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Real-time response (RTR) measurement is an important technique for analyzing human processing of electronic media stimuli. Although it has been demonstrated that RTR data are reliable and internally valid, some argue that they lack external validity. The reason for this is that RTR measurement is restricted to a laboratory environment due to its technical requirements. This paper introduces a smartphone app that 1) captures real-time responses using the dial technique and 2) provides a solution for one of the most important problems in RTR measurement, the (automatic) synchronization of RTR data. In addition, it explores the reliability and validity of mobile RTR measurement by comparing the real-time reactions of two samples of young and welleducated voters to the 2013 German televised debate. Whereas the first sample participated in a classical laboratory study, the second sample was equipped with our mobile RTR system and watched the debate at home. Results indicate that the mobile RTR system yields similar results to the lab-based RTR measurement, providing evidence that laboratory studies using RTR are externally valid. In particular, the argument that the artificial reception situation creates artificial results has to be questioned. In addition, we conclude that RTR measurement outside the lab is possible. Hence, mobile RTR opens the door for large-scale studies to better understand the processing and impact of electronic media content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the effects on voting behavior of information disseminated over the Internet. We address endogeneity in Internet availability by exploiting regional and technological peculiarities of the preexisting voice telephony network that hindered the roll-out of fixed-line infrastructure for high-speed Internet. We find negative effects of Internet availability on voter turnout, which we relate to a crowding-out of TV consumption and increased entertainment consumption. We find no evidence that the Internet systematically benefits specific parties, suggesting ideological self-segregation in online information consumption. Robustness tests, including placebo estimations from the pre-Internet period, support a causal interpretation of our results. (JEL D12, D72, L82, L86) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes the internet project "Digitalisation of Prussia's official press". It was funded by the DFG. The project deals with the "Provinzial-Correspondenz" (PC, 1863-1884) and the "Neueste Mittheilungen" (NM, 1882-1994). Both papers were founded in an immense political crisis; both papers were important propagandistic instruments of Otto von Bismarck. The project enables access to a central source material of the late 19th century. It works on commentaries for subjects, persons and locations. Condensed abstracts offer surveys for both correspondences. A systematic index provides navigation from topic to topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports about the internet based, second multicenter study (MCS II) of the spine study group (AG WS) of the German trauma association (DGU). It represents a continuation of the first study conducted between the years 1994 and 1996 (MCS I). For the purpose of one common, centralised data capture methodology, a newly developed internet-based data collection system ( http://www.memdoc.org ) of the Institute for Evaluative Research in Orthopaedic Surgery of the University of Bern was used. The aim of this first publication on the MCS II was to describe in detail the new method of data collection and the structure of the developed data base system, via internet. The goal of the study was the assessment of the current state of treatment for fresh traumatic injuries of the thoracolumbar spine in the German speaking part of Europe. For that reason, we intended to collect large number of cases and representative, valid information about the radiographic, clinical and subjective treatment outcomes. Thanks to the new study design of MCS II, not only the common surgical treatment concepts, but also the new and constantly broadening spectrum of spine surgery, i.e. vertebro-/kyphoplasty, computer assisted surgery and navigation, minimal-invasive, and endoscopic techniques, documented and evaluated. We present a first statistical overview and preliminary analysis of 18 centers from Germany and Austria that participated in MCS II. A real time data capture at source was made possible by the constant availability of the data collection system via internet access. Following the principle of an application service provider, software, questionnaires and validation routines are located on a central server, which is accessed from the periphery (hospitals) by means of standard Internet browsers. By that, costly and time consuming software installation and maintenance of local data repositories are avoided and, more importantly, cumbersome migration of data into one integrated database becomes obsolete. Finally, this set-up also replaces traditional systems wherein paper questionnaires were mailed to the central study office and entered by hand whereby incomplete or incorrect forms always represent a resource consuming problem and source of error. With the new study concept and the expanded inclusion criteria of MCS II 1, 251 case histories with admission and surgical data were collected. This remarkable number of interventions documented during 24 months represents an increase of 183% compared to the previously conducted MCS I. The concept and technical feasibility of the MEMdoc data collection system was proven, as the participants of the MCS II succeeded in collecting data ever published on the largest series of patients with spinal injuries treated within a 2 year period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Internet-based crowdinvesting market in Europe has developed significantly since its start in 2007 and has become an alternative source of finance for entrepreneurs to sell securities through the Internet to small investors. This market evidences a great variety in platform design and contract forms used by crowdinvesting platforms. By analyzing more detailed, hand-collected data on the complete set of successful and unsuccessful crowdinvesting campaigns run in Germany, this article tests whether different platform and contractual mechanisms affect crowd participation. The results show that crowd participation is largest when the minimum ticket size is small, the crowd is pooled in a financial vehicle, and the crowd is offered investments in the form of profit-participating loans. Moreover, the very same mechanisms increase the chances of achieving successful campaigns and raising a larger amount. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on ".hist2011 - Geschichte im digitalen Wandel," a conference that focused on the use of digital media in historical studies that took place in Berlin, Germany from September 14-15, 2011. Papers presented at the conference discussed topics such as digital libraries with historical sources on World War I, how German libraries are using bibliographic data for shared cataloging, and why certain standards need to be created for historical research data.

