Classifying top economists using archetypoid analysis

Updating the study by Seiler and Wohlrabe (2013) we use archetypoid analysis to classify top economists. The approach allows us to identify typical characteristics of extreme (archetypal) values in a multivariate data set. In contrast to its predecessor, the archetypal analysis, archetypoids always represent actual observed units in the data. Using bibliometric data from 776 top economists we identify four archetypoids. These types represent solid, low, top and diligent performer. Each economist is assigned to one or more of these archetypoids

The Transient and Persistent Efficiency of Italian and German Universities: A Stochastic Frontier Analysis

Despite measures on the European level to increase the compatibility between the HE sectors of the member states, the recent literature exposes variations in their efficiencies. To gain insights into these differences we split the efficiency term according to the two management levels each university is confronted with. Utilizing a recent advancement in the method to measure efficiency, we separate short-term (transient) and long-term (persistent) efficiency, while controlling for unobserved institution specific heterogeneity. While the first term reflects the efficiency of the individual universities working within the country, the second term echoes the influence of the country specific overall HE structure. The cross-country comparison displays if the overall efficiency difference between countries is related to individual performance of their universities or their HE structure. This allows more purposeful policy recommendation and expands the literature regarding the efficiency of universities in a fundamental way. Choosing Italy and Germany as two important illustrative examples we can take advantage of a novel dataset including characteristics of institutions in both countries for an exceptional long period of time from 2001 to 2011. We show that the Italian universities exhibit a higher overall efficiency value than their German counterparts. With the individual universities working at the upper bound of efficiency in both countries, the overall inefficiency as well as the gap between the countries is caused by persistent, structural inefficiency. To expedite a true European Area of Higher Education future measures should hence aim at the country specific structure, not solely at affecting the activities of single universities

Spółka miejska w usługach komunalnych

An attempt to scrape the position of the municipal company in the system of providing the public service in the city is contents of the article, as the fundamental unit of the local self-government. City authorities are making choice of the effective form of the own execution of tasks. The council company constitutes is an economic organization closely connected with organs of the city. In the operations of this company a visible contradiction is occurring between represented social objectives through mayor or of president, and with goals of the company as the business entity. The role of the supervisory board has a regulating capacity and relies on the similarity of these purposes, with cost of lowering the effectiveness of action

Stochastic Frontier Analysis in Higher Education: A Systematic Review

This paper provides a systematic review of the literature that employs stochastic frontier analysis to measure the efficiency of higher education institutions. The overview opens with a look at the general development of the literature, before emphasis is laid on the methodical aspects. Focus is thereby placed on the necessary underlying assumptions and the employed specifications, discussing their advantages and drawbacks. Afterwards, the factors that were specified in the literature, including the input and output variables, as well as the determinants of efficiency, are discussed in detail. Based on the insights of the literature review, the paper highlights some of the existing deficiencies and ways forward. To our knowledge, the present study provides the first systematic review on the usage of the stochastic frontier analysis to measure efficiency in the higher education sector

Comparison of two frameworks for testing React applications

Die JavaScript-Bibliothek React ist inzwischen seit mehreren Jahren eine beliebte und weit verbreitete Technologie im Bereich der Frontend-Webentwicklung. In Kombination mit Redux ermöglicht React die Erstellung funktionaler Benutzeroberflächen selbst für komplexe Anwendungen. Es stellt sich die Frage, wie solche React-Anwendungen am besten zu testen sind. Zwei häufig genutzte Test-Frameworks für diesen Zweck sind Mocha und Jest. Diese werden in dieser Bachelorarbeit an Hand zuvor definierter Qualitätskriterien in mehreren Kategorien miteinander verglichen und so auf ihre Tauglichkeit für das Testen von React-Applikationen untersucht. Als Schwerpunkt der Gegenüberstellung wird eine Reihe von Tests mit beiden Frameworks für eine bereits bestehende App auf Basis von React und Redux implementiert. Am Ende steht die Beantwortung der Frage, welches der beiden Frameworks auf Grundlage der Untersuchungsergebnisse für das Testen von React-Anwendungen vorzuziehen ist

