Kontaktgenerierung auf StudiVZ: Wie über Social Networking Platforms alte Freundschaften gepflegt und neue geschlossen werden

Virtual communication continuously gains importance in modern society, as the growing success of “social networking platforms”(SNPs) like Facebook, XING or StudiVZ indicates. In this article we compare such platforms in regard to their instrumental vs. expressive orientation. It is supposed, that amore expressive orientation of a platform like Facebook or StudiVZ is not only functional to manage contacts to friends already known outside the internet (“social searching”), like studies on user's reports on their own motivations have recently shown for Facebook, but also helps generating new contacts to people not already known before (“social browsing”). This more implicit function might be promoted by the trust-promising visuability of a person's network contacts, especially in the face of strangers. An online survey on StudiVZ with n = 1316 randomized participants confirms both hypotheses.     

Some comments on Latin squares and on Graeco-Latin squares,illustrated with postage stamps and old playing cards

We present some comments on Latin squares and on Graeco-Latin squares, with special emphasis on their use in statistics and in a historical context. We also comment on the Knut Vik square, the knight’s move design and the knight’s tour, as well as the Magic Card Puzzle. We consider the well-known 36 officers problem studied by Euler (Verhandelingen uitgegeven door het zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen te Vlissingen, vol. 9 (Middleburg 1782), pp. 85–239, 1779/1782), and give two examples of diagonal Latin squares of order 6 due, respectively, to Abbé François-Guillaume Poignard (Chez Guillaume Fricx, Imprimeur &; libraire ruë Bergestract, à l’enseigne des quatre Evangelistes, Bruxelles [4] 79 pp. (p. 71 folded), 1704) and József Dénes (J Lond Math Soc Ser 2, 6(4):679–689, 1970). We illustrate our comments with images of postage stamps and old playing cards. An extensive annotated bibliography ends the paper.     

Physical activity assessment and health outcomes in old age: how valid are dose–response relationships in epidemiologic studies?

In this systematic review the validity of the dose–response relationships between physical activity (PA) and energy expenditure (EE) on defined health outcomes (cardio- and cerebrovascular morbidity and mortality, cancer) for the elderly is questioned. Medline, Cochrane, and EMBASE databases were reviewed for epidemiological longitudinal studies in populations aged 60+ for the years 1985–2007. Although most of the 18 identified studies generally demonstrated an inverse dose–response relationship between PA and EE level with morbidity and mortality, the range of dose–responses was remarkably broad. The nature of the dose–response relationship remained unclear. PA questionnaires - even those constructed for the elderly - do not cover the extremely diverse aspects of age-specific PA behavior and modes of muscular activity. Only non-age-specific tables had been used to estimate the EE in the elderly. Direct measurements of EE were limited. The results have implications for the interpretation of the dose–response relationships between PA and EE on defined health outcomes in old age.     

Principles for Developing Benchmark Criteria for Staff Training in Responsible Gambling

One approach to minimizing the negative consequences of excessive gambling is staff training to reduce the rate of the development of new cases of harm or disorder within their customers. The primary goal of the present study was to assess suitable benchmark criteria for the training of gambling employees at casinos and lottery retailers. The study utilised the Delphi Method, a survey with one qualitative and two quantitative phases. A total of 21 invited international experts in the responsible gambling field participated in all three phases. A total of 75 performance indicators were outlined and assigned to six categories: (1) criteria of content, (2) modelling, (3) qualification of trainer, (4) framework conditions, (5) sustainability and (6) statistical indicators. Nine of the 75 indicators were rated as very important by 90 % or more of the experts. Unanimous support for importance was given to indicators such as (1) comprehensibility and (2) concrete action-guidance for handling with problem gamblers, Additionally, the study examined the implementation of benchmarking, when it should be conducted, and who should be responsible. Results indicated that benchmarking should be conducted every 1–2 years regularly and that one institution should be clearly defined and primarily responsible for benchmarking. The results of the present study provide the basis for developing a benchmarking for staff training in responsible gambling.     

Habitat rehabilitation in urban waterways: the ecological potential of bank protection structures for benthic invertebrates

Compensating for the adverse ecological impacts of waterway development and improving their ecological functioning to achieve good ecological potential (GEP) have become mandatory within the European Union (EU). The technical rehabilitation measures presented here aim to functionally minimize the hydraulic impacts of navigation on aquatic biota in highly urbanized waterways. Their ecological functioning and potential to enhance biodiversity locally was assessed by comparing their macro-invertebrate community composition with nearby non-restored sites. Rehabilitation led to lower hydraulic impact on the littoral zone, which in turn led to the presence of otherwise missing macrophytes and the occurrence of organic mud habitats colonized by invertebrates typically rare in urban waterways. While the control sites were dominated by few, mostly invasive taxa in vast numbers, the rehabilitated sites exhibited a highly diverse community with 22 protected mollusc and insect taxa typically found in the oxbow communities of natural rivers. This major improvement was however not detected using the core metrics of the legally required national assessment tools of the EU Water Framework Directive. Overall results proved the success of this type of rehabilitation measure with respect to improving biodiversity, but they also showed the limiting and key factors influencing the macro-invertebrate communities of highly deteriorated urban waterways. Indeed, future implementations of this type of rehabilitation measure should consider spatial extent, water exchange rates, temporal succession of vegetation and adaptive management to improve its ecological functioning.     

