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The higher education efficiency evaluation model using the data envelopment analysis method has interested many researchers. This paper uses bibliometric analysis on publications extracted from the Scopus database to provide a comprehensive overview of research publications on the measurement of higher education efficiency based on data envelopment analysis: its growth rate, major collaboration networks, the most important and popular research topic. A total of 169 related publications were collected and analyzed from 1988 to 2021. The analysis results show that: Publications published every year have increased sharply in the last six years; The quality of publications is relatively high as publications tend to be published in journals with high-ranking indexes; Countries with the most influence in studies on this topic are: Italy, China, Spain, the USA, and the United Kingdom; Authors with the most influence in this research direction are Agasisti T., Abbott M., Doucouliagos C., Avkiran N.K., and Johnes J.; The research cooperation among countries and among affiliations is not strong. Finally, the paper has provided recommendations for future studies based on the findings.

In light of the replication crisis in psychology, null-hypothesis significance testing (NHST) and "p"-values have been heavily criticized and various alternatives have been proposed, ranging from slight modifications of the current paradigm to banning "p"-values from journals. Since the physics education research community often relies on quantitative statistical approaches, the challenges the replication crisis poses to these approaches need to be considered. "p"-values suffer primarily from the fact that they carry little information by themselves and lend themselves to misinterpretations. As one alternative, Bayesian approaches have become increasingly popular as the posterior distributions they provide carry more relevant information than "p"-values. In this paper, we discuss practical issues related to "p-values" with respect to interpreting and communicating results and how these issues can be addressed using a Bayesian approach. Drawing on a science education data set, we demonstrate how Bayesian data analysis methods go beyond p-values and can help to make more valid conclusions and to communicate them more easily in a manner that lends itself to less misinterpretations.

Education is the core of the factors that improved people for a better lifestyle and increases the level of society' development. Quality education is one of the most vital goals of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) due to actualizing these factors. Using relational network data envelopment analysis (DEA), which have three interrelated substages, this current paper computes the educational economy efficiency of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries bearing in mind the characteristics related to SDGs. The contribution of our study is the use of a novel approach to computing the educational economy efficiency using relational network DEA with GAMS. Even though some interesting differences reveal in the efficiency of the countries, the findings show that countries with high-efficiency scores are clustered around countries like Latvia, Slovenia, and Korea.

Although the number of multilingual qualitative research studies appears to be growing, investigations concerned with methodological issues arising from the use of several languages within a single research are still very scarce. Most of these seem to deal exclusively with issues related to the use of interpreters and translators in qualitative research (e.g., Temple & Edwards, 2002; Temple, Edwards & Alexander, 2006; Edwards, 1998; Temple & Young 2004). Methodological investigations going beyond pure translation dilemmas in qualitative research are, however, almost non-existent. The reason for this seems to be simple: the situation where the researcher possesses mother-tongue fluency in all or most of the languages used in a particular study--and, thus, is in a position to probe interpretational and representational problematics related to the multilingual character of this study with an adequate depth--is very rare. The author of this paper has used her recent qualitative research work in the area of Information Systems as the basis for a meta-study in which she investigates selected methodological issues resulting from the use of five different languages within the frame of a single research work. This paper specifically focuses on challenges encountered and observations made concerning three different issues, namely, how to choose the interview languages in a situation where the prospective interviewees have very diverse ethnic backgrounds, which languages to use for the data analysis in a situation where the data has been collected in several different languages, and how to determine the most appropriate stage of the research for transitioning from the languages used to collect and analyze the data to the language of the final research product. Although this meta-study is based on an Information Systems research work and is, thus, specifically addressing qualitative Information Systems researchers conducting multilingual research and encountering language-related issues in their work, this study might also be of interest to any researcher using qualitative research methodologies and employing more than one language to collect data, conduct data analysis, and craft the final research product. (Contains 1 figure, 6 tables and 7 footnotes.)

Data science surrounds us in contexts as diverse as climate change, air pollution, route-finding, genomics, market manipulation, and movie recommendations. To open the "data-science-black-box" for lower secondary school students, we developed a data science teaching unit focusing on the analysis of environmental data, which we embedded in a ninth-grade computer science class. In this unit, students experience a new insight-driven programming approach, using Jupyter Notebook and the programming language Python for their data analysis. In this paper, we evaluate the second cycle of this project, report how the students coped with the Jupyter Notebooks for doing statistical investigations and describe the insights they gained.

This paper presents an analysis of resource access patterns in two recently conducted online courses. One of these has been a master level university lecture taught as a blended learning course with a wide range of online learning activities and materials, including collaborative wikis, self-tests, and thematic videos. The other course has been offered in the form of a MOOC. As a specialty of this course, master level students from two different universities could participate as a regular university class and receive credits for successful completion. In both courses, online learning resources such as videos, scientific literature, and wikis played a central role. In this context, the motivation for our research was to investigate characteristic patterns of resource usage of the learners. In order to gain deeper insights into the usage of learning materials, we have adapted methods from social network analysis and applied them to dynamic bipartite student-resource networks built from event logs of the students' resource access. In particular, we describe the clustering of students and resources in such networks and propose a method to identify patterns of the cluster evolution over time.

