Controlling working crowds: The impact of digitalization on worker autonomy and monitoring across hierarchical levels

This study investigates the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) on worker autonomy and monitoring using the second wave of the German Linked Personnel Panel, a linked employer-employee data set. From a theoretical point of view, the impact of ICT on workplace organization is ambigu- ous. On the one hand, the fast diffusion of ICT among employees makes it possible to monitor professional activities, leading to greater centralization. On the other hand, ICT enable employees to work more autonomously, so that workplace organization becomes more decentralized. Based on ordinary least squares and instrumental variable estimates, we find that ICT promotes both centralization and decentralization tendencies. Furthermore, managerial employees are more affected by ICT-induced monitoring and autonomy than their non-managerial counterparts. Finally, the effect of digital ICT on employee autonomy is more pronounced than the corresponding effect on employee monitoring. Again, this does especially hold for managerial employees. All in all, our results support the view that unlike prior technological revolutions digitalization primarily affects the employment prospects and working conditions of employees at medium and higher hierarchical levels

Spatial decoupling of agricultural production and consumption: Quantifying dependences of countries on food imports due to domestic land and water constraints

In our globalizing world, the geographical locations of food production and consumption are becoming increasingly disconnected, which increases reliance on external resources and their trade. We quantified to what extent water and land constraints limit countries' capacities, at present and by 2050, to produce on their own territory the crop products that they currently import from other countries. Scenarios of increased crop productivity and water use, cropland expansion (excluding areas prioritized for other uses) and population change are accounted for. We found that currently 16% of the world population use the opportunities of international trade to cover their demand for agricultural products. Population change may strongly increase the number of people depending on ex situ land and water resources up to about 5.2 billion (51% of world population) in the SRES A2r scenario. International trade will thus have to intensify if population growth is not accompanied by dietary change towards less resource-intensive products, by cropland expansion, or by productivity improvements, mainly in Africa and the Middle East. Up to 1.3 billion people may be at risk of food insecurity in 2050 in present low-income economies (mainly in Africa), if their economic development does not allow them to afford productivity increases, cropland expansion and/or imports from other countries

Aktive Unterdrückung der elektromagnetischen Störungen eines stationär betriebenen Antriebswechselrichters mithilfe von synthetisierten und synchronisieren Gegenstörsignalen

Die voranschreitende Elektrifizierung des Kfz bedingt eine steigende Anzahl an leistungselektronischen Konvertern zur Energiewandlung und -verteilung. Aufgrund der zugrundeliegenden PWM-Signale können diese Systeme erhebliche elektromagnetische Störungen erzeugen, welche beispielsweise den Empfang von Funkdiensten, die für das automatisierte Fahren eine noch größere Bedeutung bekommen werden, verschlechtern oder unmöglich machen. Zur Begrenzung dieser Störungen werden üblicherweise passive Filterstrukturen eingesetzt, welche groß, schwer und teuer sind. Zur Reduktion des Verbrauchs und zur Erhöhung der Reichwerte werden jedoch leichte Systeme gefordert. Aktive Verfahren zur Störunterdrückung können hier eine Lösung sein. Zunächst werden in diesem Beitrag zwei Verfahren zur aktiven Störunterdrückung vorgestellt und zusammengefasst. Diese umfassen aktive EMV-Filter und die aktive Störunterdrückung mithilfe von synthetisierten und synchronisierten Gegenstörsignalen. Das zuletzt genannte Verfahren hat sich als vorteilhaft bei der Unterdrückung der Störungen von stationär betriebenen DC/DC-Wandlern herausgestellt. Im Rahmen dieses Beitrags soll dieses Verfahren das erste Mal auf einen stationär betriebenen Antriebswechselrichter angewendet werden. Die Topologie und die Ansteuerung des betrachteten Antriebswechselrichters werden vorgestellt und die zu erwartenden Störungen werden diskutiert. Daraufhin wird das hier verwendete Verfahren zur Generierung des Gegenstörsignals (Berechnung im Frequenzbereich mithilfe einer FFT) dargestellt. Der realisierte Demonstrator wird beschrieben und verschiedene Messergebnisse werden präsentiert. Unerwartete Einflüsse werden herausgearbeitet und Optimierungen werden am System umgesetzt. Der Beitrag schließt mit einer Zusammenfassung und einem Ausblick ab

Historical and future changes in global flood magnitude - evidence from a model-observation investigation

To improve the understanding of trends in extreme flows related to flood events at the global scale, historical and future changes of annual maxima of 7 d streamflow are investigated, using a comprehensive streamflow archive and six global hydrological models. The models' capacity to characterise trends in annual maxima of 7 d streamflow at the continental and global scale is evaluated across 3666 river gauge locations over the period from 1971 to 2005, focusing on four aspects of trends: (i) mean, (ii) standard deviation, (iii) percentage of locations showing significant trends and (iv) spatial pattern. Compared to observed trends, simulated trends driven by observed climate forcing generally have a higher mean, lower spread and a similar percentage of locations showing significant trends. Models show a low to moderate capacity to simulate spatial patterns of historical trends, with approximately only from 12 % to 25 % of the spatial variance of observed trends across all gauge stations accounted for by the simulations. Interestingly, there are statistically significant differences between trends simulated by global hydrological models (GHMs) forced with observational climate and by those forced by bias-corrected climate model output during the historical period, suggesting the important role of the stochastic natural (decadal, inter-annual) climate variability. Significant differences were found in simulated flood trends when averaged only at gauged locations compared to those averaged across all simulated grid cells, highlighting the potential for bias toward well-observed regions in our understanding of changes in floods. Future climate projections (simulated under the RCP2.6 and RCP6.0 greenhouse gas concentration scenarios) suggest a potentially high level of change in individual regions, with up to 35 % of cells showing a statistically significant trend (increase or decrease; at 10 % significance level) and greater changes indicated for the higher concentration pathway. Importantly, the observed streamflow database under-samples the percentage of locations consistently projected with increased flood hazards under the RCP6.0 greenhouse gas concentration scenario by more than an order of magnitude (0.9 % compared to 11.7 %). This finding indicates a highly uncertain future for both flood-prone communities and decision makers in the context of climate change. © Author(s) 2020

