Journal articles on the topic 'Flatrate'

Inzwischen liefert die Industrie ein breit gefächertes Angebot an Telemedizinsystemen. Sie ermöglichen es Ärzten unterschiedlichster Fachdisziplinen, ihre Patienten via Monitor zu behandeln. Selbst der traditionelle Arztbesuch kann durch eine Ferndiagnose ersetzt werden.

Betreibermodelle sind mehr als nur eine Finanzierungsvariante für Technik und Inventar. Sie sind Servicepakete, die auch Wartung und Verfügbarkeit zu einem fest vereinbarten Pauschalpreis beinhalten. Mit solchen Modellen können Krankenhäuser neben den Investitionsrisiken auch die Nutzerrisiken abgeben.

The current dual system of benefit provision and service delivery for disabled people has led to substantial horizontal inequities between those on the ACC register and those receiving income tested social security benefits. Whilst there are often distinct differences in the nature of the clientele between these groups, they often have similar requirements, but can receive quite different treatment. The Disability Strategy offers the prospect that a more unified system will be developed, initially in terms of service provision, especially rehabilitation and access to health care. The move to a combined benefit structure raises issues about the fundamental nature of social security, though equality of access to second and third tier benefits should minimise the degree of conflict between earnings related and flatrate benefits. From the perspective of disabled people, the major issue is access to nonincome support, ranging from access to equipment to health care, education and employment.

Spätestens seit Apple im Jahr 2019 mit Apple News+ in Nordamerika, Großbritannien und Australien an den Start gegangen ist, stellt sich auch in Deutschland die Frage: Wird es in naher Zukunft eine Plattform geben, die anbieterübergreifend journalistische Inhalte zu den Konditionen einer Flatrate bereitstellen und große Teile des Marktes abdecken wird? Dieser Beitrag beleuchtet diese Frage zunächst aus einer ökonomisch-theoretischen Perspektive. Hierfür werden zentrale Kriterien, die erstens für eine Organisation ökonomischer Aktivitäten über Plattformen und zweitens für eine Bündelung von Gütern sprechen, auf digitaljournalistische Inhalte angewendet. Im Anschluss daran werden empirische Befunde aus einer großzahligen repräsentativen Befragung der deutschen Online-Bevölkerung im Auftrag der Landesanstalt für Medien NRW (Buschow & Wellbrock 2019) zu den Konsumentenpräferenzen bzgl. einer hypothetischen digitaljournalistischen Plattform präsentiert. Das zentrale Ergebnis dieser Analysen ist, dass es sowohl aus Anbieter- als auch aus Konsumentensicht viele Argumente für solch eine anbieterübergreifende abonnementbasierte „Journalismus-Plattform“ – eine Art „Spotify für Journalismus“ – gibt. Zu guter Letzt werden die Daten aus der oben genannten Konsumentenbefragung genutzt, um eine erste grobe Schätzung des Marktpotentials einer digitaljournalistischen Plattform durchzuführen. Das Papier will also zwei Beiträge leisten: erstens liefert und diskutiert es eine Übersicht über Kriterien, die für eine Bündelung von Inhalten spricht – eine Art Playbook für das Bündeln von digitalen Inhalten. Zweitens wird das Marktpotential solch einer Plattform auf Grundlage von Befragungsdaten geschätzt.

Purpose – People can easily track and understand their usage pattern for any content (e.g. movies, games) or service (e.g. card payment, cell phone usage) by using technologies such as the internet and smart phones. When consumers evaluate their past consumption patterns, they may experience two different kinds of regret: content-based or monetary-based. The purpose of this paper is to propose that perceived self-control, defined as the extent to which people believe they can control their usage, plays a moderating role in the tariff-choice process (flatrate vs pay-per-use) for two types of content: vice-based and virtue-based. Design/methodology/approach – Two laboratory experiments were designed to test the hypotheses. There were a total of 200 participants (86 for Experiment 1 and 114 for Experiment 2) who completed the entire experimental process (i.e. stimulus exposure, questionnaire reporting, dependent variable measurement, manipulation of the independent variables, and control checks). Findings – The results of this research provide evidence supporting the role of perceived self-control in tariff preference by showing that preference varies between flat-rate and pay-per-use tariff options. Specifically, virtue-based content users were more likely to prefer the pay-per-use tariff when their perceived self-control was low vs when it was high. In contrast, vice-based content users were more likely to prefer the flat-rate tariff when their perceived self-control was low vs when it was high. Originality/value – There are three contributions of the present research. First, the authors investigated the effect of content type on tariff preference. Second, the authors suggest that there is a moderating effect of perceived self-control on tariff preference. Third, this study revealed the factors affecting consumers’ perceived self-control.