This paper aims to provide a first attempt towards analysis innovation ecosystems for cardiovascular pathologies in Germany through the use of a stakeholder model. We present essential stakeholders for the development and deployment of innovations in the field of cardiovascular research and medicine, and the primary functions they fulfill in the context of these innovation ecosystems. The adopted approach consists of the implementation of a multilevel system model for analyzing stakeholders in this particular field. Data acquisition transpired through systematic literature review of multiple articles and studies. Data analysis phases were executed until reaching a point at which the considerable amount of data was discovered, ensuring consistency across various sources. We demonstrate that innovation ecosystems in cardiovascular medicine involve interconnected networks of stakeholders across different fields. Moreover, through an investigation of innovation ecosystems of cardiovascular pathologies particularly in Germany, we present the functions undertaken by each stakeholder, which are essential for the participation in the innovation ecosystems. The findings presented in this paper hold the potential to bring better understanding of cardiovascular pathology innovation ecosystems in Germany. This assertion is substantiated through a comprehensive examination of relevant scientific literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Germany, the respondents who had participated in the 2012 survey of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) were re-approached for the panel study PIAAC-L. PIAAC-L aims at investigating the longitudinal effects of skill outcomes over the life course and the development of the key skills assessed in PIAAC. Moreover, additional and alternative background information was collected and analyzed within PIAAC-L. PIAAC-L consists of three follow-up waves to the initial PIAAC 2012 survey. The present paper describes the rationale for PIAAC-L and the benefits of conducting a longitudinal PIAAC follow-up study in Germany. In addition, we outline the general design of PIAAC-L and the specific design of the three waves of data collection. Finally, we address the analytic potential of PIAAC-L data set and its availability to the scientific community.

Women are underrepresented in many areas of journalistic newsrooms. In this paper, we examine if this established effect persists in the new forms of journalistic communication, namely social media networks. We use mentions, retweets, and hashtags as measures of journalistic amplification and legitimation. Furthermore, we compare two groups of journalists in different stages of development: political and data journalists in Germany in 2021. Our results show that journalists identified as women tend to favor other women journalists in mentions and retweets on Twitter (now called X), compared to men. While both professions are dominated by men, with a high share of tweets authored by men, women mention and retweet other women more than their male colleagues. Female data journalists also leverage different sources than men. In addition, we found data journalists to be more inclusive of non-member sources in their networks compared to political journalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creativity is socially constructed and is not an objective fact at all. How do teachers perceive students' creativity and how can they foster students' creative learning? From two case studies, one in higher education and a second on iPad-classrooms in schools, the paper reflects on didactical concepts for creativity using mobile devices. Interviews, classroom observations and qualitative data were analyzed. The results reveal that the most creativity has been observed when the teacher designed such activities for mobile learning where no correct solution is available. When there is a shift from traditionally separating ICT and education to new co-located settings where mobile devices and education merged into new learning expeditions, then there is a need to rethink traditional Didactics towards Digital Didactical Designs bridging "learning what is known" (curriculum-driven learning) and "learning when the answer is not known".

Learning Analytics can provide powerful tools for teachers in order to support them in the iterative process of improving the effectiveness of their courses and to collaterally enhance their students' performance. In this paper, we present the theoretical background, design, implementation, and evaluation details of eLAT, a Learning Analytics Toolkit, which enables teachers to explore and correlate learning object usage, user properties, user behavior, as well as assessment results based on graphical indicators. The primary aim of the development of eLAT is to process large data sets in microseconds with regard to individual data analysis interests of teachers and data privacy issues, in order to help them to self-reflect on their technology-enhanced teaching and learning scenarios and to identify opportunities for interventions and improvements. (Contains 9 figures.)

