G Hein, T Singer, I feel how you feel but not always: the empathic brain and its modulation, Current Opinion in Neurobiology, Vol. 18 (2), 2008. (Journal Article)
The ability to share the other’s feelings, known as empathy, has recently become the focus of social neuroscience studies. We review converging evidence that empathy with, for example, the pain of another person, activates part of the neural pain network of the empathizer, without first hand pain stimulation to the empathizer’s body. The amplitude of empathic brain responses is modulated by the intensity of the displayed emotion, the appraisal of the situation, characteristics of the suffering person such as perceived fairness, and features of the empathizer such as gender or previous experience with pain-inflicting situations. Future studies in the field should address inter-individual differences in empathy, development and plasticity of the empathic brain over the life span and the link between empathy, compassionate motivation and prosocial behavior. |
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Mathias Hoffmann, The lack of international consumption risk sharing: can inflation differentials and trading costs help explain the puzzle?, Open Economies Review, Vol. 19 (2), 2008. (Journal Article)
The bulk of evidence on the lack of international risk sharing is based on regressions of idiosyncratic consumption growth on idiosyncratic output growth. This paper argues that the results from such regressions obtained from international data are, however, not directly comparable to those based on regional data: the standard practice of running such regressions on international data fails to account for persistent international differentials in consumer prices, whereas - implicitly - most of the literature based on regional data has accounted for these differences. When risk sharing regressions are set up in conceptually the same way in international and regional data sets, the estimated coefficients are also very similar. To explore this result further, we adapt the variance decomposition of Asdrubali Sørensen and Yosha (QJE
1996) to allow for deviations from purchasing power parity across countries. While quantity (income and credit) flows are the dominant channel of risk sharing among regions, relative consumption and output price (internal terms
of trade) fluctuations account for the bulk of the deviation from the complete markets outcome in international data. To the extent that persistent differences in consumer prices are an indication of goods market segmentation, our findings provide empirical evidence for the proposition by Obstfeld and Rogoff (2000) that segmented international goods markets rather than asset
market incompleteness may account for the (apparent) lack of risk sharing between countries. |
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Rolf Schwitter, Kaarel Kaljurand, Anne Cregan, Catherine Dolbear, Glen Hart, A Comparison of three Controlled Natural Languages for OWL 1.1, In: 4th OWL Experiences and Directions Workshop (OWLED 2008 DC), Washington, Apr 2008. (Conference or Workshop Paper)
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Martin Kuster, Erstellung eines Referenzmodells eines Wissensmanagements mit Partnern und Kunden in der Logistikbranche, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2008. (Master's Thesis)
In the logistic industry sector, information to be exchanged with customers is generally well structured. Established systems provide near time information on the status of deliveries. Due to the close relationship between customers and service providers, the need to exchange also less structured information on a central platform is getting more important. The form of such an exchange strongly depends on the parties involved. This paper presents a model to accommodate the exchange of unstructured information in addition to the standard systems. Furthermore, it can be easily adjusted to meet the individual requirements of every commercial relationship. |
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Fabian Hensel, Flow-based and Packet level-based Intrusion Detection as Complementary Concepts, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2008. (Master's Thesis)
Network-based intrusion detection systems monitoring state-of-the-art high-volume net-
work links demand for more computational resources than available from conventional
computer hardware. Frequently, this problem is overcome by increasing the available
resources with dedicated, specialized hardware. Instead of employing expensive infras-
tructure, efficiently decreasing the amount of data to be processed may lead to the same
goal. NetFlow enabled routers can be used as a source for aggregated connection data that
can be leveraged for intrusion detection purposes. Using a model, possible use cases for
combining conventional, packet-based and novel, flow-based intrusion detection are elabo-
rated. With the Bro intrusion detection system as a central component, an architecture to
combine both data sources is presented. In order to effectively reduce the amount of pack-
ets to be processed, a pre-filter employing flow data for the detection of peer-to-peer-based
and IRC-based botnets is presented. The performed evaluation, based on the comparison of the new, combined approach and
the analysis of all packets, shows, depending on the implementation, a reduction of re-
source usage. Minor losses in the detection rate were observed. The prototypical imple-
mentation which was realized with existing software components shows synergy potentials
for combining NetFlow and packet data for intrusion detection purposes. Further work
is recommended, particularly to develop a flow-based pre-filter in a low-level language in
order to further enhance resource efficiency. |
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Raphael Joss, Promoting mit dem mExplorer, Ein mobiles Spiel wird zum Eventmarketinginstrument, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2008. (Master's Thesis)
Der mExplorer ist ein an der Universität Zürich im Rahmen des Forschungsgebietes „Collaborative Technologies“ entwickeltes mobiles Lernspiel, welches Erstsemestrigen den Campus einer Universität auf spielerische Art undWeise näher bringen soll.