The Western Gneiss Region of Norway is a continental terrane that experienced Caledonian high-pressure and ultrahigh-pressure metamorphism. Most rocks in this terrane show either peak-Caledonian eclogite-facies assemblages or are highly strained and equilibrated under late-Caledonian amphibolite-facies conditions. However, three kilometre-size rock bodies (Flatraket, Ulvesund and Kråkenes) in Outer Nordfjord preserve Pre-Caledonian igneous and granulite-facies assemblages and structures. Where these assemblages are preserved, the rocks are consistently unaffected by Caledonian deformation. The three bodies experienced high-pressure conditions (20–23 kbar) but show only very localized (about 5%) eclogitization in felsic and mafic rocks, commonly related to shear zones. The preservation of Pre-Caledonian felsic and mafic igneous and granulite-facies assemblages in these bodies, therefore, indicates widespread (∼ 95%) metastability at pressures higher than other metastable domains in Norway. Late-Caledonian amphibolite-facies retrogression was limited. The degree of reaction is related to the protolith composition and the interaction of fluid and deformation during the orogenic cycle, whereby metastability is associated with a lack of deformation and lack of fluids, either as a catalyst or as a component in hydration reactions. The three bodies appear to have been far less reactive than the external gneisses in this region, even though they followed a similar pressure–temperature evolution. The extent of metastable behaviour has implications for the protolith of the Western Gneiss Region, for the density evolution of high-pressure terranes and hence for the geodynamic evolution of mountain belts.

Reconstructing tectonic histories involving continental collision, subduction, and exhumation at plate-tectonic rates of ∼1 cm/year, requires precise U–Pb zircon geochronology. The Western Gneiss Region has exceptional exposures of high-pressure (HP) and ultra-high-pressure (UHP) rocks. The strategy adopted here involved sampling eclogite and associated late unstrained pegmatites to acquire the time of eclogite crystallization and subsequent exhumation, respectively. The oldest eclogite sampled is 415 ± 1 Ma from layered, probably UHP eclogite at Tevik, Averøya, also with a garnet–hornblende assemblage at 410 ± 1 Ma. The Flem Gabbro eclogite margin, with implied UHP conditions, is 410 ± 2 Ma. Hornblende eclogite at Seth, Lepsøya, never at UHP, is 412 ± 2 Ma. These compare to Devonian ages of 401 ± 1 Ma for overgrowths on Proterozoic baddeleyite in Selnes Gabbro, 402 ± 2 Ma for coesite eclogite at Hareidlandet, 405–400 Ma for coesite eclogite at Flatraket, and 405 ± 2 Ma for near-UHP eclogite at Hjelmelandsdalen. The 415 Ma eclogite at Tevik compares to granitic pegmatite in the same outcrop at 395.2 ± 1.3 Ma and to pegmatite in eclogite at Aspøya at 395.3 ± 2 Ma. The 410 Ma age at Flem compares to nearby pegmatite in eclogite at 396 ± 4 Ma. Collectively, these results imply 14–20 million years between deep eclogite crystallization at ∼130 km and return to amphibolite-facies conditions at ∼30 km, with crystallization of locally derived granitoid melts. Nearby garnet-pyroxenite records older ages (∼430) and greater depths (∼200 km), but on similar exhumation paths at ∼0.4–0.7 cm/year.

