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Microbial pollution of surface waters poses substantial risks for public health, amongst others during recreational use. Microbial pollution was studied at selected sampling sites in rivers Rhine, Moselle and Lahn (Germany) on the basis of commonly used fecal indicator organisms (FIO) indicating bacterial (Escherichia coli, intestinal enterococci) and viral (somatic coliphages) fecal contamination. In addition, blaCTX-Mantibiotic resistance genes (ARG) were quantified at twosites in river Lahn and were used as markers for tracking the spread of antibiotic resistance in the aquatic environment. The impact of changes in climate-related parameters on FIO was examined by studying monitoring results of contrasting flow conditions at rivers Rhine and Moselle. Analyses at all studied river sites clearly indicate that high discharge and precipitation enhance the influx of FIO, ARG and thus potentially (antibiotic resistant) pathogens into rivers. In contrast, a decrease in hygienic microbial pollution was observed under high solar irradiation and increasing water temperatures. Based on identified contributing key factors, multiple linear regression (MLR) models for five sites at a stretch of river Lahn were established that allow a timely assessment of fecal indicator abundances. An interaction between abiotic and biotic factors (i.e. enhanced grazing pressure) considerably contributed to the formation of seasonal patterns among FIO abundances. This was enhanced during extraordinary low flow conditions in rivers with pronounced trophic interactions, clearly hampering a transfer of model approaches between rivers of different biological and hydrological characteristics. Bacterial indicatorswere stronger influenced by grazing pressure than phages. Hence, bacterial indicators alone do not sufficiently describe viral pollution in rivers. BlaCTX-Mgenes were omnipresent in Lahn River water and corresponded to distribution patterns of FIO, indicating fecal sources. Agriculture and waste watertreatment plant effluents contributed to ARG loads and participants in non-bathing water sports were found to be at risk of ingesting antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) including ARG, bearing the risk of infection or colonization. Results of the present study highlight the need to be aware of such risks not only in designated bathing waters. ARG abundance at both riverine sampling sites could largely be explained by E. coliabundance and may thus also be incorporated into multiple regression models using E. colispecific environmental predictors. It can be expected that the frequency of short-term microbial pollution events will increase over the next decades due to climate change. Several challenges were identified with regard to the implementation of early warning systems to protect the public from exposure to pathogens in rivers. Most importantly, the concept of the Bathing Water Directive (Directive 2006/7/EC) itself as well as the lack of harmonization in the regulatory framework at European Union (EU) level are major drawbacks and require future adjustments to reliably manage health risks related to microbial water pollution in waters used in multifunctional ways.
"We've allways been in a culture where more is more, and suddenly we're in a culture whrere less is a better quality of life. It's pretty revolutionary." - Bill Stewart
The transformation of society in recent years has brought significant changes, including the trend towards more conscious consumption and more sustainable use of resources. Traditional patterns have increasingly receded into the background, stereotypes have been broken and the standards of assessment have been redefined. And so we have arrived at a time when owning less is considered as more valuable and minimalism has become a new trend. The transformation of the social norms has also led to changes in the economy. Due to recent changes, sharing economy has emerged as a new, rapidly growing sector of the economy. In simple terms, the business model can be put as the sharing of unused resources in exchange for (non-) monetary incentives.
The present bachelor thesis deals with the implementation of the sharing economy in the B2B sector. The advantages and disadvantages of the business model have been shown and opportunities and risks of the implementation in companies have been described. Furthermore, it is examined, which conditions of the consumer sector are suitable for implementation in the B2B model and which new factors should be taken into consideration. Based on the literature analysis, a B2C model has been developed. In addition, qualitative interviews were carried out. Among the experts were the managers and CEO of a medium-sized IT company. The results of the evaluation, based on Mayring (2002), helped to develop a decision model for implementation of sharing economy in B2B and to answer the research questions.
Based on the results of the interviews, key framework conditions were transferred from the private sharing sector to the B2B model. In addition, further factors were identified. Depending on the decision model, it was possible to show the requirements for the implementation of sharing economy in the B2B environment and identify the challenges to be faced.
Regarding the rising amount of legal regulations, businesses should get the opportunity to use software to fulfill their Compliance Management with the usage of compliance pattern. These patterns are used to represent substantive and structural parts of the processes. This means companies can increase their efficiency and react to new regulations quickly to avoid possible violation which can lead to monetary losses or legal consequences. In the literature are many approaches that deal with compliance pattern but currently there does not exist any list with necessary compliance pattern that companies should face at (Delfmann and Hübers, 2015). The following bachelor thesis classifies 80 research contributions regarding their different approaches of compliance pattern. For that a systematic literature review was executed. As a result, the author developed a graphical classification context that provides an overview of connections between different compliance approaches. Furthermore, an appendix with 32 compliance patterns of the analyzed papers was developed that contains real-world patterns with the classification of the previous sections.
