bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Look Behind the (Animated) Pictures. Notes on the Role of the Aesopic Language in Hungarian Animated Film
Authors: Varga Zoltán 
Published: April 2016

Abstract
The essay explores a certain tendency of Hungarian animated film related to a strategy of constructing meaning. The so-called Aesopic language, which can be found in Hungarian animated film, is interested in creating ambiguity, hidden meanings, especially against oppressive political systems. The paper approaches the development of the Aesopic language in Hungarian animated film based on two factors. The first one examines the characteristics of the animated film in general, focusing on the double sense of the animated image. The second one is a historical approach, considering how the Communist regime affected artistic freedom, and how the Aesopic language became general in Central and Eastern Europe during the decades of Communism. After delineating the concept, the essay continues with interpretations of Hungarian animated films produced by the famous Pannonia Film Studio as examples of the Aesopic language. The paper distinguishes between a less and a more direct variant of creating ambiguity, depending on whether the animated films lack or contain explicit references to the Communist system. The group o|f the less direct variant includes Rondino, Changing Times and The Fly, among the examples of the more direct variant we can find Storv about N, Our Holidays and Mind the Steps!.
Poetry in Transmedial Perspective: Rethinking Intermedial Literary Studies in the Digital Age
Authors: Schaefer Heike 
Published: April 2016

Abstract
In the digital age. literary practice proliferates across different media platforms. Contemporary literary texts are written, circulated and rea|d in a variety of media, ranging from traditional print formats to online environments. This essay explores the implications that the transmedial dispersal of literary culture has for intermedial literary studies. If literature no longer functions as a unified single medium (if it ever did) but unfolds in a multiplicity of media, concepts central to intermediality studies, such as media specificity, media boundaries and media change, have to be reconsidered. Taking as its test case the adaptation of E. E. Cummings’s experimental poetry in Alison Clifford’s new media artwork The Sweet Old Etcetera as well as in YouTube clips, the essay argues for a reconceptualization of contemporary literature as a transmedial configuration or network. Rather than think of literature as a single self-contained medium that engages in intermedial exchange and competition with other media, such as film or music, we can better understand how literature operates and develops in the digital age if we recognize the medial heterogeneity and transmedial distribution of literary practice.
Analysis, detection and quantitation of mixed cryoglobulins in HCV infection: brief review and case examples
Authors: Voma Chesinta B. , Levinson Stanley S. 
Published: April 2016

Abstract
Considering the high incidence of cryoglobulins in hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection together with the high worldwide prevalence of HCV infection, identification of clinically apparent mixed cryoglobulinemia syndrome is increasingly important as most patients who are identified can now be successfully treated. Different approaches for the detection, analysis and reporting of cryoglobulins have been described and there is a wide variation in results reported, ranging from a qualitative “negative” or “positive”, to a quantitative report including cryoglobulin type and the total protein. Protein and immunofixation (IFE) electrophoresis are generally used to identify and characterize cryoglobulins, as these methods quantify and phenotype. Here, we present a brief review of the literature and demonstrate a case oriented approach for identifying mixed cryoglobulinemia from the preanalytical phase, leading up to and including the analytical phase with characterization by IFE. Most patients with mixed cryoglobulinemia can now be treated with success. Nevertheless, the high cost may limit treatment of those with symptoms unless there is laboratory evidence for mixed cryoglubulinemia. Low levels of cryoglobulins can be associated with severe symptoms; as a result, accurate identification of cryoglobulins may be of increasing importance since clear identification may be a good reason to initiate treatment.
Epilobi Hirsuti Herba Extracts Influence the In Vitro Activity of Common Antibiotics on Standard Bacteria
Authors: Pirvu Lucia , Nicorescu Isabela , Hlevca Cristina , Albu Bujor , Nicorescu Valentin 
Published: April 2016