In der vorliegenden Arbeit sollen die bestehenden technischen Implementationen und Szenarien des mExplorers dahingehend erweitert werden, dass dieser für das Eventmarketing eingesetzt werden kann. Der mExplorer soll das Promoting eines Objektes oder einer ganzen Institution im Rahmen eines Events möglich machen.
Dazu werden im ersten Teil die Grundlagen des Eventmarketings erläutert. Dabei wird vor allem auf die Ziele und die Planung eines Marketing Events eingegangen, unter anderem werden aber auch schon vorhandene mobile Marketingsysteme vorgestellt.
Im zweiten Teil werden mehrere Eventmarketing Szenarien für den mExplorer ausgearbeitet und schlussendlich eines davon implementiert und mit Benutzern getestet. |
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Raphael Zollinger, IT-Governance an deutschsprachigen Hochschulen, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2008. (Master's Thesis)
IT Governance is a very topical issue in many companies. Even at universities a change is in progress
and the need for appropriate IT Governance structures and decision-making processes grows. This work
considers first the bases in the literature on organization theory, IT Governance and universities. In the
main part of the study through interviews organizational structures, decision-making processes from five
decision-domains and SWOT analysis at 14 universities in Germany have been collected, recorded and
the processes were mapped as event-process chains. This shows typical pattern of IT Governance
structures. Combined with various environment variables hints and approaches to solutions are made,
how IT Governance at universities in the future can be built. |
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Claudia Hösli, Vergleichende Analyse der Informationsqualität von Reisefotos in nutzergenerierten und professionellen Quellen, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2008. (Master's Thesis)
This paper analyzes the information quality of user generated and professional travel pictures. The basis for this analysis is a travel guide as well as an online community. The information quality is analyzed on the basis of up-to-dateness and completeness. The goal is to come to a conclusion as to whether user generated pictures have the same information quality as professional travel pictures. Are user generated travel pictures a real alternative to professional travel guides? The survey showed that the user generated pictures are significantly more up-to-date than the professional pictures in the travel guides. There are no significant differences between the professional the completeness of user generated travel pictures and professional pictures.
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Andreas Siegrist, Internet Route Stability and Mechanisms for Guaranteed Paths between End Systems in the Internet, University of Zurich, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology, 2008. (Master's Thesis)
A multitude of electronic services is offered nowadays over the Internet. Service consumers and service providers agree on contracts in which classical contract conditions (what, when, price) are settled. However, one important aspect, regarding the conditions of delivery, can not be settled: the path and with it, which legal domains (LDs) that must not be traversed.
This work provides a compilation of approaches that allow to find and establish LD restricted paths. Among those approaches, the two most promising candidates are prototypical implemented. The first implemented approach allows to find an LD restricted path within an autonomous system (AS), based on LD annotated links and a constrained shortest path first algorithm. The second approach provides LD restricted AS paths by utilizing BGP information and AS-LD mappings. Both approaches are evaluated for their functionality by means of a reliability evaluation. In addition, the performance of the intra-AS approach is also evaluated and compared to the performance of a shortest path first implemenation.
