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Chemical plant protection is an essential element in integrated pest management and hence, in current crop production. The use of Plant Protection Products (PPPs) potentially involves ecological risk. This risk has to be characterised, assessed and managed.
For the coming years, an increasing need for agricultural products is expected. At the same time, preserving our natural resources and biodiversity per se is of equally fundamental importance. The relationship of our economic success and cultural progress to protecting the environment has been made plain in the Ecosystem Service concept. These distinct 'services' provide the foundation for defining ecological protection goals (Specific Protection Goals, SPGs) which can serve in the development of methods for ecological risk characterisation, assessment and management.
Ecological risk management (RM) of PPPs is a comprehensive process that includes different aspects and levels. RM is an implicit part of tiered risk assessment (RA) schemes and scenarios, yet RM also explicitly occurs as risk mitigation measures. At higher decision levels, RM takes further risks, besides ecological risk, into account (e.g., economic). Therefore, ecological risk characterisation can include RM (mitigation measures) and can be part of higher level RM decision-making in a broader Ecosystem Service context.
The aim of this thesis is to contribute to improved quantification of ecological risk as a basis for RA and RM. The initial general objective had been entitled as "… to estimate the spatial and temporal extent of exposure and effects…" and was found to be closely related to forthcoming SPGs with their defined 'Risk Dimension'.
An initial exploration of the regulatory framework of ecological RA and RM of PPPs and their use, carried out in the present thesis, emphasised the value of risk characterisation at landscape-scale. The landscape-scale provides the necessary and sufficient context, including abiotic and biotic processes, their interaction at different scales, as well as human activities. In particular, spatially (and temporally) explicit landscape-scale risk characterisation and RA can provide a direct basis for PPP-specific or generic RM. From the general need for tiered landscape-scale context in risk characterisation, specific requirements relevant to a landscape-scale model were developed in the present thesis, guided by the key objective of improved ecological risk quantification. In principle, for an adverse effect (Impact) to happen requires a sensitive species and life stage to co-occur with a significant exposure extent in space and time. Therefore, the quantification of the Probability of an Impact occurring is the basic requirement of the model. In a landscape-scale context, this means assessing the spatiotemporal distribution of species sensitivity and their potential exposure to the chemical.
The core functionality of the model should reflect the main problem structures in ecological risk characterisation, RA and RM, with particular relationship to SPGs, while being adaptable to specific RA problems. This resulted in the development of a modelling framework (Xplicit-Framework), realised in the present thesis. The Xplicit-Framework provides the core functionality for spatiotemporally explicit and probabilistic risk characterisation, together with interfaces to external models and services which are linked to the framework using specific adaptors (Associated-Models, e.g., exposure, eFate and effect models, or geodata services). From the Xplicit-Framework, and using Associated-Models, specific models are derived, adapted to RA problems (Xplicit-Models).
Xplicit-Models are capable of propagating variability (and uncertainty) of real-world agricultural and environmental conditions to exposure and effects using Monte Carlo methods and, hence, to introduce landscape-scale context to risk characterisation. Scale-dependencies play a key role in landscape-scale processes and were taken into account, e.g., in defining and sampling Probability Density Functions (PDFs). Likewise, evaluation of model outcome for risk characterisation is done at ecologically meaningful scales.
Xplicit-Models can be designed to explicitly address risk dimensions of SPGs. Their definition depends on the RA problem and tier. Thus, the Xplicit approach allows for stepwise introduction of landscape-scale context (factors and processes), e.g., starting at the definitions of current standard RA (lower-tier) levels by centring on a specific PPP use, while introducing real-world landscape factors driving risk. With its generic and modular design, the Xplicit-Framework can also be employed by taking an ecological entity-centric perspective. As the predictive power of landscape-scale risk characterisation increases, it is possible that Xplicit-Models become part of an explicit Ecosystem Services-oriented RM (e.g., cost/benefit level).
This thesis is concerned with an issue of considerable importance to the development of revision skills: the role of teacher feedback. Prompted by the concern to develop a model of instruction which will help students write to the best of their capacities, the present study forms a proposal: an interactive model of revision. The study researches whether the kind of feedback proposed in this model is indeed a helpful tool for revision and whether the kind of negotiated revision that occurs is a vehicle for learning. The first section of the thesis reviews different areas of literature which are relevant to the study. More specifically, Chapter 2 presents the historical and theoretical foundations of different writing instructional practices and sheds light on issues concerning the use of the process approach. It also reviews research based on sociocognitive theoretical perspectives in an attempt to delineate the impact of interpersonal or social activity on individual performance and progress. Chapter 3 examines issues associated with the process approach in particular and illustrates how theory and method come together in a process writing classroom. Chapter 4 presents the differences in revising behaviours between experienced and inexperienced writers in both L1 and L2 contexts and the various ways these differences have been justified. It also highlights a number of issues which have been identified as contributing to effective revision. Particular attention is paid to the role that teacher feedback has to play as a means of promoting substantive student revision with an instructional emphasis on fluency, organisation and language. Chapter 5 presents an interactive model of revision, which envisions a communicative exchange between two partners, the student-writer and the teacher-reader, collaborating in order to develop awareness of revision strategies and establish criteria for effective writing. Chapter 6 investigates the epistemological basis of the research and presents a set of research questions and hypotheses, which guided the investigation. Chapter 7 frames the context of the research and details the methods used to collect the data from the study. The study involved 100 Year 7 students in two gymnasia in Koblenz, Germany. During the time of the investigation, the students wrote and revised five tasks. Three of these tasks were revised after receiving teacher feedback, which focused on aspects such as appropriacy and sufficiency of information, organization, coherence and grammatical accuracy. The study investigates the effects of this kind of focused feedback on the students" revisions and explores the relationship between revision and text improvement. Large quantitative and qualitative data sets were generated during the research. The quantitative data was based on the student documents (1000 original and revised drafts) whereas the qualitative data emerged from student questionnaires and seven case studies. Chapter 8 presents descriptions of the data analyses. More specifically, it describes the initial and final coding of the revisions traced in the student documents. Then it focuses on the type of qualitative analysis employed in the case studies in order to investigate the relationship between revision and text improvement. The final section of the chapter describes the questionnaire analysis, which was carried out to investigate attitudes, benefits and constraints from the implementation of the model. Chapter 9 examines the statistical results from the analysis of the students" revisions. More specifically, it explores the revisions made by the students across tasks and the relationships between the features of the teacher feedback and these revisions. The analysis highlights patterns in the development of revision skills and positive correlations of student revisions with features of the teacher feedback. Chapter 10 looks at the descriptive data from the case studies of seven individual student writers. The analysis of this data illustrates how the specific students negotiated the revisions and sheds more light on the relationship between feedback, revision and text improvement. Chapter 11 contains the analysis of the students" answers to the questionnaire, which provide illuminative information about the feedback-related attitudes. In Chapter 12, the thesis reaches its final destination. The journey over the paths of literature exploration, data gathering and data analysis ends with reflections on the messages that emerge from the data analysis. The conclusion reached is that young students can learn how to revise their writing and focused feedback is a viable pedagogic option for teaching revision. In addition to discussing the findings, this final section considers the pedagogical implications for the teaching of writing and suggests possible avenues for further work.
Instructor feedback on written assignments is one of the most important elements in the writing process, especially for students writing in English as a foreign language. However, students are often critical of both the amount and quality of the feedback they receive. In order to better understand what makes feedback effective, this study explored the nature of students’ assessments of the educational alliance, and how their receptivity to, perceptions of, and decisions about using their instructors’ feedback differed depending on how strong they believed the educational alliance to be. This exploratory case study found that students not only assessed the quality of the educational alliance based on goal compatibility, task relevance, and teacher effectiveness, but that there was also a reciprocal relationship between these elements. Furthermore, students’ perceptions of the educational alliance directly influenced how they perceived the feedback, which made the instructor’s choice of feedback method largely irrelevant. Stronger educational alliances resulted in higher instances of critical engagement, intrinsic motivation, and feelings of self-efficacy. The multidirectional influence of goal, task, and bond mean that instructors who want to maximize their feedback efforts need to attend to all three.
The trends of industry 4.0 and the further enhancements toward an ever changing factory lead to more mobility and flexibility on the factory floor. With that higher need of mobility and flexibility the requirements on wireless communication rise. A key requirement in that setting is the demand for wireless Ultra-Reliability and Low Latency Communication (URLLC). Example use cases therefore are cooperative Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and mobile robotics in general. Working along that setting this thesis provides insights regarding the whole network stack. Thereby, the focus is always on industrial applications. Starting on the physical layer, extensive measurements from 2 GHz to 6 GHz on the factory floor are performed. The raw data is published and analyzed. Based on that data an improved Saleh-Valenzuela (SV) model is provided. As ad-hoc networks are highly depended onnode mobility, the mobility of AGVs is modeled. Additionally, Nodal Encounter Patterns (NEPs) are recorded and analyzed. A method to record NEP is illustrated. The performance by means of latency and reliability are key parameters from an application perspective. Thus, measurements of those two parameters in factory environments are performed using Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) (IEEE 802.11n), private Long Term Evolution (pLTE) and 5G. This showed auto-correlated latency values. Hence, a method to construct confidence intervals based on auto-correlated data containing rare events is developed. Subsequently, four performance improvements for wireless networks on the factory floor are proposed. Of those optimization three cover ad-hoc networks, two deal with safety relevant communication, one orchestrates the usage of two orthogonal networks and lastly one optimizes the usage of information within cellular networks.
Finally, this thesis is concluded by an outlook toward open research questions. This includes open questions remaining in the context of industry 4.0 and further the ones around 6G. Along the research topics of 6G the two most relevant topics concern the ideas of a network of networks and overcoming best-effort IP.
Recent estimates have confirmed that inland waters emit a considerable amount of CH4 and CO2 to the atmosphere at the regional and global scale. But these estimates are based on extrapolated measured data and lack of data from inland waters in arid and semi-arid regions and carbon sources from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) as well insufficient resolution of the spatiotemporal variability of these emissions.
Through this study, we analyzed monthly hydrological, meteorological and water quality data from three irrigation and drinking water reservoirs in the lower Jordan River basin and estimated the atmospheric emission rates of CO2. We investigated the effect of WWTPs on surrounding aquatic systems in term of CH4 and CO2 emission by presenting seasonally resolved data for dissolved concentrations of both gases in the effluents and in the receiving streams at nine WWTPs in Germany.
We investigated spatiotemporal variability of CH4 and CO2 emission from aquatic ecosystems by using of simple low-cost tools for measuring CO2 flux and bubble release rate from freshwater systems. Our estimates showed that reservoirs in semi-arid regions are oversaturated with CO2 and acted as net sources to the atmosphere. The magnitude of observed fluxes at the three water reservoirs in Jordan is comparable to those from tropical reservoirs (3.3 g CO2 m-2 d-1). The CO2 emission rate from these reservoirs is linked to changes of water surface area, which is the result of water management practices. WWTPs have been shown to discharge a considerable amount of CH4 (30.9±40.7 kg yr-1) and CO2 (0.06±0.05 Gg yr-1) to their surrounding streams, and emission rates of CH4 and CO2 from these streams are significantly enhanced by effluents of WWTPs up to 1.2 and 8.6 times, respectively.
Our results showed that both diffusive flux and bubble release rate varied in time and space, and both of emission pathways should be included and variability should be resolved adequately in further sampling and measuring strategies. We conclude that future emission measurements and estimates from inland waters may consider water management practices, carbon sources from WWTPs as well spatial and temporal variability of emission.
The present thesis investigates attitudes and prosocial behavior between workgroups from a social identity and intergroup contact perspective. Based on the Common In-group Identity Model (CIIM; Gaertner & Dvoidio, 2000), it is hypothesized that "optimal" conditions for contact (Allport, 1954) create a common identity at the organizational level which motivates workgroups to cooperate and show organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) rather than intergroup bias. Predictions based on the CIIM are extended with hypotheses derived from the In-group Projection Model (IPM; Mummendey & Wenzel, 1999) and the Self-Categorization Model of Group Norms (Terry & Hogg, 1996). Hypotheses are tested with data from N1 = 281 employees of N2 = 49 different workgroups and their workgroup managers of a German mail-order company (Study 1). Results indicate that group- and individual-level contact conditions are predictive of lower levels of intergroup bias and higher levels of cooperation and helping behavior. A common in-group representation mediates the effect on out-group attitudes and intergroup cooperation. In addition, the effect of a common in-group representation on intergroup bias is moderated by relative prototypicality, as predicted by the IPM, and the effect of prosocial group norms on helping behavior is moderated by workgroup identification, as predicted by the Self-Categorization Model of Group Norms. A longitudinal study with Ntotal = 57 members of different student project groups replicates the finding that contact under "optimal" conditions reduces intergroup bias and increases prosocial behavior between organizational groups. However, a common in-group representation is not found to mediate this effect in Study 2. Initial findings also indicate that individual-level variables, such as helping behavior toward members of another workgroup, may be better accounted for by variables at the same level of categorization (cf. Haslam, 2004). Thus, contact in a context that makes personal identities of workgroup members salient (i.e., decategorization) may be more predictive of interpersonal prosocial behavior, while contact in a context that makes workgroup identities salient (i.e., categorization) may be more predictive of intergroup prosocial behavior (cf. Tajfel, 1978). Further data from Study 1 support such a context-specific effect of contact between workgroups on interpersonal and intergroup prosocial behavior, respectively. In the last step, a temporal integration of the contact contexts that either lead to decategorization, categorization, or recategorization are examined based on the Longitudinal Contact Model (Pettigrew, 1998). A first indication that a temporal sequence from decategorization via categorization to recategorization may be particularly effective in fostering intergroup cooperation is obtained with data from Study 2. In order to provide a heuristic model for research on prosocial behavior between workgroups, findings are integrated into a Context-Specific Contact Model. The model proposes specific effects of contact in different contexts on prosocial behavior at different levels of categorization. Possible mediator and moderator processes are suggested. A number of implications for theory, future research and the management of relations between workgroups are discussed.
By the work presented in this thesis, the CH4 emissions of the River Saar were quantified in space and time continuously and all relevant processes leading to the observed pattern were identified. The direct comparison between reservoir zones and free-flowing intermediate reaches revealed, that the reservoir zones are CH4 emission hot spots and emitted over 90% of the total CH4. On average, the reservoir zones emitted over 80 times more CH4 per square meter than the intermediate reaches between dams (0.23 vs. 19.7 mol CH4 m-2 d-1). The high emission rates measured in the reservoir zones fall into the range of emissions observed in tropical reservoirs. The main reason for this is the accumulation of thick organic rich sediments and we showed that the net sedimentation rate is an excellent proxy for estimating ebullitive emissions. Within the hot spot zones, the ebullitive flux enhanced also the diffusive surface emissions as well as the degassing emissions at dams.
To resolve the high temporal variability, we developed an autonomous instrument for continuous measurements of the ebullition rate over long periods (> 4 weeks). With this instrument we could quantify the variability and identify the relevant trigger mechanisms. At the Saar, ship-lock induces surges and ship waves were responsible for over 85% of all large ebullition events. This dataset was also used to determine the error associated with short sampling periods and we found that with sampling periods of 24 hours as used in other studies, the ebullition rates were systematically underestimated by ~50%. Measuring the temporal variability enabled us to build up a conceptual framework for estimating the temporal pattern of ebullition in other aquatic systems. With respect to the contribution of freshwater systems to the global CH4 emissions, hot spot emission sites in impounded rivers have the potential to increase the current global estimate by up to 7%.
Graph-based data formats are flexible in representing data. In particular semantic data models, where the schema is part of the data, gained traction and commercial success in recent years. Semantic data models are also the basis for the Semantic Web - a Web of data governed by open standards in which computer programs can freely access the provided data. This thesis is concerned with the correctness of programs that access semantic data. While the flexibility of semantic data models is one of their biggest strengths, it can easily lead to programmers accidentally not accounting for unintuitive edge cases. Often, such exceptions surface during program execution as run-time errors or unintended side-effects. Depending on the exact condition, a program may run for a long time before the error occurs and the program crashes.
This thesis defines type systems that can detect and avoid such run-time errors based on schema languages available for the Semantic Web. In particular, this thesis uses the Web Ontology Language (OWL) and its theoretic underpinnings, i.e., description logics, as well as the Shapes Constraint Language (SHACL) to define type systems that provide type-safe data access to semantic data graphs. Providing a safe type system is an established methodology for proving the absence of run-time errors in programs without requiring execution. Both schema languages are based on possible world semantics but differ in the treatment of incomplete knowledge. While OWL allows for modelling incomplete knowledge through an open-world semantics, SHACL relies on a fixed domain and closed-world semantics. We provide the formal underpinnings for type systems based on each of the two schema languages. In particular, we base our notion of types on sets of values which allows us to specify a subtype relation based on subset semantics. In case of description logics, subsumption is a routine problem. For
the type system based on SHACL, we are able to translate it into a description
logic subsumption problem.
Water scarcity is already an omnipresent problem in many parts of the world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The dry years 2018 and 2019 showed that also in Germany water resources are finite. Projections and predictions for the next decades indicate that renewal rates of existing water resources will decline due the growing influence of climate change, but that water extraction rates will increase due to population growth. It is therefore important to find alternative and sustainable methods to make optimal use of the water resources currently available. For this reason, the reuse of treated wastewater for irrigation and recharge purposes has become one focus of scientific research in this field. However, it must be taken into account that wastewater contains so-called micropollutants, i.e., substances of anthropogenic origin. These are, e.g., pharmaceuticals, pesticides and industrial chemicals which enter the wastewater, but also metabolites that are formed in the human body from pharmaceuticals or personal care products. Through the treatment in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) as well as through chemical, biological and physical processes in the soil passage during the reuse of water, these micropollutants are transformed to new substances, known as transformation products (TPs), which further broaden the number of contaminants that can be detected within the whole water cycle.
Despite the fact that the presence of human metabolites and environmental TPs in untreated and treated wastewater has been known for a many years, they are rarely included in common routine analysis methods. Therefore, a first goal of this thesis was the development of an analysis method based on liquid chromatography - tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) that contains a broad spectrum of frequently detected micropollutants including their known metabolites and TPs. The developed multi-residue analysis method contained a total of 80 precursor micropollutants and 74 metabolites and TPs of different substance classes. The method was validated for the analysis of different water matrices (WWTP influent and effluent, surface water and groundwater from a bank filtration site). The influence of the MS parameters on the quality of the analysis data was studied. Despite the high number of analytes, a sufficient number of datapoints per peak was maintained, ensuring a high sensitivity and precision as well as a good recovery for all matrices. The selection of the analytes proved to be relevant as 95% of the selected micropollutants were detected in at least one sample. Several micropollutants were quantified that were not in the focus of other current multi-residue analysis methods (e.g. oxypurinol). The relevance of including metabolites and TPs was demonstrated by the frequent detection of, e.g., clopidogrel acid and valsartan acid at higher concentrations than their precursors, the latter even being detected in samples of bank filtrate water.
By the integration of metabolites, which are produced in the body by biological processes, and biological and chemical TPs, the multi-residue analysis method is also suitable for elucidating degradation mechanisms in treatment systems for water reuse that, e.g., use a soil passage for further treatment. In the second part of the thesis, samples from two treatment systems based on natural processes were analysed: a pilot-scale above-ground sequential biofiltration system (SBF) and a full-scale soil aquifer treatment (SAT) site. In the SBF system mainly biological degradation was observed, which was clearly demonstrated by the detection of biological TPs after the treatment. The efficiency of the degradation was improved by an intermediate aeration, which created oxic conditions in the upper layer of the following soil passage. In the SAT system a combination of biodegradation and sorption processes occurred. By the different behaviour of some biodegradable micropollutants compared to the SBF system, the influence of redox conditions and microbial community was observed. An advantage of the SAT system over the SBF system was found in the sorption capacity of the natural soil. Especially positively charged micropollutants showed attenuation due to ionic interactions with negatively charged soil particles. Based on the physicochemical properties at ambient pH, the degree of removal in the investigated systems and the occurrence in the source water, a selection of process-based indicator substances was proposed.
Within the first two parts of this thesis a micropollutant was frequently detected at elevated concentrations in WWTPs effluents, which was not previously in the focus of environmental research: the antidiabetic drug sitagliptin (STG). STG showed low degradability in biological systems and thus it was investigated to what extend chemical treatment by ozonation can ensure attenuation of it. STG contains an aliphatic primary amine as the principal point of attack for the ozone molecule. There is only limited information about the behaviour of this functional group during ozonation and thus, STG served as an example for other micropollutants containing aliphatic primary amines. A pH-dependent degradation kinetic was observed due to the protonation of the primary amine at lower pH values. At pH values in the range 6 - 8, which is typical for the environment and in WWTPs, STG showed degradation kinetics in the range of 103 M-1s-1 and thus belongs to the group of readily degradable substances. However, complete degradation can only be expected at significantly higher pH values (> 9). The transformation of the primary amine moiety into a nitro group was observed as the major degradation mechanism for STG during ozonation. Other mechanisms involved the formation of a diketone, bond breakages and the formation of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA). Investigations at a pilot-scale ozonation plant using the effluent of a biological degradation of a municipal WWTP as source water confirmed the results of the laboratory studies: STG could not be removed completely even at high ozone doses and the nitro compound was formed as the main TP and remained stable during further ozonation and subsequent biological treatment. It can therefore be assumed that under realistic conditions both a residual concentration of STG and the formed main TP as well as other stable TPs such as TFA can be detected in the effluents of a WWTP consisting of conventional biological treatment followed by ozonation and subsequent biological polishing steps.
Despite the significant presence of neuroactive substances in the environment, bioassays that allow to detect diverse groups of neuroactive mechanisms of action are not well developed and not properly integrated into environmental monitoring and chemical regulation. Therefore, there is a need to develop testing methods which are amenable for fast and high-throughput neurotoxicity testing. The overall goal of this thesis work is to develop a test method for the toxicological characterization and screening of neuroactive substances and their mixtures which could be used for prospective and diagnostic hazard assessment.
In this thesis, the behavior of zebrafish embryos was explored as a promising tool to distinguish between different neuroactive mechanisms of action. Recently, new behavioral tests have been developed including photomotor response (PMR), locomotor response (LMR) and spontaneous tail coiling (STC) tests. However, the experimental parameters of these tests lack consistency in protocols such as exposure time, imaging time, age of exposure, endpoint parameter etc. To understand how experimental parameters may influence the toxicological interpretation of behavior tests, a systematic review of existing behavioral assays was conducted in Chapter 2. Results show that exposure concentration and exposure duration highly influenced the comparability between different test methods and the spontaneous tail coiling (STC) test was selected for further testing based on its relative higher sensitivity and capacity to detect neuroactive substances (Chapter 2).
STC is the first observable motor activity generated by the developing neural network of the embryo which is assumed to occur as a result of the innervation of the muscle by the primary motor neurons. Therefore, STC could be a useful endpoint to detect effect on the muscle innervation and also the on the whole nervous system. Consequently, important parameters of the STC test were optimized and an automated workflow to evaluate the STC with the open access software KNIME® was developed (Chapter 3).
To appropriately interpret the observed effect of a single chemical and especially mixture effects, requires the understanding of toxicokinetics and biotransformation. Most importantly, the biotransformation capacity of zebrafish embryos might be limited and this could be a challenge for assessment of chemicals such as organophosphates which require a bioactivation step to effectively inhibit the acetylcholinesterase (AChE) enzyme. Therefore, the influence of the potential limited biotransformation on the toxicity pathway of a typical organophosphate, chlorpyrifos, was investigated in Chapter 5. Chlorpyrifos could not inhibit AChE and this was attributed to possible lack of biotransformation in 24 hpf embryos (Chapter 5).
Since neuroactive substances occur in the environment as mixtures, it is therefore more realistic to assess their combined effect rather than individually. Therefore, mixture toxicity was predicted using the concentration addition and independent action models. Result shows that mixtures of neuroactive substances with different mechanisms of action but similar effects can be predicted with concentration addition and independent action (Chapter 4). Apart
from being able to predict the combined effect of neuroactive substances for prospective risk assessment, it is also important to assess in retrospect the combined neurotoxic effect of environmental samples since neuroactive substances are the largest group of chemicals occurring in the environment. In Chapter 6, the STC test was found to be capable of detecting neurotoxic effects of a wastewater effluent sample. Hence, the STC test is proposed as an effect based tool for monitoring environmental acute and neurotoxic effects.
Overall, this thesis shows the utility and versatility of zebrafish embryo behavior testing for screening neuroactive substances and this allows to propose its use for prospective and diagnostic hazard assessment. This will enhance the move away from expensive and demanding animal testing. The information contained in this thesis is of great potential to provide precautionary solutions, not only for the exposure of humans to neuroactive chemicals but for the environment at large.
Augmented reality (AR) applications typically extend the user's view of the real world with virtual objects.
In recent years, AR has gained increasing popularity and attention, which has led to improvements in the required technologies. AR has become available to almost everyone.
Researchers have made great progress towards the goal of believable AR, in which the real and virtual worlds are combined seamlessly.
They mainly focus on issues like tracking, display technologies and user interaction, and give little attention to visual and physical coherence when real and virtual objects are combined. For example, virtual objects should not only respond to the user's input; they should also interact with real objects. Generally, AR becomes more believable and realistic if virtual objects appear fixed or anchored in the real scene, appear indistinguishable from the real scene, and response to any changes within it.
This thesis examines on three challenges in the field of computer vision to meet the goal of a believable combined world in which virtual objects appear and behave like real objects.
Firstly, the thesis concentrates on the well-known tracking and registration problem. The tracking and registration challenge is discussed and an approach is presented to estimate the position and viewpoint of the user so that virtual objects appear fixed in the real world. Appearance-based line models, which keep only relevant edges for tracking purposes, enable absolute registration in the real world and provide robust tracking. On the one hand, there is no need to spend much time creating suitable models manually. On the other hand, the tracking can deal with changes within the object or the scene to be tracked. Experiments have shown that the use of appearance-based line models improves the robustness, accuracy and re-initialization speed of the tracking process.
Secondly, the thesis deals with the subject of reconstructing the surface of a real environment and presents an algorithm to optimize an ongoing surface reconstruction. A complete 3D surface reconstruction of the target scene
offers new possibilities for creating more realistic AR applications. Several interactions between real and virtual objects, such as collision and occlusions, can be handled with physical correctness. Whereas previous methods focused on improving surface reconstructions offline after a capturing step, the presented method de-noises, extends and fills holes during the capturing process. Thus, users can explore an unknown environment without any preparation tasks such as moving around and scanning the scene, and without having to deal with the underlying technology in advance. In experiments, the approach provided realistic results where known surfaces were extended and filled in plausibly for different surface types.
Finally, the thesis focuses on handling occlusions between the real and virtual worlds more realistically, by re-interpreting the occlusion challenge as an alpha matting problem. The presented method overcomes limitations in state-of-the-art methods by estimating a blending coefficient per pixel of the rendered virtual scene, instead of calculating only their visibility. In several experiments and comparisons with other methods, occlusion handling through alpha matting worked robustly and overcame limitations of low-cost sensor data; it also outperformed previous work in terms of quality, realism and practical applicability.
The method can deal with noisy depth data and yields realistic results in regions where foreground and background are not strictly separable (e.g. caused by fuzzy objects or motion blur).
The provision of electronic participation services (e-participation) is a complex socio-technical undertaking that needs comprehensive design and implementation strategies. E-participation service providers, in the most cases administrations and governments, struggle with changing requirements that demand more transparency, better connectivity and increased collaboration among different actors. At the same time, less staff are available. As a result, recent research assesses only a minority of e-participation services as successful. The challenge is that the e-participation domain lacks comprehensive approaches to design and implement (e-)participation services. Enterprise Architecture (EA) frameworks have evolved in information systems research as an approach to guide the development of complex socio-technical systems. This approach can guide the design and implementation services, if the collection of organisations with the commonly held goal to provide participation services is understood as an E Participation Enterprise (EE). However, research & practice in the e participation domain has not yet exploited EA frameworks. Consequently, the problem scope that motivates this dissertation is the existing gap in research to deploy EA frameworks in e participation design and implementation. The research question that drives this research is: What methodical and technical guides do architecture frameworks provide that can be used to design and implement better and successful e participation?
