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The refugee and migration crisis has contributed to promote and consolidate new practices. The NGOs’ SAR Operations represent a new aspect of the humanitarian new normal phenomenon which is here analysed to deepen the existing knowledge about the response of the state, the citizens and the organised civil society to the crisis. The paper, which is based on an expert survey research conducted by researchers of the University of Catania, contends that Europeans overwhelmingly perceive irregular migrants as a threat...
Chinese is often taken as a prime example of an isolating language. Most relation marking takes the form of particles rather than affixes or inflections. Possibly relevant to the facts that are presented below, Chinese has been argued to not have grammaticalized the sort of pivot constructions normally associated with grammatical relations. That is, it has been argued to not have any particular alignment, as there are no grammatical relations, and the clause pattern is simply topic-comment (Chao 1968, Lü 1979, LaPolla 1993, 1995, 2009; LaPolla & Poa 2005, 2006). We will first talk more generally about structures found in Sino-Tibetan languages, and then focus on Modern Mandarin Chinese.
Collateral, default risk, and relationship lending : an empirical study on financial contracting
(1999)
This paper provides further insights into the nature of relationship lending by analyzing the link between relationship lending, borrower quality and collateral as a key variable in loan contract design. We used a unique data set based on the examination of credit files of five leading German banks, thus relying on information actually used in the process of bank credit decision-making and contract design. In particular, bank internal borrower ratings serve to evaluate borrower quality, and the bank's own assessment of its housebank status serves to identify information-intensive relationships. Additionally, we used data on workout activities for borrowers facing financial distress. We found no significant correlation between ex ante borrower quality and the incidence or degree of collateralization. Our results indicate that the use of collateral in loan contract design is mainly driven by aspects of relationship lending and renegotiations. We found that relationship lenders or housebanks do require more collateral from their debtors, thereby increasing the borrower's lock-in and strengthening the banks' bargaining power in future renegotiation situations. This result is strongly supported by our analysis of the correlation between ex post risk, collateral and relationship lending since housebanks do more frequently engage in workout activities for distressed borrowers, and collateralization increases workout probability.
On October the 2nd the Colombian people rejected the peace agreement between the government and the FARC in a referendum with a very thin majority of 0.4%. With this unexpected rejection, the referendum was in some ways similar to the Brexit referendum, for the results of which David Cameron was as little prepared as Juan Manuel Santos for his rejection; there was obviously no Plan B. In the last weeks, the government undertook ten changes to the agreement, but it will not go through a referendum again. Santos, as he said, has learned his lesson from the rejection and will seek to have the amended peace agreement approved in Congress. This will likely lead to the implementation of the peace agreement and the furtherance of its goals, such as a DDR process, land reforms, a transitional justice process and reparations for victims, just to mention a few. But this progress in peace will be seen as being at odds with popular opinion. Many of the “no” voters are still not satisfied with the adjustments made by the government and the FARC, and neither are the sectors of the opposition mainly responsible for the rejection. Nevertheless, the government and the FARC are progressing with the implementation, and peace talks with the second-largest – and now the last standing – guerrilla group, the ELN, are scheduled to start in 2017. The prospects for 2018 and onwards, when the presidency election will be held, are more questionable.
A remarkable indictment and conviction following the sale of an ‘obscene’ comic book invites us to examine arguments brought forth to describe a specifically childlike reception of new media, as usually suggested by those who would motivate legal restrictions for such media. Trying to explain some perceived contradictions on the surface of these arguments, we discuss whether it is the failure or rather the extreme success of texts that is marked as ‘dangerous’ in such contexts.
The European Commission's Green Paper "Audit Policy: Lessons from the Crisis" raises 38 questions regarding how the audit function could be enhanced in order to contribute to increased financial stability. The authors comment on these 38 questions, arguing that the general level of audit quality can be enhanced by extending the duties of care and by tightening the regulations on liability.
The European Commission's Green Paper "The EU corporate governance framework" raises 25 questions in order to assess the effectiveness of the current corporate governance framework for European companies. The authors contribute to the EU's consultation, respond to the 25 questions and comment on the suggestions set out in the Green Paper.
This present comment suggests an amendment to the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council, establishing a framework for the recovery and resolution of credit institutions and investment firms. The current proposal focuses on bail-in, but does not sufficiently take into account the pressure exerted on central bankers, supervisors and politicians by the fear of interbank contagion. The only way out of this hold-up type of situation can be found in bail-in bonds. Bail-in bonds are dedicated loss taking debt instruments, whose status of being first in line if it comes to default is clearly communicated from day one.
The study I would like to present concerns ethnically mixed borderland communities caught in a trap of competing national narratives spread from the surrounding states. I conduct an ethnographic research on a rare contemporary case of peaceful co-living of Armenian and Azerbaijani communities, which takes place in rural areas of Georgia’s southern borderland...
Comparison of MSACD models
(2003)
We propose a new framework for modelling time dependence in duration processes on financial markets. The well known autoregressive conditional duration (ACD) approach introduced by Engle and Russell (1998) will be extended in a way that allows the conditional expectation of the duration process to depend on an unobservable stochastic process which is modelled via a Markov chain. The Markov switching ACD model (MSACD) is a very flexible tool for description and forecasting of financial duration processes. In addition, the introduction of an unobservable, discrete valued regime variable can be justified in the light of recent market microstructure theories. In an empirical application we show that the MSACD approach is able to capture several specific characteristics of inter trade durations while alternative ACD models fail. JEL classification: C22, C25, C41, G14
Compositionality
(2007)
Who is Ângkar? The nature of authority and responsibility under the Khmer Rouge Forme cadres of the Khmer Rouge today still speak of Ângkar, the organisation of the Khmer Rouge, with the utmost respect and subservience. Unlike in other genocidal regimes in which state actors played an important role, such as the NSDAP and SS in the Holocaust or Ittihad in the Ottoman genocide of the Armenians, Ângkar cannot be reduced merely to the name of the party organisation of the Khmer Rouge. Although Ângkar is a concept known to all in Cambodia and remains synonymous with absolute authority and the necessity for unwavering obedience, there is a broad variety of perspectives when trying to state who or what Ângkar actually is...
This is the last post in the blog series „Movements and Institutions“. Check out the introductory post for more information on the series and click here for all contributions.
This blog series reflected on the interactions between social movements and institutions. These interactions have proven to be among the most complicated areas of social movement research, especially because causality is very hard to establish: (how) do movements influence formal political institutions – and vice versa? How to study, understand and explain the consequences of the institutionalization of social movements? The difficulties of addressing these questions are also related to definitional problems as social movements and institutions can be understood and defined in various ways. All authors contributing to this blog series highlight the importance of studying interactions between social movements from one perspective or another.
Condensing phenomena for systems biology, ecology and sociology present in real life different complex behaviors. Based on local interaction between agents, we present another result of the Energy-based model presented by [20]. We involve an additional condition providing the total condensing (also called consensus) of a discrete positive measure. Key words: Condensing; consensus; random move; self-organizing groups; collective intelligence; stochastic modeling. AMS Subject Classifications: 81T80; 93A30; 37M05; 68U20
"Since the events of the eighteenth century, in particular the French and American Revolutions, the concept of revolution has become one of the most important, and most widely used, concepts of modern political and philosophical thought. The revolutions of the eighteenth century are, however, also marked by a temporal logic that questions their radical departure from the past, both intellectually and practically. Indeed, the concept of revolution is often coupled with a renewed interest in ideals of human self-conception, moral beauty and education that are seen as having emerged in the classical antiquity of Greece and Rome. On both sides of the Atlantic, references to classical antiquity support contemporary achievements, on the one hand, and are used to question the existing state of political and intellectual affairs, on the other."