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC) service in which people can meet and chat in real time. Most chat occurs in channels named for a specific topic, such as #usa or #linux. A user can take part in several channels when connected to an IRC network. For a long time the only major IRC network available was EFnet, founded in 1990. Over the 1990s three other major IRC networks developed, Undernet (1993), DALnet (1994) and IRCnet (which split from EFnet in June 1996). Several causes led to the separate development of IRC networks: fast growth of user numbers, poor scalability of the IRC protocol and content disagreements, like allowing or prohibiting 'bot programs. Today we are experiencing the development of regional IRC networks, such as BrasNet for Brazilian users, and increasing regionalisation of the global networks -- IRCnet users are generally European, EFnet users generally from the Americas and Australia. All persons connecting to an IRC network at one time create that IRC network's user space. People are constantly signing on and off each network. The total number of users who have ever been to a specific IRC network could be called its 'social space' and an IRC network's social space is by far larger than its user space at any one time. Although there has been research on IRC almost from its beginning (it was developed in 1988, and the first research was made available in late 1991 (Reid)), resources on quantitative development are rare. To rectify this situation, a quantitative data logging 'bot program -- Socip -- was created and set to run on various IRC networks. Socip has been running for almost two years on several IRC networks, giving Internet researchers empirical data of the quantitative development of IRC. Methodology Any approach to gathering quantitative data on IRC needs to fulfil the following tasks: Store the number of users that are on an IRC network at a given time, e.g. every five minutes; Store the number of channels; and, Store the number of servers. It is possible to get this information using the '/lusers' command on an IRC-II client, entered by hand. This approach yields results as in Table 1. Table 1: Number of IRC users on January 31st, 1995 Date Time Users Invisible Servers Channels 31.01.95 10:57 2737 2026 93 1637 During the first months of 1995, it was even possible to get all user information using the '/who **' command. However, on current major IRC networks with greater than 50000 users this method is denied by the IRC Server program, which terminates the connection because it is too slow to accept that amount of data. Added to this problem is the fact that collecting these data manually is an exhausting and repetitive task, better suited to automation. Three approaches to automation were attempted in the development process. The 'Eggdrop' approach The 'Eggdrop' 'bot is one of the best-known IRC 'bot programs. Once programmed, 'bots can act autonomously on an IRC network, and Eggdrop was considered particularly convenient because customised modules could be easily installed. However, testing showed that the Eggdrop 'bot was unsuitable for two reasons. The first was technical: for reasons undetermined, all Eggdrop modules created extensive CPU usage, making it impossible to run several Eggdrops simultaneously to research a number of IRC networks. The second reason had to do with the statistics to be obtained. The objective was to get a snapshot of current IRC users and IRC channel use every five minutes, written into an ASCII file. It was impossible to extend Eggdrop's possibilities in a way that it would periodically submit the '/lusers' command and write the received data into a file. For these reasons, and some security concerns, the Eggdrop approach was abandoned. IrcII was a UNIX IRC client with its own scripting language, making it possible to write command files which periodically submit the '/lusers' command to any chosen IRC server and log the command's output. Four different scripts were used to monitor IRCnet, EFnet, DALnet and Undernet from January to October 1998. These scripts were named Socius_D, Socius_E, Socius_I and Socius_U (depending on the network). Every hour each script stored the number of users and channels in a logfile (examinable using another script written in the Perl language). There were some drawbacks to the ircII script approach. While the need for a terminal to run on could be avoided using the 'screen' package -- making it possible to start ircII, run the scripts, detach, and log off again -- it was impossible to restart ircII and the scripts using an automatic task-scheduler. Thus periodic manual checks were required to find out if the scripts were still running and restart them if needed (e.g. if the server connection was lost). These checks showed that at least one script would not be running after 10 hours. Additional disadvantages were the lengthy log files and the necessity of providing a second program to extract the log file data and write it into a second file from which meaningful graphs could be created. The failure of the Eggdrop and ircII scripting approaches lead to the solution still in use today. Perl script-only approach Perl is a powerful script language for handling file-oriented data when speed is not extremely important. Its version 5 flavour allows a lot of modules to use it for expansion, including the Net::IRC package. The object-oriented Perl interface enables Perl scripts to connect to an IRC server, and use the basic IRC commands. The Socip.pl program includes all server definitions needed to create connections. Socip is currently monitoring ten major IRC networks, including DALnet, EFnet, IRCnet, the Microsoft Network, Talkcity, Undernet and Galaxynet. When run, "Social science IRC program" selects a nickname from its list corresponding to the network -- For EFnet, the first nickname used is Socip_E1. It then functions somewhat like a 'bot. Using that nickname, Socip tries to create an IRC connection to a server of the given network. If there is no failure, handlers are set up which take care of proper reactions to IRC server messages (such as Ping-pong, message output and reply). Socip then joins the channel #hose (the name has no special meaning), a maintenance channel with the additional effect of real persons meeting the 'bot and trying to interact with it every now and then. Those interactions are logged too. Sitting in