German Perspective Research Articles

Debate: Quantity of impatient beds and quality of child psychiatric and psychotherapeutic care provision - a German perspective.

Provision of care for children with mental health disorders or behavioural difficulties differs from country to country. Historically, Germany has the highest number of inpatient beds throughout Europe (64 inpatient beds per 100,000 young people). In addition, nearly 146 departments for child and adolescent psychiatry offer day-care beds as well as ambulatory care. A high number of resident child and adolescent psychiatrists/psychotherapists (more than 12,000 professionals) complement provision of care in the different regions of Germany. Yet, only 50% of children and adolescents with mental health problems receive the treatment they need. Barriers to care - for example lack of transportation, fear of stigmatization, long distances in rural regions or fear of long hospital inpatient stays - keep families from presenting their child/adolescent to the relevant institutions. Recently, a new treatment module: StäB, an intensive daily home treatment, delivered by a multiprofessional team, has been added to the portfolio of treatment options in Germany. This closes the gap between highly intensive inpatient care and low-frequency outpatient treatment, allowing a continuum of care in intensity and frequency within the treatment alternatives.

Transformation to Healthy Water Ecology—Institutional Requirements, Deficits and Options in European and German Perspective

The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) obliges EU Member States to achieve good ecological status in all surface waters by 2027 at the latest. In many regions, this implies fundamental transformation from engineered water landscapes back to near-natural structures. By example of the German State of Lower Saxony it is shown how this transformation of water landscapes essentially requires a transformation of the institutional foundations of water management, too. It is argued from a legal perspective that certain general, justiciable minimum requirements are to be deduced from the WFD as to (1) planning and enforcement of restoration measures, (2) land acquisition, (3) organisation and (4) finance which delimit the ample margins Member States enjoy in designing the institutional substructure. With regard to Lower Saxony, it is explained why this State is clearly failing to meet the minimum requirements and how it needs to transform its institutional arrangements to make them fit for purpose. The article concludes that WFD enforcement should pay more attention to the institutional underpinning and it submits that examples and benchmarks should be further explored by comparative research.

Adult Literacy and Weak Readers in PIAAC Cycle 1

The Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), which was initiated by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), assesses key skills of the adult population in an internationally comparable way. Over 35 countries with quite different degrees of economic development participated in the three rounds of the first cycle of PIAAC. This paper gives an overview of the average adult literacy skills by country and across countries and discusses the results from a German perspective. Furthermore, it explores how certain macro-economic indicators relate to the participating countries’ average adult literacy skills. PIAAC also provides information on adults with very low levels of literacy, thus enabling us to examine this group – the weak readers – more closely. Here too, we compare the proportion of weak readers across countries and examine how it relates to key country characteristics. In addition, we investigate which individual characteristics are associated with low reading skills. The paper concludes with a preview of the upcoming second cycle of PIAAC, which promises to yield additional and enhanced high-quality international data for further analyses.

Cost-utility Analysis of Cochlear Implantation in Adults With Single-sided Deafness: Austrian and German Perspective.

Single-sided deafness (SSD) is associated with a loss of binaural hearing. Major limitations of such patients are poor speech understanding in noisy environments and a lack of spatial hearing. To date, cochlear implantation is the most promising approach to overcome these deficits in this group of patients. Cost-effectiveness analyses of cochlear implantation in patients with unilateral deafness. The model targets Austrian and German SSD patients who can either opt for treatment with a cochlear implant (CI) or decide against a CI and stay without any treatment. A Markov model analyzed as microsimulation was developed using TreeAge Pro 2019 software. Pre- and postoperative utility values generated with HUI-3 were used to populate the model. Costs covered by the national insurance were considered. Costs and utilities were discounted by 3%. A model time horizon of 20 years was set. According to Austrian base-case analysis, the incremental cost-utility ratio (ICUR) was €34845.2 per quality-adjusted life year gained when comparing the "CI strategy" to the "no treatment strategy." The ICUR is marginally lower when adapting a German cost perspective-it was €31601.25 per quality-adjusted life year gained. Sensitivity analyses showed that the cost-effectiveness results are stable. Analyses also showed that the longer the time horizon is set, the more favorable the cost-effectiveness result is. Based on currently available data, the Markov microsimulation model suggests that cochlear implantation is cost-effective in Austrian and German patients with SSD if no other treatment option is considered within the model.