Flexibility potentials are mostly provided by centrally coordinated flexibility resources such as natural-gas-fired power plants. However, the decentralization of power generation combined with the decarbonization of the sector due to the energy transition requires the exploration of new types of flexibility resources. In particular, to reduce dependence on natural-gas-fired power plants, it would be desirable to replace them with alternative flexibility resources. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to analyze, using Germany as an example, to what extent the flexibility potential of already existing battery storage systems can replace the flexibility potential of natural-gas-fired power plants. The methodology used is based on a multi-time-scale flexibility model together with an approach for temporal aggregation of flexibility potentials and two approaches for spatial aggregation of flexibility potentials. Based on the methodology and an analysis of publicly available data, a comprehensive potential analysis is carried out. This analysis shows, among others, that existing battery storage systems have a promising potential to replace a considerable number of natural-gas-fired power plants in Germany in terms of their flexibility potentials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In forced migration literature, there is a lack of studies on the impact of war trauma on interpersonal mistrust among refugees and their interpersonal trust in members of the host society. To contribute to filling this gap, the author studied the impact of war trauma on interpersonal mistrust among Syrian refugees in Germany and their interpersonal trust in Germans. The data are based on semi-structured qualitative interviews with 20 Syrian refugees and asylum-seekers conducted in 2018 and 2019. The author argues that because traumatised refugees are powerfully influenced by past traumatic events experienced in their home country, they tend to mistrust people who can be associated with the place where these traumatic experiences occurred. In contrast, they are inclined to trust people who cannot be linked to the geographical location of the traumatic experiences. The main result of this study is that similarity—that of war-traumatised refugees sharing the same socio-cultural backgrounds—leads to interpersonal mistrust, while dissimilarity leads to interpersonal trust. The author of this paper calls for considering trust-building among war traumatised refugees, which has significant importance for refugee integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Handwriting is a complex task that includes planning the content and the execution of handwriting movements on paper or on a tool (e.g., a tablet). This execution depends on the involvement of specific muscles in the hand (distal) and arm (proximal). The present study combines the parallel recording of the writing process on tablets and the related muscle activity with electromyography to investigate the differences in handwriting movements in two groups. A total of 37 intermediate writers (third and fourth graders, mean age 9.6 years, SD 0.5) and 18 skilled adults (mean age 28.6 years, SD 5.5) participated in three handwriting tasks. The tablet data results replicate previous findings in handwriting research for the writing process. The muscle activity data reflected a differential relationship between distinct muscle activity and handwriting performance depending on the handwriting skill (intermediate or advanced writers). Furthermore, the combination of both methods revealed that skilled writers tend to involve rather distal muscles to control the pressure of the writing pen on the surface, whereas developing writers mainly use their proximal muscles to control the velocity of their handwriting movements. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of the underlying processes of handwriting and the development of efficient handwriting execution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Unintentional home injuries are a major health risk for children. To develop and implement appropriate interventions, both theoretical guidance and empirical evidence are required. While theoretical models informing injury prevention are available, detailed information on unintentional home injuries of children and parental risk perception is still missing. The objective of this study was to identify relevant determinants of unintentional home injuries of children under 6 years of age and parental risk perception from an empirical perspective., Method: The secondary data analysis is based on data from two nationally representative surveys from Germany conducted in 2014-2017 (n = 4,009) and 2019 (n = 411). Both bivariate analyses and multivariate binary logistic regression models were conducted to determine the associations between various factors with unintentional home injuries and parental risk perception., Results: Key determinants of unintentional home injuries included the age and personality of the child, migrant status, and housing tenure. Parental risk perception was significantly associated with children's sex. The number of children living in the household and household net income were identified as determinants for both unintentional home injuries and parent's risk perception. Furthermore, a discrepancy between parent's risk perception and actual risk factors of unintentional home injuries was found., Conclusions: Findings from this study strengthen the evidence base by demonstrating relevant determinants of unintentional home injuries of children and parent's risk perception. Since this study provides first evidence of a distorted parental risk perception, future research should focus on parental risk perception to assess it more accurately in interventions to prevent unintentional home injuries of children., Practical Applications: The present findings may inform health practitioners about which points they should address when interacting with parents. For instance, they should focus on raising parent's awareness of actual risk factors and discuss concrete behavioral or environmental safety precautions., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2022 National Safety Council and Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

This study examines the access to healthcare for children and adolescents with three common chronic diseases (type-1 diabetes (T1D), obesity, or juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA)) within the 4th (Delta), 5th (Omicron), and beginning of the 6th (Omicron) wave (June 2021 until July 2022) of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany in a cross-sectional study using three national patient registries. A paper-and-pencil questionnaire was given to parents of pediatric patients (<21 years) during the routine check-ups. The questionnaire contains self-constructed items assessing the frequency of healthcare appointments and cancellations, remote healthcare, and satisfaction with healthcare. In total, 905 parents participated in the T1D-sample, 175 in the obesity-sample, and 786 in the JIA-sample. In general, satisfaction with healthcare (scale: 0–10; 10 reflecting the highest satisfaction) was quite high (median values: T1D 10, JIA 10, obesity 8.5). The proportion of children and adolescents with canceled appointments was relatively small (T1D 14.1%, JIA 11.1%, obesity 20%), with a median of 1 missed appointment, respectively. Only a few parents (T1D 8.6%; obesity 13.1%; JIA 5%) reported obstacles regarding health services during the pandemic. To conclude, it seems that access to