Satzung für den steuerbegünstigten Betrieb gewerblicher Art: Kinderbetreuungseinrichtungen
Redaktionelle Korrektur betreffend die Dritte Ordnung zur Änderung der Ordnung für die Prüfung im Bachelorstudiengang und im Masterstudiengang Erziehungswissenschaft an der Universität Koblenz-Landau, Campus Landau
Ordnung zur Änderung der Beitragsordnung des Studierendenwerks Koblenz
Siebte Ordnung zur Änderung der Prüfungsordnung für den Bachelorstudiengang und den Masterstudiengang „Sozial- und Kommunikationswissenschaften“ des
Fachbereichs 6: Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaften an der Universität Koblenz-Landau
Sechsundzwanzigste Ordnung zur Änderung der Prüfungsordnung für die Prüfung im lehramtsbezogenen Bachelorstudiengang an der Universität Koblenz-Landau
This thesis aims to find models to calculate damages to persons in the context of railway accidents. These models were tested for their applicability for a railway accident database. The reviewed models for injured casualties were identified by a research of literature. Their applicability for the accident database was tested with the aid of average values and sample values. The analysis of fatalities was executed via the combination of collected values of two literature researches. These values were compared to the values of the database.
It was stated that there is a calculation for seriously injured, which may serve more exact values than the calculation of the database, especially when there is more detailed data about the casualties. The calculation of slightly injured couldn't be realized by just beholding the pure damages to persons, because it's only a small part of the costs the responsible company has to pay. For the calculation of fatalities appeared problems with the methodology of the most studies.
Dieses Dokument umfasst den dritten Zwischenbericht zum Projekt GeKOS – Gemeinsam entdecken Kinder ihren Ort mit Studierenden, der im Oktober 2019 an die Schöpflin-Stiftung übergeben wurde. Das Projekt GeKOS wird vom Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Weiterbildung und Kultur des Landes Rheinland-Pfalz im Rahmen der Programmbudgets Hochschulpakt III sowie von der Schöpflin-Stiftung mit Sitz in Lörrach von 2016 bis 2020 finanziell gefördert. Zudem gewährte das rheinland-pfälzische Ministerium für Integration, Familie, Kinder, Jugend und Frauen im Jahr 2015 eine Anschubfinanzierung.
„La liaison est un phénomène complexe dont la phénoménologie est encore aujourd’hui sujette à recherches et à débats. Dans la littérature classique, orthoépique ou descriptive, comme dans les recherches les plus actuelles, la liaison est considérée comme un phénomène multi-paramétrique et tous les niveaux linguistiques sont convoqués : phonologie, prosodie et syllabation, morphologie, syntaxe, lexique et sémantique, diachronie, orthographe et différentiation des styles [...] toutes les dimensions de la variation externe : variation dans le temps, dans l’espace géographique et dans l’espace social, variation dans l’espace stylistique des genres de discours“
(Eychenne/Laks 2017:1).
Dieses Zitat beschreibt die Liaison als ein sehr komplexes, von vielen Parametern beeinflusstes Phänomen. Wie gehen Lernende 1 mit einem solchen Phänomen um? Welche Liaison realisie-ren sie wie häufig? Welche Fehler treten auf? Welche Gründe gibt es für diese Fehler? Welche Auswirkungen hat ein längerer Auslandsaufenthalt des Lernenden in einem französischsprachi-gen Land auf die Produktion von Liaisons? Gibt es Unterschiede zwischen dem Erwerb der Liaison bei Kindern mit Französisch als Erstsprache (L1) und Lernenden des Französischen als Fremdsprache (L2)?
Auf all diese Fragen möchte ich im Laufe der vorliegenden Arbeit eingehen. Nach dem Zusam-mentragen einiger grundlegender Fakten über die Liaison soll daher ein Korpus mit französi-schen Sprachaufnahmen von deutschen Studierenden ausgewertet werden. Die Ergebnisse wer-den im Anschluss präsentiert und zunächst mit Resultaten von Kindern mit Französisch als L1 sowie anschließend mit Ergebnissen anderer Studien über Französischlernende verglichen.
Purpose: The present research aims on the one hand to provide a basic understanding of the challenges that young companies in growth face by discussing previous findings on this topic. On the other hand, this research project wants to generate new insights on specific challenges and possible learning processes by means of a theory-based examination of a case study.
