Imbalanced nutrients as triggers for black shale formation in a shallow shelf setting during the OAE 2 (Wunstorf, Germany)

During the oceanic anoxic event 2 (OAE 2) in the Mid-Cretaceous Period, widespread black shale (BS) formation occurred, reflecting perturbations in major biogeochemical cycles. Here we present geochemical and biomarker data of the OAE 2 from a shelf setting situated at about 100–150 m water depth (Wunstorf, Germany). Our data support that processes inducing BS deposition were related to orbital cyclicity in Wunstorf and that they were not restricted to the time of the OAE 2 carbon isotope excursion. Correlations of total organic carbon (TOC) and δ<sup>15</sup>N and high relative abundances of functionalized hopanoids (including 2-methylated structures) suggest that BS were formed during times of imbalanced nutrients with high phosphorus inputs and increased cyanobacterial nitrogen fixation. Periods of BS formation were also characterized by enhanced growth of dinoflagellates and bacteriovorous ciliates, the latter supporting the presence of a stratified water body. The lack of biomarkers specific for green sulfur bacteria excludes photic zone euxinia during OAE 2 in Wunstorf. Conflicting maturities and biomarker distributions in kerogen and extractable organic matter and, interestingly, a negative correlation of the diagenetically resistant 2-methyl hopane hydrocarbons with TOC indicate a complex depositional setting at Wunstorf. This might have been induced by high continental runoff during BS formation and the accompanying mobilisation of refractory OM from the shelves and near shore areas

Connecting Credit Grantors and Credit Requestors: Towards the Electronic Exchange of Rating-Relevant Information

Before granting new credits, banks must gather qualitative and quantitative information about their prospective customers in order to start a rating process which allows them to assess the credit requestor’s risk class. Driven by intense structural changes within the financial industry and as a result of the specifications of the Basle II accord with regard to the rating process, banks are currently looking for new ways to improve the timeliness and quality of the rating-relevant data provided by credit requestors while at the same time reducing the costs of the rating process. Banks can achieve this by providing a platform for their prospective customers through which real-time financial data (e.g., daily cash flow data) can be transferred in an automated manner. We believe that realtime integration can be beneficial for both market sides, the banks as well as their prospective customers. Within this paper, we focus our attention on the credit requestor side. Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior and on the literature on innovation adoption, we develop a model of factors that affect the willingness of SMEs to adopt IOS for the purpose of providing real-time rating information to their credit banks. Within six exploratory case studies, we discuss this model with financial decision-makers of German SMEs

The accident insurance as a promising direction for insurance in Russia

Статья посвящена анализу состояния рынка услуг страхования от несчастных случаев. Актуальность исследования определяется тем, что страхование является неотъемлемым атрибутом цивилизованного общества, позволяющим сохранить обеспеченность доходами при неблагоприятных ситуациях. По статистике в России уровень травматизма и непредвиденных обстоятельств весьма велик. Люди традиционно уделяют мало внимания формированию резервов на случай временной или постоянной нетрудоспособности. Цель работы: рассмотреть систему страхования от несчастных случаев. Методы исследования: метод сопоставления, необходимый для выявления главных тенденций на рынке страховых услуг; аналитический метод, позволяющий понять, какие проблемы характерны для этого вида страхования; статистический метод, выявляющий масштабы страхования от несчастных случаев. Результаты: раскрывается сущность и виды страхования от несчастных случаев.The article is devoted to analysis of service market of accident insurance. The relevant of the study is determined by the fact that insurance is an integral attribute of a civilized society that allows you to save security income in adverse situations. According to statistics, in Russia the level of injury and unforeseen circumstances is very great. People traditionally pay little attention to formation of reserves in case of temporary or permanent incapacity for work. The main aim of the study is to consider the system of the accident insurance. Methods: the matching method required to identify the main trends in the insurance market; the analytical technique which allows understanding the typical problems for this type of insurance; the statistical method allows us to identify the extent of accident insurance. Results. The paper reveals the essence and types of accident insurance and considers the model events when the insurance company indemnifies for the damage. The causes of the demand for this type of insurance in Russia are identified. Based on the statistical data the author has determined the proportion of the accident insured people

Lines of Descent: Kuhn and Beyond

yesThomas S. Kuhn is famous both for his work on the Copernican Revolution and his ‘paradigm’ view of scientific revolutions. But Kuhn later abandoned the notion of paradigm (and related notions) in favour of a more ‘evolutionary’ view of the history of science. Kuhn’s position therefore moved closer to ‘continuity’ models of scientific progress, for instance ‘chain-of-reasoning’ models, originally championed by D. Shapere. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate around Kuhn’s new ‘developmental’ view and to evaluate these competing models with reference to some major innovations in the history of cosmology, from Copernicanism to modern cosmology. This evaluation is made possible through some unexpected overlap between Kuhn’s earlier discontinuity model and various versions of the later continuity models. It is the thesis of this paper that the ‘chain-of-reasoning’ model accounts better for the cosmological evidence than both Kuhn’s early paradigm model and his later developmental view of the history of science

The ontological consequences of Copernicus: global being in the planetary world

This article argues that contemporary space exploration, in producing visual representations of the planetary Earth for terrestrial consumption, has engendered a shift in the way the Earth - as terra firma - is both experienced and conceived. The article goes on to suggest that this shift is a key, but still largely tacit presupposition, underlying contemporary discourses on globalization and cultural cosmopolitanization. However, a close reading of some of the texts that make up the canon of 20th-century European philosophy shows that this idea of a ‘deterritorialized’ planetary Earth challenges some basic presuppositions of that canon: especially its use of the pre-reflective experience of terra firma as a tropic site of intological and normative grounds. This article examines the way in which contemporary Western European philosophy - and intellectual culture generally - has responded to this challenge: and offers Deleuze and Guattari’s idea of the Earth as a ‘surface without territory’ as the most intellectually and ethically viable conception of the Earth in the age of ‘planetary deterritorialization’

Renaissance concept of impetus

The concept of impetus denoted the transmission of a power from the mover to the object moved. Many authors resorted to this concept to explain why a projectile keeps on moving when no longer in contact with its initial mover. But its application went further, as impetus was also appealed to in attempts to explain the acceleration of falling bodies or the motion of the heavens. It was widely applied in Renaissance natural philosophy, but it also raised a number of ontological questions concerning its precise nature

Crime, media and the will-to-representation: Reconsidering relationships in the new media age

This paper considers the ways in which the rise of new media might challenge commonplace criminological assumptions about the crime–media interface. Established debates around crime and media have long been based upon a fairly clear demarcation between production and consumption, between object and audience – the media generates and transmits representations of crime, and audiences engage with them. However, one of the most noticeable changes occurring in the wake of the development of new media is the proliferation of self-organised production by ‘ordinary people’ – everything ranging from self-authored web pages and ‘blogs’, to self-produced video created using hand-held camcorders, camera-phones and ‘webcams’. Today we see the spectacle of people them, send them and upload them to the Internet. This kind of ‘will to representation’ may be seen in itself as a new kind of causal inducement to law- and rule-breaking behaviour. It may be that, in the new media age, the terms of criminological questioning need to be sometimes reversed: instead of asking whether ‘media’ instigates crime or fear of crime, we must ask how the very possibility of bound up with the genesis of criminal behaviour.performing acts of crime and deviance in order to recordmediating oneself to an audience through self-representation might be bound up with the genesis of criminal behaviour