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Die hohen Infrastrukturkosten machen das Überprüfen von Theorien bezüglich großer Rechnernetze zu einer schwierigen und teuren Aufgabe. Ein möglicher Ansatz dieses Problem zu beheben ist die Verwendung von virtueller anstelle von physikalischer Infrastrukur. OPNets IT Guru ist ein Programm, das entworfen wurde zur Simulation großer Netze und zur Repräsentation relevanter Informationen. Es gestattet großflächige Änderungen zu testen oder Theorien zu überpruefen ohne den Aufwand einer physikalischen Infrastruktur.
Due to their confinement to specific host plants or restricted habitat types, Auchenorrhyncha are suitable biological indicators to measure the quality of chalk grassland under different management practices for nature conservation. They can especially be used as a tool to assess the success of restoring chalk grassland on ex-arable land. One objective of this study was to identify the factors which most effectively conserve and enhance biological diversity of existing chalk grasslands or allow the creation of new areas of such species-rich grassland on ex-arable land. A second objective was to link Auchenorrhyncha communities to the different grassland communities occurring on chalk according to the NVC (National Vegetation Classification). Altogether 100 chalk grassland and arable reversion sites were sampled between 1998 and 2002. Some of the arable reversion sites had been under certain grazing or mowing regimes for up to ten years by 2002. Vegetation structure and composition were recorded, and Auchenorrhyncha were sampled three times during the summer of each year using a "vortis" suction sampler. Altogether 110 leafhopper species were recorded during the study. Two of the species, Kelisia occirrega and Psammotettix helvolus, although widespread within the area studied, had not previously been recognized as part of the British fauna. By displaying insect frequency and dominance as it is commonly done for vegetation communities, it was possible to classify preferential and differential species of distinct Auchenorrhyncha communities. The linking of the entomological data with vegetation communities defined by the NVC showed that different vegetation communities were reflected by distinct Auchenorrhyncha communities. Significant differences were observed down to the level of sub-communities. The data revealed a strong positive relationship between the diversity of leafhoppers species and the vegetation height. There was also a positive correlation between the species richness of Auchenorrhyncha and the diversity of plant species. In that context it is remarkable that there was no correlation between vegetation height and botanical diversity. There is a substantial decrease in Auchenorrhyncha species richness from unimproved grassland to improved grassland and arable reversion. The decline of typical chalk grassland and general dry grassland species is especially notable. Consequently, the number of stenotopic Auchenorrhyncha species which are confined to only a few habitat types, are drastically reduced with the improvement of chalk grassland. Improved grassland and arable reversion fields are almost exclusively inhabited by common habitat generalists. The decrease in typical chalk grassland plants due to improvement is mirrored in the decline of Auchenorrhyncha species, which rely monophagously or oligophagously on specific host plants. But even where suitable host plants re-colonize arable reversion sites quickly, there is a considerable delay before leafhoppers follow. That becomes especially obvious with polyphagous leafhoppers like Turrutus socialis or Mocydia crocea, which occur on improved grassland or arable reversion sites only in low frequency and abundance, despite wide appearance or even increased dominance of their host plants. These species can be considered as the most suitable indicators to measure success or failure of long term grassland restoration. A time period of ten years is not sufficient to restore species-rich invertebrate communities on grassland, even if the flora indicates an early success.
In dieser Arbeit werden die Navier-Stokes Gleichungen für instationäre inkompressible Fluide in einem zeitabhängigen Gebiet untersucht.
Das Verhalten des Fluids beeinflusst die Geometrie des Gebietes, indem das Fluid Kräfte (beschrieben durch den Spannungstensor) auf die deformierbare Struktur ausübt.
Die Motivation dazu stammt aus de mathematischen Medizin - Simulation des Blutflusses in Arterien und Venen.
Nach der Auswahl des passenden Modells für den Fluss innerhalb des Kanals mit viskoelastisch-deformierbaren Wänden, wird das Gesamtmodell mathematisch untersucht. Die Existenz schwacher Lösungen wird mithilfe der schwach-kompressiblen Approximation im Gebiet mit gegebener Deformationsfunktion nachgewiesen. Hierbei wir die Fluid-Struktur-Kopplungsbedingung mithilfe des Ansatzes für teilweise permeable Wände approximiert und somit entkoppelt.
Schließlich werden numerische Experimente präsentiert, welche die Konvergenz der Iterationen bezüglich der Funktion der Deformation, wie auch das Verhalten der beweglichen Wand für sinkende Wandpermeabilität illustrieren.