Design/Methodology/Approach: The author of this study conducts a theory-based case study investigation. The study is based on two theoretical concepts which depict the phenomenon of challenges faced by young companies in growth in an abstract form: On the one hand, the "Tension-Balancing Management" according to Harald von Korflesch, which expresses the fundamental tension within entrepreneurial organizations, which in turn can be seen as a starting point for actual challenges. On the other hand, the "Tipping Points / Absorbative Capacities" framework by Phelps and colleagues, which links challenges (Tipping Points) that young companies will experience during their lifetime with required capabilities (Absorbative Capacities). Guided by these theories, rich data from interviews, observations and documents from the case are collected and analyzed in order to generate insights.
Findings: On the one hand, challenges of young growing companies can be described on a superordinate level with the help of the two theoretical concepts. On the other hand, the analysis also shows that, above all, a fine-grained, individual approach is needed to adequately depict challenges and learning processes.
Research Limitations: The main limitation of the present study is the single-case design. The fact that only one specific case was examined means that the insights gained from this cannot be automatically replicated to comparable cases. The simultaneous examination of multiple cases could thus make the results more stable.
Originality/Value: The qualitative investigation of growth-related challenges by means of a specific case study creates an in-depth and profound understanding of complex interactions in the growth of young companies. In addition, the assumptions of both theoretical concepts are tested on a real case, thus enabling theoretical and practical implications to be identified.
Blockchain in Healthcare
(2020)
The underlying characteristics of blockchain can facilitate data provenance, data integrity, data security, and data management. It has the potential to transform the healthcare sector. Since the introduction of Bitcoin in the fintech industry, the blcockhain technology has been gaining a lot of traction and its purpose is not just limited to finance. This thesis highlights the inner workings of blockchain technology and its application areas with possible existing solutions. Blockchain could lay the path for a new revolution in conventional healthcare systems. We presented how individual sectors within the healthcare industry could use blockchain and what solution persists. Also, we have presented our own concept to improve the existing paper-based prescription management system which is based on Hyperledger framework. The results of this work suggest that healthcare can benefit from blockchain technology bringing in the new ways patients can be treated.
Stream ecosystems are one of the most threatened ecosystems worldwide due to their exposure to diverse anthropogenic stressors. Pesticides appear to be the most relevant stressor for agricultural streams. Due to the current mismatch of modelled and measured pesticide concentrations, monitoring is necessary to inform risk assessment or improve future pesticide approvals. Knowing if biotic stress responses are similar across large scales and long time frames could ultimately help in estimating protective stressor thresholds.
This thesis starts with an overview of entry pathways of pesticides to streams as well as the framework of current pesticide monitoring and gives an outline of the objectives of the thesis. In chapter 2, routine monitoring data based on grab sampling from several countries is analysed to identify the most frequently occurring pesticide mixtures. These mixtures are comprised of relatively low numbers of pesticides, of which herbicides are dominating. The detected pesticide mixtures differ between regions and countries, due to differences in the spectrum of analysed compounds and limits of quantification. Current routine monitoring does not include sampling during pesticide peaks associated with heavy rainfall events which likely influences the detected pesticide mixtures. In chapter 3, sampling rates of 42 organic pesticides for passive sampling are provided together with recommendations for the monitoring of field-relevant peaks. Using this information, in chapter 4 a pesticide gradient is established in an Eastern European region where agricultural intensity adjacent to sampled streams ranges from low to high. In contrast to current routine monitoring, rainfall events were sampled and a magnitude of pesticides were analysed. This led to the simultaneous detection of numerous pesticides of which one to three drive the pesticide toxicity. The toxicity, however, showed no relationship to the agricultural intensity. Using microcosms, the stress responses of fungal communities, the hyphomycetes, and the related ecosystem function of leaf decomposition, is investigated in chapter 5. Effects of a field-relevant fungicide mixture are examined across three biogeographical regions for three consecutive cycles of microbial leaf colonisation and decomposition. Despite different initial communities, stress responses as well as recoveries were similar across biogeographical regions, indicating a general pattern.
Overall, this thesis contributes to an improved understanding of occurrence and concentrations of pesticides mixtures in streams, their monitoring and impact on an ecosystem function. We showed that estimated pesticide toxicities reach levels that affect non-target organisms and thereby potentially whole ecosystems. Routine monitoring, however, likely underestimates the threat by pesticides. Effects leading to a loss in biodiversity or functions in streams ecosystems can be reduced by reassessing approved pesticides with ongoing targeted monitoring and increased knowledge of effects caused by these pesticides.
