Vienna University of Economics and Business
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Decoupling trends of emissions across EU regions and the role of environmental policies
Get PDFThe paper combines grid-level data of eight emission types –CO2, N20, CH4, NH3, NOX, PM10, PM2.5, and SO2 – with sub-national economic data to create a 1995–2015 balanced panel for NUTS 2 regions in EU countries. Regions on average show decoupling of emissions from output but most of the emission reductions are achieved before the 2008 financial crisis. Post 2008, very weak decoupling and even coupling can be observed. Using OECD’s Environmental Policy Stringency (EPS) Index as an intervention variable, an event study analysis shows that strong policies significantly reduce emissions, but there is considerable heterogeneity in the response by emission types and regional income levels
Intelligent software web agents: A gap analysis
Get PDFSemantic web technologies have shown their effectiveness, especially when it comes to knowledge representation, reasoning, and data integration. However, the original semantic web vision, where by machine readable web data could be automatically actioned upon by intelligent software web agents, has yet to be realised. In order to better understand the existing technological opportunities and challenges, in this paper we examine the status quo in terms of intelligent software webagents, guided by research with respect to requirements and architectural components, coming from the agents community. We use the identified requirements to both further elaborate on the semantic web agent motivating use case scenario, and to summarise different perspectives on the requirements from the semantic web agent literature. We subsequently propose a hybrid semantic web agent architecture, and use the various components and subcomponents in order to provide a focused discussion in relationto existing semantic web standards and community activities. Finally, we highlight open research opportunities and challenges and take abroader perspective of the research by discussing the potential for intelligent software web agents as an enabling technology for emerging domains, such as digital assistants, cloud computing, and the internet of things
Impact und Wirkungsanalyse in Nonprofit Organisationen, Unternehmen und Organisationen mit gesellschaftlichem Mehrwert: Vom Wirkungsmodell über die Messung, Bewertung bis zur Steuerung, Darstellung und Kommunikation
Get PDFHoldout-Based Empirical Assessment of Mixed-Type Synthetic Data
Get PDFAI-based data synthesis has seen rapid progress over the last several years and is increasingly recognized for its promise to enable privacy-respecting high-fidelity data sharing. This is reflected by the growing availability of both commercial and open-sourced software solutions for synthesizing private data. However, despite these recent advances, adequately evaluating the quality of generated synthetic datasets is still an open challenge. We aim to close this gap and introduce a novel holdout-based empirical assessment framework for quantifying the fidelity as well as the privacy risk of synthetic data solutions for mixed-type tabular data. Measuring fidelity is based on statistical distances of lower-dimensional marginal distributions, which provide a model-free and easy-to-communicate empirical metric for the representativeness of a synthetic dataset. Privacy risk is assessed by calculating the individual-level distances to closest record with respect to the training data. By showing that the synthetic samples are just as close to the training as to the holdout data, we yield strong evidence that the synthesizer indeed learned to generalize patterns and is independent of individual training records. We empirically demonstrate the presented framework for seven distinct synthetic data solutions across four mixed-type datasets and compare these then to traditional data perturbation techniques. Both a Python-based implementation of the proposed metrics and the demonstration study setup is made available open-source. The results highlight the need to systematically assess the fidelity just as well as the privacy of these emerging class of synthetic data generators
Do You Prefer Safety to Social Participation? Finnish Population-Based Preference Weights for the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT) for Service Users
Get PDFIntroduction. The Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT) was developed in England to measure people’s social care–related quality of life (SCRQoL). Objectives. The aim of this article is to estimate preference weights for the Finnish ASCOT for service users (ASCOT). In addition, we tested for learning and fatigue effects in the choice experiment used to elicit the preference weights. Methods. The analysis data (n = 1000 individuals) were obtained from an online survey sample of the Finnish adult general population using gender, age, and region as quotas. The questionnaire included a best-worst scaling (BWS) experiment using ASCOT. Each respondent sequentially selected four alternatives (best, worst; second-best, second-worst) for eight BWS tasks (n = 32,000 choice observations). A scale multinomial logit model was used to estimate the preference parameters and to test for fatigue and learning. Results. The most and least preferred attribute-levels were “I have as much control over my daily life as I want” and “I have no control over my daily life.” The preference weights were not on a cardinal scale. The ordering effect was related to the second-best choices. Learning effect was in the last four tasks. Conclusions. This study has developed a set of preference weights for the ASCOT instrument in Finland, which can be used for investigating outcomes of social care interventions on adult populations. The learning effect calls for the development of study designs that reduce possible bias relating to preference uncertainty at the beginning of sequential BWS tasks. It also supports the adaptation of a modelling strategy in which the sequence of tasks is explicitly modelled as a scale factor
What Stirs Consumers to Purchase Carbon-Friendly Food? Investigating the Motivational and Emotional Aspects in Three Studies
Get PDFAs part of diminishing climate change, food consumption needs to be addressed to reduce
greenhouse gases. In order to change food consumption habits to carbon-friendly eating patterns,
consumers may be targeted by information campaigns and legal regulation. The current paper
studies consumers’ diets and food purchase behavior. In particular, it aims to understand consumers’
motivational and emotional aspects that influence their behavior. Study 1, an interview study, aims
to understand the development of and motivations for climate-friendly nutrition. Identifying eco-friendly motives also revealed that emotions seem to play an important role in nutrition and the
purchase of climate-friendly products. Study 2 aims at identifying consumers’ positive and negative
emotions when it comes to consuming carbon-friendly food. Again, qualitative interviews revealed
a variety of positive and negative emotions. Study 3 quantitatively tested the theory of planned
behavior, including positive and negative emotions and predicted carbon-friendly food purchases.