Studies have shown that runoff and spray-drift are important sources of nonpoint-source pesticide pollution of surface waters. Owing to this, public concern over the presence of pesticides in surface and ground water has resulted in intensive scientific efforts to find economical, yet environmentally sound solutions to the problem. The primary objective of this research was to assess the effectiveness of vegetated aquatic systems in providing buffering between natural aquatic ecosystems and agricultural landscape following insecticide associated runoff and spray-drift events. The first set of studies were implemented using vegetated agricultural ditches, one in Mississippi, USA, using pyrethroids (bifenthrin, lambda-cyhalothrin) under simulated runoff conditions and the other in the Western Cape, South Africa using the organophosphate insecticide, azinphos-methyl (AZP), under natural runoff and spray-drift conditions. The second set of studies were implemented using constructed wetlands, one in the Western Cape using AZP under natural spray-drift conditions and the other in Mississippi, USA using the organophosphate MeP under simulated runoff conditions. Results from the Mississippi-ditch study indicated that ditch lengths of less than 300 m would be sufficient to mitigate bifenthrin and lambda-cyhalothrin. In addition, data from mass balance calculations determined that the ditch plants were the major sink (generally > 90%) and/or sorption site for the rapid dissipation of the above pyrethroids from the water column. Similarly, results from the ditch study in South Africa showed that a 180 m vegetated system was effective in mitigating AZP after natural spray drift and low flow runoff events. Analytical results from the first wetland study show that the vegetated wetland was more effective than the non-vegetated wetland in reducing loadings of MeP. Mass balance calculations indicated approximately 90% of MeP mass was associated with the plant compartment. Ninety-six hours after the contamination, a significant negative acute effect of contamination on abundances was found in 8 out of the 15 macroinvertebrate species in both wetland systems. Even with these toxic effects, the overall reaction of macroinvertebrates clearly demonstrated that the impact of MeP in the vegetated wetland was considerably lower than in the non-vegetated wetland. Results from the constructed wetland study in South Africa revealed that concentrations of AZP at the inlet of the 134 m wetland system were reduced by 90% at the outlet. Overall, results from all of the studies in this thesis indicate that the presence of the plant compartment was essential for the effective mitigation of insecticide contamination introduced after both simulated and natural runoff or spray-drift events. Finally, both the vegetated agricultural drainage ditch and vegetated constructed wetland systems studied would be effective in mitigating pesticide loadings introduced from either runoff or spray-drift, in turn lowering or eliminating potential pesticide associated toxic effects in receiving aquatic ecosystems. Data produced in this research provide important information to reduce insecticide risk in exposure assessment scenarios. It should be noted that incorporating these types of best management practices (BMPs) will decrease the risk of acute toxicity, but chronic exposure may still be an apparent overall risk.
In Silico simulation of biological systems is an important sub area of computational biology (system biology), and becomes more and more an inherent part for research. Therefore, different kinds of software tools are required. At present, a multitude of tools for several areas exists, but the problem is that most of the tools are essentially application specific and cannot be combined. For instance, a software tool for the simulation of biochemical processes is not able to interact with tools for the morphology simulation and vice versa. In order to obtain realistic results with computer-aided simulations it is important to regard the biological system in its entirety. The objective is to develop a software framework, which provides an interface structure to combine existing simulation tools, and to offer an interaction between all affiliated systems. Consequently, it is possible to re-use existing models and simulation programs. Additionally, dependencies between those can be defined. The system is designed to interoperate as an extendable architecture for various tools. The thesis shows the usability and applicability of the software and discusses potential improvements.
Knowledge compilation is a common technique for propositional logic knowledge bases. The idea is to transform a given knowledge base into a special normal form ([MR03],[DH05]), for which queries can be answered efficiently. This precompilation step is very expensive but it only has to be performed once. We propose to apply this technique to knowledge bases defined in Description Logics. For this, we introduce a normal form, called linkless concept descriptions, for ALC concepts. Further we present an algorithm, based on path dissolution, which can be used to transform a given concept description into an equivalent linkless concept description. Finally we discuss a linear satisfiability test as well as a subsumption test for linkless concept descriptions.
The term "Augmented Reality (AR)" denotes the superposition of additional virtual objects and supplementary information over real images. The joint project Enhanced Reality (ER)1 aims at a generic AR-system. The ER-project is a cooperation of six different research groups of the Department of Computer Science at the University of Koblenz-Landau. According to Ronald Azuma an AR-system combines real and virtual environments, where the real and virtual objects are registered in 3-D, and it provides interactivity in real time [Azu97]. Enhanced Reality extends Augmented Reality by requiring the virtual objects to be seamlessly embedded into the real world as photo-realistic objects according to the exact lighting conditions. Furthermore, additional information supplying value-added services may be displayed and interaction of the user may even be immersive. The short-term goal of the ER-project is the exploration of ER-fundamentals using some specific research scenarios; the long-term goal is the development of a component-based ER-framework for the creation of ER-applications for arbitrary application areas. ER-applications are developed as single-user applications for users who are moving in a real environment and are wearing some kind of visual output device like see-through glasses and some mobile end device. By these devices the user is able to see reality as it is, but he can also see the virtual objects and the additional information about some value-added service. Furthermore he might have additional devices whereby he can interact with the available virtual objects. The development of a generic framework for ER-applications requires the definition of generic components which are customizable and composable to build concrete applications and it requires a homogeneous data model which supports all components equally well. The workgroup "Software Technology"2 is responsible for this subproject. This report gives some preliminary results concerning the derivation of a component-based view of ER. There are several augmented reality frameworks like ARVIKA, AMIRE, DWARF, MORGAN, Studierstube and others which offer some support for the development of AR-applications. All of them ease the use of existing subsystems like AR-Toolkit, OpenGL and others and leverage the generation process for realistic systems by making efficient use of those subsystems. Consequently, they highly rely on them.
Probability propagation nets
(2007)
A class of high level Petri nets, called "probability propagation nets", is introduced which is particularly useful for modeling probability and evidence propagation. These nets themselves are well suited to represent the probabilistic Horn abduction, whereas specific foldings of them will be used for representing the flows of probabilities and likelihoods in Bayesian networks.
In this paper we describe a series of projects on location based and personalised information systems. We start wit a basic research project and we show how we came with the help of two other more application oriented project to a product. This is developed by a consortium of enterprises and it already is in use in the city of Koblenz.
This paper describes the development of security requirements for non-political Internet voting. The practical background is our experience with the Internet voting within the Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI - Informatics Society) 2004 and 2005. The theoretical background is the international state-of-the-art of requirements about electronic voting, especially in the US and in Europe. A focus of this paper is on the user community driven standardization of security requirements by means of a Protection Profile of the international Common Criteria standard.
