of low-income adults on public housing assistance. A quasi-experiment is designed to fulfill the purpose of measuring the magnitudes of certain attributes of given individuals, e.g. the age in influencing employment status while controlling other factors such as other personal attributes and living environments. A number of logistic regressions are performed to assist the empirical analysis. Two final models are presented while statistical results are diagnosed to ensure the reliability of findings. Based on the unique data provided by AHA (the Atlanta Housing Authority), over 70 variables are analyzed to determine their significance on influencing individuals¡¯ future employment status. Finally, we find five the most significant predictors to be the individual¡¯s current employment status, age, and income, whether one resides in a mixed-income community in comparison to living in a housing project, and whether one uses housing vouchers in comparison to living in a housing project. The individual¡¯s immediate living environment is found to play an extremely important role in shaping his/her future employment status. The results demonstrate that living in the mixed-income community as opposed to living in conventional public housing projects can boost one¡¯s odds of being employed in the future by 170% while using housing vouchers as opposed to living in traditional public housing can increase one¡¯s odds of being employed by 90%. Both statistics are significant even at the 0.001 level. Hence, our findings strongly support the view that environment matters and distressed public housing projects should be revitalized, which has been a controversial topic over years. This study introduces an innovative index system-that consists of the Family Development Index (FDI), the Neighborhood Development Index (NDI), and the Quality of Life Index (QLI)-developed by Dr. Boston to show the development of low-income adults¡¯ socio-economic status and living environments induced by the revitalization of public housing projects in Atlanta over the period of 1995-2001. Based on this innovative index system, this paper tentatively proposes a reasonable approach to separate the self-selective effect from the environmental effect in influencing the labor force participation, which has long been reckoned as a complex task in social science research. We create the Self-distinguishing Index (SDI) based on a similar mechanism by which Dr. Boston created the FDI and NDI and combine it with the FDI to generate the Self-selective Index (SSI). We also modify the NDI to serve our purpose of measuring the environmental changes at the personal level. By this method, we successfully detach the self-selective effect from the environmental effect in determining the individual¡¯s future employment status. Those two effects are found to be significant at the 0.001 level and the 0.01 level respectively. A side-finding that individuals belonging to the treatment group have significantly better odds of being employed in the future is shown as well.