This dissertation presents a literature study showing that existing approaches have not covered yet the challenges of comprehensive e participation design and implementation. Accordingly, the research moves on to investigate established EA frameworks such as the Zachman Framework, TOGAF, the DoDAF, the FEA, the ARIS, and the ArchiMate for their use. While the application of these frameworks in e participation design and implementation is possible, an integrated approach is lacking so far. The synthesis of literature review and practical insights in design and implementation of e participation services from four projects show the challenges of adapting architecture frameworks for this domain. However, the research shows also the potential of a combination of the different approaches. Consequently, the research moves on to develop the E-Participation Architecture Framework (EPART-Framework). Therefore, the dissertation applies design science research including literature review and action research. Two independent settings test an initial EPART-Framework version. The results yield into the EPART-Framework presented in this dissertation.
The EPART-Framework comprises of the EPART-Metamodel with six EPART-Viewpoints, which frame the stakeholder concerns: the Participation Scope, the Participant Viewpoint, the Participation Viewpoint, the Data & Information Viewpoint, the E-participation Viewpoint, and Implementation & Governance Viewpoint. The EPART-Method supports the stakeholders to design the EE and implement e participation and stores its output in an architecture description and a solution repository. It consists of five consecutive phases accompanied by requirements management: Initiation, Design, Implementation and Preparation, Participation, and Evaluation. The EPART-Framework fills the gap between the e participation domain and the enterprise architecture framework domain. The evaluation gives reasonable evidence that the framework is a valuable addition in academia and in practice to improve e-participation design and implementation. The same time, it shows opportunities for future research to extend and advance the framework.
Organic substances play an essential role for the formation of stable soil structures. In this context, their physico-chemical properties, interactions with mineral soil constituents and soil-water interactions are particu-larly important. However, the underlying mechanisms contributing to soil particle cementation by swollen or-ganic substances (hydrogels) remains unclear. Up to now, no mechanistic model is available which explains the mechanisms of interparticulate hydrogel swelling and its contribution to soil-water interactions and soil structur-al stability. This mainly results from the lack of appropriate testing methods to study hydrogel swelling in soil as well as from the difficulties of adapting available methods to the system soil/hydrogel.
In this thesis, 1H proton nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxometry was combined with various soil micro- and macrostructural stability testing methods in order to identify the contribution of hydrogel swelling-induced soil-water interactions to the structural stability of water-saturated and unsaturated soils. In the first part, the potentials and limitations of 1H NMR relaxometry to enlighten soil structural stabilization mechanism and vari-ous water populations were investigated. In the second part, 1H-NMR relaxometry was combined with rheologi-cal measurements of soil to assess the contribution of interparticulate hydrogel swelling and various polymer-clay interactions on soil-water interactions and soil structural stability in an isolated manner. Finally, the effects of various organic and mineral soil fractions on soil-water interactions and soil structural stability was assessed in more detail for a natural, agriculturally cultivated soil by soil density fractionation and on the basis of the experiences gained from the previous experiments.
The increased experiment complexity in the course of this thesis enabled to link physico-chemical properties of interparticulate hydrogel structures with soil structural stability on various scales. The established mechanistic model explains the contribution of interparticulate hydrogels to the structural stability of water-saturated and unsaturated soils: While swollen clay particles reduce soil structural stability by acting as lubricant between soil particles, interparticulate hydrogel structures increase soil structural stability by forming a flexible polymeric network which interconnects mineral particles more effectively than soil pore- or capillary water. It was appar-ent that soil structural stability increases with increasing viscosity of the interparticluate hydrogel in dependence on incubation time, soil texture, soil solution composition and external factors in terms of moisture dynamics and agricultural management practices. The stabilizing effect of interparticulate hydrogel structures further in-crease in the presence of clay particles which is attributed to additional polymer-clay interactions and the incor-poration of clay particles into the three-dimensional interparticulate hydrogel network. Furthermore, the simul-taneous swelling of clay particles and hydrogel structures results in the competition for water and thus in a mu-tual restriction of their swelling in the interparticle space. Thus, polymer-clay interactions not only increase the viscosity of the interparticulate hydrogel and thus its ability to stabilize soil structures but further reduce the swelling of clay particles and consequently their negative effects on soil structural stability. The knowledge on these underlying mechanisms enhance the knowledge on the formation of stable soil structures and enable to take appropriate management practices in order to maintain a sustainable soil structure. The additionally out-lined limitations and challenges of the mechanistic model should provide information on areas with optimization and research potential, respectively.
Based on dual process models of information processing, the present research addressed how explicit disgust sensitivity is re-adapted according to implicit disgust sensitivity via self-perception of automatic behavioral cues. Contrary to preceding studies (Hofmann, Gschwendner, & Schmitt, 2009) that concluded that there was a "blind spot" for self- but not for observer perception of automatic behavioral cues, in the present research, a re-adaption process was found for self-perceivers and observers. In Study 1 (N = 75), the predictive validity of an indirect disgust sensitivity measure was tested with a double-dissociation strategy. Study 2 (N = 117) reinvestigated the hypothesis that self-perception of automatic behavioral cues, predicted by an indirect disgust sensitivity measure, led to a re-adaption of explicit disgust sensitivity measures. Using a different approach from Hofmann et al. (2009), the self-perception procedure was modified by (a) feeding back the behavior several times while a small number of cues had to be rated for each feedback condition, (b) using disgust sensitivity as a domain with clearly unequivocal cues of automatic behavior (facial expression, body movements) and describing these cues unambiguously, and (c) using a specific explicit disgust sensitivity measure in addition to a general explicit disgust sensitivity measure. In Study 3 (N = 130), the findings of Study 2 were replicated and display rules and need for closure as moderator effects of predictive validity and cue utilization were additionally investigated. The moderator effects give hints that both displaying a disgusted facial expression and self-perception of one- own disgusted facial expression are subject to a self-serving bias, indicating that facial expression may not be an automatic behavior. Practical implications and implications for future research are discussed.
Abstract The present work investigates the wetting characteristics of soils with regard to their dependence on environmental parameters such as water content (WC), pH, drying temperature and wetting temperature of wettable and repellent soils from two contrasting anthropogenic sites, the former sewage disposal field Berlin-Buch and the inner-city park Berlin-Tiergarten. The aim of this thesis is to deepen the understanding of processes and mechanisms leading to changes in soil water repellency. This helps to gain further insight into the behaviour of soil organic matter (SOM) and identifying ways to prevent or reduce the negative effects of soil water repellency (SWR). The first focus of this work is to determine whether chemical reactions are required for wetting repellent samples. This hypothesis was tested by time and temperature dependence of sessile drop spreading on wettable and repellent samples. Additionally, diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform (DRIFT) spectroscopy was used to determine whether various drying regimes cause changes in the relative abundance of hydrophobic and hydrophilic functional groups in the outer layer of soil particles and whether these changes can be correlated with water content and the degree of SWR. Finally, by artificially altering the pH in dried samples applying acidic and alkaline reagents in a gaseous state, the influence of only pH on the degree of SWR was investigated separately from the influence of changes in moisture status. The investigation of the two locations Buch and Tiergarten, each exceptionally different in the nature of their respective wetting properties, leads to new insights in the variety of appearance of SWR. The results of temperature, water content and pH dependency of SWR on the two contrasting sites resulted in one respective hypothetical model of nature of repellency for each site which provides an explanation for most of the observations made in this and earlier studies: At the Tiergarten site, wetting characteristics are most likely determined by micelle-like arrangement of amphiphiles which depends on the concentration of water soluble amphiphilic substances, pH and ionic strength in soil solution. At low pH and at high ionic strength, repulsion forces between hydrophilic charged groups are minimized allowing their aggregation with outward orientated hydrophobic molecule moieties. At high pH and low ionic strength, higher repulsion forces between hydrophilic functional groups lead to an aggregation of hydrophobic groups during drying, which results in a layer with outward oriented hydrophilic moieties on soil organic matter surface leading to enhanced wettability. For samples from the Buch site, chemical reactions are necessary for the wetting process. The strong dependence of SWR on water content indicates that hydrolysis-condensation reactions are the controlling mechanisms. Since acid catalyzed hydrolysis is an equilibrium reaction dependent on water content, an excess of water favours hydrolysis leading to an increasing number of hydrophilic functional groups. In contrast, water deficiency favours condensation reactions leading to a reduction of hydrophilic functional groups and thus a reduction of wettability. The results of the present investigation and its comparison with earlier investigations clearly show that SWR is subject to numerous antagonistically and synergistically interacting environmental factors. The degree of influence, which a single factor exerts on SWR, is site-specific, e.g., it is dependent on special characteristics of mineral constituents and SOM which underlies the influence of climate, soil texture, topography, vegetation and the former and current use of the respective site.
Larvae of Cx.pipiens coocurred with Cladocera, but the latter established delayed in time. Biotope structure influenced time of species occurrence with ponds at reed-covered wetlands favouring crustacean development, while ponds at grassland biotopes favoured colonization by mosquito larvae. The mechanisms driving the negative effect of crustaceans on mosquito larvae were investigated within an experiment under artificial conditions. Crustacean communities were found to reduce both oviposition and larval development of Cx.pipiens. Crustacean communities of high taxa diversity, including both predatory and competing crustaceans, were more effective compared with crustacean communities dominated by single taxa. Presence of crustacean communities characterised by high taxa diversity increased the sensitivity of Cx.pipiens larvae towards Bti and prolonged the time of recolonization. In a final step the combined approach, using Bti and crustaceans, was evaluated under field conditions. The joint application of Bti and crustaceans was found to reduce mosquito larval populations over the whole observation period, while single application of Bti caused only short-term reduction of mosquito larvae. Single application of crustaceans had no significant effect, because high abundances of prior established mosquito larvae impeded propagation of crustaceans. At combined treatment, mosquito larvae were reduced by Bti application and hence crustaceans were able to proliferate without disturbance by interspecific competition. In conclusion, natural competitors were found to have a strong negative impact on mosquito larval populations. However, a time span of about 2 weeks has to be bridged, before crustacean communities reached a level sufficient for mosquito control. Results of a combined approach, complementing the short-term effect of the biological insecticide Bti with the long-term effect of crustaceans, were promising. Using natural competitors within an integrated control strategy could be an important tool for an effective, environmentally friendly and sustainable mosquito management.
The role of alternative resources for pollinators and aphid predators in agricultural landscapes
(2021)
The world wide decline of insects is often associated with loss of natural and semi-natural habitat caused by intensified land-use. Many insects provide important ecosystem services to agriculture, such as pest control or pollination. To efficiently promote insects on remaining semi-natural habitat we need precise knowledge of their requirements to non-crop habitat. This thesis focuses on identifying
the most important semi-natural habitats (forest edges, grasslands, and semi-open habitats) for pollinators and natural enemies of crop pests with respect to their food resource requirements. Special
attention is given to floral resources and their spatio-temporal distribution in agricultural landscapes.
Floral resource maps might get closer at characterizing landscapes the way they are experienced by insects compared to classical habitat maps. Performance of the two map types was compared on the prediction of wild bees and natural enemies that consume nectar and pollen, identifying habitats of special importance in the process. In wild bees, influences of spatio-temporal floral resource availability were analysed as well as habitat preferences of specific groups of bees. Understanding dietary needs of natural enemies of crop pests requires additional knowledge on prey use. To this end, ladybird gut contents have been analysed by means of high-throughput sequencing for insight into aphid prey-use.
Results showed, that wild bees were predicted better by floral resource maps compared to classical habitat maps. Forest edge area, as well as floral resources in forest edges had positive effects on abundance and diversity of rare bees and important crop pollinators. Similar patterns were retained for grassland diversity. Especially early floral resources seemed to have positive effects on wild bees. Crops and fruit trees produced a resource pulse in April that exceeded floral resource availability in May and June by tenfold. Most floral resources in forest edges appeared early in the season, with the highest floral density per area. Grasslands provided the lowest amount of floral resources but highest diversity, which was evenly distributed over the season.
Despite natural enemies need for floral resources, classical habitat maps performed better at predicting natural enemies of crop pests compared to floral resource maps. Classical habitat maps revealed a positive effect of forest edge habitat on the abundance of pest enemies, which translated into improved aphid control. Results from gut content analysis reveal high portions of pest aphid species and nettle aphids as well as a broader insight into prey spectra retained from ladybirds collected from sticky traps compared to individuals collected by hand. The aphid specific primer designed for this purpose will be helpful for identifying aphid consumption by ladybirds in future studies.
Findings of this thesis show the potential of floral resource maps for understanding interactions of wild bees and the landscape but also indicate that natural enemies are limited by other resources. I would like to highlight the positive effects of forest edges for different groups of bees as well as natural enemies and their performance on pest control.
Ray tracing acceleration through dedicated data structures has long been an important topic in computer graphics. In general, two different approaches are proposed: spatial and directional acceleration structures. The thesis at hand presents an innovative combined approach of these two areas, which enables a further acceleration of the tracing process of rays. State-of-the-art spatial data structures are used as base structures and enhanced by precomputed directional visibility information based on a sophisticated abstraction concept of shafts within an original structure, the Line Space.
In the course of the work, novel approaches for the precomputed visibility information are proposed: a binary value that indicates whether a shaft is empty or non-empty as well as a single candidate approximating the actual surface as a representative candidate. It is shown how the binary value is used in a simple but effective empty space skipping technique, which allows a performance gain in ray tracing of up to 40% compared to the pure base data structure, regardless of the spatial structure that is actually used. In addition, it is shown that this binary visibility information provides a fast technique for calculating soft shadows and ambient occlusion based on blocker approximations. Although the results contain a certain inaccuracy error, which is also presented and discussed, it is shown that a further tracing acceleration of up to 300% compared to the base structure is achieved. As an extension of this approach, the representative candidate precomputation is demonstrated, which is used to accelerate the indirect lighting computation, resulting in a significant performance gain at the expense of image errors. Finally, techniques based on two-stage structures and a usage heuristic are proposed and evaluated. These reduce memory consumption and approximation errors while maintaining the performance gain and also enabling further possibilities with object instancing and rigid transformations.
All performance and memory values as well as the approximation errors are measured, presented and discussed. Overall, the Line Space is shown to result in a considerate improvement in ray tracing performance at the cost of higher memory consumption and possible approximation errors. The presented findings thus demonstrate the capability of the combined approach and enable further possibilities for future work.
Grassland management has been increasingly intensified throughout centuries since mankind started to control and modify the landscape. Species communities were always shaped alongside management changes leading to huge alterations in species richness and diversity up to the point where land use intensity exceeded the threshold. Since then biodiversity became increasingly lost. Today, global biodiversity and especially grassland biodiversity is pushed beyond its boundaries. Policymakers and conservationists seek for management options which fulfill the requirements of agronomic interests as well as biodiversity conservation alongside with the maintenance of ecosystem processes. However, there is and will always be a trade-off.
Earlier in history, natural circumstances in a landscape mainly determined regionally adapted land use. These regional adaptions shaped islands for many specialist species, and thus diverse species communities, favoring the establishment of a high β-diversity. With the raising food demand, these regional and traditional management regimes became widely unprofitable, and the invention of mineral fertilizers ultimately led to a wide homogenization of grassland management and, as follows, the loss of biotic heterogeneity. In the course of the green revolution, this immediate coherence and the dependency between grassland biodiversity and traditional land use practices becomes increasingly noticed. Indeed, some traditional forms of management such as meadow irrigation have been preserved in a few regions and thus give us the opportunity to directly investigate their long-term relevance for the species communities and ecosystem processes. Traditional meadow irrigation was a common management practice to improve productivity in lowland, but also alpine hay meadows throughout Europe until the 20th century. Nowadays, meadow irrigation is only practiced as a relic in a few remnant areas. In parts of the Queichwiesen meadows flood irrigation goes back to the Middle Ages, which makes them a predestined as a model region to study the long- and short-term effects of lowland meadow irrigation on the biodiversity and ecosystem processes.
Our study pointed out the conservation value of traditional meadow irrigation for the preservation of local species communities as well as the plant diversity at the landscape scale. The structurally more complex irrigated meadows lead to the assumption of a higher arthropod diversity (Orthodoptera, Carabidae, Araneae), which could not be detected. However, irrigated meadows are a significant habitat for moisture dependent arthropod species. In the light of the agronomic potential, flood irrigation could be a way to at least reduce fertilizer costs to a certain degree and possibly prevent overfertilization pulses which are necessarily hazardous to non-target ecosystems. Still, the reestablishment of flood irrigation in formerly irrigated meadows, or even the establishment of new irrigation systems needs ecological and economic evaluation dependent on regional circumstances and specific species communities, at which this study could serve as a reference point.
Aquatic macrophytes can contribute to the retention of organic contaminants in streams, whereas knowledge on the dynamics and the interaction of the determining processes is very limited. The objective of the present study was thus to assess how aquatic macrophytes influence the distribution and the fate of organic contaminants in small vegetated streams. In a first study that was performed in vegetated stream mesocosms, the peak reductions of five compounds were significantly higher in four vegetated stream mesocosms compared to a stream mesocosm without vegetation. Compound specific sorption to macrophytes was determined, the mass retention in the vegetated streams, however, did not explain the relationship between the mitigation of contaminant peaks and macrophyte coverage. A subsequent mesocosm study revealed that the mitigation of peak concentrations in the stream mesocosms was governed by two fundamentally different processes: dispersion and sorption. Again, the reductions of the peak concentrations of three different compounds were in the same order of magnitude in a sparsely and a densely vegetated stream mesocosm, respectively, but higher compared to an unvegetated stream mesocosm. The mitigation of the peak reduction in the sparsely vegetated stream mesocosm was found to be fostered by longitudinal dispersion as a result of the spatial distribution of the macrophytes in the aqueous phase. The peak reduction attributable to longitudinal dispersion was, however, reduced in the densely vegetated stream mesocosm, which was compensated by compound-specific but time-limited and reversible sorption to macrophytes. The observations on the reversibility of sorption processes were subsequently confirmed by laboratory experiments. The experiments revealed that sorption to macrophytes lead to compound specific elimination from the aqueous phase during the presence of transient contaminant peaks in streams. After all, these sorption processes were found to be fully reversible, which results in the release of the primarily adsorbed compounds, once the concentrations in the aqueous phase starts to decrease. Nevertheless, the results of the present thesis demonstrate that the processes governing the mitigation of contaminant loads in streams are fundamentally different to those already described for non-flowing systems. In addition, the present thesis provides knowledge on how the interaction of macrophyte-induced processes in streams contributes to mitigate loads of organic contaminants and the related risk for aquatic environments.
The protected areas of Rwanda are facing various challenges resulting from the anthropogenic activities of the surrounding communities especially in the adjacent area to Cyamudongo isolated rain forest, which results in climate change, soil degradation, and loss of biodiversity. Therefore, this study aims to broaden current knowledge on the impact of sustainable Agroforestry (AF) on the Carbon (C) stock and Biodiversity conservation on the surroundings of Cyamudongo isolated rain forest and Ruhande Arboretum.
To understand this, the permanent sample plots (PSPs) were established mainly in the designed four transects of four km long originating on the boundary of the Cyamudongo isolated rain forest following the slope gradient ranging from 1286 to 2015 m asl. A total number of 73 PSPs were established in the Cyamudongo study area while 3 PSPs were established in the Ruhande AF plot. The Arc Map GIS 10.4 was used to design and map the sampling areas while GPS was used for localization of collected items. Statistical significance was analyzed through the R-software especially for wood and soil variables while for biodiversity indicator species, MVSP Software 3.0 was used to determine the Shannon Diversity indices and similarities among species.
In this study, I have obtained comprehensive results demonstrating that in all study areas, the various AF tree species contribute differently to C stock and C sequestration and the amount of C stored and removed from the atmosphere depends on different factors such as tree species, plantation density, growth stage, or the age of establishment, applied management practices, wood specific density (WSD), wood C concentration, and climatic conditions. The estimated quantity of sequestrated C for 2 years and 34 years AF species were 13.11 t C ha -1 yr-1 (equivalent to 48 t CO2 ha -1 yr-1) and 6.85 t ha-1 yr-1 (equivalent to 25.1 t CO2 ha -1 yr-1) in Cyamudongo and Ruhande respectively. The estimated quantity of C stored by the Ruhande AF plot is 232.94 t ha-1. In Cyamudongo, the overall C stored by the AF systems was 823 t ha-1 by both young tree species established by the Cyamudongo Project (35.84 t ha-1) and C stored by existed AF species before the existence of the Project (787.12 t ha-1). In all study areas, the Grevillea robusta was found to contribute more to overall stored C compared to other species under this study.
The tests revealed differences in terms of nutrient contents (C, N, C: N ratio, K, Na, Ca, and Mg) for various AF tree species of Cyamudongo and Ruhande study areas. The differences in terms of correlation for various variables of AF tree species in different study areas varied with tree species, age, stage of growth, and tree shape. By comparing the correlation coefficients for various tree variables for young and mature AF tree species, the results showed a high correlation variability for young species than mature or old species recorded in different environmental conditions of Cyamudongo and Ruhande study areas.
The recorded soil pH mean value across in Cyamudongo study area is 4.2, which is very strongly acidic. The tests revealed that the soil pH, C, C: N ratio, OM, NH4+, NO3-+NO2-, PO43-, and CEC were significantly (P < 0.05) different in various soil depths whereas the N was not statistically significant. The pH, N, C: N ratio, CEC, NH4+, PO43-, and Al3+ showed a significant difference across land uses whereas the C and NO3-+NO2- did not show any statistical difference. All tested chemical elements showed a statistical difference as far as altitude ranges are concerned. The only NH4+, PO43-, and CEC showed significant differences with time whereas all other remaining chemical elements did not show any statistical significance. The bulk density of soil was statistically different across land uses and altitude ranges. The soil pH was very strongly correlated with CEC, Mg, and Ca in cropland (CL) whereas it was strongly correlated in both AF and natural forest (NF) except for Mg, which was moderately correlated in AF. Furthermore, its correlation with K was strong in CL, moderate in AF while it was weak in NF. Finally, the pH correlation with Na was weak in both AF and CL whereas it was negligible in NF. The overall estimated soil C stock of the study area was 16848 t ha -1.
The sustainable AF practices changed significantly the frequency of reptiles, amphibians, and flowering plants while there was no statistical change observed on ferns with time. In terms of species richness, 16 flowering plants, 14 ferns, 5 amphibians, and 3 reptiles were recorded and monitored. These findings add to a growing body of literature on the impact of AF on the C stock, soil improvement, and Biodiversity. It is recommended that further researches should be undertaken for the contribution of other AF tree species to the C stock found in the agricultural landscape around all protected areas of Rwanda and the impact on them on the soil and biodiversity.
Pelagic oxyclines, the transition zone between oxygen rich surface waters and oxygen depleted deep waters, are a common characteristic of eutrophic lakes during summer stratification. They can have tremendous effects on the biodiversity and the ecosystem functioning of lakes and, to add insult to injury, are expected to become more frequent and more pronounced as climate warming progresses. On these grounds, this thesis endeavors to advance the understanding of formation, persistence, and consequences of pelagic oxyclines: We test, whether the formation of metalimnetic oxygen minima is intrinsically tied to a locally enhanced oxygen consuming process, investigate the relative importance of vertical physical oxygen transport and biochemical oxygen consumption for the persistence of pelagic oxyclines, and finally assess their potential consequences for whole lake cycling. To pursue these objectives, the present thesis nearly exclusively resorts to in situ measurements. Field campaigns were conducted at three lakes in Germany featuring different types of oxyclines and resolved either a short (hours to days) or a long (weeks to months) time scale. Measurements comprised temperature, current velocity, and concentrations of oxygen and reduced substances in high temporal and vertical resolution. Additionally, vertical transport was estimated by applying the eddy correlation technique within the pelagic region for the first time. The thesis revealed, that the formation of metalimnetic oxygen minima does not necessarily depend on locally enhanced oxygen depletion, but can solely result from gradients and curvatures of oxygen concentration and depletion and their relative position to each other. Physical oxygen transport was found to be relevant for oxycline persistence when it considerably postponed anoxia on a long time scale. However, its influence on oxygen dynamics was minor on short time scales, although mixing and transport were highly variable. Biochemical consumption always dominated the fate of oxygen in pelagic oxyclines. It was primarily determined by the oxidative breakdown of organic matter originating from the epilimnion, whereas in meromictic lakes, the oxidation of reduced substances dominated. Beyond that, the results of the thesis emphasize that pelagic oxyclines can be a hotspot of mineralization and, hence, short-circuit carbon and nutrient cycling in the upper part of the water column. Overall, the present thesis highlights the importance of considering physical transport as well as biochemical cycling in future studies.
Tagging systems are intriguing dynamic systems, in which users collaboratively index resources with the so-called tags. In order to leverage the full potential of tagging systems, it is important to understand the relationship between the micro-level behavior of the individual users and the macro-level properties of the whole tagging system. In this thesis, we present the Epistemic Dynamic Model, which tries to bridge this gap between the micro-level behavior and the macro-level properties by developing a theory of tagging systems. The model is based on the assumption that the combined influence of the shared background knowledge of the users and the imitation of tag recommendations are sufficient for explaining the emergence of the tag frequency distribution and the vocabulary growth in tagging systems. Both macro-level properties of tagging systems are closely related to the emergence of the shared community vocabulary. rnrnWith the help of the Epistemic Dynamic Model, we show that the general shape of the tag frequency distribution and of the vocabulary growth have their origin in the shared background knowledge of the users. Tag recommendations can then be used for selectively influencing this general shape. In this thesis, we especially concentrate on studying the influence of recommending a set of popular tags. Recommending popular tags adds a feedback mechanism between the vocabularies of individual users that increases the inter-indexer consistency of the tag assignments. How does this influence the indexing quality in a tagging system? For this purpose, we investigate a methodology for measuring the inter-resource consistency of tag assignments. The inter-resource consistency is an indicator of the indexing quality, which positively correlates with the precision and recall of query results. It measures the degree to which the tag vectors of indexed resources reflect how the users perceive the similarity between resources. We argue with our model, and show it with a user experiment, that recommending popular tags decreases the inter-resource consistency in a tagging system. Furthermore, we show that recommending the user his/her previously used tags helps to increase the inter-resource consistency. Our measure of the inter-resource consistency complements existing measures for the evaluation and comparison of tag recommendation algorithms, moving the focus to evaluating their influence on the indexing quality.
Technical products have become more than practical tools to us. Mobile phones, for example, are a constant companion in daily life. Besides purely pragmatic tasks, they fulfill psychological needs such as relatedness, stimulation, competence, popularity, or security. Their potential for the mediation of positive experience makes interactive products a rich source of pleasure. Research acknowledged this: in parallel to the hedonic/utilitarian model in consumer research, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) researchers broadened their focus from mere task-fulfillment (i.e., the pragmatic) to a holistic view, encompassing a product's ability for need-fulfillment and positive experience (i.e., the hedonic). Accordingly, many theoretical models of User Experience (UX) acknowledge both dimensions as equally important determinants of a product's appeal: pragmatic attributes (e.g., usability) as well as hedonic attributes (e.g., beauty). In choice situations, however, people often overemphasize the pragmatic, and fail to acknowledge the hedonic. This phenomenon may be explained by justification. Due to their need for justification, people attend to the justifiability of hedonic and pragmatic attributes rather than to their impact on experience. Given that pragmatic attributes directly contribute to task-fulfillment, they are far easier to justify than hedonic attributes. People may then choose the pragmatic over the hedonic, despite a true preference for the hedonic. This can be considered a dilemma, since people choose what is easy to justify and not what they enjoy the most. The present thesis presents a systematic exploration of the notion of a hedonic dilemma in the context of interactive products.
A first set of four studies explored the assumed phenomenon. Study 1 (N = 422) revealed a reluctance to pay for a hedonic attribute compared to a pragmatic attribute. Study 2 (N = 134) demonstrated that people (secretly) prefer a more hedonic product, but justify their choice by spurious pragmatic advantages. Study 3 (N = 118) confronted participants with a trade-off between hedonic and pragmatic quality. Even though the prospect of receiving a hedonic product was related to more positive affect, participants predominantly chose the pragmatic, especially those with a high need for justification. This correlation between product choice and perceived need for justification lent further support to the notion that justification lies at the heart of the dilemma. Study 4 (N = 125) explored affective consequences and justifications provided for hedonic and pragmatic choice. Data on positive affect suggested a true preference for the hedonic - even among those who chose the pragmatic product.
