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Extensive media coverage of immigration, that is, media salience, has been thought to heighten anti‐immigrant attitudes among native‐born citizens by creating an information environment that portrays immigration as society's greatest problem. However, past empirical findings on the relationship between media salience and anti‐immigrant attitudes have been mixed. Some studies have observed that media salience increases hostility towards immigrants, while others have found it has no significant influence. This study investigates the underlying reasons for these inconsistent findings and demonstrates the need to revisit the meaning of issue importance. It employs the concept of public issue salience, the perception that immigration is the most important problem or concern about immigration, to find evidence. It argues that when the immigrant issue is a pivotal point of political competition, the immigration issue signals conflicts, connoting negativity so public issue salience and anti‐immigrant attitudes are closely related. On the other hand, in an environment where political elites reach a consensus, the immigration issue remains neutral so that they can be disentangled. The scope of media salience changes accordingly as well. This study chooses the United Kingdom and Germany for comparative research due to their similarities in immigration histories and the success of far‐right parties as well as differences in their major political parties' reactions to the issue. I match individual‐level longitudinal survey data to media article data and find clear country differences. In the United Kingdom, where political parties are polarized over the issue, public issue salience and anti‐immigrant attitudes are closely related so that media salience heightens them. In Germany, where political elites across different ideologies hold welcoming stances, their relationship is moderate. Media salience merely increases the perceived importance and does not increase anti‐immigrant attitudes. Contributions and implications are discussed with respect to political elites' role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess the prevalence and impact of neck pain during headache among respondents with migraine in the multicountry Chronic Migraine Epidemiology and Outcomes – International (CaMEO‐I) Study. Background: Neck pain among individuals with migraine is highly prevalent and contributes to disability. Methods: The CaMEO‐I was a prospective, cross‐sectional, web‐based study conducted in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, and the United States. A demographically representative sample of participants from each country completed a screening survey to evaluate headache characteristics. Respondents with headache were identified as having migraine or non‐migraine headache based on modified International Classification of Headache Disorders, third edition, criteria; those with migraine completed a detailed survey with migraine‐specific assessments. Results were stratified by the presence or absence of neck pain with headache (NPWH). For these analyses, data were pooled across the six countries. Results: Of 51,969 respondents who reported headache within the past 12 months, 14,492 (27.9%) were classified as having migraine; the remaining 37,477 (72.1%) had non‐migraine headache. Overall, 9896/14,492 (68.3%) of respondents with migraine headache reported NPWH, which was significantly higher (p < 0.001) than the proportion of respondents with non‐migraine headache who reported NPWH (13,536/37,477 [36.1%]). Among respondents with migraine, moderate‐to‐severe disability was significantly more prevalent for those with NPWH versus without (47.7% [4718/9896] vs. 28.9%, p < 0.001). Respondents with NPWH versus without also had significantly greater work productivity losses, at a median (interquartile range [IQR]) of 50.0 (20.0, 71.3) vs. 30.0 (0.0, 60.0) (p < 0.001), lower quality of life (Migraine‐Specific Quality of Life questionnaire version 2.1, median [IQR] Role Function–Restrictive domain score 60.0 [42.9, 74.3] vs. 68.6 [54.3, 82.9], p < 0.001), higher prevalence of depression and anxiety symptoms (depression, 40.2% [3982/9896] vs. 28.2% [1296/4596], p < 0.001); anxiety, 41.2% [4082/9896] vs. 29.2% [1343/4596], p < 0.001), higher prevalence of cutaneous allodynia during headache (54.0% [5345/9896] vs. 36.6% [1681/4596], p < 0.001), and higher prevalence of poor acute treatment optimization (61.1% [5582/9129] vs. 53.3% [2197/4122], p < 0.001). Conclusions: Nearly 70% of respondents with migraine reported NPWH. Individuals with migraine with neck pain during their headaches had greater disability, depression, anxiety, and cutaneous allodynia (during headache) than those without neck pain during their headaches. They also had diminished quality of life and work productivity, and poorer response to acute treatment compared with those without neck pain. Plain Language Summary: We looked at data from a web‐based study of over 51,000 people across Canada, France, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, and the United States to understand how neck pain affects people with migraine. We found that neck pain is common in people with migraine, and that those who have neck pain during their headaches have more disability, worse symptoms, more anxiety and depression, and poorer quality of life than those without neck pain. Our results show that neck pain is a serious problem for people with migraine, and it can worsen the negative impacts of migraine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrant students tend to underperform in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) subjects and are less likely to pursue higher education in STEM when compared with their nonmigrant peers. Given the substantial increase in migration, this disparity has been a central concern in science education in many European countries. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of an innovative science outreach program that brings together migrant students and STEM professionals with the same linguistic and cultural backgrounds. The program consists of one‐off workshops that follow an inquiry‐based approach and include hands‐on activities and science communication in the students' heritage language. Using surveys with adapted scales and open‐ended questions, we applied a randomized block design with waitlist control groups and repeated measures. Eighty‐three Portuguese‐speaking migrant students aged 6–17 years participated in the workshops in Germany and the United Kingdom. Results indicate that both the students and STEM professionals evaluated the program positively and that students who participated in the workshops tended to demonstrate an increase in their attainment value for science and an increase in their self‐concept of ability for the heritage language 4 weeks after the intervention when compared with students in the control condition. These effects were particularly pronounced for students with low prior motivation to study science or speak the heritage language. Our results thus show that it is possible to foster migrant students' attainment value for science and increase their self‐concept of ability regarding the heritage language through a brief science outreach intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Artificial intelligence (AI) has numerous applications in pathology, supporting diagnosis and prognostication in cancer. However, most AI models are trained on highly selected data, typically one tissue slide per patient. In reality, especially for large surgical resection specimens, dozens of slides can be available for each patient. Manually sorting and labelling whole‐slide images (WSIs) is a very time‐consuming process, hindering the direct application of AI on the collected tissue samples from large cohorts. In this study we addressed this issue by developing a deep‐learning (DL)‐based method for automatic curation of large pathology datasets with several slides per patient. Methods: We collected multiple large multicentric datasets of colorectal cancer histopathological slides from the United Kingdom (FOXTROT, N = 21,384 slides; CR07, N = 7985 slides) and Germany (DACHS, N = 3606 slides). These datasets contained multiple types of tissue slides, including bowel resection specimens, endoscopic biopsies, lymph node resections, immunohistochemistry‐stained slides, and tissue microarrays. We developed, trained, and tested a deep convolutional neural network model to predict the type of slide from the slide overview (thumbnail) image. The primary statistical endpoint was the macro‐averaged area under the receiver operating curve (AUROCs) for detection of the type of