Kirche coacht F��hrungskr?fte

In the paper we investigate whether coaching, which is carried out by qualified coaches of the Church, can provide the customers with added value. The survey results are based on interviews with managers of small and medium-sized organizations. It turns out that the interviewed persons have a very strong interest in coaching, which is carried out by representatives of the church. The customers point out, that coaches can talk with a Christian background new perspectives such as ethics, morals and values. It is also clear that coaching should not be intended by religious instruction, but must attach to problems that result from the marketing economic environment of the customers. It is shown in conclusion to note that variables with a possible implementation of coaching as a business area within the study area ??Church and economy??.     

Loss prediction in a linear model under a linear constraint

Loss reserving is an important subject of actuarial mathematics. It aims at the prediction of future losses caused by claims which have incurred in the past but have not yet been closed. The problem of predicting such losses is particularly important in liability insurance. In the present paper we study conjoint prediction of paid and incurred losses in a linear model with a linear constraint which is intended to reduce the gap between the predictors of ultimate paid and incurred losses. We thus present an application to actuarial mathematics of the general result established by Kloberdanz and Schmidt (AStA Adv. Stat. Anal. 92:207–215, 2008).     

Marginal-sum and maximum-likelihood estimation in a multiplicative tariff

It is well known that, for a multiplicative tariff with independent Poisson distributed claim numbers in the different tariff cells, the maximum-likelihood estimators of the parameters satisfy the marginal-sum equations. In the present paper we show that this is also true under the more general assumption that the claim numbers of the different cells arise from the decomposition of a collective model for the whole portfolio of risks. In this general setting, the claim numbers of the different cells need not be independent and need not be Poisson distributed.     

Das dicke Ende — Wenn Abschlüsse von Gruppen „misslingen“

The starting phase of groups has received a lot of attention, in theory as well as in practice of group dynamics. The end, however, symbolizing death of a group, seems to be sort of a methodological stepchild. This is no longer true for evaluation, but evaluation is something quite different from the phenomena meant here: they appear, mostly quite unexpected, at the very end of a course or training. Four difficult final situations in group dynamic laboratories are the material for analyzing the psycho- and sociodynamics of critical final situations. Help is offered for dealing with such situations. “Failure” in ending up a training group, often has to do with narcicisstic dynamics in that group with its up and down of idealizing and discounting. It also has to do with getting hooked in one of those phases that has been described as going “towards death and farewell”. It may be that these dynamics touch upon a taboo.     

Pflegebedürftigkeit im Lebensverlauf

The paper investigates levels of functional health in old age as an outcome determined by support from family members and the individual’s financial assets. It addresses the question to what extent these risk factors for functional health also apply to the risk of long-term care (LTC) as defined by German Law SGB XI and may thus be transferable. Three hypotheses are presented, relating the individual’s economic resources and social integration to functional health limitations and to the onset of LTC. Results are stratified by levels of care, taking into account changes in levels of care over time as well as the location of care (at home or in a nursing home). The analysis is based the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). For males it was shown that presence of close relative or spouse reduces the utilization of care (according to the LTC- definition by German Law (SGB XI). For males, long-term care was mostly provided by the spouse. The need of care depends not only on functional health status but also on the type of (family-)network. Substitution could not be found in the lower income groups. The utilization of LTC even increases for less affluent males living with a spouse due to financial incentives provided by LTC insurance. Substitutability of care services may thus vary by income group.     

A spatial model for the needle losses of pine-trees in the forests of Baden-Württemberg: an application of Bayesian structured additive regression

Summary.  The data that are analysed are from a monitoring survey which was carried out in 1994 in the forests of Baden-Württemberg, a federal state in the south-western region of Germany. The survey is part of a large monitoring scheme that has been carried out since the 1980s at different spatial and temporal resolutions to observe the increase in forest damage. One indicator for tree vitality is tree defoliation, which is mainly caused by intrinsic factors, age and stand conditions, but also by biotic (e.g. insects) and abiotic stresses (e.g. industrial emissions). In the survey, needle loss of pine-trees and many potential covariates are recorded at about 580 grid points of a 4 km × 4 km grid. The aim is to identify a set of predictors for needle loss and to investigate the relationships between the needle loss and the predictors. The response variable needle loss is recorded as a percentage in 5% steps estimated by eye using binoculars and categorized into healthy trees (10% or less), intermediate trees (10–25%) and damaged trees (25% or more). We use a Bayesian cumulative threshold model with non-linear functions of continuous variables and a random effect for spatial heterogeneity. For both the non-linear functions and the spatial random effect we use Bayesian versions of P -splines as priors. Our method is novel in that it deals with several non-standard data requirements: the ordinal response variable (the categorized version of needle loss), non-linear effects of covariates, spatial heterogeneity and prediction with missing covariates. The model is a special case of models with a geoadditive or more generally structured additive predictor. Inference can be based on Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques or mixed model technology.