Classical music has played a central role in German music education since at least the second half of the 20th century. However, in more recent music pedagogical discourse, classical music remains a controversial topic. But what do music teachers think about classical music as a subject for music education? This topic has not yet been systematically researched in German-speaking music education. In this qualitative-empirical study, eight semi-structured interviews were conducted to address the question of how music teachers perceive classical music in music education. The data was evaluated using the Grounded Theory Methodology. The theory developed from the study indicates that music teachers have varying objectives when using classical music in music education. However, they generally consider it unfamiliar to their students. To address this situation, music teachers develop various methods and strategies. These can be categorized into three approaches for dealing with the unfamiliarity of classical music: avoidance, reduction/relativization, and utilization. The study's findings are contextualized within the framework of foreignness theory, music didactics, and transformational educational theory. This dissertation contributes to the field of music education in classical music, laying the groundwork for further theoretical, empirical, and didactic research.

In der vorliegenden Dissertation mit dem Titel "Blickanalysen bei mentalen Rotationsaufgaben" wird eine Analyse der visuellen Verarbeitungsprozesse bei mentalen Rotationsaufgaben mittels Eye-Tracking-Technologie durchgeführt, um die zugrundeliegenden kognitiven Prozesse und Strategien, die bei der Lösung dieser Aufgaben angewandt werden, zu untersuchen. Ein Anliegen dieser Arbeit ist es, die Problemstellung zu adressieren, wie individuelle Unterschiede, insbesondere geschlechtsspezifische Differenzen in den Blickmustern, die visuelle Verarbeitung und Leistung bei mentalen Rotationsaufgaben beeinflussen. Hierzu wurden drei Studien durchgeführt, die nicht nur die Identifikation von Blickmustern und die Analyse der Leistungsunterschiede in Bezug auf Geschlecht umfassen, sondern auch die Korrelation zwischen Blickverhalten und Leistung untersuchen. Die Ergebnisse dieser Forschung bieten Einblicke in die Mechanismen der visuellen und kognitiven Verarbeitung bei mentalen Rotationsaufgaben und heben die Bedeutung des Eye-Tracking als Forschungsinstrument in der kognitiven Psychologie hervor, um ein umfassendes Verständnis der Einflussfaktoren auf räumliches Denken und Problemlösungsstrategien zu erlangen.

The biodegradable polymers polylactic acid (PLA) and polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) produced from renewable raw materials were coated with hydrogenated amorphous carbon layers (a-C:H) at different deposition angles with various thicknesses as part of this thesis. Similar to conventional polymers, biopolymers often have unsuitable surface properties for industrial purposes, e.g. low hardness. For some applications, it is therefore necessary and advantageous to modify the surface properties of biopolymers while retaining the main properties of the substrate material. A suitable surface modification is the deposition of thin a-C:H layers. Their properties depend essentially on the sp² and sp³ hybridization ratio of the carbon atoms and the content of hydrogen atoms. The sp²/sp³ ratio was to be controlled in the present work by varying the coating geometry. Since coatings at 0°, directly in front of the plasma source, contain a higher percentage of sp³ and indirectly coated (180°) a higher amount of sp², it is shown in this work that it is possible to control the sp²/sp³ ratio. For this purpose, the samples are placed in front of the plasma source at angles of 0, 30, 60, 90, 120, 150 and 180° and coated for 2.5, 5.0, 7.5 and 10.0 minutes. For the angles 0°, the layer thicknesses were 25, 50, 75 and 100 nm. The a-C:H layers were all deposited using radio-frequency plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition and acetylene as C and H sources after being pretreated with an oxygen plasma for 10 minutes. Following the O₂ treatment and the a-C:H deposition, the surfaces are examined using macroscopic and microscopic measurement methods and the data is then analyzed. The surface morphology is recorded using scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. In addition, data on the stability of the layer and the surface roughness can be collected. Contact angle (CA) measurements are used to determine not only the wettability, but also the contact angle hysteresis by pumping the drop volume up and down. By measuring the CA with different liquids and comparing them, the surface free energy (SFE) and its polar and disperse components are determined. The changes in barrier properties are verified by water vapor transmission rate tests (WVTR). The chemical analysis of the surface is carried out on the one hand by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy with specular reflection and on the other hand by synchrotron-supported techniques such as near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. When analyzing the surfaces after the O₂ treatment, which was initially assumed to serve only to clean and activate the surface for the a-C:H coating, it was found that the changes were more drastic than originally assumed. For example, if PLA is treated at 0° for 10 minutes, the roughness increases fivefold. As the angle increases, it decreases again until it returns to the initial value at 180°. This can be recognized to a lesser extent with PHB at 30°. For both polymers, it can be shown that the polar fraction of the SFE increases. In the WVTR, a decrease in permeability can be observed for PLA and an increase in the initial value for PHB. The chemical surface analysis shows that the O₂ treatment has little effect on the surface bonds. Overall, it can be shown in this work that the O₂ treatment has an effect on the properties of the surface and cannot be regarded exclusively as a cleaning and activation process. With direct a-C:H coating (at 0°), a layer failure due to internal stress can be observed for both PLA and PHB. This also occurs with PHB at 30°, but to a lesser extent. Permeability of the polymers is reduced by 47% with a five-minute coating and the layer at 10.0 minutes continues to have this effect despite cracks appearing. The application of a-C:H layers shows a dominance of sp³ bonds for both polymer types with direct coating. This decreases with increasing angle and sp² bonds become dominant for indirect coatings. This result is similar for all coating thicknesses, only the angle at which the change of the dominant bond takes place is different. It is shown that it is possible to control the surface properties by an angle-dependent coating and thus to control the ratio sp²/sp³.