In dieser wiederkehrenden Zeitschriftenreihe wollen wir die Arbeit junger Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler an der Universität Koblenz-Landau kommunizieren und Studierenden Austausch- und Publikationsmöglichkeiten für den wissenschaftlichen Werdegang eröffnen.
In dieser Ausgabe:
Bebbon, Michelle. Analysing Mediation Tasks in Standardised Final Exams in Germany.
Biehl, Ann-Katrin.Partial Equivalence of Subject-specific Concepts in CLIL: An Investigation of the Conceptual Awareness of Future CLIL Teachers.
Haag, Christian. Gender Issues in Video Games.
Hoffmann, Tobias. Digitale Medien und Motivation: Selbstbestimmtes und intrinsisch motiviertes Lernen im digitalen Unterricht über die Plattform Microsoft Teams.
Isenbart, Hendrik. Auswirkungen von Umweltbedrohungen auf die Selbstregulation unter Einfluss von sozialem Support.
Koch, Linda. Umweltbedingte Migration – eine gegenwärtige und zukünftige Herausforderung für Gerechtigkeitstheorien?
Mediger, Benedikt. Die Darstellung des Nahostkonflikts in Joe Saccos Palestine und Footnotes in Gaza.
Nilles, Alexander Maximilian. Multi-material simulation with the Material Point Method.
Schröder, Julia Michelle. Bildungssprache im Sachunterricht: Eine vergleichende Lehrwerkanalyse von naturwissenschaftlichen und gesellschaftswissenschaftlichen Themen.
In dieser Arbeit werden die schottischen Liedbearbeitungen Ludwig van Beethovens auf ihre möglichen gälischen Vorläufer untersucht und in ihrem historischen Kontext aus einer gälischen Perspektive betrachtet. Ihre Liedbiographien werden um Vorläufer ergänzt und vervollständigt, die vom dem schottischen Auftraggeber Beethovens, George Thomson teilweise vorsätzlich unterschlagen wurden. Gründe hierfür sind in der politischen und kulturellen Unterdrückung der gälischen Sprachgemeinschaft Schottlands zu finden. Handelt es sich wirklich um anonyme Volkslieder, oder auch um Kompositionen bekannter Musiker aus der gälischen Kultur? Welche Veränderungen erfuhren sie im Zuge der Anonymisierung und der Degradierung zur Volksmusik, sowie der anschließenden Neuausrichtung in der schottischen Nationalmusik? Zu 12 der schottischen Lieder Beethovens sind ausführliche Liedbiographien mit allen gälischen Liedtexten, deutscher Übersetzung und den historischen Hintergründen der gälischen Vorläufer und ihrer Notierungen entstanden.
Bio-medical data comes in various shapes and with different representations.
Domain experts use such data for analysis or diagnosis,
during research or clinical applications. As the opportunities to obtain
or to simulate bio-medical data become more complex and productive,
the experts face the problem of data overflow. Providing a
reduced, uncluttered representation of data, that maintains the data’s
features of interest falls into the area of Data Abstraction. Via abstraction,
undesired features are filtered out to give space - concerning the
cognitive and visual load of the viewer - to more interesting features,
which are therefore accentuated. To address this challenge, the dissertation
at hand will investigate methods that deal with Data Abstraction
in the fields of liver vasculature, molecular and cardiac visualization.
Advanced visualization techniques will be applied for this purpose.
This usually requires some pre-processing of the data, which will also
be covered by this work. Data Abstraction itself can be implemented
in various ways. The morphology of a surface may be maintained,
while abstracting its visual cues. Alternatively, the morphology may
be changed to a more comprehensive and tangible representation.
Further, spatial or temporal dimensions of a complex data set may
be projected to a lower space in order to facilitate processing of the
data. This thesis will tackle these challenges and therefore provide an
overview of Data Abstraction in the bio-medical field, and associated
challenges, opportunities and solutions.
The European landscape is dominated by intensive agriculture which leads to widespread impact on the environment. The frequent use of agricultural pesticides is one of the major causes of an ongoing decline in flower-visiting insects (FVIs). The conservation of this ecologically diverse assemblage of mobile, flying insect species is required by international and European policy. To counteract the decrease in species numbers and their abundances, FVIs need to be protected from anthropogenic stressors. European pesticide risk assessment was devised to prevent unacceptable adverse consequences of pesticide use on FVIs. However, there is an ongoing discussion by scientists and policy-makers if the current risk assessment actually provides adequate protection for FVI species.
The first main objective of this thesis was to investigate pesticide impact on FVI species. The scientific literature was reviewed to identify groups of FVIs, summarize their ecology, and determine their habitat. This was followed by a synthesis of studies about the exposure of FVIs in their habitat and subsequent effects. In addition, the acute sensitivity of one FVI group, bee species, to pesticides was studied in laboratory experiments.
