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This paper explores the scope for privatizing unemployment insurance in Britain and Germany. The research builds on two consecutive projects, undertaken in the two countries between 1996 and 2000. The studies investigated people's attitudes towards the welfare state and private insurance, and families' strategies to manage the financial risk of unemployment. About 6% of the working population of both Britain and Germany claimed to possess private unemployment insurance. A further 23% in Britain and 12% in Germany expressed an intention to acquire private unemployment insurance. Attitudes towards private unemployment insurance were influenced by perceptions of unemployment risk, household circumstances, private money management strategies, and perceptions of the welfare state and the efficiency and trustworthiness of its institutions. The risk of exclusion from insurance in the two countries, either voluntary or as a result of actuarial risk assessment, is investigated. There is at present little evidence of adverse selection, nor would an expansion of the private unemployment insurance market necessarily entail that risk. However, the study found some, albeit limited, evidence of moral hazard. Significant country-specific differences were apparent in all aspects of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inquiry-based learning (IBL) is a more student-centered approach to mathematics teaching that is recommended by many policy and curriculum documents across Europe. However, it is not easy for teachers to change from a more teacher-centered way of teaching to inquiry-based teaching as this involves a change of their role in class. Professional development courses are one way to help teachers with this endeavor. Within the discussion of effective professional development, beliefs are often named as an important influencing factor. In this respect, much research has been carried out on how beliefs on mathematics teaching impact the outcomes of the course. However, there has been much less research on what beliefs mathematics teachers develop on inquiry-based learning and how this might impact their (perceived) classroom teaching. Therefore, this paper presents an international research study carried out within the European Project Primas, in which professional development courses on inquiry-based learning were conducted in 12 countries. Using the case-study approach, this paper aims at answering the following questions: 1. What kind of beliefs about IBL do mathematics teachers across Europe develop? 2. How do these beliefs relate to teachers' perceived enactments of IBL?

In this study, the variables having impact on the student motivation have been analyzed based on the articles, conference papers, master's theses and doctoral dissertations published in the years 2000-2017. A total of 165 research papers were selected for the research material and the data were collected through qualitative research techniques through document review and content analysis. According to the research results, the most important factors affecting student motivation are the fields of teacher, teachers' classroom management skills and their teaching methods. In this research, factors having less influence on the student motivation are parental communication, student characteristics and study fields. In addition, relational search type was used more than others, mostly students were selected as the study group and most researches were conducted in USA and Turkey.