Degenerative changes in the spine as well as back pain can be considered a common ailment. Incorrect loading of the lumbar spine structures is often considered as one of the factors that can accelerate degenerative processes, leading to back pain. For example, a degenerative change could be the occurrence of spinal stenosis following spondylolisthesis. Surgical treatment of spinal stenosis mainly focuses on decompressing the spinal canal with or without additional fusion through dorsal spondylodesis. There are differing opinions on whether fusion along with decompression provides potential benefits to patients or represents an overtreatment. Both conventional therapies and surgical methods aim to restore a “healthy” (or at least pain-free) distribution of load. Surprisingly little is known about the interindividual variability of load distribution in “healthy” lumbar spines. Since medical imaging does not provide information on internal forces, computer simulation of individual patients could be a tool to gain a set of new decision criteria for these cases. The advantage lies in calculating the internal load distribution, which is not feasible in in-vivo studies, as measurements of internal forces in living subjects are ethically and partially technically unfeasible. In the present research, the forward dynamic approach is used to calculate load distribution in multi-body models of individual lumbar spines. The work is structured into three parts: (I) Load distribution is quantified depending on the individual curvature of the lumbar spine. (II) Confidence intervals of the instantaneous center of rotation over time are determined, with which the motion behavior of healthy lumbar spines can be described. (III) Lastly, the effects of decompression surgeries on the load distribution of lumbar spines are determined.

The goal of this PhD thesis is to investigate possibilities of using symbol elimination for solving problems over complex theories and analyze the applicability of such uniform approaches in different areas of application, such as verification, knowledge representation and graph theory. In the thesis we propose an approach to symbol elimination in complex theories that follows the general idea of combining hierarchical reasoning with symbol elimination in standard theories. We analyze how this general approach can be specialized and used in different areas of application. In the verification of parametric systems it is important to prove that certain safety properties hold. This can be done by showing that a property is an inductive invariant of the system, i.e. it holds in the initial state of the system and is invariant under updates of the system. Sometimes this is not the case for the condition itself, but for a stronger condition it is. In this thesis we propose a method for goal-directed invariant strengthening. In knowledge representation we often have to deal with huge ontologies. Combining two ontologies usually leads to new consequences, some of which may be false or undesired. We are interested in finding explanations for such unwanted consequences. For this we propose a method for computing interpolants in the description logics EL and EL⁺, based on a translation to the theory of semilattices with monotone operators and a certain form of interpolation in this theory. In wireless network theory one often deals with classes of geometric graphs in which the existence or non-existence of an edge between two vertices in a graph relies on properties on their distances to other nodes. One possibility to prove properties of those graphs or to analyze relations between the graph classes is to prove or disprove that one graph class is contained in the other. In this thesis we propose a method for checking inclusions between geometric graph classes.