Consensus modality : accommodating parties and containing overt violence in Nepal’s peace process
(2017)
Throughout this decade, most of the literatures in social sciences on Nepal contain Maoist Armed Conflict (1996-2006) in its introduction part. The country is in constant political turmoil even after the Comprehensive Peace Accord of 2006 between Government of Nepal and then rebel force. Since the peace agreement, Nepalese society has observed diverse socio-political tensions in different forms and become fragile society. Nepal is exerting a growing concern on international politics because of the complication in the peace process of ensuring sustainable peace, stability and economic progress. The implications for peace, stability and economic development in fragile countries present a challenge to the international community (In Grävingholt et al, 2013). Political culture and social structure are empirically related to political stability (Lijphart, 1969: 208). So we cannot separate our social and cultural context with the idea of stability...
In its decision of December 13, 2011, the Constitutional Court of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia ruled that a State Court of Auditors is granted by the constitution a broad scope of powers not only to control the immediate state administration but also entities outside the direct state administration, as far as they exercise financial responsibility for the state. This ruling may have serious implications for the capital guarantees extended by EU Member States to the newly established institutions on the European level, as for instance the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).
This paper studies a consumption-portfolio problem where money enters the agent's utility function. We solve the corresponding Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation and provide closed-form solutions for the optimal consumption and portfolio strategy both in an infinite- and finite-horizon setting. For the infinite-horizon problem, the optimal stock demand is one particular root of a polynomial. In the finite-horizon case, the optimal stock demand is given by the inverse of the solution to an ordinary differential equation that can be solved explicitly. We also prove verification results showing that the solution to the Bellman equation is indeed the value function of the problem. From an economic point of view, we find that in the finite-horizon case the optimal stock demand is typically decreasing in age, which is in line with rules of thumb given by financial advisers and also with recent empirical evidence.
This is the sixth post in the blog series „Movements and Institutions“.
How is it that the actions of institutions come to be perceived as unjust by a critical mass? And how does this perception translate into collective action? Adopting a framing perspective, this article proposes to investigate the meanings that people attach to specific events as key for understanding interaction dynamics between social movement and institutions.
Radicalisation is a phenomenon that has been striking not only in parts of Asia and Africa but also in the heart of Europe. While the number of Muslims in Germany is estimated by 4,7 millions (5,8%), 70% of the almost 900,000 asylum-seekers have arrived in recent years are believed to be Muslims. It is undeniable that there is discrimination in Germany, and it is equally undeniable that more on issues of integration and conflict prevention should be done. Thus, could effective integration processes prevent radicalisation of the Muslim youth in Europe?
The prevention of credit card fraud is an important application for prediction techniques. One major obstacle for using neural network training techniques is the high necessary diagnostic quality: Since only one financial transaction of a thousand is invalid no prediction success less than 99.9% is acceptable. Due to these credit card transaction proportions complete new concepts had to be developed and tested on real credit card data. This paper shows how advanced data mining techniques and neural network algorithm can be combined successfully to obtain a high fraud coverage combined with a low false alarm rate.
The recent financial crisis highlighted the limits of the "originate to distribute" model of banking, but its nexus with the macroeconomy remains unexplored. I build a business cycle model with banks engaging in credit risk transfer (CRT) under informational externalities. Markets for CRT provide liquidity insurance to banks, but the emergence of a pooling equilibrium can also impair the banks’ monitoring incentives. In normal times and in face of standard macro shocks the insurance benefits of CRT prevail and the business cycle is stabilized. In face of financial/liquidity shocks the extent of informational asymmetries is larger and the business cycle is amplified. The macro model with CRT can also reproduce well a number of macro and banking statistics over the period of rapid growth of this banks’ business model.
This is the third article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right.
I am the author of two books about the French nouvelle droite (ND – New Right): Where Have All The Fascists Gone? and Rethinking the French New Right: Alternatives to modernity. In 2014, I published a piece entitled „The French New Right Neither Right, nor Left?“. Surprisingly, the French ND leader Alain de Benoist responded with a polemical and largely ad hominem article in the same journal.1 I must stress that I neither identify with a political party, nor a political movement. I do not support any ideological current. De Benoist does. He is self-described as a man of the right. Hence, he cannot even claim intellectual objectivity.
In this piece, I want to offer some comments on my debate with de Benoist. I argue that while we should strive towards intellectual objectivity, we cannot be silent in the face of falsehoods. In this respect, the ND plays a dishonest game. Its leader and other ND intellectuals feign intellectual objectivity and the platitudes of transcending right and left, but they want cultural hegemony and the triumph of their decidedly radical right-wing ideals...
The critical debates of liberal peace are grounded in a "paradox of liberalism" (Sabaratnam 2013): Western liberalism is criticized as oppressive, colonial and bellicose, but also implicitly relied on as the source of emancipation. This has not rejected in a rejection of liberal interventionism, but rather in demands for more cultural sensitivity, more local participation or an efficient control to save the idea of liberal peace...
Decomposing questions acts
(2006)
This paper surveys the growth and various phases of and influences on the concept of democracy in the Islamic political thought of the last two centuries. Among the thinkers covered in the survey are Rifa'a Tahtawi (1801-73), Khairuddin at-Tunis (1810-99), Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani (1838-97), Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905), Abdurrahman al-Kawakibi (1849-1903), Rashid Rida (1865-1935), Hasan al-Banna (1904-49), Ali Abd Ar-Raziq (1888-1966), Sayyid Qutb (1906-66), Sa'id Hawwa, and Malik Bennabi (1905-73). Reference is made to the influence of Sayyid Mawdudi (1903-79), on the thought of Sayyid Qutb. The paper traces also the bearing of Bennabi's thought on Rachid Ghannouchi and on the Islamic movements of our times.
As police with tear gas and water cannons fuel unrest across Turkey, it seems that many eyes are wearily cast over Europe’s favourite neighbour, soon to join the list of potentially unstable Middle-East nations. Yet even as Erdogan’s messy power play brings Turkey’s democratic survivability into question, the nation’s solar energy industry is breaking new ground and massive nuclear power capacity is quietly being prepared to relieve the nation’s energy import dependency. In Brazil, riots breaking out over a transport price hike reflect the pressures of inflation and widespread corruption: an outburst fuelled by a long history of mismanagement and ineffective policy at state and federal levels. Nevertheless, big plans are underway for the expanding of Brazil’s power grid, set to underwrite national economic growth into 2030 and beyond. Behind these gruelling scenes of democratic upheaval, lie two distinct cases of energy policy in the making, in spite of overt political turmoil. This post highlights two instances of critical energy policy, unfolding behind the scenes.