The second main objective was to evaluate the European risk assessment for possible deficits and propose improvements to the current framework. Regulatory documents were screened to assess the adequacy of the guidance in place in light of the scientific evidence. The suitability of the honey bee Apis mellifera as the currently only regulatory surrogate species for FVIs was discussed in detail.
The available scientific data show that there are far more groups of FVIs than the usually mentioned bees and butterflies. FVIs include many groups of ecologically different species that live in the entire agricultural landscape. Their habitats in crops and adjacent semi-natural areas can be contaminated by pesticides through multiple pathways. Environmentally realistic exposure of these habitats can lead to severe effects on FVI population parameters. The laboratory studies of acute sensitivity in bee species showed that pesticide effects on FVIs can vary greatly between species and pesticides.
The follow-up critical evaluation of the European FVI risk assessment revealed major shortcomings in exposure and effect assessment. The honey bee proved to be a sufficient surrogate for bee species in lower tier risk assessment. Additional test species may be chosen for higher tier risk assessment to account for ecological differences. This thesis shows that the ecology of FVIs should generally be considered to a greater extent to improve the regulatory process. Data-driven computational approaches could be used as alternative methods to incorporate ecological trait data in spatio-temporal scenarios. Many open questions need to be answered by further research to better understand FVI species and promote necessary changes to risk assessment. In general, other FVI groups than bees need to be investigated. Furthermore, comprehensive data on FVI groups and their ecology need to be collected. Contamination of FVI habitat needs to be linked to exposure of FVI individuals and ecologically complex effects on FVI populations should receive increased attention. In the long term, European FVI risk assessment would benefit from shifting its general principles towards more scientifically informed regulatory decisions. This would require a paradigm shift from arbitrary assumptions and unnecessarily complicated schemes to a substantiated holistic framework.
Obwohl Kinder beim Bauen mit Bauklötzen bereits früh Erfahrungen mit Aspekten der Stabilität von Bauwerken, wie z. B. Kräfteverteilung, Standfestigkeit sowie Gleich- und Gegengewicht, sammeln und es verschiedene Studien gibt, die den fächerübergreifenden Lerngehalt von Bauklötzen hervorheben, ist das Verständnis bezüglich der Stabilität von Bauklotzanordnungen bisher kaum erforscht. Daher wurde untersucht, welche Vorstellungen sechs- bis siebenjährige Kinder zur Stabilität von Bauklotzanordnungen zeigen und welche Unterstützungsmaßnahmen eine Vorstellungsveränderung anregen. In Studie 1 und 2 zeigt sich, dass Kinder in der Schuleingangsphase erste Vorstellungen zur Stabilität von Bauklotzanordnungen haben. Über verschiedene Analysen wurden schwierigkeitsbestimmende Merkmale bzw. lösungsrelevante Dimensionen identifiziert. Kinder mit ca. fünf Jahren orientieren sich eher an der geometrischen Mitte und beziehen somit die Abstandsdimension ein, bei Neunjährigen berücksichtigen hingegen knapp über die Hälfte bereits den Massenmittelpunkt. Folglich reicht die „Bauerfahrung“ von Kindern bis zum neunten Lebensjahr nicht aus, um die Fähigkeit, Bauklotzanordnungen bezüglich ihrer Stabilität zu beurteilen, vollständig zu entwickeln. Deshalb wurde in Studie 3 untersucht, inwieweit sich eine Vorstellungsveränderung zur Stabilität von Bauklotzanordnungen mithilfe verschiedener Unterstützungsmaßnahmen innerhalb einer kurzen Lerneinheit anregen lässt. Dabei wurden verschiedene materiale und verbale Unterstützungsmaßnahmen in Form von Fotos und gezielten sprachlichen Instruktionen in einem systematischen Vergleich gegenübergestellt. Die Ergebnisse weisen nach, dass bereits mit einer kurzen Lerneinheit ein Wissenszuwachs bei Siebenjährigen angeregt werden kann, insbesondere wenn sie durch Fotos und gezielte sprachliche Instruktionen unterstützt werden. Die Ergebnisse sind ein erster Schritt für die Entwicklung eines naturwissenschaftlichen Unterrichts zur Stabilität von Bauklotzanordnungen.