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Sergios Soursos, María Ángeles Callejo Rodriguez, Konstantin Pussep, Peter Racz, Spiros Spirou, George D Stamoulis, Burkhard Stiller, ETMS: A system for economic management of overlay traffic, In: Future Internet Conference (FIA 2008), I O S Press, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2008-03-31. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
The concept of Economic Traffic Management (ETM) encompasses various techniques for optimizing overlay networks considering both, underlay and overlay networks’ performance requirements as well as the resulting economic implications for ISPs. This work presents several mechanisms through an overall ETM System (ETMS), identifying the possibility for synergies between mechanisms, both in the sense of complementarity of decision grounds and in the sense of functionality and components employed thereby. The paper describes the core ETMS architecture and how various mechanisms are instantiated. It continues with the discussion of the flexibility and modularity of this architecture, allowing for the accommodation of synergies. Finally, it presents selected results from the test-bed trials of the ETMS and a dedicated discussion on incentives behind these ETM mechanisms. |
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Tobias Hoßfeld, David Hausheer, Fabio Victora Hecht, Frank Lehrieder, Simon Oechsner, Ioanna Papafili, Peter Racz, Sergios Soursos, Dirk Staehle, George D Stamoulis, Phuoc Tran-Gia, Burkhard Stiller, An economic traffic management approach to enable the triplewin for users, ISPs, and overlay providers, In: Future Internet Conference (FIA 2008), I O S Press, Amsterdam, NL, 2008-03-31. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
Socio-economic aspects play an increasingly important role in the Future Internet. To enable a TripleWin situation for the involved players, i.e. the end users, the ISPs and telecommunication operators, and the service providers, a new, incentive-based concept is proposed referred to as Economic Traffic Management (ETM). It aims at reducing costs within the network while improving the Quality-of-Experience (QoE) for end users. In particular, peer-to-peer (P2P) overlay applications generate a large amount of costs due to inter-domain traffic. ETM solution approaches have to take into account (a) the traffic patterns stemming from the overlay application, (b) the charging models for transit traffic, and (c) the applicability and efficiency of the proposed solution. The complex interaction between these three components and its consequences is demonstrated on selected examples. As a result it is shown that different ETM approaches have to be combined for an overall solution. To this end, the paper derives functional and non-functional requirements for designing ETM and provides a suitable architecture enabling the implementation of a TripleWin solution. |
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David Hausheer, Pekka Nikander, Vincenzo Fogliati, Klaus Wünstel, María Ángeles Callejo, Santi Ristol Jorba, Spiros Spirou, Latif Ladid, Wolfgang Kleinwächter, Burkhard Stiller, Malte Behrmann, Mike Boniface, Costas Courcoubetis, Man-Sze Li, Future Internet Socio-Economics – Challenges and Perspectives, In: Future Internet Conference (FIA 2008), IOS Press, Amsterdam, NL, 2008-03-31. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
Socio-economics aims to understand the interplay between the society, economy, markets, institutions, self-interest, and moral commitments. It is a multidisciplinary field using methods from economics, psychology, sociology, history, and even anthropology. Socio-economics of networks have been studied for over 30 years, but mostly in the context of social networks instead of the underlying communication networks. The aim of this paper is to present and discuss challenges and perspectives related to “socio-economic” issues in the Future Internet. It is hoped that this will lead to new insights on how to structure the architecture and services in the Internet of the future. |
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Helmut Max Dietl, Egon Franck, Der Olympiaboykott als Strategie für Trittbrettfahrer: Die Sommerspiele in Peking erzeugen weltweite Aufmerksamkeit und werden deshalb auch für politische Zwecke instrumentalisiert, In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 72, p. 59, 28 March 2008. (Newspaper Article)
Aus ökonomischer Sicht handeln die Demonstranten in Tibet angesichts der Forderung, auf den dortigen Konflikt mit einem Boykott der Olympischen Sommerspiele in Peking zu reagieren, als Trittbrettfahrer. Sie erzeugen Aufmerksamkeit für ihre Zwecke und stürzen die chinesische Zentralregierung sowie das IOK in einen Reputationskonflikt. |