healthcare was largely preserved for children and adolescents with chronic health conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The determination of odour in ambient air by field inspections using the grid method is a method that has been used in Germany for decades to determine the frequency of exposure to odours in an impact area. The method which is currently described in EN 16841-1:2016 is a statistical survey which is applied over a sufficiently long period of time. It delivers a representative map of the exposure to recognizable odour(s) with its distribution over the assessed area. Within this paper the principle of measurement will be briefly described, as well as the challenges that might occur during a project and the possibilities that arise from the detailed measurement of odour frequencies in the impact area. Often the question arises whether the sample of 104 single measurements per assessment square and year is sufficient. Olfasense GmbH has been carrying out yearly field surveys in the vicinity of an industrial plant since 2009. In contrast to the procedure described in EN 16841-1:2016-11, the field surveys take place on a daily basis in this project. This results in 365 single measurements per assessment square and year. The time of day is varied according to the standard. This extensive data set including 365 single measurements is used as reference survey. Subsequently, the same data was randomly divided into 3 individual data sets (sample surveys 1 to 3), each including 104 single measurements. For each data set the results including the measurement uncertainty according to EN 16841-1:2016 are evaluated for the single assessment squares. With a comparison of the reference survey (365 measurements/year) with each of the sample surveys (104 measurements/year) the reliability of each sample survey can be determined. As the sample surveys represent the required scope of measurement according to the European Standard EN 16841-1:2016 a validation of the usual extent could be performed. The results of this evaluation show that 104 single measurements per assessment square within one year, as reflected in the sample surveys, are sufficient to make a statement on the compliance with the permissible odour exposure in the impact area, taking into account the measurement uncertainty contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Raumforschung und Raumordnung is the property of Oekom Verlag GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the nature and characteristics of crowd logistics business models. Using this evaluation, a new concept for a sustainable implementation of crowd logistics services is proposed.Design/methodology/approach The Design Science process was followed to develop the proposed crowd logistics business model concept. The data are derived from expert interviews and a document-based data analysis of 13 companies.Findings Four relevant steps that companies should follow to implement sustainable crowd logistics services are identified. Open research questions are also identified and guide five research tasks, which may lead to a greater understanding of this emerging field.Research limitations/implications The present research is based on data from companies operating in Germany. The holistic approach gives a broad overview but lacks detailed descriptions.Practical implications Managers can use the four steps and the crowd logistics business model concept to plan future activities (e.g. new service provision). These steps increase the understanding, awareness and knowledge of opportunities and risks of specific crowd logistics services.Social implications This paper provides initial insights into social changes in terms of drivers for the use of crowd logistics services. However, further research is needed to capture the social implications in detail.Originality/value Crowd logistics is an emerging concept, and this paper is one of the first dealing with this topic generally and the first providing an analysis of crowd logistics business models. The developed concept includes implications for practice in the forms of common, and best practices, and science in the form of open research questions and tasks. Overall, the present research provides new insights into this emerging topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Asthma and allergies are complex diseases affected by genetic and environmental factors, such as occupational and psychosocial factors, as well as interactions between them. Although childhood is a critical phase in the development of asthma and allergies, few cohort studies on occupational outcomes followed up participants from childhood onwards. We present design, methods, and initial data analysis for the third follow-up of SOLAR (Study on Occupational Allergy Risks), a prospective and population-based German asthma and allergy cohort. Methods: The SOLAR cohort was initially recruited in 1995-1996 for Phase II of the German branch of the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC II) and followed up three times since, in 2002-2003, 2007-2009, and 2017-2018. During the third follow-up (SOLAR III), participants were between 29 and 34 years old. Since SOLAR focuses on occupational exposures, follow-ups were conducted at important points in time of the development of participants' career. To evaluate the potential of selection bias, responders and non-responders were compared based on variables from earlier study phases. In responders, frequency and pattern of missing values were examined and compared within the subsets of paper and online versions of the used questionnaires. Results: In total, 1,359 participants completed the questionnaire of the third follow-up (47.3% of eligible participants). Initially, the cohort started with 6,399 participants from the ISAAC II questionnaire study. A selection process led to a study population that is more female, higher educated, smokes less and has a higher proportion of certain asthma and allergy symptoms (also in their parents) than the initial cohort. Pattern and frequency of missing values were different for paper and online questionnaires. Discussion: The third follow-up of the SOLAR cohort offers the opportunity to analyze the course of asthma and allergies and their associations to environmental, occupational and psychosocial risk factors over more than 20 years from childhood to adulthood. Selection processes within the cohort might lead to bias that needs to be considered in future analyses., Competing Interests: EM reports grants from German Ministry of Education and Research, during the conduct of the study; personal fees from Massachassuetts Medical Society, personal fees from American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, personal fees from Novartis Pharma SAS, personal fees from PharmaVentures, personal fees from OM Pharma, personal fees from Decision Resources, personal fees from The Chinese University of Hongkong, personal fees from University of Copenhagen, personal fees from HAL Allergie GmbH, personal fees from Ökosoziales Forum Oberösterreich, personal fees from Mundipharma, personal fees from American Thoracic Society, personal fees from AbbVie Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG, personal fees from University of Tampere, personal fees from European Commission, personal fees from University of Turku, personal fees from University Helsinki, personal fees from Peptinnovate, outside the submitted work. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Forster, Kreißl, Wengenroth, Vogelberg, von Mutius, Schaub, Nowak, Weinmann, Radon and Gerlich.)

