Leaf litter breakdown is a fundamental process in aquatic ecosystems, being mainly mediated by decomposer-detritivore systems that are composed of microbial decomposers and leaf-shredding, detritivorous invertebrates. The ecological integrity of these systems can, however, be disturbed, amongst others, by chemical stressors. Fungicides might pose a particular risk as they can have negative effects on the involved microbial decomposers but may also affect shredders via both waterborne toxicity and their diet; the latter by toxic effects due to dietary exposure as a result of fungicides’ accumulation on leaf material and by negatively affecting fungal leaf decomposers, on which shredders’ nutrition heavily relies. The primary aim of this thesis was therefore to provide an in-depth assessment of the ecotoxicological implications of fungicides in a model decomposer-detritivore system using a tiered experimental approach to investigate (1) waterborne toxicity in a model shredder, i.e., Gammarus fossarum, (2) structural and functional implications in leaf-associated microbial communities, and (3) the relative importance of waterborne and diet-related effects for the model shredder. Additionally, knowledge gaps were tackled that were related to potential differences in the ecotoxicological impact of inorganic (also authorized for organic farming in large parts of the world) and organic fungicides, the mixture toxicity of these substances, the field-relevance of their effects, and the appropriateness of current environmental risk assessment (ERA). In the course of this thesis, major differences in the effects of inorganic and organic fungicides on the model decomposer-detritivore system were uncovered; e.g., the palatability of leaves for G. fossarum was increased by inorganic fungicides but deteriorated by organic substances. Furthermore, non-additive action of fungicides was observed, rendering mixture effects of these substances hardly predictable. While the relative importance of the waterborne and diet-related effect pathway for the model shredder seems to depend on the fungicide group and the exposure concentration, it was demonstrated that neither path must be ignored due to additive action. Finally, it was shown that effects can be expected at field-relevant fungicide levels and that current ERA may provide insufficient protection for decomposer-detritivore systems. To safeguard aquatic ecosystem functioning, this thesis thus recommends including leaf-associated microbial communities and long-term feeding studies using detritus feeders in ERA testing schemes, and identifies several knowledge gaps whose filling seems mandatory to develop further reasonable refinements for fungicide ERA.

Web-programming is a huge field of different technologies and concepts. Each technology implements a web-application requirement like content generation or client-server communication. Different technologies within one application are organized by concepts, for example architectural patterns. The thesis describes an approach for creating a taxonomy about these web-programming components using the free encyclopaedia Wikipedia. Our 101companies project uses implementations to identify and classify the different technology sets and concepts behind a web-application framework. These classifications can be used to create taxonomies and ontologies within the project. The thesis also describes, how we priorize useful web-application frameworks with the help of Wikipedia. Finally, the created implementations concerning web-programming are documented.

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.

The estimation of various social objects is necessary in different fields of social life, science, education, etc. This estimation is usually used for forecasting, for evaluating of different properties and for other goals in complex man-machine systems. At present this estimation is possible by means of computer and mathematical simulation methods which is connected with significant difficulties, such as: - time-distributed process of receiving information about the object; - determination of a corresponding mathematical device and structure identification of the mathematical model; - approximation of the mathematical model to real data, generalization and parametric identification of the mathematical model; - identification of the structure of the links of the real social object. The solution of these problems is impossible without a special intellectual information system which combines different processes and allows predicting the behaviour of such an object. However, most existing information systems lead to the solution of only one special problem. From this point of view the development of a more general technology of designing such systems is very important. The technology of intellectual information system development for estimation and forecasting the professional ability of respondents in the sphere of education can be a concrete example of such a technology. Job orientation is necessary and topical in present economic conditions. It helps tornsolve the problem of expediency of investments to a certain sphere of education. Scientifically validated combined diagnostic methods of job orientation are necessary to carry out professional selection in higher education establishments. The requirements of a modern society are growing, with the earlier developed techniques being unable to correspond to them sufficiently. All these techniques lack an opportunity to account all necessary professional and personal characteristics. Therefore, it is necessary to use a system of various tests. Thus, the development of new methods of job orientation for entrants is necessary. The information model of the process of job orientation is necessary for this purpose. Therefore, it would be desirable to have an information system capable of giving recommendations concerning the choice of a trade on the basis of complex personal characteristics of entrants.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the sentiment distributions of Wikipedia concepts. We analyse the sentiment of the entire English Wikipedia corpus, which includes 5,669,867 articles and 1,906,375 talks, by using a lexicon-based method with four different lexicons. Also, we explore the sentiment distributions from a time perspective using the sentiment scores obtained from our selected corpus. The results obtained have been compared not only between articles and talks but also among four lexicons: OL, MPQA, LIWC, and ANEW. Our findings show that among the four lexicons, MPQA has the highest sensitivity and ANEW has the lowest sensitivity to emotional expressions. Wikipedia articles show more sentiments than talks according to OL, MPQA, and LIWC, whereas Wikipedia talks show more sentiments than articles according to ANEW. Besides, the sentiment has a trend regarding time series, and each lexicon has its own bias regarding text describing different things. Moreover, our research provides three interactive widgets for visualising sentiment distributions for Wikipedia concepts regarding the time and geolocation attributes of concepts.