Development of library services in Mauritius : a report submitted to the Ministry of Education
(1966)
This review describes how the constraints of limited water resources and an arid and semi-arid environment were overcome by a leadership capable of defining future needs and identifying and implementing appropriate solutions. Advanced technologies proved indispensable in this process. Yet, in recent years, the continuously increasing demand for water, mainly for domestic use, has created a chronic situation in which all available water from natural sources is being used up. The only solution to ensuring a dependable supply of water for both domestic and agricultural use requires that several steps be taken concurrently to implement regulations and measures for saving water and to construct immediately large-scale plants for desalination of seawater and reclamation of urban effluents.
In the Global South, private corporations and development aid programs are widely implementing information and communication technology (ICT). Stakeholders export infrastructure (including satellites, drones, and white spaces technology) as well as mobile and internet services (mobile money services, zero-rating), following the proclaimed goal to close the global digital divide. They particularly target under-connected regions in Africa, as Africa shows the lowest levels of internet connectivity (cf. International Telecommunications Union 2017). According to companies and development aid programs, these digitalization efforts in the Global South are key to development and security. However, an ethical perspective points to concerns about the practice of digitalization in the Global South. One central concern is that certain values are inscribed in ICT, and that they may be indirectly implemented through technology in the importing countries. Thus, the export of ICT by Western companies and development aid programs to the Global South may have a "neo-colonial" character. This raises ethical questions about global justice...
The G20 summit starting today will be overshadowed by the Syrian crisis. Wolfgang Seibel assesses that,while Germany and Russia share a common history that has shaped their relationship as well as close and crucial economiclinkages, their worldviews are incompatible – international problem-solvingvs. prioritizing geopolitical interests. The question is, in light of the crisis in Syria, are German foreign policymakers in a position to influence Russian key-players?
This paper addresses the question whether close borrower-lender relationships, so called hausbank-relationships, facilitate the funding and beneficial development of SME. To this end, we derive a model which relates a firm's growth rate to its need for external funds and subsequently compute the firms that exceed their predicted growth rate. We then use this measure to identify specific characteristics that are associated with long- and short-term financing of firm growth, in particular the influence of relationship lending. We find that close ties with savings banks predict firms' access to external finance to fund growth. Moreover, the long-term liabilities of firms with hausbank-relationships almost double those with multiple relationships while the overall leverage is about the same. In turn, we find an strong empirical relationship between the provision of long-term funds and firm growth. Keywords: small business lending, credit access, public banks JEL Classifications: G21, D21
With this paper, I propose a simple asset pricing model that accounts for the influence from social interaction. Investors are assumed to make up their mind about an asset’s price based on a forecasting strategy and its past profitability as well as on the contemporaneous expectations of other market participants. Empirically analysing stocks of the DAX30 index, I provide evidence that social interaction rather destabilises financial markets. Based on my results, I state that at least, it does not have a stabilising effect.
This is the 18. article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right.
When it comes to change in social environments, a parable of philosopher Charles Handy gets pulled out quickly. If you drop a frog in boiling water, it jumps out immediately; but placed in cold water slowly warming up, it acclimates itself and falls to sleep, unaware of being boiled alive. The parable reminds us of the perceptional relativity of change: Within communities creeping developments cause habituation, abrupt breaks an arousing shock. In terms of social movements this truism becomes apparent in a double way: On the one hand, erupting crises may destabilize social orders and create the necessary space for dissident actors to gain momentum – while they would fail to mobilize outside the scenario of an anxious community gasping for a new guarantor of order. On the other hand, the rise of a dissident actor with unconventional performances may work as a shock triggering withdrawal reflexes in the broader society – while dissidents with relative habitual sentiments can find resonance in communities disappointed by the ruling order.
Does this perspective offer a potential to explain the rise of far right movements in Europe? Let’s examine it by the example of Germany where, in the last two years, far right actors have experienced a remarkable gain in political acceptance – on the streets, in the booths and in the talk shows. In this case, it could be argued that their success in protest and electoral mobilizations as well as their disproportionate high presence in the media rests on communication politics that effect a normalization of far right positions previously disreputed in public discourse. Through this creeping habituation by society, they are able to gain momentum in situations of crisis, producing themselves successfully as a legitimate agent of the “anxious citizens” disappointed by the government. To test this little argument, a finger exercise in frame analysis seems to be proper, a tool common in social movement studies to explain why certain ideas in certain contexts are potent to mobilize audiences – and are not in others.
This paper documents the experiences of assurance evaluation during the early stage of a large software development project. This project researches, contracts and integrates privacy-respecting software to business environments. While assurance evaluation with ISO 15408 Common Criteria (CC) within the certification schemes is done after a system has been completed, our approach executes evaluation during the early phases of the software life cycle. The promise is to increase quality and to reduce testing and fault removal costs for later phases of the development process. First results from the still-ongoing project suggests that the Common Criteria can define a framework for assurance evaluation in ongoing development projects.
We propose a new framework for modelling the time dependence in duration processes being in force on financial markets. The pioneering ACD model introduced by Engle and Russell (1998) will be extended in a manner that the duration process will be accompanied by an unobservable stochastic process. The Discrete Mixture ACD framework provides us with a general methodology which puts the idea into practice. It is established by introducing a discrete-valued latent regime variable which can be justified in the light of recent market microstructure theories. The empirical application demonstrates its ability to capture specific characteristics of intraday transaction durations while alternative approaches fail. JEL classification: C41, C22, C25, C51, G14.
We propose a new framework for modelling the time dependence in duration processes being in force on financial markets. The pioneering ACD model introduced by Engle and Russell (1998) will be extended in a manner that the duration process will be accompanied by an unobservable stochastic process. The Discrete Mixture ACD framework provides us with a general methodology which puts the idea into practice. It is established by introducing a discrete-valued latent regime variable which can be justified in the light of recent market microstructure theories. The empirical application demonstrates its ability to capture specific characteristics of intraday transaction durations while alternative approaches fail. JEL classification: C41, C22, C25, C51, G14.
The European Strategy on Invasive Alien Species T-PWS(2002) 8 mandates intensified research by member nations on invasive species. This research will not be restricted solely to the biology and remediation of invasive species, but will also evaluate their adverse health effects and economic impact. Previous studies of these issues have only been carried out in the Unites States of America, or in a limited, regional manner. Consequently, 20 plant and animal species from various problem areas (species which pose a threat to public health; losses to agriculture, fisheries, and forestry; damage to public roads and waterways; costs associated with the protection of native species threatened by non-native species as mandated by Recommendation 77 of the Bern Convention were assessed in Germany nation-wide. The accruing costs were sorted into 3 categories: a) direct economic losses, such as those caused by destructive pest species; b) ecological costs, in the form of extra care and protection of native taxa, biotopes, or ecosystems threatened by invasive species; c) costs of measures to combat invasive species. Because of the nature of available data, as well as the different biology and ecology of the invasive species, each had to be treated individually, and the associated costs vary greatly from species to species. Moreover, not all of the species investigated cause economic losses. Accordingly, a nuanced approach to alien species is essential. Cost assessment of losses deriving from ecological damage was only possible in a few cases. Ongoing, multi-year studies incorporating cost/benefit analysis will be necessary to resolve remaining issues.