When the American cartoonist George Evans stated that every student can learn, just not on the same day and in the same way, he probably did not imagine the despair of pupils trying to access an e-learning platform during a national lockdown period. With the COVID19 crisis, online learning became an everyday commodity almost overnight. However, not all schools were prepared to swiftly switch from in class to distance teaching. Concerns were raised with regard to data protection and cybersecurity, which in some cases led to the implementation of "home-made" solutions. Taking the example of the federalist state of Germany where education is within the sole competence of the Länder, this paper will explore the functioning and technical implementation of several e-learning platforms and address the data protection challenges. In terms of cybersecurity, this paper also analyses the applicability of the NIS Directive to the various platforms and outlines the consequences for platform providers. In light of the acceleration of the revision of the NIS Directive due to the COVID-19 crisis, we take the example of learning platforms to outline the flaws of the 2016 Directive before we critically evaluate selected aspects of the NIS 2.0 proposal of December 2020. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Arxiu d'Etnografia de Catalunya is the property of Universitat Rovira I Virgili and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Strategic decision‐makers today face complex environments with meta‐problems that cut across multiple industries. Single organizations cannot address these meta‐problems. As a result, organizations collaborate with partners, among them also competitors, and commonly work together in multi‐partner initiatives (MPIs). How these organizations jointly form an interorganizational strategy (IOS), however, is not well understood. In this paper, we extend the current strategy process conceptualizations from an intraorganizational focus of a single firm to an interorganizational process of multiple strategy‐making entities working together. We selected the eMobility sector as our research context to develop such an IOS process model. We first developed 25 cases on MPIs in the German‐speaking area based on interviews and desk research, before we focused on the eMobility ecology in the southern part of Germany. We identified 291 MPIs, conducted interviews with 19 central actors, held several workshops and informal gatherings, and complemented these data with an analysis of publicly accessible documents. Using an inductive research design, we developed a process model that unfolds in three phases: initiation, negotiation and execution. We reveal specific process dynamics in MPIs to be critical in the formation and manifestation of IOS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the topic of current acceptance and future acceptability of CO2 pricing schemes in Germany. Based on psychological theories and empirical findings, it is assumed that different aspects of justice, efficacy beliefs, and perceived actions to reduce CO2 emissions are relevant for long-term acceptability. In the context of two focus groups with local stakeholders from civil society (15 participants), and citizens (12 participants), various aspects of CO2 pricing were discussed, with respect to four research questions addressing 1. doubts concerning the effectiveness of the pricing instrument, 2. relevant aspects of justice, 3. problems of comprehension, and 4. perceived scopes of action. Qualitative-interpretive and quantifying data analysis methods were applied. The main results reveal difficulties in comprehending the instrument and neglect of possible investments. Results are discussed with respect to practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Lesbian women have higher rates of physical and psychiatric disorders associated with experiences of discrimination, homophobia and difficulties with coming out. Therefore, easy access to specialized healthcare in an open atmosphere is needed. We aimed to describe women's access to and experiences with healthcare in Germany, and to assess the responsibility of the general practitioner (GP) compared to other specialities providing primary health care. Methods: A questionnaire study was conducted via internet and paper-based sampling. Using current literature, we designed a questionnaire consisting of sociodemographic data, sexual orientation, access to care and reasons for encounter, disclosure of sexual orientation, experience with the German health system (discrimination, homophobia), and psychological burden. Depression was assessed using the depression screening from the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-2). Results: We obtained responses from 766 lesbian women. Although 89% had a primary care physician, only 40% had revealed their sexual orientation to their doctor. The main medical contacts were GPs (66%), gynaecologists (10%) or psychiatrists (6%). Twenty-three percent claimed they were unable to find a primary care physician. Another 12.4% had experienced discrimination. Younger lesbian women with higher education levels and who were less likely to be out to other physicians were more likely to disclose their sexual orientation to their primary care physician. GPs play an important role in healthcare for lesbian women, even in a non-gatekeeping healthcare system like Germany. Study participants suggested improvements regarding gender neutral language, flyers on homosexuality in waiting areas, involvement of partners, training of physicians, directories of homosexual physicians and labelling as a lesbian-friendly practice. Conclusions: GPs should create an open atmosphere and acquire the