In this paper we describe a network for distributing personalized information within a pervasive university. We discuss the system architecture of our Bluetooth-based CampusNews-system, both, from the administrator and the user viewpoint. We furthermore present first statistical data about the usage of the partial installation at the Koblenz campus together with an outlook to future work.
The thesis develops and evaluates a hypothetical model of the factors that influence user acceptance of weblog technology. Previous acceptance studies are reviewed, and the various models employed are discussed. The eventual model is based on the technology acceptance model (TAM) by Davis et al. It conceptualizes and operationalizes a quantitative survey conducted by means of an online questionnaire, strictly from a user perspective. Finally, it is tested and validated by applying methods of data analysis.
This paper shows how multiagent systems can be modeled by a combination of UML statecharts and hybrid automata. This allows formal system specification on different levels of abstraction on the one hand, and expressing real-time system behavior with continuous variables on the other hand. It is not only shown how multi-robot systems can be modeled by a combination of hybrid automata and hierarchical state machines, but also how model checking techniques for hybrid automata can be applied. An enhanced synchronization concept is introduced that allows synchronization taking time and avoids state explosion to a certain extent.
Computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the medical area deliver huge amounts of data, which doctors have to handle in a short time. These data can be visualised efficiently with direct volume rendering. Consequently most direct volume rendering applications on the market are specialised on medical tasks or integrated in medical visualisa- tion environments. Highly evolved applications for tasks like diagnosis or surgery simulation are available in this area. In the last years, however, another area is making increasing use of com- puted tomography. Companies like phoenix |x-ray, founded in 1999 pro- duce CT-scanners especially dedicated to industrial applications like non destructive material testing (NDT). Of course an application like NDT has different demands on the visualisation than a typical medical application. For example a typical task for non destructive testing would be to high- light air inclusions (pores) in a casting. These inclusions usually cover a very small area and are very hard to classify only based on their density value as this would also highlight the air around the casting. This thesis presents multiple approaches to improve the rendering of in- dustrial CT data, most of them based on higher dimensional transfer func- tions. Therefore the existing volume renderer application of VRVis was extended with a user interface to create such transfer functions and exist- ing render modes were adapted to profit from the new transfer functions. These approaches are especially suited to improve the visualisation of sur- faces and material boundaries as well as pores. The resulting renderings make it very easy to identify these features while preserving interactive framerates.
SOA-Security
(2007)
This paper is a part of the ASG project (Adaptive Services Grid) and addresses some IT security issues of service oriented architectures. It defines a service-oriented security concept, it explores the SOA security challenge, it describes the existing WS-Security standard, and it undertakes a first step into a survey on best practice examples. In particular, the ASG middleware platform technology (JBossWS) is analyzed with respect to its ability to handle security functions.
Networked RDF graphs
(2007)
Networked graphs are defined in this paper as a small syntactic extension of named graphs in RDF. They allow for the definition of a graph by explicitly listing triples as well as by SPARQL queries on one or multiple other graphs. By this extension it becomes possible to define a graph including a view onto other graphs and to define the meaning of a set of graphs by the way they reference each other. The semantics of networked graphs is defined by their mapping into logic programs. The expressiveness and computational complexity of networked graphs, varying by the set of constraints imposed on the underlying SPARQL queries, is investigated. We demonstrate the capabilities of networked graphs by a simple use case.
Hyper tableaux with equality
(2007)
In most theorem proving applications, a proper treatment of equational theories or equality is mandatory. In this paper we show how to integrate a modern treatment of equality in the hyper tableau calculus. It is based on splitting of positive clauses and an adapted version of the superposition inference rule, where equations used for paramodulation are drawn (only) from a set of positive unit clauses, the candidate model. The calculus also features a generic, semantically justified simplification rule which covers many redundancy elimination techniques known from superposition theorem proving. Our main results are soundness and completeness, but we briefly describe the implementation, too.
UML models and OWL ontologies constitute modeling approaches with different strength and weaknesses that make them appropriate for use of specifying different aspects of software systems. In particular, OWL ontologies are well suited to specify classes using an expressive logical language with highly flexible, dynamic and polymorphic class membership, while UML diagrams are much more suitable for specifying not only static models including classes and associations, but also dynamic behavior. Though MOF based metamodels and UML profiles for OWL have been proposed in the past, an integrated use of both modeling approaches in a coherent framework has been lacking so far. We present such a framework, TwoUse, for developing integrated models, comprising the benefits of UML models and OWL ontologies
In this paper we describe a network for distributing personalized Information in a metropolitan area. We discuss the system architecture of our Bluetooth-based information system as well as the reasoning process that fits users" needs with potential messages. We furthermore present our findings on parallelizing Bluetooth connection setup and performance.
Semantic descriptions of non-textual media available on the web can be used to facilitate retrieval and presentation of media assets and documents containing them. While technologies for multimedia semantic descriptions already exist, there is as yet no formal description of a high quality multimedia ontology that is compatible with existing (semantic) web technologies. We explain the complexity of the problem using an annotation scenario. We then derive a number of requirements for specifying a formal multimedia ontology, including: compatibility with MPEG-7, embedding in foundational ontologies, and modularisation including separation of document structure from domain knowledge. We then present the developed ontology and discuss it with respect to our requirements.
Generalized methods for automated theorem proving can be used to compute formula transformations such as projection elimination and knowledge compilation. We present a framework based on clausal tableaux suited for such tasks. These tableaux are characterized independently of particular construction methods, but important features of empirically successful methods are taken into account, especially dependency directed backjumping and branch local operation. As an instance of that framework an adaption of DPLL is described. We show that knowledge compilation methods can be essentially improved by weaving projection elimination partially into the compilation phase.
