Balanced Budget and Investment Rule: Two Sides of the Same Coin?! Analyzing the economic effects of a binding public investment commitment in Germany. Bertelsmann Stiftung Inclusive Growth for Germany|7

In their statement from December 2016, the independent commission of experts for strengthening investment in Germany, appointed by then-Federal Minister of Economics Sigmar Gabriel, calls for a significant expansion of investment dynamics in Germany. Along with proposed measures to strengthen private investments, the commission stresses the importance of creating the kind of institutional and political framework needed to push public investments so as to not endanger welfare and economic growth in Germany. In light of this, this study shows what effects an increase and stabilization of the public investment level in Germany would have. To do this, distinct investment scenarios have been created and their impact on a number of economic and politico-economic indicators up to the year 2025 was measured. The results clearly show that an increase in public investments in Germany would lead to a significant rise in German GDP growth over the following years. Factors like productivity, volume of work and the state’s capital stock similarly show higher increases in scenarios with more public investments relative to scenarios with a lower investment level. Another important result of the study is that such a proposed rule of investment would not have to be in conflict with the already existing debt rule of the federal government. Although scenarios with a higher level of public investment first lead to a lower budget balance, the differences between the individual scenarios become insignificant over time due to both the higher economic growth in those scenarios with more investments and the underlying assumptions regarding the counter-financing of these investments. In all five scenarios observed, the debt / GDP ratio swiftly falls below 50 percent in the year 2025. For the purpose of this study’s calculations, additional investments will be financed through an increase in taxes and a cut in spending on public consumption. The focus of this paper is purely macroeconomic, taking a look at the effects of different levels of public investment on the German economy

Designing a structured lexicon for document image analysis

This paper presents a structured, multi-level architecture of a lexicon which is a central component of our knowledge-based document analysis system. Our system has the task to transform incoming business letters into an equivalent electronic representation automatically. Moreover, partial text analysis and understanding of a letter\u27s body and relevant parts are initiated to enrich the conceptual knowledge about the actual document (e.g., by a classification). In such an application domain, a well-designed lexicon has to consider requirements of both, text recognition and text analysis. For that purpose, we propose an appropriate lexicon architecture and the internal structure of corresponding lexical entries being a prerequisite for successful higher-level interpretations of documents

Folic Acid Supplementation Improves Vascular Function in Professional Dancers With Endothelial Dysfunction

Objective To determine if folic acid supplementation improves vascular function (brachial artery flow-mediated dilation [FMD]) in professional dancers with known endothelial dysfunction. Design Prospective cross-sectional study. Setting Academic institution in the Midwestern United States. Subjects Twenty-two professional ballet dancers volunteered for this study. Main Outcome Measures Subjects completed a 3-day food record to determine caloric and micronutrient intake. Menstrual status was determined by interview and questionnaire. Endothelial function was determined as flow-induced vasodilation measured by high-frequency ultrasound of the brachial artery. A change in brachial diameter of Results Sixty-four percent of dancers (n = 14) had abnormal brachial artery FMD (P\u3c .0001). Conclusions This study reveals that vascular endothelial function improves in dancers after supplementation with folic acid (10 mg/day) for at least 4 weeks. This finding may have clinically important implications for future cardiovascular disease risk prevention

Association Between the Female Athlete Triad and Endothelial Dysfunction in Dancers

Objective: To determine the prevalence of the 3 components of the female athlete triad [disordered eating, menstrual dysfunction, low bone mineral density (BMD)] and their relationships with brachial artery flow-mediated dilation in professional dancers. Design: Prospective study. Setting: Academic institution in the Midwest. Participants: Twenty-two professional ballet dancers volunteered for this study. Interventions: The prevalence of the female athlete triad and its relationship to endothelial dysfunction. Main Outcome Measures: Subjects completed questionnaires to assess disordered eating and menstrual status/history. They also completed a 3-day food record and wore an accelerometer for 3 days to determine energy availability. Serum baseline thyrotropin, prolactin, and hormonal concentrations were obtained. Bone mineral density and body composition were measured with a GE Lunar Prodigy dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Endothelial function was determined as flow-mediated vasodilation measured by high-frequency ultrasound in the brachial artery. An increase in brachial diameter Results: Seventeen dancers (77%) had evidence of low/negative energy availability. Thirty-two percent had disordered eating (EDE-Q score). Thirty-six percent had menstrual dysfunction and 14% were currently using hormone contraception. Twenty-three percent had evidence of low bone density (Z-score \u3c -1.0). Sixty-four percent had abnormal brachial artery flow-mediated dilation ( Conclusions: Endothelial dysfunction was correlated with reduced BMD, menstrual dysfunction, and low serum estrogen. These findings may have profound implications for cardiovascular and bone health in professional women dancers