Renewable energy (RE) is one of the most popular public policy orientations worldwide. Compared to some other countries and continents, Europe has gained an early awareness of energy and environmental problems in general. At the theoretical level, free-market environmentalism indicates that based on the principle of private property rights, with fewer state interventionist and regulation policies, entrepreneurs, as the driving force of the market economy, can provide better services to meet the necessity of offering RE to protect the environment more effectively. Previous studies have revealed that Germany, Denmark, and the United Kingdom have made some progress in using the market to develop RE. However, this research did not analyze the three countries' RE conditions from the perspective of free-market environmentalism. Based on our review of the principles of free-market environmentalism, this paper originally provides an empirical study of how Germany, Denmark, and the United Kingdom have partly conducted free-market-oriented policies to successfully achieve their policy goal of RE since the 1990s on a practical level. In particular, compared with Germany and Denmark, the UK has maintained a relatively low energy tax rate and opted for more pro-market measures since the Hayekian-Thatcherism free-market reform of 1979. The paper also discovers that Fredrich A. Hayek's theories have strongly impacted its energy liberalization reform agenda since then. Low taxes on the energy industry and electricity have alleviated the burden on the electricity enterprises and consumers in the UK. Moreover, the empirical results above show that the energy enterprises play essential roles in providing better and more affordable RE for household and industrial users in the three sampled countries. Based on the above results, the paper also warns that state intervention policies such as taxation, state subsidies, and industrial access restrictions can impede these three countries' RE targets. Additionally, our research provides reform agendas and policy suggestions to policymakers on the importance of implementing free-market environmentalism to provide more efficient RE in the post-COVID-19 era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the employment rates of people of pension age have increased considerably. However, longitudinal evidence on the effects of this employment on wellbeing which might contribute to an evaluation of this late-life work is scarce. Based on empirical findings so far and on theoretical approaches to wellbeing, work and retirement, both negative and positive effects of post-retirement work on life satisfaction are plausible. In this paper, we investigate the effects of taking up work again between the ages of 65 and 75 on life satisfaction in different occupational classes in Germany and the United Kingdom. We expect that not only the heterogeneous conditions and experiences of working are crucial for the consequences that post-retirement work has for life satisfaction, but also the institutional arrangements surrounding this form of work. We use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and the British Household Panel Survey, covering the 1990s and 2000s. Based on fixed-effects regression modelling, we find positive effects of working in both countries, although not all effects are significant. Differentiating by the class of the job in which the older person works, we find mainly positive effects and no significant differences between those who work in a lower-class job and all others. In addition, we find that the positive effect of working on life satisfaction is partly explained by increased satisfaction with household income for those working in a lower-class job in the United Kingdom. We conclude that many of the pessimistic assumptions about people working after pension age cannot be confirmed for our time of observation. However, there are several reasons for believing that the results will be different in the future or for differently defined populations of people working past pension age. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Recently, there has been growing focus on the intergroup influences of acculturation preferences, and in particular majority members' perceptions of how minority members want to acculturate. This paper contributes to this emergent literature by examining the extent to which majority members in the UK perceive that minority members' preferences for heritage culture maintenance and majority culture adoption are conflicting, and whether this is moderated by perceived threat. One hundred and sixty-three participants who self-reported being white British completed an online survey. Participants were asked about their perceptions of minority acculturation preferences for two target groups living in the UK: Pakistani and German minority groups. Overall, perceived culture maintenance and perceived culture adoption were weakly negatively associated for both groups. Moreover, results confirmed the pre-registered hypotheses, but only for the Pakistani target group. At higher levels of perceived threat, perceived culture maintenance was related to less perceived culture adoption. However, when threat was low, there was no association between perceived heritage culture maintenance and perceived culture adoption. For the German target group, threat did not moderate the relationship between perceived culture maintenance and perceived culture adoption. Findings suggest that depending on levels of perceived threat and the minority group in question, majority members perceiving that minority members maintain their heritage culture has different consequences. Results are discussed in relation to implications for integration, intergroup relations in culturally plural societies, and the need to focus on specific minority groups when studying acculturation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses how British popular music culture defined and responded to Krautrock, a subgenre of West German underground rock, during the 1970s. It examines and contextualises British and West German interactions in popular music immediately before Krautrock and at the time of its early definition. The article then explores how so-called Krautrock bands related to the British public and press and how they were described and understood in relation to their nationality. The article suggests that stereotypes and prejudices, shaped by the memory of World War 2, remained a significant aspect of British discourse on West Germany into the 1970s. However, interest in Krautrock gave rise to social and cultural interactions that inspired some to challenge and renegotiate ideas of Germany and Germanness. To some, bonds made through music, culture and politics proved more profound than the history of conflict between Britain and Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the health care systems in Europe are considered the global benchmark, European nations were severely affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This manuscript aimed to examine the strategies implemented to combat the COVID-19 pandemic by France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Russia and their outcomes in terms of the number of cases, testing, and deaths. This is the first review of its kind that extensively analyzes the preparedness, mitigation, and response strategies against the COVID-19 pandemic adopted by these nations. This paper further suggests a strategic preparedness model for future pandemics. From the analysis, we found that a decentralized approach, prompt decision-making and timely execution, coordination between local health authorities, and public participation in the implementation of strategies could substantially reduce the case fatality rate. Nations with a high percentage of gross domestic product invested in the health sector, as well as more nurses, physicians, hospital beds, intensive care unit beds, and ventilators, better managed the pandemic. Instead, nations that postponed their pandemic response by delaying tracking, tracing, testing, quarantine, and lockdown were badly affected. The lessons learned from the present pandemic could be used as a guide to prepare for further pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Scholarly interest in interorganizational learning (IOL) has spiked in the past decade because of its potential to absorb, transfer and create valuable knowledge for enhanced innovative performance and sustained competitive advantage. However, only a handful of review studies exists on the topic. The evolution of IOL has not been studied explicitly and there is a lack of understanding of the field trends. To fill this gap, this paper aims to comprehensively review the literature on IOL and map its evolution and trends using bibliometric techniques. In particular, the authors use visualization of science mapping freeware to systematize the findings and interpret the results. Design/methodology/approach: The authors synthesize the findings using "evaluative bibliometric techniques" to identify the quality and quantity indicators of the IOL research and use "relational bibliometric techniques" to determine the structural indicators of the IOL field such as the intellectual foundations and emerging research themes of IOL research. Findings: Through an analysis of 208 journal publications obtained from the Scopus database, the authors determine the leading authors, countries, highly cited papers and their contributions to the IOL literature. By identifying the key hotspots, intellectual foundations and emerging trends of IOL, the authors provide promising avenues in IOL research. Originality/value: To the best of the knowledge, this study is the first to systematically review the IOL literature and provide future research directions.

This paper presents new insights into the relationship between inequality in access to higher education and social stratification through the analytical lens of refugees' access to high participation systems of higher education (HPS). Taking stock of the growing numbers of refugees and their increasing—yet still marginal—demand for accessing higher education, the paper analyses the specific statuses and rights they are granted, and how they combine in two European Higher Education Area HPS, England and Germany. The comparative analysis draws on the desk-based study of immigration and access to higher education policies and mechanisms for refugees in the two countries. The concept of assemblage is called upon to highlight how complex combinations of asylum, welfare and access to higher education policies lead to differential rights which create different spaces of opportunity for refugees with higher education aspirations. More generally, analysing how these rights intersect allows for a better understanding of inequalities in access to higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on a comparative study of the UK and German operations of the McDonald's Corporation. The main focus of the paper is the interaction between multinational enterprises (MNEs) and the German system of co-determination. Commentators have suggested that industrial relations practices in host countries are particularly difficult for MNEs to avoid because they are so deeply embedded in societal frameworks. However, there are also opposing global pressures for MNEs to impose their industrial relations practices across national borders in order to transmit 'best practice' to their subsidiaries. Ferner and Edwards (1995) suggest that Germany is something of a 'test case' for MNEs because of the strength of its legislative underpinning and institutional arrangements. Most analysis on the German system of co-determination has suggested that it is only small and medium-sized firms which avoid or undermine the German system (Lane, 1989). However, evidence brought together in this study suggests that, along with other large companies and MNEs of different origins and across different industries, McDonald's have been able to take advantage of weaknesses in regulation in the German system of co-determination. The paper puts forward a typology of possible 'avoidance strategies' within the German system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper constructs estimates of labour productivity in three broad service sectors including distribution, transport and communication and financial and business services and for ten sub-sectors within these broad categories. It compares Great Britain with the U.S., Germany and France. These sectors are referred to as market services, cover most private service activities with the exception of personal services and domestic service. Defining market services as distribution, hotels and catering, transport and communications and financial and business services accounted for 34-43 percent of total employment in the four countries studied and 36-43 percent of GDP. For labour productivity in market services as a whole, France led Great Britain by 36 percent in 1993, Germany led Great Britain by 34 percent and the U.S. led Great Britain by 38 percent. There is a considerable difference between the ranking of countries in terms of living standards and in terms of productivity. The main reason is that there is a marked variation in the proportions of the population who work.