slide. Results: In the primary dataset (FOXTROT), with an AUROC of 0.995 [95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.994–0.996] the algorithm achieved a high classification performance and was able to accurately predict the type of slide from the thumbnail image alone. In the two external test cohorts (CR07, DACHS) AUROCs of 0.982 [95% CI: 0.979–0.985] and 0.875 [95% CI: 0.864–0.887] were observed, which indicates the generalizability of the trained model on unseen datasets. With a confidence threshold of 0.95, the model reached an accuracy of 94.6% (7331 classified cases) in CR07 and 85.1% (2752 classified cases) for the DACHS cohort. Conclusion: Our findings show that using the low‐resolution thumbnail image is sufficient to accurately classify the type of slide in digital pathology. This can support researchers to make the vast resource of existing pathology archives accessible to modern AI models with only minimal manual annotations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of the relationship between board diversity and corporate performance is a well‐documented area of research. Our analysis of the stock market in Germany and the United Kingdom (UK) from 2005 to 2018 contributes to the literature by considering different corporate constitutions (monistic and dualistic) as well as a variety of diversity factors and diversity potential factors in a uniform analytical framework. We implement the stock price performance as a company performance proxy because this can be observed more easily by non‐professional investors than Tobin's Q, commonly used in former studies, and represents a pure market‐based view of the company performance. Based on generalized least squares panel regressions (GLS), our results reveal no significant difference between monistic and dualistic corporate constitutions regarding a possible relationship between diversity and company performance. They support former studies that the size of a top management board is significantly negatively related to company performance in the long run. Furthermore, no significant correlation can be found between changes in a board in a fiscal year and company performance, which was analyzed for the first time in such a framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late 20th century, public discourse in Muslim‐minority countries has centered around the question of how to classify Muslims. In this paper, we compare the state, academic, and self‐classification of Muslims in two countries: the United Kingdom and Germany. We propose that the historical experience of anti‐Semitism makes religion a more salient master category to understand Muslims in Germany, while the history of both anti‐Semitism and anti‐Black racism largely resulting from colonial domination means that religion together with race are master categories used to understand Muslims in the United Kingdom. Through this multilayered ethnographic and historical analysis, we challenge taken‐for‐granted assumptions in both the political and academic milieu about what it means to be Muslim, emphasizing the importance of the interplay between sociopolitical categories and self‐identifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores people's acts of disengagement from activist campaign and group spaces in the context of border struggle activism in Germany and the UK as fugitive practices of refusal. These acts of disengagement took the form of remaining silent or intentionally distracted, sleeping during activist meetings, distancing oneself from activist groups during conversations, or completely withdrawing from these spaces. The paper approaches these acts, first, as practices of refusal that expose notions of the political rooted in liberal struggles over power and freedom as not only risky but also inherently self‐defeating and, second, as radically optimistic and vitalising practices of recovery and care that insist on alternative modes of thinking, practising, and experiencing sociality and the political that can inspire us to consider political agency in relation to wider abolitionist projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the high costs and strategic importance of expatriate assignments, expatriate performance management (EPM) plays an increasingly important role for multinational enterprises (MNEs). However, research on EPM is still in its infancy. Drawing from the convergence/divergence debate in international human resource management, this study investigates and compares EPM strategies and practices across MNEs from three different country clusters to better understand whether EPM practices tend to converge, diverge, or crossverge (i.e., show aspects of both). Results from surveying 132 Anglo‐Saxon, Germanic, and Japanese MNEs reveal prominent differences (divergence) at the EPM strategic level such that Japanese MNEs tend to pursue more ethnocentric staffing strategies and design EPM systems specifically tailored to expatriates. On the practice level, we found both commonalities and differences between Japanese and Anglo‐Saxon and Germanic MNEs, pointing toward crossvergence. Theoretical and practical implications of our results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Real‐world evidence is increasingly used to guide treatment and regulatory decisions for non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Real‐world treatment patterns and clinical outcomes among patients with advanced/metastatic NSCLC in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK (EU5) were assessed. Methods: This retrospective physician‐completed patient chart review assessed treatment patterns (regimen, duration of treatment [DOT], time to discontinuation), and clinical outcomes (duration of response [DOR], progression‐free survival [PFS], and overall survival [OS]) of patients with stage IIIB/C or IV NSCLC who received pembrolizumab‐based first‐line induction chemotherapy. Results: Overall, 322 patients were included; at first‐line maintenance (1LM), 92% had stage IV NSCLC, 68% had nonsquamous histology, and 89% had no central nervous system (CNS)/brain metastasis. The two most common 1LM regimens were pembrolizumab monotherapy (76% overall) and pembrolizumab + pemetrexed (21% overall). Docetaxel monotherapy was the most common second‐line regimen in all countries except Germany (54% overall). For 1LM therapy, the overall median DOT and DOR were 5 and 10 months, respectively; PFS was 7 months and OS was 8 months. Germany had a longer duration of each outcome except for DOR which was longer in Spain. Clinical outcomes were generally poorer for patients with squamous histology and CNS/brain metastases. Conclusions: This study demonstrated differences in treatment patterns and clinical outcomes in NSCLC across the EU5 and patient subgroups. Improved survival was generally associated with response to first‐line therapy, nonsquamous histology, and CNS/brain metastases absence. These real‐world data provide valuable insights which may aid treatment decision‐making and clinical trial design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the process of recruiting a researcher with a learning disability at a United Kingdom (UK) university. Topics discussed include how the editors choose the paper, the job application process, and how the team works together. The support needed by people with learning disabilities when they apply for a job is also mentioned.

This study provides novel evidence on trends in job stability in the United Kingdom and Germany, two capitalist economies with distinct sets of institutions and labour market reform trajectories. While we find evidence of an increase in short‐term jobs for men in both countries, we also find important differences in the overall patterns of change in the distribution of job tenure duration. The United Kingdom follows a masked instability pattern with opposite job stability trends for men and women. On the other hand, we find evidence of a polarization of the job tenure distribution among men and women in Germany. These findings are partly consistent with expectations from the dualization literature, emphasizing a growing segmentation of the labour market between insiders and outsiders. More generally, this study highlights the existence of multiple paths towards increased job instability that appear to be rooted in institutional differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: We analyze the effect of job loss on couple's fertility within 5 years, in the United Kingdom and Germany. We contribute to the literature by assessing to what extent a man's and a woman's job loss is consequential. Further, we study the effects based on couples' income, earnings division between partners, parental status, and women's age. Background: