Quality Improvement in Health Care and Health Promotion: Health Grants

The public offer of health grants is a possibility to get an overview of project activities within a certain region. Innovative, economic and qualitative highly valuated approaches can be made familiar to the general public by this procedure. If applicable, such problem-solving approaches can be taken over by other projects in a modified form. In so far the identified projects can serve for quality improvement in various fields of health care and health promotion

Rural Areas on Their Way to a Smart Village - Experiences from Living Labs in Bavaria

This paper presents an overview of the approaches and experiences from existing living labs: german rural villages in which several digital solutions had been developed and implemented. The test villages have been selected based on a competition and are funded by the Bavarian state government in the project Digitales Dorf (Engl. digital village). Started in 2016 several measures had been taken to push digitalization in these rural areas with the goal to create equivalent living conditions to urban areas. The research question is how digitalization enhances the value of rural areas and which methods can be used to overcome the digitalization gap with a transferable and simple approach. This paper focuses on the transformation process rather than digital solutions, and presents requirements and best practices to promote digitalization in rural environments, their municipal processes and traditional approaches in everyday lif

Eco-city on the rise : a study on green capitalism, neoliberal planning and corruption in China’s eco-city development

In 2011, China’s urban population surpassed its rural population for the first time in the history when it reached 690 million. The massive urbanization has resulted in a booming of urban housing and infrastructure. Consequently, crowded infrastructure systems burdened by an increasing urban population and severe environmental problems like air pollution have become the main challenges for Chinese cities. In recent years, the Chinese government has begun to envision an urban future with so-called eco-cities. Eco-city development is largely supported by national and local governments since it appears to be a solution not only to environmental sustainability in the mounting critique against Chinese cities’ environmental condition but also a way of attracting green capital investment. In this thesis, I have attempted to understand the relationship between green capitalism, neoliberal planning and corruption in the context of China’s eco-city development. The case study of Dongtan eco-city in Shanghai is used as an empirical venue to apply the above conceptual frameworks. The data collection is based on literature review of academic journals, news articles, reports and qualitative/quantitative secondary data. My study shows that corruption facilitates eco-city projects supported by the concept of neoliberal planning; the neoliberal planning strategy intensifies intercity competition for green capital investment, which in turn increases the likelihood of corruption as a result of public and private actors seeking economic and career advances through illegal practices. A lack of effective supervision from the public and civil society groups exacerbates the situation and leads to a vicious circle of systemic corruption. My study offers new insights into China’s eco-city development and shows the importance of anti-corruption for urban sustainability

Academic challenges of Saudi university females: results of an intercultural competence survey

The main objective of this study is to introduce the final results of a research project that focused on the components of the intercultural competence of female Saudi university students at the multicultural Jazan University in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from 2014 to 2017. After discussing the social roles of academic female youth, the paper moves on to a literature review of the theoretical approaches. The study employed a sample of 341 female students in different academic specializations to investigate the components of their intercultural competence and the potential of Saudi female professionalism. Hence, a structured questionnaire was used. Results support the idea that the present generation of Saudi females at university have the desire and ability to become interculturally and globally competent university students, even though women in Saudi Arabia still lag behind in many ways in their gender-separated society. Finally, the study summarizes the four basic pillars of Saudi-specific cultural dimensions

2005 Community Foundation Global Status Report

In 1999 the International Programs department of the Council on Foundations and the newly-formed Worldwide Initiatives for Grantmaker Support-Community Foundations (WINGS-CF) sponsored a project to track for the first time the global development of community foundations. This resulted in 2000 in the publication of The Growth of Community Foundations Around the World. In 2003, WINGS-CF reshaped and updated the report to focus on international community foundation trends and developments since the previous report. It became the first in a series of three annual reports

The American Assembly: Art, Technology, and Intellectual Property

Examines intellectual property issues as the arts sector joins other sectors in the race to deal with an increasingly information-driven economy

Paper 2: The Integration of Media-Related Studies and Competencies into US and German Initial Teacher Education: A Cross-National Analysis of Contemporary Practices and Trends

Viele lehrerbildende Institutionen haben die Notwendigkeit erkannt, medienbezogene Studieninhalte in ihre Curricula einzubinden. Dennoch existieren keine verbindlichen Regularien für diese Prozesse. Deshalb variieren Form und Umfang der entsprechenden Aktivitäten stark, nicht nur zwischen Ländern, sondern auch innerhalb von Ländern mit dezentralen Strukturen in Bildungskontexten, so wie Deutschland und die USA. Der folgende Artikel wird die Ergebnisse von 11 Interviews mit deutschen und US-Amerikanischen Expertinnen und Experten vorstellen, in denen aktuelle Praktiken und Trends bei der Integration von medienbezogenen Studien und Kompetenzen ins Lehramtsstudium untersucht wurden. Die gesammelten Daten fokussieren Modelle medienbezogener pädagogischer Kompetenz, Möglichkeiten und Arten der Integration medienbezogener Studieninhalte in Lehramtscurricula, die Ergebnisse dieser Bemühungen und Stakeholder, die diese Prozesse beeinflussen. Die international vergleichende Perspektive wird dazu beitragen, die Ergebnisse zu kontextualisieren und Schlussfolgerungen zum aktuellen Stand zu ziehen.Many institutions of initial teacher education have realized the necessity to integrate media-related studies into their curricula. However, there are no binding regulations for these processes. As a result, the shape and extent of respective activities varies considerably, not only between different countries, but also within countries with decentralized educational structures such as Germany and the USA. The following paper will present the results of 11 interviews with experts from Germany and the USA which explored current practices and trends in the integration of media-related studies and competencies into initial teacher education. The data collected focus on models of media-related educational competencies, on possibilities and varieties of integrating media-related studies into teacher education curricula, on the outcomes of such efforts and on stakeholders who influence these processes. The cross-national comparative perspective will help contextualize the findings and draw conclusions on the status quo

Part III: Advancing Media-related Educational Competencies

In the first part of this dissertation, selected models and standards from Germany and the USA were introduced, based on a literature review and thus revealing what is considered relevant for practice in a variety of sources and which competencies preservice teachers should acquire, according to these sources. In the second part, methods and selected results of competency measurements were introduced, thus demonstrating ways to operationalize the models and to assess the outcomes of respective processes of such a model integration. Complementary to these theoretical and measurement-focused perspectives on media-related educational competencies, it is important to extend the viewpoint to practices of media-related education of preservice teachers: the objectives both of competency models and of competency measurements ultimately include impacting the respective practices in teacher education and offering a grounded basis and stimuli for improvements and enhanced practice. In accordance with this, various sources emphasize the importance of research on the integration of ICT and respective competencies into initial teacher education (Enochsson und Rizza 2009; Krumsvik 2014; Tondeur u. a. 2017)

The Economic Risks of Globalization: Expert and Public Opinion Survey Results. Global Choices 1/2012

The world is changing at breathtaking speed. Global challenges, from climate change to cyber crime, are growing increasingly complex. Emerging economic powers in Asia and Latin America are assuming greater roles in geopolitical matters. The shift of economic power to the east is creating new dependencies. In short, the ground rules of international cooperation are being rewritten. The “Global Choices” publication series takes a closer look at these changes and how they affect politics, business and society. By facilitating an informed understanding of these changes, this series aims to contribute constructively to debates regarding the principles of a new global order and the reforms needed to improve international cooperation. “Global Choices” is also a call to action because globalization is not a matter of immutable fate; its trajectory can be shaped. “Global Choices” therefore underscores the fact that the power to make sound choices lies within our hands