We calculate the antibaryon-to-baryon ratios, anti-p/p, anti-Lambda/Lambda, anti-Xi/Xi, and anti-Omega/Omega for Au+Au collisions at RHIC (sqrt{s}_{NN}=200 GeV). The effects of strong color fields associated with an enhanced strangeness and diquark production probability and with an effective decrease of formation times are investigated. Antibaryon-to-baryon ratios increase with the color field strength. The ratios also increase with the strangeness content |S|. The netbaryon number at midrapidity considerably increases with the color field strength while the netproton number remains roughly the same. This shows that the enhanced baryon transport involves a conversion into the hyperon sector (hyperonization) which can be observed in the (Lambda - anti-Lambda)/(p - anti-p) ratio.
Exploring elites and their relations to institutions can assist understanding the day-to-day realities of politics in Africa (Chabal and Daloz 1999, Amundsen 2001, Lindberg 2003). This review is a scoping exercise in what has been written on the subject in recent years. The main task of the review is to summarise current understandings of how elites work with and through political institutions in Africa. There is a huge literature in this subject area. We have tried to pick out a) that which is most pertinent and non-repetitive, and b) that which raises as many questions as it provides answers. On the whole we have focused on literature published in the last five to ten years and we have inclined towards the literature on Anglophone Africa. The review is presented as follows: Section 1 is an introduction to Africa’s recent political landscape and it introduces some of the major issues that appear in the literature. Section 2 provides some working definitions of elites, institutions and democratisation as three of the recurring themes in the review. Section 3 reviews literature broadly on democratisation in Africa and specifically on elections and elites. Section 4 examines how political parties have evolved over the last 15 years. Section 5 reviews the three branches of government and Section 6 briefly examines decentralisation and its relation to elites and politics. The remaining sections of the review move outside the more formal political structures to examine the media (Section 7), civil society (Section 8), women’s movements (Section 9), Trades unions (Section 10) and business associations (Section 11). The final Section 12 pulls out a number of gaps in the research that we have identified in the course of the review. Section 13 contains a complete bibliography of citations used in the review. It is crucial to remember that Africa’s experiences of democratisation are no more than 15 years old, and many scholars have cautioned that it is still very early to draw any definite conclusions (Amundsen 2001; Randall and Svasand 2002). Inhaltsverzeichnis: 1. Africa’s political landscape 3 * Diversity of ‘Africa’ 4 * Elections do not mean democracy 4 * Presidentialism 4 * Ethnicity 5 * Personal rule and patronage 5 2. Definitions 6 * Elites 6 * Political institutions 7 * Democratisation 8 3. Democratisation and elites 8 * Elections 9 * Elites and elections 13 4. Political parties 16 5. Branches of government 17 * The executive 17 * The legislature 18 * The Judiciary 20 6. Decentralisation 20 7. Media 21 * Radio 25 * Television 25 * Newspapers 25 * Internet 26 8. Civil society 26 9. Women’s movements 29 10. Trade unions 32 11. Business associations 34 12. Gaps in the research 36 13. Bibliography 38
We develop a dynamic network model with heterogenous banks which undertake optimizing portfolio decisions subject to liquidity and capital constraints and trade in the interbank market whose equilibrium is governed by a tatonnement process. Due to the micro-funded structure of the decisional process as well as the iterative dynamic adjustment taking place in the market, the links in the network structures are endogenous and evolve dynamically. We use the model to assess the diffusion of systemic risk (measured as default probability), the contribution of each bank to it as well as the evolution of the network in response to financial shocks and across different prudential policy regimes.
We develop a dynamic network model with heterogenous banks which undertake optimizing portfolio decisions subject to liquidity and capital constraints and trade in the interbank market whose equilibrium is governed by a tatonnement process. Due to the micro-funded structure of the decisional process as well as the iterative dynamic adjustment taking place in the market, the links in the network structures are endogenous and evolve dynamically. We use the model to assess the diffusion of systemic risk, the contribution of each bank to it as well as the evolution of the network in response to financial shocks and across different prudential policy regimes.
At least since the 1980s, a scholarly debate on the very meaning of security has structured the field of (Critical) Security Studies to a large extent (see Working Paper #1). Today, many new concept such as human security and societal security are prominent anchors in academic and political debates directing our attention to the non-military aspects of security, in particular to the manifold insecurities people (and not only the state) face. The call for energy security is one prominent example...
Local interactions between particles of a collection causes all particles to reorganize in new positions. The purpose of this paper is to construct an energy-based model of self-organizing subgroups, which describes the behavior of singular local moves of a particle. The present paper extends the Hegselmann-Krause model on consensus dynamics, where agents simultaneously move to the barycenter of all agents in an epsilon neighborhood. The Energy-based model presented here is analyzed and simulated on finite metric space. AMS Subject Classifications:81T80; 93A30; 37M05; 68U20
The overall aim of my work is to contribute to a future theory of epistemic violence – thereby enabling us to gain a better understanding of the various forms of direct, physical violence which are usually analysed within peace studies, IR, political theory and related fields. My perspective starts from transdisciplinary peace studies, is concerned with the sociology of knowledge, and informed by post- and de-colonial theory as well as by feminist critique and political theory...
Is wider access to stockholding opportunities related to reduced wealth inequality, given that it creates challenges for small and less sophisticated investors? Counterfactual analysis is used to study the influence of changes in the US stockholder pool and economic environment, on the distribution of stock and net household wealth during a period of dramatic increase in stock market participation. We uncover substantial shifts in stockholder pool composition, favoring smaller holdings during the 1990s upswing but larger holdings around the burst of the Internet bubble. We find no evidence that widening access to stocks was associated with reduced net wealth inequality.
Background: Physiologically-based population pharmacokinetic modeling (popPBPK) coupled with in vitro biopharmaceutics tools such as biorelevant dissolution testing can serve as a powerful tool to establish virtual bioequivalence and set clinically relevant specifications. One of several applications of popPBPK modeling is in the emerging field of virtual bioequivalence (VBE), where it can be used to streamline drug development by implementing model-informed formulation design and to inform regulatory decision-making e.g., with respect to evaluating the possibility of extending BCS-based biowaivers beyond BCS Class I and III compounds in certain cases.
Methods: In this study, Naproxen, a BCS class II weak acid was chosen as the model compound. In vitro biorelevant solubility and dissolution experiments were performed and the resulting data were used as an input to the PBPK model, following a stepwise workflow for the confirmation of the biopharmaceutical parameters. The naproxen PBPK model was developed by implementing a middle-out approach and verified against clinical data obtained from the literature. Once confidence in the performance of the model was achieved, several in vivo dissolution scenarios, based on model-based analysis of the in vitro data, were used to simulate clinical trials in healthy adults. Inter-occasion variability (IOV) was also added to critical physiological parameters and mechanistically propagated through the simulations. The various trials were simulated on a “worst/best case” dissolution scenario and average bioequivalence was assessed according to Cmax, AUC and tmax.
Results: VBE results demonstrated that naproxen products with in vitro dissolution reaching 85% dissolved within 90 minutes would lie comfortably within the bioequivalence limits for Cmax and AUC. Based on the establishment of VBE, a dissolution “safe space” was designed and a clinically relevant specification for naproxen products was proposed. The interplay between formulation-related and drug-specific PK parameters (e.g., t1/2) to predict the in vivo performance was also investigated.