In the last decade, policy-makers around the world have turned their attention toward the creative industry as the economic engine and significant driver of employments. Yet, the literature suggests that creative workers are one of the most vulnerable work-forces of today’s economy. Because of the highly deregulated and highly individuated environment, failure or success are believed to be the byproduct of individual ability and commitment, rather than a structural or collective issue. This thesis taps into the temporal, spatial, and social resolution of digital behavioural data to show that there are indeed structural and historical issues that impact individuals’ and groups’ careers. To this end, this thesis offers a computational social science research framework that brings together the decades-long theoretical and empirical knowledge of inequality studies, and computational methods that deal with the complexity and scale of digital data. By taking music industry and science as use cases, this thesis starts off by proposing a novel gender detection method that exploits image search and face-detection methods. By analysing the collaboration patterns and citation networks of male and female computer scientists, it sheds lights on some of the historical biases and disadvantages that women face in their scientific career. In particular, the relation of scientific success and gender-specific collaboration patterns is assessed. To elaborate further on the temporal aspect of inequalities in scientific careers, this thesis compares the degree of vertical and horizontal inequalities among the cohorts of scientists that started their career at different point in time. Furthermore, the structural inequality in music industry is assessed by analyzing the social and cultural relations that breed from live performances and musics releases. The findings hint toward the importance of community belonging at different stages of artists’ careers. This thesis also quantifies some of the underlying mechanisms and processes of inequality, such as the Matthew Effect and the Hipster Paradox, in creative careers. Finally, this thesis argues that online platforms such as Wikipedia could reflect and amplify the existing biases.

This thesis addresses the problem of action recognition through the analysis of human motion and the benchmarking of its imitation by robotic systems. For our action recognition related approaches, we focus on presenting approaches that generalize well across different sensor modalities. We transform multivariate signal streams from various sensors to a common image representation. The action recognition problem on sequential multivariate signal streams can then be reduced to an image classification task for which we utilize recent advances in machine learning. We demonstrate the broad applicability of our approaches formulated as a supervised classification task for action recognition, a semi-supervised classification task for one-shot action recognition, modality fusion and temporal action segmentation. For action classification, we use an EfficientNet Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) model to classify the image representations of various data modalities. Further, we present approaches for filtering and the fusion of various modalities on a representation level. We extend the approach to be applicable for semi-supervised classification and train a metric-learning model that encodes action similarity. During training, the encoder optimizes the distances in embedding space for self-, positive- and negative-pair similarities. The resulting encoder allows estimating action similarity by calculating distances in embedding space. At training time, no action classes from the test set are used. Graph Convolutional Network (GCN) generalized the concept of CNNs to non-Euclidean data structures and showed great success for action recognition directly operating on spatio-temporal sequences like skeleton sequences. GCNs have recently shown state-of-the-art performance for skeleton-based action recognition but are currently widely neglected as the foundation for the fusion of various sensor modalities. We propose incorporating additional modalities, like inertial measurements or RGB features, into a skeleton-graph, by proposing fusion on two different dimensionality levels. On a channel dimension, modalities are fused by introducing additional node attributes. On a spatial dimension, additional nodes are incorporated into the skeleton-graph. Transformer models showed excellent performance in the analysis of sequential data. We formulate the temporal action segmentation task as an object detection task and use a detection transformer model on our proposed motion image representations. Experiments for our action recognition related approaches are executed on large-scale publicly available datasets. Our approaches for action recognition for various modalities, action recognition by fusion of various modalities, and one-shot action recognition demonstrate state-of-the-art results on some datasets. Finally, we present a hybrid imitation learning benchmark. The benchmark consists of a dataset, metrics, and a simulator integration. The dataset contains RGB-D image sequences of humans performing movements and executing manipulation tasks, as well as the corresponding ground truth. The RGB-D camera is calibrated against a motion-capturing system, and the resulting sequences serve as input for imitation learning approaches. The resulting policy is then executed in the simulated environment on different robots. We propose two metrics to assess the quality of the imitation. The trajectory metric gives insights into how close the execution was to the demonstration. The effect metric describes how close the final state was reached according to the demonstration. The Simitate benchmark can improve the comparability of imitation learning approaches.