A second set of three studies tested different ways to reduce the dilemma by manipulating justification. Manipulations referred to the justifiability of attributes as well as the general need for justification. Study 5 (N = 129) enhanced the respective justifiability of hedonic and pragmatic choice by ambiguous product information, which could be interpreted according to latent preferences. As expected, enhanced justifiability led to an increase in hedonic but not in pragmatic choice. Study 6 (N = 178) manipulated the justifiability of hedonic choice through product information provided by a "test report", which suggested hedonic attributes as legitimate. Again, hedonic choice increased with increased justifiability. Study 7 (N = 133) reduced the general need for justification by framing a purchase as gratification. A significant positive effect of the gratification frame on purchase rates occurred for a hedonic but not for a pragmatic product.
Altogether, the present studies revealed a desire for hedonic attributes, even in interactive products, which often are still understood as purely pragmatic "tools". But precisely because of this predominance of pragmatic quality, people may hesitate to give in to their desire for hedonic quality in interactive products - at least, as long as they feel a need for justification. The present findings provide an enhanced understanding of the complex consequences of hedonic and pragmatic attributes, and indicate a general necessity to expand the scope of User Experience research to the moment of product choice. Limitations of the present studies, implications for future research as well as practical implications for design and marketing are discussed.
This study examines the contribution of saving and credit cooperatives (SACCOS) on the improvement of members‘ socio economic development in Rwanda: Opportunities and challenges‖, Evidence from Umwalimu SACCO- Huye District‖. The appearance of saving and credit cooperatives or credit unions has been known as remedy for social ills rooted in poverty because of its efficiency in loans or credits dispensation, social equality for enhancement and reduction of poverty amongst low income earners. Therefore, millions and millions of poor people and non-bankable in developing countries (or third world countries) have been provided access to formal financial services through saving and credit cooperatives‘ programs.
The targeted population concerned by the study was 1,940 members of USACCO from which a sample of 92 respondents was purposively selected. The study has adopted a combination of correlation and descriptive research design. It has employed both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The study used both primary and secondary data. The primary data was collected using questionnaire and interview and, while secondary data was collected using documentations techniques whereby, Manual of procedures and Credit policies of USACCO and financial reports have been consulted. The analysis of data was done using SPSS version 21. The data was presented in form of tables, charts and graphs designed by SPSS v. 21. The bio-characteristics of respondents showed that, the majority of respondents were women with 55.4%, majority of respondents‘ age is between 26 to 45 years Furthermore, and majority 77.20% of respondents were married. 100% of respondents attended school, where the majority of respondents attended secondary school with certificate A2.
The study has revealed that Umwalimu SACCO services offered to its members have a positive effect on the improvement of members‘ welfare. It was found that USACCO services have slightly affected income level of members, assets acquired, access to education and medical care as well as small income generating activities established by members in Huye District. The analysis of data also revealed that there are some variables which have effected USACCO members‘ socio-economic status, these were listed as: Education background of a member, number of dependents, the occupation of a member, and number of loans got from USACCO, government programs against teachers‘ welfare, and membership duration played very important role on the improvement of standard living of teachers. All these variables were found to have positive effects on teachers‘ socio-economic status, except the family size of respondents.
In addition, the findings showed that, the majority of respondents confirmed that, they did not find opportunities to save with other financial institutions, and other respondents did not have access to loan from other financial institutions due to complicated loan requirements. In addition, after they
have joined USACCO, their deplorable status somewhat changed, both socially and economically which has contributed to the improvement of their welfare. Therefore, the study testified that, the welfare of USACCO members in terms of assets acquired, income increased was improved compared to situation before joining USACCO. The study concludes that ―the level of improvement of living conditions of teachers depends largely to the level of loan granted by USACCO to teachers and membership duration. If the level of teachers‘ loan and saving increases, there will be also improvement of teachers‘ wellbeing‖ and finally, USACCO financial service is a veritable instrument for better improvement of economic and social conditions of teachers. The study recommends that, USACCO should provide frequent and regular trainings on business management game to their members. This could help members for good management of their loans and reducing loan defaulters‘ cases observed at USACCO. Challenges observed were lack of physical collateral security required by USACCO, complicated loan requirements terms and conditions and insufficient trainings on business management game.
The belief in a just world in face of injustice: victim, observer, and perpetrator perspectives
(2021)
Injustice happens every day either to us, to our neighbors, or people across the world. Yet, believing that the world is a fair place helps us to cope with this injustice and motivates us to behave fairly. Scholars have found that these functions that the belief in a just world (BJW) serves are crucial for maintaining mental health. However, the conditions under which BJW is functional and when people give up this belief are not well studied. The current dissertation aims to examine: when the BJW can be shattered, the role of the external world and other internal resources in face of injustice, and the role of BJW in predicting corrupt behavior. Three studies were conducted corresponding to each party of injustice: a victim, an observer, and a perpetrator.
Study 1 examined the effects of criminal victimization on BJW and buffering role of perceptions of justice in the criminal justice process. A cross-sectional study showed that victims of very severe crimes such as domestic violence and human trafficking had lower personal BJW than non-victims and victims of less severe crimes, and higher informational justice perceptions reduced the effect of victimization on the personal BJW. Study 2 aimed to test the changes in BJW after observing severe injustice. A longitudinal study showed that after observing school rampage attacks that happened at other schools, BJW of adolescent participants increased. Moreover, life satisfaction and perceived social support moderated the change of BJW. Study 3 examined relationships between BJW and corrupt behavior. A cross-sectional study showed that personal BJW can predict bribery behavior.
The findings of three studies provided evidence that BJW does not function in isolation. An external world and internal resources can reduce the threat of injustice on BJW. BJW plays an important role in predicting unfair behavior therefore authorities should aim to maintain the BJW of their citizens.
Due to their confinement to specific host plants or restricted habitat types, Auchenorrhyncha are suitable biological indicators to measure the quality of chalk grassland under different management practices for nature conservation. They can especially be used as a tool to assess the success of restoring chalk grassland on ex-arable land. One objective of this study was to identify the factors which most effectively conserve and enhance biological diversity of existing chalk grasslands or allow the creation of new areas of such species-rich grassland on ex-arable land. A second objective was to link Auchenorrhyncha communities to the different grassland communities occurring on chalk according to the NVC (National Vegetation Classification). Altogether 100 chalk grassland and arable reversion sites were sampled between 1998 and 2002. Some of the arable reversion sites had been under certain grazing or mowing regimes for up to ten years by 2002. Vegetation structure and composition were recorded, and Auchenorrhyncha were sampled three times during the summer of each year using a "vortis" suction sampler. Altogether 110 leafhopper species were recorded during the study. Two of the species, Kelisia occirrega and Psammotettix helvolus, although widespread within the area studied, had not previously been recognized as part of the British fauna. By displaying insect frequency and dominance as it is commonly done for vegetation communities, it was possible to classify preferential and differential species of distinct Auchenorrhyncha communities. The linking of the entomological data with vegetation communities defined by the NVC showed that different vegetation communities were reflected by distinct Auchenorrhyncha communities. Significant differences were observed down to the level of sub-communities. The data revealed a strong positive relationship between the diversity of leafhoppers species and the vegetation height. There was also a positive correlation between the species richness of Auchenorrhyncha and the diversity of plant species. In that context it is remarkable that there was no correlation between vegetation height and botanical diversity. There is a substantial decrease in Auchenorrhyncha species richness from unimproved grassland to improved grassland and arable reversion. The decline of typical chalk grassland and general dry grassland species is especially notable. Consequently, the number of stenotopic Auchenorrhyncha species which are confined to only a few habitat types, are drastically reduced with the improvement of chalk grassland. Improved grassland and arable reversion fields are almost exclusively inhabited by common habitat generalists. The decrease in typical chalk grassland plants due to improvement is mirrored in the decline of Auchenorrhyncha species, which rely monophagously or oligophagously on specific host plants. But even where suitable host plants re-colonize arable reversion sites quickly, there is a considerable delay before leafhoppers follow. That becomes especially obvious with polyphagous leafhoppers like Turrutus socialis or Mocydia crocea, which occur on improved grassland or arable reversion sites only in low frequency and abundance, despite wide appearance or even increased dominance of their host plants. These species can be considered as the most suitable indicators to measure success or failure of long term grassland restoration. A time period of ten years is not sufficient to restore species-rich invertebrate communities on grassland, even if the flora indicates an early success.
Today’s agriculture heavily relies on pesticides to manage diverse pests and maximise crop yields. Despite elaborate regulation of pesticide use based on a complex environmental risk assessment (ERA) scheme, the widespread use of these biologically active compounds has been shown to be a threat to the environment. For surface waters, pesticide exposure has been observed to exceed safe concentration levels and negatively impact stream ecology leading to the question whether current ERA schemes ensure a sustainable use of pesticides. To answer this, the large-scale “Kleingewässer-Monitoring” (KgM) assessed the occurrence of pesticides and related effects in 124 streams throughout Germany, Central Europe, in 2018 and 2019.
Based on five scientific publications originating from the KgM, this thesis evaluated pesticide exposure in streams, ecological effects and the regulatory implications. More than 1,000 water samples were analysed for over 100 pesticide analytes to characterise occurrence patterns (publication 1). Measured concentrations and effects were used to validate the exposure and effect concentrations predicted in the ERA (publication 2). By jointly analysing real-world pesticide application data and measured pesticide mixtures in streams, the disregard of environmental pesticide mixtures in the ERA was evaluated (publication 3). The toxic potential of mixtures in stream water was additionally investigated using suspect screening for 395 chemicals and a battery of in-vitro bioassays (publication 4). Finally, the results from the KgM stream monitoring were used to assess the capability to identify pesticide risks in governmental monitoring programmes (publication 5).
The results of this thesis reveal the widespread occurrence of pesticides in non-target stream ecosystems. The water samples contained a variety of pesticides occurring in complex mixtures predominantly in short-term peaks after rainfall events (publications 1 & 4). Respective pesticide concentration maxima were linked to declines in vulnerable invertebrate species and exceeded regulatory acceptable concentrations in about 80% of agricultural streams, while these thresholds were still estimated partly insufficient to protect the invertebrate community (publication 2). The co-occurrence of pesticides in streams led to a risk underestimated in the single substance-oriented ERA by a factor of about 3.2 in realistic worst-case scenarios, which is further exacerbated by a high frequency at which non-target organism are exposed to pesticides (publication 3). Stream water samples taken after rainfall caused distinct effects in bioassays which were only explainable to a minor extent by the many analytes, indicating the relevance of unknown chemical or biological mixture components (publication 4). Finally, the regulatory monitoring of surface waters under the Water Framework Directive (WFD) was found to significantly underestimate pesticide risks, as about three quarters of critical pesticides and more than half of streams at risk were overlooked (publication 5).
Essentially, this thesis involves a new level of validation of the ERA of pesticides in aquatic ecosystems by assessing pesticide occurrence and environmental impacts at a scale so far unique. The overall results demonstrate that the current agricultural use of pesticides leads to significant impacts on stream ecology that go beyond the level tolerated under the ERA. This thesis identified the underestimation of pesticide exposure, the potential insufficiency of regulatory thresholds and the general inertia of the authorisation process as the main causes why the ERA fails to meet its objectives. To achieve a sustainable use of pesticides, the thesis proposes substantial refinements of the ERA. Adequate monitoring programmes such as the KgM, which go beyond current government monitoring efforts, will continue to be needed to keep pesticide regulators constantly informed of the validity of their prospective ERA, which will always be subject to uncertainty.
This thesis deals with the verbal categories tense and aspect in the context of analysing the English perfect. The underlying notion of time is examined from the viewpoint of etymology and from the viewpoint of fields of knowledge that lie outside the immediate scope of temporal semantics, e.g. mathematics. The category tense is scrutinised by discussing the concept of Reichenbach tense and the concept of correlation (Giering). The starting point of the discussion of the category verbal aspect is the dichotomy perfective vs. imperfective in the Slavic languages. The main part about the perfect is concerned with the possessive perfect as a cross-linguistic phenomenon (including a comparison of the English and the Slavic perfect) and focuses on the usage and the meaning of the English present perfect. There are three appendices which are an integral part of this dissertation. Appendix A deals with the systematization of English verb forms and their graphical representation. Three different visualizations are presented, two of which are genuine to this paper. Appendix B reproduces the target setting according to which an animated visualization of English infinitives was programmed. Appendix C represents a synopsis of approaches to the English perfect in grammars and textbooks.
One of the main goals of the artificial intelligence community is to create machines able to reason with dynamically changing knowledge. To achieve this goal, a multitude of different problems have to be solved, of which many have been addressed in the various sub-disciplines of artificial intelligence, like automated reasoning and machine learning. The thesis at hand focuses on the automated reasoning aspects of these problems and address two of the problems which have to be overcome to reach the afore-mentioned goal, namely 1. the fact that reasoning in logical knowledge bases is intractable and 2. the fact that applying changes to formalized knowledge can easily introduce inconsistencies, which leads to unwanted results in most scenarios.
To ease the intractability of logical reasoning, I suggest to adapt a technique called knowledge compilation, known from propositional logic, to description logic knowledge bases. The basic idea of this technique is to compile the given knowledge base into a normal form which allows to answer queries efficiently. This compilation step is very expensive but has to be performed only once and as soon as the result of this step is used to answer many queries, the expensive compilation step gets worthwhile. In the thesis at hand, I develop a normal form, called linkless normal form, suitable for knowledge compilation for description logic knowledge bases. From a computational point of view, the linkless normal form has very nice properties which are introduced in this thesis.
For the second problem, I focus on changes occurring on the instance level of description logic knowledge bases. I introduce three change operators interesting for these knowledge bases, namely deletion and insertion of assertions as well as repair of inconsistent instance bases. These change operators are defined such that in all three cases, the resulting knowledge base is ensured to be consistent and changes performed to the knowledge base are minimal. This allows us to preserve as much of the original knowledge base as possible. Furthermore, I show how these changes can be applied by using a transformation of the knowledge base.
For both issues I suggest to adapt techniques successfully used in other logics to get promising methods for description logic knowledge bases.
Empirical studies in software engineering use software repositories as data sources to understand software development. Repository data is either used to answer questions that guide the decision-making in the software development, or to provide tools that help with practical aspects of developers’ everyday work. Studies are classified into the field of Empirical Software Engineering (ESE), and more specifically into Mining Software Repositories (MSR). Studies working with repository data often focus on their results. Results are statements or tools, derived from the data, that help with practical aspects of software development. This thesis focuses on the methods and high order methods used to produce such results. In particular, we focus on incremental methods to scale the processing of repositories, declarative methods to compose a heterogeneous analysis, and high order methods used to reason about threats to methods operating on repositories. We summarize this as technical and methodological improvements. We contribute the improvements to methods and high-order methods in the context of MSR/ESE to produce future empirical results more effectively. We contribute the following improvements. We propose a method to improve the scalability of functions that abstract over repositories with high revision count in a theoretically founded way. We use insights on abstract algebra and program incrementalization to define a core interface of highorder functions that compute scalable static abstractions of a repository with many revisions. We evaluate the scalability of our method by benchmarks, comparing a prototype with available competitors in MSR/ESE. We propose a method to improve the definition of functions that abstract over a repository with a heterogeneous technology stack, by using concepts from declarative logic programming and combining them with ideas on megamodeling and linguistic architecture. We reproduce existing ideas on declarative logic programming with languages close to Datalog, coming from architecture recovery, source code querying, and static program analysis, and transfer them from the analysis of a homogeneous to a heterogeneous technology stack. We provide a prove-of-concept of such method in a case study. We propose a high-order method to improve the disambiguation of threats to methods used in MSR/ESE. We focus on a better disambiguation of threats, operationalizing reasoning about them, and making the implications to a valid data analysis methodology explicit, by using simulations. We encourage researchers to accomplish their work by implementing ‘fake’ simulations of their MSR/ESE scenarios, to operationalize relevant insights about alternative plausible results, negative results, potential threats and the used data analysis methodologies. We prove that such way of simulation based testing contributes to the disambiguation of threats in published MSR/ESE research.
Previous research revealed that teachers hold beliefs about gifted students combining high intellectual ability with deficits in non-cognitive domains, outlined in the so-called disharmony hypothesis. Since teachers’ beliefs about giftedness can influence which students they identify as gifted, the empirical investigation of beliefs is of great practical relevance. This dissertation comprises three research articles that investigated teacher beliefs about gifted students’ characteristics in samples of pre-service teachers using an experimental vignette approach. Chapter I starts with a general introduction into beliefs, and presents the research aims of the present dissertation. The first article (Chapter II) focused on the interaction of beliefs about giftedness and gender in a sample of Australian pre-service teachers and tested if social desirability occurred when using the vignette design. Beside evidence for beliefs in line with the disharmony hypothesis, results revealed typical gender stereotypes. However, beliefs about giftedness appeared not to be gender specific and thus, to be similar for gifted girls and boys. The vignette approach was found to be an adequate design for assessing teacher beliefs. The second article (Chapter III) investigated teacher beliefs and their relationship to motivational orientations for teaching gifted students in a cross-country sample of German and Australian pre-service teachers. Motivational orientations comprise cognitive components (self-efficacy) and affective components (enthusiasm). Findings revealed beliefs in the sense of the disharmony hypothesis for pre-service teachers from both countries. Giftedness when paired with beliefs about high maladjustment was found to be negatively related to teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching gifted students. The third article (Chapter IV) examined the role of teachers’ belief in a just world for the formation of beliefs using a sample of Belgian pre-service teachers. It was found that the stronger pre-service teachers’ belief in a just world was, the more they perceived gifted students’ high intellectual ability as unfair and thus, neutralized that injustice by de-evaluating students’ non-cognitive abilities. In a general discussion (Chapter V), findings of the three articles are combined and reflected. Taken together, the present dissertation showed that teacher beliefs about gifted students’ characteristics are not gender specific, generalizable over countries, negatively related to teacher motivation and can be driven by fairness beliefs.
The diversity within amphibian communities in cultivated areas in Rwanda and within two selected, taxonomically challenging groups, the genera Ptychadena and Hyperolius, were investigated in this thesis. The amphibian community of an agricultural wetland near Butare in southern Rwanda comprised 15 anuran species. Rarefaction and jackknife analyses corroborated that the complete current species richness of the assemblage had been recorded, and the results of acoustic niche analysis suggested species saturation of the community. Surveys at many other Rwandan localities showed that the species recorded in Butare are widespread in cultivated and pristine wetlands. The species were readily distinguishable using morphological, bioacoustic, and molecular (DNA barcoding) features, but only eight of the 15 species could be assigned unambiguously to nominal species. The remaining represented undescribed or currently unrecognized taxa, including three species of Hyperolius, two Phrynobatrachus species, one Ptychadena species, and one species of Amietia. The diversity of the Ridged Frogs in Rwanda was investigated in two studies (Chapters III and IV). Three species of Ptychadena were recorded in wetlands in the catchment of the Nile. They can be distinguished by morphological characters (morphometrics and qualitative features) as well as by their advertisement calls and genetics. The Rwandan species of the P. mascareniensis group was shown to differ from the topotypic population as well as from other genetic lineages in sub-Saharan Africa and an old available name, P. nilotica, was resurrected from synonymy for this lineage. Two further Ptychadena species were identified among voucher specimens from Rwanda deposited in the collection of the RMCA, P. chrysogaster and P. uzungwensis. Morphologically they can be unambiguously distinguished from each other and the three other Rwandan species. A key based on qualitative morphological characters was developed, which allows unequivocal identification of specimens of all species that have been recorded from Rwanda. DNA was isolated from a Rwandan voucher specimen of P. chrysogaster, and the genetic analysis corroborated the species" distinct status.
A species of Hyperolius collected in the Nyungwe National Park was compared to all other Rwandan species of the genus and to morphologically or genetically similar species from neighbouring countries. Its distinct taxonomic status was justified by morphological, bioacoustic, and molecular evidence and it was described as a new species, H. jackie. A species of the H. nasutus group collected at agricultural sites in Rwanda was described as a new species in the course of a revision of the species of the Hyperolius nasutus group. The group was shown to consist of 15 distinct species which can be distinguished from each other genetically, bioacoustically, and morphologically.
The aerial performance, i.e. parachuting, of the Disc-fingered Reed Frog, Hyperolius discodactylus, was described. It represents a novel observation of a behaviour that has been known from a number of Southeast Asian and Neotropical frog species. Parachuting frogs, including H. discodactylus, exhibit certain morphological characteristics and, while airborne, assume a distinct posture which is best-suited for maneuvering in the air. Another study on the species addressed the validity of the taxon H. alticola which had been considered either a synonym of H. discodactylus or a distinct species. Type material of both taxa was re-examined and the status of H. alticola reassessed using morphological data from historic and new collections, call recordings, and molecular data from animals collected on recent expeditions. A northern and a southern genetic clade were identified, a divide that is weakly supported by diverging morphology of the vouchers from the respective localities. No distinction in advertisement call features could be recovered to support this split and both genetic and morphological differences between the two geographic clades are marginal and not always congruent and more likely reflect population-level variation. Therefore it was concluded that H. alticola is not a valid taxon and should be treated as a synonym of H. discodactylus.
Taxonomy and Systematics of Spiny-Backed Treefrogs, Genus Osteocephalus (Amphibia: Anura: Hylidae)
(2015)
The pan-Amazonian treefrog genus Ostecephalus is poorly understood both on a taxonomic and phylogenetic level. The status of several frogs already or not yet referred to the genus is unclear and the relationships among the genus and with respect to related genera is not understood. In this work O. cabrerai (Cochran and Goin, 1970) from Colombia and Peru is redescribed and O. festae (Peracca, 1904) from the foothills of the Andes in Ecuador is revalidated. Hyla inframaculata Boulenger, 1882, from the lower Amazon in Brazil, is reallocated to Osteocephalus and O. elkejungingerae (Henle, 1981) from the Andean foothills in Peru is shown to be a synonym of Hyla mimetica (Melin, 1941), the valid name being O. mimeticus. Hyla vilarsi Melin, 1941 is considered a valid species in the genus Osteocephalus and revalidated from the synonymies of several other frogs. Three new species, O. castaneicola from northern Bolivia and southern Peru, O. duellmani from a sub-Andean mountain range in southern Ecuador, and O. camufatus from central Amazonian Brazil, are described. A phylogenetic analysis based on up to nine mitochondrial genes and one nuclear one reveals the paraphyly of the genus as previously understood with respect to the genus Tepuihyla. A new taxonomy is proposed, securing the monophyly of Osteocephalus and Tepuihyla by rearranging and redefining the content of both genera. A new genus, Dryaderces, is erected for the sister group of Osteocephalus. The colouration of newly metamorphosed individuals is proposed as a morphological synapomorphy for Osteocephalus. Five monophyletic species groups within Osteocephalus are recognized, three species of Osteocephalus (O. germani, O.rnphasmatus, O. vilmae) and three species of Tepuihyla (T. celsae, T. galani, T. talbergae) synonymized and three species (Hyla helenae to Osteocephalus, O.rnexophthalmus to Tepuihyla and O. pearsoni to Dryaderces gen. n.) reallocated. Furthermore, nine putative new species are flagged (an increase to 138% of the current diversity), an indication that species numbers are largely underestimated, with most hidden diversity centred on widespread and polymorphic nominal species. The evolutionary origin of breeding strategies within Osteocephalus is discussed in the light of this new phylogeny and a novel type of amplexus (gular amplexus) is described.
The genus Cheilolejeunea (Spruce) Schiffn. (Lejeuneaceae, Jungermanniopsida) is represented by 23 species in continental tropical Africa. The morphological characters such as features of the stem, leaf, lobule and perianth traditionally used to separate the taxa at both species and generic level have been found to be unstable. The species are variably ranked in several subgenera including Cheilolejeunea (Spruce) Schiffn., Euosmolejeunea Schiffn., Strepsilejeunea (Spruce) Schiffn. and Xenolejeunea Kachroo & Schust. Although the genus has never been monographed, there are a few regional taxonomic accounts for America, Australia and China. A comprehensive revision of Cheilolejeunea species is lacking in Africa where the existing studies are based on single subgenus and sub-regional flora or checklist compilations, which are sometimes without identification keys. This study revises the taxonomy of Cheilolejeunea and the closely allied genus Leucolejeunea A. Evans, in continental Africa based on morphological data analysed using phenetic and phylogenetic methods.
Dracaena L. (Ruscaceae) is a predominantly African genus with a smaller centre of diversity in South-East Asia. The taxonomy of the 29 species occurring in Central, East and Southern Africa was revised through phenetic and phylogenetic analyses of the morphology as well as through herbarium, literature and field studies. An infrageneric classification is proposed, in which four sub-genera are recognised for the first time. A taxonomic account for the study area incorporating an identification key, distribution maps and an IUCN Red List assessment is presented. Analysis of Dracaena phytogeography reveals that the Guineo-Congolian centre of endemism is the richest with 21 species while the Maputaland-Pondoland regional mosaic and the Guinea-Congolia/Sudania regional transition zone are the poorest, having only one species each. Investigation of the ecology of Dracaena in the Kakamega Forest, Kenya, shows that it plays an important role in the forest ecology and is an indicator of forest quality.
A taxonomic revision of the genus Pteris in tropical Africa revealed 26 species. An identification key to the species is provided. Morphological characters were used to prepare a cladistic analysis of the relevant taxa. Each species was evaluated concerning the IUCN red list status. Only Pteris mkomaziensis was considered as Near Threatened, and all other species only as Least Concern. An inventory of the ferns of Kakamega Forest / Kenya and Budongo Forest / Uganda revealed 85 species in Kakamega and 66 species in Budongo. Life form spectra were analysed and the ferns were studied for their value for bioindication.
Different techniques (weight loss, electrochemical, and spray
corrosion measurements) have been used to evaluate four sarcosine derivatives to inhibit corrosion and one commercial compound as synergist. The basic metal was low carbon steel CR4 tested at different conditions. As working media mainly neutral water and 0.1 M NaCl was applied. The protective film was formed on the steel surface via direct absorption of the tested substances during the immersion process. A highly improved corrosion protection with direct correlation to the molecular weight and carbon chain length of the tested compounds was detected. The protection of steel CR4 against corrosion in 0.1 M NaCl enhanced with increasing concentration of selected sarcosine compounds. The best inhibitor throughout all tested concentrations and all evaluation systems was Oleoylsarcosine (O) with efficiencies up to 97 % in potentiodynamic polarization (PP), 83 % electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and 85 % weight loss (WL) at 100 mmol/L as highest concentration tested here. The second best inhibitor was Myristoylsarcosine (M) with efficiencies up to 82 % in PP, 69 % in EIS, and 75 % in WL at highest concentration. The inhibitor with the shortest hydrocarbon chain in this series is Lauroylsarcosine (L). It showed lowest effects to inhibit corrosion compared to O and M. The efficiencies of L were a bit more than 50 % at 75 and 100 mmol/L and less than 50 % at 25 and 50 mmol/L in all used evaluation systems. Furthermore, the overall efficiency is promoted with longer dip coating times during the steel CR4 immersion as shown for 50 mmol/L for all present derivatives. This survey indicated 10 min as best time in respect of cost and protection efficiency. The commercial inhibitor Oley-Imidazole (OI) improved significantly the effectiveness of compound Cocoylsarcosine (C), which contains the naturally mixture of carbon chain lengths from coconut oil (C8 - C18), and enhanced protection when used in combination (C+OI, 1:1 molar ration). In this system the efficiency increased from 47 % to 91 % in PP, from 40 % to 84 % in EIS, and from 45 % to 82 % in WL at highest concentration. Spray corrosion tests were used to evaluate all present sarcosine substances on steel CR4 in a more realistic system. The best inhibitor after a 24 h test was O followed by the combination C+OI and M with efficiencies up to 99 %, 80 %, and 79 %, respectively. The obtained results indicate a good stability of the protective film formed by the present inhibitors even after 24 h. All evaluation systems used in the current investigation were in good agreement and resulted in the same inhibitor sequence. Furthermore, the adsorption process of the tested compounds is assumed to follow the Langmuir type isotherm. Response surface methodology (RSM) is an optimization method depending on Box- Behnken Design (BBD). It was used in the current system to find the optimum efficiency for inhibitor O to protect steel CR4 against corrosion in salt water. Four independent variables were used here: inhibitor concentration (A), dip coating time (B), temperature (C), and NaCl concentration (D); each with three respective levels: lower (-1), mid (0), and upper (+1). According to the present result, temperature has the greatest effect on the protection process as individual parameter followed by the inhibitor concentration itself. In this investigation an optimum efficiency of 99 % is calculated by the following parameter and level combination: upper level (+1) for inhibitor concentration, dip coating time, and NaCl concentration while lower level (-1) for temperature.
