Management Control Systems : Germany and France facing the North American Model: some insights for research.

Corporate Governance and Management Control Systems are two research fields that are concerned to a certain degree with the same problems. Yet the literature in both fields takes rarely notice of each other and the relationship between them. In this paper we argue that Corporate Governance is supported by Management Control Systems. In order to understand their relationship we take a historical perspective. We compare the evolution of Management Control in Germany and France and relate it to the North American concept. We also stress the concept of community that influenced historically in Germany and France both Corporate Governance and Management Control. Finally, we look into the professionalisation of the management control function. As a conclusion, we propose further research into the path dependency of the interrelationsip between Corporate Governance and Management Control Systems.management control systems; France; Germany;

Self-trapping of the dilaton

The dilaton in three dimensions does not roll. Witten's conjecture that duality between theories in three and four dimensions solves the cosmological constant problem thus may also solve the dilaton problem in string theory.Comment: 6 pages, LaTe

Sulfite: Cytochrome \u3cem\u3ec\u3c/em\u3e Oxidoreductase from \u3cem\u3eThiobacillus novellus\u3c/em\u3e

Direct oxidation of sulfite to sulfate occurs in various photo- and chemotrophic sulfur oxidizing microorganisms as the final step in the oxidation of reduced sulfur compounds and is catalyzed by sulfite:cytochrome c oxidoreductase (EC1.8.2.1). Here we show that the enzyme from Thiobacillus novellus is a periplasmically located αβ heterodimer, consisting of a 40.6-kDa subunit containing a molybdenum cofactor and an 8.8-kDa mono-heme cytochrome c 552 subunit (midpoint redox potential, E m8.0 = +280 mV). The organic component of the molybdenum cofactor was identified as molybdopterin contained in a 1:1 ratio to the Mo content of the enzyme. Electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy revealed the presence of a sulfite-inducible Mo(V) signal characteristic of sulfite:acceptor oxidoreductases. However, pH-dependent changes in the electron paramagnetic resonance signal were not detected. Kinetic studies showed that the enzyme exhibits a ping-pong mechanism involving two reactive sites. K m values for sulfite and cytochrome c 550 were determined to be 27 and 4 μm, respectively; the enzyme was found to be reversibly inhibited by sulfate and various buffer ions. The sorABgenes, which encode the enzyme, appear to form an operon, which is preceded by a putative extracytoplasmic function-type promoter and contains a hairpin loop termination structure downstream ofsorB. While SorA exhibits significant similarities to known sequences of eukaryotic and bacterial sulfite:acceptor oxidoreductases, SorB does not appear to be closely related to any knownc-type cytochromes

Lifting quasianalytic mappings over invariants

Let $\rho : G \to \operatorname{GL}(V)$ be a rational finite dimensional complex representation of a reductive linear algebraic group $G$, and let $\sigma_1,\sigma_n$ be a system of generators of the algebra of invariant polynomials $\mathbb{C}[V]^G$. We study the problem of lifting mappings $f : \mathbb{R}^q \supseteq U \to \sigma(V) \subseteq \mathbb{C}^n$ over the mapping of invariants $\sigma=(\sigma_1,\sigma_n) : V \to \sigma(V)$. Note that $\sigma(V)$ can be identified with the categorical quotient $V /\!\!/ G$ and its points correspond bijectively to the closed orbits in $V$. We prove that, if $f$ belongs to a quasianalytic subclass $\mathcal{C} \subseteq C^\infty$ satisfying some mild closedness properties which guarantee resolution of singularities in $\mathcal{C}$ (e.g.\ the real analytic class), then $f$ admits a lift of the same class $\mathcal{C}$ after desingularization by local blow-ups and local power substitutions. As a consequence we show that $f$ itself allows for a lift which belongs to $SBV_{\operatorname{loc}}$ (i.e.\ special functions of bounded variation). If $\rho$ is a real representation of a compact Lie group, we obtain stronger versions.Comment: 17 pages, 1 table, minor corrections, to appear in Canad. J. Mat