We consider variable acceptance sampling plans that control the lot or process fraction defective, where a specification limit defines acceptable quality. The problem is to find a sampling plan that fulfils some conditions, usually on the operation characteristic. Its calculation heavily depends...

Abstract: The German Mietspiegel is a database to determine typical local market rents consisting of newly offered and ongoing contracts. Last year, the German government enacted a new law called „rental brake“, which caps rental prices of re-lettings at the level of a local Mietspiegel in...

The aim of this paper is to show the flexibility and capacity of penalized spline smoothing as estimation routine for modelling duration time data. We analyse the unemployment behaviour in Germany between 2000 and 2004 using a massive database from the German Federal Employment Agency. To...

We suggest a new approach for forecasting energy demand at an intraday resolution. The demand in each intraday period is modeled using semiparametric regression smoothing to account for calendar and weather components. Residual serial dependence is captured by one of two multivariate stationary...

Cycling is attracting renewed attention as a mode of transport in western urban environments, yet the determinants of usage are poorly understood. In this paper we investigate some of these using intraday bicycle volumes collected via induction loops located at ten bike paths in the city of...