This article maps the scientific production and the contents associated with the sustainable development goals and their integration with universities during the past 21 years. Although many of the topics related to sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been addressed in different studies for decades, it is since 2015 onwards that they gained greater prominence due to the inclusion of higher education as an important actor in the fulfillment of the 2030 agenda and the United Nations SDGs. For the purpose of this paper, a bibliometric analysis of 871 papers, 535 documents in Scopus, and 336 in Web of Science (WoS) from 1998 to 2019 was performed, and the Bibliometrix analysis tool was used. The objective of this mapping is to answer the following research question: Is the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals and Universities a field of study? An analysis of the network of collaborators and trend topics in Scopus and WoS allows us to identify the concurrence and relationships of some keywords, such as sustainable development, sustainability and planning, and some background words, such as humans and global health. In another analysis, the word "higher education" is related to change. This article suggests that the integration of the Sustainable Development Goals in Universities is becoming a field of study under exploration, with a peak of production in 2016 and that has remained stable in the last three years, but thanks to the leading role assigned to Universities, intellectual production should increase in the following years.

Mentoring is seen as one possible solution to support the individual development of competences in higher education. To allow this support for a large number of students, scalable technologies should be used and made available in a so called "Mentoring Workbench." In order to analyze the requirements for this "Mentoring Workbench," this paper, firstly, depicts seven mentoring roles, which can complement typical learning and teaching processes at universities. Based on an analysis of existing mentoring applications, the authors, secondly, work out to which extent these roles can be supported by existing technical solutions. As the market for mentoring software only covers part of the mentoring roles, the paper, thirdly, outlines further considerations on the technical support of the mentoring roles presented. Finally, we give an outlook on the first steps of technical implementation.

The principal objectives of this paper are to estimate and analyse the private value of patent rights in the United Kingdom, France and Germany during the post-1950 period, and to provide and consider some implications of an index of the `quality' (or average private value) of patents. Since patent rights are seldom marketed, their private value is in general unobserved. This paper makes inferences on the value of patent rights from the economic responses of patentees. in most countries patentees must pay an annual renewal fee in order to keep their patents in force. If it is assumed that agents make renewal decisions based on the value of the patent right obtained by renewal, then data on patent renewals and renewal fee schedules contain information on the distribution of the value of patent rights. In Section I we outline a simple economic model of patent renewal decisions which, when combined with the renewal data, allows us to estimate the distribution of the private value of patent protection. Section II describes the data set and provides some simple nonparametric evidence on shifts in the patent value distribution over time. In Section III we parameterise the model, and then present and discuss the estimates. This includes some discussion of the empirical correlates of intertemporal changes in the value distribution. Section IV derives estimates of the quantiles of the distribution of the value of patent rights, and compares our results to information on both the distribution of the value of patented ideas and on the resource cost of producing them. Section V considers some implications of our results for the distinction between measures of the quantity and the value of patents. The results indicate that the average value of patents varies across countries. We also use the estimates to examine the relationship between the decline in patenting activity since the late 1960s, the simultaneous fall in patents per unit of inventive output, and the contro... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines and analyses the major changes in work-force organization that have been introduced by British and German steel producers in the past decade, against a backcloth of retrenchment in the industry, new product development and technological change. Including multiskilling, a reduction in demarcation and team-working, these changes have had a major effect upon the composition of the work-force and the nature of work undertaken at the shopfloor level. While these changes have had a common broad trajectory, they have been introduced at a different pace and in different forms. The contrasts are provided not only at the international level, but between plants in the same countries. The paper further outlines the response of trade unions to these changes and the implications for industrial relations at the shopfloor level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact that one feature of a country's institutional context the party system has on public support for governing parties in two West European democracies, Germany and Great Britain. Specifically, it argues that models of government popularity need to take politics and institutions into account, and need to do so in a systematic fashion. Using measures of party system fractionalization and public opinion data spanning the period from 1960 to 1990, the paper demonstrates that the effects of economic conditions on government support are mediated by the choices available to citizens to express discontent with the ruling party. The greater the effective number of parties in a system, the stronger the effects of macro-economic performance on support for the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a comparative study on the mathematics textbooks used in primary schools in Great Britain and continental countries like Switzerland, and Germany. It shows that mental arithmetic was given priority than pencil-and-paper methods in the Continent, while vertical layout is more common in English textbooks. The teaching of two-digit number puts emphasis on complete numbers as a whole in the Continent, while English teaching focuses on dissecting numbers based on place value.

The article examines the price linkages of three major United States-traded country funds--Germany, Japan and Great Britain--with their own national and the United States stock markets. A country fund was created as an indirect alternative, to direct portfolio investments in the country's stock markets. As such, given the scope of investments limited to a single country, it is expected a priori that fund prices have some degree of sensitivity to local market conditions (the country of investments). The degree to which fund prices are related to local market prices has important implications, for both short-term and long-term investors, in terms of their investment strategies regarding that market. Moreover, since a (US-listed) country fund is also an asset traded in the US, its pricing is also likely to be related to US market developments. The relation between the fund and the US market indicates the extent to which the country fund can be treated as a US security. The purpose of this paper is to study the pattern of cointegration and causality, between the country fund and national stock prices.

