Parental Leave and Mothers' Careers:The Relative Importance of Job Protection and Cash Benefits

Job protection and cash benefits are key elements of parental leave (PL) systems. We study how these two policy instruments affect return-to-work and medium-run labour market outcomes of mothers of newborn children. Analysing a series of major PL policy changes in Austria, we find that longer cash benefits lead to a significant delay in return-to-work, particularly so in the period that is job-protected. Prolonged parental leave absence induced by these policy changes does not appear to hurt mothers' labour market outcomes in the medium run. We build a non-stationary model of job search after childbirth to isolate the role of the two policy instruments. The model matches return-to-work and return to same employer profiles under the various factual policy configurations. Counterfactual policy simulations indicate that a system that combines cash with protection dominates other systems in generating time for care immediately after birth while maintaining mothers' medium-run labour market attachment

On the Simulation of Global Reputation Systems

Reputation systems evolve as a mechanism to build trust in virtual communities. In this paper we evaluate different metrics for computing reputation in multi-agent systems. We present a formal model for describing metrics in reputation systems and show how different well-known global reputation metrics are expressed by it. Based on the model a generic simulation framework for reputation metrics was implemented. We used our simulation framework to compare different global reputation systems to find their strengths and weaknesses. The strength of a metric is measured by its resistance against different threat-models, i.e. different types of hostile agents. Based on our results we propose a new metric for reputation systems.Reputation System, Trust, Formalization, Simulation

Parental leave and mothers' careers: the relative importance of job protection and cash benefits

Parental leave regulations in most OECD countries have two key policy instruments: job protection and cash benefits. This paper studies how mothers’ return to work behavior and labor market outcomes are affected by alternative mixes of these key policy parameters. Exploiting a series of major parental leave policy changes in Austria, we find that longer cash benefits lead to a significant delay in return to work and that the magnitude of this effect depends on the relative length of job protection and cash benefits. However, despite their impact on time on leave, we do not find a significant effect on mothers’ labor market outcomes in the medium run, neither of benefit duration nor of job-protection duration. To understand the relative importance (and interaction) of the two policy instruments in shaping mothers’ return to work behavior, we set up a non-stationary job search model in which cash benefits and job protection determine decisions of when to return to work and whether or not to return to the pre-birth employer. Despite its lean structure, the model does surprisingly well in matching empirically observed return to work profiles. The simulation of alternative counterfactual regimes shows that a policy that combines both job protection and benefits payments succeeds to induce mothers to spend some time with the child after birth without jeopardizing their medium run labor market attachment.Parental leave, family and work obligations, return to work, labor supply, earnings, family earnings gap

Parental Leave and Mothers' Careers: The Relative Importance of Job Protection and Cash Benefits

Parental leave regulations in most OECD countries have two key policy instruments: job protection and cash benefits. This paper studies how mothers' return to work behavior and labor market outcomes are affected by alternative mixes of these key policy parameters. Exploiting a series of major parental leave policy changes in Austria, we find that longer cash benefits lead to a significant delay in return to work and that the magnitude of this effect depends on the relative length of job protection and cash benefits. However, despite their impact on time on leave, we do not find a significant effect on mothers' labor market outcomes in the medium run, neither of benefit duration nor of job-protection duration. To understand the relative importance (and interaction) of the two policy instruments in shaping mothers' return to work behavior, we set up a non-stationary job search model in which cash benefits and job protection determine decisions of when to return to work and whether or not to return to the pre-birth employer. Despite its lean structure, the model does surprisingly well in matching empirically observed return to work profiles. The simulation of alternative counterfactual regimes shows that a policy that combines both job protection and benefits payments succeeds to induce mothers to spend some time with the child after birth without jeopardizing their medium run labor market attachment.parental leave, family and work obligations, return to work, labor supply, earnings, family earnings gap

Analyse der Proteinphosphorylierung und anderer kovalenter Proteinmodifikationen mit Elektrospray-Massenspektrometrie