Conclusion: Over a wide range of values, the in vitro dissolution rate is not critical for the clinical performance of naproxen products and therefore naproxen could be eligible for BCS-based biowaivers based on in vitro dissolution under intestinal conditions. This approach may also be applicable to other poorly soluble acidic compounds with long half-lives, providing an opportunity to streamline drug development and regulatory decision-making without putting the patient at a risk.
As part of her tour of Africa, German chancellor Angela Merkel recently (Tuesday, 11 October 2016) visited the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, which is also home to the headquarters of the African Union. During a joint press conference with Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, Merkel urged the Ethiopian government to open up politics and halt violent behaviour by police in response to peaceful demonstrations...
Using fiscal reaction functions for 3a panel of actual euro-area countries the paper investigates whether euro membership has reduced the responsiveness of countries to increases in the level of inherited debt compared to the period prior to succession to the euro. While we find some evidence for such a loss in prudence, the results are not robust to changes in the specification, as for example an exclusion of Greece from the panel. This suggests that the current debt problems may result to a large extent from pre-existing debt levels prior to entry or from a larger need for fiscal prudence in a common currency, while an adverse change in the fiscal reaction functions for most countries does not apply.
This is the 27. and final article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right.
Trouble on the far right has become troubling for Europe. Not only do right-wing motivated attacks occur regularly against Roma camps, ethnic minorities, LGBTQI people and Jewish institutions. At the same time, a xenophobic discourse on refugees has gained momentum in politics and society and further blurred the lines between far right agitation and mainstream politics. In order to classify these events adequately, far right activism should not just be regarded as a security issue that can be eliminated by force, but as a threat that threatens the foundations of open, democratic and pluralist societies. Hence, we should be aware that far right politics are neither a new nor an isolated phenomenon but often bank on existing cultures of (gender, competitive, nativist) domination in capitalist societies.1
Certain developments have recently accelerated a radicalization of the political mainstream in terms of rhetoric, demands and policy outcomes and transformed the institutional landscape. The Slovakian parliamentary elections and the fateful presidential elections in Austria are central events during our 10-week blog series that prove the inherent dynamic. The right-wing government in Poland that has started removing fundamental rights and facilitated the spread of nationalist values is another example.
Contrary to the one-sided academic focus on elections, far right influence on European societies should be measured on three further levels: Massive street mobilizations epitomized by Pegida in Germany (and beyond) and the Italian Stop Invasione rallies, clandestine organizing such as the British far right militants and prospering relations between state authorities and far right movements, for example in Turkey, testify a growing diversification of far right activism. These scenarios demand methodologically and theoretically innovative perspectives. Our blog series Trouble on the Far Right has provided them with an international forum.
This is a brief in the bEUcitizen policy brief series. The bEUcitizen project - funded by the European Union - set out to identify, investigate, discuss, and ameliorate the barriers to the active use of rights (and knowledge of duties, the concomitant to rights, in so far as there are any) by European citizens. The project aimed to provide a comparative overview and classification of the various barriers to the exercise of the rights and obligations of European Union citizens in the member states. Simultaneously, the project analysed whether and how such barriers can be overcome and the future opportunities and challenges the European Union and its member states face to further develop the idea and reality of European Union citizenship.
Drawing on research conducted during the project, this policy brief discusses the problems preventing European Union citizens from becoming active political citizens. European citizenship as active political citizenship has been underdeveloped from the start and is currently under strong pressure. Over time, European Union citizens seem to have lost enthusiasm for the European political process: Voter turnout in European Parliament elections decreased from 61,99% in 1979 to 42,61% in 2014. Attempts to transform elections for the European Parliament into a meaningful decision about the policies and the personnel of European institutions have been ineffective so far in two ways: On the one hand, they did not raise more interest in European affairs; on the other hand, and even more problematically, the "Spitzenkandidaten"-experiment was overshadowed by the power struggle between national leaders and the European Parliament.
Although similar tendencies towards decreasing voter turnout can be observed in national elections, the trend of fading popular support is particularly alarming at the European Union level. It threatens to undermine the legitimacy and functionality of the European Union, thus jeopardizing the entire integration process. Institutions without support cannot last. The European Union provokes a rather negative political reaction among its citizens and populist activism is challenging its policies and the integration process more broadly. The Brexit decision expresses this problem in an ideal-typical form: Europe-friendly citizens do not use their right to vote while anti-European activism brings citizens to the ballot box. Concerned with this passivity as well as with the activism mobilised by anti-European populism, Europe-friendly observers and actors see a major opportunity for the European Union to strengthen the European Parliament as the core institution of a European representative democracy.
Europe’s new digital borders
(2018)
The European Union’s (EU) external border framework is not only increasingly reliant on digital databases, but these databases are now set to become interoperable. By 2020, the European Commission (EC) aims to have a fully interconnected new architecture for identity management at the border in place. Based on biometric enrolment of all third-country citizens, Europe’s new digital borders raise a number of concerns, including suspicion, large-scale surveillance, and internal policing that spread well beyond the border site.
Border management today is embedded into a complex network of data collection and data analysis that provides authorities with knowledge about who (or what) attempts to cross the border. While still serving as physical chokepoints for the examination and extraction of dangerous, suspicious, or illegitimate elements from global flows of mobility, border operations therefore increasingly rely on a number of databases...
Evaluating the quality of credit portfolio risk models is an important question for both banks and regulators. Lopez and Saidenberg (2000) suggest cross-sectional resampling techniques in order to make efficient use of available data and to produce measures of forecast accuracy. We first show that their proposal disregards crosssectional dependence in simulated subportfolios, which renders standard statistical inference invalid. We proceed by suggesting another evaluation methodology which draws on the concept of likelihood ratio tests. Specifically, we compare the predictive quality of alternative models by comparing the probabilities that observed data have been generated by these models. The distribution of the test statistic can be derived through Monte Carlo simulation. To exploit differences in cross-sectional predictions of alternative models, the test can be based on a linear combination of subportfolio statistics. In the construction of the test, the weight of a subportfolio depends on the difference in the loss distributions which alternative models predict for this particular portfolio. This makes efficient use of the data, and reduces computational burden. Monte Carlo simulations suggest that the power of the tests is satisfactory.
JEL classification: G2; G28; C52
This paper investigates the accuracy of point and density forecasts of four DSGE models for inflation, output growth and the federal funds rate. Model parameters are estimated and forecasts are derived successively from historical U.S. data vintages synchronized with the Fed’s Greenbook projections. Point forecasts of some models are of similar accuracy as the forecasts of nonstructural large dataset methods. Despite their common underlying New Keynesian modeling philosophy, forecasts of different DSGE models turn out to be quite distinct. Weighted forecasts are more precise than forecasts from individual models. The accuracy of a simple average of DSGE model forecasts is comparable to Greenbook projections for medium term horizons. Comparing density forecasts of DSGE models with the actual distribution of observations shows that the models overestimate uncertainty around point forecasts.
