Challenges ahead: Long-term perspectives of the German economy

Table of Contents: I. External Challenges 12 1. The Transformation of Central and Eastern Europe 12 a. Trends in Central and Eastern Europe's Emerging Market Economies (EMEs) 12 b. The Impact on Germany 14 c. Political Consequences 14 2. Migration Pressures 16 a. The European Perspective 16 b. The German Perspective 18 c. Some Policy Issues 21 3. The Multilateral Trading System 22 a. Rising Tide of Protectionism 22 b. The German Trade Policy Stance 23 c. Perspectives 24 4. Industrial Policy 25 a. The Recent Controversy 25 b. The Record of Interventions 27 c. Future Prospects 28 5. The Adjustment of Agriculture 29 a. Global Prospects 29 b. The Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 30 6. European Integration 32 a. Monetary Union 32 b. Financial Markets 34 c. EC Initiatives on Social Policy 36 II. Internal Challenges 40 1. German Unification 40 a. The Rising Fiscal Burden 40 b. Economic Dualization 41 c. Digression: The "Treuhand" Record and Prospects 42 d. New Regional Growth Patterns 43 e. Political Pragmatism 45 2. Demography and the Welfare State 46 a. Facts and Forecasts 46 b. Implications for the Welfare State 50 3. Labour Markets and Collective Bargaining 52 a. Trends and Developments 52 b. The Future of Unionism 53 HI. Resources and Infrastructure 55 1. Energy and the Environment 55 a. Energy and Environmental Policy in the EC and in Germany 55 b. The Eastern German Energy Market and Environmental Targets 57 2. Transport 57 a. General Trends in Europe 57 b. The German Situation 59 c. Policy: Consensus and Controversies 60 d. Supranational Matter: The Role of the EC 6

Communicating Intent as Behaviour Trees for Decentralised Multi-Robot Coordination

We propose a decentralised multi robot coordination algorithm that features a rich representation for encoding and communicating each robot s intent This representation for intent messages enables improved coordination behaviour and communication efficiency in difficult scenarios such as those where there are unknown points of contention that require negotiation between robots Each intent message is an adaptive policy that conditions on identified points of contention that conflict with the intentions of other robots These policies are concisely expressed as behaviour trees via algebraic logic simplification and are interpretable by robot teammates and human operators We propose this intent representation in the context of the Dec MCTS online planning algorithm for decentralised coordination We present results for a generalised multi robot orienteering domain that show improved plan convergence and coordination performance over standard Dec MCTS enabled by the intent representation s ability to encode and facilitate negotiation over points of contentio

How to communicate a new fashion brand through social media and public relations’ perspective

Fashion communication has been undergoing a transformation and there is a drop in tradicional marketing investments which indicates new modalities of brand’s communication. The purpose of this study is to discuss the branding strategy relevance through social media and public relations’ perspective, aiming to understand how digital marketing platforms have been used and integrated by new fashion brands. This paper presents an ongoing Master’s research including data collection method through a qualitative content analysis, aiming to find some features can contributed to improve their market position.COMPETE and by national funds through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology within the scope of the project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007136”.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Graph edge colouring: Tashkinov trees and Goldberg's conjecture

AbstractFor the chromatic index χ′(G) of a (multi)graph G, there are two trivial lower bounds, namely the maximum degree Δ(G) and the density W(G)=maxH⊆G,|V(H)|⩾2⌈|E(H)|/⌊|V(H)|/2⌋⌉.A famous conjecture due to Goldberg [M.K. Goldberg, On multigraphs of almost maximal chromatic class, Diskret. Analiz 23 (1973) 3–7 (in Russian)] and Seymour [P.D. Seymour, Some unsolved problems on one-factorization of graphs, in: J.A. Bondy, U.S.R. Murty (Eds.), Graph Theory and Related Topics, Academic Press, New York, 1979] says that every graph G satisfies χ′(G)⩽max{Δ(G)+1,W(G)}. This means that χ′(G)=W(G) for every graph G with χ′(G)⩾Δ(G)+2. The considered class of graphs J can be subdivided into an ascending sequence of classes (Jm)m⩾3, and for m⩽13 the conjecture is already proved. The “last” step was done by Favrholdt, Stiebitz and Toft [L.M. Favrholdt, M. Stiebitz, B. Toft, Graph edge colouring: Vizing's theorem and Goldberg's conjecture, DMF-2006-10-003, IMADA-PP-2006-20, University of Southern Denmark, preprint] in 2006, using and extending results from Tashkinov [V.A. Tashkinov, On an algorithm to colour the edges of a multigraph, Diskret. Analiz 7 (2000) 72–85 (in Russian)]. These methods are based on a colouring structure called Tashkinov tree. In this paper the same methods are used and extended to handle the “next” step m⩽15. This leads to the result χ′(G)⩽max{⌊1514Δ(G)+1214⌋,W(G)} for every graph G.Furthermore, the used methods also lead to several improvements of other known upper bounds for the chromatic index. In particular, an asymptotic approximation of the chromatic index can be obtained. We prove that for every ϵ>0 and every graph G satisfying Δ(G)⩾12ϵ2 the estimate χ′(G)⩽max{(1+ϵ)Δ(G),W(G)} holds. This extends a result of Kahn [J. Kahn, Asymptotics of the chromatic index for multigraphs, J. Combin. Theory Ser. B 68 (1996) 233–254] as well as a result of Sanders and Steurer [P. Sanders, D. Steurer, An asymptotic approximation scheme for multigraph edge coloring, in: Proceedings of the Sixteenth ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA05), em SIAM, 2005, pp. 897–906]

(Selbst-)Reflexion und das Training professioneller Fähigkeiten im Kontext des zukünftigen "Arzt-Seins" - eine qualitative Analyse medizinstudentischer Erfahrung bei LET ME ... keep you real!