This thesis addresses the automated identification and localization of a time-varying number of objects in a stream of sensor data. The problem is challenging due to its combinatorial nature: If the number of objects is unknown, the number of possible object trajectories grows exponentially with the number of observations. Random finite sets are a relatively new theory that has been developed to derive at principled and efficient approximations. It is based around set-valued random variables that contain an unknown number of elements which appear in arbitrary order and are themselves random. While extensively studied in theory, random finite sets have not yet become a leading paradigm in practical computer vision and robotics applications. This thesis explores random finite sets in visual tracking applications. The first method developed in this thesis combines set-valued recursive filtering with global optimization. The problem is approached in a min-cost flow network formulation, which has become a standard inference framework for multiple object tracking due to its efficiency and optimality. A main limitation of this formulation is a restriction to unary and pairwise cost terms. This circumstance makes integration of higher-order motion models challenging. The method developed in this thesis approaches this limitation by application of a Probability Hypothesis Density filter. The Probability Hypothesis Density filter was the first practically implemented state estimator based on random finite sets. It circumvents the combinatorial nature of data association itself by propagation of an object density measure that can be computed efficiently, without maintaining explicit trajectory hypotheses. In this work, the filter recursion is used to augment measurements with an additional hidden kinematic state to be used for construction of more informed flow network cost terms, e.g., based on linear motion models. The method is evaluated on public benchmarks where a considerate improvement is achieved compared to network flow formulations that are based on static features alone, such as distance between detections and appearance similarity. A second part of this thesis focuses on the related task of detecting and tracking a single robot operator in crowded environments. Different from the conventional multiple object tracking scenario, the tracked individual can leave the scene and later reappear after a longer period of absence. Therefore, a re-identification component is required that picks up the track on reentrance. Based on random finite sets, the Bernoulli filter is an optimal Bayes filter that provides a natural representation for this type of problem. In this work, it is shown how the Bernoulli filter can be combined with a Probability Hypothesis Density filter to track operator and non-operators simultaneously. The method is evaluated on a publicly available multiple object tracking dataset as well as on custom sequences that are specific to the targeted application. Experiments show reliable tracking in crowded scenes and robust re-identification after long term occlusion. Finally, a third part of this thesis focuses on appearance modeling as an essential aspect of any method that is applied to visual object tracking scenarios. Therefore, a feature representation that is robust to pose variations and changing lighting conditions is learned offline, before the actual tracking application. This thesis proposes a joint classification and metric learning objective where a deep convolutional neural network is trained to identify the individuals in the training set. At test time, the final classification layer can be stripped from the network and appearance similarity can be queried using cosine distance in representation space. This framework represents an alternative to direct metric learning objectives that have required sophisticated pair or triplet sampling strategies in the past. The method is evaluated on two large scale person re-identification datasets where competitive results are achieved overall. In particular, the proposed method better generalizes to the test set compared to a network trained with the well-established triplet loss.

The Internet of Things is still one of the most relevant topics in the field of economics and research powered by the increasing demand of innovative services. Cost reductions in manufacturing of IoT hardware and the development of completely new communication ways has led to the point of bil-lions of devices connected to the internet. But in order to rule this new IoT landscape a standardized solution to conquer these challenges must be developed, the IoT Architecture. This thesis examines the structure, purpose and requirements of IoT Architecture Models in the global IoT landscape and proposes an overview across the selected ones. For that purpose, a struc-tured literature analysis on this topic is conducted within this thesis, including an analysis on three existing research approaches trying to frame this topic and a tool supported evaluation of IoT Archi-tecture literature with over 200 accessed documents. Furthermore, a coding of literature with the help of the specialised coding tool ATLAS.ti 8 is conduct-ed on 30 different IoT Architecture Models. In a final step these Architecture Models are categorized and compared to each other showing that the environment of IoT and its Architectures gets even more complex the further the research goes.

