QR code awareness in Stockholm, Sweden

This tech report describes the findings of a street survey on awareness of QR codes (2D barcodes) of the general public in Stockholm, Sweden. 108 passers-by were surveyed. Of these participants, a large majority (77%) did not recognize a QR code, and 8% reported seeing such a code before, but did not know it could be scanned using a mobile phone app. Only 15% knew what the shown QR code was, and that it could be read using a QR code reader on a mobile phone. The awareness of QR codes by the general public could be considered rather low, and their utility in Swedish public settings is currently debatable

Efficient Revenue Sharing and Upper Level Governments: Theory and Application to Germany

Recent literature has emphasized that redistributive grant systems may tend to internalize fiscal externalities arising from tax competition. This paper further explores the conditions under which local grant systems enforced by the state government will enhance efficiency. A system of redistributive grants among governments is introduced into a standard model of tax competition. This basic model is then extended in order to allow for variations in the government objectives at the state level. A subsequent empirical analysis of local tax policy exploits the experience with local fiscal revenue sharing in Germany. The results suggest that attempts of state level governments to extract fiscal resources from the local revenue sharing system exert an upward pressure on tax rates.fiscal equalization, tax competition, fiscal federalism, Germany

Auswirkungen einer Länderfusion auf die öffentlichen Finanzen am Beispiel von Schleswig-Holstein und Hamburg

In diesem Beitrag werden einige finanzwissenschaftliche Anmerkungen zu den Vorteilen einer Länderfusion von Hamburg und Schleswig-Holstein getroffen und in den Kontext der bestehenden Finanzverfassung gestellt. Eine Länderfusion von Hamburg und Schleswig-Holstein verspricht unter anderem Kostenersparnisse, die nach vorliegenden empirischen Untersuchungen bei grob 4% des Budgets (auf Landesebene) anzusetzen sind. Auch im Hinblick auf den Föderalismus wäre ein Zusammengehen vorteilhaft. Jedoch bestraft die föderale Finanzverfassung den Zusammenschluss. Nach den Ergebnissen der Analyse ist mit einem jährlichen Minderbetrag an Einnahmen von insgesamt 1 063,1 Mill. € bzw. 7,5% des Budgets zu rechnen. Um eine Fusion nicht zu gefährden, ist eine Kompensation für höhere Abflüsse in den Finanzausgleich denkbar, in dem Sinne, dass die anderen Bundesländer auf Vorteile in den Transfers zugunsten des fusionierten Bundeslandes verzichten.Öffentliche Finanzwirtschaft, Fusion, Föderalismus, Finanzausgleich, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Deutschland

Using Computer Vision Technologies to Make the Virtual Visible

Mobile Life CentreMobile 2.

Applying Human-Centered Design Methods in Industry – a Field Report

Human-centered design methods are nowadays widely used in the design of consumer products. These methods aim at designing products with a high usability and a positive user experience (UX). However, in the domain of the design of industrial machines, design is often driven by functional requirements mostly neglecting the usability and user experience of products. Together with a medium-sized manufacturer of industrial laundry machines we applied the human-centered design process in an industrial context. In this field report, we describe the human-centered design methods applied in the project, the adaptations we had to make in the process and the challenges and opportunities for applying human-centered design in an industrial environment in general

Comparison of two CO2-laser procedures for smoothing microstructures in fused silica

Die derzeit konventionellen Verfahren können für die Glättung von mikrooptischen Elementen nicht eingesetzt werden. Für das Material Quarzglas kann dies durch den Einsatz von CO2-Laserstrahlung realisiert werden. Durch das Erwärmen des Materials über die Erweichungstemperatur hinaus, wird an der Oberfläche eine dünne Schicht aufgeschmolzen und die Oberfläche zieht sich aufgrund der Oberflächenspannung glatt. Zum Glätten von Mikrostrukturen ist die Erwärmung einer größeren Fläche nötig, um eine möglichst homogene Temperaturverteilung zu realisieren und damit auch eine homogene Glättung. Die Glättung kann mit zwei Verfahren realisiert werden, einerseits durch den Einsatz einer Zylinderlinse und andererseits durch einen Scanner. Beide Verfahren liefern Ergebnisse die nur in sehr geringem Maße voneinander abweichen. Bezogen auf Prozesszuverlässigkeit ist das Scanner-Verfahren besser steuerbar, aber weitaus nicht so schnell wie das Zylinderlinsen-Verfahren

Integrating the Central European Past into a Common Narrative: the mobilizations around the 'crimes of Communism' in the European Parliament

International audienceAfter the Cold War, a new constellation of actors entered transnational European assemblies. Their interpretation of European history, which was based on the equivalence of the two 'totalitarianisms', Stalinism and Nazism, directly challenged the prevailing Western European narrative constructed on the uniqueness of the Holocaust as the epitome of evil. This article focuses on the mobilizations of these memory entrepreneurs in the European Parliament in order to take into account the issue of agency in European memory politics. Drawing on a social and political analysis centered on institutionally embedded actors, a process-tracing analysis investigates the adoption of the furthest-reaching official expression of a 'totalitarian' interpretation of Communism to date: the Resolution on European Conscience and Totalitarianism from April 2009. This case study shows that the issue was put on the parliamentary agenda by a small group of Central and Eastern European politicians who had managed to 'learn the ropes' of effective advocacy in the Assembly. An official vision of Communism then emerged through intense negotiations structured by interwoven ideological and national lines of division. However, this narrative largely remains of regional, rather than pan-European, relevance. In the competition for the definition of 'Europe' and its values, the persistent diversity in the assessment of Communism gives evidence of the local rootedness of remembrance despite the pan-European ambitions of memory entrepreneurs

Web-based database for the management of tissue specimens in a transregional histological research facility

BACKGROUND: In the setting of a histological research core facility sample tracking and project specific archiving of tissue specimens and communication of related data is of central importance. DESCRIPTION: Over a 24-month period 10 laboratories from two transregional research centers submitted in excess of 3000 tissue samples for histological processing and evaluation to our core facility. A web based database was set up to overcome the logistical problem of managing samples with inconsistent, duplicate and missing labels and to allow for efficient sample tracking, archiving and communication with the collaborating research laboratories. The database allows the users to remotely generate unique sample identifiers and enter sample annotation prior to sample processing. Furthermore the database facilitates communication about experimental set-up results and media files such as histological images. CONCLUSION: Our newly constructed web based portal is an important tool for the management of research samples of our histological core facility and facilitates significantly interdisciplinary and transregional research. It is freely available for scientific use

Excuse Me, Something Is Unfair! - Implications of Perceived Fairness of Service Robots

Fairness is an important aspect for individuals and teams. This also applies for human-robot interaction (HRI). Especially if intelligent robots provide services to multiple humans, humans may feel treated unfairly by robots. Most work in this area deals with the aspects of fair algorithms, task allocation and decision support. This work focuses on a different, yet little explored perspective, which looks at fairness in HRI from a human-centered perspective in human-robot teams. We present an experiment in which a service robot was responsible for distributing resources among competing team members. We investigated how different strategies of distribution influence the perceived fairness and the perception of the robot. Our study shows that humans might perceive technically efficient algorithms as unfair, especially if humans personally experience negative consequences. This also had negative impact on human perception of the robot, which should be considered in the design of future robots