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Antonio Lotti und seine liturgische Kirchenmusik – Vorstudien zu Biographie und Überlieferung
(2023)
Antonio Lotti (1667-1740) gehört zu den venezianischen Komponisten, die in der älteren wie der neueren Fachliteratur ein hohes Ansehen genießen, obwohl seine Werke bis heute nur wenig bekannt sind. Eine unklare Überlieferungslage, aber auch sachfremde ästhetische Postulate verzögerten jedoch die Auseinandersetzung mit Lottis Kompositionen. Erst in neuerer Zeit gab es ein verstärktes Interesse sowohl an seinen Opern und vokaler Kammermusik als auch an seiner Kirchenmusik.
In der vorliegenden Studie wird zunächst Lottis Biographie unter Einbeziehung neuer Quellenfunde auf dem aktuellen Stand des Wissens zusammenfassend dargestellt. Der zweite Teil bietet erstmals eine Identifikation von Lottis Buchstaben- und Notenschrift nach streng philologischen Kriterien. Angesichts des nicht mehr erhaltenen Nachlasses ist dieser Teil von besonderer Bedeutung, bietet er doch die unverzichtbare Basis zur weiteren Erforschung von Lottis Kirchenmusik, ihrer Überlieferung und Faktur.
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.
Praktika als gängige Lehr-Lernformate in hochschulischen Kontexten setzen stets die Zusammenarbeit verschiedener Institutionen und Personen voraus, da Studierende mit einem Praktikum den Lernort der Universität verlassen und in einen beruflichen Handlungszusammenhang mit den zugehörigen organisationalen Strukturen versetzt werden. Praktika werden unter anderem als Elemente der Berufsorientierung gesellschaftliche Implikationen zugeschrieben. Als Format innerhalb eines hochschulischen Bildungsgangs sind sie darüber hinaus mit didaktischen Begründungen verbunden und durch die Beteiligung verschiedener Personen auch mit individuellen Interessen. Studierende sind während eines Praktikums in der Rolle als Praktikant*in in besonderer Weise individuell gefordert. Ergänzt werden diese Perspektiven durch die Betrachtung disziplinärer und professioneller Implikationen, die sich für Praktika erziehungswissenschaftlicher Studiengänge ergeben. Zusammenarbeit findet in Praktika zwischen Organisationen, in Organisationen und zwischen Personen statt. Der geringe Forschungsstand zu Perspektiven auf Fragen der Zusammenarbeit für in erziehungswissenschaftliche Studiengänge integrierte Praktika bietet den Anlass der Studie. Um die verschiedenen Perspektiven auf Praktika als Zusammenarbeit zu erheben, werden qualitative episodische Interviews sowohl mit den Studierenden und Lehrenden einer Universität, als auch mit für Praktika verantwortlichen Tätigen aus dem beruflichen Bereich durchgeführt, die nach der qualitativen inhaltlich strukturierenden Inhaltsanalyse ausgewertet werden. Aus der Auswertung der geführten Interviews mit den drei Akteur*innen-Gruppen ergibt sich ein Einblick darin, wie sich Zusammenarbeit zwischen pädagogisch tätigen Institutionen, Universitäten und Studierenden in und durch Praktika konkretisiert. Es werden beispielsweise Aspekte der Interaktionsbezogenen Dimensionen beschrieben, wie auftauchende Dilemmata, Resonanzen, Kulturen des Umgangs, Interessenslagen und Konstellationen von Akteur*innen. Diese werden ergänzt um Aspekte der Dimensionen mit Bezug zu Institutionen, Umwelt, Aufgaben und Personen. Die Interviewaussagen von drei interviewten Akteur*innen-Gruppen Studierende, Praxisanleiter*innen, universitäre Lehrende werden vergleichend anhand dieser Dimensionen betrachtet und als Ergebnisse dieser Studie dargestellt. Die Ergebnisse liefern Aussagen dazu, wie Zusammenarbeit in Praktika erziehungswissenschaftlicher Studiengänge von den beteiligten Akteur*innen-Gruppen wahrgenommen wird. Dies kann dazu beitragen die differierenden Perspektiven anschlussfähig zu machen für die didaktische und organisatorische Gestaltung von Praktika durch Institutionen wie Universitäten und Praktikumseinrichtungen, aber auch durch Initiative von Studierenden in der Rolle als Praktikant*innen während eines erziehungswissenschaftlichen Studiums. Auch für weitere Forschungsprojekte zum Zusammenwirken der Beteiligten in Praktika kann die Studie Anstöße bieten.
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.
With the increasing importance and urgency of climate change, companies are challenged to contribute to sustainable development, especially by younger generations. However, existing corporate contributions have been criticized as insufficient, which could be particularly caused by a lack of employee engagement in corporate sustainability. In this context, gamification has been proposed and increasingly investigated in recent years as a promising, innovative tool to motivate sustainable employee behaviors in the workplace. However, there are few studies and applicable gamification solutions that address more than one specific sustainability issue and thus take a holistic perspective on sustainable behaviors in the workplace. Moreover, previous research lacks a comprehensive understanding of how different gamification elements elicit specific psychological effects, how these manifest in behavioral changes, and how these, in turn, cumulatively result in measurable corporate outcomes. The path from gamification as ”input” to corporate sustainability as ”output” thus remains unexplored.
