1.   But in recent years, high production costs, guerrilla attacks and better deals elsewhere have convinced many foreign firms that their Colombian operations should be scaled back.

2.   Companies have laid off workers and dramatically scaled back operations.

3.   Congressional delegations from both Southern California and New Mexico already are gearing up for a possible dogfight over which base should have its operations scaled back or eliminated.

4.   Consumers scrambled to cut electricity use, and some businesses scaled back operations.

5.   Foreign investment is falling this year, principally because Asian neighbors hurt by the regional economic crisis have scaled back operations.

6.   It succeeded, but operations were scaled back.

7.   Late last week, Israel began scaling back operations in Jenin, Nablus and several other Palestinian towns.

8.   Many of those businesses have scaled back operations because of the weak economy.

9.   The company has seen slowed sales over the past year and has scaled back operations considerably in that time.

10.   The deal with FedEx will allow the companies to scale the operation quickly as customer demand grows, said David Roussain, FedEx vice president for electronic commerce.