Indicators for European Union Policies. Business as Usual?

This paper looks at the role of statistics-based knowledge in the making of EU policy. We highlight shortcomings in the use of statistical indicators made in the course of the Lisbon strategy, ended in 2010. In our opinion the shortcomings are: (i) The paradox of the coexistence within the same European Commission of two holistic frameworks: the Structural Indicators and the Sustainable Development Indicators. One does not understand which of these two systems is taken to measure the overall policy performance of the European Union. (ii) A communication issue whereby the Lisbon strategy and its offspring EU 2020 are not communicated (Lisbon is to the average citizen the capital of Portugal) and are especially not communicated in relation to existing statistical indicators of good quality, against the opinion of academicians that transparency and accountability based on sound statistics favour democracy and participation. We illustrate the reasons that lead us to see these points as problematic and offer suggestions on how these should be tackled in line with the practices developed in the Open Method of Coordination. The danger is that in the absence of a debate on the issue, these shortcomings be perpetuated in the EU 2020 strategy.     

Abschlussprüferhaftung bei unpräzisen Sorgfaltsstandards und Ambiguitätsaversion

The Ellsberg-paradox suggests that individuals are subject to ambiguity aversion. When the standard of due care is not precisely defined, the context of auditor’s liability can be considered as an ambiguity situation. The paper shows that compared to an Expected Utility framework an ambiguity-averse auditor will exert less care with low damage payments but higher care with high damage payments. Hence, it might be advisable to put a liability cap. With strict liability there is no ambiguity situation and thus, there are no distortions from ambiguity aversion.     

Bausteine systemischer Führungskräftetrainings

The article describes core dimensions of leadership trainings, such as communication, cooperation, decision making, self-authoritation and self-care from a systemic point of view. It illustrates how a systemic perspective on these issues can help relieving the leader. At the same time existing leeway and responsibility are clarified.     

Parental leave regulations, mothers’ labor force attachment and fathers’ childcare involvement: evidence from a natural experiment

In 2007, Germany implemented a generous parental leave regulation in order to make parenthood more attractive and more compatible with a working career, especially for mothers. We evaluate the reform using a natural experiment that compares outcomes of parents with children born shortly after and before the coming into effect of the law, and find a significant decrease in mothers’ employment probability during the 12 months after giving birth, and an increase in mothers’ employment probability after the transfer expires. The implementation of two daddy months is currently not reflected in significant changes in fathers’ time devoted to childcare.     

Resilienzf?rdernde M?glichkeiten der Teamsupervision bei Changeprozessen

Supervisors frequently are confronted with emotional and social effects of efficiency-driven restructuring and process optimizations. Using case studies as well as conceptual ideas, the article explores whether and how the resilience of affected employees can be fostered in the frame of supervision. Promoting resilience within supervision is not to be mistaken as a further attempt to stretch employees?? limits. Rather, we conceive of it as an attempt to make employees aware of the centrifugal powers of every day working routines and to promote decisions for joint investment in cooperation??to make team work worthwhile, even in strenuous times.     

A comparison study on modeling of clustered and overdispersed count data for multiple comparisons

Data collected in various scientific fields are count data. One way to analyze such data is to compare the individual levels of the factor treatment using multiple comparisons. However, the measured individuals are often clustered – e.g. according to litter or rearing. This must be considered when estimating the parameters by a repeated measurement model. In addition, ignoring the overdispersion to which count data is prone leads to an increase of the type one error rate. We carry out simulation studies using several different data settings and compare different multiple contrast tests with parameter estimates from generalized estimation equations and generalized linear mixed models in order to observe coverage and rejection probabilities. We generate overdispersed, clustered count data in small samples as can be observed in many biological settings. We have found that the generalized estimation equations outperform generalized linear mixed models if the variance-sandwich estimator is correctly specified. Furthermore, generalized linear mixed models show problems with the convergence rate under certain data settings, but there are model implementations with lower implications exists. Finally, we use an example of genetic data to demonstrate the application of the multiple contrast test and the problems of ignoring strong overdispersion.     

The FARSEEING real-world fall repository: a large-scale collaborative database to collect and share sensor signals from real-world falls

Background

Real-world fall events objectively measured by body-worn sensors can improve the understanding of fall events in older people. However, these events are rare and hence challenging to capture. Therefore, the FARSEEING (FAll Repository for the design of Smart and sElf-adaptive Environments prolonging Independent livinG) consortium and associated partners started to build up a meta-database of real-world falls.

Results

Between January 2012 and December 2015 more than 300 real-world fall events have been recorded. This is currently the largest collection of real-world fall data recorded with inertial sensors. A signal processing and fall verification procedure has been developed and applied to the data. Since the end of 2015, 208 verified real-world fall events are available for analyses. The fall events have been recorded within several studies, with different methods, and in different populations. All sensor signals include at least accelerometer measurements and 58 % additionally include gyroscope and magnetometer measurements. The collection of data is ongoing and open to further partners contributing with fall signals. The FARSEEING consortium also aims to share the collected real-world falls data with other researchers on request.

Conclusions

The FARSEEING meta-database will help to improve the understanding of falls and enable new approaches in fall risk assessment, fall prevention, and fall detection in both aging and disease.

     

Du vent dans le ciel de plomb ? L’accès des femmes aux professions supérieures, xix-xx siècles

Women with diplomas, authority, power, in the professions, in top jobs… Nowadays, since demands have taken shape around the concepts of “parities” or quotas, the phases in the process whereby women have gained access to top positions in employment risk being overlooked. This process stretches out over a long time, even though Western European countries have passed through successive phases at about the same time. The years 1880, 1920, 1970 and 2000 stand out like landmarks in this conquest starting out from equal access to education and continuing through the slow mixing of the two sexes in various types of jobs, medical, technical, legal, military or political. Till the last decades of the 20th century, feminists (men as well as women) fought for these advances despite the scorn of those men and women who wanted to see women confined to the jobs “fit for them”, in particular in education and care-giving.