In times of economic crisis, many employers in liberal labor markets reduce their employees' working hours, which leads to an increase in the incidence of involuntary part-time work. We analyze the effectiveness of working time regulation in preventing such an increase during downswings. For this we look at the case of Germany, where hours adjustments are highly restricted by law. Using a state-level panel regression approach, we find that the incidence of involuntary part-time work is positively associated with the unemployment rate but that the association is much weaker than in the US and in the UK. Transition probabilities between employment states over the cycle suggest two particular underlying mechanisms: First, already employed workers are more likely to want a full-time position in economic downturns ("added hours effect"). Second, job seekers make concessions with regards to their desired hours when labor market conditions are bad ("reservation hours effect"). We are the first to document these margins of cyclical hours adjustments which are fundamentally different from those in less regulated labor markets, where the cyclicality of involuntary part-time work is predominantly driven by hours changes at the same employer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 9/11, considerable research has been done on US interrogation and detention operations, but comparatively little is known about the involvement of other traditionally liberal states' intelligence agencies and their evolving perspectives on torture-related policies for foreigners abroad. Particularly, the United Kingdom and Germany provide interesting cases; despite similar levels of public and political pressure regarding their indirect involvement in Central Intelligence Agency's operations, the two states took different strategic decisions in 2010 on whether to implement new extraterritorial human rights safeguards. While the United Kingdom introduced a new intelligence guidance for interrogations overseas, the German government opted for policy-continuance, which raises the question why the two states embarked on different policy trajectories, even if they found themselves in contextually similar situations and were subjected to the comparable accountability measures. By bridging insights from Rationalist and normative literature, the article addresses this conundrum by clearly outlining the states' differing strategic preferences, and by dissecting the multi-layered composition of these interests. As a result, the article delineates how strategic constraints pertaining to the states' national, international, or political elite level affect decision-makers' policy responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Financing entrepreneurship spurs innovation and economic growth. Digital financial platforms that crowdfund equity for entrepreneurs have emerged globally, yet they remain poorly understood. We model equity crowdfunding in terms of the relationship between the number of investors and the amount of money raised per pitch. We examine heterogeneity in the average amount raised per pitch that is associated with differences across three countries and seven platforms. Using a novel dataset of successful fundraising on the most prominent platforms in the UK, Germany, and the USA, we find the underlying relationship between the number of investors and the amount of money raised for entrepreneurs is loglinear, with a coefficient less than one and concave to the origin. We identify significant variation in the average amount invested in each pitch across countries and platforms. Our findings have implications for market actors as well as regulators who set competitive frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its common usage, the meaning of 'democratic' in democratic intelligence oversight has rarely been spelled out. In this article, we situate questions regarding intelligence oversight within broader debates about the meanings and practices of democracy. We argue that the literature on intelligence oversight has tended to implicitly or explicitly follow liberal and technocratic ideas of democracy, which have limited the understanding of oversight both in academia and in practice. Thus, oversight is mostly understood as an expert, institutional and partially exclusive arrangement that is supposed to strike a balance between individual freedom and collective security, with the goal of establishing the legitimacy of and trust in intelligence work in a national setting. 'Healthy' or 'efficient' democratic oversight then becomes a matter of technical expertise, non-partisanship, and the ability to guard secrets. By analysing three moments of struggle around what counts as intelligence oversight across Germany, the UK, and the US, this article elucidates their democratic stakes. Through a practice-based approach, we argue that oversight takes much more agonistic, contentious, transnational, and public forms. However, these democratic practices reconfiguring oversight remain contested or contained by dominant views on what constitutes legitimate and effective intelligence oversight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Educators require focused training to foster the development of intercultural competence in nurses. Training programs for educators need to be based on a comprehensive profile with a focus on intercultural learning. This study aims to define and validate a profile of the Intercultural Nursing Educator (INE). Method: The Delphi method was used with an iterative, multi-stage process to transform opinions into group consensus. A total of 46 European, African, and American experts from the nursing and intercultural field participated. Inclusion criteria required English at a level of B2, expertise in the field of intercultural competence, experience in teaching intercultural competence in the nursing context, and publications focused on intercultural topics. Results: The INE profile was developed and all 126 competencies were validated. Discussion and conclusion: The profile is freely available on the project website and provides the basis for curricula, training programs and assessment of the required competences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The aim of this research is to investigate the positive effects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on loyalty to retailers through trust dimensions (competence, benevolence and integrity) taking into account socio-cultural factors (social norms and collectivism) across nations. Design/methodology/approach: The authors carried out three quantitative studies (N = 948) in three countries (France, Germany and the United Kingdom [UK]). They then used structural equation modelling to test the model and hypotheses. Findings: The results show contingent positive effects of CSR perception on customer loyalty. They underscore indirect effects of CSR on loyalty through the mediation of specific dimensions of trust (competence, benevolence and integrity). The authors also identify significant moderations such that the effects of social norms on CSR and loyalty are stronger in France/Germany than in the UK. The effects of collectivism on CSR and loyalty are stronger in France than in Germany and the UK. Practical implications: Retailers can rely on CSR and trust to increase loyalty directly. When communicating CSR activities, retailers have to account for cultural differences in their main markets and adopt adjusted strategies to convince consumers about their CSR efforts. Retailers should understand the social norms of their customers in order to determine the effectiveness of disclosing CSR initiatives. Originality/value: Using a cross-cultural perspective, this article extends and enriches knowledge on the relationship between CSR, social norms and loyalty in retailing in different cultural settings. It also underscores the role of trust in building loyalty across nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statistical data which may be useful to students of economic change are presented in this paper. It interprets long-run statistical series on the growth of educational employment in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany, and provides information on the changes in the relative importance of employment in public schools to total governmental employment and to total employment over the long run. Finally, an analysis of the statistical record indicates that some potentially interesting interrelationships exist between the different proportions of school-age population attending public school, teacher-student ratios, and different ratios of school-age populations to total employment in these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While ChatGPT has recently become very popular, AI has a long history and philosophy. This paper intends to explore the promises and pitfalls of the Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) AI and potentially future technologies by adopting a speculative methodology. Speculative future narratives with a specific focus on educational contexts are provided in an attempt to identify emerging themes and discuss their implications for education in the 21st century. Affordances of (using) AI in Education (AIEd) and possible adverse effects are identified and discussed which emerge from the narratives. It is argued that now is the best of times to define human vs AI contribution to education because AI can accomplish more and more educational activities that used to be the prerogative of human educators. Therefore, it is imperative to rethink the respective roles of technology and human educators in education with a future-oriented mindset.