AbstractEpilobium genus has been confirmed as an effective source of natural antimicrobials. However, the influence of Epilobi hirsuti herba derived products on usual antibiotics activity has not been studied. In this study, several standardized Epilobi hirsuti herba extracts (EHE) were evaluated in order to asses their potential effects on usual antibiotics tested on standard Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial strains in vitro. The results emphasized that the bacterial strains ranged from sensitive (MIC values between 50–200 μg GAE mL-1) (S. epidermidis ATCC 12228) to very resistant (E. coli strains), E. faecalis ATCC 29212 being practically immune to EHE. In terms of synergistic interaction, Tetracycline and Ampicillin combinations lead to the most important stimulatory effects, the diameters of the inhibition zone being even 60% bigger compared to the antibiotic alone. Synergistic effects between myricetin(galloyl) derivates and Tetracycline were also revealed on P. aeruginosa and E. coli strains. Together, it clearly demonstrated not only EHE’s own antimicrobial properties, but also their capacity to influence the antimicrobial potency of some common antibiotics. These results could be useful for the area of herbal medicines and as potential candidates in managing microbial resistance, but also for physicians and pharmacists using combined antibacterial therapy.
Reactions of ferrocenyl chalcones with hydrazines and active methylene compounds
Authors: El-Hussieny Marwa , Yosef Hisham Abdallah A. , Mahran Mohamed R.H. , Ibrahim Nabila M. 
Published: April 2016

AbstractClaisen-Schmidt condensation of ferrocenecarboxaldehyde (2b) with 2-acetylfuran (4) yielded(E)-3-ferrocenyl-1-(2-furyl)prop-2-en-1-one (E-5) together with 1,5-di(2-furyl)-3-ferrocenylpentane-1,5-dione (6). Reactions of the ferrocenyl chalcones3a,band5with hydrazine hydrate, phenyl hydrazine, ethyl acetoacetate, ethyl cyanoacetate and malononitrile, were also studied. Possible reaction mechanisms were discussed and structures of the new products were unambiguously characterized by common analytical and spectroscopic methods.
The Mechanical Properties of the Mo-0.5Ti and Mo-0.1Zr Alloys at Room Temperature and High Temperature Annealing
Authors: Cui Chaopeng , Gao Yimin , Wei Shizhong , Zhang Guoshang , Zhou Yucheng , Pan Kunming , Zhu Xiangwei , Guo Songliang 
Published: April 2016

Abstract
Mo-0.5Ti and Mo-0.1Zr alloys were prepared by powder metallurgy. In Mo-0.5Ti and Mo-0.1Zr alloys, there appears the second-phase particles of Ti2O3 and ZrO2 respectively, each of which can effectively prevent the dislocation activity in the process of plastic deformation. The addition of Zr can increase the strength of molybdenum alloys. Meanwhile, the ZrO2 formed from the alloy element Zr can refine the grains of molybdenum alloys to improve the recrystallization plasticity. After annealing, the tensile strength decreases while the plasticity greatly increases compared to the annealed Mo-0.5Ti and Mo-0.1Zr alloys. With the increase of annealing temperature, both the tensile strength and plasticity of Mo-0.5Ti and Mo-0.1Zr alloys decrease. Compared with pure Mo, after annealing the properties of the Mo-0.5Ti alloy and the plasticity of the Mo-0.1Zr alloy significantly increases.
Preferential Trade Liberalisation, Fiscal Policy Responses and Welfare: A Dynamic CGE Model for Jordan
Authors: Feraboli Omar 
Published: April 2016

