Hello Diversity! Digital Ideation Hackathon: Fostering Gender Equality in Digital Innovation

This panel report outlines key insights from the Hello Diversity! Hackathon on gender equality in the workplace, held digitally in November 2020. The one-day event with more than 150 participants featured panel discussions and ideation sessions to enable the participants to develop innovative tools, strategies, and processes to minimize gender inequality in workforces involved in digital innovation. Overall, the hackathon aimed to build bridges between research and practice to derive answers on how existing barriers towards more gender equality in digital innovation processes and outcomes can be addressed. The theoretically informed challenges that were tackled during the event concerned topics such as stereotypes and discrimination, incentivizing workforce equality, and necessary support infrastructures in public and private spheres. The developed solutions indicate that much remains to be done to address the lack of processes, organizational structures, and holistic knowledge regarding the importance and benefits of diversity and inclusion in digital innovation. The hackathon culminated in pitches made on the envisioned solutions to kick-start their implementation and encourage research support and progress

Accompanying measures to general budget support in Sub-Saharan Africa

As a financial contribution harmonised among donors, general budget support facilitates the implementation of national poverty reduction strategies and promotes governance in partner countries. Apart from this financial contribution to the national budget, the standard budget support package also involves intensive policy dialogue between donors and the partner government, as well as accompanying measures to strengthen country systems. In the portfolio of German development cooperation, accompanying measures to budget support have gained in importance. This evaluation was designed to examine if, how and under which circumstances accompanying measures to budget support can contribute to the objectives of budget support. Questions on the relevance, effectiveness and success factors of these measures were answered based on a literature study, a portfolio analysis, an online survey and semi-structured interviews. Furthermore, the interrelations between accompanying measures and other elements of the package of budget support were analysed

Rethinking Economic Energy Policy Research – Developing Qualitative Scenarios to Identify Feasible Energy Policies

To accelerate deep decarbonisation in the energy sector, the discipline of economics should focus on identifying feasible instead of optimal policies. To do so, economic analysis should include four features: complexity (a), non-economic aspects (b),uncertainty (c) and stakeholders (d). The aim of this paper is to show that qualitative scenario analysis represents a promising alternative to conventional optimisation approaches and meets these requirements. This paper develops qualitative scenarios for the case study of gas infrastructure modifications with hydrogen and carbon capture and storage technologies in Germany. In the results, the six socio-economic qualitative scenarios are described in more detail. A comparison between the case study and a conventional approach reveals three limitations of the latter and highlights the value of qualitative scenario development. The authors distil the advantages of qualitative scenario analysis and discuss challenges and chances, that go beyond the case study. In conclusion, developing socio-economic scenarios has a large potential to improve economic policy assessment. It also allows to catch up with the rethinking of energy research taking place in other disciplines

CSR between Rhetoric and Reality

Bisher lag der Fokus von Forschungen zu Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) vor allem auf der Ausgestaltung von CSR in Unternehmen und den Auswirkungen von CSR auf das Unternehmen selbst. Untersuchungen zu den Auswirkungen auf Gesellschaft und Umwelt fehlen fast völlig. Das RARE Projekt will diese Lücke schließen

Begleitende Maßnahmen der allgemeinen Budgethilfe in Subsahara-Afrika

Allgemeine Budgethilfe unterstützt mit einem unter Gebern harmonisierten finanziellen Beitrag die Umsetzung nationaler Armutsbekämpfungsstrategien und fördert die Regierungsführung in Partnerländern. Neben dem finanziellen Beitrag zum Staatshaushalt besteht das Budgethilfe-Paket aus einem intensiven Politikdialog zwischen Gebern und der Partnerregierung, sowie aus Begleitenden Maßnahmen zur Stärkung der Partnersysteme. Im Portfolio der deutschen EZ haben Begleitende Maßnahmen der Budgethilfe an Bedeutung gewonnen. Mit der Evaluierung wurde untersucht, ob, wie und unter welchen Umständen Begleitende Maßnahmen der Budgethilfe zu den Zielen der Budgethilfe beitragen können. Auf Basis von Literaturstudium, einer Portfolioanalyse, einer Online-Befragung und semi-strukturierten Interviews wurden Fragen nach Relevanz, Wirkungsweise und Erfolgsfaktoren dieser Maßnahmen beantwortet. Außerdem wurden die Wechselwirkungen zwischen Begleitenden Maßnahmen und anderen Elementen des Budgethilfe-Pakets untersucht