Cultural Collisions Vienna: A SciArtEdu HUB for Vienna

Cultural Collisions Vienna ist ein interdisziplinäres Kunst- und Wissenschaftsvermittlungskonzept für Jugendliche, um sich durch künstlerische und kreative Ansätze komplexen Themen der Wissenschaft zu nähern. Grundannahme des Programmes ist, dass frühe Beschäftigung mit Kunst und Wissenschaft positive Auswirkungen auf den weiteren Bildungsweg und die Studienwahl, vor allem im MINT-Bereich hat. Ziel des Projekts ist, einen Lern- und Begegnungsraum (Science Art Education, SciArtEdu - HUB) zu schaffen, um technisch-naturwissenschaftliche, künstlerische und kreative Kompetenzen von Jugendlichen zu entwickeln und zu fördern. Begegnung mit komplexen Wissenschaftsthemen, direkter Kontakt mit Wissenschaftler:innen und Kunstschaffenden sowie alternative Zugänge sollen stereotype Vorstellungen im technisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Bereich entkräften und für technisch-natuwissenschaftliche Karrieren motivieren. Cultural Collisions ist international erprobt und erweist sich als erfolgreiches Konzept zur Förderung und Vermittlung von MINT-Kompetenzen in Verbindung von Kunst und Wissenschaft.“Cultural Collisions Vienna” is an interdisciplinary science & art engagement and networking program with primary emphasis on education that approaches complex scientific topics through artistic and creative methods. The program's fundamental assumption is that early engagement with art and science has positive effects on further education paths and career choices, especially in the STEM fields. The program’s goal is to create a local SciArtEdu-HUB (Science Art Education HUB) to develop and promote technical, scientific, artistic, and creative skills in pupils and network between high level partner institutions in science, technology, art, culture, education and administration. Through encountering complex topics and creative challenges, the programme intends to dispel stereotypes in the STEM field and will inspire all participants. “Cultural Collisions” is internationally tested and proves to be a successful concept for promoting and communicating STEM competencies by integrating art

Globalization report 2014. Who benefits most from globalization?

The “Globalization report 2014: Who benefits most from globalization?” study comprises two parts. The first part focuses on the question to what extent different countries have benefited from globalization in the past and to which degree this is possible in the future. The second part uses the Prognos Free Trade and Investment Index to offer a differentiated measure for the attractiveness of foreign markets for German companies

Fast self-stabilizing byzantine tolerant digital clock synchronization

Consider a distributed network in which up to a third of the nodes may be Byzantine, and in which the non-faulty nodes may be subject to transient faults that alter their memory in an arbitrary fashion. Within the context of this model, we are interested in the digital clock synchronization problem; which consists of agreeing on bounded integer counters, and increasing these counters regularly. It has been postulated in the past that synchronization cannot be solved in a Byzantine tolerant and self-stabilizing manner. The first solution to this problem had an expected exponential convergence time. Later, a deterministic solution was published with linear convergence time, which is optimal for deterministic solutions. In the current paper we achieve an expected constant convergence time. We thus obtain the optimal probabilistic solution, both in terms of convergence time and in terms of resilience to Byzantine adversaries

Cross regulation of intercellular gap junction communication and paracrine signaling pathways during organogenesis in Drosophila