Summary
This paper aims at assessing the effects on the Jordanian economy of the Association Agreement (AA) between Jordan and the European Union (EU). Particular emphasis is placed on the effects on consumer welfare. The EU-Jordan AA was signed in 1997 and entered into force in May 2002. It eliminates progressively tariffs on most industrial goods imported by Jordan from the EU. Custom duties on agricultural goods and processed agricultural products are gradually and only partially eliminated. Trade liberalisation is expected to bring about a positive impact on consumer welfare through lower prices of investment and consumption goods. On the other hand, it reduces government revenue due to foregone tariff revenue. Therefore counteracting fiscal measures are required in order to offset the loss in government revenue. In order to capture intertemporal effects brought about by trade liberalisation on the Jordanian economy, a multisectoral dynamic CGE model is specified and calibrated. Simulation results show that the implementation of the AA raises consumer welfare in Jordan and has positive effects on all macroeconomic variables in the long-run, but it reduces consumption in the short-run.
Vertragswettbewerb im Gesundheitswesen / Double-sided Competition for the German Health Care Market
Authors: Börsch-Supan Axel 
Published: April 2016

Summary
Germany spends more than 11% of GDP on health care - after the US and Switzerland the third most expensive system in the world. At the same time, healthy life expectancy is just about average among the OECD countries. This indicates that the German health care system suffers from inefficiency. Other OECD countries, notably Sweden, achieve much higher healthy life expectancies at considerably lower costs.
This paper addresses how the efficiency of the German health care system should be improved upon. Our central argument departs from the well-known observation that information about efficient health care procedures and technologies is asymmetric: insurances know better than consumers which doctors and hospital deliver high quality at lower prices. Hence, the role of health insurances as information mediators between consumers and providers is crucial. Thus, on the one hand, health insurances should gain more market power in the provider market, in which insurance companies pay the services of doctors and hospitals, in order to control costs. One the other hand, however, this increased market power in the provider market needs to be counter-balanced by more competition in the insurance market, in which consumers purchase insurance policies. This requires free choice of consumers among insurance contracts with different prices.
Der Mangel an Spenderorganen – Ursachen und Lösungsmöglichkeiten aus ökonomischer Sicht / The Shortage of Transplants – An Economic Analysis of Causes and Possible Solutions
Authors: Breyer Friedrich , Kliemt Hartmut 
Published: April 2016

Summary
There is an increasing shortage of human organ transplants in Germany. This paper aims at understanding the reasons for that shortage and discusses various ways to alleviate it by changing the rules of donation and procurement. In particular we consider creating adequate incentives for hospitals and individual donors to participate in the process. In Section 2 we provide a stylized account of the nature and extent of organ shortage in Germany in terms of some key data. Then, in Section 3 we will turn to the incentives of hospitals and their employees, in particular those of intensive care units. When they intend to participate in the process of procuring cadaveric human organ transplants, they may face some rather severe obstacles. In Section 4 we turn to the role of potential organ donors and their families. We discuss different strategies to increase consent to a donation of organs after brain-death has been diagnosed. We particularly consider monetary and other incentives as well as the introduction of the presumedconsent rule. In Section 5 we conclude that organ shortage is due not to natural constraints but to inappropriate social institutions. Introducing a presumed consent rule, reciprocity in organ allocation, better payments for hospitals and for donors are proposed as potential remedies.
Kapitaldeckung in der Gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung: Wer bezahlt den Übergang? / Funding Social Health Insurance: Who Pays for the Transition?
Authors: Felder Stefan , Fetzer Stefan 
Published: April 2016

Summary
The double ageing of the population leads to income redistribution from future to present generations as net payments to social health insurance are negative at young age and positive at old age. Economists arguing in favour of flat health insurance premiums combined with ageing provisions often neglect the transition from the pay-as-you-go to funded system. Using a generational accounting approach we analyze a reform to funded premiums, taking into account the transition. Furthermore, we implement a tax-transfer scheme designed to protect low income persons facing higher payments in the premium scheme.
Our calculations reveal that under the current pay-as-you-go system German social health insurance burdens future generations by almost 30 percent of GDP. Funding could reduce this burden to 5 percent of GDP but would involve higher payments up to 700 Euro p.a. for the present generations. A delay of the reform would increase the burden for future generations again and benefit baby boomers born before 1970. We conclude from a public-choice perspective that it will be difficult to implement even a delayed reform to a more funded health insurance system.
Medizinisch-technischer Fortschritt und altersspezifische Gesundheitsausgaben / Medical Progress and Age-specific Expenditure on Health Care
Authors: Ried Walter 
Published: April 2016

