Gender Equality Acts - Federal and States (Germany):a practical commentary

This book provides a systematic introduction in the German gender equality acts for public services, and also a section per section commentary for each individual act. It analyses the legal base, limits and scope of the so called women's quota, gender mainstreaming in public employment and public policy, provisions to allow conciliation of paid work and work in families and the position of women's equality officers. It compares and analyses 16 state acts and the federal equality act. The introductory chapter, written by Dagmar Schiek, also provides an analysis of the EU level and constitutional frame for this legislation. The combination of a systematic introduction and a section by section commentary ensures that this valuable handbook can be used by trained lawyers as well as by social scientists, taking into account the fact that many equality officers are not trained lawyers.

Rapid detection of health-care-associated bloodstream infection in critical care using multipathogen real-time polymerase chain reaction technology: a diagnostic accuracy study and systematic review

Background: There is growing interest in the potential utility of real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in diagnosing bloodstream infection by detecting pathogen deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in blood samples within a few hours. SeptiFast (Roche Diagnostics GmBH, Mannheim, Germany) is a multipathogen probe-based system targeting ribosomal DNA sequences of bacteria and fungi. It detects and identifies the commonest pathogens causing bloodstream infection. As background to this study, we report a systematic review of Phase III diagnostic accuracy studies of SeptiFast, which reveals uncertainty about its likely clinical utility based on widespread evidence of deficiencies in study design and reporting with a high risk of bias. 

Objective: Determine the accuracy of SeptiFast real-time PCR for the detection of health-care-associated bloodstream infection, against standard microbiological culture. 

Design: Prospective multicentre Phase III clinical diagnostic accuracy study using the standards for the reporting of diagnostic accuracy studies criteria. 

Setting: Critical care departments within NHS hospitals in the north-west of England. 

Participants: Adult patients requiring blood culture (BC) when developing new signs of systemic inflammation. 

Main outcome measures: SeptiFast real-time PCR results at species/genus level compared with microbiological culture in association with independent adjudication of infection. Metrics of diagnostic accuracy were derived including sensitivity, specificity, likelihood ratios and predictive values, with their 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Latent class analysis was used to explore the diagnostic performance of culture as a reference standard. 

Results: Of 1006 new patient episodes of systemic inflammation in 853 patients, 922 (92%) met the inclusion criteria and provided sufficient information for analysis. Index test assay failure occurred on 69 (7%) occasions. Adult patients had been exposed to a median of 8 days (interquartile range 4–16 days) of hospital care, had high levels of organ support activities and recent antibiotic exposure. SeptiFast real-time PCR, when compared with culture-proven bloodstream infection at species/genus level, had better specificity (85.8%, 95% CI 83.3% to 88.1%) than sensitivity (50%, 95% CI 39.1% to 60.8%). When compared with pooled diagnostic metrics derived from our systematic review, our clinical study revealed lower test accuracy of SeptiFast real-time PCR, mainly as a result of low diagnostic sensitivity. There was a low prevalence of BC-proven pathogens in these patients (9.2%, 95% CI 7.4% to 11.2%) such that the post-test probabilities of both a positive (26.3%, 95% CI 19.8% to 33.7%) and a negative SeptiFast test (5.6%, 95% CI 4.1% to 7.4%) indicate the potential limitations of this technology in the diagnosis of bloodstream infection. However, latent class analysis indicates that BC has a low sensitivity, questioning its relevance as a reference test in this setting. Using this analysis approach, the sensitivity of the SeptiFast test was low but also appeared significantly better than BC. Blood samples identified as positive by either culture or SeptiFast real-time PCR were associated with a high probability (> 95%) of infection, indicating higher diagnostic rule-in utility than was apparent using conventional analyses of diagnostic accuracy. 

Conclusion: SeptiFast real-time PCR on blood samples may have rapid rule-in utility for the diagnosis of health-care-associated bloodstream infection but the lack of sensitivity is a significant limiting factor. Innovations aimed at improved diagnostic sensitivity of real-time PCR in this setting are urgently required. Future work recommendations include technology developments to improve the efficiency of pathogen DNA extraction and the capacity to detect a much broader range of pathogens and drug resistance genes and the application of new statistical approaches able to more reliably assess test performance in situation where the reference standard (e.g. blood culture in the setting of high antimicrobial use) is prone to error.

A Characteristic Function Approach to Inconsistency Measures for Knowledge Bases.

