Suchergebnisse

Als Methoden bezeichnet man in der Politikwissenschaft ganz unterschiedliche Forschungsaktivitäten und -instrumente. So gibt es die Unterscheidung zwischen mathematischen, historischen oder philosophischen M., man grenzt induktive von deduktiven, kausale von funktionalen M., diese wieder von dialektischen, hermeneutischen oder phänomenologischen M. ab. Zur M.-Lehre zählt man quantitative wie qualitative Erhebungs- und Analysestrategien. Diese verschiedenen, mit dem M.-Begriff verbundenen Vorstellungen treffen sich jedoch in einem gemeinsamen Bezugspunkt, nämlich der Frage nach den angemessenen Formen der Gewinnung und Verwendung politikwissenschaftlich-relevanter Untersuchungsmaterialien.

An undergraduate course on research methods and analysis is fertile ground for service-learning in political science. Research methods courses teach students a variety of data-collection and analysis methods, and many community service agencies and nonprofit organizations typically benefit from research on how their services are provided and how such services can be improved. This essay illustrates how undergraduate students can use survey design techniques to help community service organizations collect data on program effectiveness and program development.

Watermarks. The term evokes visions of shady characters secretly beavering away in dark basements surrounded by forged $100 bills drying on clothes lines. In a digital media context, away from the traditional world of inks and paper, the same old problem remains but it relates not just to forgery but also to outright theft, because one digital copy can spawn millions of others with the single click of a mouse button. It is hardly surprising that the notion of a digital watermark has stimulated avid interest amongst artists and publishers alike. It is commonly recognized that digital watermarks must be as robust as the media in which they are embedded. For example, a rotated, cropped, and rescanned water-marked image should still be a watermarked image. However, this robustness requirement directly conflicts with the need for a digital watermark to be unobtrusive. The most effective techniques used to embed watermarks are the result of a combination of secret key-based techniques used for military communication and simple models of the human visual system. The most familiar application for digital watermarks is for copyright protection and protection of intellectual property. On its own, a watermark does not provide any legal proof of ownership. In other words, the use of a given digital watermark to protect intellectual property must be registered with a trusted third party to be of any value. Any technique for embedding robust digital watermarks must be compatible with methods for registering copyright. A watermark's resistance to intentional and unintentional degradation has been the main subject of interest in the watermarking community. The main challenges are geometric transformations such as change of proportion or simple rescaling. One watermark removal technique that is supplied on the Internet simply shifts a corner of the image. Lossy image compression such as JPEG and filtering are more easily overcome and, generally speaking, watermarks have evolved into very resistant forms. The laboratory, but will they really work in the real world?

Over the past few years, the number of political science departments offering qualitative methods courses has grown substantially. The number of qualitative methods textbooks has kept pace, providing instructors with an overwhelming array of choices. But how to decide which text to choose from this exhortatory smorgasbord? The scholarship desperately needs evaluated. Yet the task is not entirely straightforward: qualitative methods textbooks reflect the diversity inherent in qualitative methods itself. Consequently, evaluating qualitative methods textbooks consists more of weighing competing strengths than identifying weaknesses. I undertake just such an evaluation in the following survey, which should be useful both to teachers of qualitative methods and to researchers keen to brush up on specific techniques.

Die komparative didaktische Forschung, die über die eigenen Landesgrenzen hinausschaut, gewinnt im Zuge des europäischen Einigungsprozesses und der Globalisierung zunehmend an Bedeutung. Sie fragt dabei vor allem nach Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschieden der nationalen Bildungsvorstellungen, um damit die Gesprächsbasis für einen internationalen didaktischen Dialog zu schaffen. Ein lohnender Ansatz dafür stellt die Lehrplananalyse dar, weil Lehrpläne am direktesten Bildungsvorstellungen ausdrücken. Lehrpläne lassen sich unter verschiedensten Gesichtspunkten analysieren: Umfang, Struktur, der Grad ihrer Offenheit oder das zur Verfügung stehende Stundendeputat sind mögliche Ansatzpunkte. Das zentrale Interesse gilt aber in der Regel den in ihnen enthaltenen Lernzielen und -inhalten. Die Forschungspraxis zeigt, dass diese aber aufgrund ihrer Unterschiedlichkeit und aufgrund terminologischer Unschärfen nicht direkt miteinander verglichen werden können, es bedarf vielmehr eines unabhängigen "Messinstrumentes". Im vorliegenden Forschungsvorhaben, bei dem die Lehrpläne des Primarbereiches der EU-Mitgliedstaaten verglichen wurden, wurde als zentrales Instrument dazu eine dreidimensionale Lernzielmatrix gewählt. Im Folgenden sollen nach Darstellung der Auswahlkriterien einige methodische Ansätze der Lehrplananalyse aufgezeigt werden. (DIPF/Orig.)

