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Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) aims to raise the level of abstraction in software system specifications and increase automation in software development. Modelware technological spaces contain the languages and tools for MDE that software developers take into consideration to model systems and domains. Ontoware technological spaces contain ontology languages and technologies to design, query, and reason on knowledge. With the advent of the Semantic Web, ontologies are now being used within the field of software development, as well. In this thesis, bridging technologies are developed to combine two technological spaces in general. Transformation bridges translate models between spaces, mapping bridges relate different models between two spaces, and, integration bridges merge spaces to new all-embracing technological spaces. API bridges establish interoperability between the tools used in the space. In particular, this thesis focuses on the combination of modelware and ontoware technological spaces. Subsequent to a sound comparison of languages and tools in both spaces, the integration bridge is used to build a common technological space, which allows for the hybrid use of languages and the interoperable use of tools. The new space allows for language and domain engineering. Ontology-based software languages may be designed in the new space where syntax and formal semantics are defined with the support of ontology languages, and the correctness of language models is ensured by the use of ontology reasoning technologies. These languages represent a core means for exploiting expressive ontology reasoning in the software modeling domain, while remaining flexible enough to accommodate varying needs of software modelers. Application domains are conceptually described by languages that allow for defining domain instances and types within one domain model. Integrated ontology languages may provide formal semantics for domain-specific languages and ontology technologies allow for reasoning over types and instances in domain models. A scenario in which configurations for network device families are modeled illustrates the approaches discussed in this thesis. Furthermore, the implementation of all bridging technologies for the combination of technological spaces and all tools for ontology-based language engineering and use is illustrated.
Eine zutreffende Diagnose über den aktuellen Kenntnisstand der jeweiligen Schülerinnen und Schüler ist notwendig, um adäquat in Gruppenarbeitsprozesse intervenieren zu können. Von diesem Zusammenhang wird in der Literatur weit-gehend ausgegangen, jedoch gibt es bisher kaum empirische Studien, die diesen belegen. Die vorliegende Arbeit widmet sich schwerpunktmäßig dem Interventi-onsverhalten von Studierenden. Dabei wird die prozessdiagnostische Fähigkeit „Deuten“ zugrundegelegt, um unterschiedliches Interventionsverhalten auf diese Fähigkeit zurückführen zu können. Sowohl beim Aufbau diagnostischer Fähig-keiten als auch bei der (Weiter-)Entwicklung des eigenen Lehrerhandelns gilt Reflexion als hilfreich. Entsprechend wird auch das Zusammenspiel von Pro-zessdiagnose und Reflexionsverhalten sowie von Interventionsverhalten und Reflexionsverhalten untersucht.
Für die Erhebung der prozessdiagnostischen Fähigkeit „Deuten“ wurden drei Videovignetten erstellt und in das Videodiagnosetool ViviAn eingebunden. Die Videovignetten zeigen jeweils vier Schülerinnen, die sich mit dem Thema „Ter-me“ beschäftigen. Im Rahmen eines Lehr-Lern-Labores wurden über vier Se-mester hinweg alle teilnehmenden Studierenden dazu angehalten, die Videovig-netten zu bearbeiten. Ebenso konzipierten sie jeweils zu dritt eine Laborstation im Mathematik-Labor „Mathe ist mehr“ und erprobten diese mit einer Schul-klasse. Dabei wurden die Interventionen der Studierenden in die Gruppenarbeits-prozesse der Schülerinnen und Schüler videographiert. Anschließend reflektierten die Studierenden in Kleingruppen über die Erprobungen und über die getätigten Interventionen. Die Reflexionsgespräche wurden ebenfalls videographiert.
Es zeigt sich, dass die Studierenden, die sich zum Zeitpunkt der Erhebung im Masterstudium befanden, noch Entwicklungsspielraum in Bezug auf ihre pro-zessdiagnostische Fähigkeit „Deuten“ besitzen. Im Hinblick auf die Interventio-nen waren responsive Interventionen häufiger angemessen als invasive Interven-tionen, wobei responsive Internvetionen auch vergleichsweise häufiger dazu führten, dass mehr Schülerinnen und Schüler nach der Intervention aktiv waren. Studierende mit höherer prozessdiagnostischer Fähigkeit „Deuten“ intervenierten jedoch häufiger invasiv und tätigten dabei trotzdem angemessenere und aktivie-rendere Interventionen als ihre Kommilitoninnen und Kommilitonen. Entspre-chend scheint sich die prozessdiagnostische Fähigkeit „Deuten“ positiv auf die Interventionen der Studierenden auszuwirken und sollte daher bereits im Rah-men des (Lehramts-)Studiums verstärkt geschult werden.