This paper offers an informal overview and discussion on first order predicate logic reasoning systems together with a description of applications which are carried out in the Artificial Intelligence Research Group of the University in Koblenz. Furthermore the technique of knowledge compilation is shortly introduced.
The E-KRHyper system is a model generator and theorem prover for first-order logic with equality. It implements the new E-hyper tableau calculus, which integrates a superposition-based handling of equality into the hyper tableau calculus. E-KRHyper extends our previous KRHyper system, which has been used in a number of applications in the field of knowledge representation. In contrast to most first order theorem provers, it supports features important for such applications, for example queries with predicate extensions as answers, handling of large sets of uniformly structured input facts, arithmetic evaluation and stratified negation as failure. It is our goal to extend the range of application possibilities of KRHyper by adding equality reasoning.
We introduce linear expressions for unrestricted dags (directed acyclic graphs) and finite deterministic and nondeterministic automata operating on them. Those dag automata are a conservative extension of the Tu,u-automata of Courcelle on unranked, unordered trees and forests. Several examples of dag languages acceptable and not acceptable by dag automata and some closure properties are given.
Zahlreiche Studien belegen, dass menschliche Bewegungen Informationen über den Akteur in sich bergen. Beobachter sind daher in der Lage, Dinge wie Persönlichkeit, Geschlecht und Gefühlslage allein aus Bewegungen von Menschen zu erkennen. Um dem Ziel nach glaubwürdigen und realistischen virtuellen Charakteren näher zu kommen, verbesserte sich in den letzten Jahren vorwiegend das Aussehen der Charaktere. Dank moderner Techniken und einer rapiden Entwicklung der Computer Hardware können heute visuell extrem realistische Charaktere in virtuellen Echtzeitumgebungen dargestellt werden. Trotz ihrer visuellen Qualität werden sie jedoch in interaktiven Umgebungen häufig als mechanisch wahrgenommen. Diese Störung der Illusion, einem lebendigen, Menschen ähnlichem Lebewesen gegen über zu stehen ist in einem mangelndem menschlichen Verhalten des virtuellen Charakters begründet. Daher können ausdrucksvolle Bewegungen, die einen emotionalen Zustand des Charakters vermitteln, dazu verhelfen dem Menschen ähnlichere und daher glaubwürdigere Charaktere zu realisieren. Im Rahmen dieser Diplomarbeit wird die Umsetzbarkeit eines Systems zur automatischen Generierung emotional expressiver Charakter Animationen untersucht. Übliche Techniken zur Erstellung von Animationen sind sehr aufwendig und zeitintensiv. Um alle möglichen Variationen von Bewegungen in einer interaktiven Umgebung zu erstellen kommen solche Ansätze daher nicht in Frage. Um interaktive Charakter zu ermöglichen, welche in der Lage sind ihre Gefühle zum Ausdruck zu bringen, wird daher diese Problematik im Zuge dieser Diplomarbeit behandelt werden. Einschlägige Literatur aus Forschungsgebieten, welche sich mit Emotionen und Bewegungen befassen werden im Rahmen dieser Arbeit untersucht. Eigenschaften, anhand derer Menschen Emotionen in Bewegungen erkennen, werden technisch in einem Animationssystem umgesetzt, um aus neutralen Animationen emotionale Bewegungen zu generieren. Abschliessend werden die erstellten Ergebnisanimationen in Tests ausgewertet in Bezug auf Erkennbarkeit der Emotionen und Qualität der Ergebnisse.
This volume contains those research papers presented at the Second International Conference on Tests and Proofs (TAP 2008) that were not included in the main conference proceedings. TAP was the second conference devoted to the convergence of proofs and tests. It combines ideas from both areas for the advancement of software quality. To prove the correctness of a program is to demonstrate, through impeccable mathematical techniques, that it has no bugs; to test a program is to run it with the expectation of discovering bugs. On the surface, the two techniques seem contradictory: if you have proved your program, it is fruitless to comb it for bugs; and if you are testing it, that is surely a sign that you have given up on any hope of proving its correctness. Accordingly, proofs and tests have, since the onset of software engineering research, been pursued by distinct communities using rather different techniques and tools. And yet the development of both approaches leads to the discovery of common issues and to the realization that each may need the other. The emergence of model checking has been one of the first signs that contradiction may yield to complementarity, but in the past few years an increasing number of research efforts have encountered the need for combining proofs and tests, dropping earlier dogmatic views of their incompatibility and taking instead the best of what each of these software engineering domains has to offer. The first TAP conference (held at ETH Zurich in February 2007) was an attempt to provide a forum for the cross-fertilization of ideas and approaches from the testing and proving communities. For the 2008 edition we found the Monash University Prato Centre near Florence to be an ideal place providing a stimulating environment. We wish to sincerely thank all the authors who submitted their work for consideration. And we would like to thank the Program Committee members as well as additional referees for their great effort and professional work in the review and selection process. Their names are listed on the following pages. In addition to the contributed papers, the program included three excellent keynote talks. We are grateful to Michael Hennell (LDRA Ltd., Cheshire, UK), Orna Kupferman (Hebrew University, Israel), and Elaine Weyuker (AT&T Labs Inc., USA) for accepting the invitation to address the conference. Two very interesting tutorials were part of TAP 2008: "Parameterized Unit Testing with Pex" (J. de Halleux, N. Tillmann) and "Integrating Verification and Testing of Object-Oriented Software" (C. Engel, C. Gladisch, V. Klebanov, and P. Rümmer). We would like to express our thanks to the tutorial presenters for their contribution. It was a team effort that made the conference so successful. We are grateful to the Conference Chair and the Steering Committee members for their support. And we particularly thank Christoph Gladisch, Beate Körner, and Philipp Rümmer for their hard work and help in making the conference a success. In addition, we gratefully acknowledge the generous support of Microsoft Research Redmond, who financed an invited speaker.