Exodus Eritrea
(2017)
The existence of complex clauses in the Amazonian language Pirahã has been controversially debated. We present a novel analysis of field data demonstrating the existence of complex clauses in Pirahã. The data concern the tone of the morpheme 'sai' and stem from a field experiment where a second language speaker of Pirahã presented sentences and Pirahã speakers were asked to correct them saying the correct sentence alound. The experimental items contained the morpheme 'sai' in two different clausal environments: a nominalizer and a conditional environment according to Everett's 1986 description. Our phonetic analysis shows an effect clausal clausal environment on the pitch of 'sai'. The native Pirahã speakers pronounced conditional 'sai' with lower pitch than nominalizer 'sai'. We show furthermore that the experimenters pitch on 'sai' shows the opposite pattern from that of the native Pirahã speakers and hence the Pirahã's pitch could not just have been copied. The effect of the clausal environment on the tone of 'sai' can be explained by a complex clause analysis of Pirahã, while existing alternative proposals do not explain the difference.
We address to the problem to factor a large composite number by lattice reduction algorithms. Schnorr has shown that under a reasonable number theoretic assumptions this problem can be reduced to a simultaneous diophantine approximation problem. The latter in turn can be solved by finding sufficiently many l_1--short vectors in a suitably defined lattice. Using lattice basis reduction algorithms Schnorr and Euchner applied Schnorrs reduction technique to 40--bit long integers. Their implementation needed several hours to compute a 5% fraction of the solution, i.e., 6 out of 125 congruences which are necessary to factorize the composite. In this report we describe a more efficient implementation using stronger lattice basis reduction techniques incorporating ideas of Schnorr, Hoerner and Ritter. For 60--bit long integers our algorithm yields a complete factorization in less than 3 hours.
We modify the concept of LLL-reduction of lattice bases in the sense of Lenstra, Lenstra, Lovasz [LLL82] towards a faster reduction algorithm. We organize LLL-reduction in segments of the basis. Our SLLL-bases approximate the successive minima of the lattice in nearly the same way as LLL-bases. For integer lattices of dimension n given by a basis of length 2exp(O(n)), SLLL-reduction runs in O(n.exp(5+epsilon)) bit operations for every epsilon > 0, compared to O(exp(n7+epsilon)) for the original LLL and to O(exp(n6+epsilon)) for the LLL-algorithms of Schnorr (1988) and Storjohann (1996). We present an even faster algorithm for SLLL-reduction via iterated subsegments running in O(n*exp(3)*log n) arithmetic steps.
In Lango, Northern Uganda, 20 years of war, cattle rustling and HIV/AIDS have resulted in widespread loss of life, population displacement, and loss of property. In spite of this turmoil, some traditional cultural practices, such as widow inheritance, early child marriage, and widow cleansing continued, although they were increasingly seen to conflict with ‘modern’ development thinking, especially when infringing women and children’s rights. External development actors first tried to address this situation by ‘sensitising’ communities, but with limited success. It however soon became evident that clan leaders were instrumental in perpetuating cultural practices: in the early 2000’s, they became increasingly identified as key actors to address harmful traditions and to resolve conflicts. With the many trials faced by local communities, women’s roles in supporting the family institution and upholding cultural values had however expanded too. Several development organisations were established to address the challenges related to these changes and one was the Lango Female Clan Leaders’ Association, with a focus on promoting girls’ education and access to justice for women. This case study examines the role that these female clan leaders have successfully played in tackling current gender- related challenges. It explores the interface between traditional and modern gender concepts and the value of working with cultural resource persons to address cultural challenges. The study involved desk research, field based semistructure interviews, focus group discussions with 30 respondents and key informants, and a validation write-shop, all held in the course of 2008.
We study the effect of weakening creditor rights on distress risk premia via a bankruptcy reform that shifts bargaining power in financial distress toward shareholders. We find that the reform reduces risk factor loadings and returns of distressed stocks. The effect is stronger for firms with lower firm-level shareholder bargaining power. An increase in credit spreads of riskier relative to safer firms, in particular for firms with lower firm-level shareholder bargaining power, confirms a shift in bargaining power from bondholders to shareholders. Out-of-sample tests reveal that a reversal of the reform's effects leads to a reversal of factor loadings and returns.
In this paper, we investigate the implications of providing loan officers with a compensation structure that rewards loan volume and penalizes poor performance. We study detailed transactional information of more than 45,000 loans issued by 240 loan officers of a large commercial bank in Europe. We find that when the performance of their portfolio deteriorates, loan officers shift their efforts towards monitoring poorly-performing borrowers and issue fewer loans. However, these new loans are of above-average quality, which suggests that loan officers have a pecking order and process loans only for the very best clients when they are under time constraints.
Financing asset growth
(2012)
We document the existence of a debt anomaly that is in addition to the asset growth anomaly: for a given asset growth rate, firms that issue more debt, as well as firms that retire more debt, have lower stock returns in the 12 months starting 6 months after the calendar year of asset growth. Exploring the reasons for debt issuance, we find that managers of firms for which analyst expectations are more over-optimistic, which suffer from declining investment profitability, and whose earnings-price ratios are relatively high are inclined to rely more heavily on debt financing. On the other hand, firms that retire more debt for a given asset growth rate tend to have improving profitability but to be over-priced. We also find that the financing decision is influenced by the prior debt ratio, the asset growth rate, profitability, and CEO pay sensitivity. We interpret our results in terms of managerial incentives, signaling, and market timing.
In the aftermath of the global financial crisis and great recession, many countries face substantial deficits and growing debts. In the United States, federal government outlays as a ratio to GDP rose substantially from about 19.5 percent before the crisis to over 24 percent after the crisis. In this paper we consider a fiscal consolidation strategy that brings the budget to balance by gradually reducing this spending ratio over time to the level that prevailed prior to the crisis. A crucial issue is the impact of such a consolidation strategy on the economy. We use structural macroeconomic models to estimate this impact. We consider two types of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models: a neoclassical growth model and more complicated models with price and wage rigidities and adjustment costs. We separate out the impact of reductions in government purchases and transfers, and we allow for a reduction in both distortionary taxes and government debt relative to the baseline of no consolidation. According to the initial model simulations GDP rises in the short run upon announcement and implementation of this fiscal consolidation strategy and remains higher than the baseline in the long run.
Five books I liked in 2015
(2016)
Here are five books I read in 2015 that I particularly liked. Expect an eclectic mix of fiction and non-fiction, and not necessarily social-sciency. Although I tend to pick those books that end up having some social science-stuff / politics in them without explicitly looking for it. That, and books about spaceships...
During the period 24 May to 1 June 2010 observations were made of the flora, fauna and habitats of two study areas in the Rub al Khali in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Firstly the route of an existing pipeline, known as Shabab 1, which runs from the Jafurah desert south of Abqaiq to a point 211 km west of the Shaybah oil field, a distance of 422 km. Secondly the Shaybah oilfield area (administered by Saudi ARAMCO), paying particular attention to the sites listed at paragraph 6. (See also the map at Fig. 1.) In the following paragraphs the two sites are often identified simply as Shabab and Shaybah.
In this paper, I analyse the reciprocal social influence on investment decisions within an international group of roughly 2000 mutual fund managers that invested in companies of the DAX30. Using a robust estimation procedure, I provide empirical evidence that in the average a fund manager puts 0.69% more portfolio weight on a particular stock, if other fund managers increase the corresponding position by 1%. The dynamics of this influence on portfolio weights suggest that fund managers adjust their behaviour according to the prevailing market situation and are more strongly influenced by others in times of an economic downturn. Analysing the working locations of the fund managers, I conclude that more than 90% of the magnitude of influence is due to pure observation. While this form of influence varies much in time, the magnitude of influence resulting from the exchange of opinion is more or less constant.