A job loss may decrease the couple's fertility as a drop in resources reduces parents' investments to devote to a newborn—or it may increase the risk of a new birth because a job loss reduces the opportunity cost of a birth, especially if the woman loses her job. Method: We analyze couples from large population‐representative panel surveys in Germany (N = 15,029) and the United Kingdom (N = 15,932) containing yearly information about employment, relationship status, and fertility histories. We carry out estimates with linear probability models and inverse probability weighting methods. Results: Our results show that men's and, to a large extent, women's job loss negatively affects the chances of birth, especially in the United Kingdom. The subgroups mostly hit are income‐egalitarian/female breadwinner and childless couples, with women in their mid‐20 s up to late 30 s in the United Kingdom; income‐egalitarian/male‐breadwinner families, with 35‐year to 40‐year‐old women and one child in Germany; middle‐income couples are relatively more affected in both countries. Conclusion: A job loss makes couples less likely to have a child, particularly if the affected partner is a woman. The income effect jointly with other "unemployment scars" likely prevails on the reduction of opportunity costs of job loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To develop a patient's attitude questionnaire regarding prevention in oral health for use internationally. Methods: Using a mixed methods approach, a questionnaire was developed and refined as part of ADVOCATE (Added Value for Oral Care) study, involving partners in six countries: Netherlands, Hungary, Denmark, Ireland, Germany, and the UK. A literature review explored the history of oral healthcare delivery systems to develop a template for each of the six ADVOCATE countries. A systematic review identified the perceived barriers and facilitators to preventive oral healthcare and underpinned a topic guide and established the patient questionnaire domains. Focus groups in each ADVOCATE country developed the first version of the questionnaire. Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) in each ADVOCATE country tested the questionnaire and led to further refinement. The questionnaire was produced in five languages. Content validity and reproducibility used principal component analysis (PCA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) refined the questionnaire. Results: The literature review aided an understanding of each country's oral healthcare system, and the findings from the 25 studies identified in the systematic review found the main barriers/facilitators to preventive oral healthcare were cost, knowledge (preventive treatments and advice), and a patient awareness and adherence to preventive advice/treatments. Interviews and focus groups with 148 participants in the ADVOCATE study identified receiving the appropriate level of care/feeling valued, cost, level of motivation/priority, not feeling informed, knowledge, and skill mix as the main barriers/facilitators. Fifty‐three PPIE members refined the questionnaire. The pilot questionnaire was tested with 160 participants. Non‐essential or highly correlated variables were then removed, leaving 38 items, covering 6 domains (cost, advice received, advice wanted, message delivery, motivation, knowledge, and responsibility) within the questionnaire. A second pilot test‐run was undertaken with 185 participants. The test‐re‐test reliability demonstrated strong consistency of responses between the two time points (kappa range 0.3–0.7, most p <.0011), which culminated with a final version of the Patient Attitudes to Prevention in Oral Health Questionnaire (PAPOH) questionnaire. Conclusions: This mixed‐methods approach enabled the development of a multi‐language attitudinal questionnaire for use with patients (PAPOH) to compare attitudes to oral disease prevention internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of finance in the development of trade draws increasing attention from economists and economic historians. Yet empirical studies, especially from an historical perspective, continue to be scarce. This study analyses the role of German and British foreign banks in the internationalisation of trade during the first globalisation. It creates a novel data set on the bilateral trade of Germany and Great Britain with the rest of the world and the number and geographical distribution of German and British foreign banks between 1881 and 1913. Using an augmented gravity model of trade, the article shows that banks had a significant positive impact on exports and imports and that this effect was even more pronounced in case of German banks and trade. Moreover, the effect of German banks on trade is the highest in the years closer to bank entry, supporting the idea of German banks being initiators of trade. In contrast, the effect of British banks seems constant over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An ongoing outbreak of monkeypox virus (MPXV) was first reported in the United Kingdom on 6 May 2022. As of 17 November, there had been a total of 80 221 confirmed MPXV cases in over 110 countries. Based on data reported between 6 May and 30 June 2022 in the United Kingdom, Spain, and Germany, we applied a deep learning approach using convolutional neural networks to evaluate the parameters of the 2022 MPXV outbreak. The basic reproduction number (R0) of MPXV was estimated to be 2.32 in the United Kingdom, which indicates the active diffusion of MPXV since the beginning of the outbreak. The data from Spain and Germany produced higher median R0 values of 2.42 and 2.88, respectively. Importantly, the estimated R0 of MPXV in the three countries tends to the previously calculated R0 of smallpox (3.50 to 6.00). Furthermore, the incubation (1/ε) and infectious (1/γ) period was predicted between 9 and 10 days and 4−5 days, respectively. The R0 value derived from MPXV is consistent with the significantly increasing number of cases, indicating the risk of a rapid spread of MPXV worldwide, which would provide important insights for the prevention and control of MPXV epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Regional variations in the adoption of diabetes technology may be reflected in population‐level metrics of glycaemic control. In this observational study, we aimed to assess the glycaemic impacts of transitioning from the Dexcom G5 Real‐Time Continuous Glucose Monitoring (RT‐CGM) System to the Dexcom G6 in three European countries. Methods: Anonymised RT‐CGM data (uploaded to the Dexcom Clarity app) were from users in Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom (UK) who transitioned from G5 to G6 between 9‐12 months after G6 launched in 2018. Primary endpoints were percent time in hypoglycaemia, percent time in range (TIR), user retention rates, device utilisation, and urgent low soon (ULS) alert utilisation. Metrics were computed for 3‐month intervals in the 2‐year study window. Results: In all three countries, the transition from G5 to G6 was associated with a clear decrease in hypoglycaemia. In months 0‐3 after transitioning, the median percent time 〈3 mmol/L (54 mg/dL) and 〈3.9 mmol/L (70 mg/dL) decreased by [0.12‐0.28] and [0.40‐0.43] percentage points, respectively, with another [0.11‐0.21] and [0.34‐0.65] percentage point decrease in months 3‐6 in the three countries analysed. TIR and CGM utilisation were sustained or improved slightly across all countries. At the end of the study window, the retention rate was [88.8‐94.8%] and ULS utilization was [83.9‐86.9%] in the three countries analysed. Conclusions: Similar RT‐CGM trends were observed across Germany, Sweden, and the UK. Improvements in hypoglycaemia occurred in all countries. The high retention of users may lead to sustained glycaemic benefits associated with RT‐CGM use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The benefits of completing household chores appear to transfer beyond managing day‐to‐day living. It is possible that chore engagement may improve executive functions, as engagement in chores require individuals to plan, self‐regulate, switch between tasks, and remember instructions. To date, little research has been conducted on household chores and executive functions in children, for whom these skills are still developing. Methods: Parents and guardians (N = 207) of children aged 5–13 years (M = 9.38, SD = 2.15) were asked to complete parent‐report questionnaires on their child's engagement in household chores and their child's executive functioning. Results: Results of the regression model indicated that engagement in self‐care chores (e.g., making self a meal) and family‐care chores (e.g., making someone else a meal) significantly