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Sowohl Verbraucherpolitik wie auch die Verbraucherwissenschaften haben in den letzten 12 Jahren in Deutschland national an Bedeutung gewonnen. Verstarkter grenzuberschreitender Handel und die Digitale Welt erfordern eine immer starkere internationale Zusammenarbeit in der Verbraucherpolitik. Bedauerlicherweise gab es allerdings in Deutschland keine zusatzlichen Kapazitaten fur die internationale Kooperation, weder personell noch finanziell. In der internationalen Zusammenarbeit gab es auf der einen Seite eine grose Offenheit fur Verbraucherwissenschaften; auf der anderen Seite waren bei konkreten Entscheidungen zu Rechtssetzungen, Empfehlungen etc. nicht die wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse ausschlaggebend, z. B. der Verhaltenswissenschaften, sondern Wirtschaftsinteressen oder ideologische Standpunkte. Es bleibt also noch viel Spielraum fur eine bessere und realistischere Kooperation zwischen internationaler Verbraucherpolitik und Verbraucherwissenschaften.

Ende der sechziger Jahre begann mit der Einfuhrung der Scheckkarte bescheiden eine Entwicklung im Zahlungsverkehr, deren heutige Dimension damals niemand vorausgesehen hat. Die Scheckkarte sollte zunachst die Scheckzahlung bei Einkaufen und auf Reisen fordern. Heute findet die Karte in vielen Funktionen Verwendung, z.B. an Geldautomaten, an elektronischen Kassen, an Selbstbedienungsterminals. Den juristischen Schwerpunkt bildet seit vielen Jahren die Haftungsverteilung bei Kartenmissbrauch. Wahrend europaisches Recht kundenfreundlicher wird, scheint die Bankpraxis auf der Risikospharenhaftung aus der Anfangszeit zu verharren.

Data protection has become an increasingly important aspect of consumer policy in recent years in Germany. One of the most interesting subjects under discussion was that of scoring. Scoring attempts to give a prognosis as to whether a consumer is willing and able to repay a given kind of credit. While the USA already had specific regulations on scoring, there was no such equivalent in Germany, especially with regard to consumer rights on transparency. In 2009, the German parliament approved a specific regulation under the Data Protection Act on scoring which came into effect on 1 April 2010. This new law set standards for scoring and granted transparency rights to consumers. One of the effects has been that large numbers of consumers have since availed of these new rights and addressed scoring agencies in order to receive information on their scores.

Although the long-wave phenomenon has long been discussed in economic, social and political sciences, there is still highly controversial discussion about the methods of providing empirical evidence of such swings as regular cycles in economic time series. This article gives an overview about the historical development of time series methods to investigate such long-term oscillations in historical time series and to proof their regularity. It starts with a brief presentation of the methods used by Kondratieff and shows them in the context of classical business cycle analysis. It continues with ARIMA methodology and spectral analysis, which have been found to be appropriate when long waves are conceived as growth cycles. We then introduce the filter-design approach that was seen as a perfect solution to the hitherto unsolved problem of dividing trend and long waves in the low-frequency domain. A detailed discussion of the stochastic trend hypothesis and its relevance for long-wave analysis follows before outliers and trend breaks within stochastic models and their relevance for long waves are illustrated by means of the GDP per capita of the United Kingdom for 1830–2006.

This comment is focused mainly on the assumption that the HP filter is appropriate for isolating the cyclical component inherent in the time series investigated. It is argued that mechanical filtering can easily generate a spurious impression of cyclical behaviour. Estimating the cyclical component also requires analysis of the trend characteristics of the time series under investigation as well as the existence of irregularities in the data generating process. Different business cycle estimation methods are used to judge the robustness of the results for the NNP income series and the stock market index.

A large proportion of today’s econometric literature addresses the question of whether long run GDP follows a random walk or a log linear trend with one or more structural breaks. Much less attention is paid to the modelling of the long run trend and cycle component. In most studies, the trend is simply eliminated by taking first differences of the log of the series without considering the implications of this kind of trend removal for growth and cycles. Filter design and model-based approaches are used here to assess the long run trend and the cyclical component of Chile’s per capita GDP from 1820 to 2007. Careful attention is paid to outliers and trend breaks and how they influence the appraisal of the components. We show that filter and model-based approaches give comparable results if the filter and model parameters are not chosen mechanically but tailor-made for the time series to be investigated.