The analysis of three-dimensional and complex motion sequences
of human gait and therefore the most important question
of kenesiology ”why are we falling?” is the essence of this
paper. The gerontology and its science of movement is currently
limited to simple and one-dimensional methods and models. An
extensive literature research shows the latest state of research of
the three common methods to determine the stability of human
gait. To assess the margin of stability, local stability and orbital
stability it is shown, how those methods are applicable to evaluate
the subject’s ability to recover from any disturbences of
the subject’s gait. Based on this assessment and the method’s
advantages and disadvantages a new method will be derived
that allows spatial analysis of dynamic instability of linear and
non-linear human gait. A motion capture system and the timed
up and go test serve as a basis for this new method and will be
explained. A numerical approximation to optimise the number
of markers within a marker-set of a motion capture analysis
and its maximum correlation with the full-body-marker-set will
be given. This simplification is very helpful for further clinical
or scientific research. To validate the new method a trial
with subjects will be shown and discussed. New appreciable
variables and snapshots of specific situations during the gait
offer new and different interpretations of the human gait. The
new method is the most applicable and appropriate assessment
of human gait and the individual development of the human
gait while aging, as well as to detect and prevent falling and
associated injuries. Especially directional change of a non-linear
gait become assessable with the new method.
Grundordnung der Universität Koblenz-Landau
Satzung über die Leitung und die innere Struktur wissenschaftlicher
Einrichtungen und Betriebseinheiten
der Universität Koblenz-Landau
Satzung über die Verleihung der Bezeichnung außerplanmäßige
Professorin oder außerplanmäßiger Professor
der Universität Koblenz-Landau
Interest in crowdfunding has been increasing in recent years, both from the economy and the scientific community. Besides artists and entrepreneurs, researchers are now also funding their projects through many small contributions from the crowd. However, the perceived use in Germany does not reflect the benefits of a crowdfunding campaign, especially in international comparison. This study investigates this issue by identifying the motives and barriers for crowdfunding in order to formulate recommendations for research institutions to encourage the use of crowdfunding.
By means of a literature review, first insights are gained which are then used to conduct qualitative interviews with eleven researchers who successfully completed a crowdfunding campaign. The results indicate that researchers in Germany use crowdfunding primarily to raise awareness for the subject and the scientific community in general. The initial assumption of the speed of crowdfunding as a motive was contradicted by the experts. The major barriers are the immense effort involved in a campaign and the lack of reputation for the concept of crowdfunding by German scientists. In addition, only subjects and projects with a high public relevance and funding volume of up to five digits are recommended for crowdfunding. Furthermore, the public exposure of the experts during the campaign was identified as an additional barrier.
These findings lead to three recommendations for research institutions to increase the use of crowdfunding: Firstly, universities should raise awareness for the subject of crowdfunding as an additional form of research funding and highlight the benefits of a crowdfunding campaign. Secondly, universities should cooperate with crowdfunding partners and utilize the networking capacities of a university. Lastly, universities should provide support to distribute the workload among interdisciplinary teams in order to enhance the effortreturn ratio of a crowdfunding campaign.
The chosen methodology and the scope of the thesis enable further research that might examine the perspective of the universities and the conditions in other countries. In addition, a largescale quantitative survey is required to validate the identified concepts statistically.
The scientific interest in nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) has increased in the last two decades. High prevalence and comorbidity rates, low quality of life and increased risk of suicidality highlight the importance of this research field. The present thesis focuses on intra- and interpersonal factors associated with the development and maintenance of NSSI.
The aim of study 1 was the examination of personality traits of adolescents with NSSI without Borderline Personality Disorder (NSSI-BPD), adolescents with NSSI and BPD (NSSI+BPD), clinical controls (CC) and nonclinical controls (NC). Results showed that adolescents with NSSI disorder scored significantly higher on novelty seeking and harm avoidance and lower on persistence, self-directedness, and cooperativeness than CC. In adolescents with NSSI+BPD this personality pattern was even more pronounced than in adolescents with NSSI-BPD.
Adolescents´ NSSI leads to distress that affects the whole family system, often resulting in conflicts and disrupted family communication and functioning. Parents report feelings of distress, insecurity and helplessness. Adolescents with NSSI report more parental criticism and control and less support than adolescents without NSSI. Study 2 investigated the parenting behavior in families of adolescents with NSSI. Adolescents with NSSI reported less maternal warmth and support than NC adolescents. Mothers of adolescents with NSSI showed higher psychopathology scores than NC mothers and less parental satisfaction than CC and NC mothers.
Siblings are also reported to suffer from changes in family dynamics. The aim of study 3 was to examine the sibling relationship quality of adolescents with NSSI, CC and NC. Siblings reported a wide range of negative emotional and familial consequences as a result of their sister´s NSSI. Siblings of adolescents with NSSI experienced significantly more coercion in the relationship with their sister compared to CC and NC siblings. Adolescents with NSSI reported significantly less warmth and empathy in the sibling relationship and higher rivalry scores between their siblings and themselves than NC adolescents. For both, adolescents with NSSI and their siblings, associations were found between sibling relationship quality and internalizing problems.