Academic pediatric surgery – The German perspective

Today Pediatric surgery has become well established as fix point in the operative care of infants and children in Germany. The academic platform has traditionally been a strong driver for this development. However, as in other places around the world, academic pediatric surgery in Germany is currently facing relevant challenges. These challenges include internal aspects of the field (for example the broad spectrum with a rapidly ongoing development towards sub-specialization) but also external aspects (for example political specifications in form of the working hours act). Out of over 230 pediatric surgical institutions in Germany, only 33 are University-based. Sixteen of those 33 institutions are completely independent, whereas the other 18 are based within adult surgical University departments. In this article the authors give an overview over the current status of academic Pediatric surgery in Germany with its challenges and perspectives.

Teacher education for sustainable development within national frameworks: Squaring the circle from a German perspective

This article deals with the question of how teacher education and teacher training in Germany – of which many aspects have been fragmentized – can nevertheless provide teachers with an adequate opportunity to systematically develop their professional competences in the field of education for sustainable development (ESD). Based on current education policy goals and relevant empirical research, the article offers a theory intended to cause coherence between three phases of teacher education and training in Germany, thereby integrating academic theory and ESD practice more consistently. Particular attention is given to teacher educators, educational managers, researchers and decision makers, who often have not acquired solid expertise in the specific area of ESD themselves. Their active inclusion is the key success factor in the intrinsic processes regarding organizational development at teacher education institutions.

Dealing with Uncertainties in the Pandemic : A German Perspective

The uncertainties experienced throughout the COVID-19 pandemic have posed major challenges both to the law itself and to its application. Prognostic uncertainties and gaps in knowledge about the new virus, on the one hand, and the need to act quickly, on the other, confronted the legislator and administrative courts with a challenge that could not be fully met by applying the hitherto existing Infection Protection Act. This contribution examines the legal responses to dealing with such uncertainties and illustrates them with examples of how the pandemic was handled in Germany. The focus is on aspects of legislation, followed by an analysis of the possibilities for judicial review of legislative decisions taken under uncertainty.

Five months under COVID-19 in the cultural sector: a German perspective

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the impact of COVID-19 on the cultural and creative sectors (CCSs) in Germany from March to the end of July 2020. It reviews the responses by Germany (federal, state and city level), grouped into three phases. The country has made explicit reference to the importance of arts and culture in the crisis. Germany has a high level of arts and culture funding, but in the last years the cultural and creative scene has changed. The article looks at these changes and reviews state responses as well as new initiatives from the cultural sector itself. Against this background, some tentative conclusions, with an eye on the near future, are made.

„From Scandals of Plagiarism to `Good Scientific Practice´?”

The issue of plagiarism was again put in perspective of the Austrian public at the beginning of the year 2021 and unfolded the need for discussion of the Good Scientific Practice, and strategies for prevention of scientific misconduct at institutions of higher education and research institutions. This article summarizes the online panel discussion of the ZHR at the University of Graz on March 24, 2021, which, from an Austrian and German perspective, addressed the necessary measures for promotion of awareness-raising and imparting of Good Scientific Practice in the context of the keywords responsibility and trust, as well as juridical aspects, especially overlooking the recently enacted UG-amendment 2021, and further existing need to reform.

Image of Spain in German Perspective Views of the 18th Century

Image of Spain in German Perspective Views of the 18th Century

Negotiation and Transposition of the PIF Directive ‒ The German Perspective

This article reflects on the negotiations concerning Directive (EU) 2017/1371 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the fight against fraud to the Union’s financial interests by means of criminal law (the “PIF Directive”) and discusses some of the controversial issues at that time from a criminal law policy perspective. Germany’s approach to the transposition of the PIF Directive is explained, and the article also presents the corresponding amendments made to the German Criminal Code as well as the provisions in the newly created Act to Strengthen the Protection of the EU‘s Financial Interests (EU-Finanzschutzstarkungsgesetz).

