Environmental Awareness and Labour Market Tightness: An Analysis on Regional Level

This thesis reveals methods for estimating individual perception at the regional level, such as environmental awareness or wage effects due to labour market tightness. Environmental awareness belongs to individual attitudes, which is driven by socialization, culture and education. Consequently, it is difficult to compare environmental awareness between regions. Labour market tightness might be reflected in individual wages, but the latter is also triggered by a lot of exogenous variables. Given that a simple linear regression model fails in both cases, existing alternative approaches from the econometrics like Multiple Indicator Multiple Cause model and Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operators are used. First, a Multiple-Indicator Multiple-Causes model is introduced, which allows us to estimate a not-directly observable individual attitude, environmental awareness, for different regions and to rank them. The method is cost-effective and less time-consuming, it also allows for comparisons between regions. The study area serves 81 regions in Russia. The model is constructed in such a way that Internet queries from the search engine Yandex are assumed to be indicators, which are affected by the regional environmental awareness index. In addition, regional characteristics, such as Gross Regional Product per capita, the proportion of employees in specific industry sectors, and also the environmental situation within the regions are potential cause variables. The regional environmental awareness index is estimated for each of the Russian regions from January 2014 until April 2016. Furthermore, the findings shows a rather non-linear positive relationship between the regional environmental awareness and regional wealth, as well as a strong negative correlation with the temperature. The colder the region and the observed month, the higher the interest of the population in environmental topics. Furthermore, the regions can be grouped into four environmental awareness clusters by using k-means clustering algorithm. It seems that the environmental awareness index shrinks from the Eastern to the Western part of Russia. The highest values can be estimated in Chukotka, Kamchatka, and Magadan. The lowest values are found in the rather poor and warm Caucasus area. Second, another issue concerns the estimation of an effect of an observable regional variable, such as labour supply shortage, on individual wages. This thesis investigates the ten year wage development of employees who first enter the labour market from 1995 until 2004 and looks for positive wage effects of labour market tightness in different occupational groups. Due to incomplete vacancy data, labour market tightness is measured as the number of unemployed people divided by the number of employees within an occupational field and region. Mean and quantile regression methods are applied. Because the number of right-hand side variables could lead to incorrect detected statistical significant coefficients, different Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operators are used for reducing the variables set. The findings suggests that regional labour market tightness in occupational fields affects individual wages. Employees who start their carrier in a tighter labour market enjoy higher wage growth compared to workers from more relaxed labour markets. The wages in technical professions, such as several engineer groups, IT-occupations, technicians, and also in some commercial occupations are especially affected by a shortage of labour supply. Health care occupations, such as nurse, reveals a complete reverse relationship. A shortage of workforce seems to be correlated with smaller wages

Diffusion of Environmental Awareness

A high level of “environmental awareness” in the participating countries will likely raise the success of the Kyoto Protocol negotiated in Paris in 2015. In this context it is of interest to investigate the diffusion of environmental awareness, and also the (economic) factors, on which this diffusion depends. This paper addresses these questions for the regions of the Russian Federation, which are sufficiently diverse regarding cultural and economic issues. From a formal point of view, a “Multiple-Indicator-Multiple- Causes” (MIMIC) approach, based on a variety of “indicators” for environmental awareness, derived from search entries in c Yandex, and a variety of “causes”, economic and socio-economic factors, is applied. The empirical results point first to a strong dependence of environmental awareness on the level of GRP per capita. Moreover, the diffusion seems to spread from the eastern part of Russia towards the western regions

Parking Cash-Out - ein innovativer Ansatz zur betrieblichen Effizienzsteigerung und Verkehrslenkung

Parking Cash-Out wird als eine neue und interessante unternehmerische Strategie zur Realisierung von Kosteneinsparungen, aber auch zur Verkehrslenkung propagiert. Zu den besonderen Vorteilen dieses Konzepts zählt die erhöhte Akzeptanz für preispolitische Maßnahmen, da die Verkehrsteilnehmer vom Unternehmen für den Verzicht auf einen vom Betrieb bereit gestellten Parkplatz kompensiert werden. In diesem Beitrag testen wir die theoretischen Effekte des Parking Cash-Out. Unter Anwendung eines multinomialen Probit-Modells finden wir signifikante Effekte sowohl der Parkplatzkompensation als auch der -gebühr. Unsere Ergebnisse hinsichtlich der Veränderung des Anteils der PKW-Nutzung liegen im Rahmen der Erwartungen und lassen sich in die US-amerikanische Literatur zu diesem Thema vorbehaltlos einordnen

Parking Cash-Out - ein innovativer Ansatz zur betrieblichen Effizienzsteigerung und Verkehrslenkung

