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East Germany (east + germany)
Selected AbstractsIs Volunteering Rewarding in Itself?ECONOMICA, Issue 297 2008STEPHAN MEIER Volunteering constitutes one of the most important pro-social activities. Following Aristotle, helping others is the way to higher individual wellbeing. This view contrasts with the selfish utility maximizer, who avoids helping others. The two rival views are studied empirically. We find robust evidence that volunteers are more satisfied with their life than non-volunteers. The issue of causality is studied from the basis of the collapse of East Germany and its infrastructure of volunteering. People who lost their opportunities for volunteering are compared with people who experienced no change in their volunteer status. [source] Vier neue Arten aus den Gattungen Leucoagaricus und Leucocoprinus mit bräunlichen bis rußfarbigen Tönungen in den Hutfarben,FEDDES REPERTORIUM, Issue 1-2 2004P. Mohr Vier neue Arten aus den Gattungen Leucoagaricus und Leucocoprinus werden beschrieben und gegen bekannte ähnliche Arten abgegrenzt. Leucoagaricus fuligineodiscusP.Mohr & E.Ludwig sp. nova stammt aus Brandenburg im östlichen Teil Deutschlands. Die anderen drei Arten, Leucoagaricus atroalbusP.Mohr & R.M.Dähncke sp. nova, L. brunneosquamulosusP.Mohr & R.M.Dähncke sp. nova und Leucocoprinus canariensisP.Mohr & R.M.Dähncke sp. nova, wurden auf La Palma, Kanarische Inseln (Spanien) gefunden. Leucocoprinus mauritianus(Henn.) P.Mohr wird neu kombiniert, Leucocoprinus heinemanniiMigliozzi var. melanotrichoides P.Mohr neu aufgestellt. (© 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim) Four new species of Leucoagaricus and Leucocoprinus with brownish to fuliginous hues of the pileus Four new species of Leucoagaricus and Leucocoprinus are described and delineated against other similar species. Leucoagaricus fuligineodiscusP.Mohr & E.Ludwig sp. nova was found in Brandenburg in East Germany. The other three species Leucoagaricus atroalbusP.Mohr & R.M.Dähncke sp. nova, L. brunneosquamulosusP.Mohr & R.M.Dähncke sp. nova and Leucocoprinus canariensisP.Mohr & R.M.Dähncke sp. nova were collected in La Palma, Canary Islands (Spain). Leucocoprinus mauritianus(Henn.) P.Mohr is newly combined, Leucocoprinus heinemanniiMigliozzi var. melanotrichoidesP.Mohr is a new variety. [source] Catching-up of East German Labour Productivity in the 1990sGERMAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 3 2000Ray Barrell We provide empirical evidence for exogenous and endogenous catching-up of East German labour productivity to West German levels. We argue that labour productivity in East Germany has caught up faster than has happened elsewhere. The sudden formation of the German Monetary Union was followed by large transfers to East Germany, migration of workers to West Germany, reorganization and privatization of East German firms. This has quickly led to a partial closing of the organizational, idea and object gaps that existed between East and West Germany. This paper analyses labour productivity in East and West Germany using both aggregate German data and unbalanced panel analysis of developments in East and West Germany. Factors affecting the organization of production, and especially privatization and ,foreign' firms, are found to be particularly important in this context. [source] Industrial Policy and the East German Productivity PuzzleGERMAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 3 2000Henning Klodt Catching-up of East German productivity to West German levels has completely faded out since the mid-1990s. The remaining productivity gap cannot be attributed to an inferior capital endowment or qualification deficiencies of the East German labor force. Instead, it appears to be the result of an inappropriate design of industrial policy which concentrated on the subsidization of physical capital and largely ignored the advance of human capital- and service-intensive industrial structures. East Germany will have to face another wave of painful structural adjustment when capital-intensive industries are no longer protected from competition by public subsidies. [source] Barriers for dental treatment of primary teeth in East and West GermanyINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PAEDIATRIC DENTISTRY, Issue 2 2009CHRISTIAN H. SPLIETH Background., In many countries, restorative treatment in primary teeth is suboptimal. Aim., Thus, this study tried to detect barriers for dentists to restore primary teeth in kindergarten children (3,6 years). Design., For a representative survey, 320 dentists (184 West, 136 East Germany) were randomly selected from the dental associations' registers and asked to answer a questionnaire on their profile, their view of the National Health System, and possible barriers for restoring primary teeth. Results., The analysis (response rate 57.7%) showed that the parents were no barrier and the dentists felt the need of restoring primary teeth. In addition to the children's anxiety, the inadequate reimbursement for fillings were perceived as clear barrier. The comparison of West and East German dentists detected statistically significantly higher barriers in West Germany, where , in contrast to the German Democratic Republic , no structured training in