Objective: This paper seeks to assess how medical students can be trained in medical studies seminars to examine their own professional role as doctors. The LET ME ... keep you real! university seminar was developed and conducted at the Technical University of Munich. In this context, the following questions will be addressed: How can we assess the contribution of a university seminar to a medical student's own examination of being a doctor? And: What skills are developed in LET ME ... keep you real! that foster medical students' (self-)reflexion?Methods: The source data is statements made by medical students who took part in the LET ME....keep you real! seminar from 2016-2018. Student perspectives were analyzed after five focus group discussions with a total of 26 medical student participants and two individual interviews. Based on the interpretative paradigm and following the credo of a methodological exploration of medical students' lifeworld, their specific learning experience as well as their ability for (self-)reflexion were mapped out. Results: The research questions guiding the assessment of the seminar can be answered as follows: From the students' perspective, the (self-)reflexion triggered and organized by LET ME ... keep you real! can be seen as rehearsing a meta-view. From the students' standpoint, five skills can be identified that make this behavior possible: questioning and doubting, recognizing relevant perspectives, classifying viewpoints, maintaining communal exchanges and deciding on a (different) position. Situatively, these skills are often used in combination and challenge students on an intellectual, communicative and emotional level.Conclusion: The ability to (self-)reflect should be more strongly integrated in university medical training by providing appropriate support, especially since it presents students with specific challenges to (self-)reflexively approach their own future as doctors. The skills mapped out here can be used as orientation to develop seminars on professional (self-)reflexive identity development for medical students.Zielsetzung: Ziel des vorliegenden Beitrages ist es, zu evaluieren, wie medizinstudentische Auseinandersetzung mit der eigenen professionellen Arztrolle schon während des Medizinstudiums in einem Seminar trainiert werden kann. Hierzu werden folgende Fragen beantwortet: Wie ist der Beitrag eines universitären Seminares, wie das an der TU München entwickelte und durchgeführte LET ME ... keep you real! , zu einer medizinstudentischen Auseinandersetzung mit dem Arzt-Sein zu erfassen? Und: Welche Fähigkeiten werden aus Studierendensicht hier trainiert, um medizinstudentische Selbst-Reflexion zu praktizieren?Methodik: Datengrundlage bilden die Aussagen von Medizinstudierenden, die an dem Seminar LET ME ... keep you real! von 2016 bis 2018 teilgenommen haben. Mit Hilfe von fünf Fokusgruppendiskussionen mit insgesamt 26 medizinstudentischen Teilnehmenden und zwei Einzelinterviews wurden Studierendenperspektiven analysiert. Anhand des interpretativen Paradigmas und unter dem Credo eines methodischen Entdeckens der medizinstudentischen Lebenswelt wurden die spezifische medizinstudentische Lernerfahrung sowie die Fähigkeiten zur (Selbst-)Reflexion herausgearbeitet. Ergebnisse: Die auf die Evaluation des Seminares ausgerichteten Forschungsfragen lassen sich wie folgt beantworten: Aus Studierendenperspektive kann die, durch LET ME ... keep you real! evozierte und geordnete, (Selbst-)Reflexion als das Einüben eines Metablicks gesehen werden. Es lassen sich aus Studierendensicht fünf Fähigkeiten herausstellen, die diese Verhaltensweise ermöglichen: Hinterfragen und Zweifeln, relevante Perspektiven erkennen, Sichtweise einordnen, gemeinschaftlichen Austausch pflegen und sich für eine (alternative) Position entscheiden. Situativ kommen diese Fähigkeiten oft kombiniert zur Anwendung und fordern Studierende sowohl auf intellektueller und kommunikativer als auch auf emotionaler Ebene.Schlussfolgerung: Die Fähigkeiten zur (Selbst-)Reflexion sollten durch geeignete Hilfestellungen stärker Eingang in die universitäre medizinische Lehre finden, vor allem, weil es Studierende vor spezifische Herausforderungen stellt, sich (selbst-)reflexiv zu ihrem zukünftigen eigenen Arzt-Sein und den Arztrollen zu verhalten. Die hier aus einer Medizinstudierendensicht herausgearbeiteten Fähigkeiten können als Orientierung genutzt werden, um Seminare zur medizindidaktisch angeleiteten professionellen (selbst-)reflexiven Identitätsentwicklung bei Medizinstudierenden zu entwickeln