Collective labour rights and European influences in the United Kingdom and Germany

The purpose of this research is to analyse the differences between the German and British system of industrial relations, with particular emphasis on the influence of EC legislation. The first three chapters will provide an historical and methodical background, with the first chapter tracing the respective history of trade unions in each country. Chapter 3 will present the history of works councils and the Works Constitution Act in Germany and European Influences on the British System of Workers' Representation. Chapter 3 will highlight core differences while Chapter IV will present problems trade unions are facing on a national, European and global scale. Suggested Solutions to these problems will be discussed. Chapter V – the conclusion – will assess the benefits of the German and the British system of industrial relations while at the same time trying to determine which system is better equipped to deal with the problems presented. Suggestions as to the future course of actions of trade unions will be presented

Wie Studierende Texte von Peers kommentieren : exemplarische Kontrastierung von zwei Fällen und erste hochschuldidaktische Schlussfolgerungen

Der Beitrag stellt einzelne Ergebnisse aus einem am Institut Vorschulstufe und Primarstufe (IVP) NMS der Pädagogischen Hochschule Bern durchgeführten Forschungsprojekt vor. Zentrales Anliegen dieses Projekts ist eine Annäherung an das im deutschsprachigen Raum noch kaum systematisch beforschte Phänomen der Textkommentierung zu Feedbackzwecken. Anhand von Beispielen aus einem Korpus von studentischen Textkommentierungen soll hier aufgezeigt werden, wie vielschichtig und komplex dieser Forschungsgegenstand aus linguistischer Perspektive ist. Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden zwei kontrastiv ausgewählte Fälle im Detail vorgestellt. Dadurch soll ein Eindruck davon vermittelt werden, wie groß das Spektrum des Herangehens und der Umsetzung einer Textkommentierung zu Feedbackzwecken unter Mitstudierenden ist. Der Beitrag ist von einer didaktischen Perspektive geleitet: Zwar finden sich in der schreibdidaktischen Literatur zahlreiche Kriterien und Regeln für hilfreiches Textfeedback, konkrete Hinweise dazu, wie Textfeedback sprachlich so realisiert werden kann, dass es diesen Kriterien entspricht, sind jedoch allenfalls ansatzweise formuliert. Durch die hier präsentierten Resultate können die Empfehlungen für Textfeedback empirisch unterfüttert werden. Für die Analyse der Textkommentierungen wurde im Projekt ein aus zwei Rastern bestehendes Instrument entwickelt (InliAnTe), das eine Rückbindung der Feedbackregeln einerseits an (text)linguistisches Wissen als auch an konkretes Sprachhandlungswissen ermöglicht. Zusammen mit dem Inventar an Textkommentierungsstrategien – wie es aus dem untersuchten Korpus hervorgeht – kann es Ausgangspunkt für eine theoretisch und empirisch reflektierte Didaktik des Textkommentierens in Peer-Feedback-Prozessen sein

Konzeption und Evaluation eines Stresspräventionstrainings für Jugendliche

Ziel dieser Studie ist die Entwicklung eines Stresspräventionsprogramms für das Jugendalter zur Durchführung im Schulsetting. Da Stress bereits im Kindes- und Jugendalter eine bedeutende Rolle spielt, soll erreicht werden, dass frühzeitig ein angemessenes Bewältigungspotential aufgebaut wird. Auf dem Hintergrund einer bereits durchgeführten Bedarfsanalyse wurde ein Programm realisiert, dessen Basismodul auf einem Problemlöseansatz beruht und das um weitere Programmmodule zu Kognitionen, zur sozialen Unterstützung sowie zu Entspannung und Zeitmanagement ergänzt werden kann. In einer Evaluationsstudie wurde das Stresspräventionstraining mit 461 Schülern der Klassen 8 und 9 (18 Trainingsklassen) durchgeführt, wobei jeweils das Basismodul zum Problemlösen mit einem der drei Zusatzmodule kombiniert wurde. Den drei Trainingsbedingungen wurde eine Kontrollgruppe ohne Trainingsteilnahme gegenübergestellt (339 Schüler aus 14 Kontrollklassen). Als Ergebnis zeigten sich deutliche Wissensverbesserungen sowie Veränderungen der Bewertung von stresserzeugenden Situationen und des Bewältigungsverhaltens, die über einen Zeitraum von mindestens zwei Monaten stabil blieben