Auf die Verunsicherung der Verbraucher durch die Verluste auf dem Finanzmarkt wurde mit einer Vielzahl von neuen Vorschlägen reagiert. Neben einer strengeren Regulierung vieler Angebote wurden neue Institutionen, wie die Einrichtung von Finanzmarktwächtern, eines Finanzmarktchecks (Finanz-TÜV) oder einer Ampelkennzeichnung für Finanzdienstleistungen, gefordert. Dabei wurde aber überwiegend mit Schlagworten gearbeitet. Präzise Aufgabenbeschreibungen fehlten regelmäßig ebenso wie schlüssige Finanzierungskonzepte. Wirtschaftspolitische Grundlinien blieben ebenso Mangelware wie Einbindungen in europäische Konzepte. Die Alternative einer effektiven Vernetzung vorhandener Stärken blieb meist ebenso ausgeblendet wie die gezielte Förderung sinnvoller Alternativen auf dem Markt, etwa der unabhängigen Honorarberatung, oder neuer Technologien, etwa eines interaktiven Web-Konzeptes. Political parties in Germany reacted with numerous suggestions on the heavy losses for consumers in financial markets. Besides a more intensive regulation for financial services a number of new institutions were suggested, like installing a financial watchdog or a financial inspection agency or traffic light signals for financial products from saving books to certificates. Unfortunately in most cases only very general proposals were made and precise descriptions of their tasks were missing as well as concepts how to finance these new institutions. It remained very unclear what the economic concepts for these proposals were and how they would fit into general European trends. Alternatives like building or improving networks of existing powerful institutions, or strengthening independant advice services on the basis of fees or using new techniques, like web 2.0, for consumer policy remained unconsidered.

The past and future development of occupancy rates in prisons is of crucial importance for the judicial administration of every country. Basic factors for planning the required penal facilities are seasonal fluctuations, minimum, maximum and average occupancy as well as the present situation and potential development of certain imprisonment categories. As the prisoner number of a country is determined by a complex set of interdependent conditions, it has turned out to be difficult to provide any theoretical explanations. The idea accepted in criminology for a long time that prisoner numbers are interdependent with criminal policy must be regarded as having failed. Statistical and time series analyses may help, however, to identify the factors having influenced the development of prisoner numbers in the past. The analyses presented here, first describe such influencing factors from a criminological perspective and then deal with their statistical identification and modelling. Using the development of prisoner numbers in Hesse as an example, it has been found that modelling methods in which the independent variables predict the dependent variable with a time lag are particularly helpful. A potential complication is, however, that for predicting the number of prisoners the different dynamics in German and foreign prisoners require the development of further models.

Der hier vorgestellte Fall beschreibt die erfolgreiche Therapie eines 11-jahrigen Bassetruden mit multipler inoperabler Diskopathie durch die rektale Ozon-Sauerstoff-Anwendung. Die Ozondosis betrug dabei 43 µg/kg Korpergewicht. Gleichzeitig mit der Ozon-Sauerstoff-Therapie wurde die Kortisonmedikation langsam ausgeschlichen.

In Germany, EU directives have been the primary source of consumer protection legislation in banking and financial services, especially legislation on consumer credit and investment services. Otherwise, there is little significant statute law, either at federal or provincial (Lander) level, apart from a recent Consumer Bankruptcy Law. Most consumer problems have to be solved within the framework of the very general Civil Code or the law on unfair contract terms. This means that there is strong emphasis on the role of the courts in interpreting the law in specific cases. In recent years consumer organizations have played an important part in bringing class action cases in the courts – notably on issues concerned with value dating, bank charges and the early termination of mortgage and insurance contracts. There is virtually no tradition of securing consumer protection through codes of conduct. Banking ombudsman schemes have been set up in recent years, but are subject to some criticisms by consumer organizations.