Retrospektive Analyse der Ausbreitung und dynamische Erkennung von Web-Tracking durch Sandboxing
(2018)
Aktuelle quantitative Analysen von Web-Tracking bieten keinen umfassenden Überblick über dessen Entstehung, Ausbreitung und Entwicklung. Diese Arbeit ermöglicht durch Auswertung archivierter Webseiten eine rückblickende Erfassung der Entstehungsgeschichte des Web-Trackings zwischen den Jahren 2000 und 2015. Zu diesem Zweck wurde ein geeignetes Werkzeug entworfen, implementiert, evaluiert und zur Analyse von 10000 Webseiten eingesetzt. Während im Jahr 2005 durchschnittlich 1,17 Ressourcen von Drittparteien eingebettet wurden, zeigt sich ein Anstieg auf 6,61 in den darauffolgenden 10 Jahren. Netzwerkdiagramme visualisieren den Trend zu einer monopolisierten Netzstruktur, in der bereits ein einzelnes Unternehmen 80 % der Internetnutzung überwachen kann.
Trotz vielfältiger Versuche, dieser Entwicklung durch technische Maßnahmen entgegenzuwirken, erweisen sich nur wenige Selbst- und Systemschutzmaßnahmen als wirkungsvoll. Diese gehen häufig mit einem Verlust der Funktionsfähigkeit einer Webseite oder mit einer Einschränkung der Nutzbarkeit des Browsers einher. Mit der vorgestellten Studie wird belegt, dass rechtliche Vorschriften ebenfalls keinen hinreichenden Schutz bieten. An Webauftritten von Bildungseinrichtungen werden Mängel bei Erfüllung der datenschutzrechtlichen Pflichten festgestellt. Diese zeigen sich durch fehlende, fehlerhafte oder unvollständige Datenschutzerklärungen, deren Bereitstellung zu den Informationspflichten eines Diensteanbieters gehören.
Die alleinige Berücksichtigung klassischer Tracker ist nicht ausreichend, wie mit einer weiteren Studie nachgewiesen wird. Durch die offene Bereitstellung funktionaler Webseitenbestandteile kann ein Tracking-Unternehmen die Abdeckung von 38 % auf 61 % erhöhen. Diese Situation wird durch Messungen von Webseiten aus dem Gesundheitswesen belegt und aus technischer sowie rechtlicher Perspektive bewertet.
Bestehende systemische Werkzeuge zum Erfassen von Web-Tracking verwenden für ihre Messung die Schnittstellen der Browser. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird mit DisTrack ein Framework zur Web-Tracking-Analyse vorgestellt, welches eine Sandbox-basierte Messmethodik verfolgt. Dies ist eine Vorgehensweise, die in der dynamischen Schadsoftwareanalyse erfolgreich eingesetzt wird und sich auf das Erkennen von Seiteneffekten auf das umliegende System spezialisiert. Durch diese Verhaltensanalyse, die unabhängig von den Schnittstellen des Browsers operiert, wird eine ganzheitliche Untersuchung des Browsers ermöglicht. Auf diese Weise können systemische Schwachstellen im Browser aufgezeigt werden, die für speicherbasierte Web-Tracking-Verfahren nutzbar sind.
German politicians have identified a need for greater citizen involvement in decision-making than in the past, as confirmed by a recent German parliamentarians study ("DEUPAS"). As in other forms of social interactions, the Internet provides significant potential to serve as the digital interface between citizens and decision-makers: in the recent past, dedicated electronic participation ("e-participation") platforms (e.g. dedicated websites) have been provided by politicians and governments in an attempt to gather citizens" feedback and comment on a particular issue or subject. Some of these have been successful, but a large proportion of them are grossly under-used " often only small numbers of citizens use them. Over the same time period, enthusiasm of Society for social networks has increased and is now commonplace. Many citizens use social networks such as Facebook and Twitter for all kinds of purposes, and in some cases to discuss political issues.
Social networks are therefore obviously attractive to politicians " from local government to federal agencies, politicians have integrated social media into their daily work. However, there is a significant challenge regarding the usefulness of social networks. The problem is the continuous increase in digital information: social networks contain vast amounts of information, and it is impossible for a human to manually filter the relevant information from the irrelevant (so-called "information overload"). Even using the search tools provided by social networks, it is still a huge task for a human to determine meanings and themes from the multitude of search results. New technologies and concepts have been proposed to provide summaries of masses of information through lexical analysis of social media messages, and therefore they promise an easy and quick overview of the information.