InliAnTe: Instrument für die linguistische Analyse von Textkommentierungen

Giving feedback on texts is a common method of supporting the writing process in different contexts. It involves using language in two different ways: It focuses on language and textual phenomena in the draft of the text, and is itself a communicative activity expressed through language. This double relationship with language has not, however, until now been taken into account systematically and comprehensively enough in either writing courses or research on feedback.This article presents an instrument for analysing students’ written commentaries on texts in peer feedback processes. By combining different linguistic methods, the instrument enables the identification of those characteristics of the text commentaries that are didactically relevant. The analysis distinguishes in each case between the places marked in the text draft and the commentaries. Those phenomena in the draft text that the feedback-givers react to in their commentaries are identified through text analysis. In addition, a pragmatic analysis of the commentary texts reveals how the feedback-givers draft their commentaries linguistically when, for example, encouraging the original author to revise the text.Applying the instrument to describe text commentaries should contribute to making theoretical modelling more exact, as well as to an empirically-based way of teaching how to comment on texts in peer-feedback processes

Industrial Infrastructure: Translocal Planning for Global Production in Ethiopia and Argentina

Current development and re-development of industrial areas cannot be adequately understood without taking into account the organisational structures and logistics of commodity production on a planetary scale. Global production networks contribute not only to the reconfiguration of urban spatial and economic structures in many places, but they also give rise to novel transnational actor constellations, thus reconfiguring planning processes. This article explores such constellations and their urban outcomes by investigating two current cases of industrial development linked with multilateral transport-infrastructure provisioning in Ethiopia and Argentina. In both cases, international partners are involved, in particular with stakeholders based in China playing significant roles. In Mekelle, Ethiopia, we focus on the establishment of a commodity hub through the implementation of new industry parks for global garment production and road and rail connections to international seaports. In the Rosario metropolitan area in Argentina, major cargo rail and port facilities are under development to expand the country’s most important ports for soybean export. By mapping the physical architectures of the industrial and infrastructure complexes and their urban contexts and tracing the translocal actor constellations involved in infrastructure provisioning and operation, we analyse the spatial impacts of the projects as well as the related implications for planning governance. The article contributes to emergent scholarship and theorisations of urban infrastructure and global production networks, as well as policy mobility and the transnational constitution of planning knowledge and practices

From Understanding to Sustainable Use of Peatlands: The WETSCAPES Approach

Of all terrestrial ecosystems, peatlands store carbon most effectively in long-term scales of millennia. However, many peatlands have been drained for peat extraction or agricultural use. This converts peatlands from sinks to sources of carbon, causing approx. 5% of the anthropogenic greenhouse effect and additional negative effects on other ecosystem services. Rewetting peatlands can mitigate climate change and may be combined with management in the form of paludiculture. Rewetted peatlands, however, do not equal their pristine ancestors and their ecological functioning is not understood. This holds true especially for groundwater-fed fens. Their functioning results from manifold interactions and can only be understood following an integrative approach of many relevant fields of science, which we merge in the interdisciplinary project WETSCAPES. Here, we address interactions among water transport and chemistry, primary production, peat formation, matter transformation and transport, microbial community, and greenhouse gas exchange using state of the art methods. We record data on six study sites spread across three common fen types (Alder forest, percolation fen, and coastal fen), each in drained and rewetted states. First results revealed that indicators reflecting more long-term effects like vegetation and soil chemistry showed a stronger differentiation between drained and rewetted states than variables with a more immediate reaction to environmental change, like greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Variations in microbial community composition explained differences in soil chemical data as well as vegetation composition and GHG exchange. We show the importance of developing an integrative understanding of managed fen peatlands and their ecosystem functioning.

Superior Immunogenicity of Inactivated Whole Virus H5N1 Influenza Vaccine is Primarily Controlled by Toll-like Receptor Signalling

In the case of an influenza pandemic, the current global influenza vaccine production capacity will be unable to meet the demand for billions of vaccine doses. The ongoing threat of an H5N1 pandemic therefore urges the development of highly immunogenic, dose-sparing vaccine formulations. In unprimed individuals, inactivated whole virus (WIV) vaccines are more immunogenic and induce protective antibody responses at a lower antigen dose than other formulations like split virus (SV) or subunit (SU) vaccines. The reason for this discrepancy in immunogenicity is a long-standing enigma. Here, we show that stimulation of Toll-like receptors (TLRs) of the innate immune system, in particular stimulation of TLR7, by H5N1 WIV vaccine is the prime determinant of the greater magnitude and Th1 polarization of the WIV-induced immune response, as compared to SV- or SU-induced responses. This TLR dependency largely explains the relative loss of immunogenicity in SV and SU vaccines. The natural pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP) recognized by TLR7 is viral genomic ssRNA. Processing of whole virus particles into SV or SU vaccines destroys the integrity of the viral particle and leaves the viral RNA prone to degradation or involves its active removal. Our results show for a classic vaccine that the acquired immune response evoked by vaccination can be enhanced and steered by the innate immune system, which is triggered by interaction of an intrinsic vaccine component with a pattern recognition receptor (PRR). The insights presented here may be used to further improve the immune-stimulatory and dose-sparing properties of classic influenza vaccine formulations such as WIV, and will facilitate the development of new, even more powerful vaccines to face the next influenza pandemic