Summary Following the influential work of Nelson and Plosser (1982) stochastic trends in macroeconomic time series are considered to be a stylized fact. However, since the stochastic trend hypothesis can be rejected for many economic series if a segmented trend model is considered as an alternative, there is at present no agreement on the proper modeling of national product. In this paper „Big“-shocks in the series of German Gross Domestic Product from 1850-1990 are modeled by means of an outlier analysis within the ARIMA-approach. Besides the identification and modeling of such outliers their impact on the trend and cycle component and especially on long term growth variations is investigated.

A highly sensitive and selective HPLC method was developed and validated for the determination of nitrofurantoin in human plasma and urine. The method involves the liquid-liquid extraction of drug and internal standard from plasma with ethyl acetate followed by evaporation and reconstitution in mobile phase. Urine samples were simply diluted with purified water. UV detection was done at 370 nm. The limit of quantification for nitrofurantoin in plasma was 0.010 micrograms/ml. In urine nitrofurantoin could be quantified down to 0.380 microgram/ml. Linearity was proven over the whole calibration range in plasma (2.48-0.0100 microgram/ml) as well as in urine (187 micrograms/ml-0.380 microgram/ml). The method was validated according to Good Laboratory Practice guidelines and its suitability was demonstrated by analysis of samples from a pharmacokinetic study.

Obwohl die Rechtsfragen zur Vorfälligkeitsentschädigung gegenwärtig bei vielen Darlehensverträgen eine Rolle spielen, gibt es kaum aktuelle Rechtsprechung die den neuen § 609a BGB berücksichtigt. Der Beitrag untersucht zum einen, inwieweit zur Auslegung dieser Vorschrift die Entwicklungstendenzen älterer Entscheidungen und die Grundsätze der Rechtsprechung zur Nichtabnahmeentschädigung herangezogen werden können, zum anderen werden die Auswirkungen des Verbraucherkreditgesetzes erörtert. Für ältere (d. h. vor Inkrafttreten des § 609a BGB am 1.1.1987 geschlossene) Verträge wird die Frage der Anwendbarkeit von §207 BGB a. F. behandelt

The answer to the question, whether long waves exist or not depends mainly on the statistical methods used for analysis. Since the seminal work of Kondratieff in the 1920th these methods underwent significant changes. The fundamental critic against the traditional approaches in the 1970th lead to the propagation and development of "ideal” filters which should allow the isolation of predefined frequency components from time series in an exact way. This filter-design-approach was challenged in the 1980th by the unit root hypothesis. If a time series follows a unit root process filters, even if they are "ideal” lead to spurious long term cycles with duration typical for Kondratieff cycles. Therefore no longer "ideal” filters were propagated but stochastic models which correspond to the properties of the time series analyzed. This model-based-approach was challenged again in the 1990th by the development of filters which seem appropriate also for time series which contain a unit root. The article will discuss in a first part the historical development of traditional-, filter-designand model-based-approaches comparing their results with regard to the Kondratieff cycles systematically. In a second part the article presents the state of the art of filter-design-and modelbased-approaches. It will be argued that filters and stochastic models are only adequate if outliers and structural breaks are considered explicitly. If such interventions are modelled correctly it can be shown that filters and models lead to highly similar results. The methodological considerations are illustrated by long term time series which are often used in empirical research on long wave analysis., La réponse à la question de savoir si les cycles longs existent ou non dépend principalement des méthodes statistiques utilisées pour les analyser. Depuis l’article fondateur de Kondratiev dans les années 1920, ces méthodes ont fait l’objet d’importants changements. La critique fondamentale délivrée à l’encontre des approches traditionnelles développées dans les années 1970, a conduit à la diffusion d’une approche par les filtres «idéaux» qui devait permettre, dans les séries chronologiques, une parfaite isolation des composants des bandes de fréquences prédéfinies. L’approche en termes de filtres a été ensuite concurrencée dans les années 1980 par l’idée dite de racine unité. Si une série chronologique suit une racine unité en termes de processus de filtre, même s’ils sont idéaux, cela conduit à des cycles de long terme faussés, dont la durée est semblable à celle des cycles de type Kondratiev. A partir de là, les filtres idéaux furent remplacés par des modèles stochastiques qui correspondent aux propriétés des séries chronologiques analysées. Mais cette approche fut à son tour concurrencée dans les années 1990 par le développement de filtres qui apparaissent également adaptés pour des séries chronologiques qui contiennent une racine unité. L’article traite, dans une première partie, du développement des approches traditionnelles (en termes de filtres et de modèle stochastiques) en comparant systématiquement leurs résultats au regard des cycles de Kondratiev. Dans une seconde partie, l’article présente l’état de l’art des approches en termes de filtres et de modèles stochastiques. L’idée défendue est qu’une approche en termes de modèles stochastiques et de filtres est pertinente uniquement si des points atypiques et des cassures structurelles sont considérés explicitement. Si de telles interventions sont correctement modélisées, il peut être montré que les filtres et les modèles conduisent à des résultats très similaires. Les considérations méthodologiques sont illustrées par des séries chronologiques de long terme qui sont souvent utilisées dans la recherche empirique sur les cycles longs., Metz Rainer. Méthodes de recherche sur les fluctuations longues. In: Revue française d'économie, volume 24, n°4, 2010. pp. 93-133.

