Methoden mittelfristiger gesamtwirtschaftlicher Projektionen

Eine sinnvolle Planung der Staatsfinanzen setzt neben einer guten Kenntnis der kurzfristigen Konjunkturdynamik auch eine Abschätzung der mittelfristigen makroökonomischen Entwicklung voraus. Im Rahmen einer aktuellen Studie für das Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Technologie beschäftigte sich das ZEW mit der Analyse von Methoden, die für die mittelfristige Projektion eingesetzt werden. Im Folgenden wird ein Überblick überMethoden geliefert, die von offiziellen Institutionen in ausgewählten Ländern zur Projektion der mittelfristigen makroökonomischen Entwicklung verwendet werden

Das Produktionspotential im Herbst 2011

Jeweils im Frühjahr und Herbst erstellt das Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW) in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Institut für Weltwirtschaft (IfW) eine Projektion des Produktionspotentials in Deutschland. Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit zwei Aspekten. Zuerst wird dargestellt, dass der Einfluss einer kürzlich vorgenommenen Revision des Statistischen Bundesamtes auf die Potentialschätzung begrenzt ist. Anschließend werden detaillierte aktuelle Ergebnisse der Potentialschätzung für Deutschland bis 2016 präsentiert

Geomicrobiology and Microbial Geochemistry

Geomicrobiology and microbial geochemistry (GMG) investigates the interaction between Earth, environmental systems, and microbial life. Microbes shape their geochemical surroundings through their metabolic and growth needs and thereby exert significant geochemical and mineralogical control on their local environments. In turn, local geochemical conditions dictate what metabolic processes are possible. These mutual influences mean that microbial evolution has occurred in concert with changing geosphere conditions and that microbes have driven major shifts in ocean, continent and atmospheric chemistry. If one wishes to understand element cycling in any system containing water, one must realize that microbes are critical to the story

In Vitro Inhibition of Neutrophil Elastase Activity by Inhaled Anti-Pseudomonas Antibiotics Used in Cystic Fibrosis Patients

Background. Inhaled antibiotics are commonly used in the treatment of cystic fibrosis lung disease. A previous study suggested neutrophil elastase activation by colistin in vitro. Here, we investigated direct effects of the commonly used antibiotics colistin and tobramycin on neutrophil elastase activity. Methods. Neutrophil elastase was measured spectrophotometrically. The antibiotics colistin and tobramycin were added in different concentrations with or without the addition of albumin. Results. Generally, neutrophil elastase activity was lower in the absence of albumin compared to its presence. Both antibiotics, colistin and tobramycin, had inhibitory effects on neutrophil elastase activity except for high concentrations of colistin when albumin was absent. Conclusions. Our results suggest inhibitory effects of colistin and tobramycin in vitro. There was a clear dependency of neutrophil elastase measurements on the presence of albumin. Clinical studies are needed to investigate potential direct effects of inhaled antibiotics on neutrophil elastase activity in cystic fibrosis airways

Das Produktionspotenzial im Herbst 2013

Unsere Herbstschätzung des Produktionspotenzials in Deutschland bestätigt die grundlegende Entwicklung, die wir bereits im Frühjahr 2013 veröffentlicht haben. Im Durchschnitt der Jahre 2013 bis 2018 dürften die potenziellen Produktionskapazitäten der Gesamtwirtschaft um etwa 1,3 Prozent zunehmen

Jointly they edit: examining the impact of community identification on political interaction in Wikipedia

In their 2005 study, Adamic and Glance coined the memorable phrase "divided they blog", referring to a trend of cyberbalkanization in the political blogosphere, with liberal and conservative blogs tending to link to other blogs with a similar political slant, and not to one another. As political discussion and activity increasingly moves online, the power of framing political discourses is shifting from mass media to social media. Continued examination of political interactions online is critical, and we extend this line of research by examining the activities of political users within the Wikipedia community. First, we examined how users in Wikipedia choose to display (or not to display) their political affiliation. Next, we more closely examined the patterns of cross-party interaction and community participation among those users proclaiming a political affiliation. In contrast to previous analyses of other social media, we did not find strong trends indicating a preference to interact with members of the same political party within the Wikipedia community. Our results indicate that users who proclaim their political affiliation within the community tend to proclaim their identity as a "Wikipedian" even more loudly. It seems that the shared identity of "being Wikipedian" may be strong enough to triumph over other potentially divisive facets of personal identity, such as political affiliation.Comment: 33 pages, 5 figure

SUPER: Towards the Use of Social Sensors for Security Assessments and Proactive Management of Emergencies

Social media statistics during recent disasters (e.g. the 20 million tweets relating to 'Sandy' storm and the sharing of related photos in Instagram at a rate of 10/sec) suggest that the understanding and management of real-world events by civil protection and law enforcement agencies could benefit from the effective blending of social media information into their resilience processes. In this paper, we argue that despite the widespread use of social media in various domains (e.g. marketing/branding/finance), there is still no easy, standardized and effective way to leverage different social media streams -- also referred to as social sensors -- in security/emergency management applications. We also describe the EU FP7 project SUPER (Social sensors for secUrity assessments and Proactive EmeRgencies management), started in 2014, which aims to tackle this technology gap

Laboratory Simulation of an Iron(II)-rich Precambrian Marine Upwelling System to Explore the Growth of Photosynthetic Bacteria

A conventional concept for the deposition of some Precambrian Banded Iron Formations (BIF) proceeds on the assumption that ferrous iron [Fe(II)] upwelling from hydrothermal sources in the Precambrian ocean was oxidized by molecular oxygen [O2] produced by cyanobacteria. The oldest BIFs, deposited prior to the Great Oxidation Event (GOE) at about 2.4 billion years (Gy) ago, could have formed by direct oxidation of Fe(II) by anoxygenic photoferrotrophs under anoxic conditions. As a method for testing the geochemical and mineralogical patterns that develop under different biological scenarios, we designed a 40 cm long vertical flow-through column to simulate an anoxic Fe(II)-rich marine upwelling system representative of an ancient ocean on a lab scale. The cylinder was packed with a porous glass bead matrix to stabilize the geochemical gradients, and liquid samples for iron quantification could be taken throughout the water column. Dissolved oxygen was detected non-invasively via optodes from the outside. Results from biotic experiments that involved upwelling fluxes of Fe(II) from the bottom, a distinct light gradient from top, and cyanobacteria present in the water column, show clear evidence for the formation of Fe(III) mineral precipitates and development of a chemocline between Fe(II) and O2. This column allows us to test hypotheses for the formation of the BIFs by culturing cyanobacteria (and in the future photoferrotrophs) under simulated marine Precambrian conditions. Furthermore we hypothesize that our column concept allows for the simulation of various chemical and physical environments — including shallow marine or lacustrine sediments