predicted working memory and inhibition, after controlling for the influence of age, gender, and presence or absence of a disability. For families with a pet, there was no significant relationship between engagement in pet‐care chores and executive function skills. Conclusion: We strongly recommend that further research explore the relationship between chores and executive functions. It is possible that parents may be able to facilitate their child's executive function development through encouraging participation in chores, whereas chore‐based interventions (e.g., cooking programmes) may also be used to target deficits in ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose: Social engagement is an important active aging strategy to promote older adults' mental health. The purposes of this study were to compare social engagement in older populations around the world and explore associations with mental health outcomes. Materials and methods: An international cross‐sectional survey was conducted from 2017 to 2019. Data were retrieved from The International Social Survey Programme for a secondary data analysis across 30 countries. This study applied the Taxonomy of Social Activities and its six levels as operational definitions for a consistent concept of social engagement for international comparisons. Results: In total, 9403 older adults with a mean age of 72.85 ± 6.40 years responded. The highest levels of older adults' social engagement were found in Switzerland, Thailand, and New Zealand. Older adults of a higher age, with a lower educational level, who were permanently sick or disabled, who had no partner, who were widowed or whose civil partner had died, who lived alone, and who had lower self‐placement in society had significantly lower social engagement than did their counterparts. In the regression model, older adults' social engagement positively predicted general health, self‐accomplishment, and life satisfaction, but negatively predicted loneliness and depression. Conclusions: In aging societies worldwide, encouraging older adults' social engagement would be beneficial to promote mental health. Implications for nursing practice and health policies: Community professional nurses can develop strategies of social engagement based on the needs and sociodemographic factors of older adults to improve their mental health. Developing efficient strategies and local policies by learning from successful experiences in other countries is important to promote social engagement in aging societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper develops an individual‐based stochastic network SIR model for the empirical analysis of the Covid‐19 pandemic. It derives moment conditions for the number of infected and active cases for single as well as multigroup epidemic models. These moment conditions are used to investigate the identification and estimation of the transmission rates. The paper then proposes a method that jointly estimates the transmission rate and the magnitude of under‐reporting of infected cases. Empirical evidence on six European countries matches the simulated outcomes once the under‐reporting of infected cases is addressed. It is estimated that the number of actual cases could be between 4 to 10 times higher than the reported numbers in October 2020 and declined to 2 to 3 times in April 2021. The calibrated models are used in the counterfactual analyses of the impact of social distancing and vaccination on the epidemic evolution and the timing of early interventions in the United Kingdom and Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of the study is to investigate the relationship between the HEXACO personality model and Disintegration—representing a broad spectrum of psychotic‐like experiences and behavioral tendencies (Perceptual Distortions, General Executive/Cognitive Impairment, Enhanced Awareness, Paranoia, Mania, Flattened Affect, Apathy/Depression, Somatoform Dysregulation, and Magical Thinking) that are reconceptualized as a personality trait. In this preregistered study, we predicted that the Disintegration factor would separate from HEXACO. The replicability of the factorial structures of HEXACO and Disintegration subcomponents is investigated across the three national samples (UK, Germany, and Serbia), matched on key socio‐demographic variables. Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (ESEM) is used to study the invariance of the hypothesized seven‐factor structure (six HEXACO plus Disintegration). Support for the metric invariance of the seven‐factor structure based on HEXACO and Disintegration subcomponents/facets across the three nations was found. The Disintegration factor lied outside the HEXACO personality space with each of its nine subcomponents. The Disintegration factor appeared to be among the most coherent and replicable of the seven across the samples and units of measurement (facets and items). A broad spectrum of psychotic‐like experiences/behavioral tendencies relevant in understanding and explaining many aspects of everyday and long‐term (mal)adaptations is not captured by the HEXACO model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

System justification is a widely researched topic in social and political psychology. One major measurement instrument in system justification research is the General System Justification Scale (G‐SJS). This scale has been used, among others, for comparisons across social groups in different countries. Such comparisons rely on the assumption that the scale is measurement equivalent. However, this assumption has never been comprehensively tested. Thus, the present two studies assessed the measurement equivalence of the G‐SJS following classic measurement equivalence guidelines (i.e., multigroup confirmatory factor analyses) in Study 1 and using a new method for comparing larger numbers of groups in Study 2 (i.e., alignment optimization). In Study 1, we analysed the measurement equivalence in Great Britain (n = 444), Germany (n = 454), and France (n = 463). In Study 2, we used a publicly available dataset consisting of 66 samples from 30 countries (N = 13,495) to again assess the measurement equivalence of the scale. Results indicated (partial) metric equivalence, but not scalar equivalence in both studies. Overall, the studies indicate that mean comparisons across the examined countries are not warranted with the current form of the G‐SJS. The scale needs to be revised for valid cross‐country comparisons of means. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An economic model was developed to estimate the cost of negative pressure wound therapy with instillation and dwelling of a topical wound solution vs control therapies. Economic model inputs were means derived from the results of a recently published systematic review and meta‐analysis of 13 comparative studies of negative pressure wound therapy with instillation. Means across studies comprising complex acute and chronic wounds for negative pressure wound therapy‐instillation vs control (negative pressure wound therapy without instillation, gauze dressings, or gentamicin polymethylmethacrylate beads) groups were 1.77 vs 2.69 operating room visits (P =.008) and 9.88 vs 21.80 therapy days (P =.02), respectively. These inputs plus hospital cost data were used to model costs for the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. For the United States, Germany, and United Kingdom, respectively, economic model estimates of total potential per patient savings were $33 338, €8467, and £5626 for negative pressure wound therapy‐instillation group vs control, based on assumed number of OR visits during therapy, cost of therapy system, and length of therapy. Model results showed an overall potential cost‐savings with negative pressure wound therapy‐instillation vs control, based on fewer OR visits and shorter therapy duration as reported in the published systematic review and meta‐analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many researchers and practitioners consider ethnic segregation in neighbourhoods or schools detrimental to migrants' acculturation in host societies. Empirically, however, segregation is a 'mixed bag' and its effects depend crucially on the investigated acculturation domain (e.g., negative for language skills, positive for well‐being). As most prior studies have focused on a restricted spectrum of acculturation, a comprehensive assessment within one single study is needed to establish comparability across different acculturation domains. Among over 8000 immigrant‐background students from four countries, we investigated the association of classroom segregation, defined as opportunities for contact with natives and other migrants, with a broad spectrum of