Language and mediality : on the medial status of "everyday language"

The medium of (oral) language is mostly disregarded (or overlooked) in contemporary media theories. This "ignoring of language" in media studies is often accompanied by an inadequate transport model of communication, and it converges with an "ignoring of mediality" in mentalistic theories of language. In the present article it will be argued that this misleading opposition of language and media can only be overcome if one already regards oral language, not just written language, as a medium of the human mind. In my argumentation I fall back on Wittgenstein’s conception of language games to try to show how Wittgenstein’s ideas can help us to clear up the problem of the mediality of language and also to show to what extent the mentalistic conception of Chomskyan provenance cannot be adequate to the phenomenon of language

Homogeneity property of Besov and Triebel-Lizorkin spaces

We consider the classical Besov and Triebel-Lizorkin spaces defined via differences and prove a homogeneity property for functions with bounded support in the frame of these spaces. As the proof is based on compact embeddings between the studied function spaces we present also some results on the entropy numbers of these embeddings. Moreover, we derive some applications in terms of pointwise multipliers

What are their Words Worth? Political Plans and Economic Pains of Fiscal Consolidations in New EU Member States

In this paper, we track fiscal authority behaviour in the ten new EU member states (NSM) in the period which immediately preceded their EU accession. We first present basic stylized facts about public budgets of those countries. The paper then analyses reasons which led to periods of fiscal consolidation in the NMS. Secondly, we also present evidence from Pre-Accession Economic and Convergence programmes of NMSs concerning planned steps of the fiscal authorities and try to contrast them with reality. Throughout the paper, we identify two different groups of countries which significantly differ in their fiscal behaviour. On the one side is the group of Baltic countries, displaying strong reform effort and responsible fiscal policy usually supported by strong economic growth. On the second extreme, we identify fiscally irresponsible central European countries and two Mediterranean islands displaying lax fiscal policies and little political will to implement costly reforms. Somewhere between stand Slovenia and Slovakia, first without a strong reform performance yet with budget deficits in compliance with the Stability and Growth Pact and later with recent reform efforts.Our key finding concerning the behaviour of the fiscally irresponsible group of countries is that their current problems with high budget deficits originate in their lax approach and inability to implement politically costly expenditure cuts which is apparent from their revision of budget plans and endeavour to shift envisioned deficit reductions into the future. Yet, this strategy has led those countries to an uncomfortable position vis-à-vis European fiscal rules.fiscal policy, new member states, consolidations, Stability and Growth Pact, excessive deficit procedure, convergence programmes

Domain organization of long autotransporter signal sequences

Bacterial autotransporters represent a diverse family of proteins that autonomously translocate across the inner membrane of Gram-negative bacteria via the Sec complex and across the outer bacterial membrane. They often possess exceptionally long N-terminal signal sequences. We analyzed 90 long signal sequences of bacterial autotransporters and members of the two-partner secretion pathway in silico and describe common domain organization found in 79 of these sequences. The domains are in agreement with previously published experimental data. Our algorithmic approach allows for the systematic identification of functionally different domains in long signal sequences. Keywords: bacterial autotransporter, sequence analysis, pattern, protein targeting, signal peptide, protein traffickin

A Fiscal Rule that Has Teeth: A Suggestion for a “Fiscal Sustainability Council” Underpinned by the Financial Markets

In this paper, we set out to examine an efficient fiscal-policy framework for a monetary union. We illustrate that fiscal policy’s bias toward budget deficit only temporarily ceased at the end of the 20th century as European countries endeavored to qualify for euro-zone membership, which compelled strict limits on budgetary deficits. We then explore which mechanisms might instill a sense of fiscal disciple in governments. We find that most mechanisms suffer from the incentive-incompatible setup whereby governments restrict their own fiscal-policy freedom. We argue that even multilateral fiscal rules, such as the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact, suffer from the same endogeneity flaw. Consequently, we argue that a fiscal rule must incorporate an external authority that would impartially assess fiscal-policy developments. Using U.S. debt and bond-market data at the state level, we show that financial markets represent a good candidate as, vis-à-vis the American states, they do differentiate state debt according to the level of debt. We thus argue for a fiscal institution – what we call the Fiscal Sustainability Council– that would actively bring financial markets into the fiscal-policy process, and we explain the technique whereby this could be effected.fiscal policy, European Union, sustainability

Does the Enlarged European Union Need a Better Fiscal Pact?

In this paper, we set out to examine an efficient fiscal policy framework for a monetary union. We find that a monetary union can survive with diverging fiscal policies and that the financial markets are efficient enough to separate between “good” and “bad” fiscal policies and punish the latter with higher costs of borrowing. Therefore, there is only limited spill over effect of “bad” fiscal policy within a monetary union if financial markets work efficiently. We argue, consequently, that fiscal rules in a monetary union are still important as they allow to overcome incentive incompatibility of national fiscal rules and as they may guide financial markets in assessing sustainability of national fiscal policies. Finally, we argue for adoption of an institutional rule, Fiscal Sustainability Council for enlarged European Union. The Council would periodically assess fiscal policies and set guidelines for annual deficits. We argue that in order to make the FSC relevant, governments would be obliged to deposit with the Council a substantial amount of bonds that would be regularly rolled over by the Council. By doing so, the Council would connect fiscal policy sustainability principle with financial markets and would guide financial markets evaluation of national fiscal policies.fiscal policy; European Union; sustainability

Migrants in the job centre: Qualitative findings on migrants' experiences with public employment support services in Germany

The inclusion of migrants into the labour market is considered a key issue in order to achieve better overall integration. However, compared to the German population, unemployment rates are around twice as high among foreigners. One important knob to improve access to the labour market lies in publicly funded counselling and services, a field which has undergone fundamental policy reforms in recent years. In order to illuminate the realities of everyday-encounters between authoritative services and unemployed migrants, to identify possible shortcomings and draw some conclusions for policy development, this paper focuses on the subjective views and experiences of migrants related to the various employment services and agencies. On the basis of a qualitative interview sample, several patterns of experiences within public employment-related agencies are identified, including the perceived role of counsellors, courses and training measures, questions of diversity, discrimination and transparency as well as the overall outcome in terms of job referral and service evaluation. --