Im Rahmen des vorliegenden Promotionsprojekts wird untersucht, welche Körperideologien in den drei unterschiedlichen Sportfeldern Hochleistungs-, Gesundheits- sowie Erlebnis- bzw. Funsport gegeben sind und welchen gesellschaftswirksamen Einfluss diese Ideologien aufweisen. Im Rahmen der zentralen Forschungsfrage wird des Weiteren erforscht, welche diskursiven Mittel bei Körperideologien im Sportbereich eingesetzt werden, welche Formationen in Bezug auf den Gegenstand, welche Äußerungsmodalitäten, Begrifflichkeiten und Strategien dem Diskurs zugrundeliegen und wer als TrägerIn oder AdressatIn des Diskurses identifiziert werden kann. Außerdem steht die Fragestellung im Fokus, welche Bezüge zu anderen Diskursen bestehen und um welche Diskurse es sich dabei handelt. Körperideologien des Sports werden in diesem Zusammenhang als Vorstellungen von einem (idealen) Körper betrachtet, welche durch den Sport übertragen und in der Gesellschaft verbreitet werden. Dabei wird zunächst der Begriff der Ideologie theoretisch hergeleitet und definiert sowie im Hinblick auf die vorliegende Arbeit als Weltdeutung mit einem Anspruch auf Alleinvertretung aufgefasst. Des Weiteren wird die Gouvernementalitätstheorie von Foucault aufgegriffen und für die Identifizierung der Macht- und Herrschaftsstrukturen in Bezug auf die untersuchten Körperideologien herangezogen. Dabei geht es darum, inwieweit die durch den Sport übermittelten Körperideologien dazu geeignet sind, in einem gouvernementalitätstheoretischen Sinne Führung zur Selbstführung zu ermöglichen. In einer sportsoziologischen Hinsicht beinhaltet der Sport leistungsbezogene Eigenschaften, welche in auf Effektivität abzielenden wirtschaftlichen Prozessen eine grundlegende Voraussetzung darstellen. Im Rahmen der Studie werden für jeden der drei genannten Sportbereiche jeweils zwei Individualsportarten ausgewählt, bei welchen die fokussierten Körperideologien untersucht werden. Während im Bereich des Hochleistungssports Schwimmen und Biathlon und im Bereich des Gesundheitssports Nordic Walking sowie Pilates betrachtet werden, stellen Stand Up Paddling und Parkour die fokussierten Sportarten im Bereich des Fun- bzw. Erlebnissports dar. Für die vorliegende Untersuchung kommt das Verfahren der kritischen Diskursanalyse (KDA) von Jäger zur Anwendung, da dieses für die Rekonstruktion von ideologischen Diskursen geeignet erscheint. Hierfür werden aus den drei Sportbereichen sowohl Print- als auch Onlinepublikationen sondiert und anhand von Strukturanalysen hinsichtlich verschiedener formaler und inhaltlicher Charakteristika untersucht. Des Weiteren wird mit Hilfe der tiefergehenden Feinanalyse jeweils ein Artikel pro Sportart explorativ analysiert, um verschiedene Muster zu vorhandenen Körperideologien in den fokussierten Sportarten und Sportbereichen identifizieren und anhand ausgewählter Textstellen belegen zu können. Bei den Ergebnissen zeigt sich, dass der Körper in den Hochleistungssportarten Schwimmen und Biathlon als formbares Material bzw. als Instrument zur Erbringung sportlicher Höchstleistungen betrachtet und dargestellt wird. Auch im Gesundheitssport wird der Körper als form- bzw. trainierbar hervorgehoben, wobei hierbei die Gesundheit im Fokus steht und mit Schlankheit gleichgesetzt wird. Im Bereich des Fun- bzw. Erlebnissports zeigt sich bei der Sportart Stand Up Paddling der Körper ebenfalls als zu bearbeitendes Objekt. Dagegen wird bei der Sportart Parkour der angenommene Normalismus von Jugendlichkeit anhand der Ergebnisse widerlegt. Deutlich wird, dass als diskursives Mittel vor allem der Körper als formbares Material erscheint. Dabei stehen in Bezug auf die Äußerungsmodalitäten und Begrifflichkeiten der Diskurse vor allem das Leistungsmaximum, aber auch Schlankheit und Fitness im Fokus. Die identifizierten Diskurse sind an die gesamte Gesellschaft adressiert und werden zudem durch sich selbst getragen, wodurch sie nicht nur die Realität abbilden, sondern auch ein Eigenleben in der Form entwickeln, dass sie als Träger von Wissen fungieren.