Goal: The problem of the authenticity of teacher questions has not received sufficient attention from educational researchers interested in the intersection between dialogue and argumentation. In this paper, we adopt a definition of authentic questions as dialogical units that prompt teacher-student interactions that are both productive (i.e., several students participating) and constructive (i.e., students produce arguments of high complexity). Our goal is to analyze whether and how specific types of dialogue prompts can encourage students' engagement in more sophisticated argumentative interactions, as manifested through the construction of high-complexity arguments. Method: We describe the implementation of our analytical approach to a large corpus of classroom interactions from five European countries. The corpus was segmented into dialogical sequences, which were then coded according to the argumentation dialogue goal expressed in the sequence. We also coded students' arguments according to Toulmin's elements and distinguished between low- and high-complexity arguments from a structural point of view. Findings: Our findings show the predominance of the so-called Discovery questions as prompts that are both productive and constructive and Inquiry questions as prompts of argumentative constructive interactions. We discuss the importance of these findings for teacher professional development purposes.

In this work, a bibliometric analysis of the investigations of the last 54 years focused on the teaching of topology and its applications in the learning of other areas of knowledge was carried out. The articles that appear in the SCOPUS database were taken into account under the search criteria of the words topology and teaching, connected with the Boolean expression AND in the search field ABS. As a result, 329 articles were obtained which, based on the PRISMA methodology, were reduced to 74 papers. In them publication trends, impact of publications, citation frequencies, among others, were compared. In addition, its use was identified for learning topology at different levels of training, areas of knowledge where this discipline is most applied and strategies used to teach these applications.

According to the theory of instrumental actualization in mediated conflicts, the mass media tend to exaggerate events consistent with the editorial line. This theory was tested using press coverage in Germany, Switzerland, France, and the United Kingdom on the Japanese seaquake, the tsunami it caused, and the nuclear disaster of Fukushima. Within a period of seven weeks after the seaquake, the coverage in the four countries in 27 national newspapers and magazines on the three events was analyzed. As hypothesized from theory, German and Swiss media concentrated on Fukushima and stressed its relevance to domestic nuclear plants, whereas French and British media placed a greater emphasis on the tsunami and rarely related the nuclear catastrophe in Japan to domestic nuclear programs. In addition, there were remarkable correlations between the views of journalists and the bias of statements on nuclear energy presented in their news sections. Findings are discussed and related to the theory of public opinion and political decisions in liberal democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The economic and political crisis of 1931 provoked the reappearance of rank and file movements in Britain. This article examines the unofficial organisations that developed in building, engineering, passenger transport and the railways – as well as more ephemeral bodies. It critically synthesises the existing historiography and replenishes it with new material from the Russian archives. The progress of rank and filism to 1939 is surveyed and the largely forgotten project of a new Communist-led rank and file organisation, a Trade Union Militant League, which would supersede the National Minority Movement, is recuperated. The article stresses the role of Comintern policy in harnessing and moulding grass-roots rebellion. It validates that strand in the literature which argues that Moscow’s subsequent turn to the popular front and aspirations to alliances with labour movement leaders predominated over, and legitimated, indigenous influences, enhanced existing adaptation to trade unionism, and encouraged subordination of oppositional movements to activity in official structures. By 1939, the Communists had abandoned the idea of a national rank and file movement they had pursued since 1923. Little survived of the revolutionary enterprise launched in 1931. Rank and filism endured only as a handful of sectional, party-sponsored, trade union ginger groups. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Myasthenia gravis is one of the neurological diseases with a relatively recent history, full of mistakes, in which the British and German neurology schools have attempted to find answers when confronted with the unknown. The paper aims at making a historical account of the disease from its discovery in the 16th century, when the first case of myasthenia gravis was medically diagnosed, to the beginning of the 20th century, when the dawn of modern therapy started to show. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a compilation of personal reflections from 66 contributors on the impact of, and responses to, COVID-19 in accounting education in 45 different countries around the world. It reveals a commonality of issues, and a variability in responses, many positive outcomes, including the creation of opportunities to realign learning and teaching strategies away from the comfort of traditional formats, but many more that are negative, primarily relating to the impact on faculty and student health and well-being, and the accompanying stress. It identifies issues that need to be addressed in the recovery and redesign stages of the management of this crisis, and it sets a new research agenda for studies in accounting education.