As Enterprise 2.0 (E2.0) initiatives are gradually moving out of the early experimentation phase it is time to focus greater attention on examining the structures, processes and operations surrounding E2.0 projects. In this paper we present the findings of an empirical study to investigate and understand the reasons for initiating E2.0 projects and the benefits being derived from them. Our study comprises seven in-depth case studies of E2.0 implementations. We develop a classification and means of visualising the scope of E2.0 initiatives and use these methods to analyse and compare projects. Our findings indicate a wide range of motivations and combinations of technology in use and show a strong emphasis towards the content management functionality of E2.0 technologies.

Agricultural land-use may lead to brief pulse exposures of pesticides in edge-of-field streams, potentially resulting in adverse effects on aquatic macrophytes, invertebrates and ecosystem functions. The higher tier risk assessment is mainly based on pond mesocosms which are not designed to mimic stream-typical conditions. Relatively little is known on exposure and effect assessment using stream mesocosms. Thus the present thesis evaluates the appliacability of the stream mesocosms to mimic stream-typical pulse exposures, to assess resulting effects on flora and fauna and to evaluate aquatic-terrestrial food web coupling. The first objective was to mimic stream-typical pulse exposure scenarios with different durations (≤ 1 to ≥ 24 hours). These exposure scenarios established using a fluorescence tracer were the methodological basis for the effect assessment of an herbicide and an insecticide. In order to evaluate the applicability of stream mesocosms for regulatory purposes, the second objective was to assess effects on two aquatic macrophytes following a 24-h pulse exposure with the herbicide iofensulfuron-sodium (1, 3, 10 and 30 µg/L; n = 3). Growth inhibition of up to 66 and 45% was observed for the total shoot length of Myriophyllum spicatum and Elodea canadensis, respectively. Recovery of this endpoint could be demonstrated within 42 days for both macrophytes. The third objective was to assess effects on structural and functional endpoints following a 6-h pulse exposure of the pyrethroid ether etofenprox (0.05, 0.5 and 5 µg/L; n = 4). The most sensitive structural (abundance of Cloeon simile) and functional (feeding rates of Asellus aquaticus) endpoint revealed significant effects at 0.05 µg/L etofenprox. This concentration was below field-measured etofenprox concentrations and thus suggests that pulse exposures adversely affect invertebrate populations and ecosystem functions in streams. Such pollutions of streams may also result in decreased emergence of aquatic insects and potentially lead to an insect-mediated transfer of pollutants to adjacent food webs. Test systems capable to assess aquatic-terrestrial effects are not yet integrated in mesocosm approaches but might be of interest for substances with bioaccumulation potential. Here, the fourth part provides an aquatic-terrestrial model ecosystem capable to assess cross-ecosystem effects. Information on the riparian food web such as the contribution of aquatic (up to 71%) and terrestrial (up to 29%) insect prey to the diet of the riparian spider Tetragnatha extensa was assessed via stable isotope ratios (δ13C and δ15N). Thus, the present thesis provides the methodological basis to assess aquatic-terrestrial pollutant transfer and effects on the riparian food web. Overall the results of this thesis indicate, that stream mesocosms can be used to mimic stream-typical pulse exposures of pesticides, to assess resulting effects on macrophytes and invertebrates within prospective environmental risk assessment (ERA) and to evaluate changes in riparian food webs.

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).

