Betriebsvereinbarung contra BDSG?

Ob Betriebsvereinbarungen im Sinne des § 4 Abs. 1 BDSG eine „andere Rechtsvorschrift” sind und damit die Regelungen des BDSG einschr?nken dürfen, geh?rt zu den Standardfragen des praktischen Arbeitnehmerdatenschutzes. Die Autoren befürworten eine weite betriebliche Regelungskompetenz, beschr?nken diese aber zum Schutz der Arbeitnehmer durch eine Reihe datenschutzrechtlicher Mindestanforderungen, die Betriebsvereinbarungen einzuhalten haben.     

Treatment with the oral growth hormone secretagogue MK-677 increases markers of bone formation and bone resorption in obese young males

The effect of 2 months of treatment with the oral growth hormone (GH) secretagogue MK-677 on markers of bone metabolism was determined in healthy obese male subjects. This was a randomized, double-blind, parallel, placebo-controlled study. Twenty-four healthy obese males, 19-49 years of age, with body mass index > 30 kg/m2 were treated with MK-677 (25 mg/day; n = 12) or placebo (n = 12) for 8 weeks. MK-677 increased markers of bone formation; a 23% increase in the carboxy-terminal propeptide of type I procollagen levels and a 28% increase in procollagen III peptide levels were seen with as little as 2 weeks of MK-677 treatment (p < 0.01 and p = 0.001 vs. placebo, respectively) while a 15% increase in serum levels of osteocalcin was not detected until 8 weeks of treatment (p < 0.01 vs. placebo). Markers of bone resorption were induced within 2 weeks of treatment with MK-677; serum levels of the carboxy-terminal cross-linked telopeptide of type I collagen were increased 26% at 8 weeks (p = 0.001 vs. placebo), and urine hydroxyproline/creatinine and calcium/creatinine ratios at 8 weeks were increased by 23% (p < 0.05 vs. placebo) and 46% (p < 0.05 vs placebo), respectively, MK-677 increased serum insulin-like growth factor binding protein-5 (IGFBP-5) by 43-44% after 2-8 weeks of treatment (p < 0.01 vs. placebo). Serum IGFBP-4 was increased by 25% after 2 weeks of treatment (p < 0.001 vs. placebo) but no significant change from baseline was observed after 8 weeks of treatment. Plasma interleukin-6 was not significantly changed by active treatment. In conclusion, short-term treatment of healthy obese male volunteers with the GH secretagogue MK-677 increases markers of both bone resorption and formation. Large increases in serum levels of IGF-1 and IGFBP-5 and a transient increase in serum IGFBP-4 were found. Future long-term studies are needed to investigate if prolonged treatment with MK-677 increases bone mass.     

An Extended Replication of an Experiment for Assessing Methods for Software Requirements Inspections

We have performed an extended replication of the Porter-Votta-Basili experiment comparing the Scenario method and the Checklist method for inspecting requirements specifications using identical instruments. The experiment has been conducted in our educational context represented by a more general definition of a defect compared to the original defect list. Our study involving 24 undergraduate students manipulated three independent variables: detection method, requirements specification, and the order of the inspections. The dependent variable measured is the defect detection rate. We found the requirements specification inspected and not the detection method to be the most probable explanation for the variance in defect detection rate. This suggests that it is important to gather knowledge of how a requirements specification can convey an understandable view of the product and to adapt inspection methods accordingly. Contrary to the original experiment, we can not significantly support the superiority of the Scenario method. This is in accordance with a replication conducted by Fusaro, Lanubile and Visaggio, and might be explained by the lack of individual defect detection skill of our less experienced subjects.     

A note on the min-max formulation of stiffness optimization including non-zero prescribed displacements

The present theoretical note shows how a natural objective function in stiffness optimization, including both prescribed forces and non-zero prescribed displacements, is the equilibrium potential energy. It also shows how the resulting problem has a saddle point character that may be utilized when calculating sensitivities.     

How practice produces suboptimal heuristics that render backup instruments ineffective

The operation of machines typically requires attention to instruments that signal the state of the machine. One safeguard against primary instrument malfunction is to provide backup instruments, but this works only if the operators react to malfunction by switching attention to the backups. Little is known about the effect of negative outcomes or feedback on allocation of attention to backup instruments. Four experiments demonstrated that prior practice causes operators of a simulated machine to adapt to instrument malfunction by changing to a suboptimal decision rule rather than by reallocating attention to a different set of instruments. This fallacy appears linked to the operators' failures to notice feedback that they should switch during the simulations and operators' failures to correctly interpret outcome feedback following the simulations. The results raise theoretical questions and warn interface designers not to overrate backup instruments.     

Assessing and Understanding Efficiency and Success of Software Production

One of the goals of collectingproject data during software development and evolution is toassess how well the project did and what should be done to improvein the future. With the wide range of data often collected andthe many complicated relationships between them, this is notalways easy. This paper suggests to use production models (DataEnvelope Analysis) to analyze objective variables and their impacton efficiency. To understand the effect of subjective variables,it is suggested to apply principal component analysis (PCA).Further, we propose to combine the results from the productionmodels and the analysis of the subjective variables. We showcapabilities of production models and illustrate how productionmodels can be combined with other approaches to allow for assessingand hence understanding software project data. The approach isillustrated on a data set consisting of 46 software projectsfrom the NASA-SEL database (NASA-SEL, 1992). The data analyzedis of the type that is commonly found in project databases.     

Crowdsourcing as a service – from pilot projects to sustainable innovation routines

While crowdsourcing may strengthen a company's innovation performance, it is only rarely embedded in organizations as an innovation practice. Our action research shows that organizations often struggle with crowdsourcing projects as they represent a different form of innovation projects and require additional capabilities and skills e.g., to frame a crowd challenge, deal with IP rights, manage the crowd, or integrate the vast input into innovation projects. To overcome these problems, organizations have to invest in project-led learning to establish easy-to-use templates and routines e.g., to handle offered incentives or the applied winner selection processes. They further need to enable business-led learning as the established innovation structures, processes, and management practices do not cope with crowdsourcing projects and present some rigidities causing high coordination efforts. Organizations that are willing to run a number of consecutive crowdsourcing projects may rapidly improve their capabilities and even come up with scalable crowdsourcing services. Our findings further suggest that crowdsourcing, digital platforms, artificial intelligence, and as-a-service approaches may also add to general project capability building.