A high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the determination of acyclovir in human plasma has been developed. It is the first published chromatographic method capable of determining acyclovir in plasma with sufficient sensitivity and for sufficiently long periods of time following oral administration of a standard dose of acyclovir during pharmacokinetic investigations. Following precipitations of the proteins with perchloric acid, the sample is chromatographed with a strongly acidic mobile phase on a reversed-phase column, and is then subjected to fluorometric detection (excitation 260 nm, emission 375 nm). The determination limit is 6-10 ng/ml human plasma. The calibration is linear in the range 10-12,400 ng/ml plasma, with the coefficients of variation less than 8%. The absolute recovery rate is between 102 and 113%. This method has already been used to analyse several thousand plasma samples.

I. Einfuhrung der Scheckkarte. Ende der sechziger Jahre begann mit der Einfuhrung der Scheckkarte bescheiden eine Entwicklung im Zahlungsverkehr deren heutige Dimension damals niemand vorausgesehen hat. Die Scheckkarte sollte zunachst die Scheckzahlung bei Einkaufen und auf Reisen fordern. Das bezogene Kreditinstitut garantierte darin jedem Schecknehmer die Einlosung eines auf ihrem Vordruck ausgestellten Schecks, zunachst bis zur Hohe von 200 DM. Die juristische Debatte war zunachst weitgehend auf die Garantiefunktion konzentriert. Fruhzeitig wurden jedoch auch bereits Zweifel an den Haftungsregelungen laut, denn der Kontoinhaber trug nach den Bedingungen alle Folgen eines Missbrauchs.

Die Frage, ob sich in den vergangenen 200 Jahren im Bildungswachstum in Deutschland langfristige achstumszyklen, ahnlich den Langen Wellen der Konjunktur, nachweisen lassen, steht im Mittelpunkt dieses Aufsatzes. Zunachst wird gezeigt, dass die bisher durch Hartmut Titze und seine Mitarbeiter vorgebrachte empirische Evidenz zur Unterstutzung der Theorie zyklischen Bildungswachstums widerspruchlich ist. Es wird argumentiert, dass fur die Untersuchung zyklischen Wachstums zu allererst die Bestimmung der Wachstumskomponente erforderlich ist. Dazu eignen sich traditionelle Methoden der Zeitreihenanalyse allerdings nicht. Bei ihrer Verwendung besteht die Gefahr, die Wachstumskomponente zu unterschatzen und gleichzeitig Langfristzyklen auch dann nachzuweisen, wenn sie in der untersuchten Reihe gar nicht vorhanden sind. Fur die Analyse von Trend und langfristigen Zyklen sind nur stochastische Zeitreihenmodelle geeignet, wofur wir hier ein strukturelles Zeitreihenmodell verwenden. Die Schatzungen ergeben fur alle untersuchten Indikatoren einen glatten Trend. Fur die Schuler- und Studierendenquote ergibt sich zusatzlich ein Zyklus mit einer Periodendauer von etwa 25 Jahren. Fur die Abiturientenquote ist die Zyklusdauer mit 15 Jahren kurzer. Die Wachstumsdynamik zeigt sich in der Wachstumsrate des Trends, dem Drift. Die Drifts der Schuler- und Studierendenquote zeigen langfristige Phasen der Wachstumsbeschleunigung und Wachstumsverlangsamung, die die Vorstellung langwelliger Wachstumsphasen und damit die Theorie von Titze und Mitarbeitern bestatigen. Allerdings lassen sich diese Phasen nicht als Zyklen interpretieren, sondern nur als historische Trendperioden. Sowohl die Regelmasigkeit als auch das hohe Ausmas an Parallelitat der Phasen zwischen den Indikatoren deuten auf einen gemeinsamen stochastischen Trend des Bildungswachstums in Deutschland in den vergangenen 200 Jahren hin.

