The empirical relevance of minimum wages for the low-wage sector

Niedriglohn, Mindestlohn, Wirtschaftlichkeit, Arbeitsplatz, Deutschland, Low wages, Minimum wage, Economic effectiveness, Job, Germany

Neuartige Plattenwärmeübertrager - Teil D: Wirtschaftlichkeitsbewertung von Plattenapparaten anhand von Druckverlust und Wärmeübergang

Ausgehend von Druckverlust und Wärmeübergang im einphasig turbulent durchströmten, glatten Rohr wurde eine dimensionslose Gütezahl G als Verhältnis von Nusseltzahl und Widerstandsbeiwert eingeführt, die es ermöglicht die Wirtschaftlichkeit unterschiedlicher Plattenapparate vergleichsweise abzuschätzen. Die beispielhafte Anwendung auf zwei Testapparaten mit unterschiedlicher Plattenprägung ergab eine besserer relative Wirtschaftlichkeit der weichen Platte vergleichsweise zur harten Platte im Bereich kleiner und mittlerer Re-Zahlen für einen weiten Bereich der Pr-Zahl, die aber mit zunehmender Re-Zahl abnimmt. Der Druckverlustunterschied zwischen Testapparaten und Referenzapparat sollte in weiterführenden Untersuchungen behandelt werden

The German Federal Court of Audit's observations of and comments on tax administration and tax compliance

Auditing institutions, such as the German Federal Court of Audit (BRH), provide information on public revenue and public spending. The question of how to increase tax compliance has been of frequent interest. Unfortunately, information from German taxpayers? declaration behaviour (beyond the official income statistics and tax statistics) was neither systematically collected, nor otherwise made accessible for systematic research. However, the BRH selectively observes taxpayers? and tax administrators? behaviour and, on the basis of its audit experiences, comments on tax enforcement and tax compliance. Such recommendations are not just increasingly given by the BRH, but also increasingly considered in political decision making processes. Although the findings are not a representative sample of the German taxpayers? behaviour, they make up available information on tax compliance behaviour in Germany and, therefore, are worth discussing in light of modern economic theories of tax compliance. The reported facts are an appropriate foundation of case studies. --supreme auditing institutions,German Federal Court of Audit,tax administration,tax compliance,tax evasion,tax morality,transactional costs

Paying for "End-of-Life" Drugs in Australia, Germany, and the United Kingdom: Balancing Policy, Pragmatism, and Societal Values

Analyzes British, Australian, and German health systems' policies on covering expensive end-of-life drugs while maintaining equity and efficiency, such as requiring evidence of comparative clinical and cost-effectiveness. Outlines challenges for the U.S

Integrating patients' views into health technology assessment: Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) as a method to elicit patient preferences

Background: Patient involvement is widely acknowledged to be a valuable component in health technology assessment (HTA) and healthcare decision making. However, quantitative approaches to ascertain patients' preferences for treatment endpoints are not yet established. The objective of this study is to introduce the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) as a preference elicitation method in HTA. Based on a systematic literature review on the use of AHP in health care in 2009, the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) initiated an AHP study related to its HTA work in 2010. - \ud Methods: The AHP study included two AHP workshops, one with twelve patients and one with seven healthcare professionals. In these workshops, both patients and professionals rated their preferences with respect to the importance of different endpoints of antidepressant treatment by a pairwise comparison of individual endpoints. These comparisons were performed and evaluated by the AHP method and relative weights were generated for each endpoint. - \ud Results: The AHP study indicates that AHP is a well-structured technique whose cognitive demands were well handled by patients and professionals. The two groups rated some of the included endpoints of antidepressant treatment differently. For both groups, however, the same six of the eleven endpoints analyzed accounted for more than 80 percent of the total weight. - \ud Conclusions: AHP can be used in HTA to give a quantitative dimension to patients' preferences for treatment endpoints. Preference elicitation could provide important information at various stages of HTA and challenge opinions on the importance of endpoints

OSS Adoption: Who is Leading and Why?

Parallelsacht. "OSS Adaption" war Hauptsachtitel der 1. Version, die 14 Tage lang im Netz stand. It is no secret that open source software (OSS) is gaining ground, yet the drivers for OSS adoption still seem rather unclear. This report aims to compare various industries within select countries in the EU and tries to explain their OSS adoption patterns. The results indicate that companies in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary are leading OSS adopters. Further, it was found that company adoption of OSS is largely dependent on in-house IT development and expertise. The focus on internal development and capacities is often characteristic of larger firms, which is corroborated by our findings. Finally, the analysis showed that companies tend to OSS, the higher their requirements for open standards and interoperability.Open source software, Adoption: Internal IT capacity, User innovation

Ökologischer Landbau - Faustzahlen

Faustzahlen zum ökologischen Landbau werden dargestellt, insbesondere zu den Grundlagen, zur Düngung, Umstellung, Marktfrucht- und Futterbau sowie Tierhaltun

Possible roles, positions, factors and components of dairying in organic farming – a rewiev, mapping, survey and comparison in the Czech Republic