The paper will focus on the early texts of Galileo Galilei (1613~1623) and Daniel Bernoulli (1738) as examples of pure combinatorical analysis and perspectively considerations within the mathematical discipline of probability theory. It is argued that Bernoulli's approach needed to be developed further in order to achieve a successful and satisfactory theory of risk. In modern economy the need for a proper definition of a notion of risk is seen and currently discussed within the frame of ISO standards. But as already mentioned this interest is mainly owed to the governmental demands of the Basel II and Solvency standards and therefore an external demand. On the other hand an intrinsic understanding of the meaning of risk, as could be provided by a conclusive theory, could lead to a better success in modelling various risks and help to achieve better prognosis.
Terrorism isn't new to the country; in its history, France has experienced a significant number of attacks. In 1995, the GIA-affiliated terrorist network of which Khaled Kelkal was part conducted several attacks, as did the Al Qaida-affiliated gang de Roubaix one year later; but until Mohammed Merah’s murders in 2012 in Toulouse and Montauban, terrorist attacks were treated as political violence in the context of anti-colonial struggles or connected to other kinds of violent conflicts abroad, such as the Bosnian War, rather than as religiously inspired or connected to social, societal and/or political issues within the country, or as some sort of atypical pathology. Terrorist perpetrators, their networks and milieus were met with repressive instruments – a wider angle of analysis which would have allowed to tackle the threat from a more holistic perspective had not been incorporated in a counter-terrorism policy design.
Freiburg School of Law and Economics, Freiburg (Lehrstuhl-)Tradition and the Genesis of Norms
(2014)
The paper analyzes the parallels and differences between the Freiburg School of Law and Economics represented by the works of Eucken (and Röpke) and the Freiburg (Lehrstuhl-)Tradition represented by the works of Hayek and Vanberg. The parallels are illustrated by making use of the constitutional economics concepts Ordnungspolitik (i.e., order of rules/choices over rules) as well as freedom of privileges and discrimination. The differences, which have received surprisingly little attention, include the following aspects: 1. philosophy of science and epistemology, 2. genesis of norms, and 3. political philosophy. The paper tackles these issues in three steps. The second chapter presents Vanberg’s constitutional economics theory with special emphasis on the concepts of citizen sovereignty and normative individualism. The third chapter reviews the ordoliberal concepts of science and the state which are – to a certain degree – elitist and expertocratic, that is, they rely to a considerable degree on intellectual experts (in particular, scientists) being part of the societal elite. The fourth chapter differentiates two kinds of genesis of norms: an evolutionary one and an elitist-expertocratic one allowing for a differentiation between Eucken’s and Röpke’s Ordoliberalism on the on the hand and Vanberg’s Hayekian -- and Buchanan-style constitutional economics approach on the other hand. The paper ends with a summary of the main findings.
The paper introduces the socio-anthropological concept of international representations to examine the relationship between a civilizational rhetoric, the West European and the international politics of otherization and containment of Southeast Europe, and an essentialist and timeless bias in international relations theory, including both radical and constructivist trends...
Asymmetric conflicts in which rule is contested by non-state actors are often interpreted as a destabilization of order. This also holds true for the case of IS. Indeed, it cannot be denied that its transnational “jihad” has contributed to destabilizing a whole region. On the other hand, it has been repeatedly noted that IS has – within the territory it controls – established an alternative order offering stability. At least for those who fit in the worldview of the wannabe-caliphate. As reported by inhabitants of its powerhouse Raqqa, IS does not only create obedience by force but also by providing administration, workplaces and public services. Or as Benham T. Said put it, some few Arabs “associate an Islamic state with notions of justice, stability and prosperity”...
In the past years a variety of papers have been presented by the European Commission and by the EU High Representative, outlining strategies of the EU in foreign-, security- and refugee policies. Many of these strategic documents reflect the ambivalence of the EU Policy. On the one hand the complementarity and coherence of approaches is emphasized; on the other hand, core elements of the foreign-, security- and refugee policy undermine aims in other policy fields...
At the upcoming G20 meetings the issue what can be done to avoid a repetition of the current deep financial crisis will again be debated. Much attention and criticism will be directed to central banks. That is unavoidable: central banks must never again permit the development of financial imbalances that are large enough to lead to the collapse of major parts of the financial system when they unwind. In the future, policy makers must “lean against the wind” and tighten financial conditions if they perceive that imbalances are forming, even if there is little hard data to rely on. And they must be mindful that the costs of acting too late can dwarf those of acting too early.
While conflicts can be managed and resolved to the extent of peace keeping, evolving to state of peace and peace society is a far larger and challenging experience. The armed forces by definition and global practice are nurtured and trained to violence. However, it takes a lot more time and enough maturity and strength for a non-violent struggle...
The tentative title of my presentation is GENDER AMBIVALENCE (AMBIGUITY?) and deals with Renaissance iconography in Thomas Mann's Death in Venice. It will show that homosexual attraction, although obvious in the story (and Mann's life) is a secondary issue and that the main concern lies with the problem provided by an aesthetic principle. (Parallel narratives, the plot is not the real/only story).
The latest appointment to the ECB's Executive Board initiated a political dispute between the European Parliament and the Euro Group on the question of representation of females on the Executive Board and the Governing Council of the ECB. The dispute has raised awareness to the fact that a culture of equality and equal opportunity should be built from the ground up. A long term plan helping talented women to emerge and be prepared to take increasing responsibilities is necessary to make sure that there is a growing pool of qualified female candidates.
Management Summary: Conducted within the project “Economic Implications of New Models for Information Supply for Science and Research in Germany”, the Houghton Report for Germany provides a general cost and benefit analysis for scientific communication in Germany comparing different scenarios according to their specific costs and explicitly including the German National License Program (NLP).
Basing on the scholarly lifecycle process model outlined by Björk (2007), the study compared the following scenarios according to their accounted costs:
- Traditional subscription publishing,
- Open access publishing (Gold Open Access; refers primarily to journal publishing where access is free of charge to readers, while the authors or funding organisations pay for publication)
- Open Access self-archiving (authors deposit their work in online open access institutional or subject-based repositories, making it freely available to anyone with Internet access; further divided into (i) CGreen Open Access’ self-archiving operating in parallel with subscription publishing; and (ii) the ‘overlay services’ model in which self-archiving provides the foundation for overlay services (e.g. peer review, branding and quality control services))
- the NLP.
Within all scenarios, five core activity elements (Fund research and research communication; perform research and communicate the results; publish scientific and scholarly works; facilitate dissemination, retrieval and preservation; study publications and apply the knowledge) were modeled and priced with all their including activities.
Modelling the impacts of an increase in accessibility and efficiency resulting from more open access on returns to R&D over a 20 year period and then comparing costs and benefits, we find that the benefits of open access publishing models are likely to substantially outweigh the costs and, while smaller, the benefits of the German NLP also exceed the costs.