Previous research concerned with early science education revealed that guided play can support young children’s knowledge acquisition. However, the questions whether guided play maintains other important prerequisites such as children’s science self-concept and how guided play should be implemented remain unanswered. The present dissertation encompasses three research articles that investigated 5- to 6-year-old children’s science knowledge, science theories, and science self-concept in the stability domain and their relation to interindividual prerequisites. Moreover, the articles examined whether children’s science knowledge, science theories, and science self-concept can be supported by different play forms, i.e., guided play with material and verbal scaffolds, guided play with material scaffolds, and free play. The general introduction of the present dissertation first highlights children’s cognitive development, their science self-concept, and interindividual prerequisites, i.e., fluid and crystallised intelligence, mental rotation ability, and interest in block play. These prerequisites are applied to possible ways of supporting children during play. The first article focused on the measurement of 5-to-6-year-old children’s stability knowledge and its relation to interindividual prerequisites. Results suggested that children’s stability knowledge could be measured reliably and validly, and was related to their fluid and crystallised intelligence. The second article was concerned with the development of children’s intuitive stability theories over three points of measurement and the effects of guided and free play, children’s prior theories as well as their intelligence on these intuitive theories. Results implied that guided play with material and verbal scaffolds supported children’s stability theories more than the other two play forms, i.e., guided play with material scaffolds and free play. Moreover, consistency of children’s prior theories, their fluid and crystallised intelligence were related to children’s theory adaptation after the intervention. The third article focused on the effect of the playful interventions on children’s stability knowledge and science self-concept over three points of measurement. Furthermore, the reciprocal effects between knowledge acquisition and science self-concept were investigated. Results implied that guided play supported knowledge acquisition and maintained children’s science self-concept. Free play did not support children’s stability knowledge and decreased children’s science self-concept. No evidence for reciprocal effects between children’s stability knowledge and their science self-concept was found. Last, in a general discussion, the findings of the three articles are combined and reflected amidst children’s cognitive development. Summarising, the present dissertation shows that children’s science knowledge, science theories, and science self-concept can be supported through guided play that considers children’s cognitive development.
The distributed setting of RDF stores in the cloud poses many challenges. One such challenge is how the data placement on the compute nodes can be optimized to improve the query performance. To address this challenge, several evaluations in the literature have investigated the effects of existing data placement strategies on the query performance. A common drawback in theses evaluations is that it is unclear whether the observed behaviors were caused by the data placement strategies (if different RDF stores were evaluated as a whole) or reflect the behavior in distributed RDF stores (if cloud processing frameworks like Hadoop MapReduce are used for the evaluation). To overcome these limitations, this thesis develops a novel benchmarking methodology for data placement strategies that uses a data-placement-strategy-independent distributed RDF store to analyze the effect of the data placement strategies on query performance.
With this evaluation methodology the frequently used data placement strategies have been evaluated. This evaluation challenged the commonly held belief that data placement strategies that emphasize local computation, such as minimal edge-cut cover, lead to faster query executions. The results indicate that queries with a high workload may be executed faster on hash-based data placement strategies than on, e.g., minimal edge-cut covers. The analysis of the additional measurements indicates that vertical parallelization (i.e., a well-distributed workload) may be more important than horizontal containment (i.e., minimal data transport) for efficient query processing.
Moreover, to find a data placement strategy with a high vertical parallelization, the thesis tests the hypothesis that collocating small connected triple sets on the same compute node while balancing the amount of triples stored on the different compute nodes leads to a high vertical parallelization. Specifically, the thesis proposes two such data placement strategies. The first strategy called overpartitioned minimal edge-cut cover was found in the literature and the second strategy is the newly developed molecule hash cover. The evaluation revealed a balanced query workload and a high horizontal containment, which lead to a high vertical parallelization. As a result these strategies showed a better query performance than the frequently used data placement strategies.
Student misbehavior and its treatment is a major challenge for teachers and a threat to their well-being. Indeed, teachers are obliged to punish student misbehavior on a regular basis. Additionally, teachers’ punishment decisions are among the most frequently reported situations when it comes to students’ experiences of injustice in school. By implication, it is crucial to understand teachers’ treatment of student misbehavior vis-à-vis students’ perceptions. One key dimension of punishment behavior reflects its underlying motivation and goals. People generally intend to achieve three goals when punishing misbehavior, namely, retribution (i.e., evening out the harm caused), special prevention (i.e., preventing recidivism of the offender), and general prevention (i.e., preventing imitation of others). Importantly, people’s support of these punishment goals is subject to hierarchy and power, implying that teachers’ and students’ punishment goal preferences differ. In this dissertation, I present three research projects that shed first light on teachers’ punishment and its goals along with the students’ perception of classroom intervention strategies pursuing these goals. More specifically, I first examined students’ (i.e., children’s) general support of each of the three punishment goals sketched above. Furthermore, I applied an attributional approach to understand and study the goals teachers intend to achieve when punishing student misbehavior. Finally, I investigated teachers’ and students’ support of the punishment goals regarding the same student misbehavior to directly compare their views on these goals and reactions pursuing them. In sum, the findings show that students generally prefer retribution and special prevention to general prevention, whereas teachers prefer general prevention and special prevention to retribution. This ultimately translates into a "mismatch" of teachers and students in their preferences for specific punishment goals, and the findings suggest that this may indeed enhance students’ perception of injustice. Overall, the results of the present research program may be valuable for the development of classroom intervention strategies that may reduce rather than enhance conflicts in student-teacher-interactions.
Thousands of chemicals from daily use are being discharged from civilization into the water cycle via different pathways. Ingredients of personal care products, detergents, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and industrial chemicals thus find their way into the aquatic ecosystems and may cause adverse impacts on the ecology. Pharmaceuticals for instance, represent a central group of anthropogenic chemicals, because of their designed potency to interfere with physiological functions in organisms. Ecotoxicological effects from pharmaceutical burden have been verified in the past. Therapeutic groups with pronounced endocrine disrupting potentials such as steroid hormones gain increasing focus in environmental research as it was reported that they cause endocrine disruption in aquatic organisms even when exposed to environmentally relevant concentrations. This thesis considers the comprehensive investigation of the occurrence of corticosteroids and progestogens in wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents and surface waters as well as the elucidation of the fate and biodegradability of these steroid families during activated sludge treatment. For the first goal of the thesis, a robust and highly sensitive analytical method based on liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was developed in order to simultaneously determine the occurrence of around 60 mineralocorticoids, glucocorticoids and progestogens in the aquatic environment. A special focus was set to the compound selection due to the diversity of marketed synthetic steroids. Some analytical challenges have been approved by individual approaches regarding sensitivity enhancement and compound stabilities. These results may be important for further research in environmental analysis of steroid hormones. Reliable and low quantification limits are the perquisite for the determination of corticosteroids and progestogens at relevant concentrations due to low consumption volumes and simultaneously low effect-based trigger values. Achieved quantification limits for all target analytes ranged between 0.02 ng/L and 0.5 ng/L in surface water and 0.05 ng/L to 5 ng/L in WWTP effluents. This sensitivity enabled the detection of three mineralocorticoids, 23 glucocorticoids and 10 progestogens within the sampling campaign around Germany. Many of them were detected for the first time in the environment, particularly in Germany and the EU. To the best of our knowledge, this in-depth steroid screening provided a good overview of single steroid burden and allowed for the identification of predominantly steroids of each steroid
type analyzed for the first time. The frequent detection of highly potent synthetic steroids (e.g. triamcinolone acetonide, clobetasol propionate, betamethasone valerate, dienogest, cyproterone acetate) highlighted insufficient removal during conventional Summary wastewater treatment and indicated the need for regulation to control their emission since the steroid concentrations were found to be above the reported effect-based trigger values for biota. Overall, the study revealed reliable environmental data of poorly or even not analyzed steroids. The results complement the existing knowledge in this field but also providednew information which can beused particularly for compound prioritization in ecotoxicological research and environmental analysis. Based on the data obtained from the monitoring campaign, incubation experiments were conducted to enable the comparison of the biodegradability and transformation processes in activated sludge treatment for structure-related steroids under aerobic and standardized experimental conditions. The compounds were accurately selected to cover manifold structural moieties of commonly used glucocorticoids, including non-halogenated and halogenated steroids, their mono- and diesters, and several acetonide-type steroids. This approach allowed for a structure-based interpretation of the results. The obtained biodegradation rate constants suggested large variations in the biodegradability (half-lifes ranged from < 0.5 h to > 14 d). An increasing stability was identified in the order from non-halogenated steroids (e.g. hydrocortisone), over 9α-halogenated steroids (e.g. betamethasone), to C17-monoesters (e.g. betamethasone 17-valerate, clobetasol propionate), and finally to acetonides (e.g. triamcinolone acetonide), thus suggesting a strong relationship of the biodegradability with the glucocorticoid structure. Some explanations for this behavior have been received by identifying the transformation products (TPs) and elucidating individual transformation pathways. The results revealed the identification of the likelihood of transformation reactions depending on the chemical steroid structure for the first time. Among the identified TPs, the carboxylates (e.g. TPs of fluticasone propionate, triamcinolone acetonide) have been shown persistency in the subsequent incubation experiments. The newly identified TPs furthermore were frequently detected in the effluents of full-scale wastewater treatment plants. These findings emphasized i) the transferability of the lab-scale degradation experiments to real world and that ii) insufficient removals may cause adverse effects in the aquatic environment due to the ability of the precursor steroids and TPs to interact with the endocrine system in biota. For the last goal, the conceptual study for glucocorticoids was applied to progestogens.
Here, two sub-types of the steroid family frequently used for hormonal contraception were selected (17α-hydroxyprogesterone and 19-norstestosterone type). The progestogens showed a fast and complete degradation within six hours, and thus empathizes pronounced biodegradability. However, cyproterone acetate and dienogest Summary have been found to be more recalcitrant in activated sludge treatment. This was consistent with their ubiquitously occurrence during the previous monitoring campaign. The elucidation of TPs again revealed some crucial information regarding the observed behavior and highlighted furthermore the formation of hazardous TPs. It was shown that 19-nortestosterone type steroids are able to undergo aromatization at ring A in contact with activated sludge, leading to the formation of estrogen-like TPs with a phenolic moiety at ring A. In the case of norethisterone the formation of 17α-ethinylestradiol was confirmed, which is a well-known potent synthetic estrogen with elevated ecotoxicological potency. Thus, the results indicated for the very first time an unknown source of estrogenic compounds, particularly for 17α-ethinylestradiol. In conclusion, some steroids were found to be very stable in activated sludge treatment, others degrade well, and others which do degrade but predominantly to active TPs depending on their chemical structure. Fluorinated acetal steroids such as triamcinolone acetonide and fluocinolone acetonide are poorly biodegradable, which is reflected in high concentrations detected ubiquitously in WWTP effluents. Endogenous steroids and their most related synthetic once such as hydrocortisone, prednisolone or 17α-hydroxyprogesterone are readily biodegradable. Regardless their high influent concentrations, they are almost completely removed in conventional WWTPs. Steroids between this range have been found to form elevated quantities of TPs which are partially still active, which particularly the case for betamethasone, fluticasone propionate, cyproterone acetate or dienogest. The thesis illustrates the need for an extensive evaluation of the environmental risks and carried out that corticosteroids and progestogens merit more attention in environmental regulatory and research than it is currently the case
Statistical eco(-toxico)logy
(2017)
Freshwaters are of immense importance for human well-being.
Nevertheless, they are currently facing unprecedented levels of threat from habitat loss and degradation, overexploitation, invasive species and
pollution.
To prevent risks to aquatic ecosystems, chemical substances, like agricultural pesticides, have to pass environmental risk assessment (ERA) before entering the market.
Concurrently, large-scale environmental monitoring is used for surveillance of biological and chemical conditions in freshwaters.
This thesis examines statistical methods currently used in ERA.
Moreover, it presents a national-scale compilation of chemical monitoring data, an analysis of drivers and dynamics of chemical pollution in streams and, provides a large-scale risk assessment by combination with results from ERA.
Additionally, software tools have been developed to integrate different datasets used in ERA.
The thesis starts with a brief introduction to ERA and environmental monitoring and gives an overview of the objectives of the thesis.
Chapter 2 addresses experimental setups and their statistical analyses using simulations.
The results show that current designs exhibit unacceptably low statistical power, that statistical methods chosen to fit the type of data provide higher power and that statistical practices in ERA need to be revised.
In chapter 3 we compiled all available pesticide monitoring data from Germany.
Hereby, we focused on small streams, similar to those considered in ERA and used threshold concentrations derived during ERA for a large-scale assessment of threats to freshwaters from pesticides.
This compilation resulted in the most comprehensive dataset on pesticide exposure currently available for Germany.
Using state-of-the-art statistical techniques, that explicitly take the limits of quantification into account, we demonstrate that 25% of small streams are at threat from pesticides.
In particular neonicotinoid pesticides are responsible for these threats.
These are associated with agricultural intensity and can be detected even at low levels of agricultural use.
Moreover, our results indicated that current monitoring underestimates pesticide risks, because of a sampling decoupled from precipitation events.
Additionally, we provide a first large-scale study of annual pesticide exposure dynamics.
Chapters 4 and 5 describe software solutions to simplify and accelerate the integration of data from ERA, environmental monitoring and ecotoxicology that is indispensable for the development of landscape-level risk assessment.
Overall, this thesis contributes to the emerging discipline of statistical ecotoxicology and shows that pesticides pose a large-scale threat to small streams.
Environmental monitoring can provide a post-authorisation feedback to ERA.
However, to protect freshwater ecosystems ERA and environmental monitoring need to be further refined and we provide software solutions to utilise existing data for this purpose.
Wild bees are essential for the pollination of wild and cultivated plants. However, within the
last decades, the increasing intensification of modern agriculture has led to both a reduction and fragmentation as well as a degradation of the habitats wild bees need. The resulting loss of pollinators and their pollination poses an immense challenge to global food production. To support wild bees, the availability of flowering resources is essential. However, the flowering period of each resource is temporally limited and has different effects on pollinators and their pollination, depending on the time of their flowering.
Therefore, to efficiently promote and manage wild bee pollinators in agricultural landscapes, we identified species-specific key floral resources of three selected wild bee species and their spatial and temporal availability (CHAPTERS 2, 3 & 4). We examined, which habitat types predominantly provide these resources (CHAPTERS 3 & 4). We also investigated whether floral resource maps based on the use of these key resources and their spatial and temporal availability explain the abundance and development of the selected wild bees (CHAPTERS 3 & 4) and pollination (CHAPTER 5) better than habitat maps, that only indirectly account for the availability of floral resources.
For each of the species studied, we were able to identify different key pollen sources, predominantly woody plants in the early season (April/May) and increasingly herbaceous plants in the later season (June/July; CHAPTERS 2, 3 & 4). The open woody semi-natural habitats of our agricultural landscapes provided about 75% of the floral resources for the buff-tailed bumblebees, 60% for the red mason bees, and 55% for the horned mason bees studied, although they accounted for only 3% of the area (CHAPTERS 3 & 4). In addition, fruit orchards provided about 35% of the floral resources for the horned mason bees on 4% of the landscape area (CHAPTER 3). We showed that both mason bee species benefited from the resource availability in the surrounding landscapes (CHAPTER 3). Yet this was not the case for the bumblebees (CHAPTER 4). Instead, the weight gain of their colonies, the number of developed queen cells and their colony survival were higher with increasing proximity to forests. The proximity to forests also had a positive effect on the mason bees studied (CHAPTER 3). In addition, the red mason bees benefited from herbaceous semi-natural habitats. The proportion of built-up areas had a negative effect on the horned mason bees, and the proportion of arable land on the red mason bees. The habitat maps explained horned mason bee abundances equally well as the floral resource maps, but red mason bee abundances were distinctly better explained by key floral resources. The pollination of field bean increased with higher proportions of early floral resources, whereas synchronous floral resources showed no measurable reduction in their pollination (CHAPTER 5). Habitat maps also explained field bean pollination better than floral resource maps. Here, pollination increased with increasing proportions of built-up areas in the landscapes and decreased with increasing proportions of arable land.
Our results highlight the importance of the spatio-temporal availability of certain key species as resource plants of wild bees in agricultural landscapes. They show that habitat maps are ahead of, or at least equal to, spatio-temporally resolved floral resource maps in predicting wild bee development and pollination. Nevertheless, floral resource maps allow us to draw more accurate conclusions between key floral resources and the organisms studied. The proximity to forest edges had a positive effect on each of the three wild bee species studied. However, besides pure food availability, other factors seem to co-determine the occurrence of wild bees in agricultural landscapes.
The research described in this thesis was designed to yield information on the impact of particle-bound pesticides on organisms living in the interface between sediment and water column in a temporarily open estuary (TOCEs). It was hypothesized that natural variables such as salinity and temperature and anthropogenic stressors such as particle-bound pesticides contribute to the variability of the system. A multiple line of evidence approach is necessary due to the variability in sediment type, contaminant distribution and spatial and temporal variability within the ecosystem in particular within TOCEs. The first aim of this thesis was to identify which particle-bound pesticides are important to the contamination of the Lourens River estuary (Western Cape, South Africa), taking into account their environmental concentrations, physico-chemical and toxicological properties (Exposure assessment). The second aim was to identify spatial and temporal variations in particle bound pesticide contamination, natural environmental variables and benthic community structure (effect assessment). The third aim was to test the hypothesis: "does adaptation to fluctuating salinities lead to enhanced survival of the harpacticoid copepod Mesochra parva when exposed to a combination of particle associated chlorpyrifos exposure and hypo-osmotic stress during a 96 h sediment toxicity test?" The last aim was to identify the driving environmental variables (including natural and anthropogenic stressors) in a "natural" (Rooiels River) compared to a "disturbed" (Lourens River) estuary and to identify if and how these variables change the benthic community structure in both estuaries. Data produced in this research thus provide important information to understand the impact of pesticides and its interaction with natural variables in a temporarily open estuary. To summarise, this study indicated, by the use of the multi-evidence approach, that the pesticides endosulfan and chlorpyrifos posed a risk towards benthic organisms in a temporarily open estuary in particular during spring season. Furthermore an important link between pesticide exposure/ toxicity and salinity was identified, which has important implications for the management of temporarily open estuaries.
This study was conducted in Nyungwe National Park (NNP); a biodiversity hotspot Mountain rainforest of high conservation importance in Central Africa, but with little knowledge of its insect communities including butterflies, good indicators of climate change, and forest ecosystem health. The study aimed at availing baseline data on butterfly species diversity and distribution in NNP, for future use in monitoring climate change-driven shifts and the effects of forest fragmentation on the biodiversity of Nyungwe. Butterflies were collected seasonally using fruit-baited traps and hand nets along elevational transects spanning from 1700 m up to 2950 m of altitude. Two hundred forty-two species including 28 endemics to the Albertine Rift and 18 potential local climate change indicators were documented. Species richness and abundance declined with increasing elevation and higher seasonal occurrence was observed during the dry season. This was the first study on the spatial and temporal distribution of butterflies in NNP and further studies could be conducted to add more species and allow a depth understanding of the ecology of Nyungwe butterflies.
We consider variational discretization of three different optimal control problems.
The first being a parabolic optimal control problem governed by space-time measure controls. This problem has a nice sparsity structure, which motivates our aim to achieve maximal sparsity on the discrete level. Due to the measures on the right hand side of the partial differential equation, we consider a very weak solution theory for the state equation and need an embedding into the continuous functions for the pairings to make sense. Furthermore, we employ Fenchel duality to formulate the predual problem and give results on solution theory of both the predual and the primal problem. Later on, the duality is also helpful for the derivation of algorithms, since the predual problem can be differentiated twice so that we can apply a semismooth Newton method. We then retrieve the optimal control by duality relations.
For the state discretization we use a Petrov-Galerkin method employing piecewise constant states and piecewise linear and continuous test functions in time. For the space discretization we choose piecewise linear and continuous functions. As a result the controls are composed of Dirac measures in space-time, centered at points on the discrete space-time grid. We prove that the optimal discrete states and controls converge strongly in L^q and weakly-* in Μ, respectively, to their smooth counterparts, where q ϵ (1,min{2,1+2/d}] is the spatial dimension. The variational discrete version of the state equation with the above choice of spaces yields a Crank-Nicolson time stepping scheme with half a Rannacher smoothing step.
Furthermore, we compare our approach to a full discretization of the corresponding control problem, precisely a discontinuous Galerkin method for the state discretization, where the discrete controls are piecewise constant in time and Dirac measures in space. Numerical experiments highlight the sparsity features of our discrete approach and verify the convergence results.
The second problem we analyze is a parabolic optimal control problem governed by bounded initial measure controls. Here, the cost functional consists of a tracking term corresponding to the observation of the state at final time. Instead of a regularization term for the control in the cost functional, we consider a bound on the measure norm of the initial control. As in the first problem we observe a sparsity structure, but here the control resides only in space at initial time, so we focus on the space discretization to achieve maximal sparsity of the control. Again, due to the initial measure in the partial differential equation, we rely on a very weak solution theory of the state equation.
We employ a dG(0) approximation of the state equation, i.e. we choose piecewise linear and continuous functions in space, which are piecewise constant in time for our ansatz and test space. Then, the variational discretization of the problem together with the optimality conditions induce maximal discrete sparsity of the initial control, i.e. Dirac measures in space. We present numerical experiments to illustrate our approach and investigate the sparsity structure
As third problem we choose an elliptic optimal control governed by functions of bounded variation (BV) in one space dimension. The cost functional consists of a tracking term for the state and a BV-seminorm in terms of the derivative of the control. We derive a sparsity structure for the derivative of the BV control. Additionally, we utilize the mixed formulation for the state equation.
A variational discretization approach with piecewise constant discretization of the state and piecewise linear and continuous discretization of the adjoint state yields that the derivative of the control is a sum of Dirac measures. Consequently the control is a piecewise constant function. Under a structural assumption we even get that the number of jumps of the control is finite. We prove error estimates for the variational discretization approach in combination with the mixed formulation of the state equation and confirm our findings in numerical experiments that display the convergence rate.
In summary we confirm the use of variational discretization for optimal control problems with measures that inherit a sparsity. We are able to preserve the sparsity on the discrete level without discretizing the control variable.
Soil organic matter (SOM) is a key component responsible for sequestration of organic molecules in soil and regulation of their mobility in the environment. The basic structure of SOM is a supramolecular assembly responding dynamically to the environmental factors and the presence of interacting molecules. Despite of the advances in the understanding of sorption processes, the relation between sorbate molecules, SOM supramolecular structure and its dynamics is limited. An example of a dynamic nature of SOM is a physicochemical matrix aging that is responsible for SOM structural arrangement. The underlying process of the physicochemical aging is the formation of water molecule bridges (WaMB) between functional groups of molecular segments. Since WaMB influence the stiffness of SOM structure, it was hypothesized that formation of WaMB contributes to the sequestration of organic molecules. However, this hypothesis has not been tested experimentally until now. Furthermore, the knowledge about the influence of organic molecules on WAMB is based solely on computer modeling studies. In addition, the influence of organic molecules on some physical phases forming SOM is not well understood. Especially, the interactions between organic molecules and crystalline phases represented by aliphatic crystallites, are only presumed. Thus, the investigation of those interactions in unfractioned SOM is of high importance.
In order to evaluate the involvement of WaMB in the sequestration of organic molecules and to increase our understanding about interactions of organic chemicals with WaMB or aliphatic crystallites, the following hypotheses were tested experimentally. 1) Similarly to crystalline phases in synthetic polymers, aliphatic crystallites, as a part of SOM, cannot be penetrated by organic molecules. 2) The stability of WaMB is determined by the ability of surrounding molecules to interact with water forming WaMB. 3) WaMB prevent organic molecules to leave the SOM matrix and contribute thus to their immobilization. In order to test the hypotheses 1 and 2, a set of experiments including treatment of soils with chosen chemicals was prepared. Interaction abilities of these chemicals were characterized using interaction parameters from the Linear Solvation Energy Relationship theory. WaMB characteristics were monitored using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) allowing to measure the WaMB thermal stability and the rigidity of SOM matrix; which in turn was determined by the heat capacity change. In addition, DSC and 13C NMR spectroscopy assessed thermal properties and the structure of aliphatic crystallites. The spiking of samples with a model compound, phenol, and measurements of its desorption allowed to link parameters of the desorption kinetics with WaMB characteristics.
The investigation showed that the WaMB stability is significantly reduced by the presence of molecules with H-donor/acceptor interaction abilities. The matrix rigidity associated with WaMB was mainly influenced by the McGowan’s volume of surrounding molecules, suggesting the importance of dispersion forces. The desorption kinetics of phenol followed a first order model with two time constants. Both of them showed a relation with WaMB stability, which supports the hypothesis that WaMB contribute to the physical immobilization of organic molecules. The experiments targeted to the crystallites revealed their structural change from the ordered to the disordered state, when in contact with organic chemicals. This manifested in their melting point depression and the decrease of overall crystallinity. Described structural changes were caused by molecules interacting with specific as well as non-specific forces, which suggests that aliphatic crystallites can be penetrated and modified by molecules with a broad range of interaction abilities.
This work shows that chosen organic molecules interact with constituents of SOM as exemplified on WaMB and aliphatic crystallites, and cause measurable changes of their structure and properties. These findings show that the relevance of aliphatic crystallites for sorption in soil may have been underestimated. The results support the hypothesis that physicochemical matrix aging significantly contributes to the immobilization of organic chemicals in SOM.
The term “Software Chrestomaty” is defined as a collection of software systems meant to be useful in learning about or gaining insight into software languages, software technologies, software concepts, programming, and software engineering. 101companies software chrestomathy is a community project with the attributes of a Research 2.0 infrastructure for various stakeholders in software languages and technology communities. The core of 101companies combines a semantic wiki and confederated open source repositories. We designed and developed an integrated ontology-based knowledge base about software languages and technologies. The knowledge is created by the community of contributors and supported with a running example and structured documentation. The complete ecosystem is exposed by using Linked Data principles and equipped with the additional metadata about individual artifacts. Within the context of software chrestomathy we explored a new type of software architecture – linguistic architecture that is targeted on the language and technology relationships within a software product and based on the megamodels. Our approach to documentation of the software systems is highly structured and makes use of the concepts of the newly developed megamodeling language MegaL. We “connect” an emerging ontology with the megamodeling artifacts to raise the cognitive value of the linguistic architecture.
Homonegative discrimination such as the denial of leadership qualities and higher salaries concern not only lesbians and gay men but also individuals who were perceived as lesbian or gay (Fasoli et al., 2017). Hence, it is assumed that especially straight people become victims of homonegative discrimination (Plöderl, 2014). The perception of sexual orientation is indeed stereotype-driven (e.g., Cox et al., 2015) but there is a lack of knowledge on how accurate stereotypes are – particularly those referring to speech. Despite a variety of sociophonetic and social psychological research related to sexual orientation and gender, an encompassing understanding is missing on how sexual orientation is expressed and perceived.
The present thesis aims to fill these gaps. The two major aims of the present work are a) the examination of the accuracy of speech stereotypes in the context of sexual orientation and b) the development of a model on how sexual orientation is interpersonally construed. Overall, the present thesis comprises five manuscripts with the following aspects in common: They integratively deal with social psychological and sociophonetic perspectives, share a social identity approach, and primarily center speech instead of facial appearance. Moreover, mostly German and German native speaking participants, respectively, have been investigated.