acculturation (academic, attitude‐related, identity‐related, social, health‐related, and psychological criteria). Some findings were consistent (e.g., academic acculturation), some were contrary to prior research (e.g., social acculturation). In sum, our results shed light on the 'mixed bag' of segregation and contribute to the understanding of a crucial social issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This article examines how unemployment affects the separation risk of heterosexual coresiding couples, depending on couples' household income and whether men or women become unemployed. Background: Unemployment may decrease the separation risk as a drop in resources makes separation more costly—or it may increase the separation risk if unemployment creates stress and reduces the quality of couple relations. Moreover, unemployment may be more detrimental for couples if men rather than women, or low‐earners rather than high‐earners, become unemployed. Method: This article adopts a couple perspective and assesses heterogeneous effects of unemployment on separation based on longitudinal data—large household panels from Germany and the UK using discrete‐time event history models. Results: For both countries, results show that the annual separation rate almost doubles after an unemployment spell: It increases from 0.9% to 1.6% per year. This effect does not vary when men or women lose their job. The separation risk after unemployment is somewhat higher for low‐income couples than high‐income couples in the UK, but overall differences are small. Conclusion: Findings show that unemployment does not strengthen unions, but makes them more vulnerable—regardless of which partner becomes unemployed and regardless of a household's economic resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study investigates whether and how fatherhood shapes the wage distribution in Britain, Finland, and Germany. Background: Existing research debates whether fatherhood is associated with greater wages. However, it remains unclear whether the association between fatherhood and wages varies along the wage distribution as well as institutional contexts. To explore this, we compare three countries that differ in their wage bargaining institutions and family policies. Method: We use unconditional quantile regression on longitudinal data from the 1995 to 2016 waves of the Finnish Linked Employer Employee data, German Socio‐Economic Panel, and UK Longitudinal Household Study. To control for selection into fatherhood, we combine quantile regressions with fixed effects techniques. Results: Results show little evidence of substantial fatherhood wage effects along men's wage distribution. In all countries, fathers' higher wages at the median and top of the wage distribution are mostly accounted for by selection, but fatherhood shifts the bottom part of the distribution to the left particularly in the UK. Conclusions: The extent to which having a child affects men's wages across the wage distribution is similar across three diverse policy contexts. Yet, differences across the wage distribution are larger in the UK. We argue this may be linked to its higher level of inequality typical of liberal labour markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Symbolic commitment is commonly acknowledged in the literature to be important for sustainability governance. Academics express high hopes and expectations of symbolic commitment as a means to strengthen sustainability institutions. Policy makers and bureaucrats see it as being necessary in order to keep an issue on the agenda. However, little is known about how symbolic commitment contributes to institutional resilience. This study examines the rise and fall of national institutions for implementing sustainability agendas in Germany, Finland, and the UK in the context of fluctuating symbolic commitment. Interviews with 56 policy actors and documentary analysis uncovered the creative role of bureaucrats in securing symbolic commitment. The risks of relying on symbolic commitment can be reduced by considering the impact of economic austerity and the loss of institutional memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Hypoglycaemic episodes and fear of hypoglycaemia can be burdensome for adults with type 1 diabetes. This study explored support needs relating to hypoglycaemia among adults with type 1 diabetes living in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Research design and methods: Respondents participated in a web‐based qualitative study involving four open‐ended questions that asked what they wished other people understood about hypoglycaemia and what other people could do differently to support them with hypoglycaemia. Responses were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results: Participants were 219 adults with type 1 diabetes (mean ± SD age 39 ± 13 years; mean ± SD diabetes duration 20 ± 14 years). They described unmet needs relating to: (1) Clinical support, involving access to new diabetes technologies, training on hypoglycaemia prevention, personalised care and psychological support; (2) Practical support, involving family and friends better supporting them with hypoglycaemia management and prevention; (3) Education for other people, involving others becoming more informed about hypoglycaemia; and (4) An appreciation of the burden, involving others recognizing the experience and impact of episodes, and the burden of living with the risk of hypoglycaemia. Conclusions: Adults with type 1 diabetes report several unmet support needs relating to hypoglycaemia. Service delivery should be person‐centred and prioritise the individual's support needs. Clinical conversations are needed to identify the individual's support needs and develop tailored support plans. People with diabetes and their family members should be offered hypoglycaemia‐specific education and training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This empirical study examines the causal links among renewable energy consumption (REC) and non‐renewable energy consumption (NREC) and economic growth in Germany, the UK and France between 1980 and 2019. To this purpose, we use two different approaches: Toda and Yamamoto (Journal of Econometrics, 66, 1995, 225) time causality test and Lemmens et al. (International Journal of Forecasting, 24, 2008, 414) frequency causality test. For UK and France, the results show no significant causality between Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and REC, which supports the neutrality hypothesis. Regarding NREC, similar findings are obtained. However, for Germany, the time approach indicates bi‐directional causality between REC and GDP, while the frequency approach shows uni‐directional causality from REC to GDP in the long‐run. Therefore, there is a consensus on the growth hypothesis in Germany. Furthermore, the frequency analysis displays also one way causal nexus running from Germany's GDP to NREC in long horizons. The policymakers in UK and France should take into account that renewables and energy conservation policies are neutral in respect to economic growth. As for Germany, measures of reducing NREC would not significantly damage GDP, and renewable energies promotion plan would be beneficial for economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies suggest that Uber and other tech start‐ups disrupt markets through regulatory entrepreneurship. This practice describes how such companies operate outside of regulation or in legal gray areas before mobilizing their customers in support of regulatory change. Financial technology (FinTech) is sometimes called the "Uber of banking," but banking reveals different political dynamics than the car‐for‐hire sector. Exploring the rise of online‐only banks in the UK and Germany, this article finds that start‐ups such as Starling, Monzo, and N26 challenged incumbents without breaking or remaking regulation. The regulatory entrepreneurship approach, which sees FinTech as a difficult case, and the state world of regulatory innovation, which views policy‐makers as seizing the opportunity created by new technology to reassess their relationship with incumbents, help to explain these findings. Its conclusions have relevance for wider debates about the governance of health care and legal services and the politics of disruption more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One feature of 'flexibilisation' concerns the growth of more individualised employment arrangements and career trajectories less connected to employing organisations. Informed by the Varieties of Capitalism approach, which emphasises the embeddedness of employment practices within discrete types of capitalist market economy, and based on rich qualitative