The University of Koblenz-Landau would like to apply for participation in the RoboCup Mixed Reality League in Suzhou, China 2008. Our team is composed of ten team members and two supervisors. All members are graduate students of Computational Visualistics. Our supervisors are Ph.D. candidates currently researching in the working groups of artificial intelligence and computer graphics.
Social networking platforms as creativity fostering systems: research model and exploratory study
(2008)
Social networking platforms are enabling users to create their own content, share this content with anyone they invite and organize connections with existing or new online contacts. Within these electronic environments users voluntarily add comments on virtual boards, distribute their search results or add information about their expertise areas to their social networking profiles and thereby share it with acquaintances, friends and increasingly even with colleagues in the corporate world. As a result, it is most likely that the underlying knowledge sharing processes result in many new and creative ideas. The objective of our research therefore is to understand if and how social social networking platforms can enforce creativity. In addition, we look at how these processes could be embedded within the organizational structures that influence innovative knowledge sharing behavior. The basis for our research is a framework which focuses on the relations between intrinsic motivation, creativity and social networking platforms. First results of our empirical investigation of a social software platform called "StudiVZ.net" proved that our two propositions are valid.
Probability propagation nets
(2008)
In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird eine Petri-Netz-Repräsentation für die Propagation von Wahrscheinlichkeiten und Evidenzen (Likelihoods) vorgestellt und auf probabilistische Horn-Abduktion sowie Fehlerbäume und Bayes-Netze angewendet. Diese sogenannten Wahrscheinlichkeits-Propagations-Netze (probability propagation nets) machen Propagations-Prozesse transparent, indem sie strukturelle und dynamische Aspekte in einer homogenen Darstellung vereinen. Anhand populärer Beispiele wird verdeutlicht, dass Wahrscheinlichkeits-Propagations-Netze die Propagations-Prozesse - besonders im Hinblick auf die Bayes-Netz-Algorithmik - anschaulich darstellen und gut nachvollziehbar machen, so dass sie sich für die Analyse und Diagnose probabilistischer Modelle eignen. Durch die Repräsentation von Fehlerbäumen mit Wahrscheinlichkeits-Propagations-Netzen können diese Vorzüge auf die Modellierung technischer Systeme übertragen werden.
Querying for meta knowledge
(2008)
The Semantic Web is based on accessing and reusing RDF data from many different sources, which one may assign different levels of authority and credibility. Existing Semantic Web query languages, like SPARQL, have targeted the retrieval, combination and reuse of facts, but have so far ignored all aspects of meta knowledge, such as origins, authorship, recency or certainty of data, to name but a few. In this paper, we present an original, generic, formalized and implemented approach for managing many dimensions of meta knowledge, like source, authorship, certainty and others. The approach re-uses existing RDF modeling possibilities in order to represent meta knowledge. Then, it extends SPARQL query processing in such a way that given a SPARQL query for data, one may request meta knowledge without modifying the query proper. Thus, our approach achieves highly flexible and automatically coordinated querying for data and meta knowledge, while completely separating the two areas of concern.
This thesis is concerned with an issue of considerable importance to the development of revision skills: the role of teacher feedback. Prompted by the concern to develop a model of instruction which will help students write to the best of their capacities, the present study forms a proposal: an interactive model of revision. The study researches whether the kind of feedback proposed in this model is indeed a helpful tool for revision and whether the kind of negotiated revision that occurs is a vehicle for learning. The first section of the thesis reviews different areas of literature which are relevant to the study. More specifically, Chapter 2 presents the historical and theoretical foundations of different writing instructional practices and sheds light on issues concerning the use of the process approach. It also reviews research based on sociocognitive theoretical perspectives in an attempt to delineate the impact of interpersonal or social activity on individual performance and progress. Chapter 3 examines issues associated with the process approach in particular and illustrates how theory and method come together in a process writing classroom. Chapter 4 presents the differences in revising behaviours between experienced and inexperienced writers in both L1 and L2 contexts and the various ways these differences have been justified. It also highlights a number of issues which have been identified as contributing to effective revision. Particular attention is paid to the role that teacher feedback has to play as a means of promoting substantive student revision with an instructional emphasis on fluency, organisation and language. Chapter 5 presents an interactive model of revision, which envisions a communicative exchange between two partners, the student-writer and the teacher-reader, collaborating in order to develop awareness of revision strategies and establish criteria for effective writing. Chapter 6 investigates the epistemological basis of the research and presents a set of research questions and hypotheses, which guided the investigation. Chapter 7 frames the context of the research and details the methods used to collect the data from the study. The study involved 100 Year 7 students in two gymnasia in Koblenz, Germany. During the time of the investigation, the students wrote and revised five tasks. Three of these tasks were revised after receiving teacher feedback, which focused on aspects such as appropriacy and sufficiency of information, organization, coherence and grammatical accuracy. The study investigates the effects of this kind of focused feedback on the students" revisions and explores the relationship between revision and text improvement. Large quantitative and qualitative data sets were generated during the research. The quantitative data was based on the student documents (1000 original and revised drafts) whereas the qualitative data emerged from student questionnaires and seven case studies. Chapter 8 presents descriptions of the data analyses. More specifically, it describes the initial and final coding of the revisions traced in the student documents. Then it focuses on the type of qualitative analysis employed in the case studies in order to investigate the relationship between revision and text improvement. The final section of the chapter describes the questionnaire analysis, which was carried out to investigate attitudes, benefits and constraints from the implementation of the model. Chapter 9 examines the statistical results from the analysis of the students" revisions. More specifically, it explores the revisions made by the students across tasks and the relationships between the features of the teacher feedback and these revisions. The analysis highlights patterns in the development of revision skills and positive correlations of student revisions with features of the teacher feedback. Chapter 10 looks at the descriptive data from the case studies of seven individual student writers. The analysis of this data illustrates how the specific students negotiated the revisions and sheds more light on the relationship between feedback, revision and text improvement. Chapter 11 contains the analysis of the students" answers to the questionnaire, which provide illuminative information about the feedback-related attitudes. In Chapter 12, the thesis reaches its final destination. The journey over the paths of literature exploration, data gathering and data analysis ends with reflections on the messages that emerge from the data analysis. The conclusion reached is that young students can learn how to revise their writing and focused feedback is a viable pedagogic option for teaching revision. In addition to discussing the findings, this final section considers the pedagogical implications for the teaching of writing and suggests possible avenues for further work.