Study 4 aimed to further explore the family emotional climate. Therefore, the level of expressed emotion (EE) was assessed in adolescents with NSSI, CC, NC and their mothers. Parental high EE (HEE) is linked to adolescent NSSI, especially parental criticism seems to be strongly associated with NSSI. Previous research into NSSI and EE has focused on parental EE, however, the conceptualization of EE as a unidirectional construct from parent to child may present an incomplete picture. Therefore, the current study included both, adolescent and maternal EE. Adolescents in the NSSI and CC group more often met criteria for HEE than NC. Adolescents with NSSI exhibited significantly more covert criticism and critical tone toward their mothers than CC and NC. HEE of adolescents with NSSI was associated with a range of difficulties in emotion regulation. For the total sample, moderate concordance was found between adolescents and mothers EE-status.
The research presented in this thesis has important clinical implications. The differences in personality traits of adolescents with NSSI with and without BPD underline the need for a dimensional personality assessment as well as specific treatment programs for adolescents with NSSI-BPD. Problems within the family are frequent triggers for NSSI. Therefore, interventions for adolescents with NSSI should include both, the improvement of emotion regulation and family interaction and communication. Along with the reduction of negative relationship aspects, psychotherapy should also focus on the enhancement of positive relationship quality. The emotional burden of family members stresses the need for emotional and practical support for parents and siblings.
Molecular dynamics (MD) as a field of molecular modelling has great potential to revolutionize our knowledge and understanding of complex macromolecular structures. Its field of application is huge, reaching from computational chemistry and biology over material sciences to computer-aided drug design. This thesis on one hand provides insights into the underlying physical concepts of molecular dynamics simulations and how they are applied in the MD algorithm, and also briefly illustrates different approaches, as for instance the molecular mechanics and molecular quantum mechanics approaches.
On the other hand an own all-atom MD algorithm is implemented utilizing and simplifying a version of the molecular mechanics based AMBER force field published by \big[\cite{cornell1995second}\big]. This simulation algorithm is then used to show by the example of oxytocin how individual energy terms of a force field function. As a result it has been observed, that applying the bond stretch forces alone caused the molecule to be compacted first in certain regions and then as a whole, and that with adding more energy terms the molecule got to move with increasing flexibility.
In this thesis we examined the question whether personality traits of early child care workers influence process quality in preschool.
Research has shown that in educational settings such as preschool, pedagogical quality affects children’s developmental outcome (e.g. NICHD, 2002; Peisner-Feinberg et al., 1999). A substantial part of pedagogical quality known to be vital in this respect is the interaction between teacher and children (e.g., Tietze, 2008). Results of prior classroom research indicate that the teachers’ personality might be an important factor for good teacher-child-interaction (Mayr, 2011). Thus, personality traits might play a vital role for the interaction in preschool. Therefore, the aims of this thesis were to a) identify pivotal personality traits of child care workers, b) assess ideal levels of the identified personality traits and c) examine the relationship between pivotal personality traits and process quality. On that account, we conducted two requirement analyses and a video study. The results of these studies showed that subject matter experts (parents, child care workers, lecturers) partly agreed as to which personality traits are pivotal for child care workers. Furthermore, the experts showed high consensus with regard to the minimum, ideal and maximum personality trait profiles. Furthermore, child care workers whose profiles lay closer to the experts’ ideal also showed higher process quality. In addition, regression analyses showed that the child care workers’ levels of the Big Two (Communion and Agency) related significantly to their process quality.
The history of human kind is characterized by social conflict. Every conflict can be the starting point of social change or the escalation into more destructive forms. The social conflict in regard to rising numbers of refugees and their acceptance that arose in most host countries in 2015 already took on destructive forms – in Germany, right-wing extremists attacked refugee shelters and even killed multiple people, including political leaders who openly supported refugees. Thus, incompatible expectancies and values of different parts of the society led to violent action tendencies, which tremendously threaten intergroup relations. Psychological research has developed several interventions in past decades to improve intergroup relations, but they fall short, for example, when it comes to the inclusion of people with extreme attitudes and to precisely differentiate potential prosocial outcomes of the interventions. Thus, this dissertation aimed to a) develop psychological interventions, that could also be applied to people with more extreme attitudes, thereby putting a special emphasis on collecting a diverse sample; b) gain knowledge about target- and outcome specific effects: Who benefits from which intervention and how can specific prosocial actions be predicted in order to develop interventions that guide needs-based actions; and c) shed light on potential underlying mechanisms of the interventions.