data from interviews with 32 self‐employed and directly employed ICT professionals in the United Kingdom and Germany, we investigate comparative variation in their experience of flexibilisation. The research findings not only indicate some commonality, particularly in respect of perceptions of independence, but also highlight notable differences with regard to work pressures and insecurity. The paper advances theory by characterising two discrete varieties of flexibilisation, a 'liberalised' form evident in the United Kingdom and a more 'regulated' type apparent in Germany, contributing to a better understanding of comparative differences in flexibilisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study develops a "comply or explain" index which captures compliance and quality of explanations given for non‐compliance with the corporate governance codes in UK and Germany. In particular, we explain, how compliance and quality of explanations provided in non‐compliance disclosures, and various other internal corporate governance mechanisms, affect the market valuation of firms in the two countries. A dynamic generalised method of moments (GMM) estimator is employed as the research technique for our analysis, which enabled us to control for the potential effects of endogeneity in our models. The findings of our content analysis suggest that firms exhibit significant differences in compliance, board independence and ownership structure in both countries. The "comply or explain" index is positively associated with the market valuation of UK firms suggesting that compliance and quality governance disclosure are value relevant in the UK. Institutional blockholders' ownership is, however, negatively associated with the market value of firms, which raises questions about the monitoring role of institutional shareholders in both countries. We argue that both compliance and explanations given for non‐compliance are equally important, as long as valid reasons and justifications for non‐compliance are provided by the reporting companies. These findings thus imply that the "comply or explain" principle is working well and that UK and German companies could benefit from the flexibility offered by this principle. With respect to the role of board size, board independence, ownership structure, and institutional ownership of firms, this study offers policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the bystander intervention model provides a useful account of how people help others, no previous study has applied it to a global emergency. This research aims to develop a scale for measuring global bystander intervention and investigate its potential antecedents in the Syrian refugee emergency. In Study 1 (N = 80) and Study 2 (N = 205), a 12‐item scale was established through a substantive‐validity assessment and a confirmatory factor analysis, respectively. Study 3 (N = 601) explored the potential antecedents of the global bystander intervention, employing British and German samples. Results show that the global bystander intervention model worked for both samples, but there were significant between‐group differences in terms of the extent to which they notice the emergency, know how to help, show political support, and donate money. Overall, the visibility of the global emergency aftermaths within the context has been deduced as a meaningful driver for between‐group differences. This research provides the first empirical evidence on global bystander intervention and it offers timely suggestions to promote support for refugees or other victims of global disasters, especially among those who are distant to the disaster zone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decades there has been an increasing demand for transparency in the business sector. Companies produce corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports using standards like the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standard. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people are confronted with discrimination in their professional life. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview on how LGBT issues are integrated into the CSR framework in the UK and Germany. 385 reports from 2017 were analyzed and rated with a scoring system. The key findings are that LGBT issues are not predominant in the CSR reports of either country. However, the disclosure of LGBT policies is significantly higher in the UK than in Germany. British organizations largely do not follow sustainability standards, whereas in Germany most organizations report using CSR standards. Moreover, the disclosure of LGBT issues varies on the basis of the organization size and the industrial sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is extensive literature on states and knowledge, there has been little focus on state ignorance: instances where states are identified as lacking knowledge relevant to addressing social problems. We present the first systematic analysis of how states perceive and respond to ignorance, developing a typology of responses (denial, resignation, and elucidation). We test and refine the typology through analyzing state ignorance of unauthorized migration in Germany and the UK, 1990–2006. Public authorities in both countries responded to ignorance through both denial and resignation. However, variations in control infrastructures and bureaucratic cultures meant that "resignation" took distinct forms. In the UK, pragmatism about the limitations of state capacity implied that officials were sanguine about their "ignorance," with pressure emanating from external political scrutiny. In Germany, by contrast, officials faced an acute conflict between bureaucratic and legal norms of the rule of law, and constraints to enforcement. Both cases reveal profound state ambivalence about elucidating social problems over which they have limited control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars increasingly have argued that the future effectiveness and legitimacy of firms' corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities are dependent on more transparent forms of lobbying to ensure firms' policy positions are aligned with their CSR commitments. Very little empirical work, however, has systematically analyzed firms' lobbying disclosures or examined how these firms coordinate their lobbying and CSR activities. We address these empirical questions by analyzing the CSR reports of 150 corporations from Germany, the UK and the US over an 18‐year period and by conducting interviews with the CSR managers of these firms. We find that corporations have become more transparent about their public policy advocacy over time, thus acknowledging that lobbying is a CSR issue. For most firms, however, this commitment to transparency appears to be largely ceremonial. Few firms disclose the specific policy positions they advocate or sufficiently coordinate the work of their lobbying and CSR units to foster greater alignment of these activities. These modest changes in lobbying transparency appear to be driven by legitimacy concerns and, in a few instances, by governance gaps firms perceive to be relevant to their future business interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the dynamic causal relationship between financial stress index and economic activity in the UK and Germany for the period from 2003 to 2018. Unlike the previous studies which ignore the consideration of all quantiles of distribution, we employ a Granger causality in quantiles that captures causal links in each quantile of distribution. Hence we are able to disseminate between the causality in the median and the tails of the conditional distribution. Our findings indicate that there is a significant, negative causal relationship running from financial stress to economic activity in both countries. However, the changes in the financial stress level in Germany start influencing the industrial production earlier (when economic activity is at lower levels) than in the UK. Our results highlight the emphasis on the consideration of the entire conditional distribution to avoid the risk of misleading inferences on the causality analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Isolation due to habitat fragmentation can lead to morphological and functional variation between populations, with the effect being well documented in rodents. Here, we investigated whether such morphological variation could be identified between British populations of the Eurasian red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris). This species was once widespread across Great Britain, but suffered a severe population decline across the 20th century, leaving a highly fragmented distribution. The aim was