The content aggregator platform Reddit has established itself as one of the most popular websites in the world. However, scientific research on Reddit is hindered as Reddit allows (and even encourages) user anonymity, i.e., user profiles do not contain personal information such as the gender. Inferring the gender of users in large-scale could enable the analysis of gender-specific areas of interest, reactions to events, and behavioral patterns. In this direction, this thesis suggests a machine learning approach of estimating the gender of Reddit users. By exploiting specific conventions in parts of the website, we obtain a ground truth for more than 190 million comments of labeled users. This data is then used to train machine learning classifiers to use them to gain insights about the gender balance of particular subreddits and the platform in general. By comparing a variety of different approaches for classification algorithm, we find that character-level convolutional neural network achieves performance with an 82.3% F1 score on a task of predicting a gender of a user based on his/her comments. The score surpasses 85% mark for frequent users with more than 50 comments. Furthermore, we discover that female users are less active on Reddit platform, they write fewer comments and post in fewer subreddits on average, when compared to male users.

The primary aims of the study are (1) to identify classroom instructional factors which have a crucial effect on the academic growth of ninth-graders in EFL in Vietnam, and (2) to gain insight into their interplay with each other and with context factors. Besides, this study has a strong focus on methodological approaches: (a) using multiple methods in order to deal with the “large p, small n” problem, (b) to understand the relevance of the scaling model used for the results. Data from a research project carried out in Vietnam during the school year 2006–2007 were used in this study. Besides a longitudinal design with two measurement points (MPs) using adapted English tests and questionnaires from the DESI-study in Germany, a video study was conducted in the middle of the school year between two MPs. The recorded video data were transcribed, micro-analytically coded, and lessons were rated to gain indicators of classroom instruction. Different IRT scaling models were chosen to estimate student ability in the pretest and posttest. For the C-test, the unidimensional 1PL and 2PL models, the Rasch testlet model, and testlet 2PL model were selected to model student ability. To estimate student ability via the listening comprehension test (LC-test), the Rasch model, the unidimensional 2PL, and 3PL models were applied. The student ability estimates at the two MPs were linked to one common scale using the concurrent calibration approach with different a priori ability distributions. The plausible values (PVs) were generated and treated as student ability estimates for all analyses. To understand the relationship between the instructional variables and student growth, we explored the hypothesized linear and nonlinear, additive and interactive effects of classroom instructional factors. To examine these hypothetical effects, OLS and regularized regression models using lasso (least absolute shrinkage and selection operators) were applied, including main effects as well as quadratic and interaction terms of instructional variables. Initial student ability and the socioeconomic status of students were treated as context variables. The results show, on the one hand, a positive view of important general instructional quality dimensions of teaching effectiveness and, on the other hand, a strongly teacher-centered and textbook-driven instruction and poor instructional quality from the point of view of EFL didactics. The most important instructional factors of student growth in the C-test were quality aspects of motivation in instruction as well as aspects related to the teaching language. Regarding the LC-test results, language-related aspects together with the relative frequency of repeated questions were the most important predictors of student growth. While the findings confirmed all the hypothesized instructional effects on student growth, aptitude treatment interaction effects of instruction were only confirmed with regard to student growth in the C-test. The different scaling models produced significant differences in the results regarding instructional effects on student growth.

Ordnung zur Änderung der Einschreibeordnung für die Universität Koblenz-Landau Änderungssatzung zur Festsetzung von Zulassungszahlen an der Universität Koblenz-Landau für das Studienjahr 2017/2018

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.

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.

The present thesis gives an overview of the general conditions for the programming of graphics cards. For this purpose, the most important Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) available on the market are presented and compared. Subsequently, two standard algorithms from the field data processing, prefix sum and radixsort are presented and examined with regard to the implementation with parallel programming on the GPU. Both algorithms were implemented using the OpenGL-API and OpenGL compute shaders. Finally, the execution times of the two algorithms were compared.

This thesis deals with Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). The objectives of the work are to clarify the term RRI and to identify the current state of research in the field. RRI is a concept significantly shaped by the European Commission (EC). It is composed of responsibility, research and innovation, which will be considered individually to begin with. According to the definition by Clausen (2009) used here, responsibility is made up of a subject ("Who takes responsibility"), an object ("for what,"), one or several addressees ("to whom") and authorities ("and why?"). In the conceptual chapter of this thesis, the role of organisations as subjects of responsibility is grounded in the fact that they work toward a certain purpose. More importantly, though, society as an important addressee and authority of responsibility, increasingly calls for organisations to take responsibility for the consequences and wider impacts of their actions. The field of sustainability, with its pillars of economical, ecological and social issues, is considered a key object of responsibility. Innovation and research as an integral part of it are understood as complex processes aiming at reaching corporate goals in novel ways. By means of a literature analysis according to Webster & Watson (2002) the current state of research on RRI is explored. Most of the literature used is identified as conceptual in nature. Despite the great uncertainty that still prevails, four dimensions of RRI can be identified: Deliberation, Anticipation, Reflexivity, and Responsiveness. Taking into account the results of the literature review, the dimensions offered by the EC are classified as important activities rather than conceptual dimensions. Research and innovation in alignment with RRI involves stakeholders, particularly society, in the process right from the beginning. It also examines its potential impacts and continually reflects on its motivations and underlying values. The most important aspect is the adaptability of the process in response to the results from the other dimensions. All activities are based on responsibility and sustainability and are integrated through appropriate management and governance. In addition to conceptual work, little research has been done especially with regard to operationalisation and implementation of RRI. For the latter, the embedding in a stage-gate process according to Cooper (2010) is suggested here. However, the actual design of the conceptual dimensions still needs to be specified. In addition, overall awareness of RRI needs to be sharpened and a commitment to RRI made.

