Armut im Alter – Ursachenanalyse und eine Projektion für das Jahr 2023

Several factors bring about a rise in old age poverty in Germany, especially in East Germany. Using data from the German Socio-economic Panel (SOEP) we examine causes and extent of old age poverty in Germany. We begin our inquiry with a cross section regression in order to determine the impact of several factors on retirement incomes in Germany. In the second step we perform an income projection of today’s 50 to 55 year-old people for the year 2023. In doing so, we take into account different sources of income, including several forms of capital income and the calculated rent of owner-occupied houses and flats. We find a significant rise in old age poverty especially in East Germany as a consequence of rising unemployment after the German unification.old age poverty, pension, old age income

Der demografische Wandel als Herausforderung für das Personal- und Organisationsmanagement: Ergebnisse einer empirischen Studie

Der vorliegende Bericht enthält die Ergebnisse einer Befragung von 648 deutschen Unternehmen, die im Sommer 2014 an einer Onlinestudie zum Umgang mit dem demografischer Wandel teilgenommen haben. Im Fokus der Studie stehen die Fragen, wie Unternehmen die demografische Entwicklung wahrnehmen und welche demografiespezifischen Instrumente des Personal- und Organisationsmanagements sie nutzen. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der demografische Wandel und seine Folgen (Fachkräftemangel und der Alterung der Belegschaft) von den Befragten als große Herausforderung bewertet werden. Die Unternehmen nutzen auch bereits Instrumente und Methoden des Demografiemanagements, insbesondere aus dem Bereich der beruflichen Qualifizierung/Personalentwicklung sowie Personal- und Altersstrukturanalyse. Weit weniger häufig kommen Instrumente aus dem Bereich Wissensmanagement sowie alterns- und altersgerechter Arbeitsgestaltung in den Unternehmen zur Anwendung. Des Weiteren zeigt sich, dass diejenigen Unternehmen besonders intensiv Instrumente des Demografiemanagements nutzen sowie die eigene Bewältigungsfähigkeit des demografischen Wandels als gut einschätzen, deren Personalmanagement strategisch ausgerichtet und reflexiv ist. Insgesamt besteht bei den Unternehmen deutliches Potenzial in der Etablierung eines demografieadäquaten Personal- und Organisationsmanagement. Der Bericht beschreibt Hintergrund und Ablauf der Studie und stellt ausführlich die Ergebnisse der deskriptiven Datenanalyse dar. Darüber hinaus werden Handlungsempfehlungen für die betriebliche Praxis abgeleitet.This paper presents the results of a survey of 648 German companies that participated in an online survey in summer 2014. The study focuses on how companies perceive demographic trends, how they react on it and which specific HRM-instruments are used to deal with it. Our results show that demographic change and its consequences (lack of skilled labor and workforce aging) are perceived by respondents as a major challenge. Most companies already use some common instruments and methods for managing demographic change, especially in the field of apprenticeship, training and human resource development and the analysis of personnel and age structure of the companies. Instruments in the field of knowledge management as well as methods regarding age-friendly job design are far less used. Furthermore, we can show that the more strategic and reflexive companies´ HRM practices are; the more intensive is the use of tools dealing with demographic changes. Overall, the companies do have sufficient potential in establishing HRM practices that meet demographic challenges. This paper describes the background and process of the study and presents in detail the results of the descriptive data analysis. In addition, recommendations for companies are derived

Addendum to "Sufficient conditions for three-particle entanglement and their tests in recent experiments"

A recent paper [M. Seevinck and J. Uffink, Phys. Rev. A 65, 012107 (2002)] presented a bound for the three-qubit Mermin inequality such that the violation of this bound indicates genuine three-qubit entanglement. We show that this bound can be improved for a specific choice of observables. In particular, if spin observables corresponding to orthogonal directions are measured at the qubits (e.g., X and Y spin coordinates) then the bound is the same as the bound for states with a local hidden variable model. As a consequence, it can straightforwardly be shown that in the experiment described by J.-W. Pan et al. [Nature 403, 515 (2000)] genuine three-qubit entanglement was detected.Comment: Two pages, no figures, revtex4; minor changes before publicatio