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

To construct a business process model manually is a highly complex and error-prone task which takes a lot of time and deep insights into the organizational structure, its operations and business rules. To improve the output of business analysts dealing with this process, different techniques have been introduced by researchers to support them during construction with helpful recommendations. These supporting recommendation systems vary in their way of what to recommend in the first place as well as their calculations taking place under the hood to recommend the most fitting element to the user. After a broad introduction into the field of business process modeling and its basic recommendation structures, this work will take a closer look at diverse proposals and descriptions published in current literature regarding implementation strategies to effectively and efficiently assist modelers during their business process model creation. A critical analysis of presentations in the selected literature will point out strengths and weaknesses of their approaches, studies and descriptions of those. As a result, the final concept matrix in this work will give a precise and helpful overview about the key features and recommendation methods used and implemented in previous research studies to pinpoint an entry into future works without the downsides already spotted by fellow researchers.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The availability of digital cameras and the possibility to take photos at no cost lead to an increasing amount of digital photos online and on private computers. The pure amount of data makes approaches that support users in the administration of the photo necessary. As the automatic understanding of photo content is still an unsolved task, metadata is needed for supporting administrative tasks like search or photo work such as the generation of photo books. Meta-information textually describes the depicted scene or consists of information on how good or interesting a photo is. In this thesis, an approach for creating meta-information without additional effort for the user is investigated. Eye tracking data is used to measure the human visual attention. This attention is analyzed with the objective of information creation in the form of metadata. The gaze paths of users working with photos are recorded, for example, while they are searching for photos or while they are just viewing photo collections. Eye tracking hardware is developing fast within the last years. Because of falling prices for sensor hardware such as cameras and more competition on the eye tracker market, the prices are falling, and the usability is increasing. It can be assumed that eye tracking technology can soon be used in everyday devices such as laptops or mobile phones. The exploitation of data, recorded in the background while the user is performing daily tasks with photos, has great potential to generate information without additional effort for the users. The first part of this work deals with the labeling of image region by means of gaze data for describing the depicted scenes in detail. Labeling takes place by assigning object names to specific photo regions. In total, three experiments were conducted for investigating the quality of these assignments in different contexts. In the first experiment, users decided whether a given object can be seen on a photo by pressing a button. In the second study, participants searched for specific photos in an image search application. In the third experiment, gaze data was collected from users playing a game with the task to classify photos regarding given categories. The results of the experiments showed that gaze-based region labeling outperforms baseline approaches in various contexts. In the second part, most important photos in a collection of photos are identified by means of visual attention for the creation of individual photo selections. Users freely viewed photos of a collection without any specific instruction on what to fixate, while their gaze paths were recorded. By comparing gaze-based and baseline photo selections to manually created selections, the worth of eye tracking data in the identification of important photos is shown. In the analysis of the data, the characteristics of gaze data has to be considered, for example, inaccurate and ambiguous data. The aggregation of gaze data, collected from several users, is one suggested approach for dealing with this kind of data. The results of the performed experiments show the value of gaze data as source of information. It allows to benefit from human abilities where algorithms still have problems to perform satisfyingly.

Traditional Driver Assistance Systems (DAS) like for example Lane Departure Warning Systems or the well-known Electronic Stability Program have in common that their system and software architecture is static. This means that neither the number and topology of Electronic Control Units (ECUs) nor the presence and functionality of software modules changes after the vehicles leave the factory. However, some future DAS do face changes at runtime. This is true for example for truck and trailer DAS as their hardware components and software entities are spread over both parts of the combination. These new requirements cannot be faced by state-of-the-art approaches of automotive software systems. Instead, a different technique of designing such Distributed Driver Assistance Systems (DDAS) needs to be developed. The main contribution of this thesis is the development of a novel software and system architecture for dynamically changing DAS using the example of driving assistance for truck and trailer. This architecture has to be able to autonomously detect and handle changes within the topology. In order to do so, the system decides which degree of assistance and which types of HMI can be offered every time a trailer is connected or disconnected. Therefore an analysis of the available software and hardware components as well as a determination of possible assistance functionality and a re-configuration of the system take place. Such adaptation can be granted by the principles of Service-oriented Architecture (SOA). In this architectural style all functionality is encapsulated in self-contained units, so-called Services. These Services offer the functionality through well-defined interfaces whose behavior is described in contracts. Using these Services, large-scale applications can be built and adapted at runtime. This thesis describes the research conducted in achieving the goals described by introducing Service-oriented Architectures into the automotive domain. SOA deals with the high degree of distribution, the demand for re-usability and the heterogeneity of the needed components. It also applies automatic re-configuration in the event of a system change. Instead of adapting one of the frameworks available to this scenario, the main principles of Service-orientation are picked up and tailored. This leads to the development of the Service-oriented Driver Assistance (SODA) framework, which implements the benefits of Service-orientation while ensuring compatibility and compliance to automotive requirements, best-practices and standards. Within this thesis several state-of-the-art Service-oriented frameworks are analyzed and compared. Furthermore, the SODA framework as well as all its different aspects regarding the automotive software domain are described in detail. These aspects include a well-defined reference model that introduces and relates terms and concepts and defines an architectural blueprint. Furthermore, some of the modules of this blueprint such as the re-configuration module and the Communication Model are presented in full detail. In order to prove the compliance of the framework regarding state-of-the-art automotive software systems, a development process respecting today's best practices in automotive design procedures as well as the integration of SODA into the AUTOSAR standard are discussed. Finally, the SODA framework is used to build a full-scale demonstrator in order to evaluate its performance and efficiency.