Dsg1 and Dsg3 Composition of Desmosomes Across Human Epidermis and Alterations in Pemphigus Vulgaris Patient Skin

Desmosomes are important epidermal adhesion units and signalling hubs, which play an important role in pemphigus pathogenesis. Different expression patterns of the pemphigus autoantigens desmoglein (Dsg)1 and Dsg3 across different epidermal layers have been demonstrated. However, little is known about changes in desmosome composition in different epidermal layers or in patient skin. The aim of this study was thus to characterize desmosome composition in healthy and pemphigus skin using super-resolution microscopy. An increasing Dsg1/Dsg3 ratio from lower basal (BL) to uppermost granular layer (GL) was observed. Within BL desmosomes, Dsg1 and Dsg3 were more homogeneously distributed whereas superficial desmosomes mostly comprised one of the two molecules or domains containing either one but not both. Extradesmosomal, desmoplakin (Dp)-independent, co-localization of Dsg3 with plakoglobin (Pg) was found mostly in BL and extradesmosomal Dsg1 co-localization with Pg in all layers. In contrast, in the spinous layer (SL) most Dsg1 and Dsg3 staining was confined to desmosomes, as revealed by the co-localization with Dp. In pemphigus patient skin, Dsg1 and Dsg3 immunostaining was altered especially along blister edges. The number of desmosomes in patient skin was reduced significantly in basal and spinous layer keratinocytes with only few split desmosomes found. In addition, Dsg1-Pg co-localization at the apical BL and Dsg3-Pg co-localization in SL were significantly reduced in patients, suggesting that that extradesmosomal Dsg molecules were affected. These results support the hypothesis that pemphigus is a desmosome assembly disease and may help to explain histopathologic differences between pemphigus phenotypes

Homogeneous conversion of NOx_{x} and NH3_{3} with CH4_{4}, CO, and C2_{2}H4_{4} at the diluted conditions of exhaust-gases of lean operated natural gas engines

Understanding gas‐phase reactions in model gas mixtures approximating pre‐turbine heavy‐duty natural gas engine exhaust compositions containing NO, NH$_{3}$, NO$_{2}$, CH$_{4}$, CO, and C$_{2}$H$_{4}$ is extremely relevant for aftertreatment procedure and catalyst design and is thus addressed in this work. In a plug‐flow reactor at atmospheric pressure, five different model gas mixtures were investigated in the temperature range of 700‐1 200 K, using species analysis with electron ionization molecular‐beam mass spectrometry. The mixtures were designed to reveal influences of individual components by adding NO$_{2}$, CH$_{4}$, CO, and C$_{2}$H$_{4}$ sequentially to a highly argon‐diluted NO/NH$_{3}$ base mixture. Effects of all components on the reactivity for NO$_{x}$ conversion were investigated both experimentally as well as by comparison with three selected kinetic models. Main results show a significantly increased reactivity upon NO$_{2}$ and hydrocarbon addition with lowered NO conversion temperatures by up to 200 K. Methane was seen to be of dominant influence in the carbon‐containing mixtures regarding interactions between the carbon and nitrogen chemistry as well as formaldehyde formation. The three tested mechanisms were capable to overall represent the reaction behavior satisfactorily. On this basis, it can be stated that significant gas‐phase reactivity was observed among typical constituents of pre‐turbine natural gas engine exhaust at moderate temperature