How Banks Construct and Manage Risk: A Sociological Study of Small Firm Lending in Britain and Germany

This paper analyses the role of banks in financing SMEs in Britain and Germany. It applies a sociological institutionalist approach to understand how banks construct and manage risk, relating to SME business. The empirical analysis is based on the results of a comparative survey of a sample of British and German banks and also refers to statistical material produced by the banks themselves. The paper concludes that, even though bank- firm relations are still deeply embedded in national institutional frameworks, some tendencies towards convergence can also be observed, particularly among commercial banks from the two countries. These flow from both internationalisation and from the political influence of the EU.Bank Lending; SMEs; Britain; Germany

Epistemic Communities and Social Movements: Transnational Dynamics in the Case of Creative Commons

While the existence of transnational communities is increasingly recognized in globalization studies, very little is yet known about their impact on global governance. Studies investigating the role of transnational communities in international rule setting tend to specialize in specific types, such as epistemic communities, social movements, or policy networks, and narrow down their effects to agenda setting or issue framing. In this paper, we choose a broader view. We examine the regulatory effects which arise when different types of transnational communities with a common goal operate in concurrence through all phases of the rule-setting process. The empirical research of this papers focuses on the transnational governance field of copyright. More specifically, we study transnational communities aiming to overcome limitations to the prevalent transnational copyright regime in the face of new information technology. On the basis of a longitudinal case study, we show how an epistemic community and a social movement came to interact around the non-profit organization “Creative Commons” in ways which provided unforeseen momentum for their rule-setting project. This impetus generated both functional and latent effects. While the rapid growth of the social movement enabled Creative Commons to successfully disseminate its private licenses among producers of digital intellectual goods, bypassing classical regulators and policy makers, it also threatened the goals and internal decision making of Creative Commons itself. Following the division of Creative Commons into two separate, but still connected, organizations, it remains to be seen how the interaction of the epistemic community and social movement will evolve in the future.Obwohl die Existenz transnationaler Gemeinschaften in der Globalisierungsforschung immer mehr anerkannt wird, bleibt deren Einfluss auf globale Steuerung und Regulierung immer noch größtenteils im Dunkeln. Studien über die Rolle transnationaler Gemeinschaften im Bereich internationaler Regulierung konzentrieren sich meist auf spezifische Typen, wie epistemische Gemeinschaften, soziale Bewegungen oder politische Netzwerke, und beschränken deren Effekte auf Agenda-Setting oder Framing von Themen. In diesem Papier wählen wir eine breitere Perspektive. Wir untersuchen regulatorische Effekte, die entstehen, wenn verschiedene Typen von transnationalen Gemeinschaften mit einem gemeinsamen Ziel gleichzeitig sämtliche Phasen des Regulierungsprozesses durchlaufen. Der empirische Teil des Papiers konzentriert sich auf transnationale Regulierung im Bereich des Urheberrechts. Konkret untersuchen wir transnationale Gemeinschaften, die Beschränkungen des vorherrschenden Urheberrechtsregimes angesichts neuer Informationstechnologie zu überwinden suchen. Auf Basis einer Längsschnittstudie zeigen wir, wie eine epistemische Gemeinschaft und eine soziale Bewegung rund um die gemeinnützige Organisation "Creative Commons" interagieren und so unvorhergesehenen Schwung in ihrem Regulierungsprojekt auslösen. Diese Dynamik erzeugte funktionale ebenso wie verborgene Effekte. Während das schnelle Wachstum der sozialen Bewegung die erfolgreiche Diffusion von den privaten Lizenzen von Creative Commons – vorbei an klassischen Regulierern und politischen Akteuren – unter Erzeugern von digitalen intellektuellen Gütern ermöglichte, bedrohte es Ziele und interne Entscheidungsstrukturen von Creative Commons selbst. Wie sich das Zusammenwirken von epistemischer Gemeinschaft und sozialer Bewegung nach der Teilung von Creative Commons in zwei getrennte, aber immer noch miteinander verknüpfte Organisationen weiterentwickelt, wird erst die Zukunft zeigen.1 Introduction 2 Conceptual framework: Transnational epistemic communities and social movements 3 Method and data 4 Technological and political context: The internet challenge to the traditional regulation of copyright 5 Creative commons: Epistemic community concurring with social movement Birth of an epistemic community and formation of a non-profit organization in the United States Transnationalization of epistemic community and organization Unexpected effects of success: Social movement organizations joining in Organizational decoupling: A split-up for unity 6 Conclusions Reference

