The world is going green. Sustainable technologies, such as renewable energy and electric vehicles, are increasingly becoming part of our daily life. This dissertation fills the ensuing gap by providing an insight into the emerging German greentech industry, one of the largest in the world. It develops an integrated and interdisciplinary theoretical framework in which to assess the relationships between innovation, growth and financing from a firm-level perspective; it then tests this framework empirically. In essence, the study finds that: (1) Innovative activity and corporate growth depend heavily on the availability of capital. At the same time, it appears that particularly innovative firms are more likely to face financial constraints. (2) A lack of funds is very apparent for around a quarter of the firms investigated and seems most severe in the early part of the growth state, where firms focus on commercializing existing products. (3) Government support programs only partially offset these effects
The world is going green. Sustainable technologies, such as renewable energy and electric vehicles, are increasingly becoming part of our daily life. This dissertation fills the ensuing gap by providing an insight into the emerging German greentech industry, one of the largest in the world. It develops an integrated and interdisciplinary theoretical framework in which to assess the relationships between innovation, growth and financing from a firm-level perspective; it then tests this framework empirically. In essence, the study finds that: (1) Innovative activity and corporate growth depend heavily on the availability of capital. At the same time, it appears that particularly innovative firms are more likely to face financial constraints. (2) A lack of funds is very apparent for around a quarter of the firms investigated and seems most severe in the early part of the growth state, where firms focus on commercializing existing products. (3) Government support programs only partially offset these effects
The thermal use of the shallow subsurface is increasingly being promoted and implemented as one of many promising measures for saving energy. A series of questions arises concerning the design and management of underground and groundwater heat extraction systems, such as the sharing of the thermal resource and the assessment of its long-term potential. For the proper design of thermal systems it is necessary to assess their impact on underground and groundwater temperatures. Thermal Use of Shallow Groundwater introduces the theoretical fundamentals of heat transport in groundwater systems, and discusses the essential thermal properties. It presents a complete overview of analytical and numerical subsurface heat transport modeling, providing a series of mathematical tools and simulation models based on analytical and numerical solutions of the heat transport equation. It is illustrated with case studies from Austria, Germany, and Switzerland of urban thermal energy use, and heat storage and cooling. This book gives a complete set of analytical solutions together with MATLAB® computer codes ready for immediate application or design. It offers a comprehensive overview of the state of the art of analytical and numerical subsurface heat transport modeling for students in civil or environmental engineering, engineering geology, and hydrogeology, and also serves as a reference for industry professionals.
The international dimensions of competition law and policy are most often examined at the level of substantive law. In this legal area both intentional and spontaneous assimilation and harmonization trends can be recognized, which manifest themselves e.g. in comparable approaches to combating particularly harmful restraints (so-called "hardcore cartels"). However, the complex terrain of enforcement law has been mainly ignored up to date. Are there common approaches in this field as well? How are the various competition laws linked with each other in respect to procedural norms? This book conceptualizes "International Competition Enforcement Law" against the backdrop of these issues and at the level of comparative law. The ciphers "cooperation" and "convergence" will serve as the two principle ideas for this book.
This book examines the use of presidential powers in Central and East Europe between 1990 and 2010. Focussing on presidential vetoes and the formation of governments, it maps patterns of presidential activism and its determinants across nine democracies. Thereby, it combines the analysis of original quantitative data on the use of presidential powers with in-depth case studies in an innovative mixed-methods framework. Based on regression analyses and unique insights from numerous elite interviews, the study shows strong support for the hitherto insufficiently tested assumption that popularly elected presidents are more active than their indirectly elected counterparts. As one of the first comprehensive comparative studies of presidential activism and veto power in Europe, this book will be a key resource not only for area specialists but also for scholars of presidential studies, comparative government, and executives.
This book deals with the electronic procurement of transportation services. It provides an overview of the fundamentals for the procurement of transportation services, including the relevant objectives, involved parties, and processes. A focus is set on Electronic Transportation Marketplaces (ETMs) which offer main functionalities for the procurement of transportation services on the spot and contract market as well as additional functionalities to improve further processes (e.g., time-slot management). Even though such marketplaces are important from an economic and ecological perspective, previous research provides only little knowledge about the status quo of their use, the determinants of marketplace use and the link between this use and business value. To close these research gaps, Philipp Sylla builds a comprehensive conceptual research framework and conducts an empirical analysis based on a web survey of shippers in Germany. The empirical results build the foundation for the development of an evaluation concept that provides practical support for shippers in the assessment of marketplace use and the evaluation of potential business value impacts.