Spremljanje slovenskih delavcev na začasnem delu in bivanju v Zvezni republiki Nemčiji v sedemdesetih letih dvajsetega stoletja: prispevek k poznavanju zgodovine slovenske Službe državne varnosti

In this paper the authors present the tracking and monitoring of Slovenian guest workers, who were temporarily living and working in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1970s, by the State Security Service. By analysing archival material of the Slovenian political police about the activities and associations of Slovenes in the Federal Republic of Germany, which is kept by the Archive of the Republic of Slovenia and using a selection of scientific works of domestic and foreign historiography, the authors present the process of emigration from the Socialist Republic of Slovenia to the Federal Republic of Germany from a west German and Yugoslav perspective. They also present how the State Security Service tracked Slovenian guest workers in the FRG during the 1970s and which groups of emigrees it paid special attention to. Here the authors concentrate on the tracking of Slovenian emigree clergy and emigree press, both groups having had large cultural influence on other Slovenian guest workers while they lived and worked in the Federal Republic of Germany.

PMS13 Hospital Costs for Xlmtm Patients - a German Perspective

X-linked Myotubular Myopathy (XLMTM) is an ultra-rare, life-threatening congenital myopathy characterized by profound muscle weakness, respiratory failure and early death. Due to limited local evidence, we examined inpatient costs, number of admissions and length of stay (LOS) for XLMTM patients admitted to German long-term ventilation (LTV) and acute care (AC) hospitals. Due to XLMTM ultra-rarity, a cross-sectional convenience sample of five XLMTM patients admitted to LTV and AC hospitals was evaluated, including records for three LTV patients and two AC patients admitted between April 2003 and February 2020. Age at admission for two of three LTV patients was >3.5 y.o. and was unknown for the other. AC patients were both < 1 y.o. upon first admission. Hospital costs, admissions, and total LOS were assessed. Costs for patients episodically admitted to AC hospitals were based on diagnosis-related groups whereas costs for LTV patients were based on negotiated per diems. Results were assessed for each patient and stratified by hospital type. The oldest LTV patient drove 71% of the total LOS (8,373 days) and 67% of the total cost (5,072,662€). Due to continuous admission, the LTV patients accounted for 97% of patient days and 90% of total costs. The average LTV per diem was 579.63€ (range 514.00-621.77€). The two patients admitted to ACs in their first year of life generated total hospital costs of 127,847€ and 376,894€ with a calculated average of 1,832€ per diem. The first had six admissions over 227 days with a cumulative LOS of 111 days and the second had 29 admissions over 2,042 days and a cumulative LOS of 150 days. XLMTM drives large clinical and economic burdens on patients affected and the overall German healthcare system. XLMTM patients admitted to LTVs potentially incur higher cumulative costs but lower per diems compared to those admitted to ACs.

Bagpipe Players and Painted Birds: Some Reflections on Writing the History of the People in the Marshes from a German Perspective

Abstract The article adopts an approach to the history of Belarus’, which plays with imaginations. It opens up two vistas concerning the past that are marked by fictional texts. The former belongs to developments before World War I and is connected with a short story by Jakub Kolas, whereas the latter attends to events of World War II and is related to a novel by Jerzy Kosiński. In both cases supplements to the main texts offer insights into Soviet history, on the one hand into the era of revolutionary culture of the 1920s, and on the other hand into the political thaw of the 1950s. The result is an illustration of the metamorphoses that took place in the transitional region of Central and Eastern Europe in the process of Soviet modernization.

Screening for Colorectal Cancer-A German Perspective.

Screening for Colorectal Cancer-A German Perspective.