Short-lived brominated hydrocarbons – observations in the source regions and the tropical tropopause layer

We conducted measurements of the five important short-lived organic bromine species in the marine boundary layer (MBL). Measurements were made in the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes (Sylt Island, North Sea) in June 2009 and in the tropical Western Pacific during the TransBrom ship campaign in October 2009. For the one-week time series on Sylt Island, mean mixing ratios of CHBr3, CH2Br2, CHBr2Cl and CH2BrCl were 2.0, 1.1, 0.2, 0.1 ppt, respectively. We found maxima of 5.8 and 1.6 ppt for the two main components CHBr3 and CH2Br2. Along the cruise track in the Western Pacific (between 41° N and 13° S) we measured mean mixing ratios of 0.9, 0.9, 0.2, 0.1 and 0.1 ppt for CHBr3, CH2Br2, CHBrCl2, CHBr2Cl and CH2BrCl. Air samples with coastal influence showed considerably higher mixing ratios than the samples with open ocean origin. Correlation analyses of the two data sets yielded strong linear relationships between the mixing ratios of four of the five species (except for CH2BrCl). Using a combined data set from the two campaigns and a comparison with the results from two former studies, rough estimates of the molar emission ratios between the correlated substances were: 9/1/0.35/0.35 for CHBr3/CH2Br2/CHBrCl2/CHBr2Cl. Additional measurements were made in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) above Teresina (Brazil, 5° S) in June 2008, using balloon-borne cryogenic whole air sampling technique. Near the level of zero clear-sky net radiative heating (LZRH) at 14.8 km about 2.25 ppt organic bromine was bound to the five short-lived species, making up 13% of total organic bromine (17.82 ppt). CH2Br2 (1.45 ppt) and CHBr3 (0.56 ppt) accounted for 90% of the budget of short-lived compounds in that region. Near the tropopause (at 17.5 km) organic bromine from these substances was reduced to 1.35 ppt, with 1.07 and 0.12 ppt attributed to CH2Br2 and CHBr3, respectively

Soft Photons from Off-shell Particles in a Hot Plasma

Considering the propagation of off-shell particles in the framework of thermal field theory, we present the general formalism for the calculation of the production rate of soft photons and dileptons from a hot plasma. This approach is illustrated with an electrodynamic plasma. The photon production rate from strongly interacting quarks in the quark-gluon plasma, which might be formed in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions, is calculated in the previously unaccessible regime of photon energies of the order of the plasma temperature within an effective field theory incorporating dynamical chiral symmetry breaking.Comment: 8 pages in RevTeX format, 3 figures uuencoded postscript added. Also available by anonymous ftp at ftp://tpri6c.gsi.de/pub/phenning/qh95ga

Interorganisationale Netzwerke und digitale Gemeinschaften: Von Beiträgen zu Beteiligung?

In diesem Papier untersuchen wir anhand der Beispiele Wikimedia und Creative Commons das Management der Beziehung zwischen formal-vernetzten Organisationen und informaldigitalen Gemeinschaften. Die beiden Fälle stehen für die wachsende (auch: wissenschaftliche Anerkennung der) Bedeutung von Beiträgen aus größtenteils organisationsexternen Gemeinschaften für die Leistungserbringung von Organisationen. In einer vergleichenden Längsschnittstudie kontrastieren wir, wie zwei Franchisenetzwerke durch Abgrenzung (Creative Commons) oder Einbindung (Wikimedia) diffus-prekäre Grenzverhältnisse zwischen Organisation und Gemeinschaftsumwelt handhaben. Die Ergebnisse legen nahe, dass sowohl Einbindungs- wie auch Abgrenzungsstrategien auf eine Formulierung von Gemeinschaftsgrenzen angewiesen sind, die anschlussfähig an die für die Gemeinschaft konstitutiven Beitragspraktiken ist. Dem interaktiven und historisch kontingenten Charakter dieser Grenzziehung wiederum scheint eine pragmatistische Strategie „korrigierbarer Vorläufigkeit“ am ehesten Rechnung zu tragen