Summary
This paper investigates the impact of population aging, driven by medical progress, upon agespecific expenditure on health care. In a model set up in discrete time, individuals at each age may catch a lethal disease which, upon receiving appropriate medical treatment, nevertheless involves a mortality risk. The incidence of lethal diseases, the associated survival probability conditional upon treatment, and health care expenditure conditional upon health status may all depend on an individual’s history of health status in the past.
Medical progress is taken to involve an increase in the survival probability of a specified lethal disease. First, this produces a direct effect on age-specific health care expenditure to the extent that progress affects the cost of treatment of the disease. Second, indirect effects may also arise relating to individuals who, having survived the disease at some prior age, change the structure of individuals alive at current age. Specifically, these “new survivors” may influence age-specific expenditure either through changes in the incidence of lethal diseases or in the associated treatment cost. The sign of an indirect effect crucially depends on health care expenditure for “new survivors” relative to their peers.
The analysis yields a number of general results with respect to the impact of medical progress on the age profile of health care expenditure. For example, both compression of morbidity and expansion of morbidity are hypotheses which relate to “new survivors” such that they fail to account for the total effect of progress on age-specific expenditure.
Umverteilungseffekte in der Finanzierung von Gesundheitsleistungen / Redistribution Effects of Health Care Financing
Authors: Buchner Florian , Deppisch Rebecca , Wasem Jürgen 
Published: April 2016

Summary
Health care systems are financed through a mixture of different components: taxes, contributions to social health insurance, premiums to private health insurance, out of pocket payments by patients. These components can be combined differently leading to specific effects of interpersonal redistribution. This can be compared between different countries. In such a comparison the redistributional impact of the German health care systems is rather regressive - which is basically caused by the opportunity for people with high income to leave social health insurance. In comparison to a health insurance system with risk rated premiums, financing of the German social health insurance leads to interpersonal redistribution from higher to lower income, from the young to the elderly, from healthy to sick and from singles to families with children. The pay-as-you-go character of the system leads especially in combination with an aging population and technological change to burden for future generations. In comparison to a system in which each region finances its own health care expenditures, there are also considerable interregional redistributions. The financing system in Germany is not conceptually consistent. Reform proposals (unified health insurance for all; flat rate premiums) tackle these inconsistencies.
Health and the Decision to Invest in Education
Authors: Schneider Brit S. , Schneider Udo , Ulrich Volker 
Published: April 2016

Summary
The paper analyses the relationship between health and education in a two period human capital framework. The resulting substitution and investment effects between health and advanced training work in opposite direction and leave open questions for the empirical part. As econometric model we use a random effects probit model for panel data. Our data consist of 322 individuals for the two years 2004 and 2006. Thereby, we take into account that self-reported measures of health are usually vulnerable to a reporting bias due to anticipation and measurement errors. Estimation results show a dominant substitution effect between different levels of education, indicating that good health implies higher learning efficiency so that the same income can be achieved with lower investment in advanced training. In contrast, we find a dominant investment effect within an educational level, indicating that better health leads individuals with higher education to invest more in additional training.
Precautionary Saving and Income Uncertainty in Germany – New Evidence from Microdata
Authors: Bartzsch Nikolaus 
Published: April 2016

Summary
This paper uses microdata from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (GSOEP) to analyse the importance of precautionary saving under income uncertainty. In a cross-section of households, wealth in 2002 is regressed on alternative measures of income uncertainty. In addition to the usual controls, risk aversion is also taken into account. When using net financial wealth, precautionary saving is statistically significant and economically quite important. Precautionary net financial wealth is estimated to make up, on average, around 20% of total aggregate net financial wealth. Unlike net financial wealth, housing wealth is not used as a buffer stock against income uncertainty, the most likely reason being its illiquidity in Germany. Not controlling for risk aversion leads to an overestimation of precautionary wealth. This result contradicts the findings of Fuchs-Schündeln and Schündeln (2005) who suggest that, owing to self-selection, not controlling for risk aversion results in a significant reduction in aggregate precautionary wealth holdings.
Demand Elasticities for Mobile Telecommunications in Austria
Authors: Dewenter Ralf , Haucap Justus 
Published: April 2016