paediatric dentistry was compulsory before unification. Only 35% of the East German dentists rated restorative treatment in 3- to 6-year-olds as stressful in contrast to 65% in West Germany, where especially male dentists found no time to treat children. Conclusion., This study reveals that dentists can also be a considerable barrier to restorative treatment in small children, especially without adequate training in dental schools. [source] Socialist psychotherapy and its dissidentsJOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES, Issue 3 2001Christine Leuenberger Ph.D. research associate/lecturerArticle first published online: 17 JUL 200 This article focuses on the history of psychotherapeutic theory and practice in socialist East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The "official" pre-1989 socialist history of East German psychology is juxtaposed to psychotherapists' post-1989 oral history of the development of Socialist psychological theory and practice. These reconstructive histories draw on embryonic therapeutic practices that diverged from the dominant socialist paradigm. Their existence exemplifies how a state-driven high modernist scheme for remaking society can fail as it does not account for the complex relationship between a state's abstract knowledge and local practices. Moreover, the emphasis therapists put on the prevalence of these alternative practices also reveals how the present post-socialist context becomes an interpretative resource for reconstructing their past. By emphasizing these practices they try to bridge the gap between their past and current practices so as to minimize the transformation that has taken place. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [source] A Comment on Roberta Fiske-Rusciano's Review of Crumbling Walls and Tarnished Ideals: An Ethnography of East Germany before and after Unification, by Hans BaerAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 4 2001Michael Cohn No abstract is available for this article. [source] Conspiracy, history, and therapy at a Berlin StammtischAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 3 2006DOMINIC BOYER In this article, I analyze conspiratorial knowledge in discussions of East German politics and history around a Berlin Stammtisch (regulars' table). The Stammtisch is a venerable, mostly masculine institution of German political culture that defines an intimate fraternal space within which social knowledge and political judgments are articulated, negotiated, and contested. Here, I am particularly interested in how talk of the "covert agencies" and "hidden relations" operating behind the scenes of political life in East Germany merged with more general and contemporary concerns about the relationship of Germanness to history. Whereas other anthropologists have emphasized the importance of conspiratorial knowledge as a mode of revealing otherwise obscure social and historical forces, I show how, in this context, conspiratorial knowledge operates in a different way to displace, dampen, or interrupt associations of contemporary Germanness with an imagined cultural inheritance of authoritarianism. [source] Lessons from the Past: The First Wave of Developmental Assistance to North Korea and the German Reconstruction of HamhùngPACIFIC FOCUS, Issue 1 2008Rüdiger Frank North Korea is currently a receiver of substantial international economic support, but not for the first time in its history. This article seeks to shed some light on a largely unknown instance of multilateral aid and assistance to North Korea provided by the socialist camp in the 1950s. Based on research in archives and the analysis of trade data and contemporary media reports, the focus is mainly on the contribution of East Germany to the reconstruction of the North Korean city of Hamhùng. It is argued that this relatively well documented and completed case provides a number of highly relevant conclusions for the current, ongoing debate on engagement with North Korea. Comparing two historically distinct "waves" of assistance to the same country provides new analytical insights if contrasted with the usual approach of using assistance to a third country as the point of reference. There is evidence that North Korea might be applying the same tactics as five decades ago, while the international community faces the danger of repeating old mistakes. Moreover, history provides a hitherto underestimated rationale for the nuclear program, one that might require the international community to develop very different strategies from the ones applied so far. [source] The Politics of Peace in the GDR: The Independent Peace Movement, the Church, and the Origins of the East German OppositionPEACE & CHANGE, Issue 3 2001Steven Pfaff Comparative research offers some insights into the genesis of movements under highly repressive conditions in which dissident groups are systematically denied the organizational and political resources necessary to mount a sustained challenge to the state. During the 1970s and 1980s there were circles of dissidents in the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany), but most grievances were not expressed in an organized form, and there were few opportunities to mobilize protest against the Communist regime. State repression and party control of