Aim/Purpose: As e-Learning becomes increasingly pervasive, students' engagement in online settings emerges as a central challenge, as it is often more demanding to ensure in this context. The core importance of engagement for e-Learning, places a focus on various instruments and strategies that can be deployed to foster its enhancement. Background: Gamification is often depicted as a significant instrument to drive engagement, behavior change, and loyalty, which can be of great significance to online learning. This paper aims to examine the relationship between the application of gamification tools and the level of engagement in e-Learning websites. Methodology: This research used two methods: the analysis of e-Learning websites and an online survey with a convenience and purposive sample of e-Learning and/or gamification experts. Contribution: This paper adds to the existing body of research by placing and emphasis on and examining the positive role of gamification as an engagement instrument with valuable potential for e-Learning. Findings: The results showed that the majority of the selected e-Learning websites use gamification and engagement elements and that the tools that are more commonly used were deemed as the most effective, by the experts. It became equally evident that the deployment of a larger number of gamification and engagement elements have positive repercussions in the enhancement of engagement, which can have constructive ramifications for the effectiveness of eLearning. Recommendations for Practitioners: From a practitioner's viewpoint the findings can assist both learning designers and teachers in the creation of gamification strategies to enhance students' engagement. As a central challenge of e-Learning courses, engagement requires a multifaceted approach to be addressed effectively and knowing the strategies that have positive outcomes is a step forward in ensuring that the students can enroll in online courses and not be compromised with respect to their engagement. Finally, the lack of engagement can have serious repercussions not only on the learning experience of the students, but also on their actual academic performance. Hence, it is important to guide educators towards good design practices that can maximize engagement in these settings. Recommendations for Researchers: From a research perspective, these findings add to a growing body of studies that focus on the benefits of gamification by highlighting its positive repercussions on engagement and identifying which elements are more effective. In addition, the use of different sources of data provided a wider illustration of what is currently the use of gamification elements by functioning e-Learning websites and how those who apply them in practice in their courses perceive these elements.

This paper outlines research exploring differences in approach to outsourcing and offshoring by multinational corporations. In particular, a comparison is drawn between German and UK headquartered organizations in the airline / transport and also the engineering sectors. A novel conceptual framework is developed that uses differing varieties of capitalism (VoC) to compare and contrast a series of criteria. Underlying theory that is drawn from the resource based view (RBV) of the firm and global production networks (GPNs) are also considered. The initial findings from two case studies are that German organizations are less inclined to outsource (in both sectors) preferring to retain control as a wholly owned business offshore. The UK businesses were less risk adverse and seemed to be more flexible and agile in their sourcing policies being prepared to outsource, offshore and partner or acquire as appropriate, even using competitors when there is a sound business case. The relationships' with trade unions / works council was alsofound to be very different, with reluctance by management in Germany to progress radical initiatives. A favorable economy in Germany has also created an environment in which overseas expansion could take place without a significant loss of jobs at home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over two decades now, the application of Citizen Science to Education has been evolving, and fundamental topics, such as the drivers of motivation to participate in Citizen Science projects, are still under discussion. Some recent developments, though, like the use of Artificial Intelligence to support data collection and validation, seem to point to a clear-cut divergence from the mainstream research path. The objective of this paper is to summarise the development trajectory of research on Citizen Science in Education so far, and then shed light on its future development, to help researchers direct their efforts towards the most promising open questions in this field. We achieved these objectives by using the lens of the Affordance-Actualisation theory and the Main Path Analysis method.

Although concepts such as research without borders have become more commonplace in recent decades, few studies have investigated the capabilities that global researchers require to cross both cultural and disciplinary borders. This paper explores global capabilities along with strategies and spaces that may facilitate academic researchers' acquisition and development of global research competence. The study's dataset comprises responses of 26 participants across 15 countries -- all of whom are members of a specific comparative education society -- who contributed their views via e-questionnaire. Findings indicate that research capacity building is a dynamic process and global competence calls for complex skills and conscious attitudes. Commitment to expand scientific curiosity beyond one's own culture and academic discipline appears to be a main criterion in achieving global competence. Results of this study are not meant to be prescriptive but rather exploratory and informative for a broad group of academic stakeholders.

Beginning in the mid-1980s, European governments have increasingly implemented performance-based funding systems for higher education. While a focus on the transnational pressures that contributed to the widespread adoption of performance-based funding in Europe accounts for the impetus for performance-based funding policies, it fails to address how and why the resultant performance-based funding policies are as distinct and different as they are. In this paper, I argue that an institutional logics perspective offers a theoretical account of the performance-based funding policy formation process. I use the United Kingdom (UK), Germany, and France as case studies. I contend that in these three cases, different local logics drove the performance-based funding policy formation process.