Separability criteria for genuine multiparticle entanglement

We present a method to derive separability criteria for the different classes of multiparticle entanglement, especially genuine multiparticle entanglement. The resulting criteria are necessary and sufficient for certain families of states. Further, the criteria are superior to all known entanglement criteria for many other families; also they allow the detection of bound entanglement. We next demonstrate that they are easily implementable in experiments and discuss applications to the decoherence of multiparticle entangled states.Comment: five pages, one figure, v4: final version plus a remark on arXiv:0912.187

Measuring Controlled-NOT and two-qubit gate operation

Accurate characterisation of two-qubit gates will be critical for any realisation of quantum computation. We discuss a range of measurements aimed at characterising a two-qubit gate, specifically the CNOT gate. These measurements are architecture-independent, and range from simple truth table measurements, to single figure measures such as the fringe visibility, parity, fidelity, and entanglement witnesses, through to whole-state and whole-gate measures achieved respectively via quantum state and process tomography. In doing so, we examine critical differences between classical and quantum gate operation.Comment: 10 pages (two-column). 1 figur

Changes in Social Network Size Are Associated With Cognitive Changes in the Oldest-Old

Objectives:Social isolation is increasing in aging societies and several studies have shown a relation with worse cognition in old age. However, less is known about the association in the oldest-old (85+); the group that is at highest risk for both social isolation and dementia. Methods:Analyses were based on follow-up 5 to 9 of the longitudinal German study on aging, cognition, and dementia in primary care patients (AgeCoDe) and the study on needs, health service use, costs, and health-related quality of life in a large sample of oldest-old primary care patients (AgeQualiDe), a multi-center population-based prospective cohort study. Measurements included the Lubben Social Network Scale (LSNS-6), with a score below 12 indicating social isolation, as well as the Mini-Mental Status Examination (MMSE) as an indicator of cognitive function. Results:Dementia-free study participants (n = 942) were M = 86.4 (SD = 3.0) years old at observation onset, 68.2% were women. One third (32.3%) of them were socially isolated. Adjusted linear hybrid mixed effects models revealed significantly lower cognitive function in individuals with smaller social networks (β = 0.5, 95% CI = 0.3-0.7, p < .001). Moreover, changes in an individual's social network size were significantly associated with cognitive changes over time (β = 0.2, 95% CI = 0.1-0.4, p = .003), indicating worse cognitive function with shrinking social networks. Conclusion:Social isolation is highly prevalent among oldest-old individuals, being a risk factor for decreases in cognitive function. Consequently, it is important to maintain a socially active lifestyle into very old age. Likewise, this calls for effective ways to prevent social isolation

Truncated su(2) moment problem for spin and polarization states

We address the problem whether a given set of expectation values is compatible with the first and second moments of the generic spin operators of a system with total spin j. Those operators appear as the Stokes operator in quantum optics, as well as the total angular momentum operators in the atomic ensemble literature. We link this problem to a particular extension problem for bipartite qubit states; this problem is closely related to the symmetric extension problem that has recently drawn much attention in different contexts of the quantum information literature. We are able to provide operational, approximate solutions for every large spin numbers, and in fact the solution becomes exact in the limiting case of infinite spin numbers. Solutions for low spin numbers are formulated in terms of a hyperplane characterization, similar to entanglement witnesses, that can be efficiently solved with semidefinite programming.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figur

An Open-System Quantum Simulator with Trapped Ions

The control of quantum systems is of fundamental scientific interest and promises powerful applications and technologies. Impressive progress has been achieved in isolating the systems from the environment and coherently controlling their dynamics, as demonstrated by the creation and manipulation of entanglement in various physical systems. However, for open quantum systems, engineering the dynamics of many particles by a controlled coupling to an environment remains largely unexplored. Here we report the first realization of a toolbox for simulating an open quantum system with up to five qubits. Using a quantum computing architecture with trapped ions, we combine multi-qubit gates with optical pumping to implement coherent operations and dissipative processes. We illustrate this engineering by the dissipative preparation of entangled states, the simulation of coherent many-body spin interactions and the quantum non-demolition measurement of multi-qubit observables. By adding controlled dissipation to coherent operations, this work offers novel prospects for open-system quantum simulation and computation.Comment: Pre-review submission to Nature. For an updated and final version see publication. Manuscript + Supplementary Informatio