Zwischen Heimatverlust und unsicherer Gegenwart: Sozialer Wandel in Zonenkinder (2002) von Jana Hensel und Scotch (2010) von Ioana Bradea

Abstract My paper will explore the interrelation between past, present and identity, as well as the dynamics of social change in contemporary German and Romanian literature, as exemplified by Jana Hensel’s Zonenkinder (2002) and Ioana Bradea’s Scotch (2010). Both authors belong to a new generation of writers who, having experienced the collapse of the communist regime as adolescents, investigate the traumatic experience of change and adjustment to the social, economic and cultural realities of post-communist societies. While Hensel aims at recreating the lost Heimat (motherland) as an Erinnerungsraum (space of remembrance) and portraying the social tensions of the post-unification decade from an Eastern German perspective, Bradea focuses on depicting the desolate post-communist industrial landscape, as well as the everyday lives of anonymous Romanians caught in the vagaries of transition.

Do cultural norms influence how teacher noticing is studied in different cultural contexts? A focus on expert norms of responding to students\u2019 mathematical thinking

As an important component of teaching expertise, teacher noticing is gaining growing attention in our intercultural mathematics education community. However, it is likely that in many cases the researchers’ perspectives on what characterizes high instructional quality in mathematics classrooms shape what they expect teachers to notice. In particular, it is an open question how potentially different norms of instructional quality influence how teacher noticing is operationalized in East Asian and Western cultures. Consequently, in a first step, this bicultural research project on teacher noticing in Taiwan and Germany focuses on exploring the researchers’ frames of reference for investigating teacher noticing. In this paper, we thus propose a concurrent process for developing vignettes and eliciting corresponding expert norms as a prerequisite to investigating teacher noticing in a way that is sensitive to different cultural contexts. In this process, the research teams in both countries developed in parallel, text vignettes in which, from their perspective, a breach of a norm regarding a specific aspect of instructional quality was integrated. In an online expert survey, these vignettes were then presented to German and Taiwanese researchers in mathematics education (19 from each country) to investigate whether these experts recognize the integrated breach of a norm. This approach allows researchers to identify potentially different norms of instructional quality in mathematics classrooms. In particular, by means of a specific representation of practice, it became visible how expert norms of responding to students’ mathematical thinking can be different from a Taiwanese compared to a German perspective.

Library Support for OA Books Workshop: the German perspective.

Library Support for OA Books Workshop: the German perspective.

German Media and Coronavirus: Exceptional Communication—Or Just a Catalyst for Existing Tendencies?

The Covid-19 pandemic has immediate effects on science journalism and science communication in general, which in a few cases are atypical and likely to disappear again after the crisis. However, from a German perspective, there is some evidence that the crisis—and its accompanying ‘infodemic’—has, above all, accelerated and made more visible existing developments and deficits as well as an increased need for funding of science journalism.

How we should respond to the Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 outbreak: A German perspective.

BACKGROUND:In the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic Germany missed to set up efficient containment measures. Consequently, the number of cases increased exponentially until a lockdown was implemented to suppress the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Fortunately, Germany has a high capability for coronavirus lab testing and more than 30,000 ICU beds. These capabilities and the lockdown turned out to be an advantage to combat the pandemic and to prevent a health-system overload.AIM:The aim was to predict the plateau day of SARS-CoV-2 infections or deaths.RESULTS:The effect on the viral spread of the German measures taken and the impact on the peak of new infection cases is shown. By normalizing daily case numbers, the plateau day of the current outbreak in Germany could be calculated to be reached at April 12, 2020 (day 103 of 2020).CONCLUSION:Normalized case number curves are helpful to predict the time point at which no further new infections will occur if the epidemic situation remains stable. Upon reaching the plateau day during a lockdown phase, a residual time-period of about 2-3 weeks can be utilized to prepare a safe unlocking period. As can be learned from Asian countries such as South Korea and Taiwan there must be strict rules to keep the risk of infection low. Those include social distancing, face mask wearing in combination with digital contact tracing and serosurveillance studies. Following those rules, a safe dance around the infection curve allows to keep the population at a reduced infection rate.