respective knowledge to provide adequate treatment. Caring for marginal groups should be incorporated in medical training and further education. Ideally, physicians address patients' sexual orientation pro-actively in order to address individual needs accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The growing body of data on prevalence of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) usage means there is a need to standardize measurement on an international level. An international team has published a questionnaire (I-CAM-Q), but no validation has yet been provided. The aim of the present study was to provide a German measurement instrument for CAM usage (I-CAM-G) which closely resembles the original English version, and to assess it's performance in two potential samples for measuring CAM usage. Methods: The English I-CAM-Q questionnaire was translated into German, and adapted slightly. The resulting I-CAM-G questionnaire was then pre-tested on 16 healthy volunteers, and 12 cognitive interviews were carried out. The questionnaire was employed in a sample of breast cancer patients (N = 92, paper and pencil), and a sample from the general population (N = 210, internet survey). Descriptive analyses of items and missing data, as well as results from the cognitive interviews, are presented in this paper. Results: The translated questionnaire had to be adapted to be consistent with the German health care system. All items were comprehensible, whereby some items were unambiguous (e.g. CAM use yes/no, helpfulness), while others gave rise to ambiguous answers (e.g. reasons for CAM use), or high rates of missing data (e.g. number of times the CAM modality had been used during the last 3 months). 78% of the breast cancer patients and up to 85% of a sample of the general population had used some form of CAM. Conclusions: Following methodologically sound and comprehensive translation, adaptation and assessment processes using recognized translation procedures, cognitive interviews, and studying the performance of the questionnaire in two samples, we arrived at a German questionnaire for measuring CAM use which is comparable with the international (English) version. The questionnaire appropriately measures CAM use, with some items being more appropriate than others. We recommend the development of a short version. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The health status, health awareness and health behavior of persons with a migration background often differ from the autochthonous population. Little is known about the proportion of patients with a migration background (PMB) that participate in primary care studies on oral antithrombotic treatment (OAT) in Germany, and whether the quality of their antithrombotic care differs from patients without a migration background. The aim of this paper was to use the results of a cluster-randomized controlled trial (PICANT) to determine the proportion of PMB at different stages of recruitment, and to compare the results in terms of sociodemographic characteristics and antithrombotic treatment. Methods: This study used screening and baseline data from the PICANT trial on oral anticoagulation management in GP practices. For this analysis, we determined the proportion of PMB during the recruitment period at stage 1 (screening of potentially eligible patients), stage 2 (eligible patients invited to participate in the trial), and stage 3 (assessment of baseline characteristics of patients participating in the PICANT trial). In addition, we compared patients in terms of sociodemographic characteristics and quality of anticoagulant treatment. Statistical analysis comprised descriptive and bivariate analyses. Results: The proportion of PMB at each recruitment stage declined from 9.1% at stage 1 to 7.9% at stage 2 and 7.3% at stage 3). A lack of German language skills led to the exclusion of half the otherwise eligible PMB. At stages 1 and 3, PMB were younger (stage 1: 70.7 vs. 75.0 years, p<0.001; stage 3: 70.2 vs. 73.5 years, p = 0.013), but did not differ in terms of gender. The quality of their anticoagulant care was comparable (100.0% vs. 99.1% were receiving appropriate OAT, 94.4% vs. 95.7% took phenprocoumon, or warfarin, and the most recent INR measurement of 60.8% vs. 69.3% was within their individual INR range). Conclusions: In the potentially eligible population and among participants at baseline, the quality of anticoagulant care was high in all groups of patients, which is reassuring. To enable the inclusion of more PMB, future primary care research on OAT in Germany should address how best to overcome language barriers. This will be challenging, particularly because the heterogeneity of PMB means the resulting sample sizes for each specific language group are small. Trial registration: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN41847489. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Simple Summary: Due to the rarity of Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), only a few studies on both incidence and survival have been conducted. We provide up-to-date population-based incidence and relative survival estimates of MCC. We analyzed data from the cancer registry of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, for the years of 2008–2021, covering a population of 18 million individuals. We included all newly diagnosed MCC cases and calculated incidence rates and relative survival (observed divided by expected survival). Our analysis included 2164 MCC patients. The incidence of MCC was 5.2 and 3.8 per million for men and women, respectively. The 5-year relative survival was 59% in men and 71% in women. Survival was lower among men than women in all age–sex groups and was the