This thesis evaluates automated techniques to remove objects from an image and proposed several modifications for the specific application of removing a colour checker from structure dominated images. The selection of approaches covers the main research field of image inpainting as well as an approach used in medical image processing. Their results are investigated to disclose their applicability to removing objects from structure-intense images. The advantages and disadvantages discovered in the process are then used to propose several modifications for an adapted inpainting approach suitable for removing the colour checker.

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.

While the existing literature on cooperative R&D projects between firms and public research institutes (PRI) has made valuable contributions by examining various factors and their influence on different outcome measures, there has been no investigation of cooperative R&D project success between firms and PRI from a product competitive advantage perspective. However, insights into the development of a meaningful and superior product (i.e., product competitive advantage) are particularly important in the context of cooperative R&D projects between PRI and (mainly small and medium-sized) firms in the biotechnology industry in response to increasing competition to raise capital funds necessary for survival. The objectives of this thesis are: (1) to elaborate the theoretical foundations which explain the achievement of a product competitive advantage in cooperative R&D projects between biotechnology firms and PRI, (2) to identify and empirically evaluate the determining factors for achieving a product competitive advantage in cooperative R&D projects between biotechnology firms and PRI, and (3) to show how cooperative R&D projects between biotechnology firms and PRI should be designed and executed to support the achievement of a product competitive advantage. To accomplish these objectives, a model of determinants of product competitive advantage in cooperative R&D projects between biotechnology firms and PRI is developed by drawing from the theoretical foundations of resource-based theory and information-processing theory. The model is evaluated using data from 517 questionnaires on cooperative R&D projects between at least one biotechnology firm and one PRI. The data are analyzed using variance-based structural equation modeling (i.e., PLS-SEM) in order to conduct hypotheses testing. The evaluation of the empirical data includes an additional mediation analysis and the comparison of effects in subsamples. The results demonstrate the importance of available resources and skills, as well as the proficient execution of marketing-related and technical activities for the achievement of a product competitive advantage in cooperative R&D projects between biotechnology firms and PRI. By identifying project-related and process-related factors affecting product competitive advantage and empirically testing their relationships, the research findings should be valuable for both researchers and practitioners. After discussing contributions and implications for research and practice, the present thesis concludes with limitations and avenues for future research.

Despite the inception of new technologies at a breakneck pace, many analytics projects fail mainly due to the use of incompatible development methodologies. As big data analytics projects are different from software development projects, the methodologies used in software development projects could not be applied in the same fashion to analytics projects. The traditional agile project management approaches to the projects do not consider the complexities involved in the analytics. In this thesis, the challenges involved in generalizing the application of agile methodologies will be evaluated, and some suitable agile frameworks which are more compatible with the analytics project will be explored and recommended. The standard practices and approaches which are currently applied in the industry for analytics projects will be discussed concerning enablers and success factors for agile adaption. In the end, after the comprehensive discussion and analysis of the problem and complexities, a framework will be recommended that copes best with the discussed challenges and complexities and is generally well suited for the most data-intensive analytics projects.

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.

The natural and the artificial environment of mankind is of enormous complexity, and our means of understanding this complex environment are restricted unless we make use of simplified (but not oversimplified) dynamical models with the help of which we can explicate and communicate what we have understood in order to discuss among ourselves how to re-shape reality according to what our simulation models make us believe to be possible. Being both a science and an art, modelling and simulation isrnstill one of the core tools of extended thought experiments, and its use is still spreading into new application areas, particularly as the increasing availability of massive computational resources allows for simulating more and more complex target systems. In the early summer of 2012, the 26th European Conference on Modelling andrnSimulation (ECMS) once again brings together the best experts and scientists in the field to present their ideas and research, and to discuss new challenges and directions for the field. The 2012 edition of ECMS includes three new tracks, namely Simulation-BasedrnBusiness Research, Policy Modelling and Social Dynamics and Collective Behaviour, and extended the classical Finance and Economics track with Social Science. It attracted more than 110 papers, 125 participants from 21 countries and backgrounds ranging from electrical engineering to sociology. This book was inspired by the event, and it was prepared to compile the most recent concepts, advances, challenges and ideas associated with modelling and computer simulation. It contains all papers carefully selected from the large number of submissions by the programme committee for presentation during the conference and is organised according to the still growing number tracks which shaped the event. The book is complemented by two invited pieces from other experts that discussed an emerging approach to modelling and a specialised application. rnrnWe hope these proceedings will serve as a reference to researchers and practitioners in the ever growing field as well as an inspiration to newcomers to the area of modelling and computer simulation. The editors are honoured and proud to present you with this carefully compiled selection of topics and publications in the field.