Manuscript 1 establishes the Traditional Masculinity/Femininity-Scale as a reliable and valid instrument for assessing gender-role self-concept. The invention was necessary because existing scales insufficiently represented the self-ascribed masculinity/femininity yet (e.g., Abele, 2003; Evers & Sieverding, 2014). Manuscripts 2, 3, and 4 address the (in)accuracy of speech stereotypes regarding stereotypic content and suggested within-group homogeneity. This is carried out by the application of different methodological approaches. On the one hand, relevant acoustic parameters of lesbian/gay and straight women and men were averaged for each group. On the other hand, voice morphing was applied in order to create prototypical and naturally sounding voice averages (Kawahara et al., 2008). Lesbians and straight women differed in none, gay and straight men in one of the analyzed acoustic parameters only. In contrast, a fine-grained psychological analysis yielded various evidence for acoustic within-group heterogeneity. In particular, the exclusivity of sexual orientation and gender-role self-concept have been acoustically indexicalized which suggests that speech stereotypes are inaccurate. However, voice averages do carry perceivable sexual orientation information. Hence, speech stereotypes can be considered as exaggerations of tiny kernels of truth. In Manuscript 5, previous literature on the interpersonal construction of sexual orientation is integrated in a model: The Expression and Perception of Sexual Orientation Model (EPSOM). This model postulates an indirect route and describes how sexual orientation information is transmitted from producer to perceiver by proposing three mediating components. Thereby, the model is able to offer an explanation why sexual orientation can be perceived with above-chance but far-away-from-perfect accuracy.
Overall, the present thesis provides meaningful impulses for enhancements of research on social markers of sexual orientation and gender. This thesis offers a model on how sexual orientation is expressed and perceived, shows the benefits of combining sociophonetic and social psychological approaches, and points out the value of applying novel methods and technologies. Beyond that, the present thesis offers useful implications for practice. Speech stereotypes in the context of sexual orientation can be rejected as inaccurate – for example, native German straight men do not nasalize more or less than gay men. Thereby, the present thesis contributes to an erosion of stereotypes and a potential reduction of homonegative discrimination.
Social entrepreneurship is a form of entrepreneurship that marries a social mission to a competitive value proposition. Notably, social entrepreneurship fosters a more equitable society by addressing social issues and trying to achieve an ongoing sustainable impact through a social mission rather than purely profit maximization. The topic of social entrepreneurship has appealed considerably to many different streams of research. The focus on understanding how and why entrepreneurs think and act is a significant justification for future research. Nevertheless, the theoretical examination of this phenomenon is in its infancy. Social entrepreneurship research is still largely phenomenon-driven. Specifically, Social Entrepreneurial Intention is in an early stage and lacks quantitative research. Therefore, this thesis proposes to address this need. The thesis’ objectives are twofold: (1) develop a formation model for Social Entrepreneurial Intentions in general and (2) test the model by conducting an empirical study. Based on these objectives, the two research questions guiding the thesis are (1) what factors influence the intention of a person to become a social entrepreneur and (2) what relationships exist among these factors.
In order to answer these two research questions, this thesis uses purposeful research design, which is a combination of literature review and empirical study. The literature review is based on a comprehensive range of books, articles, and research papers published in leading academic journals and conference proceedings in different disciplines such as entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship education, management, social psychology, and social economics. The empirical study is conducted via a survey of 600 last-year students from four universities in three regions in Vietnam: Hanoi, Da Nang, and Ho Chi Minh. The data are analyzed with SPSS-AMOS version 24, using screening data, scale development, exploratory factor analysis, and confirmation factor analysis. The thesis ascertains that Entrepreneurship Experience/Extra-curricular Activity, Role Model, Social Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy, and Social Entrepreneurial Outcome Expectation directly and positively affect the intention of the Vietnamese students to be social entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship Education also influences the Social Entrepreneurial Intention, but not directly, otherwise indirectly via Social Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy and Social Entrepreneurial Outcome Expectation. Similarly, Perceived Support has no direct relationship to Social Entrepreneurial Intention; however, it shows an indirect link via the mediator ‘Social Entrepreneurial Outcome Expectation’. Furthermore, the dissertation brings new insights to the social entrepreneurship literature and provides important implications for practice. Limitations and future directions are also provided in the thesis.
Enterprise Collaboration Systems (ECS) have become substantial for computer-mediated communication and collaboration among employees in organisations. As ECS combine features from social media and traditional groupware, a growing number of organisations implement ECS to facilitate collaboration among employees. Consequently, ECS form the core of the digital workplace. Thus, the activity logs of ECS are particularly valuable since they provide a unique opportunity for observing and analysing collaboration in the digital workplace.
Evidence from academia and practice demonstrates that there is no standardised approach for the analysis of ECS logs and that practitioners struggle with various barriers. Because current ECS analytics tools only provide basic features, academics and practitioners cannot leverage the full potential of the activity logs. As ECS activity logs are a valuable source for understanding collaboration in the digital workplace, new methods and metrics for their analysis are required. This dissertation develops Social Collaboration Analytics (SCA) as a method for measuring and analysing collaboration activities in ECS. To address the existing limitations in academia and practice and to contribute a method and structures for applying SCA in practice, this dissertation aims to answer two main research questions:
1. What are the current practices for measuring collaboration activities in Enterprise Collaboration Systems?
2. How can Social Collaboration Analytics be implemented in practice?
By answering the research questions, this dissertation seeks to (1) establish a broad thematic understanding of the research field of SCA and (2) to develop SCA as a structured method for analysing ac-tivity logs of ECS. As part of the first research question, this dissertation documents the status quo of SCA in the academic literature and practice. By answering the second research question, this dissertation contributes the SCA framework (SCAF), which guides the practical application of SCA. SCAF is the main contribution of this dissertation. The framework was developed based on findings from an analysis of 86 SCA studies, results from 6 focus groups and results from a survey among 27 ECS user companies. The phases of SCAF were derived from a comparison of established process models for data mining and business intelligence. The eight phases of the framework contain detailed descriptions, working steps, and guiding questions, which provide a step by step guide for the application of SCA in practice. Thus, academics and practitioners can benefit from using the framework.
The constant evaluation of the research outcomes in focus groups ensures both rigour and relevance. This dissertation employs a qualitative-dominant mixed-methods approach. As part of the university-industry collaboration initiative IndustryConnect, this research has access to more than 30 leading ECS user companies. Being built on a key case study and a series of advanced focus groups with representatives of user companies, this dissertation can draw from unique insights from practice as well as rich data with a longitudinal perspective.
Social Business Documents: An Investigation of their Nature, Structure and Long-term Management
(2018)
Business documents contain valuable information. In order to comply with legal requirements, to serve as organisational knowledge and to prevent risks they need to be managed. However, changes in technology with which documents are being produced introduced new kinds of documents and new ways of interacting with documents. Thereby, the web 2.0 led to the development of Enterprise Collaboration Systems (ECS), which enable employees to use wiki, blog or forum applications for conducting their business. Part of the content produced in ECS can be called Social Business Documents (SBD). Compared to traditional digital documents SBD are different in their nature and structure as they are, for example, less well-structured and do not follow a strict lifecycle. These characteristics bring along new management challenges. However, currently research literature lacks investigations on the characteristics of SBD, their peculiarities and management.
This dissertation uses document theory and documentary practice as theoretical lenses to investigate the new challenges of the long-term management of SBD in ECS. By using an interpretative, exploratory, mixed methods approach the study includes two major research parts. First, the nature and structure of Social Business Documents is addressed by analysing them within four different systems using four different modelling techniques each. The findings are used to develop general SBD information models, outlining the basic underlying components, structure, functions and included metadata, as well as a broad range of SBD characteristics. The second phase comprises a focus group, a case study including in-depth interviews and a questionnaire, all conducted with industry representatives. The focus group identified that the kind of SBD used for specific content and the actual place of storage differ between organisations as well as that there are currently nearly no management practices for SBD at hand. The case study provided deep insights into general document management activities and investigated requirements, challenges and actions for managing SBD. Finally, the questionnaire consolidated and deepened the previous findings. It provides insights about the value of SBD, their current management practices as well as management challenges and needs. Despite all participating organisations storing information worth managing in SBD most are not addressing them with management activities and many challenges remain.
Together, the investigations enable a contribution to practice and theory. The progress in practice is summarised through a framework, addressing the long-term management of Social Business Documents. The framework identifies and outlines the requirements and challenges of and the actions for SBD management. It also indicates the dependencies of the different aspects. Furthermore, the findings enable the progress in theory within documentary practice by discussing the extension of document types to include SBD. Existing problems are outlined along the definitions of records and the newly possible characteristics of documents emerging through Social Business Documents are taken into account.
Reactive local algorithms are distributed algorithms which suit the needs of battery-powered, large-scale wireless ad hoc and sensor networks particularly well. By avoiding both unnecessary wireless transmissions and proactive maintenance of neighborhood tables (i.e., beaconing), such algorithms minimize communication load and overhead, and scale well with increasing network size. This way, resources such as bandwidth and energy are saved, and the probability of message collisions is reduced, which leads to an increase in the packet reception ratio and a decrease of latencies.
Currently, the two main application areas of this algorithm type are geographic routing and topology control, in particular the construction of a node's adjacency in a connected, planar representation of the network graph. Geographic routing enables wireless multi-hop communication in the absence of any network infrastructure, based on geographic node positions. The construction of planar topologies is a requirement for efficient, local solutions for a variety of algorithmic problems.
This thesis contributes to reactive algorithm research in two ways, on an abstract level, as well as by the introduction of novel algorithms:
For the very first time, reactive algorithms are considered as a whole and as an individual research area. A comprehensive survey of the literature is given which lists and classifies known algorithms, techniques, and application domains. Moreover, the mathematical concept of O- and Omega-reactive local topology control is introduced. This concept unambiguously distinguishes reactive from conventional, beacon-based, topology control algorithms, serves as a taxonomy for existing and prospective algorithms of this kind, and facilitates in-depth investigations of the principal power of the reactive approach, beyond analysis of concrete algorithms.
Novel reactive local topology control and geographic routing algorithms are introduced under both the unit disk and quasi unit disk graph model. These algorithms compute a node's local view on connected, planar, constant stretch Euclidean and topological spanners of the underlying network graph and route messages reactively on these spanners while guaranteeing the messages' delivery. All previously known algorithms are either not reactive, or do not provide constant Euclidean and topological stretch properties. A particularly important partial result of this work is that the partial Delaunay triangulation (PDT) is a constant stretch Euclidean spanner for the unit disk graph.
To conclude, this thesis provides a basis for structured and substantial research in this field and shows the reactive approach to be a powerful tool for algorithm design in wireless ad hoc and sensor networking.
Confidentiality, integrity, and availability are often listed as the three major requirements for achieving data security and are collectively referred to as the C-I-A triad. Confidentiality of data restricts the data access to authorized parties only, integrity means that the data can only be modified by authorized parties, and availability states that the data must always be accessible when requested. Although these requirements are relevant for any computer system, they are especially important in open and distributed networks. Such networks are able to store large amounts of data without having a single entity in control of ensuring the data's security. The Semantic Web applies to these characteristics as well as it aims at creating a global and decentralized network of machine-readable data. Ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of this data is therefore also important and must be achieved by corresponding security mechanisms. However, the current reference architecture of the Semantic Web does not define any particular security mechanism yet which implements these requirements. Instead, it only contains a rather abstract representation of security.
This thesis fills this gap by introducing three different security mechanisms for each of the identified security requirements confidentiality, integrity, and availability of Semantic Web data. The mechanisms are not restricted to the very basics of implementing each of the requirements and provide additional features as well. Confidentiality is usually achieved with data encryption. This thesis not only provides an approach for encrypting Semantic Web data, it also allows to search in the resulting ciphertext data without decrypting it first. Integrity of data is typically implemented with digital signatures. Instead of defining a single signature algorithm, this thesis defines a formal framework for signing arbitrary Semantic Web graphs which can be configured with various algorithms to achieve different features. Availability is generally supported by redundant data storage. This thesis expands the classical definition of availability to compliant availability which means that data must only be available as long as the access request complies with a set of predefined policies. This requirement is implemented with a modular and extensible policy language for regulating information flow control. This thesis presents each of these three security mechanisms in detail, evaluates them against a set of requirements, and compares them with the state of the art and related work.
Inland waters play an active role in the global carbon cycle. They collect carbon from upstream landmasses and transport it downstream until it finally reaches the ocean. Along this path, manifold processing steps are evident, resulting in (permanent) retention of carbon by sediment burial as well as loss by evasion to the atmosphere. Constraining these carbon fluxes and their anthropogenic perturbation is an urgent need. In this context, attention needs to be set on a widespread feature of inland waters: their partial desiccation. This results in the emergence of formerly inundated sediments to the atmosphere, referred to as dry inland waters. One observed feature of dry inland waters are disproportional high carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. However, this observation was so far based on local case studies and knowledge on the global prevalence and fundamental mechanisms of these emissions is lacking. Against this background, this thesis aims to provide a better understanding of the magnitude and mechanisms of carbon emissions from dry inland waters on the global and local scale and to assess the impact of dry inland waters on the global carbon cycle. The specific research questions of this thesis were: (1) How do gaseous carbon emissions from dry inland waters integrate into the global carbon cycle and into global greenhouse gas (GHG) budgets? (2) What effect do seasonal and long term drying have on the carbon cycling of inland waters? The thesis revealed that dry inland waters emit disproportional large amounts of CO 2 on a global scale and that these emissions share common drivers across ecosystems. Quantifying global reservoir drawdown and upscaling carbon fluxes to the global scale suggests that reservoirs emit more carbon than they bury, challenging the current understanding of reservoirs as net carbon sinks. On the local scale, this thesis revealed that both, heterogeneous emission pattern between different habitats and seasonal variability of carbon emissions from the drawdown area, needs to be considered. Further, this thesis showed that re-mobilization of buried carbon upon permanent desiccation of water bodies can explain the observed emission rates, supporting the hypothesis of a positive feedback-loop between climate change and desiccation of inland waters. Overall, the present thesis highlights the importance of adding emissions from dry inland waters as a pathway to the global carbon cycle of inland waters.
The increasing, anthropogenic demand for chemicals has created large environmental problems with repercussions for the health of the environment, especially aquatic ecosystems. As a result, the awareness of the public and decision makers on the risks from chemical pollution has increased over the past half-century, prompting a large number of studies in the field of ecological toxicology (ecotoxicology). However, the majority of ecotoxicological studies are laboratory based, and the few studies extrapolating toxicological effects in the field are limited to local and regional levels. Chemical risk assessment on large spatial scales remains largely unexplored, and therefore, the potential large-scale effects of chemicals may be overlooked.
To answer ecotoxicological questions, multidisciplinary approaches that transcend classical chemical and toxicological concepts are required. For instance, the current models for toxicity predictions - which are mainly based on the prediction of toxicity for a single compound and species - can be expanded to simultaneously predict the toxicity for different species and compounds. This can be done by integrating chemical concepts such as the physicochemical properties of the compounds with evolutionary concepts such as the similarity of species. This thesis introduces new, multidisciplinary tools for chemical risk assessments, and presents for the first time a chemical risk assessment on the continental scale.
After a brief introduction of the main concepts and objectives of the studies, this thesis starts by presenting a new method for assessing the physiological sensitivity of macroinvertebrate species to heavy metals (Chapter 2). To compare the sensitivity of species to different heavy metals, toxicity data were standardized to account for the different laboratory conditions. These rankings were not significantly different for different heavy metals, allowing the aggregation of physiological sensitivity into a single ranking.
Furthermore, the toxicological data for macroinvertebrates were used as input data to develop and validate prediction models for heavy metal toxicity, which are currently lacking for a wide array of species (Chapter 3). Apart from the toxicity data, the phylogenetic information of species (evolutionary relationships among species) and the physicochemical parameters for heavy metals were used. The constructed models had a good explanatory power for the acute sensitivity of species to heavy metals with the majority of the explained variance attributed to phylogeny. Therefore, the integration of evolutionary concepts (relatedness and similarity of species) with the chemical parameters used in ecotoxicology improved prediction models for species lacking experimental toxicity data. The ultimate goal of the prediction models developed in this thesis is to provide accurate predictions of toxicity for a wide range of species and chemicals, which is a crucial prerequisite for conducting chemical risk assessment.
The latter was conducted for the first time on the continental scale (Chapter 4), by making use of a dataset of 4,000 sites distributed throughout 27 European countries and 91 respective river basins. Organic chemicals were likely to exert acute risks for one in seven sites analyzed, while chronic risk was prominent for almost half of the sites. The calculated risks are potentially underestimated by the limited number of chemicals that are routinely analyzed in monitoring programmes, and a series of other uncertainties related with the limit of quantification, the presence of mixtures, or the potential for sublethal effects not covered by direct toxicity.
Furthermore, chemical risk was related to agricultural and urban areas in the upstream catchments. The analysis of ecological data indicated chemical impacts on the ecological status of the river systems; however, it is difficult to discriminate the effects of chemical pollution from other stressors that river systems are exposed to. To test the hypothesis of multiple stressors, and investigate the relative importance of organic toxicants, a dataset for German streams is used in chapter 5. In that study, the risk from abiotic (habitat degradation, organic chemicals, and nutrients enrichment) and biotic stressors (invasive species) was investigated. The results indicated that more than one stressor influenced almost all sites. Stream size and ecoregions influenced the distribution of risks, e.g., the risks for habitat degradation, organic chemicals and invasive species increased with the stream size; whereas organic chemicals and nutrients were more likely to influence lowland streams. In order to successfully mitigate the effects of pollutants in river systems, co-occurrence of stressors has to be considered. Overall, to successfully apply integrated water management strategies, a framework involving multiple environmental stressors on large spatial scales is necessary. Furthermore, to properly address the current research needs in ecotoxicology, a multidisciplinary approach is necessary which integrates fields such as, toxicology, ecology, chemistry and evolutionary biology.
The first group that was revised within my study is Ochralea Clark, 1865 (Hazmi & Wagner 2010a). I have checked the type specimen of most species that were originally described in Ochralea and there is no doubt that this genus is clearly distinct from Monolepta. Weise (1924) has synonymised Galeruca nigripes (Olivier, 1808) with O. nigricornis Clark, 1865 and the valid name of the species is O. nigripes (Olivier, 1808). Out of ten species originally described in this genus, only this species remain valid and O. pectoralis is a new synonym of O. nigripes. Additionally, Monolepta wangkliana Mohamedsaid, 2000 is very closely related to O. nigripes and need to be transferred to Ochralea. The second genus where the revision is still published is Arcastes Baly, 1865 (Hazmi & Wagner 2010b). I have checked the genitalic characters of A. biplagiata, and most of the type species of other Arcastes. Arcastes biplagiata possesses a peculiar shape of the median lobe and asymmetrically arranged endophallic structures. These peculiar characters are very useful to delimit this genus from the others. Therefore, only three valid species remain in Arcastes, while two new synonyms are found and fourrnother species need to be transferred to other genera. While checking the genitalic characteristics of type species of Arcastes sanguinea, thernmedian lobe as well as the spermatheca of this species possesses strong differences to A. biplagiata. The species was redescribed and transferred in a monotypic new genus Rubrarcastes Hazmi & Wagner, 2010c. The fourth genus that was already revised is Neolepta Jacoby, 1884. It was originally described on base of only two species by that time, N. biplagiata and N. fulvipennis. Jacoby has not designated a type species of the genus, and Maulik (1936) did it later, with the designation of N. biplagiata. Jacoby in his original description has only commented that Neolepta is very close and similar to Monolepta Chevrolat, 1837 and Candezea Chapuis, 1879. Subsequent authors have described further eight species, and transferred one species from Luperodes to it, summing up the total number of eleven described species in Neolepta. I have checked the genitalic characters of the type, N. biplagiata and have found out that the median lobe is not incised apically and stronger sclerotised ventral carinae with an apical hook close to the apex occur. Out of all described species, only two are closely related to the genero-type, N. sumatrensis (Jacoby, 1884) new combination and N. quadriplagiata Jacoby, 1886 that will remain in this group after the revision. All other species need to be transferred to other genera, including the newly described Paraneolepta and Orthoneolepta. The last distinct paper of this thesis presented the results on Monolepta Chevrolat, 1837. The massive number of Monolepta from the entire Oriental Region, with about 260 described species names is a more long-life project and not practicable within a PhD-study. Thus I have focused on the species of Monolepta known from the Sundaland area in this work. A comprehensive revision including the study of the primary types of the described species, has never been done for Monolepta from this sub-region, while new species have also been described in the last decade (e. g. Mohamedsaid 1993, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000a,b, 2001, 2002, 2005).
On base of the most current species lists of Mohamedsaid (2001, 2004, 2005) and Kimoto (1990), the number of valid species described from this region is about 72. After my revision, only thirteen valid species can remain in Monolepta in the sense of the generotype M. bioculata (Wagner 2007), while seven species have been found as new synonyms, three have been already transferred to other genera and further 49 species need to be transferred to other genera.
Microbial pollution of surface waters poses substantial risks for public health, amongst others during recreational use. Microbial pollution was studied at selected sampling sites in rivers Rhine, Moselle and Lahn (Germany) on the basis of commonly used fecal indicator organisms (FIO) indicating bacterial (Escherichia coli, intestinal enterococci) and viral (somatic coliphages) fecal contamination. In addition, blaCTX-Mantibiotic resistance genes (ARG) were quantified at twosites in river Lahn and were used as markers for tracking the spread of antibiotic resistance in the aquatic environment. The impact of changes in climate-related parameters on FIO was examined by studying monitoring results of contrasting flow conditions at rivers Rhine and Moselle. Analyses at all studied river sites clearly indicate that high discharge and precipitation enhance the influx of FIO, ARG and thus potentially (antibiotic resistant) pathogens into rivers. In contrast, a decrease in hygienic microbial pollution was observed under high solar irradiation and increasing water temperatures. Based on identified contributing key factors, multiple linear regression (MLR) models for five sites at a stretch of river Lahn were established that allow a timely assessment of fecal indicator abundances. An interaction between abiotic and biotic factors (i.e. enhanced grazing pressure) considerably contributed to the formation of seasonal patterns among FIO abundances. This was enhanced during extraordinary low flow conditions in rivers with pronounced trophic interactions, clearly hampering a transfer of model approaches between rivers of different biological and hydrological characteristics. Bacterial indicatorswere stronger influenced by grazing pressure than phages. Hence, bacterial indicators alone do not sufficiently describe viral pollution in rivers. BlaCTX-Mgenes were omnipresent in Lahn River water and corresponded to distribution patterns of FIO, indicating fecal sources. Agriculture and waste watertreatment plant effluents contributed to ARG loads and participants in non-bathing water sports were found to be at risk of ingesting antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) including ARG, bearing the risk of infection or colonization. Results of the present study highlight the need to be aware of such risks not only in designated bathing waters. ARG abundance at both riverine sampling sites could largely be explained by E. coliabundance and may thus also be incorporated into multiple regression models using E. colispecific environmental predictors. It can be expected that the frequency of short-term microbial pollution events will increase over the next decades due to climate change. Several challenges were identified with regard to the implementation of early warning systems to protect the public from exposure to pathogens in rivers. Most importantly, the concept of the Bathing Water Directive (Directive 2006/7/EC) itself as well as the lack of harmonization in the regulatory framework at European Union (EU) level are major drawbacks and require future adjustments to reliably manage health risks related to microbial water pollution in waters used in multifunctional ways.
Introduction:
In March 2012 a secessionist-Islamist insurgency gained momentum in Mali and quickly took control of two-thirds of the state territory. Within weeks radical Islamists, drug smugglers and rebels suddenly ruled over a territory bigger than Germany. News of the abuse of the population and the introduction of harsh Sharia law spread soon, and word got out that the Malian Army had simply abandoned the land. The general echo of the IC was surprise, a reaction that was, as this research will show, as unfunded as it was unconstructive*. When Malian state structures collapsed, the world watched in shock, even though the developments couldhave been anticipated –and prevented. Ultimately, the situation had to be resolved by international forces (most notably French troops), who are still in Mali at the time of writing (Arieff 2013a: 5; Lohmann 2012: 3; Walther and Christopoulos 2015: 514f.; Shaw 2013: 204; Qantara, Interview, 2012;L’Express, Mali, 2015; Deutscher Bundestag, MINUSMA und EUTM Mali, 2016; UN, MUNISMA, 2016; Boeke and Schuurmann 2015: 801; Chivvis 2016: 93f.).
This research will show that the developments in Mali in 2012 have been developing for a long time and could have been avoided. In doing so, it will also show why state security can never be analyzed or consolidated in an isolated manner. Instead, it is necessary to take into account regional dynamics and developments in order to find a comprehensive approach to security in individual states. Once state failure occurs, not only does the state itself fail, but the surrounding region equally failed to prevent the failure.
Weak states are a growing concern in many world regions, particularly in Africa. As international intervention often proves unsustainable for various reasons*, the author believes that states which cannot stabilize themselves need a regional agent to support them. This regional agent should be a Regional Security Complex (RSC) asdefined by Barry Buzan and Ole Waever (Buzan and Waever 2003). As the following analysis will show, Mali is a case in point. The hope is that this study will help avoid similar failures in the future by making a strong case for the establishment of RSC’s.
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This thesis addresses the reduced basis methods for parametrized quasilinear elliptic and parabolic partial differential equations with strongly monotone differential operator. It presents all of the ingredients of the reduced basis method: basis generation for reduced basis approximation, certification of the approximation error by suitable a-posteriori error control and an Offine-Online decomposition. The methodology is further applied to the magnetostatic and magnetoquasistatic approximations of Maxwell’s equations and its validity is confirmed by numerical examples.
Software systems have an increasing impact on our daily lives. Many systems process sensitive data or control critical infrastructure. Providing secure software is therefore inevitable. Such systems are rarely being renewed regularly due to the high costs and effort. Oftentimes, systems that were planned and implemented to be secure, become insecure because their context evolves. These systems are connected to the Internet and therefore also constantly subject to new types of attacks. The security requirements of these systems remain unchanged, while, for example, discovery of a vulnerability of an encryption algorithm previously assumed to be secure requires a change of the system design. Some security requirements cannot be checked by the system’s design but only at run time. Furthermore, the sudden discovery of a security violation requires an immediate reaction to prevent a system shutdown. Knowledge regarding security best practices, attacks, and mitigations is generally available, yet rarely integrated part of software development or covering evolution.
This thesis examines how the security of long-living software systems can be preserved taking into account the influence of context evolutions. The goal of the proposed approach, S²EC²O, is to recover the security of model-based software systems using co-evolution.
An ontology-based knowledge base is introduced, capable of managing common, as well as system-specific knowledge relevant to security. A transformation achieves the connection of the knowledge base to the UML system model. By using semantic differences, knowledge inference, and the detection of inconsistencies in the knowledge base, context knowledge evolutions are detected.
A catalog containing rules to manage and recover security requirements uses detected context evolutions to propose potential co-evolutions to the system model which reestablish the compliance with security requirements.
S²EC²O uses security annotations to link models and executable code and provides support for run-time monitoring. The adaptation of running systems is being considered as is round-trip engineering, which integrates insights from the run time into the system model.
S²EC²O is amended by prototypical tool support. This tool is used to show S²EC²O’s applicability based on a case study targeting the medical information system iTrust.
This thesis at hand contributes to the development and maintenance of long-living software systems, regarding their security. The proposed approach will aid security experts: It detects security-relevant changes to the system context, determines the impact on the system’s security and facilitates co-evolutions to recover the compliance with the security requirements.
Diffusion imaging captures the movement of water molecules in tissue by applying varying gradient fields in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based setting. It poses a crucial contribution to in vivo examinations of neuronal connections: The local diffusion profile enables inference of the position and orientation of fiber pathways. Diffusion imaging is a significant technique for fundamental neuroscience, in which pathways connecting cortical activation zones are examined, and for neurosurgical planning, where fiber reconstructions are considered as intervention related risk structures.
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is currently applied in clinical environments in order to model the MRI signal due to its fast acquisition and reconstruction time. However, the inability of DTI to model complex intra-voxel diffusion distributions gave rise to an advanced reconstruction scheme which is known as high angular resolution diffusion imaging (HARDI). HARDI received increasing interest in neuroscience due to its potential to provide a more accurate view of pathway configurations in the human brain.
In order to fully exploit the advantages of HARDI over DTI, advanced fiber reconstructions and visualizations are required. This work presents novel approaches contributing to current research in the field of diffusion image processing and visualization. Diffusion classification, tractography, and visualizations approaches were designed to enable a meaningful exploration of neuronal connections as well as their constitution. Furthermore, an interactive neurosurgical planning tool with consideration of neuronal pathways was developed.
