Work Incentives and the Cost of Redistribution via Tax-transfer Reforms under Constrained Labor Supply

Using information on desired and actual hours of work, we formulate a discrete choice model of constrained labor supply. Using the German Socio-Economic Panel and the microsimulation model STSM, we find that hours and participation elasticities are substantially smaller than those in the conventional model. We evaluate two reforms for Germany. Both redistribute to the working poor. The first reform is financed through an increase in the effective marginal tax rate for welfare recipients, the second through an increase in taxes. The first reform is desirable with equal weights, the second if the social planner has substantial redistributive taste

Drones for parcel and passenger transportation: A literature review

Delivery drones and ‘air taxis’ are currently among the most intensely discussed emerging technologies, likely to expand mobility into the ‘third dimension’ of low-level airspace. This paper presents a systematic literature review of 111 interdisciplinary publications (2013 - 03/2019). The review systematizes the current socio-technical debate on civil drones for transportation purposes allowing for a (critical) interim assessment. To guide the review process four dimensions of analysis were defined. A total of 2581 relevant quotations were subdivided into anticipated barriers (426), potential problems (1037), proposed solutions (737) and expected benefits (381). We found that the debate is characterized by predominantly technical and regulatory problems and barriers which are considered to prevent or impede the use of drones for parcel and passengers transportation. At the same time, definite economic expectations are juxtaposed with quite complex and differentiated concerns regarding societal and environmental impacts. Scrutinizing the most prevalent transportation-related promises of traffic reduction, travel time saving and environmental relief we found that there is a strong need to provide scientific evidence for the promises linked to the use of drones for transportation. We conclude that the debate on drones for transportation needs further qualification, emphasizing societal benefits and public involvement more strongly.TU Berlin, Open-Access-Mittel - 201

Drones para el transporte de paquetes y pasajeros: un análisis cualitativo de la aceptación pública

Civil and commercial drones are on the verge of becoming a key technology of future everyday life. Stimulated by recent technological progress and increasing regulatory clarity especially larger cities are anticipated to use drones for parcel and passenger transport hoping to relieve congested inner city traffic. Despite it is first and foremost the urban population that would be affected by accessing lower airspace, only few studies addressed the public perception of using transport drones. Aiming to fill the gap of attitudinal and acceptance research in the context of drones, the article embraces the subject by presenting qualitative results of a series of five focus groups conducted in three German cities. The analysis of discussions shows that participants were largely ambivalent towards the use of drones, putting special emphasis on a variety of object-related factors (safety and security, sustainability, usefulness), subject-related factors (general perception of technology) and also context-related factors (potential societal implications of drone technology). Framed by a discussion of identified acceptance factors in the context of the present scientific debate and assessing drones’ potential social implications the article provides a profound qualitative exploration into one of the most disruptive and controversial future technologies that may transform both the transport world and urban societies.  Los drones civiles y comerciales están a punto de convertirse en una tecnología clave de la vida cotidiana futura. Estimulado por recientes progresos tecnológicos y una mayor claridad regulatoria, especialmente las grandes ciudades están previendo el uso de drones para el transporte de paquetes y pasajeros con la esperanza de decongestionar el tráfico urbano. A pesar de que principalmente la población urbana se vería afectada por el uso del espacio aéreo cercano a la ciudad, solo pocos estudios abordaron la percepción y opinión pública sobre el uso de drones para el transporte. Con el objetivo de avanzar en la investigación sobre las actitudes y aceptaciones acerca de los drones, el artículo presenta resultados cualitativos de una serie de cinco grupos focales realizados en tres ciudades alemanas. El análisis de los grupos focales muestra que los participantes son ambivalentes respecto del uso de drones, poniendo énfasis en una variedad de factores objetivos (seguridad, sustentabilidad, utilidad), subjetivos (la percepción general sobre la tecnología) y contextuales (las potenciales implicaciones sociales de la tecnología de drones). Enmarcado en la discusión de los factores identificados en el contexto de los debates científicos actuales y evaluando las potenciales implicancias sociales de los drones, el artículo provee un profundo análisis cualitativo de una de las más disruptivas y controversiales tecnologías futuras, que podría transformar tanto el mundo del transporte como el de las sociedades urbanas

Information Systems and Healthcare XXXI: Improving Infection Control Process Efficiency to Reduce Hospital Acquired Infections

