Insolvent Local Government: German Approaches to Prevention

The global financial crisis is affecting local governments particularly strongly. The threat of insolvency looms large for many local governments, and therefore, it is unfortunately very timely to examine this issue. Can genuine bankruptcy occur, should it be allowed to occur, can it be prevented, and if it cannot be, how can it be managed well? In order to do so, the current essay sets out to investigate, on an empirical basis, how Germany has so far (i.e., before the crash) dealt with the issue of municipal insolvency. This pre-crisis approach also underlines the importance of the topic, because it shows that even in more or less financially solid times, municipalities were already exposed to high financial pressure. Now, the crisis has increased the number of municipalities facing a budget crisis. The results of the present investigation can assist in dealing with the consequences of the crisis. On account of its high and indeed paradigm-setting level of municipal autonomy, the possibility of drawing lessons from Germany should be particularly interesting

A new approach for disclosure control in the IAB Establishment Panel : multiple imputation for a better data access

"For micro-datasets considered for release as scientific or public use files, statistical agencies have to face the dilemma of guaranteeing the confidentiality of survey respondents on the one hand and offering sufficiently detailed data on the other hand. For that reason a variety of methods to guarantee disclosure control is discussed in the literature. In this paper, we present an application of Rubin's (1993) idea to generate synthetic datasets from existing confidential survey data for public release. We use a set of variables from the 1997 wave of the German IAB Establishment Panel and evaluate the quality of the approach by comparing results from an analysis by Zwick (2005) with the original data with the results we achieve for the same analysis run on the dataset after the imputation procedure. The comparison shows that valid inferences can be obtained using the synthetic datasets in this context, while confidentiality is guaranteed for the survey participants." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))IAB-Betriebspanel, Datensicherheit, Datenschutz, Datenaufbereitung, Datenanonymisierung, Imputationsverfahren

Cascading Digital Options and the Evolution of Digital Infrastructures: The Case of IIoT

Digital infrastructures provide a space where possibilities for innovation continuously emerge. They are not stable entities but are evolving. Their boundaries are subject to constant negotiation among multiple organizational actors as well as changing connections of digital technologies, operations, and users. In this paper, we explore the evolution of an Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) infrastructure in a leading manufacturing company. We find that the IIoT infrastructure provided actionable spaces upon which organizational actors discovered opportunities for improving process performance which, in turn, led to investment decisions. We explain this process through the lens of digital options theory and highlight how IIoT infrastructure provides the material foundation for the identification of digital options, how the realization of digital options leads to the emergence of more digital options, and how these “cascading” digital options are implicated in the evolution of IIoT infrastructure. We discuss theoretical and practical implications

Digital Infrastructure Evolution: A Digital Trace Data Study

Digital infrastructures are socio-technical arrangements of physical objects, digital technologies, users, and processes. They constantly evolve and provide the foundation for the emergence and implementation of a variety of applications. But how and why do digital infrastructures evolve? In this short paper, we report on an ongoing study of an Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) system by drawing on digital trace data about the system’s development process and using code complexity analysis. We present interaction patterns between the development of a digital infrastructure’s core services on the one hand and the development of specific applications on the other. Based on these patterns, we point to several puzzles that we identify around digital infrastructure evolution

Development and validation of a method for the detection of altered resistance in transgenic plants against herbivore-pathogen-complexes

Enhanced or reduced uptake of viruses by vectors and changes in resistance level can be sensitive indicators for metabolic changes in transgenic plants caused by the new trait and not observed by conventional methods. In addition, the plant transformation process itself can lead to such changes. To be able to investigate this hypothesis in cereals we decided to use two highly important insect-transmitted viruses infecting them - _Barley yellow dwarf virus_ (BYDV) and _Wheat dwarf virus_ (WDV). Corresponding molecular tools for their quantification in plants as well as virus vectors had to be developed. 
Both viruses cause similar symptoms: dwarfing, stunting, leaf discoloration leading to yield losses or death of plant. BYDV (_Luteoviridae_) is one of the most important cereal-infecting viruses worldwide causing substantial yield losses. In Germany, the strain PAV is widespread. It is transmitted by the aphids _Rhopalosiphum padi_ and _Sitobion avenae_ in a persistent manner. WDV (_Geminiviridae_) is found in Germany since the early 1990s and has gained importance over the last years. It is transmitted by the leafhopper _Psammotettix alienus_ in a persistent manner. 
Real-time PCR is the state of the art method for specific detection of viruses even in minor quantities. It allows exact quantification of the virus content of plants and vectors and is hence suited to monitor changes of it. We developed qPCR assays for WDV and RT-qPCR assays for BYDV-PAV based on TaqMan probe technology as well as the DNA-binding dye SybrGreen. The qPCR assays proved to be more sensitive than DAS-ELISA. For example, WDV is detected even at dilutions of 1:10^8^, whereas the corresponding threshold for ELISA is about 1:10^4^. As nucleic acid extraction procedures proved to be time consuming and expensive, detection methods are adopted now for immunocapture procedures. 
These methods will be applied to the analysis of several transgenic wheat lines.
&#xa

A new approach for disclosure control in the IAB Establishment Panel: multiple imputation for a better data access

Öffentliche Stellen, die Datensätze produzieren, müssen mit dem Dilemma umgehen, einerseits die Vertraulichkeit der personenbezogenen Daten zu schützen, andererseits für die Forschung hinreichend detaillierte Datensätze zur Verfügung zu stellen. Aus diesem Grund werden etliche Methoden der Offenlegungskontrolle in der Literatur diskutiert. Der Beitrag stellt zwei Ansätze vor, die auf multipler Imputation basieren, und die auf das IAB-Betriebspanel angewandt werden können. Beim ersten Ansatz, der auf Rubin (1993) zurückgeht, wird ein vollständig synthetischer Datensatz generiert, während beim zweiten Ansatz nur Werte für ausgewählte Variablen mit hohem Offenlegungsrisiko imputiert werden. Beide Ansätze werden auf eine Menge Variablen aus der Welle des IAB-Betriebspanels aus dem Jahr 1997 angewandt. Die Qualität der Ansätze wird bewertet, indem die Analyseergebnisse von Zwick (2005), die auf den Originaldaten basieren, mit den Ergebnissen derselben Analyse nach der Imputation verglichen werden. (IAB)"For micro-datasets considered for release as scientific or public use files, statistical agencies have to face the dilemma of guaranteeing the confidentiality of survey respondents on the one hand and offering sufficiently detailed data on the other hand. For that reason a variety of methods to guarantee disclosure control is discussed in the literature. In this paper, we present an application of Rubin's (1993) idea to generate synthetic datasets from existing confidential survey data for public release. We use a set of variables from the 1997 wave of the German IAB Establishment Panel and evaluate the quality of the approach by comparing results from an analysis by Zwick (2005) with the original data with the results we achieve for the same analysis run on the dataset after the imputation procedure. The comparison shows that valid inferences can be obtained using the synthetic datasets in this context, while confidentiality is guaranteed for the survey participants." (author's abstract