Die automatische Detektion der Lage und Ausrichtung von Unterwasser-Kabeln oder -Pipelines in Kamerabildern ermöglicht es, Unterwasserfahrzeuge autonome Kontrollfahrten durchführen zu lassen. Durch Pflanzenwuchs auf und in der Nähe von Kabeln bzw. Pipelines wird deren visuelle Erfassung jedoch erschwert: Die Bestimmug der Lage über die Detektion von Kanten mit anschließender Linien-Extraktion schlägt oft fehl. Probabilistische Ansätze sind hier den deterministischen überlegen. Durch die Modellierung von Wahrscheinlichkeiten kann trotz geringer Anzahl von extrahierten Merkmalen eine Aussage über den Zustand des Systems getroffen werden. Diese Arbeit stellt ein neues auf Partikelfiltern basierendes Tracking-System für die Verfolgung von Kabeln und Pipelines in Bildsequenzen vor. Umfangreiche Experimente auf realistischen Unterwasser-Videos zeigen die Robustheit und Performanz des gewählten Ansatzes sowie Vorteile gegenüber vorangegangenen Arbeiten.
Öffentliche elektronische Beschaffung (eProcurement), bzw. strategischer elektronischer Einkauf (eSourcing), sind mit hoher Wahrscheinlichkeit Thema sobald eGovernment Experten aufeinander treffen. So ist es nicht überraschend, dass eProcurement im aktuellen Aktionsplan der EU als "high-impact service" eingestuft wurde. Dies lässt sich zum Großteil durch den großen Einfluss vom öffentlichen Einkauf auf die Staatskasse erklären. So macht eProcurement in der Regel bis zu 20% des BIP aus und beherbergt somit ein enormes Einsparpotenzial. Dieses Potenzial liegt zum Teil im gemeinsamen Europäischen Wirtschaftsraum, da effizientes länderübergreifendes eSourcing neue Möglichkeiten für Einkäufer sowie Lieferanten eröffnen kann. Um diese Möglichkeiten ausschöpfen zu können, müssen Prozesse und Tools in der Lage sein, miteinander zu kommunizieren, sich aufeinander abzustimmen oder transferierbar sein. In einem Wort, sie müssen interoperabel sein. In vielen wichtigen Bereichen ist Interoperabilität sehr weit fortgeschritten, in anderen hingegen muss noch viel verändert werden. Daher ist es von wesentlicher Bedeutung Interoperabilitätsanforderungen zu definieren, sowie den aktuellen Forschungs- und Entwicklungsstand zu evaluieren.
Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist die Erforschung von Einstellungen und prosozialem Verhalten zwischen Arbeitsgruppen aus Sicht der Theorie der sozialen Identität und der Kontakthypothese. Dem Rekategorisierungsmodell von Gaertner und Dovidio (2000) folgend wird angenommen, dass "optimale" Kontaktbedingungen (Allport, 1954) eine gemeinsame organisationale Identität anregen. Diese gemeinsame Identität sollte verschiedene Arbeitsgruppen dazu motivieren, zusammenzuarbeiten und freiwilliges Arbeitsverhalten zu zeigen anstelle von Voreingenommenheiten. Vorhersagen des Rekategorisierungsmodells werden zusätzlich durch Annahmen aus dem Eigengruppen-Projektionsmodell (Mummendey & Wenzel, 1999) und dem Selbstkategorisierungsmodell der Gruppennormen (Terry & Hogg, 1996) ergänzt. Die abgeleiteten Hypothesen werden an einer Stichprobe von N1 = 281 MitarbeiterInnen aus N2 = 49 Abteilungen und den entsprechenden AbteilungsleiterInnen eines deutschen Versandhandelsunternehmens überprüft (Studie 1). Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Kontaktbedingungen auf Gruppen- und Personenebene weniger Voreingenommenheit zwischen Arbeitsgruppen, sowie mehr prosoziales Verhalten (d. h. Kooperation und Hilfeverhalten) vorhersagen. Die Repräsentation als gemeinsame Gruppe vermittelt diesen Zusammenhang für die Variablen Bewertung der Fremdgruppe und Kooperation. Dagegen wird der Zusammenhang zwischen gemeinsamer organisationaler Identität und Voreingenommenheit durch die relative Prototypikalität der Abteilung moderiert, wie es das Eigengruppen-Projektionsmodell vorhersagt. Der Effekt einer prosozialen Gruppennorm auf Hilfeverhalten wird durch die Identifikation mit der Arbeitsgruppe moderiert. In einer Längsschnittstudie mit insgesamt N = 57 Mitgliedern studentischer Projektgruppen wird der Befund repliziert, dass Kontakt unter "optimalen" Bedingungen zu mehr prosozialem Verhalten und weniger Voreingenommenheit zwischen organisationalen Gruppen führt. Der Mediationseffekt durch eine gemeinsame Gruppenidentität zeigt sich jedoch in Studie 2 nicht. Die Ergebnisse der ersten Studie lassen vermuten, dass interpersonales Hilfeverhalten besser durch Prädiktoren auf der gleichen Kategorisierungsebene (d. h. Personenebene) vorhergesagt werden kann (vgl. Haslam, 2004). Daher wird die zusätzliche Annahme getroffen, dass Kontakt in einem Kontext, welcher persönliche Identitäten salient macht (d. h. zu Dekategorisierung führt), interpersonales Verhalten besser vorhersagen kann. Dagegen sollte Kontakt in einem Kontext, welcher Gruppenidentitäten salient macht (d. h. zu Kategorisierung führt), intergruppales Verhalten besser vorhersagen können (vgl. Tajfel, 1978). Zusätzliche Daten aus Studie 1 belegen diesen kontextspezifischen Effekt von Kontakt auf interpersonales bzw. intergruppales