to test for morphological and biomechanical variation of the mandible between the remaining British red squirrel populations, and between British and continental European red squirrels. Linear and geometric morphometric methods were used to analyse shape in a sample of over 250 red squirrel hemi‐mandibles from across Britain plus a sample from Germany representing the central European subspecies. Procrustes ANOVA identified significant shape variation between populations, with particularly distinct differences being noted between red squirrels from Germany and several British red squirrel populations, which may reflect their evolutionary history. Linear biomechanical measurements showed that the red squirrels from Formby and Jersey had a significantly lower mechanical advantage of the temporalis muscle than other British populations, suggesting they were less efficient at gnawing. This functional difference may be related to many factors, such as founder effect, potential inbreeding and/or past supplemental feeding with less mechanically resistant food items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To estimate the cost‐effectiveness of dapagliflozin added to standard therapy, vs. standard therapy only, in patients with heart failure (HF) with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF), from the perspective of UK, German, and Spanish payers. Methods and results: A lifetime Markov model was built to estimate outcomes in patients with HFrEF. Health states were defined by Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire total symptom score, type 2 diabetes and worsening HF events. The incidence of worsening HF and all‐cause mortality was estimated using negative binomial regression models and parametric survival analysis, respectively. Direct healthcare costs (2019 British pounds/Euro) and patient‐reported outcomes (EQ‐5D) were sourced from the existing literature and the Dapagliflozin And Prevention of Adverse‐outcomes in Heart Failure trial (DAPA‐HF), respectively; the median duration of follow‐up in DAPA‐HF was 18.2 months (range: 0–27.8). Future costs and effects were discounted at 3.0% for the Spanish and German analyses and 3.5% for the UK analysis. In the UK setting, treatment with dapagliflozin was estimated to increase life‐years and quality‐adjusted life‐years (QALYs) from 5.62 to 6.20 (+0.58) and 4.13 to 4.61 (+0.48), respectively, and reduce lifetime hospitalizations for HF (925 and 820 events per 1000 patients for placebo and dapagliflozin, respectively). Similar results were obtained for Germany and Spain. The incremental cost‐effectiveness ratios were £5822, €5379 and €9406/QALY in the UK, Germany and Spain, respectively. In probabilistic sensitivity analyses, more than 90% of simulations were cost‐effective at a willingness‐to‐pay threshold of £20 000/QALY in UK and €20 000/QALY in Germany and Spain. Conclusion: Dapagliflozin is likely to be a cost‐effective treatment for HFrEF in the UK, German and Spanish healthcare systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main aim of the study was to explore the integration of CEE's stock markets (Central, South‐East and Baltic) with those of the developed ones (Germany, USA and the UK). Using daily data from 20 October 2000 up to 20 October 2016, the static analysis indicates a long‐run cointegration relationship between CEE markets and all three counterparts considered. The dynamic analysis indicates several short‐run episodes of cointegration, which are influenced by nondomestic factors. When comparing among the counterparts, one can highlight that the US stock market is less integrated with emerging markets, which could be considered for portfolio diversification. Furthermore, the contagion effect is not rejected, given that the dynamic pairwise correlations are likely to be affected by herding behaviour and significant break dates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the judicial regimes for resolving individual employment rights disputes in Germany, Great Britain and Japan. First, we consider the form of institutional change; second, we examine the lay judge's role; and third, we assess the effectiveness of the three judicial regimes. We find that Japan made the least institutional change, layering a new procedure on top of an existing one. Paradoxically, however, its lay judges have a more extensive role than their counterparts in Germany and Britain, which established new institutions. As to effectiveness, there are several criteria. British labour courts are currently the least informal and speedy, but the cheapest. In both Britain and Germany, legal norms are publicised as adjudicatory hearings are open to the public and judgments are available for public scrutiny, unlike in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research collaboration is promoted by governments and research funders, but if the relative prevalence and merits of collaboration vary internationally then different national and disciplinary strategies may be needed to promote it. This study compares the team size and field normalized citation impact of research across all 27 Scopus broad fields in the 10 countries with the most journal articles indexed in Scopus 2008–2012. The results show that team size varies substantially by discipline and country, with Japan (4.2) having two‐thirds more authors per article than the United Kingdom (2.5). Solo authorship is rare in China (4%) but common in the United Kingdom (27%). While increasing team size associates with higher citation impact in almost all countries and fields, this association is much weaker in China than elsewhere. There are also field differences in the association between citation impact and collaboration. For example, larger team sizes in the Business, Management & Accounting category do not seem to associate with greater research impact, and for China and India, solo authorship associates with higher citation impact in this field. Overall, there are substantial international and field differences in the extent to which researchers collaborate and the extent to which collaboration associates with higher citation impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The resources used in treatment for sex offenders with intellectual disabilities have had much research attention, but less has been written about how participants are expected to respond (programme mechanisms). Methods: A realist evaluation of seven programmes from the UK, Canada, USA, Switzerland and Germany was conducted. In semi‐structured interviews, programme designers elucidated how they are intended to work. The data analysis was driven by the realist concern to expose programme mechanisms and intended outcomes. Results: Two main outcomes are increasing risk management capacities and cultivating prosocial identities. These are achieved through developing insights into a person's risks, work on (sexual) self‐regulation skills, sexual boundaries and personal values and by developing meaningful social roles and positive relationships. Conclusions: Over time, there have been changes to some of the treatment resources used. However, there were little differences in terms of the intended programme mechanisms and outcomes, which remained surprisingly consistent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research activities related to social informatics (SI) are expanding, even as community fragmentation, topical dispersion, and methodological diversity continue to increase. Specifically, the different understandings of SI in regional communities have strong impacts, and each has a different history, methodological grounding, and often a different thematic focus. The aim of this article is to connect three selected perspectives on SI—intellectual (regional schools of thought), methodological, and thematic—and introduce a comparative framework for understanding SI that includes all known approaches. Thus, the article draws from a thematic and methodological grounding of research across schools of thought, along with definitions that rely on the extension and intension of the notion of SI. The article is built on a paralogy of views and pluralism typical of postmodern science. Because SI is forced to continually reform its research focus, due to the rapid development of information and communication technology, social changes and ideologies that surround computerization and informatization, the presented perspective maintains a high degree of flexibility, without the need to constantly redefine the boundaries, as is typical in modern science. This approach may support further developments in promoting and understanding SI worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Variation in preservation and sampling probability clouds