After some initial trepidation, I was excited about teaching a graduate seminar in qualitative methods. It could hardly be a more interesting time. The publication of King, Keohane, and Verba's Designing Social Inquiry reinvigorated interest in qualitative methods, and I wanted to design the course to profit from this emerging debate. Whereas KKV appealed to qualitative researchers to do their best to adopt quantitative methodological guidelines, I wanted to encourage students to think about whether that is always the best prescription for qualitative research. What is gained, and what is lost from evaluating case-oriented, comparative research from the perspective of large-N, variable-oriented research? What are the strengths and weaknesses of qualitative research, and what types of questions or issues are best addressed with it? How does a researcher make valid causal inferences about complex political phenomena on the basis of case-study or comparative case study methods? I hoped to teach students how to create and critique sophisticated case study and comparative research. I also wanted them to be able to explain their methodological decisions to quantitative researchers in terms that the latter could understand and appreciate.

The Truth In Negotiations Act requires Government contractors to submit cost or pricing data with most proposals over $100,000. The contractor is also required to certify that the data so submitted is current, complete, and accurate as of the final agreement on price. If the data is later found to be noncurrent, incomplete, or inaccurate the contractor may be found liable for defective pricing. This paper presents the regulatory environment surrounding the defective pricing issue and attempts to present methods to be used to prevent such allegations. The paper begins with an overview of the Government procurement process from the identification of a need through the signing of a contract to fulfill that need. As the rational behind the regulations provides one viewpoint of the industry, the current perceptions within the defense industry are also presented. Cost or pricing data is defined in terms of the statutory and regulatory requirements. The submittal requirements for the cost or pricing data and exemptions from those requirements are delineated. The cost areas that cause the greatest amount of problems for contractors are highlighted with recommendations as to the types of data that should be submitted to prevent problems. An overview of the audit process that the Government uses to detect defective pricing and the laws that surround such audits are provided. Methods for surviving audits are listed. The liability arising from defective pricing is outlined with the basis for recovery of cost. The civil and criminal sanctions that may be applied in some cases are reviewed. The paper concludes with some methods to be used to avoid defective pricing allegations.

In Deutschland und allen EU Mitgliedsstaaten wird die Verträglichkeitsprüfung von Kosmetika in Tierversuchen in der Öffentlichkeit stark kritisiert. Dieser Kritik, die von Tierschutzverbänden ausging, haben sich inzwischen die Verbraucher und die Behörden und Regierungen der EU Mitgliedsstaaten angeschlossen. Nach mehrjähriger Diskussion wurde die vom EU Parlament vorgeschlagene 7. Änderung der EU Kosmetikrichtlinie 76/768/EEC (EU Kommission 1976) am 27. Februar 2003 vom Ministerrat der EU Mitgliedsstaaten akzeptiert (EU Richtlinie 2003/15/EG), die eine stufenweise Einschränkung von Tierversuchen für Kosmetika und ein Verbot in 10 Jahren vorsieht. Grund für das abgestufte Vorgehen ist die Tatsache, dass noch nicht alle zur Prüfung von Kosmetika vorgeschriebenen Tierversuche durch tierversuchsfreie Methoden ersetzt werden können. Gleichzeitig wurden bei der Entwicklung, Validierung und internationalen behördlichen Anerkennung neuer, tierversuchsfreier Prüfmethoden in den letzten 10 Jahren erhebliche Fortschritte erzielt, so daß der Ersatz der Tierversuche bei der Verträglichkeitsprüfung von Kosmetika in naher Zukunft möglich sein wird. Es werden deshalb die Fortschritte vorgestellt, die aufgrund der gemeinsamen Anstrengungen von Wissenschaftlern in Laboratorien der Kosmetikindustrie und anderen Forschungsinstituten beim der Entwicklung von Alternativmethoden zu Tierversuchen erzielt wurden.The tolerability test of cosmetics in animal experiments is subject to severe criticism in the public in Germany and all EU member states. This criticism, which emanated from animal protection associations, to begin with has been taken up in the meantime by consumers, authorities and governments of the EU member states. After several years' discussion, the 7th amendment of the EU Cosmetics Directive 76/768/EEC (EU Commission 1976), proposed by the EU Parliament, was accepted (EU directive 2003/15/EG) on 27 February 2003 by the Council of Ministers of the EU member states. This amendment designates a gradual restriction of animal experiments for cosmetics and a ban in 10 years. The reason for this gradual way of proceedings is the fact that at the time being not all animal experiments provided for testing of cosmetics can be replaced by animal-experiment-free methods. At the same time considerable progress has been achieved in the development, validation and international regulatory approval of novel, animal-experiment-free test methods in the last 10 years so that the replacement of animal experiments in the tolerability testing of cosmetics will be feasible in the near future. Therefore, the progress attained is introduced which is based on mutual efforts of scientists in laboratories of the cosmetics industry and other research institutes in the development of alternative methods for animal experiments.

Regulation has been and still is often discussed in economic theory and politics. Despite this, papers analyzing regulatory measures lack a definition of the term or employ widely differing concepts. In order to remedy this neglect, we give a short survey of various definitions of regulation. Thereupon we consider objects of regulation, institutions responsible for regulation, and methods of regulation as three central aspects which contribute to a systematic description of the term.