The Completion Shift of German Universities of Applied Sciences

In research on higher education, the evaluation of completion and drop-out rates has generated a steady stream of interest for decades. While most studies only calculate quotes using student and graduate numbers for both phenomena, we propose to also consider the budget available to universities. We transfer the idea of the excellence shift from the research (Bornmann et al., 2017) to the teaching area, and particularly to the completion rate of educational entities. The completion shift shows institutions’ ability to produce graduates as measured against their basic academic teaching efficiency, thereby avoiding the well-known heterogeneity problem in efficiency measurement. Their politically determined focus on education makes German universities of applied science the perfect sample for evaluating this novel method. Using a comprehensive dataset covering the years 2008 to 2013, we show that the shift produces results, which correlate considerably with the results of the standard Data Envelopment Approach (DEA). Thus, we recommend the completion shift as an alternative method of efficiency measurement in the teaching area. Compared to DEA, the computation of the shift is easy and the results are understandable to non-economists

Plug-and-Play Solutions for Energy-Efficiency Deep Renovation of European Building Stock

none7siNinety percent of the existing building stock in Europe was built before 1990. These buildings are in urgent need for a significant improvement of energy-efficiency through renovation. State-of-the-art renovation solutions are available, but costly and lengthy renovation processes and incomprehensible technical complexities hinder the achievement of a wide impact at a European scale. This paper presents a research on Plug-and-Play (PnP) echnologies supported by Building Information Modelling (BIM) to provide affordable, interchangeable and quick-installation solutions to overcome the main barriers of building deep renovation.openSebastian, Rizal; Gralka, Anna; Olivadese, Rosamaria; Arnesano, Marco; Revel, Gian Marco; Hartmann, Timo; Gutsche, ChristophSebastian, Rizal; Gralka, Anna; Olivadese, Rosamaria; Arnesano, Marco; Revel, Gian Marco; Hartmann, Timo; Gutsche, Christop

The Completion Shift of German Universities of Applied Sciences

In research on higher education, the evaluation of completion and drop-out rates has generated a steady stream of interest for decades. While most studies only calculate quotes using student and graduate numbers for both phenomena, we propose to also consider the budget available to universities. We transfer the idea of the excellence shift from the research (Bornmann et al., 2017) to the teaching area, and particularly to the completion rate of educational entities. The completion shift shows institutions’ ability to produce graduates as measured against their basic academic teaching efficiency, thereby avoiding the well-known heterogeneity problem in efficiency measurement. Their politically determined focus on education makes German universities of applied science the perfect sample for evaluating this novel method. Using a comprehensive dataset covering the years 2008 to 2013, we show that the shift produces results, which correlate considerably with the results of the standard Data Envelopment Approach (DEA). Thus, we recommend the completion shift as an alternative method of efficiency measurement in the teaching area. Compared to DEA, the computation of the shift is easy and the results are understandable to non-economists

IEQ measurement and assessment tools for Plug-and-Play deep renovation in buildings

This paper presents the approach developed for the monitoring and assessment of Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) in the whole deep renovation process aimed at reducing energy consumptions and improving comfort. The research was performed by the P2Endure project, that aims to provide scalable, adaptable and ready-to-implement prefabricated Plug-and-Play systems for deep renovation of building envelopes and technical systems. The idea is to use IEQ as one of the design criteria supporting the decision-making process, included into the holistic renovation process developed by P2Endure and called “4M: Mapping-Modelling- Making-Monitoring”. For this reason, a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) was selected, with the consequent measurement and calculation methodologies. The KPIs are collected and showed together with the analysis of the different IEQ dimensions (thermal and indoor air quality). The data collection has been investigated extensively, taking into account all possible data sources, measurements and surveys (e.g. special questionnaires for children in schools). In addition to traditional devices, the innovative Comfort Eye sensor is used in the proposed framework. This is a low-cost sensing system capable of measuring thermal comfort together with IAQ, applicable for permanent or periodic monitoring and with low disturbance for inhabitants. The overall procedure is presented, also in relation with the deep renovation process. Then, the application of the measurement and assessment tools in real demonstration cases is illustrated with initial results from the monitoring campaign

A Metabolomic Perspective on Coeliac Disease

Metabolomics is an “omic” science that is now emerging with the purpose of elaborating a comprehensive analysis of the metabolome, which is the complete set of metabolites (i.e., small molecules intermediates) in an organism, tissue, cell, or biofluid. In the past decade, metabolomics has already proved to be useful for the characterization of several pathological conditions and offers promises as a clinical tool. A metabolomics investigation of coeliac disease (CD) revealed that a metabolic fingerprint for CD can be defined, which accounts for three different but complementary components: malabsorption, energy metabolism, and alterations in gut microflora and/or intestinal permeability. In this review, we will discuss the major advancements in metabolomics of CD, in particular with respect to the role of gut microbiome and energy metabolis