Obesity Economics for the Western United States

Health Economics and Policy,

Teachers’ Beliefs Concerning Teaching Multilingual Learners: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Between the US and Germany

We analysed the beliefs about multilingualism in school of in-service teachers from the US (n = 60) and Germany (n = 65), utilising a survey originally developed in German that was translated and adapted into English. Results show that teachers from both samples, on average, strongly agree that a person’s identity is connected to their language and culture. However, we found significant differences in scale mean values between US teachers and German teachers concerning their beliefs about (1) the interconnected nature of language with culture and identity, (2) language demand in content classrooms, (3) responsibility for language teaching, and (4) valuing multilingualism. Our results provide insight into cross-cultural differences between German and US teachers’ beliefs, as well as a strong instrument in two languages to measure teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism in schools

Unsere Pflanzenwelt im Umbruch

In unserer Zeit jagen sich die Hiobsbotschaften über die Verarmung der Umwelt. Ist es möglich, rasch eine ausgewogene Übersicht der wirklichen Lage zu gewinnen? Für die höheren Pflanzen des Kreises Höxter östlich vom 9.Meridian seit 1976 ja! Damals erschien der "Atlas zur Flora von Südniedersachsen" von H. HAEUPLER. Er umfaßt zu 96% auch die Fläche des Kreises Höxter. Im Gegensatz zu den geschriebenen Floren, die nur bei den selteneren Arten Verbreitungsangaben bringen, arbeitet der Atlas bei allen Arten gleichmäßig flächendeckend. Das ganze Gebiet ist in Grundfelder eingeteilt, hier in Viertel der "Topographischen Karte 1: 25.000", die früher "Meßtischblatt" hieß. In jedem dieser "MTB-Quadranten" hakt mindestens ein Bearbeiter alle Pflanzenarten, die er dort findet, in einer vorgedruckten Liste an. Jede solche Feststellung erscheint in der Karte als Punkt, ältere Angaben, die nach 1945 nicht mehr bestätigt werden konnten, als Kreis

Is Agricultural Policy Decoupling against Human Nature? Experimental Evidence of Fairness Expectations’ Contributions to Payment Incidence

The objective of this research is to measure individuals’ fairness expectations and relate them to their market behavior in a private-negotiation institution. By doing this, we may inform model parameterization of field data and increase understanding of payment incidence causation. We hypothesize agents will change both their market and UG behavior when the tenant/proposer receives a subsidy following a successful negotiation. We also hypothesize that agents’ market behavior does relate to their fairness expectations in the UG. Two economic experiments were developed to test our hypotheses, a market and an ultimatum bargaining game experiment. We recruited 106 undergraduate students and conducted the experiments in an experimental laboratory using a computer based market mechanism. Our findings suggest fairness expectations need to be considered as a possible constraint on agents’ profit maximization behavior in land markets. The experimental evidence indicates market sellers or landlords demand higher land rental prices when tenants receive per-unit subsidies. Their ability to obtain a higher price appears to be more formidable in markets with limited matching opportunities. We conclude fairness expectations may constrain individuals’ profit-maximization behavior in the land market and, in turn, affect payment incidence in this market.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Untersuchung zum Polymorphismus des Protein A kodierenden Gens in klinischen Staphylococus aureus Isolaten

Staphylococcus aureus ist weltweit der häufigste Erreger nosokomialer Infektionen. In dieser Arbeit wurde das Protein A kodierende Gen (spa) innerhalb von S. aureus-Isolaten mit einer Resistenz gegen Methicillin (Methicillin-resistenter S. aureus) mittels DNA-Sequenzanalysen charakterisiert. Durch die spa-Sequenztypisierung von 198 MRSA-Isolaten am Universitätsklinikum Münster (UKM) im Jahr 2003 konnten insgesamt 30 unterschiedliche spa-Typen differenziert werden. Zunächst wurde das Verteilungsmuster dieser regionalen spa-Typen innerhalb des UKM untersucht. Weiter wurde die spa-Typisierung zur Kontrolle der lokalen Epidemiologie von MRSA und zur Surveillance des MRSA-Managements durchgeführt. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass aufgrund der Nucleotidsequenzheterogenität des Protein A-Gens eine Typisierung auf lokaler Ebene, beispielsweise die Differenzierung von Ausbrüchen und zufälligen Häufungen von S. aureus-Infektionen in Krankenhäusern möglich ist

Decoupled Programs, Payment Incidence, and Factor Markets: Evidence from Market Experiments

We use laboratory market experiments to assess the impact of asymmetric knowledge of a per-unit subsidy and the effect of a decoupled annual income subsidy on factor market outcomes. Results indicate that when the subsidy is tied to the factor as a per-unit subsidy, regardless of full or asymmetric knowledge for market participants, subsidized factor buyers distribute nearly 22 percent of the subsidy to factor sellers. When the subsidy is fully decoupled from the factor, as is the case with the annual payment, payment incidence is mitigated and prices are not statistically different from the no-policy treatment.laboratory market experiments, agricultural subsidies, subsidy incidence, land market, ex ante policy analysis, Agricultural and Food Policy, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Q18, D03, C92,

Temperature dependence of field-response mechanisms in 0.4Ba(Zr\u3csub\u3e0.2\u3c/sub\u3eTi\u3csub\u3e0.8\u3c/sub\u3e)O\u3csub\u3e3\u3c/sub\u3e-0.6(Ba\u3csub\u3e0.7\u3c/sub\u3eCa\u3csub\u3e0.3\u3c/sub\u3e)TiO\u3csub\u3e3\u3c/sub\u3e

Understanding the temperature dependence of how ferroelectric materials respond to electric fields is critical for determining how best to use these materials in applications. Here, temperature dependent in situ x-ray diffraction is used to study how field-response mechanism Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3-x(Ba0.7Ca0.3)TiO3 evolves with temperature. Increasing the measurement temperature was found to slightly reduce the extent of domain reversal and the magnitude of the 111 lattice strain. Instead, these results indicate that temperature predominantly impacted the angular dependence of the 002/200 lattice strain. We attribute the observed differences in 002/200 lattice strain to the flattening of the free-energy near the tetragonal-orthorhombic phase boundary, where the flattening of the energy landscape promotes a polarization rotation response during the application of electric fields at room temperature

An Optimization Approach to the Ordering Phase of an Attended Home Delivery Service

Attended Home Delivery (AHD) systems are used whenever a supplying company offers online shopping services that require that customers must be present when their deliveries arrive. Therefore, the supplying company and the customer must both agree on a time window, which ideally is rather short, during which delivery is guaranteed. Typically, a capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows forms the underlying optimization problem of the AHD system. In this work, we consider an AHD system that runs the online grocery shopping service of an international grocery retailer. The ordering phase, during which customers place their orders through the web service, is the computationally most challenging part of the AHD system. The delivery schedule must be built dynamically as new orders are placed. We propose a solution approach that allows to (non-stochastically) determine which delivery time windows can be offered to potential customers. We split the computations of the ordering phase into four key steps. For performing these basic steps we suggest both a heuristic approach and a hybrid approach employing mixed-integer linear programs. In an experimental evaluation we demonstrate the efficiency of our approaches