The results show that attitudes, perceived behavioral control and positive emotions predict carbon-friendly food purchases. Derived from these findings, recommendations for information campaigns
and legislation to foster carbon-friendly food purchases are presented
“Red Vienna” and the rise of the populist right
Get PDFWhile research on the spatial variation in populist right voting focuses on the role of “places left behind”, this paper examines the spatial distribution of populist right voting in one of the fastest growing capital cities of Europe, Vienna. Combining detailed electoral data of the 2017 national elections at the statistical ward level and the location of municipal housing units, the paper examines why the populist right “Austrian Freedom Party” (FPOE) performs better in the former bulwarks of socialism, in the municipal housing areas of “Red Vienna”. The paper links the socio-demographic development of Vienna and its municipal housing policy with election results and explores three possible reasons for elevated FPOE shares in municipal housing areas: rising housing costs pushed an increasing number of socially and economically vulnerable into the municipal housing sector and so increased the FPOE voter pool in those areas; European Union accession and changes in regulation allowed foreign citizens to apply to and obtain municipal housing flats triggering a backlash from Austrian municipal housing residents; and municipal housing is located in disadvantaged neighbourhoods further enhancing the FPOE voter pool. The paper demonstrates that higher FPOE vote shares in areas with high municipal housing shares are due primarily to higher shares of formally less educated residents, neighbourhood context and they are marginally elevated in those municipal housing areas experiencing a larger influx of foreign residents
Die lebenswerteste Stadt der Welt: Wer ist dafür verantwortlich und wer darf mitgestalten?
Get PDFDie Stadt Wien zählt seit mehreren Jahren als eine der Spitzenreiterinnen unter den weltweit lebenswertesten Städten. In unserem Forschungsprojekt haben wir uns näher mit den Akteur_innen beschäftigt, die für diesen Erfolg als verantwortlich gesehen werden. In der Theorie bestehen bereits verschiedene wissenschaftliche Ansätze über „Interactive Governance“, „Public Value Creation“ und „Smart Cities“, jedoch bleibt das Wissen über die verantwortlichen Akteur_innen und deren Dynamik untereinander nach wie vor fragmentiert. Unser Forschungsprojekt besteht aus drei Studien, die sich auf qualitativen als auch quantitativen Datenerhebungen beruhen. In unserer ersten Studie haben wir durch einen Mixed-Methods-Ansatz die konkreten Akteur_innen, die als einflussreich für den hohen Lebensstandard Wiens gelten, determiniert. In unserer zweiten Studie haben wir die Bedürfnisse und Präferenzen der beteiligten Akteuer_innen, sowie ihre Mitwirkung am urbanen Ökosystem, auf qualitative Weise durch eine Medienanalyse untersucht. Anhand der Erkenntnisse von der ersten und zweiten Studie konnten wir in unserer dritten Studie fünf Conjoint Experimente durchführen, die einen Überblick über die konkreten Abwägungen der Attribute der Akteur_innen verschafft. Somit liefert unsere Forschung konkrete Erkenntnisse über die relevanten Akteur_innen und deren Attribute, die ausschlaggebend sind um sich an der Stadtgestaltung zu beteiligen und um Städte lebenswertig zu erhalten. Unsere Ergebnisse tragen nicht nur zum theoretischen Diskurs über Lebensqualität und Stadtgestaltung bei, sondern haben auch praktische Anwendungen. So ist es zum Beispiel wichtig zu verstehen, dass die Verwaltung von lebenswerten Städten auf Kompromisse zwischen den Präferenzen und Bedürfnissen verschiedener Interessengruppen beruht
Cost-effectiveness analysis of the use of immunotherapy in metastatic solid tumours in Austria by applying the ESMO-Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale (ESMO-MCBS) version 1.1
Get PDFBackground: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) treatment is a breakthrough in managing metastatic solid tumours, but its use is associated with a high financial burden for public health care systems. Validated tools such as the European Society for Medical Oncology-Magnitude of Clinical Benefit Scale (ESMO-MCBS) are frameworks that might help to better assess the clinical benefit of these novel innovative cancer drugs.
Methods: Here, we systematically analysed the number of European Medicines Agency-approved ICIs labels with an ESMO-MCBS grade <4 and the impact of the ICIs on incremental costs, gain of life years (LYs), quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) and the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio in the Austrian population.
Results: Of 23 ICIs treatment settings, we identified three clinical scenarios in metastatic solid cancers with an ESMO-MCBS grade <4 with no otherwise approved alternatives. In triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), the addition of first-line atezolizumab increased QALYs by 0.33 compared with nab-paclitaxel only, with an incremental cost per QALY of €143 853. In small-cell lung cancer (SCLC), the addition of first-line atezolizumab increased the QALY by 0.09, with an incremental cost per QALY of €373 256, and the addition of first-line durvalumab increased the QALYs by 0.11, with an incremental cost per QALY of €589 527.
Conclusions: Overall, most of the approved ICIs carry significant clinical benefit (≥4). Although TNBC and SCLC are challenging treatment scenarios, currently approved ICIs with an ESMO-MCBS grade <4 substantially increase the cost of medical treatment, and under a willingness-to-pay threshold of €100 000, they do not have a cost-effective comparative benefit