The dissertation will be introduced by the socio-political background that motivated the line of research pursued, before providing an overview of the conceptualization of social conflicts and potential psychological inhibitors and catalyzers for conflict transformation. Based on past research on socio-psychological interventions and their limitations, the aims of the dissertation will be presented in more detail, followed by a short summary of each manuscript. Overall, the present thesis comprises four manuscripts that were summarized in the general discussion into a road map for social-psychological interventions to put them into a broader perspective. The road map aspires to provide recommendations for increasing – either approach-oriented or support-oriented actions – by the socio-psychological interventions for a variety of host society groups depending on their pre-existing attitude towards refugees.
A Paradoxical Intervention targeting central beliefs of people with negative attitudes towards refugees influenced inhibitory and catalyzing factors for conflict transformation over the course of three experiments – thereby providing an effective tool to establish approach-oriented action tendencies, such as the willingness to get in contact with refugees. Further, the dissertation presents a novel mechanism – namely Cognitive Flexibility – which could explain the Paradoxical Interventions’ effect of past research. By positively affecting a context-free mindset, the Paradoxical Intervention could impact more flexible thought processes in general, irrespective of the topic tackled in the Paradoxical Intervention itself. For people with rather positive attitudes addressing emotions may increase specific support-oriented action tendencies. The dissertation provides evidence of a positive relation between moral outrage and hierarchy-challenging actions, such as solidarity-based collective action, and sympathy with prosocial hierarchy-maintaining support-oriented actions, such as dependency-oriented helping. These exclusive relations between specific emotions and action intentions provide important implications for the theorizing of emotion-behavior relations, as well as for practical considerations. In addition, a diversity workshop conducted with future diplomats showed indirect effects on solidarity-based collective action via diversity perception and superordinate group identification, thereby extending past research by including action intentions and going beyond the focus on grassroot-initiatives by presenting an implementable intervention for future leaders in a real world context.
Taken together, this dissertation provides important insights for the development of socio-psychological interventions. By integrating a diverse sample, including members of institutions on meso- and macro-levels (non-governmental organizations and future politicians) of our society, this dissertation presents a unique multi-perspective of host society members on the social conflict of refugee acceptance and support. Thereby, this work contributes to theoretical and practical advancement of how social psychology can contribute not only to negative peace – by for example (indirectly) reducing support of violence against refugees – but also to positive peace – by for example investigating precursors of hierarchy-challenging actions that enable equal rights.
On-screen interactive presentations have got immense popularity in the domain of attentive interfaces recently. These attentive screens adapt their behavior according to the user's visual attention. This thesis aims to introduce an application that would enable these attentive interfaces to change their behavior not just according to the gaze data but also facial features and expressions. The modern era requires new ways of communications and publications for advertisement. These ads need to be more specific according to people's interests, age, and gender. When advertising, it's important to get a reaction from the user but not every user is interested in providing feedback. In such a context more, advance techniques are required that would collect user's feedback effortlessly. The main problem this thesis intends to resolve is, to apply advanced techniques of gaze and face recognition to collect data about user's reactions towards different ads being played on interactive screens. We aim to create an application that enables attentive screens to detect a person's facial features, expressions, and eye gaze. With eye gaze data we can determine the interests and with facial features, age and gender can be specified. All this information will help in optimizing the advertisements.
Although most plastic pollution originates on land, current research largely remains focused on aquatic ecosystems. Studies pioneering terrestrial microplastic research have adapted analytical methods from aquatic research without acknowledging the complex nature of soil. Meanwhile, novel methods have been developed and further refined. However, methodical inconsistencies still challenge a comprehensive understanding of microplastic occurrence and fate in and on soil. This review aims to disentangle the variety of state-of-the-art sample preparation techniques for heterogeneous solid matrices to identify and discuss best-practice methods for soil-focused microplastic analyses. We show that soil sampling, homogenization, and aggregate dispersion are often neglected or incompletely documented. Microplastic preconcentration is typically performed by separating inorganic soil constituents with high-density salt solutions. Not yet standardized but currently most used separation setups involve overflowing beakers to retrieve supernatant plastics, although closed-design separation funnels probably reduce the risk of contamination. Fenton reagent may be particularly useful to digest soil organic matter if suspected to interfere with subsequent microplastic quantification. A promising new approach is extraction of target polymers with organic solvents. However, insufficiently characterized soils still impede an informed decision on optimal sample preparation. Further research and method development thus requires thorough validation and quality control with well-characterized matrices to enable robust routine analyses for terrestrial microplastics.
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.