Advocacy Evaluation for Counselors Serving LGBTQ Populations

ABSTRACT

Advocacy and social justice initiatives for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) clients in counseling emphasize counselor and client collaboration in challenging discrimination and oppression and promoting LGBTQ inclusive sociopolitical changes. Although researchers have highlighted the counseling and advocacy needs of LGBTQ populations, few have yet examined processes for assessing the outcomes of advocacy efforts. Advocacy evaluation may provide counselors and counseling organizations with a framework for monitoring and assessing the outcomes of LGBTQ advocacy initiatives. The authors discuss the goals and elements of advocacy evaluation and review the LGBTQ Counseling Advocacy Evaluation Self Assessment.     

Vernetzte Zusammenarbeit erfolgreich gestalten – eine Analyse der Relevanz sozialer Fertigkeiten der Mitglieder in Gesundheitsnetzwerken

Due to recent strategic network building among health care partners a more differentiated discussion about the crucial structural and the personal success factors for network building and cooperation is needed. On that note, research has repeatedly emphasized the importance of the network agents’ individual soft skills. At the same time the empirical insights into this research topic are still scarce and the assumed interrelation between an agent’s individual repertoire of skills and his influence on the collaboration remain hypothetical so far. In the present paper we use the construct of so-called “political skills” to empirically test the impact of these skills on how they will contribute to the network members’ success within the cooperation. Using social network analysis the interaction structures between members in a doctors’ network (N = 37) are mapped and related to the individual level of political skills. It can be shown that primarily the dimension “networking ability” contributes to a beneficial role within the cooperation in terms of high prestige and high engagement as perceived by the other network members. In addition, members who scored high on that dimension are more likely to obtain benefits on an individual level (gaining new patients) as well as on a group level (identification with the network). One core implication that derives from the study’s results is the necessity to focus not only on strategic aspects with regard to building and designing health care networks, but also to develop and to foster personal soft-skills.     

A productive clash of cultures: Injecting economics into leadership research

Research on leadership in economics has developed in parallel to the literature in management and psychology and links between the fields have been sparse. Whereas modern leadership scholars mostly focus on transformational and related leadership styles, economists have mainly emphasized the role of contracts, control rights, and incentives. We argue that both fields could profit from enriching their approach with insights from the other field. We review and synthesize the economics literature on leadership in organizations and discuss how leadership scholars in management and psychology can benefit from the detailed understanding of transactional methods that economists have developed. We link the contributions in economics to a broad set of topics including the foundations of leadership, leader emergence, and leader effectiveness. At the same time, we also point out limitations of the economic approach and outline how the integration of leadership research and economics would broaden the scope of future studies.     

On hypothesis tests in misspecified change-point problems for a Poisson process

Consider an inhomogeneous Poisson process X on [0, T] whose unk-nown intensity function “switches” from a lower function g_* to an upper function h_* at some unknown point ?_* that has to be identified. We consider two known continuous functions g and h such that g_*(t) ? g(t) < h(t) ? h_*(t) for 0 ? t ? T. We describe the behavior of the generalized likelihood ratio and Wald’s tests constructed on the basis of a misspecified model in the asymptotics of large samples. The power functions are studied under local alternatives and compared numerically with help of simulations. We also show the following robustness result: the Type I error rate is preserved even though a misspecified model is used to construct tests.     

Likelihood Inference for Multivariate Extreme Value Distributions Whose Spectral Vectors have known Conditional Distributions

Multivariate extreme value statistical analysis is concerned with observations on several variables which are thought to possess some degree of tail dependence. The main approaches to inference for multivariate extremes consist in approximating either the distribution of block component‐wise maxima or the distribution of the exceedances over a high threshold. Although the expressions of the asymptotic density functions of these distributions may be characterized, they cannot be computed in general. In this paper, we study the case where the spectral random vector of the multivariate max‐stable distribution has known conditional distributions. The asymptotic density functions of the multivariate extreme value distributions may then be written through univariate integrals that are easily computed or simulated. The asymptotic properties of two likelihood estimators are presented, and the utility of the method is examined via simulation.