Inconsistent and incomplete information due to the diversity of isolated information systems is one of the major problems information technology faces in the healthcare sector. The insufficient integration of actors results in delays in clinical processes. However, due to strict constraints in health care such as health regulations, clinical processes cannot be modified freely. The approach of this work is to apply the less radical principles of Business Process Management to medical information systems to provide reliable and timely access to relevant patient information and to decrease process lead time. In particular, this work outlines the impact of optimization for administrative processes. To substantiate our research, we performed a case study in collaboration with a healthcare provider and a regional healthcare facility in the U.S. We report on the workflow implementation of a clinical infection control process which integrates disparate systems and automates clinical decision making according to clinical knowledge. The post-metrics clearly emphasize the capability of Business Process Management to improve the integration of information, increase the quality of patient care, reduce health worker\u27s stress, and ease costs of treatment by significantly shortening process lead time. We conclude with a generalization of the results for other healthcare enterprises

A METHOD TO CLASSIFY STANDARDS IN EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES: THE CASE OF CLOUD COMPUTING

Standards are an important part of any product or service as they impact many aspects such as interoperability, portability, and security. Hence, they constitute the cornerstone of any distributed, open, and flexible system “ even more so for emerging technologies such as cloud computing as the rate of their adoption can heavily depend on it. Often there is a plethora of standards available and “ despite their importance “ accurate information that can be used to guide the selection of standards is missing. Selecting the wrong standards can increase cost, reduce uptake, profitability, or lead to a product or service being stuck in a niche. Selecting the right standards can result in as much as the exact opposite. Despite numerous efforts to create classifications of standards that should provide guidance for the selection of standards, there is a lack of conceptualization and methods on how to build standards classifications. In this paper, we provide a conceptualization of technology standards, which serves as the basis for our method to classify standards in emerging technologies (C-SET). The method provides a procedure to classify standards based on a conceptual data model and a stakeholder model. In doing so, C-SET provides the basis to structure the information that is required for an informed selection of standards in emerging technologies. In this paper, we illustrate C-SET referring to cloud computing as an example of an emerging technology

On stochastic imitation dynamics in large-scale networks

We consider a broad class of stochastic imitation dynamics over networks, encompassing several well known learning models such as the replicator dynamics. In the considered models, players have no global information about the game structure: they only know their own current utility and the one of neighbor players contacted through pairwise interactions in a network. In response to this information, players update their state according to some stochastic rules. For potential population games and complete interaction networks, we prove convergence and long-lasting permanence close to the evolutionary stable strategies of the game. These results refine and extend the ones known for deterministic imitation dynamics as they account for new emerging behaviors including meta-stability of the equilibria. Finally, we discuss extensions of our results beyond the fully mixed case, studying imitation dynamics where agents interact on complex communication networks.Comment: Extended version of conference paper accepted at ECC 201

AutozygosityMapper: Identification of disease-mutations in consanguineous families

With the shift from SNP arrays to high-throughput sequencing, most researchers studying diseases in consanguineous families do not rely on linkage analysis any longer, but simply search for deleterious variants which are homozygous in all patients. AutozygosityMapper allows the fast and convenient identification of disease mutations in patients from consanguineous pedigrees by focussing on homozygous segments shared by all patients. Users can upload multi-sample VCF files, including WGS data, without any pre-processing. Genome-wide runs of homozygosity and the underlying genotypes are presented in graphical interfaces. AutozygosityMapper extends the functions of its predecessor. HomozygosityMapper, to the search for autozygous regions, in which all patients share the same homozygous genotype. We provide export of VCF files containing only the variants found in homozygous regions, this usually reduces the number of variants by two orders of magnitude. These regions can also directly be analysed with our disease mutation identification tool MutationDistiller. The application comes with simple and intuitive graphical interfaces for data upload, analysis, and results. We kept the structure of HomozygosityMapper so that previous users will find it easy to switch. With AutozygosityMapper, we provide a fast web-based way to identify disease mutations in consanguineous families. AutozygosityMapper is freely available at https://www.genecascade. org/AutozygosityMapper/

We Are Listening to You (as Good as We Can): A Qualitative Study on the Potential of Internal Corporate Social Listening as a Strategic Approach for Corporate Communication

The aim of this research is to identify the potential of internal corporate Social Listening for corporate communications. To this end, the following research-guiding question is posed: What potential does internal corporate Social Listening offer as a strategic approach for the corporate communication of groups and group-affiliated subsidiaries with a branch office in Germany? To answer this question, qualitative, partially standardized guided interviews were conducted with communication experts from twelve corporate groups or subsidiaries with branches in Germany. The study explores in detail how internal corporate Social Listening is used in corporate communication, to what extent it is integrated into the respective communication strategy, and what strengths and weaknesses it offers for corporate communication. The results suggest that internal corporate Social Listening can contribute to corporate value creation, especially in the context of reputation, issue and stakeholder relationship management. However, this potential has not been fully exploited, as the inbound dimension of corporate communication is still underestimated. Internal corporate Social Listening should be actively incorporated into a company‘s communication strategy