Parking Cash-Out wird als eine neue und interessante unternehmerische Strategie zur Realisierung von Kosteneinsparungen, aber auch zur Verkehrslenkung propagiert. Zu den besonderen Vorteilen dieses Konzepts zählt die erhöhte Akzeptanz für preispolitische Maßnahmen, da die Verkehrsteilnehmer vom Unternehmen für den Verzicht auf einen vom Betrieb bereit gestellten Parkplatz kompensiert werden. In diesem Beitrag testen wir die theoretischen Effekte des Parking Cash-Out. Unter Anwendung eines multinomialen Probit-Modells finden wir signifikante Effekte sowohl der Parkplatzkompensation als auch der -gebühr. Unsere Ergebnisse hinsichtlich der Veränderung des Anteils der PKW-Nutzung liegen im Rahmen der Erwartungen und lassen sich in die US-amerikanische Literatur zu diesem Thema vorbehaltlos einordnen. --

Automated Non-Sterile Pharmacy Compounding: A Multi-Site Study in European Hospital and Community Pharmacies with Pediatric Immediate Release Propranolol Hydrochloride Tablets

Pharmacy compounding, the art and science of preparing customized medications to meet individual patient needs, is on the verge of transformation. Traditional methods of compounding often involve manual and time-consuming processes, presenting challenges in terms of consistency, dosage accuracy, quality control, contamination, and scalability. However, the emergence of cutting-edge technologies has paved a way for a new era for pharmacy compounding, promising to redefine the way medications are prepared and delivered as pharmacy-tailored personalized medicines. In this multi-site study, more than 30 hospitals and community pharmacies from eight countries in Europe utilized a novel automated dosing approach inspired by 3D printing for the compounding of non-sterile propranolol hydrochloride tablets. CuraBlend® excipient base, a GMP-manufactured excipient base (pharma-ink) intended for automated compounding applications, was used. A standardized study protocol to test the automated dosing of tablets with variable weights was performed in all participating pharmacies in four different iterative phases. Integrated quality control was performed with an in-process scale and NIR spectroscopy supported by HPLC content uniformity measurements. In total, 6088 propranolol tablets were produced at different locations during this study. It was shown that the dosing accuracy of the process increased from about 90% to 100% from Phase 1 to Phase 4 by making improvements to the formulation and the hardware solutions. The results indicate that through this automated and quality controlled compounding approach, extemporaneous pharmacy manufacturing can take a giant leap forward towards automation and digital manufacture of dosage forms in hospital pharmacies and compounding pharmacies

Ten millennia of hepatitis B virus evolution

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) has been infecting humans for millennia and remains a global health problem, but its past diversity and dispersal routes are largely unknown. We generated HBV genomic data from 137 Eurasians and Native Americans dated between ~10,500 and ~400 years ago. We date the most recent common ancestor of all HBV lineages to between ~20,000 and 12,000 years ago, with the virus present in European and South American hunter-gatherers during the early Holocene. After the European Neolithic transition, Mesolithic HBV strains were replaced by a lineage likely disseminated by early farmers that prevailed throughout western Eurasia for ~4000 years, declining around the end of the 2nd millennium BCE. The only remnant of this prehistoric HBV diversity is the rare genotype G, which appears to have reemerged during the HIV pandemic

Labor market tightness and individual wage growth: Evidence from Germany

It is often stated that certain occupations in Germany, because of "Demographic Change ", are dwindling, implying a labor shortage. We investigate the 10-year wage growth of young employees entering the labor market in different occupations. Our findings suggest that regional labor market tightness in occupational fields significantly explains wage growth. Individuals who start their careers in a tighter labor market enjoy higher wage growth than workers in more relaxed labor markets. We identify some occupational fields where the effect is especially strong, such as several engineering groups, IT occupations, technicians, and some commercial occupations. Interestingly, health-care occupations reveal a reverse relation

Diffusion of Environmental Awareness

A high level of “environmental awareness” in the participating countries will likely raise the success of the Kyoto Protocol negotiated in Paris in 2015. In this context it is of interest to investigate the diffusion of environmental awareness, and also the (economic) factors, on which this diffusion depends. This paper addresses these questions for the regions of the Russian Federation, which are sufficiently diverse regarding cultural and economic issues. From a formal point of view, a “Multiple-Indicator-Multiple- Causes” (MIMIC) approach, based on a variety of “indicators” for environmental awareness, derived from search entries in c Yandex, and a variety of “causes”, economic and socio-economic factors, is applied. The empirical results point first to a strong dependence of environmental awareness on the level of GRP per capita. Moreover, the diffusion seems to spread from the eastern part of Russia towards the western regions

Diffusion of Environmental Awareness

A high level of “environmental awareness” in the participating countries will likely raise the success of the Kyoto Protocol negotiated in Paris in 2015. In this context it is of interest to investigate the diffusion of environmental awareness, and also the (economic) factors, on which this diffusion depends. This paper addresses these questions for the regions of the Russian Federation, which are sufficiently diverse regarding cultural and economic issues. From a formal point of view, a “Multiple-Indicator-Multiple- Causes” (MIMIC) approach, based on a variety of “indicators” for environmental awareness, derived from search entries in c Yandex, and a variety of “causes”, economic and socio-economic factors, is applied. The empirical results point first to a strong dependence of environmental awareness on the level of GRP per capita. Moreover, the diffusion seems to spread from the eastern part of Russia towards the western regions