This book gives an introduction to molecular biophysics. It starts from material properties at equilibrium related to polymers, dielectrics and membranes. Electronic spectra are developed for the understanding of elementary dynamic processes in photosynthesis including proton transfer and dynamics of molecular motors. Since the molecular structures of functional groups of bio-systems were resolved, it has become feasible to develop a theory based on the quantum theory and statistical physics with emphasis on the specifics of the high complexity of bio-systems. This introduction to molecular aspects of the field focuses on solvable models. Elementary biological processes provide as special challenge the presence of partial disorder in the structure which does not destroy the basic reproducibility of the processes. Apparently the elementary molecular processes are organized in a way to optimize the efficiency. Learning from nature by means exploring the relation between structure and function may even help to build better artificial solar cells. The reader is exposed to basic concepts in modern biophysics, such as entropic forces, phase separation, potential of mean force, electron and proton transfer, heterogeneous reactions, coherent and incoherent energy transfer as well as molecular motors. Basic knowledge in classical and Quantum mechanics, electrostatics and statistical physics is desirable. Simplified models are presented which can be solved in limited cases analytically from the guiding lines to generate the basis for a fundamental understanding of the more complex biophysical systems. Chapters close with challenging problems whose solutions are provided at the end of the book to complete the pedagogical treatment in the book. To the second edition several new chapters were added. The medium polarization is treated self-consistently using basic elements of polaron theory and more advanced nonlinear Schrödinger equations to describe the dynamics of solvation. Ion transport through a membrane was extended by the discussion of cooperative effects. Intramolecular transitions are now discussed in the new edition in much more detail, including also radiationless transitions. Very recent developments in spectroscopy are included, especially two-dimensional and hole-burning spectroscopy. The discussion of charge transfer processes was extended by including recent results of hole transfer in DNA in connection with the super-exchange mechanism. The chapter on molecular motors was rewritten to include the most recent developments of new models. The book is a useful text for students and researchers wanting to go through the mathematical derivations in the theories presented. This book attracts a group of applied mathematically oriented students and scholars to the exciting field of molecular biophysics.
Widely used since the mid-twentieth century, GDP (gross domestic product) has become the world's most powerful statistical indicator of national development and progress. Practically all governments adhere to the idea that GDP growth is a primary economic target, and while criticism of this measure has grown, neither its champions nor its detractors deny its central importance in our political culture. In The Power of a Single Number, Philipp Lepenies recounts the lively history of GDP's political acceptance—and eventual dominance. Locating the origins of GDP measurements in Renaissance England, Lepenies explores the social and political factors that originally hindered its use. It was not until the early 1900s that an ingenuous lone-wolf economist revived and honed GDP's statistical approach. These ideas were then extended by John Maynard Keynes, and a more focused study of national income was born. American economists furthered this work by emphasizing GDP's ties to social well-being, setting the stage for its ascent. GDP finally achieved its singular status during World War II, assuming the importance it retains today. Lepenies's absorbing account helps us understand the personalities and popular events that propelled GDP to supremacy and clarifies current debates over the wisdom of the number's rule.
In many industrialized countries, it can be seen that there is a trend to a growing market of knowledge-intensive goods and services. Due to a merging world, shorter product life-cycles and a permanent business streamlining, the need for skilled workers is growing. Nevertheless, not all companies have already recognized this need. Nowadays, it can bring huge competitive advantages when employees use their innovation potential in order to increase their efficiency. The daily work supplies employees with a greater potential of using their creativity for the working processes. This in turn can lead to a greater commitment to the company. Employees will put more efforts into solving work related problems by using their creativity and innovation-potential. Besides, a high labour turnover rate causes high costs because it takes time until new employees are trained. Based on this, it is reasonable to create a high commitment by understanding the needs of every employee. The way of fulfilling the diverse motives is attended by different generations which raise the challenge of meeting everybody's needs. The different classification will be explained within this thesis in detail. As a consequence of demographic, social and economic developments, the resources of young talents in the labour market are steady decrease which will continue in the future. By this reason the employer attraction and the duty of creating a high commitment of qualified staff plays already an important role for the business success. Due to a low birth rate and an aging population, the German population has shrunken for the last decades which already affected the labour market. This created new challenges for the economy and the organisations. Hence, companies are under high pressure to find and implement appropriate actions in the so-called war for talents. One of the main problems refers to fight for young talents and to deal with increasing value diversity. At this point, a change on the part of the corporate strategy of organizations is required. Taking a closer look on this modification, the Human Resources strategy needs to be reviewed.
The son of an industrialist who wanted to abolish private property. A Jew who didn’t want anything to do with Judaism. A professor who published little. An economist who squandered his wealth on the stock market. A communist who thought Marxism was anachronistic. And finally: a critical intellectual. When dealing with the political culture of the Weimar Republic, the development of Critical Theory and German-Jewish emigration to the USA, there is no way around Friedrich Pollock. Max Horkheimer’s companion and the founder of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt plays an important part in German-Jewish intellectual history as one of the most prominent representatives of Critical Theory. The present volume presents the first biography of a major but overlooked figure.
Why was there such a far-reaching consensus concerning the utopian goal of national homogeneity in the first half of the twentieth century? Ethnic cleansing is analyzed here as a result of the formation of democratic nation-states, the international order based on them, and European modernity in general. Almost all mass-scale population removals were rationally and precisely organized and carried out in cold blood, with revenge, hatred and other strong emotions playing only a minor role. This book not only considers the majority of population removals which occurred in Eastern Europe, but is also an encompassing, comparative study including Western Europe, interrogating the motivations of Western statesmen and their involvement in large-scale population removals. It also reaches beyond the European continent and considers the reverberations of colonial rule and ethnic cleansing in the former British colonies.