The research results in this work provide an enhanced and task-related insight into neuronal connections for neuroscientists as well as neurosurgeons and contribute to the implementation of HARDI in clinical environments.
Placing questions before the material or after the material constitute different reading situations. To adapt to these reading situations, readers may apply appropriate reading strategies. Reading strategy caused by location of question has been intensively explored in the context of text comprehension. (1) However, there is still not enough knowledge about whether text plays the same role as pictures when readers apply different reading strategies. To answer this research question, three reading strategies are experimentally manipulated by displaying question before or after the blended text and picture materials: (a) Unguided processing with text and pictures and without the question. (b) Information gathering to answer the questions after the prior experience with text and pictures. (c) Comprehending text and pictures to solve the questions with the prior information of the questions. (2) Besides, it is arguable whether readers prefer text or pictures when the instructed questions are in different difficulty levels. (3) Furthermore, it is still uncertain whether students from higher school tier (Gymnasium) emphasize more on text or on pictures than students from lower school tier (Realschule). (4) Finally, it is rarely mentioned whether higher graders are more able to apply reading strategies in text processing and picture processing than lower graders.
Two experiments were undertaken to investigate the usage of text and pictures in the perspectives of task orientation, question difficulty, school and grade. For a 2x2(x2x2x2) mixed design adopting eye tracking method, participants were recruited from grade 5 (N = 72) and grade 8 (N = 72). In Experiment 1, thirty-six 5th graders were recruited from higher tier (Gymnasium) and thirty-six 5th graders were from lower tier (Realschule). In Experiment 2, thirty-six 8th graders were recruited from higher tier and thirty-six were from lower tier. They were supposed to comprehend the materials combining text and pictures and to answer the questions. A Tobii XL60 eye tracker recorded their eye movements and their answers to the questions. Eye tracking indicators were analyzed and reported, such as accumulated fixation duration, time to the first fixation and transitions between different Areas of Interest. The results reveal that students process text differently from pictures when they follow different reading strategies. (1) Consistent with Hypothesis 1, students mainly use text to construct their mental model in unguided spontaneous processing of text and pictures. They seem to mainly rely on the pictures as external representations when trying to answer questions after the prior experience with the material. They emphasize on both text and pictures when questions are presented before the material. (2) Inconsistent with Hypothesis 2, students are inclined to emphasize on text and on pictures as question difficulty increases. However, the increase of focus on pictures is more than on text when the presented question is difficult. (3) Different from Hypothesis 3, the current study discovers that higher tier students did not differ from lower tier students in text processing. Conversely, students from higher tier attend more to pictures than students from lower tier. (4) Differed from Hypothesis 4, 8th graders outperform 5th graders mainly in text processing. Only a subtle difference is found between 5th graders and 8th graders in picture processing.
To sum up, text processing differs from picture processing when applying different reading strategies. In line with the Integrative Model of Text and Picture Comprehension by Schnotz (2014), text is likely to play a major part in guiding the processing of meaning or general reading, whereas pictures are applied as external representations for information retrieval or selective reading. When question is difficulty, pictures are emphasized due to their advantages in visualizing the internal structure of information. Compared to lower tier students (poorer problem solvers), higher tier students (good problem solvers) are more capable of comprehending pictures rather than text. Eighth graders are more efficient than 5th graders in text processing rather than picture processing. It also suggests that in designing school curricula, more attention should be paid to students’ competence on picture comprehension or text-picture integration in the future.
Climate change is an existential threat to human survival, the social organization of society, and the stability of ecosystems. It is thereby profoundly frightening. In the face of threat, people often want to protect themselves instead of engaging in mitigating behaviors. When psychological resources are insufficient to cope, people often respond with different forms of denial. In this dissertation, I contribute original knowledge to the understanding of the multifaceted phenomenon of climate denial from a psychological perspective.
There are four major gaps in the literature on climate denial: First, the spectrum of climate denial as a self-protective response to the climate crisis has not received attention within psychology. Second, basic psychological need satisfaction, a fundamental indicator of human functioning and the ability to cope with threat, has not been investigated as a predictor of climate denial. Third, relations of the spectrum of climate denial to climate-relevant emotions, specifically climate anxiety, have not been examined empirically. Forth, it has not been investigated how the spectrum of climate denial relates to established predictors of climate denial, namely right-wing ideological convictions and male gender. To address those gaps, I investigate what the spectrum of climate denial looks like in the German context and how it relates to basic psychological need satisfaction and frustration, pro-environmental behavior, climate anxiety, ideological conviction, and gender.
Five manuscripts reveal that climate denial exists on a spectrum in the German context, ranging from the distortion of facts (interpretive climate denial, specifically denial of personal and global outcome severity) to the denial of the implications of climate change (implicatory climate denial, specifically avoidance, denial of guilt, and rationalization of one's own involvement). Across analyses, low basic psychological need satisfaction predicted the spectrum of climate denial, which was negatively related to pro-environmental behavior. Climate denial was generally negatively related to climate anxiety, except for a positive association of avoidance and climate anxiety. Right-wing ideological conviction was the strongest predictor of climate denial across the spectrum. However, low need satisfaction and male gender were additional weaker predictors of implicatory climate denial.
These findings suggest that the spectrum of climate denial serves many psychological functions. Climate denial is possibly both a self-protective strategy to downregulate emotions and to protect oneself from loss of privilege. In short, it represents a barrier to climate action that may only be resolved once people have sufficient psychological resources to face the threat of climate change and cope with their underlying self-protective, emotional responses.
The history of human kind is characterized by social conflict. Every conflict can be the starting point of social change or the escalation into more destructive forms. The social conflict in regard to rising numbers of refugees and their acceptance that arose in most host countries in 2015 already took on destructive forms – in Germany, right-wing extremists attacked refugee shelters and even killed multiple people, including political leaders who openly supported refugees. Thus, incompatible expectancies and values of different parts of the society led to violent action tendencies, which tremendously threaten intergroup relations. Psychological research has developed several interventions in past decades to improve intergroup relations, but they fall short, for example, when it comes to the inclusion of people with extreme attitudes and to precisely differentiate potential prosocial outcomes of the interventions. Thus, this dissertation aimed to a) develop psychological interventions, that could also be applied to people with more extreme attitudes, thereby putting a special emphasis on collecting a diverse sample; b) gain knowledge about target- and outcome specific effects: Who benefits from which intervention and how can specific prosocial actions be predicted in order to develop interventions that guide needs-based actions; and c) shed light on potential underlying mechanisms of the interventions.
The dissertation will be introduced by the socio-political background that motivated the line of research pursued, before providing an overview of the conceptualization of social conflicts and potential psychological inhibitors and catalyzers for conflict transformation. Based on past research on socio-psychological interventions and their limitations, the aims of the dissertation will be presented in more detail, followed by a short summary of each manuscript. Overall, the present thesis comprises four manuscripts that were summarized in the general discussion into a road map for social-psychological interventions to put them into a broader perspective. The road map aspires to provide recommendations for increasing – either approach-oriented or support-oriented actions – by the socio-psychological interventions for a variety of host society groups depending on their pre-existing attitude towards refugees.
A Paradoxical Intervention targeting central beliefs of people with negative attitudes towards refugees influenced inhibitory and catalyzing factors for conflict transformation over the course of three experiments – thereby providing an effective tool to establish approach-oriented action tendencies, such as the willingness to get in contact with refugees. Further, the dissertation presents a novel mechanism – namely Cognitive Flexibility – which could explain the Paradoxical Interventions’ effect of past research. By positively affecting a context-free mindset, the Paradoxical Intervention could impact more flexible thought processes in general, irrespective of the topic tackled in the Paradoxical Intervention itself. For people with rather positive attitudes addressing emotions may increase specific support-oriented action tendencies. The dissertation provides evidence of a positive relation between moral outrage and hierarchy-challenging actions, such as solidarity-based collective action, and sympathy with prosocial hierarchy-maintaining support-oriented actions, such as dependency-oriented helping. These exclusive relations between specific emotions and action intentions provide important implications for the theorizing of emotion-behavior relations, as well as for practical considerations. In addition, a diversity workshop conducted with future diplomats showed indirect effects on solidarity-based collective action via diversity perception and superordinate group identification, thereby extending past research by including action intentions and going beyond the focus on grassroot-initiatives by presenting an implementable intervention for future leaders in a real world context.
Taken together, this dissertation provides important insights for the development of socio-psychological interventions. By integrating a diverse sample, including members of institutions on meso- and macro-levels (non-governmental organizations and future politicians) of our society, this dissertation presents a unique multi-perspective of host society members on the social conflict of refugee acceptance and support. Thereby, this work contributes to theoretical and practical advancement of how social psychology can contribute not only to negative peace – by for example (indirectly) reducing support of violence against refugees – but also to positive peace – by for example investigating precursors of hierarchy-challenging actions that enable equal rights.
This dissertation is dedicated to a new concept for capturing renunciation-oriented attitudes and beliefs — sufficiency orientation. Sufficiency originates in the interdisciplinary sustain-ability debate. In contrast to efficiency and consistency, sufficiency considers human behaviour as the cause of socio-ecological crises and strives for a reduction in consumption respecting the planetary boundaries. The present work places sufficiency in a psychological research context and explores it qualitatively and quantitatively. On the basis of five manuscripts, the overarching question pursued is to what extent sufficiency orientation contributes to socio-ecological transformation. Based on one qualitative study and five further quantitative studies, sufficiency orientation is investigated in different behavioural contexts that are of particular importance with regard to CO2 emissions. In addition, sufficiency orientation is linked to a wider range of psychologically relevant theories that help gain an overview of correlates and possible causes for the development of a sufficiency orientation.
Manuscript 1 uses expert interviews (N = 21) to develop a heuristic framework on a transformation towards societal sufficiency orientation including barriers and enablers, as well as ambiguities on such a change. The derived elements are interpreted in the light of the leverage points approach. This framework can serve as a heuristic for future research and to develop measures concerning sufficiency orientation.
As part of an online study (N = 648), Manuscript 2 examines the extent to which sufficiency orientation can be embedded in classic models for explaining pro-environmental intentions and behaviour (Theory of Planned Behaviour, Norm Activation Model), and showed a significant contribution to the explanation of intentions and behaviour in the field of plastic consumption.
Manuscript 3 reports two framing experiments (Study 1, N = 123, Study 2, N = 330) to investigate how pro-social justice sensitivity contributes to making sufficiency orientation more salient and promoting it. While sufficiency orientation and pro-social facets of justice sensitivity were positively related to each other, there was no effect of the framing intervention in the hypothesised direction. The results indicate that justice-related information at least in the presented manner is more likely to generate reactance.
Manuscript 4 presents an online study (N = 317) and targets the importance of sufficiency orientation for predicting actual greenhouse gas emissions in relation to flight behav-iour and policy support for the decarbonisation of mobility. In addition, the connection between sufficiency orientation and global identity is examined. It turns out that sufficiency orientation is superior to global identity in predicting actual emissions and decarbonisation policies. Contrary to expectations, sufficiency orientation and the form of global identity operationalised in the presented study shows a positive correlation and are compatible.
Manuscript 5 reports a reflective diary intervention (N = 252) that should lead to a short- and long-term increase in sufficiency orientation by satisfying basic psychological needs through induced self-reflection. For both groups with or without the intervention, sufficiency orientation increased slightly but significantly. Although no specific effect of the manipulation was found, basic psychological need satisfaction turns out to be the largest predictor for sufficiency orientation. Subjective well-being is positively associated with sufficiency orientation, while time affluence shows no clear associations in the study.
Overall, the results highlight the relevance of sufficiency orientation in relation to socio-ecological transformation and actual behavioural change. Sufficiency orientation is related to low-emission behaviour and support for political measures to decarbonize infrastructures. These results contribute to the discussion on the intention-behaviour gap in regard to impact-relevant behaviour, i.e. behaviour producing high emissions. The present findings suggest, that sufficiency orientation could be related to a strong intention-behavioural consistency. However, further research is needed to validate these results and improve the measurement of sufficiency orientation. Furthermore, the studies provided insights on correlates of sufficiency orientation: justice sensitivity, global identity, subjective well-being and left-wing liberal political ideologies are all found to be positively related to sufficiency orien-tation. Moreover, basic psychological need satisfaction was identified as a potential mechanism that can support the emergence of sufficiency orientation, however, causality remains unclear. From these findings, the work derives practical implications how to possibly strengthen sufficiency orientation on the micro, meso and macro levels of society.
Taken together, the dissertation provides important insights into a new and still developing concept, and shows its connectivity to psychological theories. However, future research is required in order to grasp more precisely the complexity of sufficiency orientation and to understand origins and predictors of sufficiency orientation. This work contributes to the interdisciplinary debate on socio-ecological transformation and points out that sufficiency orientation can serve to a future worth living as being related to reduced consumption.
Probability propagation nets
(2008)
This work introduces a Petri net representation for the propagation of probabilities and likelihoods, which can be applied to probabilistic Horn abduction, fault trees, and Bayesian networks. These so-called "probability propagation nets" increase the transparency of propagation processes by integrating structural and dynamical aspects into one homogeneous representation. It is shown by means of popular examples that probability propagation nets improve the understanding of propagation processes - especially with respect to the Bayesian propagation algorithms - and thus are well suited for the analysis and diagnosis of probabilistic models. Representing fault trees with probability propagation nets transfers these possibilities to the modeling of technical systems.
This thesis presents novel approaches for integrating context information into probabilistic models. Data from social media is typically associated with metadata, which includes context information such as timestamps, geographical coordinates or links to user profiles. Previous studies showed the benefits of using such context information in probabilistic models, e.g.\ improved predictive performance. In practice, probabilistic models which account for context information still play a minor role in data analysis. There are multiple reasons for this. Existing probabilistic models often are complex, the implementation is difficult, implementations are not publicly available, or the parameter estimation is computationally too expensive for large datasets. Additionally, existing models are typically created for a specific type of content and context and lack the flexibility to be applied to other data.
This thesis addresses these problems by introducing a general approach for modelling multiple, arbitrary context variables in probabilistic models and by providing efficient inference schemes and implementations.
In the first half of this thesis, the importance of context and the potential of context information for probabilistic modelling is shown theoretically and in practical examples. In the second half, the example of topic models is employed for introducing a novel approach to context modelling based on document clusters and adjacency relations in the context space. They can cope with areas of sparse observations and These models allow for the first time the efficient, explicit modelling of arbitrary context variables including cyclic and spherical context (such as temporal cycles or geographical coordinates). Using the novel three-level hierarchical multi-Dirichlet process presented in this thesis, the adjacency of ontext clusters can be exploited and multiple contexts can be modelled and weighted at the same time. Efficient inference schemes are derived which yield interpretable model parameters that allow analyse the relation between observations and context.
Connected vehicles will have a tremendous impact on tomorrow’s mobility solutions. Such systems will heavily rely on information delivery in time to ensure the functional reliability, security and safety. However, the host-centric communication model of today’s networks questions efficient data dissemination in a scale, especially in networks characterized by a high degree of mobility. The Information-Centric Networking (ICN) paradigm has evolved as a promising candidate for the next generation of network architectures. Based on a loosely coupled communication model, the in-network processing and caching capabilities of ICNs are promising to solve the challenges set by connected vehicular systems. In such networks, a special class of caching strategies which take action by placing a consumer’s anticipated content actively at the right network nodes in time are promising to reduce the data delivery time. This thesis contributes to the research in active placement strategies in information-centric and computation-centric vehicle networks for providing dynamic access to content and computation results. By analyzing different vehicular applications and their requirements, novel caching strategies are developed in order to reduce the time of content retrieval. The caching strategies are compared and evaluated against the state-of-the-art in both extensive simulations as well as real world deployments. The results are showing performance improvements by increasing the content retrieval (availability of specific data increased up to 35% compared to state-of-the-art caching strategies), and reducing the delivery times (roughly double the number of data retrieval from neighboring nodes). However, storing content actively in connected vehicle networks raises questions regarding security and privacy. In the second part of the thesis, an access control framework for information-centric connected vehicles is presented. Finally, open security issues and research directions in executing computations at the edge of connected vehicle networks are presented.
Studies on the toxicity of chemical mixtures find that components at levels below no-observed-effect concentrations (NOECs) may cause toxicity resulting from the combined effects of mixed chemicals. However, chemical risk assessment frequently focuses on individual chemical substances, although most living organisms are substantially exposed to chemical mixtures rather than single substances. The concepts of additive toxicity, concentration addition (CA), and independent action (IA) models are often applied to predict the mixture toxicity of similarly and dissimilarly acting chemicals, respectively. However, living organisms and the environment may be exposed to both types of chemicals at the same time and location. In addition, experimental acquisition of toxicity data for every conceivable mixture is unfeasible since the number of chemical combinations is extremely large. Therefore, an integrated model to predict mixture toxicity on the basis of single mixture components having various modes of toxic action (MoAs) needs to be developed. The objectives of the present study were to analyze the challenges in predicting mixture toxicity in the environment, and to develop integrated models that overcome the limitations of the existing prediction models for estimating the toxicity of non-interactive mixtures through computational models. For these goals, four sub-topics were generated in this study. Firstly, applicable domains and limitations of existing integrated models were analyzed and grouped into three kinds of categories in this study. There are current approaches used to assess mixture toxicity; however, there is a need for a new research concept to overcome challenges associated with such approaches, which recent studies have addressed. These approaches are discussed with particular emphasis on those studies involved in computational approaches to predict the toxicity of chemical mixtures based on the toxicological data of individual chemicals. Secondly, through a case study and a computational simulation, it was found that the Key Critical Component (KCC) and Composite Reciprocal (CR) methods (as described in the European Union (EU) draft technical guidance notes for calculating the Predicted No Effect Concentration (PNEC) and Derived No Effect Level (DNEL) of mixtures) could derive significantly different results. As the third and fourth sub-topics of this study, the following two integrated addition models were developed and successfully applied to overcome the inherent limitations of the CA and IA models, which could be theoretically used for either similarly or dissimilarly acting chemicals: i) a Partial Least Squares-Based Integrated Addition Model (PLS-IAM), and, ii) a Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship-Based Two-Stage Prediction (QSAR-TSP) model. In this study, it was shown that the PLS-IAM might be useful to estimate mixture toxicity when the toxicity data of similar mixtures having the same compositions were available. In the case of the QSAR-TSP model, it showed the potential to overcome the critical limitation of the conventional TSP model, which requires knowledge of the MoAs for all chemicals. Therefore, this study presented good potential for the advanced integrated models (e.g., PLS-IAM and QSAR-TSP), while considering various non-interactive constituents that have different MoAs in order to increase the reliance of conventional models and simplify the procedure for risk assessment of mixtures.
In the last decade, policy-makers around the world have turned their attention toward the creative industry as the economic engine and significant driver of employments. Yet, the literature suggests that creative workers are one of the most vulnerable work-forces of today’s economy. Because of the highly deregulated and highly individuated environment, failure or success are believed to be the byproduct of individual ability and commitment, rather than a structural or collective issue. This thesis taps into the temporal, spatial, and social resolution of digital behavioural data to show that there are indeed structural and historical issues that impact individuals’ and
groups’ careers. To this end, this thesis offers a computational social science research framework that brings together the decades-long theoretical and empirical knowledge of inequality studies, and computational methods that deal with the complexity and scale of digital data. By taking music industry and science as use cases, this thesis starts off by proposing a novel gender detection method that exploits image search and face-detection methods.
By analysing the collaboration patterns and citation networks of male and female computer scientists, it sheds lights on some of the historical biases and disadvantages that women face in their scientific career. In particular, the relation of scientific success and gender-specific collaboration patterns is assessed. To elaborate further on the temporal aspect of inequalities in scientific careers, this thesis compares the degree of vertical and horizontal inequalities among the cohorts of scientists that started their career at different point in time. Furthermore, the structural inequality in music industry is assessed by analyzing the social and cultural relations that breed from live performances and musics releases. The findings hint toward the importance of community belonging at different stages of artists’ careers. This thesis also quantifies some of the underlying mechanisms and processes of inequality, such as the Matthew Effect and the Hipster Paradox, in creative careers. Finally, this thesis argues that online platforms such as Wikipedia could reflect and amplify the existing biases.
Natural pest control and pollination are important ecosystem services for agriculture. They can be supported by organic farming and by seminatural habitats at the local and landscape scale.
The potential of seminatural habitats to support predatory flies (chapters 2 and 3) and bees(chapter 7) at the local and landscape scale was investigated in seminatural habitats. Predatory flies were more abundant in woody habitats and positively related to landscape complexity. The diversity and the abundance of honey and wild bees were positively related to the supply of flowers offered in the seminatural habitats.
The influence of organic farming, adjacent seminatural habitats and landscape complexity on pest control (chapter 4) and pollination (chapter 6) was investigated in 18 pumpkin fields. Organic farming lacked strong effects both on the pest control and on the pollination of pumpkin.
Pest control is best supported at the local scale by the flower abundance in the adjacent habitat. The flower supply positively affected the density of natural enemies and tended to reduce aphid densities in pumpkin fields.
Pumpkin provides a striking example for a dominant role of wild pollinators for pollination success, because bumble bees are the key pollinators of pumpkin in Germany, despite a higher visitation frequency of honey bees. Pollination is best supported by landscape complexity. Bumble bee visits and as a result pollen delivery in pumpkin were negatively related to the dominance of agricultural land in the surrounding landscape.
The influence of aphid density (chapter 8) and pollination (chapter 5) on pumpkin yield was evaluated. Pumpkin yields were not affected by aphid densities observed in the pumpkin fields and not limited by pollination at the current levels of bee visitation.
In conclusion, especially seminatural habitats, that provide diverse, continuous floral resources, are important for natural enemies and pollinators. A sufficient proportion of different seminatural habitat types in agricultural landscapes should be maintained and restored. Thereby natural enemies such as predatory flies, wild pollinators such as bumble bees, and the pest control and pollination provided by them can be supported.
Population genetic structure in European Hyalodaphnia species: Monopolization versus gene flow
(2012)
Cyclic parthenogens displays an alternation of asexual and sexual reproduction which has consequences for the genetic structure of these organisms. The clonal diversity of cyclic parthenogenetic zooplankton populations is influenced by the size of the dormant egg bank, i.e., the amount of sexually produced dormant eggs that assembled in the sediment, as these dormant eggs contribute new genetic variants to the populations. Further, the clonal diversity is impacted by clonal erosion over time, which reduces the number of different clones through stochastic and selective processes. Although freshwater invertebrates are good dispersers through their dormant stages, the influence of gene flow is assumed to be negligible, as the local population successfully monopolizes the available resources. As these populations reach carrying capacity fast due to the asexual reproduction, the first colonizing individuals are able to successfully establish in the habitat, resulting in a priority effect which hinders the invasion of new genotypes. Due to clonal selection and sexual reproduction a population will locally adapt over time and will establish a dormant egg bank which facilitates the fast re-colonization after a hostile period. This thesis evaluates the processes altering the population genetic structure of cyclic parthenogenetic zooplankton with a special focus on the concepts of monopolization as well as the counteracting effects of gene flow, using large-lake Daphnia species. Thirty-two variable microsatellite DNA markers were developed and a subset of twelve markers was evaluated regarding their suitability for species assignment and hybrid class detection. With this marker set and an additional mitochondrial DNA marker forty-four natural European populations of the species D. cucullata, D. galeata and D. longispina were studied. In D. galeata, most populations were characterized by low clonal diversities which suggest high influence from clonal erosion over the growing season and a low contribution from the dormant egg bank. Further, recent expansions as well as gene flow were detected, probably caused by the anthropogenic alteration of freshwater habitats, in particular eutrophication of many European lakes. D. longispina and D. cucullata revealed a different genetic structure compared to D. galeata, with high genetic differentiation among populations. This indicates low levels of effective gene flow which is in line with the predictions of monopolization. Further, high clonal diversities were found in populations of the two taxa, suggesting a high contribution from the dormant egg bank while clonal erosion was often not detectable. In D. longispina, mitochondrial data revealed an ancient expansion which was probably initiated by the formation of glacial lakes after the last ice age.
In addition, in D. longispina not only clonal diversity but also genetic diversity was high, indicating that during the build-up of the studied populations the influence from gene flow was probably high. To better understand the processes that act on early populations the population build-up in regard to the temporal advantage of clones during invasion succession was experimentally studied and revealed that priority effects shape population structure of Daphnia species. However, in certain cases the highly superior clones resulted in the extinction of inferior clones independent of the temporal advantage the single clones had.
This clearly shows that not only the time of succession is important but also the competitive strength. rnIn conclusion, the results obtained show that the population genetic structure in cyclic parthenogenetic zooplankton species is impacted by various processes. In addition to earlier studies, which mainly focus on local adaptation, clonal erosion and the size of the dormant egg bank to understand population genetic structure, this thesis could show that gene flow may be effective as well. During population build-up the advantage of early arriving individuals does not necessarily predict the outcome of population assembly, as additional genotypes may contribute to the population. Finally, the genetic structure of established populations may be severely impacted by effective gene flow, if severe environmental changes alter the habitat of the locally adapted population.
Amphibian populations are declining worldwide for multiple reasons such as habitat destruction and climate change. An example for an endangered European amphibian is the yellow-bellied toad Bombina variegata. Populations have been declining for decades, particularly at the northern and western range margin. One of the extant northern range centres is the Westerwald region in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. To implement informed conservation activities on this threatened species, knowledge of its life-history strategy is crucial. This study therefore focused on different developmental stages to test predictions of life-history theory. It addressed (1) developmental, (2) demographic and (3) genetic issues of Bombina variegata as a model organism: (1) Carry-over effects from larval environment to terrestrial stages and associated vulnerability to predators were investigated using mesocosm approaches, fitness tests and predation trials. (2) The dynamics and demography of B. variegata populations were studied applying a capture-mark-recapture analysis and skeletochronology. The study was complemented through (3) an analysis of genetic diversity and structuring of B. variegata populations using 10 microsatellite loci. In order to reveal general patterns and characteristics among B. variegata populations, the study focused on three geographical scales: local (i.e. a former military training area), regional (i.e. the Westerwald region) and continental scale (i.e. the geographical range of B. variegata). The study revealed carry-over effects of larval environment on metamorph phenotype and behaviour causing variation in fitness in the early terrestrial stage of B. variegata. Metamorph size and condition are crucial factors for survival, as small-sized individuals were particularly prone to predator attacks. Yellow-bellied toads show a remarkable fast-slow continuum of the life-history trait longevity. A populations’ position within this continuum may be determined by local environmental stochasticity, i.e. an extrinsic source of variation, and the efficiency of chemical antipredator protection, i.e. an intrinsic source of variation. Extreme longevity seems to be an exception in B. variegata. Senescence was absent in this study. Weather variability affected reproductive success and thus population dynamics. The dispersal potential was low and short-term fragmentation of populations caused significant genetic differentiation at the local scale. Long-term isolation resulted in increased genetic distance at the regional scale. At the continental scale, populations inhabiting the marginal regions were deeply structured with reduced allelic richness. As consequence of environmental changes, short-lived and isolated B. variegata populations at the range margin may face an increased risk of extinction. Conservation measures should thus improve the connectivity among local populations and reinforce annual reproductive success. Further research on the intraspecific variation in B. variegata skin toxins is required to reveal potential effects on palatability and thus longevity.
Agriculture requires a sustainable intensification to feed the growing world population without exacer-bating soil degradation and threatening soil quality. Globally, plastic mulching (PM) is increasingly used to improve crop growth and yields and consequently agronomic productivity. However, recent literature reported also critical aspects of PM for soil quality and showed contradictory outcomes. This might result from the numerous applications of PM in different climates across various crops, soils and agri-cultural techniques. Thus, a closer look is necessary on how PM influences soil processes under certain climate and cultivation conditions to obtain a comprehensive understanding of its effects, which is im-portant to evaluate PM in terms of a sustainable agriculture.