This thesis examines the relevance of these analyses" results, for the use in everyday political life, with the emphasis on the social networks Facebook and Twitter as data sources. Here we make use of the WeGov Toolbox and its analysis components that were developed during the EU project WeGov. The assessment has been performed in consultation with actual policy-makers from different levels of German government: policy-makers from the German Federal Parliament, the State Parliament North Rhine-Westphalia, the State Chancellery of the Saarland and the cities of Cologne and Kempten all took part in the study. Our method was to execute the analyses on data collected from Facebook and Twitter, and present the results to the policy-makers, who would then evaluate them using a mixture of qualitative methods.
The responses of the participants have provided us with some useful conclusions:
1) None of the participants believe that e-participation is possible in this way. But participants confirm that "citizen-friendliness" can be supported by this approach.
2) The most likely users for the summarisation tools are those who have experience with social networks, but are not "power users". The reason being is that "power users" already knew the relevant information provided by analysis tools. But without any experiences for social networks it is hard to interpret the analysis results the right way.
3) The evaluation has considered geographical aspects, and related this to e.g. a politician- constituency as a local area of social networks. Comparing the rural to the urban areas, it is shown that the amount of relevant political information in the rural areas is low. While the proportion of publicly available information in urban areas is relatively high, the proportion in the rural areas is much lower.
The findings that result from the engagement with policy-makers will be systematically surveyed and validated within this thesis.
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.
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.
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.
Groundwater is essential for the provision of drinking water in many areas around the world. The ecosystem services provided by groundwater-related organisms are crucial for the quality of groundwater-bearing aquifers. Therefore, if remediation of contaminated groundwater is necessary, the remediation method has to be carefully selected to avoid risk-risk trade-offs that might impact these valuable ecosystems. In the present thesis, the ecotoxicity of the in situ remediation agent Carbo-Iron (a composite of zero valent nano-iron and active carbon) was investigated, an estimation of its environmental risk was performed, and the risk and benefit of a groundwater remediation with Carbo-Iron were comprehensively analysed.
At the beginning of the work on the present thesis, a sound assessment of the environmental risks of nanomaterials was impeded by a lack of guidance documents, resulting in many uncertainties on selection of suitable test methods and a low comparability of test results from different studies with similar nanomaterials. The reasons for the low comparability were based on methodological aspects of the testing procedures before and during the toxicity testing. Therefore, decision trees were developed as a tool to systematically decide on ecotoxicity test procedures for nanomaterials. Potential effects of Carbo-Iron on embryonic, juvenile and adult life stages of zebrafish (Danio rerio) and the amphipod Hyalella azteca were investigated in acute and chronic tests. These tests were based on existing OECD and EPA test guidelines (OECD, 1992a, 2013a, 2013b; US EPA, 2000) to facilitate the use of the obtained effect data in the risk assessment. Additionally, the uptake of particles into the test organisms was investigated using microscopic methods. In zebrafish embryos, effects of Carbo-Iron on gene expression were investigated. The obtained ecotoxicity data were complemented by studies with the waterflea Daphnia magna, the algae Scenedesmus vacuolatus, larvae of the insect species Chironomus riparius and nitrifying soil microorganisms.
In the fish embryo test, no passage of Carbo-Iron particles into the perivitelline space or the embryo was observed. In D. rerio and H. azteca, Carbo-Iron was detected in the gut at the end of exposure, but no passage into the surrounding tissue was detected. Carbo-Iron had no significant effect on soil microorganisms and on survival and growth of fish. However, it had significant effects on the growth, feeding rate and reproduction of H. azteca and on survival and reproduction in D. magna. Additionally, the development rate of C. riparius and the cell volume of S. vacuolatus were negatively influenced.
A predicted no effect concentration of 0.1 mg/L was derived from the ecotoxicity studies based on the no-effect level determined in the reproduction test with D. magna and an assessment factor of 10. It was compared to measured and modelled environmental concentrations for Carbo-Iron after application to an aquifer contaminated with chlorohydrocarbons in a field study. Based on these concentrations, risk quotients were derived. Additionally, the overall environmental risk before and after Carbo-Iron application was assessed to verify whether the chances for a risk-risk trade-off by the remediation of the contaminated site could be minimized. With the data used in the present study, a reduced environmental risk was identified after the application of Carbo-Iron. Thus, the benefit of remediation with Carbo-Iron outweighs potential negative effects on the environment.
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.
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.