society meant that opposition had to be organized within institutions that were shielded from state control. Religious subcultures offered a rival set of identities and values while generally accommodating the demands of the regime. Within the free social space offered by the church, a peace movement developed during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The effort to build an independent citizens' peace movement based in the church played an important role in linking together various groups committed to nonviolent protest, peace, ecology, and human rights into a coherent, if still organizationally weak, opposition during the East German revolution of 1989. [source] Ein einheitliches Rentensystem für Ost- und Westdeutschland: Simulationsrechnungen zum Reformvorschlag des SachverständigenratesPERSPEKTIVEN DER WIRTSCHAFTSPOLITIK, Issue 1 2010Axel Börsch-Supan In this paper, we quantify the effects of this proposal. We show that the direction and size of the effects largely depend on the development of future wages. In the most realistic case we assume that the average wages in East Germany remain a constant fraction of the average wage in the West over time. In this case, the Council's proposal only weakly affects the size of pensions in East and West Germany. Thus, the effect on the contribution rate to the pension system is also weak. On the contrary, if average wages in East and West fully converge in the future, this reform would lead to redistribution from pensioners in the East to pensioners in the West. In the most unrealistic case, where average wages in East and West Germany continue to diverge in the future, pensioners in both East and West Germany would be worse off with the reform. However, contribution rates to the pension system would be relatively lower, leading to redistribution from the old to the young. [source] Postulation of leaf-rust resistance genes in Czech and Slovak barley cultivars and breeding linesPLANT BREEDING, Issue 3 2000A. Dreiseitl Abstract Leaf-rust resistance (Rph) genes in 61 Czech and Slovak barley cultivars and 32 breeding lines from registration trials of the Czech Republic were postulated based on their reaction to 12 isolates of Puccinia hordei with different combinations of virulence genes. Five known Rph genes (Rph2, Rph3, Rph4, Rph7, and Rph12) and one unknown Rph gene were postulated to be present in this germplasm. To corroborate this result, the pedigree of the barley accessions was analysed. Gene Rph2, as well as Rph4, originated from old European cultivars. The donor of Rph3, which has been mainly used by Czech and Slovak breeders, is ,Ribari' (,Baladi 16'). Rph12 originates from barley cultivars developed in the former East Germany. Rph7 in the registered cultivar ,Heris' originates from ,Forrajera'. A combination of two genes was found in 10 cultivars. Nine heterogeneous cultivars were identified; they were composed of one component with an identified Rph gene and a second component without any resistance gene. No gene for leaf rust resistance was found in 17 of the accessions tested. This study demonstrates the utility of using selected pathotypes of P. hordei for postulating Rph genes in barley. [source] Leukemia and exposure to ionizing radiation among German uranium minersAMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE, Issue 4 2006Matthias Möhner PhD Abstract Background It is well known that uranium miners are at an increased risk of lung cancer. Whether they also have an increased risk for other cancer sites remains under discussion. The aim of this study was to examine the leukemia risk among miners. Methods An individually matched case-control study of former uranium miners in East Germany was conducted with 377 cases and 980 controls. Results Using conditional logistic regression models, a dose,response relationship between leukemia risk and radon progeny could not be confirmed. Yet, a significantly elevated risk is seen in the category ,400 mSv when combining ,-radiation and long-lived radionuclides. Conclusions The results suggest that an elevated risk for leukemia is restricted to employees with a very long occupational career in underground uranium mining or uranium processing. Moreover, the study does not support the hypothesis of an association between exposure to short-lived radon progeny and leukemia risk. Am. J. Ind. Med. 49:238,248, 2006. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Ethics revisited in a society in transition: the case of the former East GermanyPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & DEVELOPMENT, Issue 3 2002Jean-Claude Garcia-Zamor Since 1990, the German government has been demanding from the civil servants of the former East Germany a new adaptability and creativity that was never promoted in the GDR bureaucracy. The article analyses the change of ethics in the former East Germany after 1990. It looks at the development of the German civil service, discusses the economic disparity between East and West, and examines the ethical tradition in the former socialist country. It uses the case of the selection in 2001 of the city of Leipzig by BMW as the location of a new manufacturing plant as an illustration of the new goal-oriented activities of the present Eastern bureaucracy. More than 250 European cities were competing for the new plant, which will create over 10,000 jobs. The level of performance of the Leipzig bureaucracy in the BMW case reveals the new efficiency and professionalism of the former Eastern civil service. In addition to Leipzig, virtually all the local and state administrations from the former East Germany have developed a sense of the necessities of the time, including globalization. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Active labour market policy in East GermanyTHE ECONOMICS OF TRANSITION, Issue 4 2009Waiting for the economy to take off Matching estimation; causal effects; programme evaluation; panel data Abstract We investigate the effects of the most important East German active labour market programmes on the labour market outcomes of their participants. The analysis is based on a large and informative individual database derived from administrative data sources. Using matching methods, we find that over a horizon of 2.5 years after the start of the programmes, they fail to increase the employment chances of their participants in the regular labour market. However, the programmes may have other effects for their participants that may be considered important in the especially difficult situation experienced in the East German labour market. [source] The Currency of Socialism: Money and Political Culture in East Germany , By Jonathan ZatlinTHE HISTORIAN, Issue 2 2009Kristie Macrakis No abstract is available for this article. [source] Breastfeeding promotion in non-UNICEF-certified hospitals and long-term breastfeeding success in GermanyACTA PAEDIATRICA, Issue 6 2003M Dulon Aim: To assess breastfeeding practices using the World Health Organization/United Nations Children's Fund (WHO/UNICEF) Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding for Baby-Friendly Hospitals in unselected non-UNICEF certified German hospitals and to examine the influences of breastfeeding promotion on long-term breastfeeding success as assessed by WHO criteria. Methods: Information on the fulfilment of the Ten Steps was collected in 177 randomly chosen maternity hospitals by a postal questionnaire. Breastfeeding duration was assessed in 1487 mothers delivering in these hospitals. Multiple logistic regression was used to estimate the association between a low breastfeeding promotion index, defined as fulfilment of fewer than five steps, and the risk of short-term breastfeeding, less than 4 mo. Results: A higher breastfeeding promotion index was not associated with early breastfeeding but was significantly associated with full breastfeeding at 4 and 6 mo. After adjusting for confounding factors, delivering in a hospital with a low breastfeeding promotion index was associated with an increased risk of short-term breastfeeding [odds ratio (OR) 1.24], although associations with maternal demographic variables (young age: OR 3.34), low educational level (OR 2.81) and upbringing in East Germany (OR 2.27) were stronger. Conclusion: In unselected German hospitals even moderate levels of breastfeeding promotion identified by WHO/UNICEF criteria were associated with long-term breastfeeding success. [source] Assessing the suitability of central European landscapes for the reintroduction of Eurasian lynxJOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY, Issue 2 2002Stephanie Schadt Summary 1After an absence of almost 100 years, the Eurasian lynx Lynx lynx is slowly recovering in Germany along the German,Czech border. Additionally, many reintroduction schemes have been discussed, albeit controversially, for various locations. We present a habitat suitability model for lynx in Germany as a basis for further management and conservation efforts aimed at recolonization and population development. 2We developed a statistical habitat model using logistic regression to quantify the factors that describe lynx home ranges in a fragmented landscape. As no data were available for lynx distribution in Germany, we used data from the Swiss Jura Mountains for model development and validated the habitat model with telemetry data from the Czech Republic and Slovenia. We derived several variables describing land use and fragmentation, also introducing variables that described the connectivity of forested and non-forested semi-natural areas on a larger scale than the map resolution. 3We obtained a model with only one significant variable that described the connectivity of forested and non-forested semi-natural areas on a scale of about 80 km2. This result is biologically meaningful, reflecting the absence of intensive human land use on the scale of an average female lynx home range. Model testing at a cut-off level of P > 0·5 correctly classified more than 80% of the Czech and Slovenian telemetry location data of resident lynx. Application of the model to Germany showed that the most suitable habitats for lynx were large-forested low mountain ranges and the large forests in east Germany. 4Our approach illustrates how information on habitat fragmentation on a large scale can be linked with local data to the potential benefit of lynx conservation in central Europe. Spatially explicit models like ours can form the basis for further assessing the population viability of species of conservation concern in suitable patches. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||