highest for MCC of the upper extremity in both men and women. In terms of survival, the first two years are particularly critical. Background: To date, only a few population-representative studies have been carried out on the rare Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC). We provide incidence and survival estimates of MCC, including the conditional relative survival. Methods: We analyzed data from the cancer registry of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, 2008–2021, covering a population of 18 million. We included all newly diagnosed MCCs and calculated age-standardized (old European Standard population) incidence rates and unconditional and conditional relative survival. Results: Our analysis included 2164 MCC patients. The age-standardized incidence of MCC was 5.2 (men) and 3.8 (women) per million person-years. The 5-year relative survival was 58.8% (men) and 70.7% (women). Survival was lower among men than women in all age–sex groups and was highest for MCC of the upper extremity in both men (68.2%) and women (79.3%). The sex difference in survival is particularly due to the better survival of women with MCC of the head and neck. In terms of survival, the first two years are particularly critical. Conclusions: Our data validate the worse survival among men and highlights a more favorable prognosis for MCCs located on the limbs. The first two years after diagnosis of MCC are the years with the highest excess mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses speeding, that is, "too fast" responses, in web surveys. Relying on the response process model, we argue that very short response times indicate low data quality, stemming from a lack of attention on the part of respondents. To identify speeding, prior research employed case-wise procedures. Using data from nine online surveys, we demonstrate that response behavior of individual respondents varies considerably during a survey. Thus, we use case- and page-wise procedures to capture speeding behavior that taps different, although related, phenomena. Moreover, page-specific speeding measures capture aspects of data quality that traditional quality measures do not cover. Employing both page-specific and case-wise speeding measures, we examine whether removing speeders makes a difference in substantive findings. The evidence indicates that removing "too fast" responses does not alter marginal distributions, irrespective of which speeder-correction technique is employed. Moreover, explanatory models yield, by and large, negligible coefficient differences (on average about one standard error). Only in exceptional cases differences exceed two standard errors. Our findings suggest that speeding primarily adds some random noise to the data and attenuate correlations, if it makes a difference at all. The paper concludes by discussing implications and limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides up-to-date data on service use for mental health problems and disorders among adults aged 18-79 years in Germany derived from the Mental Health Module of the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Adults (DEGS1-MH; N=4483). Data are based exclusively on self-report. Respondents were examined by clinically trained interviewers with a modified version of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview DIA-X/M-CIDI to assess diagnoses according to the criteria of DSM-IV-TR. Service use, i.e. contact to mental health care services, due to mental health problems was assessed for the past 12 months and lifetime, by type of sector and type of institution. Among respondents with a 12-month diagnosis of a mental disorder, 23.5% of the women and 11.6% of the men reported any service use in the past 12 months. Service use depends on type of diagnosis, comorbidity and socio-demographic characteristics. Lowest 12-month utilization rates were found for substance use disorders (15.6%; lifetime use 37.3%), highest for psychotic disorders (40.5%; lifetime 72.1%). Further, a considerable time lap was found between disorder onset and subsequent service use among the majority of cases with anxiety and mood disorders. This paper provides self-reported epidemiological data on mental health service use in Germany, complementing administrative statistics and the predecessor mental health module of the German Health Interview and Examination Survey (GHS-MHS) from 1998. Despite considerable changes in the mental health field in Germany and the existence of a comprehensive mental health care system without major financial barriers, we find no indications of substantially higher utilization rates for mental disorders as compared to other comparable European countries. Further, no indications of major overall changes in utilization rates are apparent. To pinpoint areas with unmet needs, more detailed analyses of the data are needed taking into account type, frequency, and adequacy of service use and treatment of mental disorders. Appropriately matched comparisons with the GHS-MHS are needed to identify changes in patterns of utilization and interventions by type of disorder. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the creation of an intellectual biography of the U.S. sociologist Talcott Parsons. The researcher discusses Parsons' doctoral dissertation dealing with capitalism that was analyzed by sociologist Max Weber, and how Parsons' work delivered sociology from social Darwinism at the turn of the twentieth century. The author supports Parsons' work on the basis that he was a thinker and academician who did not use inconsistent analysis. The author utilized Parsons' archives at Harvard University, such as Parsons' paper "The Problem of Controlled Institutional Change."