This thesis deals with the nonlinear aspects of superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) as magnetic meta-atoms. Such meta-atoms are usually resonant structures that constitute the basic building blocks of a metamaterial with the purpose of giving the material unconventional magnetic properties. Due to their intrinsic nonlinearity, SQUIDs exhibit a number of phenomena such as frequency tunability and multi-stability that make them attractive as controllable meta-atoms.
This monumental study of Johann Sebastian Bach ranks among the great classics of musicology. Since its first publication in 1873–80, it has remained the basic work on Bach and the foundation of later research and study. The three-part treatment describes in chronological sequence practically everything that is known of the composer's life: his ancestry, his immediate family, his associations, his employers, and the countless occasions on which his musical genius emerged. Author Philipp Spitta accompanies this biographical material with quotations from primary sources: correspondence, family records, diaries, official documents, and more. In addition to biographical data, Spitta reviews Bach's musical production, with analyses of more than 500 pieces, covering all the important works. More than 450 musical excerpts are included in the main text, and a 43-page musical supplement illustrates longer passages. Despite the scholarly nature of this work, it also has the rare distinction of being a study that can be read with considerable enjoyment and great profit by every serious music lover, with or without a substantial background in the history of music or musical theory.
The past decades witnessed a powerful return of struggles against what economic historian Karl Polanyi termed the commodification of social life. This book explores how organized workers in two metropolises of the late nineteenth century responded to the commodification of labor. In doing so, it reveals a striking continuity in collective opposition against the unfettered power of free markets. Drawing on contemporary feminist revisions of Polanyian thought, this book illustrates the ambiguous potential of movements for social protection"--Back cover.
Lightweight structures and material optimized systems are of major relevance in the building industry and particularly in the design of concrete structures. This is not only for aesthetic reasons, but also to use material in a resource conserving way. The increase of strength characteristics, as one measure to reduce cross section dimensions, postulates the prefabrication of cementitious materials under laboratory conditions. This thesis examines the contradiction of the possibility to realize slender concrete elements and the complexity of the discontinued homogeneity arising from necessary segmentations. Proposals of implementation strategies are demonstrated and verified on the basis of selected case studies.
The general objective of this thesis was to explore the potential of in-situ H2O removal during fuel-related synthesis reactions with focus on in-situ H2O removal by hydrophilic membranes and by chemical reaction. It is demonstrated that in-situ H2O removal through vapour permeation during CO2 hydrogenation to Fischer-Tropsch hydrocarbons and during DME/DEE synthesis leads to increased conversion and yield levels, which are directly linked to the degree of H2O recovery.
In today's organizational sociology, organizations are usually regarded as late achievements of modernity in the history of mankind. Max Weber is repeatedly cited as the supposed guarantor of this thesis. But neither his type of "bureaucratic rule" nor his concept of "rational work organization" - although both are tailored to modern conditions - contain, on closer inspection, compelling arguments for a principled limitation of organizations as such to modernity. Both actually reach their depth of focus only in contrast to "pre-modern" forms of organization. A sociology of organization that wants to refer to Max Weber's work while avoiding the numerous common misunderstandings of its reception must broaden its historical view and consider the possibility of "pre-modern organizations".
This study focuses on the ancient commentaries on Plato’s Phaedo by Olympiodorus and Damascius and aims to present the relevance of their challenging and valuable readings of the dialogue to Neoplatonic ethics.
The dream of automatic language translation is now closer thanks to recent advances in the techniques that underpin statistical machine translation. This class-tested textbook from an active researcher in the field, provides a clear and careful introduction to the latest methods and explains how to build machine translation systems for any two languages. It introduces the subject's building blocks from linguistics and probability, then covers the major models for machine translation: word-based, phrase-based, and tree-based, as well as machine translation evaluation, language modeling, discriminative training and advanced methods to integrate linguistic annotation. The book also reports the latest research, presents the major outstanding challenges, and enables novices as well as experienced researchers to make novel contributions to this exciting area. Ideal for students at undergraduate and graduate level, or for anyone interested in the latest developments in machine translation.
Small Animal Laparoscopy and Thoracoscopy provides a comprehensive reference to laparoscopy and thoracoscopy, with step-by-step guidance for surgical techniques ranging from basic to advanced. • Acts as both a quick reference to specific techniques and as a comprehensive resource to small animal laparoscopy and thoracoscopy • Guides the reader through each step of the surgical techniques • Takes a clinically oriented approach, with tips on safely and quickly performing procedures throughout • Part of the Advances in Veterinary Surgery series copublished with the American College of Veterinary Surgeons Foundation • Includes access to a companion website with video clips of the procedures described and the figures from the book in PowerPoint
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