AbstractThe spatial and temporal coordination of patterning and morphogenesis is often achieved by paracrine morphogen signals or by the direct coupling of cells via gap junctions. How paracrine signals and gap junction communication cooperate to control the coordinated behavior of cells and tissues is mostly unknown. We found that hedgehog signaling is required for the expression of wingless and of Delta/Notch target genes in a single row of boundary cells in the foregut-associated proventriculus organ of the Drosophila embryo. These cells coordinate the movement and folding of proventricular cells to generate a multilayered organ. hedgehog and wingless regulate gap junction communication by transcriptionally activating the innexin2 gene, which encodes a member of the innexin family of gap junction proteins. In innexin2 mutants, gap junction-mediated cell-to-cell communication is strongly reduced and the proventricular cell layers fail to fold and invaginate, similarly as in hedgehog or wingless mutants. We further found that innexin2 is required in a feedback loop for the transcriptional activation of the hedgehog and wingless morphogens and of Delta in the proventriculus primordium. We propose that the transcriptional cross regulation of paracrine and gap junction-mediated signaling is essential for organogenesis in Drosophila

The reliability of Mohindra\u27s near retinoscopy in human infants (0-2 years)

Near retinoscopy as described by Mohindra is a non invasive, non cycloplegic technique for assessment of refractive error (R.E.) easily utilized with the pediatric population. The desirability of such a non invasive technique for the infant population is easily understood. The literature, however, is sparse for reliability and variability studies on an Infant population. An assessment of the variability on test retest by observer and between different observers on a pedriatric population, 0-2 years of age, was initiated. Each of 17 full term, healthy, non strabismic infants (28 eyes) were tested using the near retinoscopy technique by each of five trained clinical observers. Each observer performed the technique five times on each eye. The observer was blind to the neutralizing lens powers. All testing occurred over a 2 month period. As a control condition observers each neutralized 1 0 unknown power lenses 1 o times each on a fixed schematic eye. All experimental data was converted to equivalent spheres. For the control condition, significant differences existed between observers for all lenses and the true power of each lens at the .05 level. The maximum mean difference from true lens power for any observer was .330 with a minimum difference of .220. Significance occurred due to very small variability by observers and was clinically insignificant. For the experimental condition no significant difference for range variability within observer was found. Mean R.E. ranges (D) (by subject) for observers varied from a minimum of .430 to a maximum of .960. Between observer ranges (by subject) showed significant differences at a .05 level for two of the 10 comparisons. ·Ranges of R.E. by subject for the 5 observers varied from a low of .870 to a high of 6.750. Mean R.E. data, by subject, between observers showed significant differences for one of the 5 examiners (4 of the 10 comparisons) at a .05 level. The usefulness of near retinoscopy as a clinical technique in an infant population is questioned based on the inter observer differences in range and mean findings, and the magnitude of variability within and between observers. The variability may in large part be due to the interaction variables between clinicians and infants for any given examination

Cultural Collisions Vienna

Cultural Collisions Vienna ist ein interdisziplinäres Kunst- und Wissenschaftsvermittlungskonzept für Jugendliche, um sich durch künstlerische und kreative Ansätze komplexen Themen der Wissenschaft zu nähern. Grundannahme des Programmes ist, dass frühe Beschäftigung mit Kunst und Wissenschaft positive Auswirkungen auf den weiteren Bildungsweg und die Studienwahl, vor allem im MINT-Bereich hat. Ziel des Projekts ist, einen Lern- und Begegnungsraum (Science Art Education, SciArtEdu - HUB) zu schaffen, um technisch-naturwissenschaftliche, künstlerische und kreative Kompetenzen von Jugendlichen zu entwickeln und zu fördern. Begegnung mit komplexen Wissenschaftsthemen, direkter Kontakt mit Wissenschaftler:innen und Kunstschaffenden sowie alternative Zugänge sollen stereotype Vorstellungen im technisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Bereich entkräften und für technisch-natuwissenschaftliche Karrieren motivieren. Cultural Collisions ist international erprobt und erweist sich als erfolgreiches Konzept zur Förderung und Vermittlung von MINT-Kompetenzen in Verbindung von Kunst und Wissenschaft