Systemdynamiken als anonyme Fehlerquellen

System dynamics as anonymous causes of failure Dynamics of problem solving, dynamics of communication as well as dynamics of success are basic challenges in organizations. To ignore them may bring about severe failures in terms of economics and of the personnel. Therefore, it is important to clearly discern these various dynamics and to cope with them.     

Bayesian nonparametric clustering for large data sets

We propose two nonparametric Bayesian methods to cluster big data and apply them to cluster genes by patterns of gene–gene interaction. Both approaches define model-based clustering with nonparametric Bayesian priors and include an implementation that remains feasible for big data. The first method is based on a predictive recursion which requires a single cycle (or few cycles) of simple deterministic calculations for each observation under study. The second scheme is an exact method that divides the data into smaller subsamples and involves local partitions that can be determined in parallel. In a second step, the method requires only the sufficient statistics of each of these local clusters to derive global clusters. Under simulated and benchmark data sets the proposed methods compare favorably with other clustering algorithms, including k-means, DP-means, DBSCAN, SUGS, streaming variational Bayes and an EM algorithm. We apply the proposed approaches to cluster a large data set of gene–gene interactions extracted from the online search tool “Zodiac.”

     

Populism and social media: how politicians spread a fragmented ideology

Populism is a relevant but contested concept in political communication research. It has been well-researched in political manifestos and the mass media. The present study focuses on another part of the hybrid media system and explores how politicians in four countries (AT, CH, IT, UK) use Facebook and Twitter for populist purposes. Five key elements of populism are derived from the literature: emphasizing the sovereignty of the people, advocating for the people, attacking the elite, ostracizing others, and invoking the ‘heartland’. A qualitative text analysis reveals that populism manifests itself in a fragmented form on social media. Populist statements can be found across countries, parties, and politicians’ status levels. While a broad range of politicians advocate for the people, attacks on the economic elite are preferred by left-wing populists. Attacks on the media elite and ostracism of others, however, are predominantly conducted by right-wing speakers. Overall, the paper provides an in-depth analysis of populism on social media. It shows that social media give the populist actors the freedom to articulate their ideology and spread their messages. The paper also contributes to a refined conceptualization and measurement of populism in future studies.     

Virtuelle Arbeitsstrukturen durch Vertrauen,Zeitkompetenz und Prozessfeedback fördern

The article in the journal Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation (GIO) deals with challenges of virtual structures of cooperation and of the team. It focuses especially on effects of personal characteristics, individual competence and team competence on team work and team performance in particular. Apparently, trust emerges in a different way in virtual working structures than in face-to-face teams. The discussion of the term ?trust‘ leads to a broader understanding of the development of trust and its importance, which helps to classify it in a process. Time competence is classified as particularly relevant to the emergence of trust, as teamwork becomes more flexible and team members take higher responsibilities than in face-to-face-teams. Control and responsibility move towards the members of the team, which in turn corresponds with a necessity for trust. Consequently, process feedback and transformational leadership can be identified as recommendable instruments for the enhancement of time competence and trust, which can lead to better team play. When taking a closer look at the role of leaders and team members in virtual environments, it becomes clear that reciprocity cannot be taken for granted in virtual teams. Differences in team structure as well as differing priorities in team goals throughout the team are similarly important as the frequency of contacts, the availability and reliability, or trustworthiness, of the individual team members.     

Robust Liu-type estimator for regression based on M-estimator

The problem of multicollinearity and outliers in the dataset can strongly distort ordinary least-square estimates and lead to unreliable results. We propose a new Robust Liu-type M-estimator to cope with this combined problem of multicollinearity and outliers in the y-direction. Our new estimator has advantages over two-parameter Liu-type estimator, Ridge-type M-estimator, and M-estimator. Furthermore, we give a numerical example and a simulation study to illustrate some of the theoretical results.     

Permutation approach for ordinal preference data

Best et al. (Best, D. J., Rayner, J. C. W., O'Sullivan, M. G. (2000 Best, D. J., Rayner, J. C. W., O'Sullivan, M. G. (2000). Product maps for consumer categorical data. Food Quality and Preference 11:91–97.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Product maps for consumer categorical data. Food Quality and Preference, 11:91–97) suggested tests based on partitioning the X² statistic into relevant components of location, dispersion, and skewness effects for testing equality of each effect for ordinal preference data. It is known that the chi-square approximation requires large counts for categories. For this purpose, in this study, we investigate a permutation approach for these statistics and compare the performance of these tests with simulation study. In addition, the permutation approach can be used to produce a product map that classifies the products. We illustrate the approach with a real data example.     

The democratic interface: technology,political organization,and diverging patterns of electoral representation

Democracies are experiencing historic disruptions affecting how people engage with core institutions such as the press, civil society organizations, parties, and elections. These processes of citizen interaction with institutions operate as a democratic interface shaping self-government and the quality of public life. The electoral dimension of the interface is important, as its operation can affect all others. This analysis explores a growing left-right imbalance in the electoral connection between citizens, parties, elections, and government. This imbalance is due, in part, to divergent left-right preferences for political engagement, organization, and communication. Support on the right for clearer social rules and simpler moral, racial and nationalist agendas are compatible with hierarchical, leader-centered party organizations that compete more effectively in elections. Parties on the left currently face greater challenges engaging citizens due to the popular meta-ideology of diversity and inclusiveness and demands for direct or deliberative democracy. What we term connective parties are developing technologies to perform core organizational functions, and some have achieved electoral success. However, when connective parties on the left try to develop shared authority processes, online and offline, they face significant challenges competing with more conventionally organized parties on the right.