Homogeneous National Management Policies or Autonomous Choices by Administrative Units? Inter- and Intra-Country Management Tools Use Variations in European Central Government Administrations

ABSTRACT

This article presents an original research on the use of management tools in central government departments and agencies in 16 European countries. It is based on a survey conducted among senior managers (n?=?5,998). The analysis shows that the use of management tools results from a combination of top-down implementation of a list of management tools at the national level, combined with a bottom-up independent selection of tools by administrative units. The variation in management tool use depends on the type of tool. While the uses of a HRM tool, such as performance-related pay, or a financial tool, such as risk management, are heavily influenced by national public management policies, service quality-type tools, such as user surveys or quality management systems, tend to be chosen in a more autonomous manner by different administrative units, especially agencies.     

Nationalism and Cultural Memory in Poland: The European Union Turns East

The eastern expansion of the European Union confronts the process of European integration with the phenomenon of cultural and ethnic nationalism. This paper examines the situation of Poland, using Jan Assmann's theory of cultural memory to reconstruct the historical dimension of Polish nationalism which underlies the current constructions of the Polish nation. Understanding itself as the antemurale Europae christianiae, Poland owns an old tradition of resistance. This tradition allowed this country to survive times of division and oppression but now turns against the European Union.     

Umweltproduktrecht – Konturen,Systematik und praktische Bedeutung

Natur und Recht - Erst der sog. Abgasskandal scheint ein stärkeres Bewusstsein für das Umweltproduktrecht in jüngerer Vergangenheit wieder geweckt zu haben. Dabei existiert diese...     

Classification of firing pin impressions using HOG-SVM

Crimes, such as robbery and murder, often involve firearms. In order to assist with the investigation into the crime, firearm examiners are asked to determine whether cartridge cases found at a crime scene had been fired from a suspect's firearm. This examination is based on a comparison of the marks left on the surfaces of cartridge cases. Firing pin impressions can be one of the most commonly used of these marks. In this study, a total of nine Ruger model 10/22 semiautomatic rifles were used. Fifty cartridges were fired from each rifle. The cartridge cases were collected, and each firing pin impression was then cast and photographed using a comparison microscope. In this paper, we will describe how one may use a computer vision algorithm, the Histogram of Orientated Gradient (HOG), and a machine learning method, Support Vector Machines (SVMs), to classify images of firing pin impressions. Our method achieved a reasonably high accuracy at 93%. This can be used to associate a firearm with a cartridge case recovered from a scene. We also compared our method with other feature extraction algorithms. The comparison results showed that the HOG-SVM method had the highest performance in this classification task.     

Die korporative Verhandlungsdemokratie in Westmitteleuropa

Die Diskussion über Konkordanzdemokratie und Korporatismus hat die Aufmerksamkeit darauf gelenkt, dass sich staatliche Steuerung in den Ländern Westmitteleuropas (Schweiz, Österreich, Deutschland, Belgien und Niederlande) in beträchtlichem Masse auf Verhandlungslösungen mit und zwischen korporativ verfassten Gruppen rekurriert. Solche “verhandlungsdemokratischen” Strategierepertoires, in die heute staatliche Bürokratien, organisierte Interessen, politische Parteien und autonome Gebietskörperschaften eingebunden sind, haben sich in diesen Ländern in je eigentümlichen Entwicklungspfaden moderner Staatlichkeit ausgebildet. Sie knüpfen an institutionelle Ansatzpunkte für korporative Repräsentation an, die sich hier - alternativ zum hierarchisch-absolutistischen Modell - seit dem Auflösungsprozess des spätmittelalterlichen “Heiligen Römischen Reiches” erhalten haben. Das wird beispielhaft am Entwicklungspfad der deutschen Verhandlungsdemokratie nachgezeichnet, dessen Ursprünge man im föderativen Gleichgewichtsmodell des Westfälischen Friedens (1648) suchen kann. Der Leitbegriff der “Parität” korporativ verfasster und staatlich privilegierter teilautonomer Gruppen, der hier erstmals für die drei grossen Konfessionen entwickelt wurde, ist seit dem 19. Jahrhundert zu der zentralen Friedensformel des deutschen Korporatismus geworden.