Strengthening of the Residents' Register and the Voters' Register in Berlin

The use of registers for administrative purposes has a long tradition in Germany. Nevertheless, there is a strong demand for improvement regarding quality management in Berlin and the integrative and cross-sectional use of registers, especially considering their use for official statistics. This is notably true against the background of e-government, the desire for fast and citizen-friendly administrative procedures, less cost-intensive surveys, less redundant and more consistent data storage, and an exclusively register-based census. The article describes the approach and outcome of the project, which was carried out from 2018 to 2022

Elections in Berlin 2021: Selected background information and Preliminary Results

The election year 2021 is something very special for Berlin. Never before have eligible voters had so many votes at once. A total of six choices had to be made by voters on the same election day, Sept. 26, 2021. Voters elected parties and candidates for the Bundestag (two votes), the Berlin House of Representatives (two votes), the District Assembly (one vote) and decided on a Berlin referendum “Expropriating Deutsche Wohnen and Co”. The 2021 elections posed major challenges for the responsible bodies: The Bundestag and Berlin elections were based on different laws; till July 1st, 2021 it was unclear whether the referendum was to be held; and ultimately the Covid pandemic lead to an increased organizational effort. A total of 13 million ballots of 403 different types were printed, more than ever before. Background information is provided with regard to the cutting of constituencies and the responsible bodies. The procedure for postal voting is presented, as is the counting process. Initial results are also presented with reference to previous elections

DON’T HURT ME… NO MORE? AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON THE POSITIVE AND ADVERSE MOTIVATIONAL EFFECTS IN FITNESS APPS

Lacking regular physical activity is a prevailing issue of our society causing high costs in health care, productivity losses, and million deaths. To counteract this problem, fitness apps are increasingly considered as a means to motivate individuals towards more physical activity. However, many people discontinue their fitness app use. User stories point to a ‘darker side’ of fitness apps indicating adverse effects on users’ competence feelings leading to fitness app discontinuance. To better understand the positive and detrimental motivational effects, this paper draws on self-determination theory and motivational affordances explicating how self-monitoring, rewards, and social recognition affordances of fitness apps affect competence needs and fitness app continuance decisions in consequence. Empirical validation with 283 fitness app user reveals the positive and negative motivational effects. Thereby, this study contributes to research with a motivation-based explanation of fitness app continuance, explicates the ‘darker side’ of fitness apps, and explains the need-relevant characteristics of motivational affordances. The results guide the application and tailoring of motivational affordances in fitness apps

German, Berlin and Regional Elections 2021 in Berlin: What happened? What is known and what is unknown?

In September 2021, Berliners not only elected the Bundestag, but also the Berlin House of Representatives, the 12 district assemblies and decided on a referendum. In total, there were six decisions to be made on five ballots – an unusually large number for Berlin. On election day, an unprecedented number of problems and errors arose. After e-Day, many official complaints were filed. In general, the complainants are calling for the elections in the affected constituencies to be repeated. A key question is what legal consequences have resulted, will result, or could result. Have the errors led to unreasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right to vote area-wide? What is the smallest possible intervention to "cure" or compensate for the errors? Some of these questions have already been decided by the courts, while others are still awaiting a decision. The aim of this article is to provide an analysis, as far as possible, of why the errors occurred and to determine whether they are unique or whether they have their roots in the legal, organizational, and political framework

Discards in fisheries - a summary of three decades of research at IMARES and LEI

Discards and the possible ecological and economic effects of discarding are a hot topic in discussions about sustainable fisheries. The perception of the effects of discarding differs between parties and it is influenced by the ecosystem functioning and the state of the species under consideration. This report provides an overview of the current scientific knowledge at IMARES and LEI about discard levels, effects, and discard reduction from an ecological, technical, economic and management perspective. The following Dutch commercial marine wild capture fisheries with active gear are considered: pelagic, beam trawl, otter trawl (demersal fish and nephrops) and shrimp fisheries

Activity Tracking Affordances: Identification and Instrument Development

Activity tracking apps –such as Fitbit or Nike+ Running– are positioned to enhance people’s motivation towards physical activity and healthy behavior. Though various ‘motivational’ features are incorporated, the effectiveness of these apps is often mixed raising concerns about the ‘one-size-fits-all‘ applicability. To get a better understanding about the nature of using activity tracking apps, this paper employs the lens of affordances and identifies eight particular salient affordances in activity tracking: Self-Monitoring, Performance Analysis, Exercise Guidance, Rewards, Social Comparison, Watching Others, Social Recognition, and Self-Presentation. Moreover, this study develops a corresponding measurement instrument evaluated using q-sort methodology. Avenues for future research are highlighted involving the set of affordances and their instruments and practical implications are given

Mature Adults’ Use of Digital Health Services The Role of Prior Computer Experience on eHealth Adoption

In the light of aging societies in developed economies, the use of digital health services by mature adults becomes an ever more important issue. Although multiple offerings exist, the widespread use of these solutions is still considerably low. To the current date, research has not yet a good understanding on the specific behavior of senior citizens when it comes to adoption and use of eHealth services. Our research addresses this issue by analyzing the effect previous work experience with Information Technology (IT) has on the eHealth use of retired citizens. Using a paper based questionnaire, 132 respondents provided information on their previous work exposure to IT, their computer self-efficacy, computer anxiety, and use of digital health services. Our findings underline the strong impact previous work with IT has on eHealth use regardless how long the respondent is already retired. We also found that outcome expectations are a strong mediator on the relationship between self-efficacy and the use of digital health services. This implies that seniors feel that they have all capabilities to use digital health services but only if they see a need to do so

Elderly People in eHealth: Who are they?

AbstracteHealth initiatives are constantly evolving, supporting consumers to take active control of their health and well-being through access to health information via the Internet. Although particularly elderly people could benefit from eHealth, they often pose resistance and anxiety towards new technologies. Since modern technologies become increasingly complex, elderly's mental models on how technology works might be not supported. Today's technologies are often designed without paying attention to the circumstances of elderly people, thereby limiting the technologies’ intended effectiveness. As such it becomes apparent to understand who these ‘elderly people’ actually are and how individual characteristics shape elderly's perceptions and behavior in using eHealth. Consequently, we seek to investigate how broad personality traits (i.e. the ‘big five’) affect perceptions of elderly of being generally able to use the Internet (i.e. self-efficacy) in order to use the Internet for health-related purposes. By conducting a quantitative study among elderly people, we aim to contribute to the knowledge on relationships between personality traits and self-efficacy. We further expect to provide new insights on elderly's personality in order to design effective systems for the growing segment of older adults

On the Fit in Fitness Apps: Studying the Interaction of Motivational Affordances and Users’ Goal Orientations in Affecting the Benefits Gained

Lacking regular physical activity is a pertaining problem in most western societies. Fitness apps are positioned to address this issue by offering motivational affordances to the user, which aim to enhance motivation and increase physical activity: self-monitoring, rewards, and social comparison. Yet research provides inconclusive results about their effectiveness. For clarification, this paper draws upon Achievement Goal Theory and theorizes how and why motivational affordances vary in dependence of users’ motivation-relevant goals in supporting motivation and physical activity. Empirical validation among 283 fitness app users generally supports that motivational affordances need to be congruent with users’ underlying goal orientations to achieve the benefits. As such, this paper contributes to fitness app research by resolving prior inconsistencies, offers a theorizing on motivational affordances and individual motivation-relevant differences, and aids practice in designing fitness apps