our estimates of past biodiversity. The most extreme examples are Lagerstätten faunas and floras. Although such deposits provide a wealth of information and represent true richness better than other deposits, they can create misleading diversity peaks because of their species richness. Here, we investigate how Lagerstätten formations add to time series of vertebrate richness in the UK, Germany and China. The first two nations are associated with well‐studied fossil records and the last is a country where palaeontology has a much shorter history; all three nations include noted Lagerstätten in their fossil records. Lagerstätten provide a larger proportion of China's sampled richness than in Germany or the UK, despite comprising a smaller proportion of its fossiliferous deposits. The proportions of taxa that are unique to Lagerstätten vary through time and between countries. Further, in all regions, we find little overlap between the taxa occurring in Lagerstätten and in 'ordinary' formations within the same time bin, indicating that Lagerstätten preserve unusual faunas. As expected, fragile taxa make up a greater proportion of richness in Lagerstätten than the remainder of the fossil record. Surprisingly, we find that Lagerstätten account for a minority of peaks in the palaeodiversity curves of all vertebrates (18% in the UK; 36% in Germany and China), and Lagerstätten count is generally not a good overall predictor of the palaeodiversity signal. Vastly different sampling probabilities through taxa, locations and time require serious consideration when analysing palaeodiversity curves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hepatitis B (HB) vaccine is effective for the prevention of HB virus infection. It has been widely accepted that an anti‐HB surface antibody (HBs) level ≥10 mIU/mL is protective against HB virus infection. Although transient infection can occur in individuals who attain a peak level of anti‐HBs ≥10 mIU/mL after primary vaccination, long‐term follow‐up studies show that successful primary vaccination can prevent individuals from acute clinical hepatitis and chronic infection. Healthcare workers (HCWs) are at‐risk individuals. Based on the accumulated data, the USA considers an anti‐HBs level ≥10 mIU/mL to constitute successful vaccination for HCWs. In contrast, because some anti‐HBs assays cannot accurately measure in the low anti‐HBs range, including 10 mIU/mL, the UK and Germany consider an anti‐HBs level ≥100 mIU/mL to constitute successful vaccination for HCWs. In the USA and UK, a booster dose is unnecessary for HCWs after successful vaccination. In Germany, anti‐HBs testing is recommended for HCWs who are at particularly high individual exposure risk 10 years after successful primary immunization, and a booster dose is offered if the anti‐HBs level has declined to ˂100 mIU/mL. The differences in the goal of HB vaccination, reliability of anti‐HBs assays, and use of booster vaccination cause discordance in HB vaccination policies for HCWs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the macroeconomic effects of rising migration uncertainty in four advanced economies (i.e. US, UK, Germany and France). Migration uncertainty is first captured by the Migration Policy Uncertainty (MPUI) and the Migration Fear (MFI) news‐based indexes developed by Baker et al. (Immigration fears and policy uncertainty, 2015), and then by a novel Google Trend Migration Uncertainty Index (GTMU) based on the frequency of Internet searches for the term 'immigration'. VAR investigations suggest that the macroeconomic implications of rising migration uncertainty differ across countries. Moreover, news‐based and Google search‐based migration fear shocks generate different macroeconomic effects. For instance, in the US (France), MPUI, MFI and GTMU shocks all improve (undermine) production and labour market conditions in the medium run. For Germany and the UK, mixed evidence is found, suggesting that increasing media attention on migration phenomena and rising population's interest in migration‐related issues influence people's mood differently. The observed heterogeneity in the macroeconomic effects of rising migration uncertainty can be explained by cross‐country gaps in (a) the level of labour market rigidity, (b) the degree of people's happiness and life satisfaction and (c) the percentage of graduates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparisons between Germany and Britain during WWII remain rare and unusual as a result of the incontrovertible differences between British democracy and the National Socialist dictatorship. Recent historical studies, however, have documented significant parallels between the two countries with regard to the material and physical environment engendered by the aerial bombing campaigns that affected the civilian populations of both Germany and Britain. These studies prompt the question of whether these parallels can be traced in contemporaneous German and British literary representations of the war from the air. This article proposes to locate these parallels in the use and function of figurative language. The first part of the article argues that, in their representation of the war from the air, German and British authors tend to resort to figurative rather than literal descriptions of the sights of war, and in so doing draw predominantly on the same resource realms for their imagery. Rather than dismissing these figurations as mere hallucinations, as has been done in the past, the second part of this article reconsiders them as a precarious mode of seeing, a kind of traumatic vision, conditioned by the sensory impact of the war from the air. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To develop and validate a novel 14‐item self‐completed questionnaire (in English and German) enquiring about the presence of non‐motor symptoms (NMS) during the past month in patients with craniocervical dystonia in an international multicenter study. Methods: The Dystonia Non‐Motor Symptoms Questionnaire (DNMSQuest) covers seven domains including sleep, autonomic symptoms, fatigue, emotional well‐being, stigma, activities of daily living, sensory symptoms. The feasibility and clinimetric attributes were analyzed. Results: Data from 194 patients with CD (65.6% female, mean age 58.96 ± 12.17 years, duration of disease 11.95 ± 9.40 years) and 102 age‐ and sex‐matched healthy controls (66.7% female, mean age 55.67 ± 17.62 years) were collected from centres in Germany and the UK. The median total NMS score in CD patients was 5 (interquartile range 3–7), significantly higher than in healthy controls with 1 (interquartile range 0.75–2.25) (P < 0.001, Mann–Whitney U‐test). Evidence for intercorrelation and convergent validity is shown by moderate to high correlations of total DNMSQuest score with motor symptom severity (TWSTRS: rs = 0.61), clinical global impression (rs = 0.40), and health‐related quality of life measures: CDQ‐24 (rs = 0.74), EQ‐5D index (rs = −0.59), and scale (rs = −0.49) (all P < 0.001). Data quality and acceptability was very satisfactory. Interpretation: The DNMSQuest, a patient self‐completed questionnaire for NMS assessment in CD patients, appears robust, reproducible, and valid in clinical practice showing a tangible impact of NMS on quality of life in CD. As there is no specific, comprehensive, validated tool to assess the burden of NMS in dystonia, the DNMSQuest can bridge this gap and could easily be integrated into clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using social tables, this article provides new data on inequality in Germany and Britain on an annual basis for the first half of the twentieth century. Inequality trends in these two countries tended to follow opposite patterns. The decline in inequality in Germany was interrupted during the First World War and the Nazi period, while in Britain the reversal took place between the end of the First World War and the Great Depression. Results show that the drop in inequality during the twentieth century in Europe did not follow secular trends, thus supporting the notion of inequality cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we present expatriate management policies and practices of 136 large multinational companies (MNCs) based in four different countries: Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The findings we focus on include staffing, selection, training, and success. By analyzing our own results as well as comparing them to previous findings, we examine the changes in expatriate practices over time. In the managerial and research implications sections, we share additional findings and our thoughts about future issues and trends in expatriation. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]