Eltern spielen eine entscheidende Rolle bei der Inanspruchnahme von kultureller Bildung durch Kinder und Jugendliche. Häufig sind sie in die Organisation und Finanzierung der kulturellen Bildungsangebote involviert. Insbesondere in ländlichen Räumen kommt die Besonderheit hinzu, dass Eltern aufgrund größerer räumlicher Distanzen und einer unzureichenden Ausstattung des ÖPNV Begleitfahrten mit dem eigenen PKW durchführen müssen. Häufig werden ländliche Räume anhand objektivierbarer Daten als strukturschwach oder kulturarm beschrieben. Darüber, ob oder inwiefern das von ländlich lebenden Eltern ebenso gesehen wird, ist jedoch wenig bekannt. Die vorliegende Dissertationsschrift gibt einen Einblick in die elterlichen Perspektiven auf kulturelle Bildung in ländlichen Räumen. Sie basiert auf offenen, qualitativen Leitfadeninterviews mit Eltern aus vier ländlichen Regionen Deutschlands, die diskursanalytisch und unter Zuhilfenahme von Kodierungspraktiken aus dem Kontext der Grounded Theory ausgewertet wurden. In den Interviews zeigt sich eine Vielzahl an elterlichen Verständnissen und Positionierungsweisen zur kulturellen Bildung in ländlichen Regionen. Es stellt sich heraus, dass der elterliche Diskurs auf einem komplexen Zusammenspiel sozioökonomischer bzw. -kultureller Bedingungen, raumstruktureller Gegebenheiten und individueller Präferenzen hinsichtlich kultureller Bildung auf dem Land basiert.

Organic binder mixtures and process additives have been used in refractory materials for a long time due to their property-improving effect. Coal tar pitches in particular can contain thousands of chemical compounds, of which especially polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are known to be carcinogenic and mutagenic and thus pose a risk to both the environment and human health. However, despite intensive research, the exact structure of these carbon mixtures is still not fully clarified. This is becoming an increasing problem, especially with regard to more stringent legal requirements arising from REACH, the European Chemicals Regulation for the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals. Furthermore, the knowledge of the structural and chemical composition is also of great importance for optimal processing of the carbon mixtures to high-quality technical products. In the present work, an analytical strategy for the investigation of complex carbon mixtures containing PAHs is developed. Due to their complexity, a combination of different methods is used, including elemental analysis, solvent extraction, thermogravimetry, differential thermal analysis, raman and infrared spectroscopy as well as high-resolution mass spectrometry. In addition, a procedure for the evaluation of mass spectrometric data based on multivariate statistical methods such as hierarchical cluster analysis and principal component analysis is developed. The application of the developed analytical strategy to various industrially used carbon-based binder mixtures allowed the elucidation of characteristic properties, including aromaticity, molecular mass distribution, degree of alkylation and elemental composition. It was also shown that combining high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry with multivariate statistical data analysis is a fast and effective tool for the classification of complex binder mixtures and the identification of characteristic molecular structures. In addition, the analytical strategy was applied to manufactured refractory products. Despite the small amount of the contained organic phase, characteristic structural features of each sample could be identified and extracted, which enabled an unambiguous classification of the refractory products.