This analysis of the potential benefits of more open access to research findings suggests that different publishing models can make a material difference to the benefits realised, as well as the costs faced. It seems likely that more Open Access would have substantial net benefits in the longer term and, while net benefits may be lower during a transitional period, they are likely to be positive for both ‘author-pays’ Open Access publishing and the ‘over-lay journals’ alternatives (‘Gold Open Access’), and for parallel subscription publishing and self-archiving (‘Green Open Access’). The NLP returns substantial benefits and savings at a modest cost, returning one of the highest benefit/cost ratios available from unilateral national policies during a transitional period (second to that of ‘Green Open Access’ self-archiving). Whether ‘Green Open Access’ self-archiving in parallel with subscriptions is a sustainable model over the longer term is debateable, and what impact the NLP may have on the take up of Open Access alternatives is also an important consideration. So too is the potential for developments in Open Access or other scholarly publishing business models to significantly change the relative cost-benefit of the NLP over time.
The results are comparable to those of previous studies from the UK and Netherlands. Green Open Access in parallel with the traditional model yields the best benefits/cost ratio. Beside its benefits/cost ratio, the meaningfulness of the NLP is given by its enforceability. The true costs of toll access publishing (beside the buyback” of information) is the prohibition of access to research and knowledge for society.
When one considers the results of social scientific surveys, secularisation in Germany seems to be a more or less linear process of erosion of what is traditionally named religiosity. The percentage of citizens who affirm that they are “religious”, believe in God or otherworldly beings, hope for life after death or participate regularly in the praxis of a religious community has been – by and large – steadily declining for decades. This decline has occurred over the succeeding generations: The younger the generation, the fewer “religious” people in it. But the process of secularisation is apparent not only in this persistent quantitative shrinkage from generation to generation. Above all it also manifests itself – this is the thesis of the article – in the transformation of the habitus formations and contents of faith of the generations. The essence of ongoing secularisation naturally is reflected most clearly in its contemporary state of development which is represented in the youngest adult generation. Therefore the analysis of this generation is particularly interesting for the sociology of religion. But the article does not confine to analyze this generation. After indicating some basic premises of the sociology of generations and the notion of secularisation presupposed in this paper, the succession of generations in Germany is outlined hypothetically, from the so-called generation of ´68 to the youngest adult generation, concluding with some remarks about the progress of secularisation.
Quantificational determiners in Japanese can be marked with genitive case. Current analyses (for example by Watanabe, Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, to appear) treat the genetive case marker in these cases as semantically vacuous, but we show that it has semantic effects. We propose a new analysis as reverse partitives. Following Jackendoff (MIT-Press, 1977), we assume that partitives always contain two NPs one of which is phonologically deleted. We claim that, while in normal partitives the higher noun is deleted, in reverse partitives the lower noun is deleted.
s.a. Deutsche Fassung: Rechtshistorisches Journal 15, 1996, 255-290 und in: Eric Schwarz (Hg.) La théorie des systèmes: une approche inter- et transdisciplinaire. Bösch, Sion 1996, 101-119. Italienische Fassung: La Bukowina globale: il pluralismo giuridico nella società mondiale. Sociologic a politiche sociali 2, 1999, 49-80. Portugiesische Fassung: Bukowina global sobre a emergência de um pluralismo jurídico transnacional. Impulso: Direito e Globalização 14, 2003. Georgische Fassung: Globaluri bukovina: samarTlebrivi pluralizmi msoflio sazogadoebaSi. Journal of the Institute of State and Law of the Georgian Academy of Sciences 2005 (im Erscheinen)
Goethe - Egmont
(2010)
Goethe : Novelle
(2010)
Eckermann reports a conversation with Goethe on January 29, 1827: Es kam sodann zur Sprache, welchen Titel man der Novelle geben sollte; wir taten manche Vorschlaege, einige waren gut fuer den Anfang, andere gut fuer das Ende, doch fand sich keiner, der fuer das Ganze passend und also der rechte gewesen waere. "Wissen Sie was", sagte Goethe, "wir wollen es die Novelle nennen; denn was ist eine Novelle anders als eine sich ereignete unerhoerte Begebenheit. Dies ist der eigentliche Begriff, und so vieles, was in Deutschland unter dem Titel Novelle geht, ist gar keine Novelle, sondern bloss Erzaehlung oder was Sie sonst wollen. In jenem urspruenglichen Sinne einer unerhoerten Begebenheit kommt auch die Novelle in den Wahlverwandtschaften vor." This is the epilogue, as it were, to a lengthy conversation on January 15, 1827, in which Goethe interprets his own Novelle. Here an excerpt, a highly condensed analysis: Zu zeigen, wie das Unbaendige, Unueberwindliche oft besser durch Liebe und Froemmigkeit als durch Gewalt bezwungen werde, war die Aufgabe dieser Novelle, und dieses schoene Ziel, welches sich im Kinde und Loewen darstellt, reizte mich zur Ausfuehrung. Dies ist das Ideelle, dies die Blume. Und das gruene Blaetterwerk der durchaus realen Exposition ist nur dieserwegen da und nur dieserwegen etwas wert.
Goethe: Helena
(2010)
Although we are concentrating on the Third Act, Faust's appreciation of legend's most beautiful woman begins much earlier, perhaps as early as the Hexenkueche scene where he is thoroughly enraptured by a woman's image in a magical mirror. It drives him crazy, he says (2456), particularly since he has to stay at a certain distance to keep it in proper focus (2434); can you see Mephisto's mischievous smile at this bit of enforced "disinterested contemplation"? Woman is God's final art work, the true Crown of Creation, we learn from Schiller's Princess Eboli; Mephisto seems to say as much, and Faust like most men needs no convincing. We can't be sure that this is indeed Helen, we (and Faust) have yet to meet her. She remains nameless but, by any name, would be as sweet.
Languages vary in whether or not primary grammatical relations (PGRs) are sensitive to information from clause-level case or phrase structures. This variation correlates with a difference between verb agreement systems based on feature unification and systems based on feature composition. The choice between different PGR and agreement principles is found to be highly stable genetically and to characterize Indo-European as systematically different from Sino-Tibetan. Although the choice is partially similar to the Configurationality Parameter, it is shown that Indo-European languages of South Asia are nonconfigurational due to areal pressure but follow their European relatives in PGR and agreement principles.
We study the dispersion of debt maturities across time, which we call "granularity of corporate debt,'' using a model in which a firm's inability to roll over expiring debt causes inefficiencies, such as costly asset sales or underinvestment. Since multiple small asset sales are less costly than a single large one, firms diversify debt rollovers across maturity dates. We construct granularity measures using data on corporate bond issuers for the 1991-2012 period and establish a number of novel findings. First, there is substantial variation in granularity in that we observe both very concentrated and highly dispersed maturity structures. Second, observed variation in granularity supports the model's predictions, i.e. maturities are more dispersed for larger and more mature firms, for firms with better investment oppo
Gretchen's infanticide
(2010)
In the scene At The Well, Gretchen herself describes the sequence of events best and in all their fateful simplicity. It is the progress from "sin" to "shame", that is to public disgrace as soon as her private transgression becomes "visible" as pregnancy. Already here the painful confusion over her private perception ("good, dear love", lines 3585/6) and public judgment ("slut", line 3753) which will eventually drive her mad is obvious. In her derangement and despair she will destroy the evidence against her, that is, drown her child.