Within aquatic environments sediment water interfaces (SWIs) are the most important areas concerning exchange processes between the water body and the sediment. These spatially restricted regions are characterized by steep biogeochemical gradients that determine the speciation and fate of natural or artificial substances. Apart from biological mediated processes (e.g., burrowing organisms, photosynthesis) the determining exchange processes are diffusion or a colloid-mediated transport. Hence, methods are required enabling to capture the fine scale structures at the boundary layer and to distinguish between the different transport pathways. Regarding emerging substances that will probably reach the aquatic environment engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) are of great concern due to their increased use in many products and applications. Since they are determined based on their size (<100 nm) they include a variety of different materials behaving differently in the environment. Once released, they will inevitable mix with naturally present colloids (< 1 μm) including natural nanomaterials. With regard to existing methodological gaps concerning the characterization of ENMs (as emerging substances) and the investigation of SWIs (as receiving environmental compartments), the aim of this thesis was to develop, validate and apply suitable analytical tools. The challenges were to i) develop methods that enable a high resolution and low-invasive sampling of sediment pore water. To ii) develop routine-suitable methods for the characterization of metal-based engineered nanoparticles and iii) to adopt and optimize size-fractionation approaches for pore water samples of sediment depth profiles to obtain size-related information on element distributions at SWIs. Within the first part, an available microprofiling system was combined with a novel micro sampling system equipped with newly developed sample filtration-probes. The system was thoroughly validated and applied to a freshwater sediment proving the applicability for an automatic sampling of sediment pore waters in parallel to microsensor measurements. Thereby, for the first time multi-element information for sediment depth profiles were obtained at a millimeter scale that could directly be related to simultaneously measured sediment parameters. Due to the expected release of ENMs to the environment the aim was to develop methods that enable the investigation of fate and transport of ENMs at sediment water interfaces. Since standardized approaches are still lacking, methods were developed for the determination of the total mass concentration and the determination of the dissolved fraction of (nano)particle suspensions. Thereby, validated, routine suitable methods were provided enabling for the first time a routine-suitable determination of these two, among the most important properties regarding the analyses of colloidal systems, also urgently needed as a basis for the development of appropriate (future) risk assessments and regulatory frameworks. Based on this methodological basis, approaches were developed enabling to distinguish between dissolved and colloidal fractions of sediment pore waters. This made it possible for the first time to obtain fraction related element information for sediment depth profiles at a millimeter scale, capturing the fine scale structures and distinguishing between diffusion and colloid-mediated transport. In addition to the research oriented parts of this thesis, questions concerning the regulation of ENPs in the case of a release into aquatic systems were addressed in a separate publication (included in the Appendix) discussing the topic against the background of the currently valid German water legislation and the actual state of the research.

Modern software projects are composed of several software languages, software technologies and different kind of artifacts. Therefore, the understanding of the software project at hand, including the semantic links between the different parts, becomes a difficult challenge for a developer. One approach to attack this issue is to document the software project with the help of a linguistic architecture. This kind of architecture can be described with the help of the MegaL ontology. A remaining challenge is the creation of it since it requires different kind of skills. Therefore, this paper proposes an approach for the automatic extraction of a linguistic architecture. The open source framework Apache Jena, which is focusing on semantic web technologies like RDF and OWL, is used to define custom rules that are capable to infer new knowledge based on the defined or already extracted RDF triples. The complete approach is tested in a case study on ten different open source projects. The aim of the case study is to extract a linguistic architecture that is describing the use of Hibernate in the selected projects. In the end, the result is evaluated with the help of different metrics. The evaluation is performed with the help of an internal and external approach.

Schrift ist in ihrer Besonderheit verkannt, versteht man sie allein als Mittel zur Stillstellung gesprochener Sprache. Phänomene wie Schriftbildlichkeit, Operativität und die Physiognomie des Schriftbildes machen Schrift zu einem Medium. In der Entwicklung und in der Verwendung von Schriftgebrauchsformen in unterschiedlichen Kontexten werden sowohl die Eigenschaften, die Schriftzeichen mit verbalen Zeichen gemeinsam haben, als auch die Potentiale, die sie mit pikturalen Zeichen gemeinsam haben, genutzt. Daher werden in der vorliegenden Arbeit die Funktionalisierungsmöglichkeiten von Schriftgebrauchsformen vor dem Hintergrund der Symboltheorie Nelson Goodmans vorgestellt. Eine an die ästhetische Theorie angelehnte Herangehensweise ermöglicht es, gerade die bildlichen Aspekte von Schriftformen – die bislang in schrifttheoretischen Arbeiten meist als irrelevant ausgeblendet werden – zu berücksichtigen. Es wird ein dynamischer Kompetenzbegriff in Anlehnung an J.G. Schneider entwickelt, der alle Fähigkeiten umfasst, die benötigt werden, um Schriftgebrauchsformen erfolgversprechend verwenden zu können. Zu diesen Fähigkeiten gehören nicht nur grammatische und orthographische Kompetenz, sondern ebenso Geschmack und die Fähigkeit zur Analogiebildung. An Beispielen verschiedener Schriftverwendungen wird gezeigt, wie unterschiedlich Schriftgebrauchsformen eingesetzt werden können. So wird Schrift als Kulturtechnik darstellbar und mithin verdeutlicht, dass die Art und Weise, wie Menschen ihre Kultur, ihre Welt, aber auch ihre spezifische Umgebung und eigene Identität modellieren, von Schriftverwendungen geprägt und verändert wird.