Die Kombination aus proteolytischer Spaltung, massenspektrometrischer Analyse und Datenbanksuche ist eine etablierte Methode zur Identifizierung von Proteinen. Ist die Identität eines Proteins geklärt, dann stellt sich im Anschluß daran häufig die Frage nach den posttranslationalen Modifikationen des Proteins. Auch hierfür ist die Massenspektrometrie eine prädestinierte und häufig angewandte Methode. Eine der wichtigsten posttranslationalen Modifikationen eukaryotischer Proteine ist die Phosphorylierung an Ser-, Thr- und Tyr-Resten. In der vorliegenden Arbeit ist die Weiterentwicklung und Anwendung zweier massenspektrornetrischer Methoden zur Analyse der Proteinphosphorylierung beschrieben: i) der Neutralverlust-Scan zur selektiven Detektion von Ser/Thr-phosphorylierten Peptiden, und ii) die Metallaffinitätschromatographie zur selektiven Anreicherung von Phosphopeptiden. Bei der Optimierung der Analytik der Proteinphosphorylierung mittels Neutralverlust-Scan hatte sich am Beispiel der katalytischen Untereinheit der Proteinkinase A gezeigt, dass die Verwendung einer Protease mit geringer Spaltungsspezifität (Elastase) wesentliche Vorteile gegenüber einer Protease mit hoher Spaltungsspezifität (Trypsin) besitzt. Die kleineren Elastase-generierten Phosphopeptide zeigen im Vergleich zu den Trypsin-generierten Phosphopeptiden eine effektivere Phosphorsäure-Abspaltung und lassen sich im Neutralverlust-Scan mit deutlich besserer Empfindlichkeit detektieren. in weiterer Vorteil der Elastase ist in ihrer Eigenschaft partiell überlappende Peptide zu generieren begründet. Die Metallaffinitätschrornatographie wurde eingesetzt, um die Elastase-generierten Phosphopeptide selektiv anzureichern. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass die Metallaffinitätschromatographie eine geeignete Methode ist, um die Komplexität des Elastase-generierten Peptidgemischs drastisch zu reduzieren, so dass eine automatische Fragmentionen-Analyse aller angereicherten Peptide mittels nanoESl möglich ist. Die Leistungsfähigkeit der Kombination aus Elastase-Verdau, Metallaffinitätschromatographie und Q-TOF- Tandem-MS wurde am Beispiel des Transkriptionsinitiationsfaktors IA unter Beweis gestellt, wo mit Hilfe dieser Analysen-Strategie drei bislang unbekannte in-vivo-Phosphorylierungsstellen nachgewiesen werden konnten. Neben der Proteinphosphorylierung wurden in dieser Arbeit auch eine Reihe anderer kovalenter Modifikationen untersucht. Bei der Analyse der katalytischen Untereinheit der Proteinkinase A konnten neben einer bislang unbekannten fünften Phosphorylierungsstelle an Ser259 auch die Modifikation von Cys343 durch Glutathion und die N-terminale Modifikation durch Gluconsäure nachgewiesen werden. Mittels Q-TOF-Tandem-MS wurde die in-vivo-Myristoylierung des humanen Proteins GAPR 1 nachgewiesen. Mittels der sog Top-Down-Analyse wurde am Beispiel des Proteins Dynamin A gezeigt, wie mittels dieser Strategie eine vollständige Charakterisierung aller kovalenten Modifikationen eines Proteins erreicht werden kann. Im Falle von Dynamin A konnte die Acetylierung des N-terminalen Methionins nachgewiesen werden. Andere kovalente Modifikationen konnten ausgeschlossen werden. Im letzten Kapitel der vorliegenden Arbeit wird am Beispiel von Dynamin A gezeigt, wie sich die Kombination aus partieller proteolytischer Spaltung, Tandem-MS und Datenbanksuche effektiv zur Charakterisierung der Domänenstruktur von Proteinen einsetzen lässt

Parental Leave and Mothers' Careers: The Relative Importance of Job Protection and Cash Benefits