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Felix Schläpfer, Peter Zweifel, Nutzenmessung bei öffentlichen Gütern: Konzeptionelle und empirische Probleme in der Praxis, Wirtschaftsdienst, Vol. 88 (3), 2008. (Journal Article)
Die Abwägung von Kosten und Nutzen spielt bei der Bereitstellung öffentlicher Güter eine zentrale Rolle. Mithilfe welcher Methode lässt sich der Nutzen öffentlicher Güter am besten schätzen? Welche typischen konzeptionellen und empirischen Probleme treten bei den einzelnen Schätzmethoden häufig auf? |
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Ionut Emanuel Subasu, Patrick Ziegler, Klaus R Dittrich, Harald Gall, Architectural Concerns for Flexible Data Management, In: EDBT 2008 SETMDM, 2008-03-25. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
Evolving database management systems (DBMS) towards more flexibility in functionality, adaptation to changing requirements, and extensions with new or different components, is a challenging task. Although many approaches have tried to come up with a flexible architecture, thereis no architectural framework that is generally applicable to provide tailor-made data management and can directly integrate existing application functionality. We discuss an alternative database architecture that enables more lightweight systems by decomposing the functionality into services and have the service granularity drive the functionality. We propose a service-oriented DBMS architecture which provides the necessary flexibility and extensibility for general-purpose usage scenarios. For that we present a generic storage service system to illustrate our approach. |
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C Sturm, K R Dittrich, P Ziegler, An Access Control Mechanism for P2P Collaborations, In: International Workshop on Data Management in Peer-to-peer systems, ACM, New York, 2008-03-25. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
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Helmut Max Dietl, Egon Franck, Urs Meister, Wenn der Postbote zweimal klingelt: Schweizer Postmarkt zwischen Wettbewerb und Service public, In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 69, p. 15, 25 March 2008. (Newspaper Article)
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G Hein, T Singer, Understanding others: empathy and cognitive perspective taking in the human brain, In: Inaugural Herzliya Symposium on Personality and Social Psychology: Prosocial Motives, Emotions, and Behavior, 2008-03-24. (Conference or Workshop Paper published in Proceedings)
After defining “cognitive perspective taking” and “empathy” we will review the main results of neuroscientific studies of the human ability to understand other people's intentions, beliefs, and experiences. We will then present several fMRI studies investigating empathic brain responses elicited by the observation of others in pain and show how these empathic brain responses are modulated by several contextual and stimulus factors. We will integrate these results with findings on patients with Alexithymia (inability to understand and label distinct emotions and emotional experiences) and Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD; a neurological condition associated with a variety of social and linguistic deficits) to create a deeper
understanding of the relations between interoceptive awareness, empathy, and cognitive perspective taking. |
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Martin Janssen, Finanzmärkte brauchen eine klarere Sprache: unangemessene Strukturen und unvollständige Informationen, In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 68, p. 31, 22 March 2008. (Newspaper Article)
Der Dimension der Märkte und der Grösse der Institutionen nicht angemessene Strukturen, unvollständige Informationen über Positionen und Risiken sowie nicht adäquate Anreizstrukturen haben in eine tiefe Finanzkrise geführt. Die Rückkehr zur Normalität könnte Jahre dauern und wird teuer zu stehen kommen. |
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Conrad Meyer, P Fiechter, Fair Value: Reporting im fundamentalen Wandel, io new management, Vol. 77 (4), 2008. (Journal Article)
Das Bewertungskonzept «Fair Value» findet immer häufiger Zugang in das Reporting von Unternehmen. Die beiden Standardsetter International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) und Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) treiben diese Entwicklung mit den jüngst veröffentlichten Regelungen weiter voran. Der vorliegende Beitrag beleuchtet Wesen und Problematik von Fair Values im Reporting und analysiert die praktische Umsetzung des Fair Value-Bewertungskonzepts am Beispiel ausgewählter Geschäftsberichte. |
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