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Eastern Germany (eastern + germany)
Selected AbstractsR&D and Firm Performance in a Transition EconomyKYKLOS INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SOCIAL SCIENCES, Issue 4 2006Dirk Czarnitzki SUMMARY We estimate the effects of R&D on firms' credit ratings and on financial distress. The main purpose is the comparison of firms in Western Germany and Eastern Germany as a transitional economy. Innovative activity has a positive impact on firm value proxied by ratings in Western Germany, but a negative impact in Eastern Germany. We also consider future financial distress, and find that R&D in Eastern German firms leads to higher default risk. This stands in contrast to Western Germany where R&D enhances future performance. This result is highly politically relevant, since the high level of subsidies present in Eastern Germany may be subject to misallocation. [source] A culture of threat: Right-wing extremism and negative identity formation in German youthNEW DIRECTIONS FOR YOUTH DEVELOPMENT, Issue 98 2003Wolfgang Edelstein The specific case of Eastern Germany is illustrative of a more general framework for how identity formation, family processes, and humiliation, alienation, and deprivation are linked to local conditions or situational contexts. [source] Genetic structure and random amplified polymorphic DNA diversity of the rapidly declining Angelica palustris (Apiaceae) in Eastern Germany in relation to population size and seed productionPLANT SPECIES BIOLOGY, Issue 3 2005ANKE DITTBRENNER Abstract Angelica palustris (Besser) Hoffm. (Apiaceae) is a rare wetland community species that is currently rapidly declining because of changes in land use. In the present study, we analyzed patterns of random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) variation among nine populations of A. palustris in Germany to assess its overall genetic condition. We aimed to examine the level of genetic diversity as well as its local differentiation in relation to population size and geographic distancing between populations. Results achieved from ,ST statistics and amova indicated that most of the variability is distributed among individuals within the populations (57.7%), whereas among-population variation accounted for 30.2% of the variation. Variation between regions was 12.1%. This corresponds to the results of a multivariate analysis based on the asymmetric Soerensen similarity, which also suggested a strong population differentiation, as would be expected from a short-lived species with limited seed dispersal capacities that had never covered extensive areas in Eastern Germany. Consistently the geographic differentiation was not reflected in the RAPD profile. Significant correlations were noted between population size and the percentage of polymorphic loci (P < 0.05) and genetic diversity (P < 0.05). An analysis of seed production showed positive relationships between average seed number and levels of genetic variation. Our results support concerns regarding the loss of genetic diversity in endangered plant populations because this process might have harmful effects on reproductive fitness. [source] Men born in the region of Leipzig (Saxony, Germany) between 1960 and 1970 showed a significantly decreased sperm count (examination of 3432 individuals)ANDROLOGIA, Issue 6 2003U. Paasch Summary. The routine spermiogram parameters of 3432 patients born between 1952 and 1971 in the region of Leipzig were determined between January 1975 and March 2000. The patient group aged 24,35 years was characterized by low mobility and relocation living in the main centre of chemical industry with enormous environmental pollution in Eastern Germany up to 1990. Sperm concentrations and total sperm counts were found to be significantly reduced in men born between 1960 and 1970 compared with men born before this period (52.38 ± 1.21 versus 70.79 ± 2.15millions ml,1; 139.51 ± 3.66 versus 176.31 ± 6.04 millions; mean ± SEM; P < 0.01; 2410 versus 1022 patients) independently of the year of semen examination. [source] Multidisciplinary investigations at Stalag Luft III allied prisoner-of-war camp: The site of the 1944 "great escape," Zagan, Western PolandGEOARCHAEOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 7 2007J.K. Pringle Stalag Luft III, situated in Zagan, Poland (formerly eastern Germany), was the site of a World War II Allied aviator prisoner of war (POW) camp famous for repeat escape attempts,notably the mass escape of 76 POWs in March 1944, shown in the 1963 film "The Great Escape." The site has had little attention to date because it was within restricted military training grounds until 1992. This paper reports on attempts to locate the undiscovered "Dick" escape tunnel (the "Tom" and "Harry" tunnels from the same escape attempt were discovered and destroyed by camp authorities). Geological and geophysical surveys located hut 122, which contained the "Dick" entrance shaft. Subsequent archaeological investigations included surface artifact collection and inspection of the rubble-filled, tunnel entrance shaft. Excavations to a depth of 10 m through yellow glacio-fluvial sand resulted in the discovery of the refilled "Dick" tunnel with intact bed-board shoring and ventilation system. Our investigation provides valuable insights into POW escape efforts. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Higher Education in Germany: a Case of ,Uneven' Expansion?HIGHER EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2005Hubert Ertl This paper investigates the expansion of student numbers in higher education (HE) in Germany. The quantitative sources indicate a constant increase in student numbers in the 1990s, but show that this growth was uneven and differentiated. The paper discusses a number of factors that influenced the increases in student numbers since the early 1990s, including the opening up and restructuring of HE in eastern Germany, and the strong increases in female participation and in the number of international students. Growth has been particularly significant in certain subject areas, as well as at Fachhochschulen and at private HE institutions. Current developments regarding the introduction of tuition fees and changing structures regarding access to HE are outlined, and their impact on the future expansion of HE is discussed. [source] New trends in urban development and public policy in eastern Germany: dealing with the vacant housing problem at the local levelINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 4 2004Birgit Glock Supported by federal funds, many eastern German cities have started to address their acute vacant housing problem, and the new strategies attempt to pursue revitalization in especially consistent and comprehensive forms. This article offers evidence that current policies are not meeting their main objectives. Very little is being done in the older, inner-city neighbourhoods, although these have been given a top political priority in the planning process since they are perceived as one of the greatest economic and cultural assets of eastern Germany. Rather, the policies have been effective only in the large-scale housing estates, where local administrations and city governments meet ,big partners' with resources for action. Further, it is argued that present policy strategies focus too tightly on housing market issues alone. Many housing problems cannot be solved using housing market policy tools alone as vacancy is caused by the general trends of depopulation and deindustrialization in the region. Avec l'aide de financements fédéraux, de nombreuses grandes villes est-allemandes se sont attaquées à leur grave problème de logements inoccupés, et les nouvelles stratégies tentent une relance par des formules particulièrement vastes et cohérentes. Cet article démontre que les politiques actuelles n'atteignent pas leurs objectifs principaux. Très peu est fait dans les quartiers anciens déshérités, même si on leur a donné une priorité politique élevée dans le processus d'aménagement puisqu'ils sont en bonne place, dit-on, dans le patrimoine économique et culturel de l'Allemagne de l'Est. En revanche, les politiques publiques n'ont été efficaces que dans les projets de logements à grande échelle lorsque les administrations locales et autorités de la ville rencontrent des ,partenaires de poids' ayant des ressources pour agir. De plus, les stratégies politiques présentes s'attachent trop aux seuls aspects liés au marché du logement. Bien des problèmes d'habitat ne peuvent être résolus à l'aide d'outils de politique de marché puisque la vacance tient aux tendances générales à la dépopulation et à la désindustrialisation de la région. [source] Dental nomograms for benchmarking based on the study of health in Pomerania data setJOURNAL OF CLINICAL PERIODONTOLOGY, Issue 12 2004C. Schwahn Abstract Aim: Benchmarking is a means of setting goals or targets. On an oral health level, it denotes retaining more teeth and/or improving the quality of life. The goal of this pilot investigation was to assess whether the data generated by a population-based study (SHIP 0) can be used as a benchmark data set to characterize different practice profiles. Material and Methods: The data collected in the population-based study SHIP (n=4310) in eastern Germany were used to generate nomograms of tooth loss, attachment loss, and probing depth. The nomograms included twelve 5-year age strata (20,79 years) presented as quartiles, and additional percentiles of the dental parameters for each age group. Cross-sectional data from a conventional dental office (n=186) and from a periodontology unit (n=130, Greifswald) in the study region as well as longitudinal data set of a another periodontology unit (n=135, Kiel) were utilized in order to verify whether the given practice profile was accurately reflected by the nomogram. Results: In terms of tooth loss, the data from the conventional dental office agree with the median from the nomogram. For attachment loss and probing depth, some age groups yielded slight but not uniform deviations from the median. Cross-sectional data from the periodontology unit Greifswald showed attachment loss higher than the median in younger but not in older age groups. The probing depth was uniformly less than the median and tended toward the 25th percentile with increasing age. The longitudinal data of the Unit of Periodontology in Kiel showed a pronounced trend towards higher percentiles of residual teeth, meaning that the patients retained more teeth. Conclusion: The profile of the Pomeranian dental office does not deviate noticeably from the population-based nomograms. The higher attachment loss of the Unit of Periodontology in Greifswald in younger age strata clearly reflects their selection because of periodontal disease; the combination of higher attachment loss and decreased probing depth may reflect the success of the treatment. The tendency of attachment loss towards the median with increasing age may indicate that the Unit of Periodontology in Greifswald does not fulfill its function as a special care unit in the older subjects. The longitudinal data set of the Unit of Periodontology in Kiel impressively reflects the potential of population-based data sets as a means for benchmarking. Thus, nomograms can help to determine the practice profile, potentially yielding benefits for the dentist, health insurance company, or , as in the case of the special care unit , public health research. [source] Exploring spatiotemporal patterns in early stages of primary succession on former lignite mining sitesJOURNAL OF VEGETATION SCIENCE, Issue 2 2008Birgit Felinks Abstract Questions: 1. Does random colonization predominate in early stages of primary succession? 2. Do pioneer species facilitate the establishment of later arriving species? 