The aim of this PhD thesis was to understand how multiannual PM influences soil properties and pro-cesses under the temperate, humid Central European cultivation conditions and to evaluate the resulting consequences for soil quality. I designed a three-year field study to investigate the influence of PM (black polyethylene, 50 μm) on microclimate, structural stability, soil organic matter (SOM) and the concentrations of selected fungicides and mycotoxins in three soil layers (0–10, 10–30 and 30–60 cm) compared to straw mulching (SM). Both mulching types were applied in a drip-irrigated ridge-furrow system in strawberry cultivation.
PM shifted the soil microclimate to higher soil temperatures and lower soil moistures. The higher soil temperature seems thus to be the key factor for the increased crop growth and yields under the present humid climate. The reduced soil moisture under PM indicated that under PM the impeded rainfall infil-tration had a stronger effect on the water balance than the reduced evaporation. This indicate an ineffi-cient rainwater use in contrast to arid climates. PM changed the water cycling in the ridges from down-ward directed water flows to lateral water flows from furrows to ridges. This reduced nitrogen leaching in the topsoil (0–10 cm) in the strawberry establishment period. The plastic mulches avoided aggregate breakdown due to rapid soil wetting and excess water during rainfalls and thus maintained a loose and stable soil structure in the surface soil, which prevents soil compaction and made soil less prone to erosion. PM changed carbon fluxes and transformation so that a larger total and more stable SOM was observed. Thus, the higher belowground biomass productivity under PM compensated the impeded aboveground biomass input and the temperature-induced SOM decomposition. However, SM increased the labile and total SOM in the topsoil after the first experiment year and promoted microbial growth due to the aboveground biomass incorporation. PM reduced fungicide entry into soil compared to SM and reduced consequently the fungal biomass reduction and the biosynthesis of the mycotoxin deoxyni-valenol. The modified microclimate under PM did not increase mycotoxin occurrence. In this context, PM poses no risk for an increased soil contamination, impairing soil quality. This PhD thesis demon-strated that the PM effects on soil can vary depending on time, season and soil depth, which emphasizes the importance to include soil depth and time in future studies.
Compared to semiarid and arid regions, the PM effects found in this PhD thesis were small, absent or in another way. I attributed this to the fact that PM under humid climate reduced instead of increased soil moisture and that SM had due to straw und strawberry canopy a similar ‘covering effect’ as PM. Thus, generalizing the PM effects on soil across different climates seems hardly possible as they differ in type and extent depending on climate. A differentiated consideration is hence necessary to evaluate the PM effects on soil quality. I conclude that PM under temperate, humid climate might contribute to reduce soil degradation (e.g., SOM depletion, erosion, nutrient leaching, soil compaction and soil contamina-tion), which sustains soil quality and helps to enable a sustainable agricultural intensification. However, further research is necessary (1) to support my findings on a larger scale, longer time periods and across various soil and crop types, (2) to address remaining open questions and (3) to develop optimization to overcome the critical aspects of PM (e.g. macro- and microplastic waste in soil, mulch disposal).
The three biodegradable polymers polylactic acid (PLA), polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) and polybutylene adipate terephthalate (PBAT) were coated with hydrogenated amorphous carbon layers (a-C:H) in the context of this thesis. A direct alignment of the sample surface to the source was chosen, resulting in the deposition of a robust, r-type a-C:H. At the same time, a partly covered silicon wafer was placed together with the polymers in the coating chamber and was coated. Silicon is a hard material and serves as a reference for the applied layers. Due to the hardness of the material, no mixed phase occurs between the substrate and the applied layer (no interlayer formation). In addition, the thickness of the applied layer can be estimated with the help of the silicon sample.
The deposition of the layer was realized by radio frequency plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (RF-PECVD). For the coating the samples were pre-treated with an oxygen plasma. Acetylene was used as precursor gas for the plasma coating. Coatings with increasing thickness in 50 nm steps from 0-500 nm were realised.
The surface analysis was performed using several techniques: The morphology and layer stability were analyzed with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) measurements. The wettability was determined by contact angle technique. In addition, the contact angles provide macroscopic information about the bond types of the carbon atoms present on the surface. For microscopic analysis of the chemical composition of the sample and layer surfaces, diffuse reflectance Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (DRIFT) as well as synchrotron based X-ray photon spectroscopy (XPS) and near edge X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy (NEXAFS) were used.
All coated polymers showed several cases of layer failure due to internal stress in the layers. However, these were at different layer thicknesses, so there was a substrate effect. In addition, it is visible in the SEM images that the coatings of PLA and PHB can cause the applied layer to wave, the so-called cord buckling. This does not occur with polymer PBAT, which indicates a possible better bonding of the layer to the polymer. The chemical analyses of the layer surfaces show for each material a layer thickness dependent ratio of sp² to sp³ bonds of carbon, which alternately dominate the layer. In all polymers, the sp³ bond initially dominates, but the sp² to sp³ ratio changes at different intervals. Although the polymers were coated in the same plasma, i.e. the respective layer thicknesses (50 nm, 100 nm, ...) were applied in the same plasma process, the respective systems differed considerably from each other. A substrate effect is therefore demonstrably present. In addition, it was found that a change in the dominant bond from sp³ to sp² is an indication ofan upcoming layer failure of the a-C:H layer deposited on the polymer. In the case of PLA, this occurs immediately with change to sp² as the dominant bond; in the case of PHB and PBAT, this occurs with different delay to increased layer thicknesses (at PHB 100 nm, at PBAT approx. 200 nm.
Overall, this thesis shows that there is a substrate effect in the coating of the biodegradable polymers PLA, PHB and PBAT, since despite the same coating there is a different chemical composition of the surface at the respective layer thicknesses. In addition, a layer failure can be predicted by analyzing the existing bond.
Nandi forests (South and North Nandi forests) are situated in the Rift Valley Province of Kenya very close to Kakamega forest. From previous documents it has been seen that Kakamega and Nandi forests were connected to each other forming one big "U" shaped forest block till the beginnings of 1900s. Due to human pressures, currently there are three different forests form the previous one block forest. Although they were one forest, information on Nandi forests is very scanty when it is compared to that of Kakamega forest. The species composition and diversity as well as plant communities and population structure of Nandi forests have not been studied. Information is not available about the similarity status of South and North Nandi forests. Furthermore the natural regeneration potential (seedling bank) of these forests is not well studied and documented. Hence this study aims to fill these gaps.
In this study totally 76 quadrates (49 from South Nandi and 27 from North Nandi) were used to collect data. In the South Nandi forests 27 of the quadrates were laid in the better side of the forest (at Kobujoi) and the remaining 22 were in the heavily disturbed part of this forest (Bonjoge). The quadrates were arranged on transects that have one to one and half km which were parallel to the slope. The distance between the quadrates was 100 meter and transects are 500 m apart. The size of the main quadrate was 400 m2 (20 X 20 m) which also had five small plots (3 X 3 m) distributed on the four corners and in the center. Each woody plants (climbers, shrubs and trees) having more than one meter and greater than two centimeter diameter at breast height (dbh) were measured and recorded. Seedlings and herbaceous plants were sampled in the smaller plots. Individual plants were identified at species level and when it was not possible to identify in the field voucher specimen were prepared and latter identified at the East African Herbarium, National Museum of Kenya, and Nairobi. Clustering and ordination were performed using PC-ORD and CANOCO ecological softwares, respectively. For both clustering and ordination abundance data of the species was used. Shannon diversity index and evenness were computed using PC-ORD while similarity indices, Fisher alpha, rarefaction, species richness estimation (nonparametric species richness estimators) were conducted using EstimateS. Indicator species analysis was undertaken using PC-ORD. Basal area and height class distribution at forests level or site level (Bonjoge and Kobujoi) and diameter (dbh) class distribution for selected trees species were performed to evaluate population structure.
Furthermore importance value (IV) of woody plant species was calculated. SPSS version 16 was used to undertake both parametric (when data assume normal distribution) and nonparametric (when data are not assuming normal distribution) comparison of means, correlation and regression analysis.
In this study totally 321 vascular plant species comprising 92 families and 243 genera were identified in Nandi forests (both South and North Nandi forests). In South Nandi forest 253 plant species form 82 families and 201 genera were recorded while in North Nandi 181 species comprising 67 families and 155 genera were recorded. Jackknife second order estimators gave the highest species richness estimate for both South and North Nandi forests i.e. 284 and 209, respectively. In the case of highly disturbed and less disturbed parts of South Nandi forest 138 and 172 vascular plant species were recorded, respectively. Asteraceae, Rubiaceae and Euphorbiaceae are the top three species rich families of Nandi forests. In terms of different diversity measures (i.e. alpha and beta diversity, Fisher alpha, Shannon diversity and evenness indices) South Nandi is more diverse than North Nandi forest. Sörensen and Jaccard (classic) as well as their respective abundance based similarities showed that there is a low species similarity between South and Nandi forests. The cluster analysis resulted in three different plant communities and this result is supported by the ordination result.
South and North Nandi forest has inverted "J" height class distribution showing that larger proportion of woody plant individuals are found in the lower height classes. Similar pattern is observed when the diameters of all woody plants were considered together. However, different diameter class distributions (seven types) were identified when selected tree species were analyzed separately. It has been observed that the basal area of South Nandi forest is significantly lower than that of North Nandi forest (Mann-Whitney U =358, p < 0.001). Similarly Bonjoge has significantly lower basal area (t-value=3.77, p<0.01) than that of Kobujoi. Number of woody plat seedlings in South Nandi forest is significantly higher than that of North Nandi (Mann-Whitney U = 362.5, p<0.001). In the same way Bonjoge has significantly smaller number of ssedlings than Kobujoi (t-value 4.24, p<0.001). Most of species in both forests are able to resprout from stumps after physical damage; hence this helps the regeneration of the forests in addition to seedling banks. This study enables to fill some of the information gaps about Nandi forests especially of floristic composition, population structure, natural regeneration and human impacts on this ecosystem.
The implementation of physiological indicators reflecting the response of organisms to changes in their environment is assumed to provide potential benefits for ecological studies. By analysing the physiological condition of organisms in freshwater ecological studies rather than their ultimate effects, physiological indicators can contribute to a faster assessment of effects than using traditional ecological indicators, such as the evaluation of the benthic community structure or the determination of the reproductive success of organisms. This can increase the effectiveness of environmental health assessment and experimental ecology. In this respect the thesis focuses on physiological measures characterizing the energetic condition and energy consumption (the concentration of energy storage compounds, the adenylate energy charge, the energy consumption in vivo), as well as individual growth (RNA:DNA ratio) of organisms. Although these sub-individual indicators are commonly applied in marine ecology and more recently in ecotoxicology, they have been rarely applied in freshwater ecology to date. With respect to an increased use of physiological indicators in freshwater ecological studies, the objectives of the present thesis are twofold. First, it highlights the potential of assessing the individual fitness by means of physiological indicators in freshwater ecological studies. For that reason, Chapter 2 provides the basic assumptions as well as the theoretical and methodological fundamentals necessary for the application of physiological indicators within freshwater ecology and, furthermore, points out their applicability by several case studies. As second objective, the thesis addresses selected ecophysiological aspects of native and non-native freshwater amphipods, which are considered suitable candidates for the determination of physiological indicators in ecological studies due to their function as keystone species within aquatic habitats. The studies presented in Chapters 3−5 of the thesis provide information on (i) species- and sex-specific seasonal variations within the energetic condition of natural Gammarus populations (G. fossarum, G. pulex), (ii) differences in metabolic activity and behaviour between different amphipod species (G fossarum, G. roeselii and D. villosus), as well as (iii) the direct effects of ambient ammonia on the physiology and behaviour of D. villosus. The fundamental conclusions drawn from the conducted field and laboratory studies, as well as their relevance and general implications for the application of physiological indicators in freshwater ecological research are discussed in Chapter 6.
The physical-biological interactions that affect the temporal variability of benthic oxygen fluxes were investigated to gain improved understanding of the factors that control these processes. This study, for the first time is able to resolve benthic diffusive boundary layer (DBL) dynamics using the newly developed lifetime-based laser induced fluorescence (τLIF) oxygen imaging system, which enables study of the role of small-scale fluid mechanics generated by benthic organism activity, and hence a more detailed analysis of oxygen transport mechanisms across the sediment-water interface (SWI).
The net benthic oxygen flux across the sediment-water interface is controlled by sediment oxygen uptake and oxygen transport. While the oxygen transport is largely influenced by turbulence driven by large-scale flows, sediment oxygen uptake is mainly affected by oxygen production and biological- and chemical-oxygen degradation of organic matter. Both processes can be enhanced by the presence of fauna and are intimately coupled. The benthic oxygen flux can be influenced by fauna in two ways, i.e. by modulating the availability of oxygen, which enhances the sediment oxygen uptake, and by enhancing the transport of oxygen.
In-situ and a series of laboratory measurements were conducted to estimate the short- and seasonal variability of benthic fluxes including the effects of burrow ventilation activity by tube-dwelling animals using eddy correlation (EC) and τLIF oxygen imaging techniques, respectively.
The in-situ benthic oxygen fluxes showed high variability at hourly and seasonal timescales, where statistical analysis indicated that current velocity and water depth were the most significant predictors of benthic oxygen flux at the waterside, which co-varied with the discharge, temperature, and oxygen concentration. The range of variability of seasonal fluxes corresponded to the friction velocities which were driven by large-scale flows. Application of a simplified analytical model that couples the effect of hydrodynamic forcing of the diffusive boundary layer with a temperature-dependent oxygen consumption rate within the sediment showed that friction velocity and temperature cause similar variability of the steady-state benthic oxygen flux.
The application of τLIF oxygen imaging system in bioturbation experiments enabled the investigation and discovery of insights into oxygen transport mechanisms across the sediment-water interface. Distinct oxygen structures above burrow openings were revealed, these were associated with burrow ventilation. The DBL was degraded in the presence of burrow ventilation. Advective transport generated by the energetic plumes released at burrow outlets was the dominant transport driving mechanism. The contribution of diffusive flux to the total estimated decreased with increasing larval density. For a range of larvae densities, commonly observed in ponds and lakes, sediment oxygen uptake rates increased up to 2.5-fold in the presence of tube-dwelling animals, and the oxygen transport rate exceeded chironomid respiration by up to a factor of 4.
The coupled physical-biological factors affecting net benthic oxygen flux can be represented by temperature, which is a prominent factor that accounts for both oxygen transport and sediment oxygen uptake. Low oxygen transport by flow coincided with high summer temperatures, amplified by a reduction of benthic population density and pupation. It can also, however, be offset by increased ventilation activity. In contrast, low temperature coincided with high oxygen concentrations, an abundance of larvae, and higher flow is offset by less burrow ventilation activity. Investigation of the effect of hydrodynamics on oxygen transport alone suggested that the expected increase of benthic oxygen flux under global warming can be offset by a reduction in flow velocity, which could ultimately lead to increasing carbon burial rates, and in a growing importance of anaerobic mineralization pathways with increasing emission rates of methane.
This study suggests a significant contribution of biological induced benthic oxygen flux to physical transport driven by large-scale flow-fields contributing to bottom-boundary layer turbulence.
This thesis examined two specific cases of point and diffuse pollution, pesticides and salinisation, which are two of the most concerning stressors of Germany’s freshwater bodies. The findings of this thesis were organized into three major components, of which the first component presents the contribution of WWTPs to pesticide toxicity (Chapter 2). The second component focuses on the current and future background salt ion concentrations under climate change with the absence of anthropogenic activities (Chapter 3). Finally, the third major component shows the response of invertebrate communities in terms of species turnover to levels of salinity change, considered as a proxy for human-driven salinisation (Chapter 4).
The adoption of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) in 2000 marked the beginning of a new era of European water policy. However, more than a decade later, the majority of European rivers are still failing to meet one of the main objectives of the WFD: the good ecological status. Pesticides are a major stressor for stream ecosystems. This PhD thesis emphasises the need for WFD managers to consider all main agricultural pesticide sources and influencing landscape parameters when setting up River Basin Management Plans and Programmes of Measures. The findings and recommendations of this thesis can help to successfully tackle the risk of pesticide contamination to achieve the WFD objectives.
A total of 663 sites that were situated in the German Federal States of Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia and Hesse were studied (Chapter 3 and 4). In addition to an analysis of the macroinvertebrate data of the governmental WFD monitoring network, a detailed GIS analysis of the main agricultural pesticide sources (arable land and garden allotments as well as wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs)) and landscape elements (riparian buffer strips and forested upstream reaches) was conducted. Based on the results, a screening approach was developed that allows an initial rapid and cost-effective identification of those sites that are potentially affected by pesticide contamination. By using the trait-based bioindicator SPEARpesticides, the insecticidal long-term effects of the WWTP effluents on the structure of the macroinvertebrate community were identified up to at least 1.5 km downstream (in some cases even 3 km) of the WWTPs. The results of the German Saprobic Index revealed that the WWTPs can still be important sources of oxygen-depleting substances. Furthermore, the results indicate that forested upstream reaches and riparian buffer strips at least 5 m in width can be appropriate measures in mitigating the effects and exposure of pesticides.
There are concerns that the future expansion of energy crop cultivation will lead to an increased pesticide contamination of ecosystems in agricultural landscapes. Therefore, the potential of energy crops for pesticide contamination was examined based on an analysis of the development of energy crop cultivation in Germany and a literature search on perennial energy crops (Chapter 5). The results indicate that the future large-scale expansion of energy crop cultivation will not necessarily cause an increase or decrease in the amounts of pesticides that are released into the environment. The potential effects will depend on the future design of the agricultural systems. Instead of creating energy monocultures, annual energy crops should be integrated into the existing food production systems. Financial incentives and further education are needed to encourage the use of sustainable crop rotations, innovative cropping systems and perennial energy crops, which may contribute to crop diversity and generate lower pesticide demands than do intensive farming systems.
Vertebrate biodiversity is rapidly decreasing worldwide with amphibians being the most endangered vertebrate group. In the EU, 21 of 89 amphibian species are recognized as being endangered. The intensively used European agricultural landscape is one of the major causes for these declines. As agriculture represents an essential habitat for amphibians, exposure to pesticides can have adverse effects on amphibian populations. Currently, the European risk assessment of pesticides for vertebrates requires specific approaches for fish regarding aquatic vertebrate toxicity and birds as well as mammals for terrestrial vertebrate toxicity but does not address the unique characteristics of amphibians. Therefore, the overall goal of this thesis was to investigate the ecotoxicological effects of pesticides on Central European anuran amphibians. For this, effects on aquatic and terrestrial amphibian life stages as well as on reproduction were investigated. Then, in anticipation of a risk assessment of pesticides for amphibians, this thesis discussed potential regulatory risk assessment approaches.
For the investigated pesticides and amphibian species, it was observed that the acute aquatic toxicity of pesticides can be addressed using the existing aquatic risk assessment approach based on fish toxicity data. However, lethal as well as sublethal effects were observed in terrestrial juveniles after dermal exposure to environmentally realistic pesticide concentrations, which cannot be covered using an existing risk assessment approach. Therefore, pesticides should also be evaluated for potential terrestrial toxicity using risk assessment tools before approval. Additionally, effects of co-formulants and adjuvants of pesticides need specific consideration in a future risk assessment as they can increase toxicity of pesticides to aquatic and terrestrial amphibian stages. The chronic duration of combined aquatic and terrestrial exposure was shown to affect amphibian reproduction. Currently, such effects cannot be captured by the existing risk assessment as data involving field scenarios analysing effects of multiple pesticides on amphibian reproduction are too rare to allow comparison to data of other terrestrial vertebrates such as birds and mammals. In the light of these findings, future research should not only address acute and lethal effects, but also chronic and sublethal effects on a population level. As pesticide exposure can adversely affect amphibian populations, their application should be considered even more carefully to avoid further amphibian declines. Overall, this thesis emphasizes the urgent need for a protective pesticide risk assessment for amphibians to preserve and promote stable amphibian populations in agricultural landscapes.
Small headwater streams comprise most of the total channel length and catchment area in fluvial networks. They are tightly connected to their catchments and, thus, are highly vulnerable to changes in catchment hydrologic budgets and land use. Although these small, often fishless streams are of little economic interest, they are vital for the ecological and chemical state of larger water bodies. Although numerous studies investigate the impact of various anthropogenic stressors or altered catchment conditions, we lack an in-depth understanding of the natural conditions and processes in headwater streams. This natural state, however, largely affects how a headwater stream responds to anthropogenic or climatic changes. One of the major threats to aquatic ecosystems is the excessive anthropogenic input of nutrients leading to eutrophication. Nutrients exert a bottom-up effect in the food web, foremost affecting primary producers and their consumers, i.e. periphyton and benthic grazers in headwater streams. The periphyton-grazer link is the main path of autochthonous (in-stream) production into the stream food web and the strength of this link largely determines the effectiveness of this pathway. Therefore, this thesis aims at elucidating important biological processes with the explicit focus on periphyton-grazer interactions. I assessed different aspects of periphyton-grazer interactions using laboratory experiments to solve methodological problems, and using a field study to compare the benthic communities of three morphologically similar, phosphorus-limited, near-natural headwater streams. With the results of the laboratory experiments, I was able to show that periphyton RNA/DNA ratios can be used as proxy for periphyton growth rates in controlled experiments and that the fatty acid composition of grazing mayfly nymphs responds to changes in fatty acids provided by the diet after only two weeks. The use of the RNA/DNA ratio as a proxy for periphyton growth rate allows a comparison of these growth rates even in simple experimental set-ups and thereby permits the inclusion of this important process in ecotoxicological or ecological experiments. The observed fast turnover rates of fatty acids in consumer tissues show that even short-term changes in available primary producers can alter the fatty acid composition of primary consumers with important implications for the supply of higher trophic levels with physiologically important polyunsaturated fatty acids. With the results of the field study, I revealed gaps in the understanding of the linkages between catchment and in-stream phosphorus availability under near-natural conditions and demonstrated that seemingly comparable headwater streams had significantly different benthic communities. These differences most likely affect stream responses to environmental changes.
In a world where language defines the boundaries of one's understanding, the words of Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein resonate profoundly. Wittgenstein's assertion that "Die Grenzen meine Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt" (Wittgenstein 2016: v. 5.6) underscores the vital role of language in shaping our perceptions. Today, in a globalized and interconnected society, fluency in foreign languages is indispensable for individual success. Education must break down these linguistic barriers, and one promising approach is the integration of foreign languages into content subjects.
Teaching content subjects in a foreign language, a practice known as Content Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), not only enhances language skills but also cultivates cognitive abilities and intercultural competence. This approach expands horizons and aligns with the core principles of European education (Leaton Gray, Scott & Mehisto 2018: 50). The Kultusministerkonferenz (KMK) recognizes the benefits of CLIL and encourages its implementation in German schools (cf. KMK 2013a).
With the rising popularity of CLIL, textbooks in foreign languages have become widely available, simplifying teaching. However, the appropriateness of the language used in these materials remains an unanswered question. If textbooks impose excessive linguistic demands, they may inadvertently limit students' development and contradict the goal of CLIL.
This thesis focuses on addressing this issue by systematically analyzing language requirements in CLIL teaching materials, emphasizing receptive and productive skills in various subjects based on the Common European Framework of Reference. The aim is to identify a sequence of subjects that facilitates students' language skill development throughout their school years. Such a sequence would enable teachers to harness the full potential of CLIL, fostering a bidirectional approach where content subjects facilitate language learning.
While research on CLIL is extensive, studies on language requirements for bilingual students are limited. This thesis seeks to bridge this gap by presenting findings for History, Geography, Biology, and Mathematics, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of language demands. This research endeavors to enrich the field of bilingual education and CLIL, ultimately benefiting the academic success of students in an interconnected world.
Many pharmaceuticals (e.g. antibiotics, contrast media, beta blockers) are excreted unmetabolized and enter wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) through the domestic sewage system. Research has shown that many of them are not effectively removed by conventional wastewater treatment and therefore are detected in surface waters. Reverse osmosis (RO) is one of the most effective means for removing a wide range of micropollutants in water recycling. However, one significant disadvantage is the need to dispose the resultant RO concentrate. Due to the fact that there are elevated concentrations of micropollutants in the concentrate, a direct disposal to surface water could be hazardous to aquatic organisms. As a consequence, further treatment of the concentrate is necessary. In this study, ozonation was investigated as a possible treatment option for RO concentrates. Concentrate samples were obtained from a RO-membrane system which uses municipal WWTP effluents as feeding water to produce infiltration water for artificial groundwater recharge. In this study it could be shown that ozonation is efficient in the attenuation of selected pharmaceuticals, even in samples with high TOC levels (46 mg C/L). Tests with chlorinated and non-chlorinated WWTP effluent showed an increase of ozone stability, but a decrease of hydroxyl radical exposure in the samples after chlorination. This may shift the oxidation processes towards direct ozone reactions and favors the degradation of compounds with high apparent second order rate constants. Additionally it might inhibit an oxidation of compound predominantly reacting with OH radicals. Ozone reaction kinetics were investigated for beta blockers (acebutolol, atenolol, metoprolol and propranolol) which are permanently present in WWTP effluents. For beta blockers two moieties are common which are reactive towards ozone, a secondary amine group and an activated aromatic ring. The secondary amine is responsible for a pH dependence of the direct ozone reaction rate, since only the deprotonated amine reacts very quickly. At pH 7 acebutolol, atenolol and metoprolol reacted with ozone with an apparent second order rate constant of about 2000 M-1 s-1, whereas propranolol reacted at ~1.0 105 M-1 s-1. The rate constants for the reaction of the selected compounds with OH radicals were determined to be 0.5-1.0 x 1010 M-1 s-1. Oxidation products (OPs) formed during ozonation of metoprolol and propranolol were identified via liquid chromatography (LC) tandem mass spectrometry. Ozonation led to a high number of OPs being formed. Experiments were carried out in MilliQ-water at pH 3 and pH 8 as well as with and without the radical scavenger tertiary butanol (t-BuOH). This revealed the influence of pH and the OH radical exposure on OP formation. The OH radical exposure was determined by adding the probe compound para-chlorobenzoic acid (pCBA). Metoprolol: To define the impacts of the protonated and non protonated metoprolol species on OH radical formation, the measured pCBA attenuation was compared to modeled values obtained by a simplified kinetic model (Acuchem). A better agreement with the measured results was obtained, when the model was based on a stoichiometric formation of OH radical precursors (O2-) during the primary ozone reaction of metoprolol. However, for reaction of a deprotonated molecule (attack of the aromatic ring) a formation of O2- could be confirmed, but an assumed stoichiometric O2- formation over-estimated the formation of OH radicals in the system. Analysis of ozonated raw wastewater and municipal WWTP effluent spiked with 10 μM metoprolol exhibited a similar OP formation pattern as detected in the reaction system at pH 8 without adding radical scavenger. This indicated a significant impact of OH radical exposure on the formation of OPs in real wastewater matrices. Propranolol: The primary ozonation product of propranolol (OP-291) was formed by an ozone attack of the naphthalene ring, which resulted in a ring opening and two aldehyde moieties being formed. OP-291 was further oxidized to OP-307, presumably by an OH radical attack, which was then further oxidized to OP-281. Reaction pathways via ozone as well as OH radicals were proposed and confirmed by the chemical structures identified with MS2 and MS3 data. It can be concluded that ozonation of WWTP effluent results in the formation of a high number of OPs with an elevated toxic potential (i.e. formation of aldehydes).
Fresh water resources like rivers and reservoirs are exposed to a drastically changing world. In order to safeguard these lentic ecosystems, they need stronger protection in times of global change and population growth. In the last years, the exploitation pressure on drinking water reservoirs has increased steadily worldwide. Besides securing the demands of safe drinking water supply, international laws especially in Europe (EU Water Framework Directive) stipulate to minimize the impact of dams on downstream rivers. In this study we investigate the potential of a smart withdrawal strategy at Grosse Dhuenn Reservoir to improve the temperature and discharge regime downstream without jeopardizing drinking water production. Our aim is to improve the existing withdrawal strategy for operating the reservoir in a sustainable way in terms of water quality and quantity. First, we set-up and calibrated a 1D numerical model for Grosse Dhuenn Reservoir with the open-source community model “General Lake Model” (GLM) together with its water quality module “Aquatic Ecodynamics” library (AED2). The reservoir model reproduced water temperatures and hypolimnetic dissolved oxygen concentrations accurately over a 5 year period. Second, we extended the model source code with a selective withdrawal functionality (adaptive offtake) and added operational rules for a realistic reservoir management. Now the model is able to autonomously determine the best withdrawal height according to the temperature and flow requirements of the downstream river and the raw water quality objectives. Criteria for the determination of the withdrawal regime are selective withdrawal, development of stratification and oxygen content in the deep hypolimnion. This functionality is not available in current reservoir models, where withdrawal heights are generally provided a priori to the model and kept fixed during the simulation. Third, we ran scenario simulations identifying an improved reservoir withdrawal strategy to balance the demands for downstream river and raw water supply. Therefore we aimed at finding an optimal parallel withdrawal ratio between cold hypolimnetic water and warm epilimnetic or metalimnetic water in order to provide a pre-defined temperature in the downstream river. The reservoir model and the proposed withdrawal strategy provide a simple and efficient tool to optimize reservoir management in a multi-objective view for mastering future reservoir management challenges.