Knowledge is an important component in many intelligent systems.
Since items of knowledge in a knowledge base can be conflicting, especially if
there are multiple sources contributing to the knowledge in this base, significant
research efforts have been made on developing inconsistency measures for
knowledge bases and on developing merging approaches. Most of these efforts
start with flat knowledge bases. However, in many real-world applications, items
of knowledge are not perceived with equal importance, rather, weights (which
can be used to indicate the importance or priority) are associated with items of
knowledge. Therefore, measuring the inconsistency of a knowledge base with
weighted formulae as well as their merging is an important but difficult task. In
this paper, we derive a numerical characteristic function from each knowledge
base with weighted formulae, based on the Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence.
Using these functions, we are able to measure the inconsistency of the knowledge
base in a convenient and rational way, and are able to merge multiple knowledge
bases with weighted formulae, even if knowledge in these bases may be
inconsistent. Furthermore, by examining whether multiple knowledge bases are
dependent or independent, they can be combined in different ways using their
characteristic functions, which cannot be handled (or at least have never been
considered) in classic knowledge based merging approaches in the literature.

Evidential Fusion for Gender Profiling

Gender profiling is a fundamental task that helps CCTV systems to
provide better service for intelligent surveillance. Since subjects being detected
by CCTVs are not always cooperative, a few profiling algorithms are proposed
to deal with situations when faces of subjects are not available, among which
the most common approach is to analyze subjects’ body shape information. In
addition, there are some drawbacks for normal profiling algorithms considered
in real applications. First, the profiling result is always uncertain. Second, for a
time-lasting gender profiling algorithm, the result is not stable. The degree of
certainty usually varies, sometimes even to the extent that a male is classified
as a female, and vice versa. These facets are studied in a recent paper [16] using
Dempster-Shafer theory. In particular, Denoeux’s cautious rule is applied for
fusion mass functions through time lines. However, this paper points out that if
severe mis-classification is happened at the beginning of the time line, the result
of applying Denoeux’s rule could be disastrous. To remedy this weakness,
in this paper, we propose two generalizations to the DS approach proposed in
[16] that incorporates time-window and time-attenuation, respectively, in applying
Denoeux’s rule along with time lines, for which the DS approach is a special
case. Experiments show that these two generalizations do provide better results
than their predecessor when mis-classifications happen.

Data-Augmentation for Reducing Dataset Bias in Person Re-identification

In this paper we explore ways to address the issue of dataset bias in person re-identification by using data augmentation to increase the variability of the available datasets, and we introduce a novel data augmentation method for re-identification based on changing the image background. We show that use of data augmentation can improve the cross-dataset generalisation of convolutional network based re-identification systems, and that changing the image background yields further improvements.

The management of an ageing workforce: organisational policies in Germany and Britain

Demographic change as well as pressure from the European Union and national government are forcing organisations to change age-discriminatory HRM approaches. Based on a qualitative analysis of eight British and German organisations, we found that commitment, scope, coverage and implementation of age management differ due to country-specific institutions, particularly government, in nudging employers and unions to preferred age practices. This confirms the path dependency concept suggested by institutional theory. Nevertheless, we also found that industry-specific factors mediate the implementation of age management, leading to some convergence across countries. This indicates that organisations deviate from the institutional path to implement practices that they deem important.

Trends and Determinants of Work-Retirement Transitions under Changing Institutional Conditions: Germany, England and Japan compared

Many governments world-wide are promoting longer working life due to the social and economic repercussions of demographic change. However, not all workers are equally able to extend their employment careers. Thus, while national policies raise the overall level of labour market participation, they might create new social and labour market inequalities. This paper explores how institutional differences in the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan affect individual retirement decisions on the aggregate level, and variations in individuals’ degree of choice within and across countries. We investigate which groups of workers are disproportionately at risk of being ‘pushed’ out of employment, and how such inequalities have changed over time. We use comparable national longitudinal survey datasets focusing on the older population in England, Germany and Japan. Results point to cross-national differences in retirement transitions. Retirement transitions in Germany have occurred at an earlier age than in England and Japan. In Japan, the incidence of involuntary retirement is the lowest, reflecting an institutional context prescribing that employers provide employment until pension age, while Germany and England display substantial proportions of involuntary exits triggered by organisational-level redundancies, persistent early retirement plans or individual ill-health.

National institutions and employers’ age management practices in Britain and Germany:‘Path dependence’and option exploration

We pursue a comparative analysis of employers’ age management practices in Britain and Germany, asking how valid ‘convergence’ and ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ theories are. After rejecting the convergence verdict, we proceed to ask how far ‘path dependence’ helps explain inter-country differences. Through 19 interviews with British and German experts, we find that firms have reacted in different ways to promptings from the EU and the two states. Change has been modest and a rhetoric-reality gap exists in firms as they seek to hedge. We point to continuities in German institutional methods of developing new initiatives, and the emerging role of British NGOs in helping firms and the state develop new options. We argue that ‘path dependence’ offers insight into the national comparison, but also advance the idea of national modes of firm optionexploration as an important way of conceptualizing the processes involved.