Measuring the Use of the Active and Assisted Living Prototype CARIMO for Home Care Service Users: Evaluation Framework and Results

To address the challenges of aging societies, various information and communication technology (ICT)-based systems for older people have been developed in recent years. Currently, the evaluation of these so-called active and assisted living (AAL) systems usually focuses on the analyses of usability and acceptance, while some also assess their impact. Little is known about the actual take-up of these assistive technologies. This paper presents a framework for measuring the take-up by analyzing the actual usage of AAL systems. This evaluation framework covers detailed information regarding the entire process including usage data logging, data preparation, and usage data analysis. We applied the framework on the AAL prototype CARIMO for measuring its take-up during an eight-month field trial in Austria and Italy. The framework was designed to guide systematic, comparable, and reproducible usage data evaluation in the AAL field; however, the general applicability of the framework has yet to be validated

Direct evidence of nuclear spin waves in Nd2_2CuO4_4 by high-resolution neutron-spin-echo spectroscopy

We investigated the dispersion of nuclear spin waves in Nd$_2$CuO$_4$ by using neutron spin-echo spectroscopy at millikelvin temperatures. Our results show unambiguously the existence of dispersion of nuclear spin waves in Nd$_2$CuO$_4$ at T = 30 mK. A fit of the dispersion data with the spin wave dispersion formula gave the Suhl-Nakamura interaction range to be of the order of 10 {\AA}

Legislative Malapportionment and the Politicization of Germany’s Intergovernmental Transfer System

Legislative bargaining theory suggests that fiscal transfers among member states of a federation are determined to a substantial degree by political bargaining powers. Malapportionment of the states' population in the legislature is claimed to lead to disproportionally higher benefits to overrepresented states. The present paper analyses empirically the distribution of fiscal transfers in Germany's intergovernmental transfer system over the period 1970-2002. It can be shown that overrepresented states in the upper house receive disproportionate shares of transfers, while malapportionment in the lower house does not seem to matter. We also find empirical evidence that overrepresentation became more important over time.legislative bargaining, overrepresentation, fiscal transfer system, Germany

Corrections to Phytotaxa 19: Linear sequence of lycophytes and ferns

Non peer reviewe

On the politicization of intergovernmental fiscal relations in Germany after unification

A recent decision of the German Constitutional Court requires political decision makers to revise the system of intergovernmental transfers in order to limit free bargaining among state and federal government officials. The present paper provides empirical support for the thesis that political discretion has become increasingly important in the transfer negotiations after Unification. We attempt to show why political influences gained weight relative to economic considerations in the determination of net gains. This politicization of the fiscal transfer system appears to be a consequence of the inability of policy makers to agree on a fundamental reform in the early 1990's.

Berufsarmee statt Wehrpflicht: eine ökonomisch sinnvolle Lösung

Die Bundeswehr steht derzeit vor einer ihrer größten Umstrukturierungen. Vorgesehen ist eine Neugliederung der Streitkräfte in Eingreif-, Stabilisierungs- und Unterstützungsverbände. In diesem Zusammenhang stellt sich erneut die Frage nach der Beibehaltung der Wehrpflicht. Diese ist aus ökonomischer Sicht nicht sinnvoll, denn eine Berufsarmee stellt das gleiche Niveau an äußerer Sicherheit zu geringeren volkswirtschaftlichen Kosten bereit. Darüber hinaus verletzt die Wehrpflicht in ihrer derzeitigen Ausgestaltung wesentliche Prinzipien ökonomischer Gerechtigkeit. Auch unter ordnungspolitischen Gesichtspunkten ist die Abschaffung der Wehrpflicht überfällig, da sie zwei elementaren Prinzipien der Marktwirtschaft widerspricht, nämlich dem der Vertragsfreiheit und dem der Freiwilligkeit von Austauschbeziehungen. Ebenso sprechen heute die gesellschaftlichen und sicherheitspolitischen Veränderungen für eine Berufsarmee.

Long-term graft function of cryostored alginate encapsulated rat islets

Microencapsulation of pancreatic islets before transplantation is a promising approach to enable graft function in an immunocompetent recipient without immunosuppression. However, the insufficient availability of allogenic islet tissue is a major problem. One concept to overcome these shortcomings is the cryopreservation of encapsulated allogenic islets. Recently, we reported a gentle cryopreservation protocol for rat islets encapsulated in an alginate-based microcapsule system. Here, we report for the first time long-term transplantation data of these cryopreserved microencapsulated islets. We detected a stable graft function for more than 12 month (experiments still continuing) after transplantation of 2500 cryopreserved microencapsulated CD rat islets in streptozotocin-diabetic Wistar rats. Moreover, the glucose clearance rate during an IPGTT was well preserved up to 56 weeks after transplantation. In addition, hyperglycemic blood glucose levels after removal of rat islet grafts 12 and 56 weeks after transplantation confirmed the efficacy of the encapsulated islets. Finally, the retrieved encapsulated rat islets responded well with a 7-fold increase of insulin secretion to a glucose stimulus (12 and 56 weeks). In conclusion, our study demonstrates for the first time that cryopreservation of encapsulated rat islets is possible without substantial losses on graft function for a very long time

A linear sequence of extant families and genera of lycophytes and ferns

Throughout the history of the classification of extant ferns (monilophytes) and lycophytes, familial and generic concepts have been in great flux. For the organisation of lycophytes and ferns in herbaria, books, checklists, indices and spore banks and on the internet, this poses a problem, and a standardized linear sequence of these plants is therefore in great need. We provide here a linear classification to the extant lycophytes and ferns based on current phylogenetic knowledge; this provides a standardized guide for organisation of fern collections into a more natural sequence. Two new families, Diplaziopsidaceae and Rhachidosoraceae, are here introduced.Peer reviewe