Recent shifts in technology have created a data-rich environment and made it necessary for firms to develop new capabilities to cope with these changes. To address this challenge, this study introduces marketing-enabled data analytics capability, a specific type of information technology (IT) capability that enables firms to better understand customer needs and achieve a competitive advantage in the digital era. Using empirical results collected via online survey, we argue that marketing-enabled data analytics capability, which comprises data analytics infrastructure, marketing-oriented analytics expertise, and IT-marketing social capital, positively influences a firm's organisational agility and innovation success. Moreover, the results show that organisational agility partially mediates the relationship between marketing-enabled data analytics capability and innovation success. By developing the construct of marketing-enabled data analytics capability, this paper lays a foundation for future research on this new type of IT capability, which is critical in the digitization process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remote monitoring of cognition holds the promise to facilitate case-finding in clinical care and the individual detection of cognitive impairment in clinical and research settings. In the context of Alzheimer's disease, this is particularly relevant for patients who seek medical advice due to memory problems. Here, we develop a remote digital memory composite (RDMC) score from an unsupervised remote cognitive assessment battery focused on episodic memory and long-term recall and assess its construct validity, retest reliability, and diagnostic accuracy when predicting MCI-grade impairment in a memory clinic sample and healthy controls. A total of 199 participants were recruited from three cohorts and included as healthy controls (n = 97), individuals with subjective cognitive decline (n = 59), or patients with mild cognitive impairment (n = 43). Participants performed cognitive assessments in a fully remote and unsupervised setting via a smartphone app. The derived RDMC score is significantly correlated with the PACC5 score across participants and demonstrates good retest reliability. Diagnostic accuracy for discriminating memory impairment from no impairment is high (cross-validated AUC = 0.83, 95% CI [0.66, 0.99]) with a sensitivity of 0.82 and a specificity of 0.72. Thus, unsupervised remote cognitive assessments implemented in the neotiv digital platform show good discrimination between cognitively impaired and unimpaired individuals, further demonstrating that it is feasible to complement the neuropsychological assessment of episodic memory with unsupervised and remote assessments on mobile devices. This contributes to recent efforts to implement remote assessment of episodic memory for case-finding and monitoring in large research studies and clinical care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: While evidence highlights the effectiveness of initiating disease-modifying therapy with a high-efficacy medication for multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with poor prognostic factors, it remains unclear whether this approach has been adopted by a broad range of MS providers in Germany yet. Objective: To assess the adoption of the early highly effective treatment (EHT) compared to the treat-to-target treatment approach with the option of escalating treatment efficacy over time in Germany based on real-world evidence data. Design: Patient-level pharmacy dispensing data from the Permea platform were analysed from 2020 to 2022. Methods: In total, 29,529 therapy beginners (>18 years) were included to analyse shifts in treatment approaches over time and switching behaviour. Medication classification adhered to the German Society of Neurology guidelines and designated fumarates, glatiramer acetate, teriflunomide and interferons as low-efficacy category 1 medications; cladribine and S1P-modulators as medium-efficacy category 2 medications; and alemtuzumab, natalizumab, ocrelizumab, ofatumumab and rituximab (off-label) as high-efficacy category 3 medications. Results: Our results show that 70.0% of patients redeemed their first prescription for category 1 medication, 16.3% for category 2 and 13.7% for category 3 medications. The proportion of prescriptions filled shifted from 2020 to 2022 with a decrease of 14.7% for category 1 drugs and an increase of 12.5% for category 3 drugs. 93.2% of patients stayed on their initially prescribed medication category. 3.2% of category 1 and 3.7% of category 2 therapy beginners escalated to category 3 medication. 3.4% of category 3 medication users de-escalated their treatment to category 1 or category 2. Conclusion: While most individuals started their treatment according to the treat-to-target approach and remained on their initially prescribed medication category, there has been a steadily increasing shift towards the EHT approach since 2020. These insights demonstrate that, while not officially recommended by German guidelines, MS providers increasingly adopt the EHT approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mild cognitive impairment, especially executive dysfunction might occur early in the course of Parkinson's disease. Cognitive training is thought to improve cognitive performance. However, transfer of improvements achieved in paper and pencil tests into daily life has been difficult. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether a multimodal cognitive rehabilitation programme including physical exercises might be more successful than cognitive training programmes without motor training. 240 PD-patients were included in the study and randomly allocated to three treatment arms, group A cognitive training, group B cognitive training and transfer training and group C cognitive training, transfer training and psychomotor and endurance training. The primary outcome measure was the ADAS-Cog. The secondary outcome measure was the SCOPA-Cog. Training was conducted for 4 weeks on a rehabilitation unit, followed by 6 months training at home. Caregivers received an education programme. The combination of cognitive training using paper and pencil and the computer, transfer training and physical training seems to have the greatest effect on cognitive function. Thus, patients of group C showed the greatest improvement on the ADAS-Cog and SCOPA-COG and were more likely to continue with the training programme after the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the exponential growth of moving objects data to the Gigabyte range, it has become critical to develop effective techniques for indexing, updating, and querying these massive data sets. To meet the high update rate as well as low query response time requirements of moving object applications, this paper takes a novel approach in moving object indexing. In our approach, we do not require a sophisticated index structure that needs to be adjusted for each incoming update. Rather, we construct conceptually simple short-lived index images that we only keep for a very short period of time (sub-seconds) in main memory. As a consequence, the resulting technique supports at the same time high query rates and high update rates, trading this property for query result staleness. Moreover, is the first main memory method supporting time-parameterized predictive queries. To support this feature, we present two algorithms: non-predictive and predictive . We obtain the surprising result that a predictive indexing approach-considered state-of-the-art in an external-memory scenario-does not scale well in a main memory environment. In fact, our results show that outperforms state-of-the-art moving object indexes such as a main-memory adapted B-tree by orders of magnitude w.r.t. update rates and query rates. In our experimental evaluation, we index the complete road network of Germany consisting of 40,000,000 road segments and 38,000,000 nodes. We scale our workload up to 100,000,000 moving objects, 58,000,000 updates per second and 10,000 queries per second, a scenario at a scale unmatched by any previous work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]