The article offers information on "Methoden, Inhalte und Techniken im Umgang mit Streitgeschichte," a conference that focused on various methods of teaching and studying the history of conflicts and wars. It took place in Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Germany from August 4-7, 2011. Papers presented at the conference discussed topics such as audio-visual methods for teaching history, information on the internet that is a useful historical source, and how to make learning history more interesting.

Background: The Internet is widely used by adolescents for sexual health information and bears the potential to increase knowledge and positively affect behavior.Objective: The objective of this study is to assess students' preferences when looking for sexual health information online.Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey among ninth grade students in a convenience sample of 13 secondary schools in Berlin, Germany. During a regular school period, participants were requested to rate the importance they attribute to nine aspects of sexual health websites in a paper-based questionnaire. Bivariate and multivariable analyses were used to assess awareness and preferences by gender, age, migrant background, and school type.Results: Of 1190 eligible students, 1177 (98.91%) students with a mean age of 14.6 (SD 0.7) years participated, 52.52% (605/1152) were male, and 52.94% (612/1156) had at least one parent born abroad. Participant numbers were spread equally across three types of secondary schools in Berlin. Website aspects most frequently cited as important were easily comprehensible wording (88.33%, 961/1088), clear information layout (80.57%, 871/1081), and reliability of the website's publisher (79.28%, 857/1081), whereas the visual style of a website was deemed important by the lowest number of students (35.13%, 378/1076). There was a marked gender difference in the importance students attached to website publisher reliability. Although 437/515 (84.9%) of female participants regarded this as important, only 420/566 (74.2%) of male participants did likewise (P<.001). In multivariable analyses, demographic differences were also particularly visible in the importance of publisher reliability: male participants were significantly less likely to find this aspect important (OR 0.50, 95% CI 0.37-0.69). The odds ratio for students with migrant background was 0.64 (95% CI 0.50-0.81, reference=no migrant background) and OR 2.04 (95% CI 1.03-4.03) for students in the most academic school type (reference=least academic).Conclusions: Students prefer easily understandable online resources. Setting up sexual health websites according to the explicit preferences of the target audience might encourage usage, especially by those subpopulations less likely to critically assess information validity: male adolescents, children of immigrants, and the academically disadvantaged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facing linkage problems, parties in Germany have started to respond to a changing media environment by reforming their internal structures of opinion forming and decision making, inter alia reacting to the rise of the social web and the successes of the Pirate Party whose party organization is to a large extent 'digitalized'. Whether and how established parties implement and adapt Internet tools, i.e., whether these could contribute to more participation of the 'party on the ground' or whether they strengthen the 'party in central office' is the focus of this article. The case study on the employment of an online platform for drafting a motion for the party convention of the German Social Democrats in December 2011 reveals that the 'party in central office' controlled the online procedure as well as the processing of the results to a remarkable extent-thereby constraining the participatory potential of the tool. At the same time, the case study indicates a quality of online collaboration platforms that might limit the instrumentalization of these tools by the party elites in the long run and possibly re-empower the 'party on the ground.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Remote data access, defined as the ability of a researcher to access and evaluate restricted micro data via a secure internet connection from his home desktop computer at any time, has not been implemented by a German Research Data Centre (RDC) so far. Privacy regulations and especially the problem of access control are reasons why German RDCs are not able to offer restricted data via remote data access to the research community. By initiating the "RDC-in-RDC" approach, the Research Data Centre (FDZ) of the German Federal Employment Agency (BA) at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) in Nuremberg, Germany, aims to bring data access in Germany closer to the ideal perception of remote access. The basic idea is to allow remote data access from designated institutions with comparable standards at locations other than Nuremberg. In a first step, access to BA and IAB data will be granted from four sites in Germany and one site in the US. Moreover, the RDCin- RDC approach represents a change of paradigms in two respects. First, data access will be decentralised and the FDZ literally brings its data closer to the researchers. Second, data of the FDZ will be accessible from abroad so the dissemination of micro data will be no longer restricted to national borders. The RDC-in-RDC approach may therefore be regarded as a first step towards remote access in Germany and may also represent a blue print for an intensified international data sharing [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors present a combination of different statistical methods for the validation of climate simulation data with respect to observational data of the same spatial and temporal coverage. It is assumed that simulated data and observed data are both given as time series at locations such as grid cells or station locations. The aim of this approach is to quantify the agreement between the two spatial structures of observed and simulated data. These spatial structures consist of the spatial distributions of clusters (obtained from a cluster analysis) that contain climatologically similar locations. If the spatial distribution of clusters were identical for the observed and the simulated data, the simulation would describe the spatial structure of the observations perfectly. Differences from this ideal situation can be objectively quantified using the κ statistic. If the simulation data have shortcomings, the different κ variants can be used to diagnose where these are located. The method is demonstrated using simulation data from the Statistical Regional Model (STAR) for Germany. The combination of cluster analysis and κ statistic proves to be an excellent tool for quantifying the spatial correctness of climate models that can be extended to multimodel comparisons. It can thereby serve as a standard measure for climate model evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses an Internet website that provides digitized voice recordings of historical lectures presented at the annual Nobel Laureate Meetings in Lindau, Germany. It notes the history of the meetings and that Count Lennart Bernadotte initiated them after World War II to encourage German doctors and scientists. A limited number of international students have been invited to attend the meetings since 2005.