Background: Patient safety in primary care is an emerging field of research with a growing evidence base in western countries but little has been explored in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries (GCC) including the Sultanate of Oman. This study aimed to review the literature on the safety culture and patient safety measures used globally to inform the development of safety culture among health care workers in primary care with a particular focus on the Middle East. Methods: A systematic review of the literature. Searches were undertaken using Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL and Scopus from the year 2000 to 2014. Terms defining safety culture were combined with terms identifying patient safety and primary care. Results: The database searches identified 3072 papers that were screened for inclusion in the review. After the screening and verification, data were extracted from 28 papers that described safety culture in primary care. The global distribution of the articles is as follows: the Netherlands (7), the United States (5), Germany (4), the United Kingdom (1), Australia, Canada and Brazil (two for each country), and with one each from Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The characteristics of the included studies were grouped under the following themes: safety culture in primary care, incident reporting, safety climate and adverse events. The most common theme from 2011 onwards was the assessment of safety culture in primary care (13 studies, 46%). The most commonly used safety culture assessment tool is the Hospital survey on patient safety culture (HSOPSC) which has been used in developing countries in the Middle East. Conclusions: This systematic review reveals that the most important first step is the assessment of safety culture in primary care which will provide a basic understanding to safety-related perceptions of health care providers. The HSOPSC has been commonly used in Kuwait, Turkey, and Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The UK's and Germany's coal phase-out pathways diverge in timing and measures. • Different powers of actor groups contribute to diverging trends in UK and Germany. • Influential German coal corporations and unions slow down coal's decline. • Energy security concerns, domestic mining and economic dependence create resistance. • Reducing the influence incumbents have on policy making might enable coal phase-out. Political decisions and trends regarding coal use for electricity generation developed differently in the UK and Germany, despite being subject to relatively similar climate protection targets and general political and economic conditions. The UK agreed on a coal phase-out by 2024. In Germany, a law schedules a coal phase-out by 2038 at the latest. This paper investigates reasons for the different developments and aims to identify main hurdles and drivers of coal phase-outs by using the Triple Embeddedness Framework. The comparative case study approach reveals that policy outcomes regarding coal consumption are deeply influenced by several actor groups, namely, coal companies, unions, environmental NGOs, and the government. The most discussed aspects of a coal phase-out in both countries are energy security concerns, whether coal is mined domestically, (regional) economic dependence, as well as the relative power of actors with vested interests in coal consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Local wound infections are a major challenge for patients and health professionals. Various diagnostic and therapeutic options are available. However, a generally accepted standard is still lacking in Europe. The aim was to develop an easy-to-use clinical score for the early detection of local wound infections, as a basis for decisionmaking on antiseptic therapy or decolonisation. Method: An interdisciplinary and interprofessional panel of experts from seven European countries was brought together to discuss the various aspects of diagnosing local wound infections. Results: The result was the adoption of the Therapeutic Index for Local Infections (TILI) score, developed in Germany by Initiative Chronische Wunden e.V., specifically for health professionals not specialised in wound care. Available in six European languages, the TILI score could also be adapted for different European countries, depending on their specific national healthcare requirements. The six clinical criteria for local wound infection are erythema to surrounding skin; heat; oedema, induration or swelling; spontaneous pain or pressure pain; stalled wound healing; and increase and/or change in colour or smell of exudate. Meeting all criteria indicates that antiseptic wound therapy could be started. Regardless of these unspecific clinical signs, there are also health conditions for the clinical situation which are a direct indication for antimicrobial wound therapy. These include the presence of wound pathogens, such as meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, septic surgical wound or the presence of free pus. Conclusion: The development of the new internationally adapted TILI score, which could also be used by any caregiver in daily practice to diagnose local infections in acute and hard-to-heal wounds, is the result of expert consensus. However, the score system has to be validated through a clinical evaluation. This is to be performed in expert centres throughout Europe. Declaration of interest: JD has received research support, lecture fees and travel-cost reimbursements from 4M, Coloplast, Convatec, Draco, Engelhardt, Paul Hartmann, KCI, Lohmann&Rauscher, Mölnlycke, SastoMed and Urgo. RL has received research support, lecture fees and travel-cost reimbursements from Mölnlycke and Urgo. AK has received research support, lecture fees and travel-cost reimbursements from 3M, B. Braun Melsungen, Bode/Paul Hartmann, Ethicon, Lohmann&Rauscher, Mundipharma, Oculus, SastoMed Schülke&Mayr, SERAG-WIESSNER and Urgo. JVS has received research support, lecture fees and travel-cost reimbursements from Mundipharma, Histocell, Quesper and Urgo. This work was supported by an unlimited grant from Urgo Medical. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of Urgo Medical. The company had no direct influence on the content of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The modern Learning City concept emerged from the work of OECD on lifelong learning with streams of Learning Cities and Educating Cities having much in common but having little contact with each other. While the early development of Learning Cities in the West has not been sustained, the present situation is marked by the dynamic development of Learning Cities in East Asia--especially in China, the Republic of Korea, and Taiwan. In this context, the paper discusses the evolution of three generations of Learning Cities since 1992 and speculates on the future. The experience of the first generation is discussed in terms of development in the UK, Germany, Canada, and Australia where initiatives, with some exceptions, have not been sustained. Beijing and Shanghai are discussed as examples of the innovative second generation in East Asia, which is seen as a community relations model in response to the socio-economic transformation of these countries. International interest in Learning Cities has now been enhanced following a major UNESCO International Conference on Learning Cities in Beijing in October 2013, which is to be followed by a Second International Conference in Mexico City. The Beijing Conference adopted the Beijing Declaration on Learning Cities supported by a Key Features document. The paper speculates on possible future development post Mexico City, including the situation in Australia, which is seen as opening opportunities for innovative initiatives.