The appropriateness and desirability of researching children have been issues of some debate. Children may be perceived as non-competent or vulnerable, and proxies have been used as children's representatives. Increasingly researchers are speaking to children directly. Why is this so and what are the methodological and ethical implications of researching children's views? In this paper the authors draw on their own experiences of researching children in the fields of child carers and the impact of the Child Support Act 1991. A number of social, political and legal trends are identified which form a background to the growing interest in children as potential and actual participants in the research process. The theoretical, methodological, ethical and practical issues involved are then identified and described, using examples from two separate studies conducted by the authors.

We develop a model of spatial elections that departs from the standard model in three important respects. Our parties' information of voters' preferences is limited to polls; our parties can be either office-seeking of ideological; and our parties are not perfect optimizers, i.e. they are modeled as boundedly rational actors. Since our imperfect parties do not necessarily find optimal positions, rather than concern ourselves with existence and location of equilibria, we trace the trajectory of winning party positions. The outcomes are subsequently evaluated with respect to a measure of social welfare, centrality. Our results suggest that in fair voting systems, two party elections lead to normatively appealing outcomes. We are seeking to introduce the role of computers genearlly and adaptive artificial agents (AAA) specifically, to the study of parties, voters, and elections in spatial models. We argue for using adaptive parties to add behavioral complexity to stand formal models of politics without sacrificing a logical foundation. Doing so may not only revise our judgments about the relevance of spatial voting models to real elections, but it may lead us to important insights about what occurs in those elections.

We proposed her a technique, which can be employed within the methodology know as process reengineering. This technique was applied in a government environment, which included an Information System and Geographical Information System, developed with financial support from The World Bank. One model used in process reengineering is the process model diagram. Ir allows finding the tasks, to be completed in each area of the organization. To understand the domain is crucial to be able to specify each one of these tasks. We show here how to use modeling of processes to find the tasks and to formalize their description using RAISE formal method. In this way, using a model of process as input, an engineer employs a systematic technique to create –as a starting point- the mail functions (tasks) of the domain using the RAISE formal method. ; Eje: Ingeniería de Software y Base de Datos ; Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI)

"March 1985." ; Distributed to depository libraries in microfiche. ; Cover title. ; Includes bibliographical references. ; Final report. ; Prepared for Department of the Army, US Army Corps of Engineers. ; Mode of access: Internet.

Angesichts steigender Arbeitslosenzahlen in der Europäischen Union erscheint es fraglich, ob bis zum Jahr 2010 das ehrgeizige Ziel einer Beschäftigungsquote von 70 Prozent zu erreichen ist. Durch den Beitritt weiterer zehn Länder in die EU steigen die Herausforderungen an eine gemeinsame Beschäftigungspolitik noch weiter. Der vorliegende Beitrag geht daher der Frage nach, ob die Europäische Beschäftigungs-strategie ein zukunftsfähiges Modell für den europäischen Arbeitsmarkt darstellt. Als Kernelement der Europäischen Beschäftigungsstrategie gilt die so genannte Methode der offenen Koordinierung (MOK). Sie steht daher im Mittelpunkt der Be-trachtung und soll kritisch auf ihr Vor- und Nachteile abgeklopft werden. Diese Koordinierungsmethode kombiniert Elemente zentraler Steuerung mit einer dezentra-len Umsetzung und nationalstaatlichen Verantwortlichkeit. Sie ist daher offen für Modifikationen und Lernprozesse, aber auch offen im Hinblick auf alle beschäfti-gungspolitischen Akteure. ; Given the rising numbers of jobless people in the European Union (EU), it seems questionable whether it is possible to meet the ambitious goal of achieving 70 percent employment by 2010. The demands on common employment policy will only increase with the accession of ten additional countries to the EU. The purpose of this essay is to examine whether the European Employment Strategy is a sustainable model for the European labor market. As a key element of the European Employment Strategy, the open method of coordination (OMC) is critically analyzed for its advantages and disadvantages. The OMC combines elements of centralized control with decentralized follow-through and state responsibility. It therefore lends itself to modifications and learning processes and can accommodate all the actors engaged in employment policy.

The subject matter of this Workshop is becoming of increasing importance to the analysis of income distribution, poverty, living standards and tax incidence, as well as to assessment of tax and income support policies in Australia. With the release of unit record tape data by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the ability to develop sophisticated computer models of personal incomes and expenditures has increased markedly. The models are being applied to analyse the impact and cost of actual government policies, of policy proposals and to track developments over time in family incomes and living standards. With the development of such models occurring simultaneously in a number of research institutes and government agencies, and at a rapid pace, a need to exchange information and techniques and expose the models to peer review was apparent. With this in mind, the Workshop summarised in this Report was organised with three specific aims: (1) To bring together Australian researchers involved in the development of tax-benefit models and microsimulation methods, with a view to sharing common developments, methodologies and difficulties and to highlight the similarities and differences in work currently in progress. (2) In light of the first meeting of the OECD Experts Panel on Microsimulation Models in July 1990, to allow the author of the Australian paper for the meeting (Phi1 Gallagher) to obtain comments on the draft of his paper for the OECD meeting; and (3) To develop a forum for on-going discussion of issues relating to microsimulation model Development, model application, model validation and, perhaps of greatest significance, issues relating to data availability, scope and cost.