3. Does an initially random distribution change to an aggregated pattern with ongoing succession? Location: Lignite mining region of Lower Lusatia, eastern Germany. Methods: Individual plants were mapped along a 2 m × 28 m transect during three successive years and classified into two groups (1) the pioneer Corynephorus canescens and (2),all other species'. Using the pair-correlation function, univariate point pattern analysis was carried out by applying a heterogeneous Poisson process as null model. Bivariate analysis and a toroidal shift null model were applied to test for independence between the spatial patterns of the two groups separately for each year, as well by exploring spatiotemporal patterns from different years. Results: In the first year Corynephorus and ,all other species' showed an aggregated pattern on a spatial scale > 40 cm and in the second and third years a significant attraction for distances between 4 and 12 cm, with an increasing radius in the third year. The analyses of interspecific spatiotemporal dynamics revealed a change from independence to attraction between distances of 4 cm and 16 cm when using Corynephorus as focal species. However, applying ,all other species' as focal points results in a significant attraction at distances up to 60 cm in the first year and a diminishing attraction in the second and third years with distances , 6 cm. Conclusions: Facilitative species-species interactions are present in early stages of primary succession, resulting mainly from pioneer species acting as physical barriers and their ability to capture diaspores being drifted by secondary dispersal along the substrate surface. However, due to gradual establishment of perennial species and their ability of lateral extension by vegetative dispersal, facilitation may influence spatial pattern formation predominantly on short temporal and fine spatial scales. [source] Numerical simulations of the 12,13 August 2002 flooding event in eastern GermanyTHE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY, Issue 600 2004G. Zängl Abstract In this paper, high-resolution numerical simulations of the 12,13 August 2002 flooding event in eastern Germany are presented. The simulations are performed with the Penn State/National Center for Atmospheric Research mesoscale model MM5 in a four-domain configuration with a finest horizontal resolution of 1 km. Sensitivity experiments are performed with coarser resolutions (3 and 9 km), with different cloud microphysical parametrizations and with a different date of initialization. Moreover, tests with 1 km resolution but the smoothed topography of the 9 km runs are conducted in order to isolate the contribution of the model topography to the differences between the 1 km runs and the 9 km runs. The results show that the high-resolution runs reproduce the observed structure of the precipitation field very well. In particular, the location of the rainfall maximum is correct to within 15 km. The quantitative agreement between model results and observations is fairly good in regions with light to moderate rain, but large amounts of precipitation tend to be underpredicted. For observed 36-hour rainfall accumulations exceeding 200 mm, the negative bias typically ranges between 15 and 30 Copyright © 2004 Royal Meteorological Society. [source] Predictability of early stages of primary succession in post-mining landscapes of Lower Lusatia, GermanyAPPLIED VEGETATION SCIENCE, Issue 1 2001Gerhard Wiegleb Abstract. The predictability of early primary succession in post-mining landscapes of eastern Germany was studied at sites 5,70 yr following dumping. This chronosequence was investigated using indirect ordination methods. The position of the vegetation types in the ordination diagram was found not to infer any temporal sequence. Independent observations show that the change of vegetation type is slow and does not necessarily occur among types adjacent in the ordination diagram. Furthermore, direct ordination revealed that environmental parameters such as pH, the levels of available phosphate and organic carbon as well as the age of the study sites do not significantly account for the variance. Instead, attention needs to be paid to the influence of spatial aspects and also what recultivation measures have been carried out. A detailed account of the vegetation dynamics of individual sample plots showed - depending on the respective vegetation type - divergence, convergence, and fluctuation at the smallest spatial scale. While the species richness of the sample plots remained more or less constant after initial colonization, mean vegetation cover continuously increases with age, although some sites still remain free of vegetation after as long as 70 yr. No general trend in dominant life forms was indicated. A conceptual model of early succession mechanisms is outlined and five basic mechanisms are identified (i.e. site availability, site suitability, availability of diaspores, strategies of colonizing species and biotic interactions). Their respective importance in three different stages of early succession is estimated and compared. The predictability of vegetation dynamics at each stage is rated differently. [source] Mineralogical And Chemical Investigations Of Bloomery Slags From Prehistoric (8th Century Bc To 4th Century Ad) Iron Production Sites In Upper And Lower Lusatia, GermanyARCHAEOMETRY, Issue 2 2001R. B. Heimann More than 400 fayalitic bloomery slags from prehistoric iron production sites in Upper and Lower Lusatia, eastern Germany, as well as bog iron ore samples and intermediary samples of the smelting process, were analysed by chemical and mineralogical techniques. While the precursor bog iron ores exploited in the two regions under investigation were very similar in composition, consisting of low-manganese/low-barium as well as high-manganese/high-barium types of ore, pronounced differences in slag composition were detected. Slags from 17 investigated sites in Upper Lusatia showed average P2O5 contents between 1 and 3 mass%, whereas slags from 15 investigated sites in Lower Lusatia were generally much richer in phosphorus, reaching values as high as 7 mass% P2O5. Since a reasonable correlation exists between calcium and phosphorus contents in the slags of the latter sites, it is conjectured that deliberate addition of CaO to the ore/charcoal charge of the bloomery furnace may have taken place in order to fix the phosphorus in the slags effectively. In many samples, this conjecture is being supported by the detection of a slag mineral Ca,Fe phosphate Ca9,xFe1+x(PO4)7 that presumably crystallized from a residual phosphorus-rich melt and shows a cotectic relationship to both Ca-rich fayalite and wustite, as well as to members of the solid solution series magnetite,hercynite. [source] | ||||||||||||||||