A highly sensitive and selective HPLC method was developed and validated for the determination of arbidol in human plasma. The method involves the liquid-liquid extraction of drug and internal standard from plasma with tert.-butyl methyl ether followed by evaporation and reconstitution in mobile phase. UV detection was done at 315 nm. The limit of quantification for arbidol in plasma was 0.005 microgram/ml. Linearity in plasma was proven over the whole calibration range (10.2-0.005 micrograms/ml). The method was validated according to GLP guidelines and its suitability was demonstrated by analysis of samples from a pharmacokinetic study.

A highly sensitive and selective HPLC method was developed for the determination of amoxicillin in human plasma. After addition of buffer and internal standard, the sample was ultrafiltered and injected on to a precolumn to remove polar plasma interferences. Detection was effected with a UV detector set at 230 nm. The limit of quantification for amoxicillin was 50.1 ng/ml with an imprecision of 4.2% using 0.25 ml of plasma. Linearity was confirmed over the whole calibration range (25.4-0.0501 micrograms/ml) and the inter-day variation ranged from 2.0 to 4.5%. The method was validated according to GLP guidelines and its suitability was demonstrated by the analysis of several hundred samples in a bioequivalence study. The method can be used to determine pharmacokinetic parameters of amoxicillin in humans after a single oral dose of 500 mg.

A high-performance liquid chromatographic method for the determination of sulfadiazine in human plasma and human urine was developed and validated. The method involves the acid extraction of drug and internal standard from plasma with ethyl acetate followed by evaporation and reconstitution in mobile phase. Urine samples were simply diluted with purified water. Recovery, linearity, intra- and inter-day variation of sulfadiazine were tested and found appropriate. The quantitation range was 0.0299-15.2 micrograms/ml for plasma samples and 0.578-148.8 micrograms/ml for urine samples. The method is suitable for the quantitation of sulfadiazine from pharmacokinetic studies.

The adherents of Kondratieff’s long-wave theory assume the existence of fluctuations in long-term economic growth with an approximate duration of 40–60 years. However, not only the mere existence of long waves is controversial but also — if their existence is accepted — their precise timing. Despite improvements in statistical methods and the availability of richer data, different authors still achieve different and controversial results.

Within economic and social research, time series play an important role in many respects. They are taken as indicators for the economic and social processes which are investigated. Since time series are sets of time-ordered observations, we can conceive them as signals or as a sum of such signals. A lot of questions dealing with time series, that is, with signals, can be formalised and transformed into algorithms by using the theory of linear time-invariant systems. As a system S we define every rule which transforms a signal S(a) into a signal S(b).