Two regularizations - two different models of Nambu-Jona-Lasinio

Two variants of the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model -- the model with 4-dimensional cutoff and the model with dimensionally-analytical regularization -- are systematically compared. It is shown that they are, in essence, two different models of light-quark interaction. In the mean-field approximation the distinction becomes apparent in a behavior of scalar amplitude near the threshold. For 4-dimensional cutoff the pole term can be extracted, which corresponds to sigma-meson. For dimensionally-analytical regularization the singularity of the scalar amplitude is not pole, and this singularity is quite disappeared at some value of the regularization parameter. Still more essential distinction of these models exists in the next-to-leading order of mean-field expansion. The calculations of meson contributions in the quark chiral condensate and in the dynamical quark mass demonstrate, that these contributions though their relatively smallness can destabilize the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model with 4-dimensional cutoff. On the contrary, the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model with dimensionally-analytical regularization is stabilized with the next-to-leading order, i.e. the value of the regularization parameter shifts to the stability region, where these contributions decrease.Comment: 14 pages; Journal version; parameter fixing procedure is modifie

Modelling marine emissions and atmospheric distributions of halocarbons and dimethyl sulfide: the influence of prescribed water concentration vs. prescribed emissions

Marine-produced short-lived trace gases such as dibromomethane (CH2Br2), bromoform (CHBr3), methyliodide (CH3I) and dimethyl sulfide (DMS) significantly impact tropospheric and stratospheric chemistry. Describing their marine emissions in atmospheric chemistry models as accurately as possible is necessary to quantify their impact on ozone depletion and Earth's radiative budget. So far, marine emissions of trace gases have mainly been prescribed from emission climatologies, thus lacking the interaction between the actual state of the atmosphere and the ocean. Here we present simulations with the chemistry climate model EMAC (ECHAM5/MESSy Atmospheric Chemistry) with online calculation of emissions based on surface water concentrations, in contrast to directly prescribed emissions. Considering the actual state of the model atmosphere results in a concentration gradient consistent with model real-time conditions at the ocean surface and in the atmosphere, which determine the direction and magnitude of the computed flux. This method has a number of conceptual and practical benefits, as the modelled emission can respond consistently to changes in sea surface temperature, surface wind speed, sea ice cover and especially atmospheric mixing ratio. This online calculation could enhance, dampen or even invert the fluxes (i.e. deposition instead of emissions) of very short-lived substances (VSLS). We show that differences between prescribing emissions and prescribing concentrations (−28 % for CH2Br2 to +11 % for CHBr3) result mainly from consideration of the actual, time-varying state of the atmosphere. The absolute magnitude of the differences depends mainly on the surface ocean saturation of each particular gas. Comparison to observations from aircraft, ships and ground stations reveals that computing the air–sea flux interactively leads in most of the cases to more accurate atmospheric mixing ratios in the model compared to the computation from prescribed emissions. Calculating emissions online also enables effective testing of different air–sea transfer velocity (k) parameterizations, which was performed here for eight different parameterizations. The testing of these different k values is of special interest for DMS, as recently published parameterizations derived by direct flux measurements using eddy covariance measurements suggest decreasing k values at high wind speeds or a linear relationship with wind speed. Implementing these parameterizations reduces discrepancies in modelled DMS atmospheric mixing ratios and observations by a factor of 1.5 compared to parameterizations with a quadratic or cubic relationship to wind spee