that channel, the script sleeps periodically and checks if a certain time span has passed (the default is five minutes). After that, the '/lusers' command's output is stored in a data file for each IRC network and the IRC network's RRD (Round Robin database) file is updated. This database, which is organised chronologically, offers great detail for recent events and more condensed information for older events. User and channel information younger than 10 days is stored in five-minute detail. If older than two years, the same information is automatically averaged and stored in a per-day resolution. In case of network problems, Socip acts as necessary. For example, it recognises a connection termination and tries to reconnect after pausing by using the next nickname on the list. This prevents nickname collision problems. If the IRC server does not respond to '/luser' commands three times in a row, the next server on the list is accessed. Special (crontab-invoked) scripts take care of restarting Socip when necessary, as in termination of script because of network problems, IRC operator kill or power failure. After a reboot all scripts are automatically restarted. All monitoring is done on a Linux machine (Pentium 120, 32 MB, Debian Linux 2.1) which is up all the time. Processor load is not extensive, and this machine also acts as the Sociology Department's WWW-Server. Graphs creation Graphs can be created from the data in Socip's RRD files. This task is done using the MRTG (multi router traffic grapher) program by Tobias Oetiker. A script updates all IRC graphs four times a day. Usage of each IRC network is visualised through five graphs: Daily, Weekly and Monthly users and channels, accompanied by two graphs showing all known data users/channels and servers. All this information is continuously published on the World Wide Web at http://www.hinner.com/ircstat. Figures The following samples demonstrate what information can be produced by Socip. As already mentioned, graphs of all monitored networks are updated four times a day, with five graphs for each IRC network. Figure 1 shows the rise of EFnet users from about 40000 in November 1998 to 65000 in July 2000. Sampled data is oscillating around an average amount, which is resulting from the different time zones of users. Fig. 1: EFnet - Users and Channels since November 1998 Figure 2 illustrates the decrease of interconnected EFnet servers over the years. Each server is now handling more and more users. Reasons for taking IRC servers off the net are security concerns (attacks on the server by malicious persons), new payment schemes, maintenance and cost effort. Fig. 2: EFnet - Servers since November 1998 A nice example of a heavily changing weekly graph is Figure 3, which shows peaks shortly before 6pm CEST and almost no users shortly after midnight. Fig. 3: Galaxynet: Weekly Graph (July, 15th-22nd, 2000) The daily graph portrays usage variations with even more detail. Figure 4 is taken from Undernet user and channel data. The vertical gap in the graph indicates missing data, caused either by a net split or other network problems. Fig. 4: Undernet: Daily Graph: July, 22nd, 2000 The final example (Figure 5) shows a weekly graph of the Webchat (http://www.webchat.org) network. It can be seen that every day the user count varies from 5000 to nearly 20000, and that channel numbers fluctuate in concert accordingly from 2500 to 5000. Fig. 5: Webchat: Monthly graph, Week 24-29, 2000 Not every IRC user is connected all the time to an IRC network. This figure may have increased lately with more and more flatrates and cheap Internet access offers, but in general most users will sign off the network after some time. This is why IRC is a very dynamic society, with its membership constantly in flux. Maximum user counts only give the highest number of members who were simultaneously online at some point, and one could only guess at the number of total users of the network -- that is, including those who are using that IRC service but are not signed on at that time. To answer these questions, more thorough investigation is necessary. Then inflows and outflows might be more readily estimated. Table 2 shows the all time maximum user counts of seven IRC networks, compared to the average numbers of IRC users of the four major IRC networks during the third quarter 1998 (based on available data). Table 2: Maximum user counts of selected IRC networks DALnet EFnet Galaxy Net IRCnet MS Chat Undernet Webchat Max. 2000 64276 64309 15253 65340 17392 60210 19793 3rd Q. 1998 21000 37000 n/a 24500 n/a 24000 n/a Compared with the 200-300 users in 1991 and the 7000 IRC-chatters in 1994, the recent growth is certainly extraordinary: it adds up to a total of 306573 users across all monitored networks. It can be expected that the 500000 IRC user threshold will be passed some time during the year 2001. As a final remark, it should be said that obviously Web-based chat systems will be more and more common in the future. These chat services do not use standard IRC protocols, and will be very hard to monitor. Given that these systems are already quite popular, the actual number of chat users in the world could have already passed the half million landmark. References Reid, Elizabeth. "Electropolis: Communications and Community on Internet Relay Chat." Unpublished Honours Dissertation. U of Melbourne, 1991. The Socip program can be obtained at no cost from http://www.hinner.com. Most IRC networks can be accessed with the original Net::Irc Perl extension, but for some special cases (e.g. Talkcity) an extended version is needed, which can also be found there. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Kajetan Hinner. "Statistics of Major IRC Networks: Methods and Summary of User Count." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.4 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0008/count.php>. Chicago style: Kajetan Hinner, "Statistics of Major IRC Networks: Methods and Summary of User Count," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 4 (2000), <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0008/count.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Kajetan Hinner. (2000) Statistics of major IRC networks: methods and summary of user count. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(4). <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0008/count.php> ([your date of access]).