Job protection and cash benefits are key elements of parental leave (PL) systems. We study how these two policy instruments affect return-to-work and medium-run labour market outcomes of mothers of newborn children. Analysing a series of major PL policy changes in Austria, we find that longer cash benefits lead to a significant delay in return-to-work, particularly so in the period that is job-protected. Prolonged parental leave absence induced by these policy changes does not appear to hurt mothers' labour market outcomes in the medium run. We build a non-stationary model of job search after childbirth to isolate the role of the two policy instruments. The model matches return-to-work and return to same employer profiles under the various factual policy configurations. Counterfactual policy simulations indicate that a system that combines cash with protection dominates other systems in generating time for care immediately after birth while maintaining mothers' medium-run labour market attachmen

Software-based Identification of Adaptation Needs in Global Production Networks

Internal and external influencing factors force companies to adapt their production networks to changing conditions, which entails a high level of complexity. To be competitive in the future, manufacturing companies have to minimize the required adaptation time between the occurrence of a change and the implementation of an adaptation. While some approaches deal with modelling and evaluating network configuration, there is a lack in identifying the need for adaptation. In practice, the creation of scenarios is often based on the experience and knowledge of the network designer. This paper presents an approach to systematically link perceived key figure changes to possible adaptation alternatives in network configuration. For this purpose, the relevant objects for network adaptations are first defined and adaptation alternatives are systematically described. Subsequently, these are combined with a set of key figures to derive suitable adaptation alternatives depending on their development. The approach is further implemented in a software-based prototype that enables the automated generation of adaptation alternatives in response to perceived changes and provides the user with a listing of possible alternatives prioritized by their utility. The validation with company data demonstrates that by earlier and automated identification of possible configuration adaptations, the adaptation time to changes can be reduced and the generated scenarios are less dependent on the individual experience of the user

Reconstruction of the wavefunctions of coupled nanoscopic emitters using a coherent optical technique

We show that using coherent, spatially resolved spectroscopy, complex hybrid wave functions can be disentangled into the individual wave functions of the individual emitters. This way, detailed information on the coupling of the individual emitters, not available in far-field spectroscopy can be obtained. The proposed quantum state tomography relies on the ability to selectively excite each emitter individually by spatially localized pulses. Simulations of coupled semiconductor Ga/InAs quantum dots, using light fields available in current nanoplasmonics, show that even undesired resonances can be removed from measured spectra. The method can also be applied to study the internal coupling of pigments in photosythesis and artificial light harvesting.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure

ALEVIN - A framework to develop, compare, and analyze virtual network embedding algorithms

Network virtualization is recognized as an enabling technology for the Future Internet. Applying virtualization of network resources leads to the problem of mapping virtual resources to physical resources, known as “Virtual Network Embedding” (VNE). Several algorithms attempting to solve this problem have been discussed in the literature, so far. However, comparison of VNE algorithms is hard, as each algorithm focuses on different criteria. To that end, we introduce a framework to compare different algorithms according to a set of metrics, which allow to evaluate the algorithms and compute their results on a given scenario for arbitrary parameters.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Using localized double-quantum-coherence spectroscopy to reconstruct the two-exciton wave function of coupled quantum emitters

Coherent multidimensional spectroscopy allows us to inspect the energies and the coupling of quantum systems. Coupled quantum systems—such as a coupled semiconductor quantum dot or pigments in photosynthesis—form delocalized exciton and two-exciton states. A technique is presented to decompose these delocalized wave functions into the basis of individual quantum emitters. This quantum state tomography protocol is illustrated for three coupled InAs quantum dots. To achieve the decomposition of the wavefunction, we combine the double-quantum-coherence spectroscopy with spatiotemporal control, which allows us to localize optical excitations at a specific quantum dot. Recently, a protocol was proposed for single exciton states (Richter et al 2012 Phys. Rev. B 86 085308). In this paper, we extend the method presented by Richter et al with respect to: the reconstruction of two-exciton states, a detailed analysis process of reconstruction and the effect of filtering to enhance the quality of the reconstructed wave function.DFG, 72946949, SPP 1391: Ultrafast NanoopticsDFG, 163436311, SFB 910: Kontrolle selbstorganisierender nichtlinearer Systeme: Theoretische Methoden und Anwendungskonzept