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Die Frage der Realitat ≪langer Wellen≫ in der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts ist bis heute umstritten. Nicht selten wird das Vorhandensein dieser sogenannten KONDRATIEFF-Zyklen zwar fur Wertreihen bejaht, fur Produktionsreihen dagegen verneint. Mit Hilfe neuer statistischer Verfahren der Zeitreihenanalyse, die auf der Filtertheorie basieren, kann man zeigen, dass fur eine gegenstandsneutrale Untersuchung dieser Frage das traditionelle Instrumentarium der Zeitreihenanalyse vollig ungeeignet ist. Das Grundproblem jeder statistischen Analyse ≪langer Wellen≫, namlich Bestimmung und Ausschaltung des Trend als der nicht-zyklischen Bewegungskomponente einer Zeitreihe, wird in diesem Artikel mit einem vollig neu entwickelten Filterverfahren gelost. Die Ergebnisse zeigen sehr deutlich sowohl die fundamentale Bedingtheit von Trend und Zyklus, als auch das Vorhandensein langfristiger zyklischer Schwingungskomponenten in Produktionsreihen. Wahrend die Ergebnisse die gangige Datierung der KONDRATIEFF-Zyklen bis etwa 1913 annahernd bestatigen, zeigen die Zyklen in ihrem gesamten Verlauf starke Variationen in Form und Dauer und erfordern damit eine partielle Revision tradierter Vorstellungen. SUMMARY Up to the present day the question of the reality of ‘long waves’ in the economical development of the 19th and 20th century is still a topic of dispute. It is true that the existence of these KONDRATIEFF-cycles is affirmed for value series, but it is, however, denied for production series. By means of new statistical methods in the field of time series analysis, based on the filter theory, it can be proved that the traditional instruments of time series analysis are altogether inadequate for an objective and neutral investigation of this question. The basic problem of any statistical analysis of ‘long waves’, namely the determination and elimination of the trend as non-cyclical movement of a time series, is solved in this article by a newly developed filter method. The results show both the fundamental conditionality of trend and cycle and the existence of long-term cyclical oscillations in production series. While the results quite confirm the current dating of the KONDRATIEFF-cycles until about 1913, the cycles in their entire course show strong variations in form and duration, thus calling for a partial revision of traditional concepts. RESUME Il y a toujours des controverses au sujet de l'existence de ≪fluctuations longues≫ dans l'evolution economique des 19e et 20e siecles. Les cycles de KONDRATIEFF sont souvent confirmes pour les series de valeurs, mais nies pour les series de production. A l'aide de nouvelles methodes statistiques de traitement des series chronologiques, fondees sur la theorie des filtres, on peut montrer que, peu importe l'objet de la recherche, les methodes traditionnelles de l'analyse de series chronologiques sont tout ȩ fait inade-quates. Le probleme fondamental de chaque analyse statistique de ≪fluctuations longues≫, c'est-ȩ-dire la determination et l'elimination du trend comme une compo-sante non-cyclique d'une serie chronologique, est resolu dans cet article par un procede de filtrage tout ȩ fait nouveau. Les resultats montrent d'un cote l'interdepen-dance entre le trend et le cycle, d'un autre cote l'existence nette de composantes cycliques oscillatoires de longue duree dans les series de production. Tandis que les resultats confirment plus ou moins la periodisation usuelle des cycles de KONDRATIEFF jusqu'en 1913 environ, les cycles, consideres dans leur ensemble, presentent de fortes variations en ce qui concerne leur forme et leur duree et exigent ainsi une revision partielle d'idees generalement admises jusqu'ici.

The discussion of long waves began with the publication of Kondratieff’s essay in 1926, in which he examined 22 economic time series for Germany, France, England, and the USA with regard to the existence of long cyclical fluctuations. He noted that the movement of the elements examined showed great cycles from the end of the eighteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century. The movement is cyclical in nature, which means that it clearly differs from long-term changes in the series, which Kondratieff called the general tendency or secular trend. The essential feature of this long wave is that the different periods alternate in a cyclical way and thus seems to be law-governed. In contrast, the trend, whose course is also subject to certain changes, is not cyclical, i.e., it does not show a set pattern of upswings and downswings. Using his statistical analyses Kondratieff gave a fairly detailed description of the nature of these cycles. (1) The length of the cycles fluctuates between 48 and 60 years. (2) The cycles for the different series are highly synchronous, i.e., the upswing and downswing phases of the various indicators largely run parallel to each other. (3) Long waves are an international phenomenon: the periods of these cycles are almost identical for all European capitalist countries.