Sounds of Soil: A New World of Interactions under Our Feet?

Soils are biodiversity-dense and constantly carry chemical flows of information, with our mental image of soil being dark and quiet. But what if soil biota tap sound, or more generally, vibrations as a source of information? Vibrations are produced by soil biota, and there is accumulating evidence that such vibrations, including sound, may also be perceived. We here argue for potential advantages of sound/vibration detection, which likely revolve around detection of potential danger, e.g., predators. Substantial methodological retooling will be necessary to capture this form of information, since sound-related equipment is not standard in soils labs, and in fact this topic is very much at the fringes of the classical soil research at present. Sound, if firmly established as a mode of information exchange in soil, could be useful in an ‘acoustics-based’ precision agriculture as a means of assessing aspects of soil biodiversity, and the topic of sound pollution could move into focus for soil biota and processes

Determinanten popmusikalischer Kanonisierungsprozesse : eine quantitative Untersuchung von Einflussfaktoren auf die Bewertungspraxis in Jahresbestenlisten

The paper examines current canonization processes in popular music. Beginning with a definition of a canon, which is based upon theoretical concepts from Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault, a primarily sociological perspective will be taken, which understands canonization as a result of a complex balance of power of vari-ous social agents partaking in the canon-discourse. In the empirical part of the paper the rating practices of the readerships and editorial teams of four German music magazines (INTRO, Spex, Rolling Stone, Musikexpress) will be taken into ac-count. With reference to the definition of a canon, to the agents and entities par-ticipating in the selection process as well as to findings of previous investigations, musical and social influencing factors on rating practices on chart lists of the music magazines shall be determined

Volcker rule, ring-fencing or separation of bank activities:comparison of structural reform acts around the world

One of the key issues in the on-going overhaul of the global financial system is the structural reform of banking systems. Legislatures in different states, e.g. the United States, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, have all taken measures to protect individual depositors' assets against losses from risky bank activities. On 29 January 2014, the European Commission joined the transnational effort by publishing its own proposal on the subject. This contribution shows how the same economic goal is implemented through different approaches by legislatures across the globe. It also analyses how this legal diversity will affect the level playing field in the competition for banking services and the consistency of global financial regulation

Liberating the Individual from Battles between States

Current theories of conflict of laws have one common feature: they all consider the question of the applicable law in terms of a conflict between states. Legal systems are seen as fighting with each other over the application of law to a certain case. From this perspective, the goal of conflicts methods is to assign factual situations to the competent rule maker for resolution. Party autonomy presents a problem for this view: if individuals are allowed to choose which law will be applied to their dispute, it seems as if private persons could determine the outcome of the battle between states--but how is this possible? This Article tries to give a theoretical solution to this puzzle. The underlying idea is that conflicts theory has to be recalibrated. Its goal should not be to solve conflicts between states, but to serve the individual, its needs and wants. Through this shift of focus, it becomes not only possible to justify party autonomy, but also to answer a number of practical questions raised by it. Furthermore, this Article will propose a new normative category, relatively mandatory rules and discuss some important implications that the new approach may have for conflict of laws generally

Entrepreneurial ecosystems: a dynamic lifecycle model

The concept of entrepreneurial ecosystems has been used as a framework to explain entrepreneurial activities within regions and industrial sectors. Despite the usefulness of this approach, the concept is under-theorized, especially with regard to the evolution of entrepreneurial ecosystems. The current literature is lacking a theoretical foundation that addresses the development and change of entrepreneurial ecosystems over time and does not consider the inherent dynamics of entrepreneurial ecosystems that lead to their birth, growth, maturity, decline, and re-emergence. Taking an industry lifecycle perspective, this paper addresses this research gap by elaborating a dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem lifecycle model. We propose that an ecosystem transitions from an entrepreneurial ecosystem, with a focus on new firm creation, towards a business ecosystem, with a core focus on the internal commercialization of knowledge, i.e., intrapreneurial activities, and vice versa. Our dynamic model thus captures the oscillation that occurs among entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs through the different phases of an ecosystem’s lifecycle. Our dynamic lifecycle model may thus serve as a starting point for future empirical studies focusing on ecosystems and provide the basis for a further understanding of the interrelatedness between and co-existence of new and incumbent firms

