Compuware's new headquarters, GM's move to the Renaissance Center, and the State of Michigan's redevelopment of Cadillac Place in the New Center district have provided new synergies for the redevelopment of downtown.

The global economy cannot function without big banks, they say: gigantism provides synergies, efficiencies and benefits of scale.

Still, he said, "At some stage up front, you kind of need to brainstorm the conditions under which the partnership stops providing the added value and synergies."

The central pattern generator (CPG) provides the basic locomotor rhythm and synergies by integrating commands from various sources that serve to initiate or modulate its output to meet the requirements of the environment.

Abbey National executives, meanwhile, continue to argue that a tie-up with Bank of Scotland would provide the most synergies and the least overlap by combining Abbey's strength in current accounts and mortgages with the Scottish bank's prominence in lending to small businesses.

The airlines also work together to provide operational synergies to keep costs down.

And for his part, Mr. Reuter hopes the new technologies will provide synergies enabling Daimler to stay ahead of competitors.

But linking Anthem, based in Indianapolis, with New Jersey Blue Cross will provide "only limited operational synergies," Mr. Sherlock said.

Many options exist to conserve or enhance specific ecosystem services in ways that reduce negative trade-offs or that provide positive synergies with other ecosystem services.

Though owning a break-even unit provides the social benefit of providing jobs and possible synergies that assist other business units, from an accounting point of view such a unit is worthless, not generating cash for the company.