Summary
This paper analyses price elasticities in the Austrian market for mobile telecommunications services using data on firm specific tariffs in the period between January 1998 and March 2002. As a novelty compared to existing studies dynamic panel data regressions are used to estimate short-run and long-run demand elasticities for business customers and for private consumers with both postpaid contracts and prepaid cards.
We find that business customers have a higher elasticity of demand than private consumers, where postpaid customers tend to have a higher demand elasticity than prepaid customers. Also demand is as expected more elastic in the long run. In addition, the paper also provides estimates for firm-specific demand elasticities which range from -0.47 to -1.1.
Der Beschäftigungsbeitrag kleiner und mittlerer Unternehmen nach der EU-Definition / The Employment Contribution of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises According to the EU-definition
Authors: Engel Dirk , Trax Michaela 
Published: April 2016

Summary
Statements emphasizing the major contribution of the small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) for net job creation are quite frequent. Concerning the current definition of SMEs provided by the European Commission (EC), this paper makes a first attempt to approximate SMEs’ contribution to net employment change based on the IAB-Establishment Panel Data over the years 1998 to 2005 for the whole private economy. Due to sufficient data, independent one-plant firms with less than 250 employees may approximate the group of SMEs according at best. Comparisons with the firm-level Amadeus database validate the suitability of the IAB-establishment panel data for calculation of the SMEs’ employment share, as long as one controls for the establishments’ independence status. The employment share lies about fifty percent. As a matter of fact, the employment share of affiliated SMEs increases over time. Furthermore, independent small plants do not show higher net employment change rates than neither affiliated plants nor middle-sized and large plants. The results reinforce once again the impression that empirical evidence for the assumed superiority of SMEs, is very weak. Further research should mention the role of ownership and firms venturing on the level of firm as well as for the economy at all in more detail.
Survivor Benefits and the Gender-Related Tax Differential in Public Pension Schemes: Observations from Germany
Authors: Werding Martin 
Published: April 2016

Summary
As a result of fundamental changes in marriage behaviour and the typical division of labour between married spouses, the traditional form of providing survivor benefits within public pension schemes could now be seen as inequitable. Since these non-contributory benefits usually substitute for individual pension entitlements based on the surviving spouse’s own contributions, they can also lead to incentive effects that appear to be far from optimal. In particular, they may weaken work incentives for married women with some degree of labour-force attachment. The present paper highlights this problem referring to institutional details and empirical results related to Germany and shows how it could be resolved by jointly annuitizing a given couple’s pension entitlements. Problems of transition, with the potential for a Pareto-improvement, are neglected.
The Effect of Reputation on Selling Prices in Auctions
Authors: Grund Christian , Gürtler Oliver 
Published: April 2016

Summary
It is often argued in economics that building a reputation for trustworthiness could help individuals or firms to mitigate or even overcome problems of contractual incompleteness. In this paper, we use data from the German eBay website to test whether a seller’s bad reputation has an effect on selling prices. For auctions of popular DVDs at eBay we do indeed find evidence for this hypothesis. We show that an increase in the share of negative ratings of one percentage point decreases the selling price by about 4 per cent. The number of negative ratings, in contrast, does not affect the selling price significantly. Hence, bidders on the eBay marketplace seem to concentrate on relative rather than on absolute measures of reputation. Further, we challenge the recommendation that it is profitable for eBay sellers to let their auction end in the evening, when many potential buyers are supposed to be online. We find that prices are relatively lower in the evening. This may be due to a much higher supply of DVDs in the evening.