The economic potential of bioenergy for climate change mitigation with special attention given to implications for the land system

Biomass from cellulosic bioenergy crops is expected to play a substantial role in future energy systems, especially if climate policy aims at stabilizing greenhouse gas concentration at low levels. However, the potential of bioenergy for climate change mitigation remains unclear due to large uncertainties about future agricultural yield improvements and land availability for biomass plantations. This letter, by applying a modelling framework with detailed economic representation of the land and energy sector, explores the cost-effective contribution of bioenergy to a low-carbon transition, paying special attention to implications for the land system. In this modelling framework, bioenergy competes directly with other energy technology options on the basis of costs, including implicit costs due to biophysical constraints on land and water availability. As a result, we find that bioenergy from specialized grassy and woody bioenergy crops, such as Miscanthus or poplar, can contribute approximately 100 EJ in 2055 and up to 300 EJ of primary energy in 2095. Protecting natural forests decreases biomass availability for energy production in the medium, but not in the long run. Reducing the land available for agricultural use can partially be compensated for by means of higher rates of technological change in agriculture. In addition, our trade-off analysis indicates that forest protection combined with large-scale cultivation of dedicated bioenergy is likely to affect bioenergy potentials, but also to increase global food prices and increase water scarcity. Therefore, integrated policies for energy, land use and water management are needed.EC/FP7/265104/EU/Visions Of LANd use Transitions in Europe/VOLANTEEC/FP7/265170/EU/Enhancing Robustness and Model Integration for The Assessment of Global Environmental Change/ERMITAG

Genetic Improvement @ ICSE 2020

Following Prof. Mark Harman of Facebook's keynote and formal presentations (which are recorded in the proceedings) there was a wide ranging discussion at the eighth international Genetic Improvement workshop, GI-2020 @ ICSE (held as part of the International Conference on Software En- gineering on Friday 3rd July 2020). Topics included industry take up, human factors, explainabiloity (explainability, jus- tifyability, exploitability) and GI benchmarks. We also con- trast various recent online approaches (e.g. SBST 2020) to holding virtual computer science conferences and workshops via the WWW on the Internet without face to face interac- tion. Finally we speculate on how the Coronavirus Covid-19 Pandemic will a ect research next year and into the future

The Challenges of Applying Planetary Boundaries as a Basis for Strategic Decision-Making in Companies with Global Supply Chains

Abstract: The Planetary Boundaries (PB) framework represents a significant advance in specifying the ecological constraints on human development. However, to enable decision-makers in business and public policy to respect these constraints in strategic planning, the PB framework needs to be developed to generate practical tools. With this objective in mind, we analyse the recent literature and highlight three major scientific and technical challenges in operationalizing the PB approach in decision-making: first, identification of thresholds or boundaries with associated metrics for different geographical scales; second, the need to frame approaches to allocate fair shares in the 'safe operating space' bounded by the PBs across the value chain and; third, the need for international bodies to co-ordinate the implementation of the measures needed to respect the Planetary Boundaries. For the first two of these challenges, we consider how they might be addressed for four PBs: climate change, freshwater use, biosphere integrity and chemical pollution and other novel entities. Four key opportunities are identified: (1) development of a common system of metrics that can be applied consistently at and across different scales; (2) setting 'distance from boundary' measures that can be applied at different scales; (3) development of global, preferably open-source, databases and models; and (4) advancing understanding of the interactions between the different PBs. Addressing the scientific and technical challenges in operationalizing the planetary boundaries needs be complemented with progress in addressing the equity and ethical issues in allocating the safe operating space between companies and sectors

The challenges of applying planetary boundaries as a basis for strategic decision-making in companies with global supply chains

YesThe Planetary Boundaries (PB) framework represents a significant advance in specifying the ecological constraints on human development. However, to enable decision-makers in business and public policy to respect these constraints in strategic planning, the PB framework needs to be developed to generate practical tools. With this objective in mind, we analyse the recent literature and highlight three major scientific and technical challenges in operationalizing the PB approach in decision-making: first, identification of thresholds or boundaries with associated metrics for different geographical scales; second, the need to frame approaches to allocate fair shares in the 'safe operating space' bounded by the PBs across the value chain and; third, the need for international bodies to co-ordinate the implementation of the measures needed to respect the Planetary Boundaries. For the first two of these challenges, we consider how they might be addressed for four PBs: climate change, freshwater use, biosphere integrity and chemical pollution and other novel entities. Four key opportunities are identified: (1) development of a common system of metrics that can be applied consistently at and across different scales; (2) setting 'distance from boundary' measures that can be applied at different scales; (3) development of global, preferably open-source, databases and models; and (4) advancing understanding of the interactions between the different PBs. Addressing the scientific and technical challenges in operationalizing the planetary boundaries needs be complemented with progress in addressing the equity and ethical issues in allocating the safe operating space between companies and sectors