The decline of biodiversity can be observed worldwide and its consequences are alarming. It is therefore crucial that nature must be protected and, where possible, restored. A wide variety of different project options are possible. Yet in the context of limited availability of resources, the selection of the most efficient measures is increasingly important. For this purpose, there is still a lack of information. This pertains, as outlined in the next paragraph, in particular, to information at different scales of projects.
Firstly, there is a lack of information on the concrete added value of biodiversity protection projects. Secondly, there is a lack of information on the actual impacts of such projects and on the costs and benefits associated with a project. Finally, there is a lack of information on the links between the design of a project, the associated framework conditions and the perception of specific impacts. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by providing more information on the three scales by means of three empirical studies on three different biodiversity protection projects in order to help optimize future projects.
The first study “Assessing the trade-offs in more nature-friendly mosquito control in the Upper Rhine region” examines the added value of a more nature-friendly mosquito control in the Upper Rhine Valley of Germany using a contingent valuation method. Recent studies show that the widely used biocide Bti, which is used as the main mosquito control agent in many parts of the world, has more negative effects on nature than previously expected. However, it is not yet clear whether the population supports a more nature-friendly mosquito control, as such an adaptation could potentially lead to higher nuisance. This study attempts to answer this question by assessing the willingness to pay for an adapted mosquito control strategy that reduces the use of Bti, while maintaining nuisance protection within settlements. The results show that the majority of the surveyed population attaches a high value to a more nature-friendly mosquito control and is willing to accept a higher nuisance outside of the villages.
The second study “Inner city river restoration projects: the role of project components for acceptance” examines the acceptance of a river restoration project in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Despite much effort, many rivers worldwide are still in poor condition. Therefore, a rapid implementation of river restoration projects is of great importance. In this context, acceptance by society plays a fundamental role, however, the factors determining such acceptance are still poorly understood. In particular, the complex interplay between the acceptance or rejection of specific project components and the acceptance of the overall project require further exploration. This study addresses this knowledge gap by assessing the acceptance of the project, its various ecological and social components, and the perception of real and fictitious costs as well as the benefits of the components. Our findings demonstrate that while acceptance of the overall project is generally rather high, many respondents reject one or more of the project's components. Complementary social project components, like a playground, find less support than purely ecological components. Overall, our research shows that complementary components may increase or decrease acceptance of the overall project. We, furthermore, found that differences in the acceptance of the individual components depend on individual concerns, such as perceived flood risk, construction costs, expected noise and littering as well as the quality of communication, attachment to the site, and the age of the respondents.
The third study “What determines preferences for semi-natural habitats in agrarian landscapes? A choice-modelling approach across two countries using attributes characterizing vegetation” investigates people's aesthetic preferences for semi-natural habitats in agricultural landscapes. The EU-Common Agricultural Policy promotes the introduction of woody and grassy semi-natural habitats (SNH) in agricultural landscapes. While the benefits of these structures in terms of regulating ecosystem services are already well understood, the effects of SNH on visual landscape quality is still not clear. This study investigates the factors determining people’s visual preferences in the context of grassy and woody SNH elements in Swiss and Hungarian landscapes using picture-based choice experiments. The results suggest that respondents’ choices strongly depend on specific vegetation characteristics that appear and disappear over the year. In particular, flowers as a source of colours and green vegetation as well as ordered structure and the proportion of uncovered soil in the picture play an important role regarding respondents’ aesthetic perceptions of the pictures.
The three empirical studies can help to make future projects in the study areas of biodiversity protection more efficient. While this thesis highlights the importance of exploring biodiversity protection projects at different scales, further analyses of the different scales of biodiversity protection projects are needed to provide a sound basis to develop guidance on identifying the most efficient biodiversity protection projects.
The Stereotype Content Modell (SCM; Fiske et al., 2002) proposes two fundamental dimensions of social evaluation: Warmth, or the intentions of the target, and Competence, or the ability to enact these intentions. The practical applications of the SCM are very broad and have led to an assumption of universality of warmth and competence as fundamental dimensions of social evaluation.
This thesis has identified five mainly methodological shortcomings of the current SCM research and literature: (I) An insufficient initial scale development; (II) the usage of varying warmth and competence scales without sufficient scale property assessment in later research; (III) the dominant application of first-generation analytical approaches; (IV) the insufficient definition and empirical proof for the SCM’s assumption of universality; and (V) the limited application of the SCM for some social targets. These shortcomings were addressed in four article manuscripts strictly following open science recommendations.
Manuscript # 1 re-analysed published research using English SCM measures to investigate the measurement properties of the used warmth and competence scales. It reported the scales’ reliability, dimensionality and comparability across targets as well as the indicator-based parameter performance in a (multiple group) confirmatory factor analysis framework. The findings indicate that about two thirds of all re-analysed scales do not show the theoretically expected warmth and competence dimensionality. Moreover, only about eleven per cent allowed meaningful mean value comparisons between targets. Manuscript # 2 presents a replication of Manuscript # 1 in the national and language of German(y) generating virtually identical results as Manuscript # 1 did. Manuscript # 3 investigated the stereotype content of refugee subgroups in Germany. We showed that refugees was generally perceived unfavourably in terms of warmth and competence, but that the stereotype content varied based on the refugees’ geographic origin, religious affiliation, and flight motive. These results were generated using a reliability-corrected approach to compare mean values named alignment optimisation procedure. Manuscript # 4 developed and tested a high-performing SCM scale assessing occupational stereotypes a number of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses.
In this thesis, I study the spectral characteristics of large dynamic networks and formulate the spectral evolution model. The spectral evolution model applies to networks that evolve over time, and describes their spectral decompositions such as the eigenvalue and singular value decomposition. The spectral evolution model states that over time, the eigenvalues of a network change while its eigenvectors stay approximately constant.
I validate the spectral evolution model empirically on over a hundred network datasets, and theoretically by showing that it generalizes arncertain number of known link prediction functions, including graph kernels, path counting methods, rank reduction and triangle closing. The collection of datasets I use contains 118 distinct network datasets. One dataset, the signed social network of the Slashdot Zoo, was specifically extracted during work on this thesis. I also show that the spectral evolution model can be understood as a generalization of the preferential attachment model, if we consider growth in latent dimensions of a network individually. As applications of the spectral evolution model, I introduce two new link prediction algorithms that can be used for recommender systems, search engines, collaborative filtering, rating prediction, link sign prediction and more.
The first link prediction algorithm reduces to a one-dimensional curve fitting problem from which a spectral transformation is learned. The second method uses extrapolation of eigenvalues to predict future eigenvalues. As special cases, I show that the spectral evolution model applies to directed, undirected, weighted, unweighted, signed and bipartite networks. For signed graphs, I introduce new applications of the Laplacian matrix for graph drawing, spectral clustering, and describe new Laplacian graph kernels. I also define the algebraic conflict, a measure of the conflict present in a signed graph based on the signed graph Laplacian. I describe the problem of link sign prediction spectrally, and introduce the signed resistance distance. For bipartite and directed graphs, I introduce the hyperbolic sine and odd Neumann kernels, which generalize the exponential and Neumann kernels for undirected unipartite graphs. I show that the problem of directed and bipartite link prediction are related by the fact that both can be solved by considering spectral evolution in the singular value decomposition.
On the recognition of human activities and the evaluation of its imitation by robotic systems
(2023)
This thesis addresses the problem of action recognition through the analysis of human motion and the benchmarking of its imitation by robotic systems.
For our action recognition related approaches, we focus on presenting approaches that generalize well across different sensor modalities. We transform multivariate signal streams from various sensors to a common image representation. The action recognition problem on sequential multivariate signal streams can then be reduced to an image classification task for which we utilize recent advances in machine learning. We demonstrate the broad applicability of our approaches formulated as a supervised classification task for action recognition, a semi-supervised classification task for one-shot action recognition, modality fusion and temporal action segmentation.
For action classification, we use an EfficientNet Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model to classify the image representations of various data modalities. Further, we present approaches for filtering and the fusion of various modalities on a representation level. We extend the approach to be applicable for semi-supervised classification and train a metric-learning model that encodes action similarity. During training, the encoder optimizes the distances in embedding space for self-, positive- and negative-pair similarities. The resulting encoder allows estimating action similarity by calculating distances in embedding space. At training time, no action classes from the test set are used.
Graph Convolutional Network (GCN) generalized the concept of CNNs to non-Euclidean data structures and showed great success for action recognition directly operating on spatio-temporal sequences like skeleton sequences. GCNs have recently shown state-of-the-art performance for skeleton-based action recognition but are currently widely neglected as the foundation for the fusion of various sensor modalities. We propose incorporating additional modalities, like inertial measurements or RGB features, into a skeleton-graph, by proposing fusion on two different dimensionality levels. On a channel dimension, modalities are fused by introducing additional node attributes. On a spatial dimension, additional nodes are incorporated into the skeleton-graph.
Transformer models showed excellent performance in the analysis of sequential data. We formulate the temporal action segmentation task as an object detection task and use a detection transformer model on our proposed motion image representations. Experiments for our action recognition related approaches are executed on large-scale publicly available datasets. Our approaches for action recognition for various modalities, action recognition by fusion of various modalities, and one-shot action recognition demonstrate state-of-the-art results on some datasets.
Finally, we present a hybrid imitation learning benchmark. The benchmark consists of a dataset, metrics, and a simulator integration. The dataset contains RGB-D image sequences of humans performing movements and executing manipulation tasks, as well as the corresponding ground truth. The RGB-D camera is calibrated against a motion-capturing system, and the resulting sequences serve as input for imitation learning approaches. The resulting policy is then executed in the simulated environment on different robots. We propose two metrics to assess the quality of the imitation. The trajectory metric gives insights into how close the execution was to the demonstration. The effect metric describes how close the final state was reached according to the demonstration. The Simitate benchmark can improve the comparability of imitation learning approaches.
In Part I: "The flow-decomposition problem", we introduce and discuss the flow-decomposition problem. Given a flow F, this problem consists of decomposing the flow into a set of paths optimizing specific properties of those paths. We introduce different types of decompositions, such as integer decompositions and alpha-decompositions, and provide two formulations of the set of feasible decompositions.
We show that the problem of minimizing the longest path in a decomposition is NP-hard, even for fractional solutions. Then we develop an algorithm based on column generation which is able to solve the problem.
Tight upper bounds on the optimal objective value help to improve the performance.
To find upper bounds on the optimal solution for the shortest longest path problem, we develop several heuristics and analyze their quality. On pearl graphs we prove a constant approximation ratio of 2 and 3 respectively for all heuristics. A numerical study on random pearl graphs shows that the solutions generated by the heuristics are usually much better than this worst-case bound.
In Part II: "Construction and analysis of evacuation models using flows over time", we consider two optimization models in the context of evacuation planning. The first model is a parameter-based quickest flow model with time-dependent supply values. We give a detailed description of the network construction and of how different scenarios are modeled by scenario parameters. In a second step we analyze the effect of the scenario parameters on the evacuation time. Understanding how the different parameters influence the evacuation time allows us to provide better advice for evacuation planning and allows us to predict evacuation times without solving additional optimization problems. To understand the effect of the time-dependent supply values, we consider the quickest path problem with time-dependent supply values and provide a solution algorithm. The results from this consideration are generalized to approximate the behavior of the evacuation times in the context of quickest flow problems.
The second model we consider is a path-based model for evacuation in the presence of a dynamic cost function. We discuss the challenges of this model and provide ideas for how to approach the problem from different angles. We relate the problem to the flow-decomposition problem and consider the computation of evacuation paths with dynamic costs for large capacities. For the latter method we provide heuristics to find paths and compare them to the optimal solutions by applying the methods to two evacuation scenarios. An analysis shows that the paths generated by the heuristic yield close to optimal solutions and in addition have several desirable properties for evacuation paths which are not given for the optimal solution.
The stands surveyed are among the last closed canopy forests in Rwanda. Their exploration began in the early twentieth century and is still ongoing. Previous studies were mainly concerned with plant sociological issues and presented references to environmental factors in anecdotal form, at best using indirect ordination methods. The present study undertakes a classification of the vegetation with numerical methods and establishes quantitative relationships of the species’ distributional structure to environmental parameters using spatially explicit procedures. For this purpose, 94 samples were taken in 100 m² hexagonal plots. Of these, 70 samples are from Nyungwe, 14 are from Gishwati, and 10 are from Cyamudongo. Given the homogeneity of the terrain and vegetation, all vegetation types encountered, all types of stands, and all vegetation strata were included. The beta diversity is expressed by an average Bray-Curtis dissimilarity of 0.92, and in JOST’S (2007) numbers equivalents, 37.90 equally likely samples would be needed to represent the diversity encountered. Within the survey, 1198 species in 127 families were collected. Among the specimens are 6 local endemics and 40 Albertine Rift endemics. Resulting from UPGMA and FCM-NC, 20 to 40 plant communities were established depending on the level of resolution. It can be inferred by means of a Mantel correlogram that the mean zone of influence of a single vegetation stand, as sampled by a 100 m² plot in Nyungwe Forest, ranges between 0.016 and 3.42 km. Of the communities compiled using FCM-NC and UPGMA, 50% consist of individual samples. Beyond undersampling, natural small-scale discontinuities are reflected by this result. Partial db-RDA resulted in an explained variation of 9.60% and 14.41% for environmental and soil factors, respectively. Utilising variation partitioning analyses based on CCA and tb-RDA, between 21.70% and 37.80% of the variation in vegetation data could be explained. The spatially structured fraction of these parameters accounts for between 30.50% and 49.80% of the explained variation (100%). The purely environmental parameters account for a share of 10.30% to 16.30%, whereby the lower limit originates from the unimodal approach and has lost its statistical significance. The soil variables, also after partial analysis, account for a share of 19.00% to 35.70%. While the residual impact of the climatic parameters is hardly significant, the effect of the soil properties is prevalent. In general, the spatially structured fraction of the parameters is predominant here. While on the broad-scale climatic factors, the altitude a.s.l. and the geology are determining factors, some soil parameters and matrix components also show their impacts here. In the mid-range of the scale, it is the forest matrix, the soil types, and the geology that determine species distribution. While in the fine range of the scale, some unrecorded parameters seem to have an effect, there are also neutral processes that determine species composition.
While reading this sentence, you probably gave (more or less deliberately) instructions to approximately 100 to 200 muscles of your body. A sceptical face or a smile, your fingers scrolling through the text or holding a printed version of this work, holding your head, sitting, and much more.
All these processes take place almost automatically, so they seem to be no real achievement. In the age of digitalization it is a defined goal to transfer human (psychological and physiological) behavior to machines (robots). However, it turns out that it is indeed laborious to obtain human facial expression or walking from robots. To optimize this transfer, a deeper understanding of a muscle's operating principle is needed (and of course an understanding of the human brain, which will, however, not be part of this thesis).
A human skeletal muscle can be shortened willingly, but not lengthened, thereto it takes an antagonist. The muscle's change in length is dependent on the incoming stimulus from the central nervous system, the current length of the muscle itself, and certain muscle--specific quantities (parameters) such as the maximum force. Hence, a muscle can be mathematically described by a differential equation (or more exactly a coupled differential--algebraic system, DAE), whose structure will be revealed in the following chapters. The theory of differential equations is well-elaborated. A multitude of applicable methods exist that may not be known by muscle modelers. The purpose of this work is to link the methods from applied mathematics to the actual application in biomechanics.
The first part of this thesis addresses stability theory. Let us remember the prominent example from middle school physics, in which the resting position of a ball was obviously less susceptible towards shoves when lying in a bowl rather than balancing at the tip of a hill. Similarly, a dynamical (musculo-skeletal) system can attain equilibrium states that react differently towards perturbations.
We are going to compute and classify these equilibria.
In the second part, we investigate the influence of individual parameters on model equations or more exactly their solutions. This method is known as sensitivity analysis.
Take for example the system "car" containing a value for the quantity "pressure on the break pedal while approaching a traffic light". A minor deviation of this quantity upward or downward may lead to an uncomfortable, abrupt stop or even to a collision, instead of a smooth stop with a sufficient gap.
The considered muscle model contains over 20 parameters that, if changed slightly, have varying effects on the model equation solutions at different instants of time. We will investigate the sensitivity of those parameters regarding different sub--models, as well as the whole model among different dynamical boundary conditions.
The third and final part addresses the \textit{optimal control} problem (OCP).
The muscle turns a nerve impulse (input or control) into a length change and therefore a force response (output). This forward process is computable by solving the respective DAE. The reverse direction is more difficult to manage. As an everyday example, the OCP is present regarding self-parking cars, where a given path is targeted and the controls are the position of the
steering wheel as well as the gas pedal.
We present two methods of solving OCPs in muscle modeling: the first is a conjunction of variational calculus and optimization in function spaces, the second is a surrogate-based optimization.
Through the increasing availability of access to the web, more and more interactions between people take place in online social networks, such as Twitter or Facebook, or sites where opinions can be exchanged. At the same time, knowledge is made openly available for many people, such as by the biggest collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia and diverse information in Internet forums and on websites. These two kinds of networks - social networks and knowledge networks - are highly dynamic in the sense that the links that contain the important information about the relationships between people or the relations between knowledge items are frequently updated or changed. These changes follow particular structural patterns and characteristics that are far less random than expected.
The goal of this thesis is to predict three characteristic link patterns for the two network types of interest: the addition of new links, the removal of existing links and the presence of latent negative links. First, we show that the prediction of link removal is indeed a new and challenging problem. Even if the sociological literature suggests that reasons for the formation and resolution of ties are often complementary, we show that the two respective prediction problems are not. In particular, we show that the dynamics of new links and unlinks lead to the four link states of growth, decay, stability and instability. For knowledge networks we show that the prediction of link changes greatly benefits from the usage of temporal information; the timestamp of link creation and deletion events improves the prediction of future link changes. For that, we present and evaluate four temporal models that resemble different exploitation strategies. Focusing on directed social networks, we conceptualize and evaluate sociological constructs that explain the formation and dissolution of relationships between users. Measures based on information about past relationships are extremely valuable for predicting the dissolution of social ties. Hence, consistent for knowledge networks and social networks, temporal information in a network greatly improves the prediction quality. Turning again to social networks, we show that negative relationship information such as distrust or enmity can be predicted from positive known relationships in the network. This is particularly interesting in networks where users cannot label their relationships to other users as negative. For this scenario we show how latent negative relationships can be predicted.
Stream ecosystems are one of the most threatened ecosystems worldwide due to their exposure to diverse anthropogenic stressors. Pesticides appear to be the most relevant stressor for agricultural streams. Due to the current mismatch of modelled and measured pesticide concentrations, monitoring is necessary to inform risk assessment or improve future pesticide approvals. Knowing if biotic stress responses are similar across large scales and long time frames could ultimately help in estimating protective stressor thresholds.
This thesis starts with an overview of entry pathways of pesticides to streams as well as the framework of current pesticide monitoring and gives an outline of the objectives of the thesis. In chapter 2, routine monitoring data based on grab sampling from several countries is analysed to identify the most frequently occurring pesticide mixtures. These mixtures are comprised of relatively low numbers of pesticides, of which herbicides are dominating. The detected pesticide mixtures differ between regions and countries, due to differences in the spectrum of analysed compounds and limits of quantification. Current routine monitoring does not include sampling during pesticide peaks associated with heavy rainfall events which likely influences the detected pesticide mixtures. In chapter 3, sampling rates of 42 organic pesticides for passive sampling are provided together with recommendations for the monitoring of field-relevant peaks. Using this information, in chapter 4 a pesticide gradient is established in an Eastern European region where agricultural intensity adjacent to sampled streams ranges from low to high. In contrast to current routine monitoring, rainfall events were sampled and a magnitude of pesticides were analysed. This led to the simultaneous detection of numerous pesticides of which one to three drive the pesticide toxicity. The toxicity, however, showed no relationship to the agricultural intensity. Using microcosms, the stress responses of fungal communities, the hyphomycetes, and the related ecosystem function of leaf decomposition, is investigated in chapter 5. Effects of a field-relevant fungicide mixture are examined across three biogeographical regions for three consecutive cycles of microbial leaf colonisation and decomposition. Despite different initial communities, stress responses as well as recoveries were similar across biogeographical regions, indicating a general pattern.
Overall, this thesis contributes to an improved understanding of occurrence and concentrations of pesticides mixtures in streams, their monitoring and impact on an ecosystem function. We showed that estimated pesticide toxicities reach levels that affect non-target organisms and thereby potentially whole ecosystems. Routine monitoring, however, likely underestimates the threat by pesticides. Effects leading to a loss in biodiversity or functions in streams ecosystems can be reduced by reassessing approved pesticides with ongoing targeted monitoring and increased knowledge of effects caused by these pesticides.
More than 10,000 organic chemicals such as pharmaceuticals, ingredients of personal care products and biocides are ubiquitously used in every day life. After their application, many of these chemicals enter the domestic sewer. Research has shown that conventional biological wastewater treatment in municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is an insufficient barrier for the release of most of these anthropogenic chemicals into the receiving waters.
This bears unforeseen risks for aquatic wildlife and drinking water resources. Especially for recently introduced and/or detected compounds (so called emerging micropollutants), there is a growing need to investigate the occurrence and fate in WWTPs. In order to get a comprehensive picture on the behavior in municipal wastewater treatment, the following groups of emerging organic micropollutants, spanning a broad range of applications and physico-chemical properties, were selected as target compounds: pharmaceuticals (beta blockers, psycho-active drugs), UV-filters, vulcanization accelerators (benzothiazoles), biocides (anti-dandruffs, preservatives, disinfectants) and pesticides (phenylurea and triazine herbicides).
Initial goal of the current dissertation was the determination of image-based biomarkers sensitive for neurodegenerative processes in the human brain. One such process is the demyelination of neural cells characteristic for Multiple sclerosis (MS) - the most common neurological disease in young adults for which there is no cure yet. Conventional MRI techniques are very effective in localizing areas of brain tissue damage and are thus a reliable tool for the initial MS diagnosis. However, a mismatch between the clinical fndings and the visualized areas of damage is observed, which renders the use of the standard MRI diffcult for the objective disease monitoring and therapy evaluation. To address this problem, a novel algorithm for the fast mapping of myelin water content using standard multiecho gradient echo acquisitions of the human brain is developed in the current work. The method extents a previously published approach for the simultaneous measurement of brain T1, T∗ 2 and total water content. Employing the multiexponential T∗ 2 decay signal of myelinated tissue, myelin water content is measured based on the quantifcation of two water pools (myelin water and rest) with different relaxation times. Whole brain in vivo myelin water content maps are acquired in 10 healthy controls and one subject with MS. The in vivo results obtained are consistent with previous reports. The acquired quantitative data have a high potential in the context of MS. However, the parameters estimated in a multiparametric acquisition are correlated and constitute therefore an ill-posed, nontrivial data analysis problem. Motivated by this specific problem, a new data clustering approach is developed called Nuclear Potential Clustering, NPC. It is suitable for the explorative analysis of arbitrary dimensional and possibly correlated data without a priori assumptions about its structure. The developed algorithm is based on a concept adapted from nuclear physics. To partition the data, the dynamic behavior of electrically even charged nucleons interacting in a d-dimensional feature space is modeled. An adaptive nuclear potential, comprised of a short-range attractive (Strong interaction) and a long-range repulsive term (Coulomb potential), is assigned to each data point. Thus, nucleons that are densely distributed in space fuse to build nuclei (clusters), whereas single point clusters are repelled (noise). The algorithm is optimized and tested in an extensive study with a series of synthetic datasets as well as the Iris data. The results show that it can robustly identify clusters even when complex configurations and noise are present. Finally, to address the initial goal, quantitative MRI data of 42 patients are analyzed employing NPC. A series of experiments with different sets of image-based features show a consistent grouping tendency: younger patients with low disease grade are recognized as cohesive clusters, while those of higher age and impairment are recognized as outliers. This allows for the definition of a reference region in a feature space associated with phenotypic data. Tracking of the individual's positions therein can disclose patients at risk and be employed for therapy evaluation.
Non-Consumptive Effects of Spiders and Ants: Does Fear Matter in Terrestrial Interaction Webs?
(2014)
Most animals suffer from predators. Besides killing prey, predators can affect prey physiology, morphology and behaviour. Spiders are among the most diverse and frequent predators in terrestrial ecosystems. Our behavioural arena experiments revealed that behavioural changes under spider predation risk are relatively scarce among arthropods. Wood crickets (Nemobius sylvestris), in particular, changed their behaviour in response to cues of various spider species. Thereby, more common and relatively larger spider species induced stronger antipredator behaviour in crickets.
Behavioural changes under predation risk are expected to enhance predator avoidance, but they come at a cost. Crickets previously confronted with cues of the nursery web spider (Pisaura mirabilis) were indeed more successful in avoiding predation. Surprisingly, crickets slightly increased food uptake and lost less weight under predation risk, indicating that crickets are able to compensate for short-term cost under predation risk. In a following plant choice experiment, crickets strongly avoided plants bearing spider cues, which in turn reduced the herbivory on the respective plants.
Similar to spiders, ants are ubiquitous predators and can have a strong impact on herbivores, but also on other predators. Juvenile spiders increased their propensity for long-distance dispersal if exposed to ant cues. Thus, spiders use this passive dispersal through the air (ballooning) to avoid ants and colonise new habitats.
In a field experiment, we compared arthropod colonisation between plants bearing cues of the nursery web spider and cue-free plants. We followed herbivory during the experimental period and sampled the arthropod community on the plants. In accordance with the plant choice experiment, herbivory was reduced on plants bearing spider cues. In addition, spider cues led to changes in the arthropod community: smaller spiders and black garden ants (Lasius niger) avoided plants bearing spider cues. In contrast, common red ants (Myrmica rubra) increased the recruitment of workers, possibly to protect their aphids.
Although behavioural changes were relatively rare on filter papers bearing spider cues, more natural experimental setups revealed strong and far-reaching effects of predation risk. We further suggest that risk effects influence the spatial distribution of herbivory, rather than reduce overall herbivory that is expected if predators kill herbivores. Consequently, the relative importance of predation and risk effects is crucial for the way predators affect lower trophic levels.
Grapevine growers have struggled with defending their crops against pests and diseases since the domestication of grapevine over 6000 ears ago. Since then, new growing methods paired with a better nderstanding of the ecological processes in the vineyard ecosystem continue to improve quality and quantity of grape harvests. In this thesis I am describing the effects of two recent innovations in viticulture on pest and beneficial arthropods in vineyards; Fungus-resistant grapevine cultivars (PIWIs) and the pruning system semi-minimal pruned hedge (SMPH). The SMPH pruning system allows for a drastic reduction of manual labor in the vineyard, and PIWIs are resistant to two of the most common fungal diseases of grapevine and therefore allow a drastic reduction of fungicide applications compared to conventional varieties. Heavy use of pesticides is linked to a number of problems, including pollution of waterways, negative effects on human health, and biodiversity loss. Here, I studied the effects of fungicide reduction and minimal pruning on arthropods that are beneficial for natural pest suppression in the vineyard ecosystem such as predatory mites, spiders, ants, earwigs, and lacewings. All of these groups either benefitted from the reduction of fungicide sprayings or were not significantly affected. Structural changes in the canopy of SMPH grapevines altered the microclimate in the canopy which in turn influenced some of the arthropods living in it. Overall, my findings suggest that PIWIs and SMPH, both in combination or separately, improve conditions for natural pest control. This adds to other advantages of these innovative management practices such as a reduction in production cost and a smaller impact on the environment.