Stage 8 of the German National Educational Panel Study focuses on the adult working age population in Germany and serves, in many respects, as a capstone for the National Educational Panel Study structure. Its main purpose is to collect data on adult education, on competence endowment and its development over the life course, and on returns to initial and adult education in a life-course perspective. The data includes a large number of theoretically informed determinants of adult education and competencies as well as information on how labor market and non-labor market outcomes are influenced by previous educational participation and 284 J. Allmendinger et al.competencies. With detailed information on learning environments at the workplace and in the household it will be possible to contextualize these determinants. The data allows immediate analyses of the adult population as well as the delivery of long-term perspectives on educational, occupational, and private life courses across various educational stages. Erwachsenenbildung und lebenslanges LernenZusammenfassung: Etappe 8 bildet mit dem Fokus auf die Population von Erwachsenen im erwerbsfähigen Alter in vielerlei Hinsicht den Schlussstein der gesamten Erhebungsstruktur des Nationalen Bildungspanels. Diese Etappe sammelt insbesondere Daten zu formalen, nonformalen und informellen Weiterbildungsaktivitäten, zur Entwicklung von Kompetenzen im Erwachsenenalter und zu monetären und nicht-monetären Bildungserträgen von Erstausbildung und Weiterbildung über den Lebensverlauf. Die Daten beinhalten eine Vielzahl theoretisch abgeleiteter Determinanten zur Erklärung von Weiterbildungsverhalten, von Kompetenzen sowie von spezifischen Erträgen innerhalb und außerhalb des Arbeitsmarktes. Diese Determinanten sowie das Weiterbildungsverhalten, die Kompetenzen und die Bildungserträge selbst können durch zusätzlich erhobene Informationen zu Lernumwelten am Arbeitsplatz und im privaten Haushalt kontextualisiert werden. Die Daten der Etappe 8 ermöglichen durch die retrospektive Erhebung detaillierter Bildungs-, Arbeitsmarkt-und Haushaltsinformationen unmittelbar zahlreiche Analysen über verschiedene Lebensphasen hinweg. Durch den prospektiven Charakter der Panelstudie können darüber hinaus in den kommenden Jahren weitere soziologische, ökono-mische, psychologische und erziehungswissenschaftliche Theorien getestet werden.Schlüsselwörter: Weiterbildung · Lebensverlauf · Kompetenzentwicklung · Arbeitsmarkt · Panelstudie

To examine coefficients of friction (COFs) of articular cartilage, it is necessary to use cartilage as a friction partner. Irregularities of surfaces require special tribometers and calculation methods. The aim of this study was to establish a tribometer system for measuring a low COF of cartilage and to develop and validate an algorithm that takes the irregularities into consideration. We used a pin-on-plate tribometer that allows a vertical displacement of the pin to follow the surface of the plate and developed an algorithm that takes these irregularities into account. We were, thus, able to take into consideration a forward and backward movement, an upward and downward movement, and different force ratios. The algorithm was validated using a spherical POM (polyoxymethylene) pin against a stainless steel plate at slope angles up to 24°. First examinations with articular cartilage against articular cartilage samples of a stifle joint of a pig were then performed. The newly developed tribometer worked well when POM against a stainless steel hump was examined. The COF increased for slope angles steeper than ±15°. There was an interaction between the COF and the slope angle, but not for the range within ±15°. Cartilage examinations revealed COFs as published in the literature. The tribometer and the algorithm were suitable for the detection of low COF of irregular surfaces of the plate within a range of ±15°. The COF resulting from the forward and backward movements should be averaged.

The analysis of job tasks has become a field of growing scientific activity in recent years. Information on such tasks has been used to analyze various research questions, especially regarding changes in the overall structure of the economy and their implications for persons and firms. Arguably the most prominent of these research questions is the analysis of the consequences of technological change for job tasks, skill demand, and wage inequality.Despite the growing importance of this field of research, the range of actual task measures to be used in empirical analyses is rather limited. Therefore, we considered it worthwhile to develop a survey instrument to measure job tasks by asking the job holders directly. The resulting questionnaire module was administered in the fourth panel wave of the German National Educational Panel Study's (NEPS) adult stage.In this paper, we provide an overview of our conceptual background as well as the steps taken during the development of the survey instrument. Furthermore, we present an initial exploratory analysis of the data collected to validate the instrument.

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Panel attrition is a major problem in long-term panel studies. While the design of the German National Educational Panel Study adult surveycombining biannual competency tests with regular face-to-face interviewsis highly innovative, such a design could raise respondent burden and thus potentially increase panel attrition and nonresponse bias. To test this possibility, we use an experimental split questionnaire design administering two tests to one half of the respondents but only one test to the other half. Analyzing the effects of these different experimental settings on response behavior shows that even though those assigned to the longer test variant had no higher probability of refusing to participate in the survey, they were significantly more likely to apply alternative strategies for not taking the tests.

This article suggests a multidimensional globalization measure, encompassing economic, (socio)technological, cultural and political dimensions of global change. This measure builds on previous work by Dreher, Lockwood and Redoano, the OECD and Kearney, but extends it by additional dimensions and indicators that represent central facets of a genuine sociological concept of globalization. The article first describes in detail the multidimensional nature of the globalization process and then develops an overall sociological index of globalization, which the authors call GlobalIndex. This index covers the development of globalization in 97 different countries from 1970 to 2002. Using the GlobalIndex, the authors describe the development of globalization on a worldwide scale as well as for different country contexts. Finally, they include the GlobalIndex as an explanatory variable in two microlevel longitudinal analyses of labour market transitions during the early career period in Germany and the UK.

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