prosoziales Verhalten. Im letzten Schritt wird das längsschnittliche Kontaktmodell von Pettigrew (1998) untersucht, welches Kontakt in Kontexten, die zu Dekategorisierung, Kategorisierung bzw. Rekategorisierung führen, in einer zeitlichen Abfolge miteinander verbindet. Erste Befunde aus Studie 2 zeigen, dass eine Abfolge der Kategorisierungsprozesse beginnend bei Dekategorisierung über Kategorisierung hin zu Rekategorisierung eine besonders effektive Möglichkeit zur Verbesserung der Kooperation zwischen Gruppen bieten könnte. Zum Abschluss wird ein Kontextspezifisches Kontaktmodell vorgeschlagen, das Befunde aus den beiden vorgestellten Studien integriert und zu weiterer Forschung an prosozialem Verhalten zwischen Arbeitsgruppen anregen soll. Mögliche Mediatoren und Moderatoren werden neben einer Reihe von Implikationen für die Forschung und Praxis diskutiert.
Computers and especially computer networks have become an important part of our everyday life. Almost every device we use is equipped with a computer or microcontroller. Recent technology has even boosted this development by miniaturization of the size of microcontrollers. These are used to either process or collect data. Miniature senors may sense and collect huge amounts of information coming from nature, either from environment or from our own bodies. To process and distribute the data of these sensors, wireless sensor networks (WSN) have been developed in the last couple of years. Several microcontrollers are connected over a wireless connection and are able to collect, transmit and process data for various applications. Today, there are several WSN applications available, such as environment monitoring, rescue operations, habitat monitoring and smart home applications. The research group of Prof. Elaine Lawrence at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) is focusing on mobile health care with WSN. Small sensors are used to collect vital data. This data is sent over the network to be processed at a central device such as computer, laptop or handheld device. The research group has developed several prototypes of mobile health care. This thesis will deal with enhancing and improving the latest prototype based on CodeBlue, a hardware and software framework for medical care.
In dieser Dissertation wird eine Verfahrensweise für die formale Spezifikation und Verifikation von Benutzerschnittstellen unter Sicherheitsaspekten vorgestellt. Mit dieser Verfahrensweise können beweisbar sichere Benutzerschnittstellen realisiert werden. Die Arbeit besteht aus drei Teilen. Im ersten Teil wird eine Methodologie für die formale Beschreibung von Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion entwickelt. Im zweiten Teil werden gängige Computersicherheitskonzepte für die Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion angepasst und mit den im ersten Teil entwickelten Methoden formalisiert. Dabei wird ein generisches formales Modell von Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion erstellt. Im dritten Teil wird die Methodologie, die in den ersten beiden Teilen entwickelt wurde, an einem sicheren Email-Client als exemplarischen Anwendungsprogramm demonstriert.
Weltweit kann im letzten Jahrzehnt auf eine rasch zunehmende Akzeptanz des Internets als Informationsplattform zurückgeblickt werden. Grundlegende Änderungen fanden sowohl im privaten als auch im öffentlichen Sektor statt. Im Zuge dessen wurde die aktive Beteiligung von Bürgern in politische Meinungsbildungsprozesse mehr und mehr elektronisch unterstützt. Die Erwartungen an die neue Technologie steigerten sich in die Annahme, dass Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien (IKT) die Bürgerbeteiligung verbessern und die Politikverdrossenheit mindern können. Aus diesen Erwartungen entwickelten sich einige E-Partizipationsprojekte in Deutschland. Außerdem wurde die "Initiative eParticipation" ins Leben gerufen, die in Bezug auf E-Partizipation Politik und Verwaltungen stark anregte, den Entscheidungsprozess mit Hilfe von internetgestützten Beteiligungspraktiken zu stärken. Diese Arbeit besteht aus zwei Hauptteilen. Im ersten Teil werden Definitionen der kritischen Begriffe präsentiert. Außerdem wird die Position von E-Partizipation innerhalb der Dimension des E-Business aufgezeigt. Um E-Partizipation zu erläutern, werden zuerst Grundlagen der klassischen Bürgerbeteiligung erklärt. Es wird gezeigt, dass sich auch die klassische Bürgerbeteiligung in einem Veränderungsprozess befindet, dessen Ursache nicht nur der Einsatz von IKT ist. Nachfolgend wird ein Rahmenwerk präsentiert, welches das Spektrum von E-Partizipation charakterisiert. Die Europäische Union fördert die Umsetzung von E-Partizipation. Koblenz soll da keine Ausnahme bilden. Aber wie ist die momentane Situation in Koblenz? Um diese Frage zu beantworten wird der gegenwärtige Zustand untersucht. Dazu wurde eine Umfrage unter den Bürgern der Stadt entwickelt, durchgeführt und ausgewertet. Dies ist der zweite Hauptteil dieser Arbeit.
