Social Status and Public Expectations: Self-Selection of High-Skilled Migrants

We analyze public expectations about migrants' provision of work effort as a driving force in the self-selection process of high-skilled migrants. We adopt and extend Piketty's (1998) theoretical framework of social status and work out how country-specific public expectations affect the migrants' choice about their country of destination. As a result, we relate Germany's attested low attractiveness for high-skilled immigrants to its society's attitudes towards immigrants. We develop measures to increase Germany's attractiveness in the competition about talents

Social status and public expectations: Self-selection of high-skilled migrants

We analyze public expectations about migrants' provision of work effort as a driving force in the self-selection process of high-skilled migrants. We adopt and extend Piketty's (1998) theoretical framework of social status and work out how country-specific public expectations affect the migrants' choice about their country of destination. As a result, we relate Germany's attested low attractiveness for high-skilled immigrants to its society's attitudes towards immigrants. We develop measures to increase Germany's attractiveness in the competition about talents.Wir analysieren Erwartungen der Öffentlichkeit im Einwanderungsland an den Arbeitseinsatz von Immigranten als treibende Kraft für die Selbstselektion hochqualifizierter Immigranten. Dazu übernehmen und erweitern wir das theoretische Modell zum sozialen Status von Piketty (1998) und zeigen, dass länderspezifische öffentliche Erwartungen die Entscheidung von Immigranten, in welches Land sie migrieren, beeinflussen. Im Ergebnis verknüpfen wir Deutschlands attestierte geringe Attraktivität für hochqualifizierte Immigranten mit der Einstellung der Öffentlichkeit gegenüber Immigranten. Wir zeigen Maßnahmen auf, anhand derer Deutschland seine Attraktivität im internationalen Wettbewerb um Talente steigern kann

The Foundation of Pattern Structures and their Applications

This thesis is divided into a theoretical part, aimed at developing statements around the newly introduced concept of pattern morphisms, and a practical part, where we present use cases of pattern structures. A first insight of our work clarifies the facts on projections of pattern structures. We discovered that a projection of a pattern structure does not always lead again to a pattern structure. A solution to this problem, and one of the most important points of this thesis, is the introduction of pattern morphisms in Chapter4. Pattern morphisms make it possible to describe relationships between pattern structures, and thus enable a deeper understanding of pattern structures in general. They also provide the means to describe projections of pattern structures that lead to pattern structures again. In Chapter5 and Chapter6, we looked at the impact of morphisms between pattern structures on concept lattices and on their representations and thus clarified the theoretical background of existing research in this field. The application part reveals that random forests can be described through pattern structures, which constitutes another central achievement of our work. In order to demonstrate the practical relevance of our findings, we included a use case where this finding is used to build an algorithm that solves a real world classification problem of red wines. The prediction accuracy of the random forest is better, but the high interpretability makes our algorithm valuable. Another approach to the red wine classification problem is presented in Chapter 8, where, starting from an elementary pattern structure, we built a classification model that yielded good results

German emigration via Bremen in the Weimar Republic (1920-1932)

This paper analyzes the oversea emigration of German passengers via the port of Bremen in the period of the Weimar Republic (1920–1932). We use a novel micro-dataset of digitalized passengers lists including about 181,000 emigrants as an estimation of the outflow of Germans from the German Reich. The descriptive analysis shows that the dataset is overall representative compared to official statistics except for the years 1924 and 1929 in which the data loss is huge. Furthermore, we deduce the skill level of the emigrating working population on the basis of information about occupations in the dataset. We find that male migrants had higher skills than female migrants and that South American countries attracted a relatively better skill distribution than the United States although the latter represented the main destination country for emigrants of any skill level in absolute numbers

Immigration, education and native wage inequality

In this paper we analyse the effect of immigration on the labour market prospects for different skill groups among natives. We develop a model of endogenous labour supply in which immigration affects educational decisions of natives. We argue that the distributional consequences of immigration with respect to native between-skill-group inequality are ambiguous in general and crucially depend on the host country's level of educational attainment. We show that this result is robust irrespective of labour market institutions as, e.g., with a rigid wage regime featuring unemployment. Additionally, the model is applied to assess the impact on within-skill-group wage inequality

The impact of unskilled immigration on local labour markets

In a search-theoretic two region model, we analyse the impact of unskilled immigration and skill biased technological change on native wages and unemployment in local labour markets. We show that a specific combination of number and skills of immigrants generates a technology adoption of firms leading to insignificant wage changes. Thus our models explains the observed phenomenon of skill biased technological change, wage inequality and high inflows of immigrants in local labour markets. Our analysis also considers possible compensating or magnifying effects of native out-migration

Tests of quantitative precipitation estimates using national weather service dual-polarization radar in Missouri

Flash flooding is the most common and widespread threat associated with severe weather. Therefore, it is essential for forecasters to be able to properly assess the risk of flash flooding in order to issue watches and warnings. The underestimation of rainfall accumulation by radar algorithms often leads to undiagnosed flash flooding, so it is necessary to determine which type of quantitative precipitation estimation (QPE) equation best assesses the actual amount of rain that has fallen at a given location (Ryzhkov et al. 2005). By comparing the radar estimated rainfall to the accumulated precipitation measured by rain gauges, the bias and error of the QPE algorithms can be assessed. In the following study, these measurements will be compared for significant rainfall events that occurred across the state of Missouri in 2014. The data from twelve individual rain gauge sites, which are considered to provide the "ground truth" rainfall quantities (Kitchen and Blackall, 1992), are measured against the estimated rainfall calculated by the three National Weather Service radars. Also included is an analysis of whether gauge distance from the radar location has an effect on the error and bias. Various quality control (QC) methods are applied to the radar parameters in order to determine whether or not they enhance the outcomes of the statistical testing applied to the radar data. The results show that R(Z, ZDR) type equations produce the best data, as they give error and bias calculations closest to zero

Formal aspects of component software (FACS 2010 selected and extended papers)

This issue includes extended versions of selected best papers from the 7th International Workshop on Formal Aspects of Component Software (FACS 2010) held in Guimarães, Portugal on October 14–16, 2010. The component-based software development approach has emerged as a promising paradigm to cope with an ever increasing complexity of present-day software solutions by bringing sound production and engineering principles into software engineering. However, many conceptual and technological issues remain that challenge component-based software development theory and practice. To address these issues, FACS seeks to provide a forum for researchers and practitioners in the areas of component software and formal methods to foster a better understanding of the component-based paradigm and its applications as well as how formal methods can or should be used to make component-based software development succeed

The Nature of Student Science Projects in Comparison to Educational Goals for Science

Author Institution: St. Francis de Sales High School ; Department of Curriculum & Instruction, Southern Illinois UniversityThe objective of this research was to determine if student science projects in Ohio were meeting educational goals for science as recommended by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Science Teachers Association, and the Ohio Department of Education. In addition, five methods were examined to determine if each had a positive effect on science projects in meeting these educational goals. Teachers from the Diocese of Toledo with students completing science projects in The Ohio Academy of Science's District 2 were asked to rate projects for each aspect of eight educational goals for science defined by this study. Science projects were rated overwhelmingly and consistently positive on each goal. Modeling of skills in the classroom was found to be significantly linked to six of the eight goals for science education. In addition, there was evidence to suggest that participating at a district science fair and supportive help also improved these ratings