E-Coaching: Prozess- und Ergebnisevaluation des„Virtuellen Zielerreichungscoachings“

The authors present the design and first results of an ongoing research project. The main emphasis of the research lies on observable and mental processes of the coach and the coachee in and between coaching sessions as well as for the coachee after the coaching. The research is based on a particular e-coaching format named “virtual goal attainment coaching”, consisting of telephone-based coaching sessions combined with by internet mediated questions that the coachee answers with support of the coach. The ambition of this particular type of coaching, since based on empirical findings of coaching success factors and combined with modern media, is to generate excellent results within a short amount of time. Preliminary findings confirm the efficiency and effectiveness of this blended coaching program.     

Where are the new fathers? German families with a non-traditional distribution of professional and family work

The concepts 'new fathers' and 'new men' reflect changed attitudes about gender roles today. However, at a behavioural level, the traditional division of labour in families has proved tenacious. Wage differences between the sexes are believed to be a main reason for this. This German pilot project examined the division of labour of couples, to pursue the question of what consequences a couple's relative earnings have for a cooperative role structure as well as for the transition to parenthood. Qualitative interviews were conducted with both partners in 25 couples in which the woman's earnings were as high as or higher than those of the man. The results show clear deviations from the 'standard model', thereby indicating the significant influence of earnings. Most couples divided parental leave so that neither partner had to drop out of employment for a long period of time. The egalitarian role distribution had a positive effect on the relationship between parents and on satisfaction with this relationship. RESUMEN Los conceptos de 'padre moderno' y 'hombre nuevo' reflejan actitudes cambiadas sobre papeles de los sexos hoy en día. No obstante, al nivel de comportamiento, la división tradicional de trabajo ha sido tenaz. Se cree que esto surge principalmente de diferencias de sueldos entre los sexos. Éste proyecto piloto alemán evaluó la división de trabajo entre parejas para averiguar las consecuencias de los ingresos relativos de una pareja en la estructura cooperativa de papeles de sexo, además de el la transición a ser padres. Se llevaron a cabo entrevistas cualitativas con ambos compañeros de 25 parejas donde los ingresos de las mujeres eran iguales o superior a los del hombre. Los resultados muestran desviaciones claras del 'modelo estándar' señalando la considerable influencia de los ingresos. La mayoría de parejas compartían la baja por paternidad/maternidad para que ninguna persona tuviera que abandonar su empleo durante mucho tiempo. La distribución igualitaria de papeles afectó positivamente a la relación entre los padres y a su satisfacción con la relación.     

Repeated screening with inspection error and no false positive results with application to pharmaceutical pill production

Summary.  Repeated screening is a 100% sampling inspection of a batch of items followed by removal of the defective items and further iterations of inspection and removal. The reason for repeating the inspection is that the detection of a defective item happens with probability p <1. A missed defective item is a false negative result. The no false positive result is contemplated in this paper, which is motivated by a problem coming from the production of pharmaceutical pills. Bayesian posterior distributions for the quality of the lot are obtained for the case of both p known and p unknown. Batch rejection and batch acceptance control limits for the number of defective items at subsequent iterations can then be calculated. Theoretical connections to the problem of estimating the number-of-trials parameter of a binomial distribution are drawn.     

Evidence maps: communicating risk assessments in societal controversies: the case of engineered nanoparticles

The transparent and fair characterization of scientific evidence for reporting the results of a hazard assessment is a demanding task. In this article, we present an approach for characterizing evidence--the evidence map approach. The theoretical starting point is to view evidence characterization as a form of argumentation. Thus, evidence maps are designed to depict the evidence base, the pro and con arguments, and the remaining uncertainties, which together lead experts to their conclusions when summarizing and evaluating the scientific evidence about a potential hazard. To illustrate its use, the evidence maps approach is applied to characterizing the health-relevant effects of engineered nanoparticles. Empirical data from an online survey suggests that the use of evidence maps improves the reporting of hazard assessments. Nonexperts prefer to receive the information included in an evidence map in order to come to an informed judgment. Furthermore, the benefits and limitations of evidence maps are discussed in the light of recent literature on risk communication. Finally, the article underlines the need for further research in order to increase quality of evidence reporting.     

SKILL‐BIASED TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE,UNEMPLOYMENT, AND BRAIN DRAIN

We develop a model of directed technology adoption, frictional unemployment, and migration to examine the effects of a change in skill endowments on the wages, employment rates, and emigration rates of skilled and unskilled workers. We find that, depending on the elasticity of substitution between skilled and unskilled workers and the elasticity of the matching function, an increase in the skill ratio can reduce both the relative unemployment rate and the relative emigration rate (brain drain) of skilled workers. We provide numerical simulations to support our findings and show that the effects are empirically relevant and potentially sizable.     

Partizipatives Gesundheitslernen in Organisationen

In workplace health promotion programs, participative learning processes are considered as central. A very popular instrument in German-speaking countries is the so-called health circle, which is often organizationally und financially supported. Learning processes initiated by health circles should be sustainable, which means it is important not to interrupt learning cycles. In order to analyze the learning processes and especially the learning cycles, the present study uses ten problem-centred interviews about workplace health promotion in general, 15 interviews regarding health circles in particular and two multi-data case studies.     

Finding the Signal by Adding Noise: The Role of Noncontrastive Phonetic Variability in Early Word Learning

It is well attested that 14‐month‐olds have difficulty learning similar sounding words (e.g., bih/dih), despite their excellent phonetic discrimination abilities. By contrast, Rost and McMurray (2009) recently demonstrated that 14‐month‐olds’ minimal‐pair learning can be improved by the presentation of words by multiple talkers. This study investigates which components of the variability found in multitalker input improved infants’ processing, assessing both the phonologically contrastive aspects of the speech stream and phonologically irrelevant indexical and suprasegmental aspects. In the first two experiments, speaker was held constant while cues to word‐initial voicing were systematically manipulated. Infants failed in both cases. The third experiment introduced variability in speaker, but voicing cues were invariant within each category. Infants in this condition learned the words. We conclude that aspects of the speech signal that have been typically thought of as noise are in fact valuable information—signal—for the young word learner.     

The demographics of same-sex marriages in Norway and Sweden

The present study investigates the demographics of same-sex marriages--that is, registered partnerships-in Norway and Sweden. We give an overview of the demographic characteristics of the spouses of these partnerships, study patterns of their divorce risks, and compare the dynamics of same-sex couples with those of heterosexual marriages. We use longitudinal information from the population registers of the two countries that cover all persons in partnerships. Our demographic analyses include information on characteristics such as age, sex, geographic background, experience of previous opposite-sex marriage, parenthood, and educational attainment of the partners involved. The results show that in many respects, the distributions of married populations on these characteristics differ by the sex composition of the couples. Patterns in divorce risks are rather similar in same-sex and opposite-sex marriages, but divorce-risk levels are considerably higher in same-sex marriages. The divorce riskforfemale partnerships is double that for male partnerships.     

Quality splitting in waste incineration due to non-convex production possibilities

Using a real case study of waste incineration, we show a new form of non-convexity in the transformation process of the inputs into the outputs. Its consequence is quality splitting, i.e. the separate use of different input qualities, yielding a better result than a homogeneous mix. For waste incineration plants (WIP), this leads to surprising practical implications for strategies of waste collection and supply, as well as for the control of a WIP. The insights are based on the evaluation of a basic model of waste incineration developed for the case study. Thus, the paper also contributes to production research by modelling waste incineration as a central process for the “reduction” of waste from manufacturing and consumption.