Background: Decision-making during pregnancy regarding different options of care can be difficult, particularly when risks of intervention versus no intervention for mother and baby are unclear. Unbiased information and support for decision making may be beneficial in these situations. The management of normal pregnancies at and beyond term is an example of such a situation. In order to determine the need to develop an evidence-based decision aid this paper searches, analyses and appraises patient decision aids and patient information leaflets regarding care options in cases of late term and post-term pregnancies, including complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Methods: A literature search was carried out in a variety of lay and medical databases. Inclusion criteria: written information related to uncomplicated singleton pregnancies and targeted at lay people. Analysis and appraisal of included material by means of quality criteria was set up based on the International Patient Decision Aid Standards accounting for evidence-basing of CAM options. Results: Inclusion of two decision aids and eleven leaflets from four decision aids and sixteen leaflets. One decision aid met the quality criteria almost completely, the other one only insufficiently despite providing some helpful information. Only one leaflet is of good quality, but cannot substitute a decision aid. Conclusions: There is an urgent need for the design of an evidence-based decision aid of good quality for late-term or post-term pregnancy, particularly in German language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign-owned firms help to disseminate management practices across UK companies; this includes the ability of indigenous firms to learn improved human resource management (HRM) practices from leading foreign companies. Analysing the transfer of HRM policies forms an important strand of the international HRM and comparative capitalisms literatures; however, large-scale, comparative studies of voice patterns in German, US and, in particular, French subsidiaries in the UK are limited. This paper draws on a major survey that includes the, to date, largest sample of French MNC subsidiaries. It does not simply identify the existence of different kinds of voice mechanisms, but examines how these different practices come together in the implementation of subsidiaries' voice policies. This enables the detection of subtle, but important, differences in the subsidiaries' voice practices. French subsidiaries are significantly less likely to pursue a partnership approach to voice than their German and US counterparts. French and US establishments are significantly more likely to adopt a ‘bleak house’ approach than German ones. Importantly, these key differences only emerge at a fine-grained level of analysis that examines how subsidiaries implement voice practices. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focusses on coping strategies employed by children and adolescents with diagnosed short stature, assesses the impact of socio-demographic and clinical characteristics on coping, examines the relationship between coping and health related quality of life (QoL) and investigates the role of coping strategies in mediating the relationship between height and QoL. Coping with a disease (CODI) and quality of life in short stature youth (QoLISSY-QoL) questionnaires were completed by 137 short-statured children and adolescents between 8 and 18 years, participating in the crosssectional European QoLISSY study. Clinical and socio-demographic data were collected to examine differences in coping via variance and regression analyses, associations between CODI and QoLISSY were inspected using correlation and mediation analyses. Most frequently employed coping strategies in the CODI were 'Acceptance' and 'Wishful Thinking', with 'Emotional Reaction' used least. Significant effects of age, diagnosis and treatment status on coping strategies were detected. CODI scales 'Acceptance' and 'Distance' were associated with higher QoLISSY-QoL scores, 'Emotional Reaction' and 'Wishful Thinking' with lower scores. Coping strategies predicted 60 % of the QoLISSY-QoL variance. Relationships between height deviation and QoLISSY-QoL were mediated by the coping strategies of 'Wishful Thinking' and 'Distance'. Findings suggest that coping efforts vary with socio-demographic and clinical characteristics, that protective coping strategies in terms of QoL can be identified and that coping mediates the relationship between short stature and QoL. Future longitudinal research should focus on the adaptive function of coping in relation to QoL over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In ‘inventing’ and exporting modern sports to the world, the British influenced innumerable people. However, by the inter-war period, there was a general anxiety regarding British decline. The reasons were threefold. First, British health and fitness experts underlined the low physical standards of their people. Second, it became evident that Britain's leading position in international sport was under threat. Third, the fascist states seemed to be doing particularly well in this area. How could the British Empire last without strong men to defend it? Perhaps part of the solution might be found overseas in just the place where the present ‘danger’ came from. This paper studies this reversed influence and shows how German influence affected British fitness policies in the 1930s. In a period marked by appeasement, sports meetings, official visits and a large amount of cultural propaganda resulted in the sharing of British and German experiences. However, the attitude of the British was complex and their determination to go their own way limited the effectiveness of German influence. By the time the war broke out, the British had distanced themselves from German organization and values once again. The brief flirtation with fascist forms of physical culture was over. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper I investigate the resonance of the volumeThe Empire Strikes Backwithin the debates on racism in Germany since the late 1970s. I am interested in this long-term intellectual exchange in light of the current need to conceptualize racism in a European framework and thereby reflect upon the characteristics, concepts and possibilities of such a framework. I begin by situating the debate at that time within the context of the New Left. What connected both situations, in Germany and the UK, was an inscription of the then-ongoing anti-colonial and decolonial struggles of the South in the North, not least through the ‘retaliatory effect’ of migration movements and struggles of migration arriving in Europe. I argue that the understandings of racism and anti-racism are grounded in a materialist framework and that the concept of articulation helped and continues to help thinking the complexity and heterogeneity of the social. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper develops a two-stage stochastic mixed integer linear programming model to optimize Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) supply chains in Italy, Germany and the UK. Few works are present in the literature about this topic, thus this paper overcomes this limitation considering carbon supply chains producing different products. The objective of the numerical models is to minimize expected total costs, under the uncertainties of the production costs of carbon-dioxide-based compounds. Once carbon dioxide emissions that should be avoided are fixed, according to environmental protection requirements for each country, the optimal design of these supply chains is obtained finding the distribution of carbon dioxide captured between utilization and storage sections, the amount of different carbon-based products and the best connection between each element inside the system. The expected total costs for the CCUS supply chain of Italy, Germany and the UK are, respectively, 77.3, 98.0 and 1.05 billion€/year (1004, 613 and 164 €/ton CO2 captured). A comparison with the respective deterministic model, analyzed elsewhere, is considered through the evaluation of the Expected Value of Perfect Information (EVPI) and the Value of Stochastic Solution (VSS). The former is 1.29 billion€/year, 0.18 million€/year and 8.31 billion€/year, respectively, for the CCUS of Italy, the UK and Germany. VSS on the other hand is equal to 1.56 billion€/year, 0 €/year and 0.1 billion€/year, respectively, for the frameworks of Italy, the UK and Germany. The results show that the uncertain production cost in the stochastic model does not have a significant effect on the results; thus, in this case, there are few advantages in solving a stochastic model instead of the deterministic one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]