Two Perceptions of Change in Judeo-Spanish Rabbinic Literature

In this article, I analyze the brief references to the invention of the telegraph in Yeuda Papo's Judeo-Spanish version of the Pele Yo ´ets and Ben Tsion Rodeti's Sefer Ki Ze Kol ha-Adam, two Judeo-Spanish books of musar from the nineteenth century. These rather unlikely references permit us to study perceptions of present, future, and change held by two Sephardic rabbis from the Ottoman Empire in a period of accelerated technological progress and social transformation. Two different attitudes towards change can be described. While Papo's work announces important transformations in the semantics of understanding time, without stepping outside rabbinic tradition itself, Ben Tsion Rodeti denies the very fact of change and affirms that everything that has to be known already is included once and for all in the rabbinic literary tradition.En este artículo analizo las referencias a la introducción del telégrafo en dos libros de musar del siglo XIX publicados en ladino: el Pele Yo 'éŝ, cuyo versión judeoespañola preparó Yeudá Papo, y el Séfer Ki źe kol haadam, de Ben-Ŝiyón Binyamín Rodeti. Los pasajes nos permiten estudiar cómo entendieron estos dos rabinos sefardíes el tiempo presente y el futuro, así como los cambios en un período de avances técnicos y transformaciones sociales como los que se produjeron en el Imperio Otomano del siglo XIX. Podemos distinguir dos tendencias. Mientras que el libro de Papo anuncia importantes transformaciones semánticas en el entendimiento del tiempo -aunque él mismo nunca sale del margen de la tradición rabínica-, Ben-Ŝiyón Rodeti descarta que haya cambios y afirma que todo ya se ha dicho en la tradición literaria rabínica y que los tiempos actuales no cuestionan ni pueden cuestionar esta tradición

Automatic Dialog Mask Generation for Device-Independent Web Applications

When building web applications for use on different devices, developers need to deal with a wide range of input/output capabilities that affect how users interact with the application: A dialog that can be completed in one step on a desktop client may have to be broken up into a number of steps on a small-screen mobile device. Since it is time-consuming to define all the possible dialog masks and dialog flow variants for different channels manually, it would be desirable to automate the adaptation of dialog masks and flows. To address this need, we introduce the DiaDef language for the abstract, device-independent definition of the widgets in a dialog, and the DiaGen framework that automatically breaks this abstract dialog definition down into sufficiently small dialog masks for the users’ mobile devices and incorporates them into suitable micro dialog flows that are generated at run-time in order to be handled by our Dialog Control Framework

THEORY-DRIVEN DESIGN OF A MOBILE-LEARNING APPLICATION TO SUPPORT DIFFERENT INTERACTION TYPES IN LARGE-SCALE LECTURES

Universities face increasing numbers of students leading to increasingly large lectures, and decreasing interaction and collaboration, which are important factors for learning success and satisfaction. The use of IT can help overcoming this challenge by increasing the interaction in large-scale lectures without massively increasing the workload of lecturers. In this research-in-progress paper, we present the design and pre-test of a mobile-learning application aiming to increase the interaction in large-scale lectures and the learning success of learners. For designing our application, we follow a design science research approach. We rely on insights from interaction theory as well as requirements gathered from lecturers and students in a focus group workshop. A pre-test of our application showed high valus for Perceived Usefulness, User Satisfaction, and Perceived Presentation Quality for the overall application and moreover high valus for Performance Expectancy and Intention to Use of all but one functions. The results show that the application is ready for being used in large-scale lectures. As a next step, the application will be used in one of our large-scale lectures aiming to evaluate whether using our application has a positive impact on interaction, satisfaction and learning success

Product environmental footprint in policy and market decisions: Applicability and impact assessment

In April 2013, the European Commission published the Product and Organisation Environmental Footprint (PEF/OEF) methodology—a life cycle‐based multicriteria measure of the environmental performance of products, services, and organizations. With its approach of “comparability over flexibility,” the PEF/OEF methodology aims at harmonizing existing methods, while decreasing the flexibility provided by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards regarding methodological choices. Currently, a 3‐y pilot phase is running, aiming at testing the methodology and developing product category and organization sector rules (PEFCR/OEFSR). Although a harmonized method is in theory a good idea, the PEF/OEF methodology presents challenges, including a risk of confusion and limitations in applicability to practice. The paper discusses the main differences between the PEF and ISO methodologies and highlights challenges regarding PEF applicability, with a focus on impact assessment. Some methodological aspects of the PEF and PEFCR Guides are found to contradict the ISO 14044 (2006) and ISO 14025 (2006). Others, such as prohibition of inventory cutoffs, are impractical. The evaluation of the impact assessment methods proposed in the PEF/OEF Guide showed that the predefined methods for water consumption, land use, and abiotic resources are not adequate because of modeling artefacts, missing inventory data, or incomplete characterization factors. However, the methods for global warming and ozone depletion perform very well. The results of this study are relevant for the PEF (and OEF) pilot phase, which aims at testing the PEF (OEF) methodology (and potentially adapting it) as well as addressing challenges and coping with them. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2015;11:417–424