CAMPUS NEWS - artificial intelligence methods combined for an intelligent information network
(2008)
In this paper we describe a network for distributing personalised information with the usage of artificial intelligence methods. Reception of this information should be possible with everyday mobile equipment. Intelligent filtering and spam protection aim at integrating this technology into our environment. Information on the system architecture and usage of the installation are also presented.
Foliicolous lichens are one of the most abundant epiphytes in tropical rainforests and one of the few groups of organisms that characterize these forests. Tropical rainforests are increasingly affected by anthropogenic disturbance resulting in forest destruction and degradation. However, not much is known on the effects of anthropogenic disturbance on the diversity of foliicolous lichens. Understanding such effects is crucial for the development of appropriate measures for the conservation of such organisms. In this study, foliicolous lichens diversity was investigated in three tropical rainforests in East Africa. Godere Forest in Southwest Ethiopia is a transitional rainforest with a mixture of Afromontane and Guineo-Congolian species. The forest is secondary and has been affected by shifting cultivation, semi-forest coffee management and commercial coffee plantation. Budongo Forest in West Uganda is a Guineo-Congolian rainforest consisting of primary and secondary forests. Kakamega Forest in western Kenya is a transitional rainforest with a mixture of Guineo-Congolian and Afromontane species. The forest is a mosaic of near-primary forest, secondary forests of different seral stages, grasslands, plantations, and natural glades.
Semantic desktop environments aim at improving the effectiveness and efficiency of users carrying out daily tasks within their personal information management infrastructure (PIM). They support the user by transferring and exploiting the explicit semantics of data items across different PIM applications. Whether such an approach does indeed reach its aim of facilitating users" life and—if so—to which extent, however, remains an open question that we address in this paper with the first summative evaluation of a semantic desktop approach. We approach the research question exploiting our own semantic desktop infrastructure, X-COSIM. As data corpus, we have used over 100 emails and 50 documents extracted from the organizers of a conference-like event at our university. The evaluation has been carried out with 18 subjects. We have developed a test environment to evaluate COSIMail and COSIFile, two semantic PIM applications based on X-COSIM. As result, we have found a significant improvement for typical PIM tasks compared to a standard desktop environment.
This thesis deals with the verbal categories tense and aspect in the context of analysing the English perfect. The underlying notion of time is examined from the viewpoint of etymology and from the viewpoint of fields of knowledge that lie outside the immediate scope of temporal semantics, e.g. mathematics. The category tense is scrutinised by discussing the concept of Reichenbach tense and the concept of correlation (Giering). The starting point of the discussion of the category verbal aspect is the dichotomy perfective vs. imperfective in the Slavic languages. The main part about the perfect is concerned with the possessive perfect as a cross-linguistic phenomenon (including a comparison of the English and the Slavic perfect) and focuses on the usage and the meaning of the English present perfect. There are three appendices which are an integral part of this dissertation. Appendix A deals with the systematization of English verb forms and their graphical representation. Three different visualizations are presented, two of which are genuine to this paper. Appendix B reproduces the target setting according to which an animated visualization of English infinitives was programmed. Appendix C represents a synopsis of approaches to the English perfect in grammars and textbooks.
The STOR project aims at the development of a scientific component system employing models and knowledge for object recognition in images. This interim report elaborates on the requirements for such a component system, structures the application area by identifying a large set of basic operations, and shows how a set of appropriate data structures and components can be derived. A small case studies exemplifies the approach.
Hybrid systems are the result of merging the two most commonly used models for dynamical systems, namely continuous dynamical systems defined by differential equations and discrete-event systems defined by automata. One can view hybrid systems as constrained systems, where the constraints describe the possible process flows, invariants within states, and transitions on the one hand, and to characterize certain parts of the state space (e.g. the set of initial states, or the set of unsafe states) on the other hand. Therefore, it is advantageous to use constraint logic programming (CLP) as an approach to model hybrid systems. In this paper, we provide CLP implementations, that model hybrid systems comprising several concurrent hybrid automata, whose size is only straight proportional to the size of the given system description. Furthermore, we allow different levels of abstraction by making use of hierarchies as in UML statecharts. In consequence, the CLP model can be used for analyzing and testing the absence or existence of (un)wanted behaviors in hybrid systems. Thus in summary, we get a procedure for the formal verification of hybrid systems by model checking, employing logic programming with constraints.
The lack of a formal event model hinders interoperability in distributed event-based systems. Consequently, we present in this paper a formal model of events, called F. The model bases on an upper-level ontology and pro-vides comprehensive support for all aspects of events such as time and space, objects and persons involved, as well as the structural aspects, namely mereological, causal, and correlational relationships. The event model provides a flexible means for event composition, modeling of event causality and correlation, and allows for representing different interpretations of the same event. The foundational event model F is developed in a pattern-oriented approach, modularized in different ontologies, and can be easily extended by domain specifific ontologies.