The full-value experiment is questionable in evaluation organic dairying. It is problem to do a trial under comparable conditions for comparison of organic and conventional farming because of legislative reasons and necessity of long period of such event. Most of comparisons are carried out as practice descriptive observations and any of them has been carried out about milk production. That is main reason, why the aim of this work is to carry out a opening of monitoring of some production conditions and results of bio-dairying in the Czech Republic (CR). The quality aspects of sources, procedures and products are main topics of solution of projects about organic farming philosophy, in particular in solution of organic dairy foodstuff chain. There were choosen twelve organic dairy farms (survey II, 2006) for more detail research of production conditions according to results of exploratory questionnaire (2006, survey I, n = 85 pieces of questionnaire and 58 organic farms, which practicise dairying) in the CR. The climatology characteristics of selected organic dairy farms were as follows: (I) 562±149 m above sea level on the average (from 270 to 970 m a. s. l.); (II) 571.0±69.9 m above sea level, mean year temperature 6.0±1.1 ºC and average year rainfall sum 843.0±184.3 mm. It is clear according to previously mentioned figures that the organic (ecology) dairy farming is realized mostly in the mountain or sub-mountain areas (less favourable areas, LFAs) as compared to climatic conditions of CR mean profile. The results of investigation of organic farm (E) and breeder conditions and dairy cow health state, reproduction performance and milk quality in organic farms (I data file) as compared to conventional dairy cow herds (K) were: milk yield (E) was 14.2±3.4 kg of milk/cow/day on average and 5165±1112 kg/cow/year; E farms have 50 % free stables, some of them as different untraditional modifications (mostly in herds with low number of dairy cows); it is necessary to increase this amount for welfare improvement in the future; there are 52 % of binding stables in K herds; there (E) is high occurrence frequency of can milking equipments (46.4 %); there are 5.4 % cases of hand milking, 21.4 % of pipeline milking equipments and 26.8 % of milking parlours; there (K) are 3 % of can milking equipments, 50 % of pipeline milking equipments and 47 % of milking parlours; the average organic herd has 60±91 heads it means about 1/3 of K herd in the CR; geometrical average (xg) of organic herd size is 17 heads; daily milk deliveries were 1318±1475 kg in summer and 976±1368 kg in winter season (there is too high variability in the mentioned indicators); breed structure of E herds is 59.8 % of Bohemian Spotted cattle, 18.8 % of Holstein (H), 12.5 % of Jersey breed; H breed is dominating 47.5 % in K herds; average ratio of excluded milk (for secretion disorders or treatment) is 2.99 % in E herds and 4.6 % in K herds (P<0.01); also there (E) is lower occurrence of clinical mastitis 0.53±1.97 %; service period is 124.3 days in K and 98.7±46,1 days in E herds on average (P<0.01); there (E) is better insemination index 1.66±0.45 in comparison to K herds 2.07 (P<0.01); there is longer longevity as duration of production life of dairy cows in E herds (6.02 lactations, „about 141 % better”) in comparison to K herds (2.50 lactations, P<0.01); milk quality showed the average total mesophilic bacteria count (CPM) 36.0±26.8 ths. CFU/ml in organic farms (E), which is comparable to the conventional farms (K); somatic cell count (PSB) was 192±87 ths./ml in E herds and 256 ths./ml in K herds, which is in connection with the lower ratio of milk exclusion from delivery in E herds; an occurrence of residues of inhibitory substances (RIL) was not reported in E herds, which is more advantageous in comparison to the K herds (0.16 %) and it could be an impact of lowered antibiotica drug use; the average fat and lactose contents (T; 4.05±0.19 %) and (L; 4.83±0.15 %) are well comparable with K farms and the results show on higher energy deficiency in E herd nutrition. The water quality (II) is necessary in dairying as well. Drinking water is necessary for health of animals (their watering) and for milk quality (milking equipment sanitation) as well. Drinking water is asked in dairy farms by legislation. The E farm water quality: the nitrate level varied in the range from 1.63 to 28 mg/l with average 10.5 mg/l in ecological farms and standard limit 50 mg/l was not exceeded; the levels of nitrite and ammonia ions were mostly under detection limit of method; legislative limit <0.5 mg/l was not exceeded by nitrite and once by ammonia ions 0.81 mg/l. The microbiological indicators are more sensitive of course. In total the limits were exceeded 7× u in coliform bacteria, 3× in streptococci and Escherichia coli was confirmed 3× (in comparison to demand 0). Therefore it is necessary to take care of incidental water source sanitation. The effect of origin of water source (communal water pipes or own well in the organic farm area) which was used in the organic farming (II) was: the more marked result differences were not observed between own wells (S) and communal water supply (V) in E farms; an exception was stated in insignificantly better results of hygienic indicators of communal supply; therefore it is necessary to put the higher importance on sanitation of own water sources. There were identified eight own wells and four communal supply. E. g. nitrate levels were a little higher for wells 11.7 > 8.2 mg/l. The nitrites were not different. Chemical oxygen consumption was 0.45 and 0.52 mg/l. The more expressive differences were identified in chlorides, sulphates and Mg: 8.33 and 3.02 mg/l; 27.9 and 16.8 mg/l; 18.9 and 3.5 mg/l

Wirtschaftlichkeit und Wirtschaftlichkeitsprüfung von RFID in Bibliotheken

Wirtschaftlichkeit ist ein zwingend zu beachtendes Gebot jeder Haushaltsführung der öffentlichen Hand. Doch was ist damit konkret gemeint? Und ist immer ein- und dasselbe gemeint? Bei näherer Betrachtung erkennt man schnell, dass es unterschiedliche und teilweise miteinander wenig kompatible Wirtschaftlichkeitspostulate gibt. Eine Bibliothek, die RFID einführen will, sieht sich unterschiedlichen Kontexten gegenüber, in denen sie die Frage, ob ein Einsatz von RFID »wirtschaftlich« ist, beantworten kann bzw. muss. Einige davon werden zunächst thematisiert. Im Anschluss wird das Tool WiBe vorgestellt, das es erlaubt, die Grunddaten und Argumente für die skizzierten unterschiedlichen Perspektiven in einem kontrollierten, anerkannten und rational gesteuertem Verfahren zu gewinnen

Reference catalogue for ICT services in healthcare : model for ICT service management, controlling and benchmarking : version 1.0

Translation of the German original