This dissertation fills this gap by conceptualizing, designing, and evaluating a holistic gamified intervention that supports employees in various sustainable behaviors in their daily activities. The project uses a design science research approach that closely involves employees in the incremental development of the solution. As part of the iterative design process, this dissertation presents six studies to extend the theoretical understanding of gamification for sustainable employee behaviors. First, a comprehensive review of existing research on gamification for sustainable employee behavior is provided, analyzing gamification designs and results of previous studies and outlining an agenda for further research (Study 1). Theoretical foundations of research on gamification, serious games, and game-based learning (Study 2) and empirical design principles for gamification and persuasive systems (Study 3) are then systematically reviewed as a basis for the successful design of gamified applications. Subsequently, empirical studies explore employees’ motivations for sustainable behavior and illuminate their expectations for design features (Study 4), and identify contextual challenges and design dilemmas when implementing gamification in an organizational context (Study 5). Finally, a quantitative field study (Study 6) explores how different gamification designs influence sustainable employee behavior and corporate sustainability in organizations. Based on the findings, this dissertation presents a comprehensive framework of gamification for sustainable employee behavior that incorporates design, individual behavior, and organizational perspectives. Finally, building on these insights, it provides practical recommendations for designing gamification to encourage sustainable employee behavior at work.
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.
Die Geometrie unseres Anschauungsraumes – die euklidische Geometrie – ist für einen allgemeinbildenden Mathematikunterricht elementar. Seitens der Mathematiklehrkraft stellt grundsätzlich ihr Fachwissen das Fundament des Unterrichtens dar. Als Teil ihres Professionswissens sollten Mathematiklehrkräfte prinzipiell über ein Fachwissen verfügen, das in Bezug zur akademischen Mathematik den unterrichtlichen Anforderungen der schulischen Mathematik gerecht wird.
Die im Rahmen der Dissertation entwickelte Theorie des metrisch-normalen euklidischen Raumes charakterisiert sich in ihrer perspektivischen Dualität, der mathematischen Stringenz eines axiomatisch-deduktiven Vorgehens auf der einen und der Berücksichtigung der fachdidaktischen Anforderungen an Mathematiklehrkräfte auf der anderen Seite; sie hebt sich darin von bestehenden Theorien ab.
Leichte Sprache (LS, easy-to-read German) is a simplified variety of German. It is used to provide barrier-free texts for a broad spectrum of people, including lowliterate individuals with learning difficulties, intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD) and/or complex communication needs (CCN). In general, LS authors are proficient in standard German and do not belong to the aforementioned group of people. Our goal is to empower the latter to participate in written discourse themselves. This requires a special writing system whose linguistic support and ergonomic software design meet the target group’s specific needs. We present EasyTalk a system profoundly based on natural language processing (NLP) for assistive writing in an extended variant of LS (ELS). EasyTalk provides users with a personal vocabulary underpinned with customizable communication symbols and supports in writing at their individual level of proficiency through interactive user guidance. The system minimizes the grammatical knowledge needed to produce correct and coherent complex contents by intuitively formulating linguistic decisions. It provides easy dialogs for selecting options from a natural-language paraphrase generator, which provides context-sensitive suggestions for sentence components and correctly inflected word forms. In addition, EasyTalk reminds users to add text elements that enhance text comprehensibility in terms of audience design (e.g., time and place of an event) and improve text coherence (e.g., explicit connectors to express discourse-relations). To tailor the system to the needs of the target group, the development of EasyTalk followed the principles of human-centered design (HCD). Accordingly, we matured the system in iterative development cycles, combined with purposeful evaluations of specific aspects conducted with expert groups from the fields of CCN, LS, and IT, as well as L2 learners of the German language. In a final case study, members of the target audience tested the system in free writing sessions. The study confirmed that adults with IDD and/or CCN who have low reading, writing, and computer skills can write their own personal texts in ELS using EasyTalk. The positive feedback from all tests inspires future long-term studies with EasyTalk and further development of this prototypical system, such as the implementation of a so-called Schreibwerkstatt (writing workshop)
In the last years, the public interest in epidemiology and mathematical modeling of disease spread has increased - mainly caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has emphasized the urgent need for accurate and timely modelling of disease transmission. However, even prior to that, mathematical modelling has been used for describing the dynamics and spread of infectious diseases, which is vital for developing effective interventions and controls, e.g., for vaccination campaigns and social restrictions like lockdowns. The forecasts and evaluations provided by these models influence political actions and shape the measures implemented to contain the virus.
This research contributes to the understanding and control of disease spread, specifically for Dengue fever and COVID-19, making use of mathematical models and various data analysis techniques. The mathematical foundations of epidemiological modelling, as well as several concepts for spatio-temporal diffusion like ordinary differential equation (ODE) models, are presented, as well as an originally human-vector model for Dengue fever, and the standard (SEIR)-model (with the potential inclusion of an equation for deceased persons), which are suited for the description of COVID-19. Additionally, multi-compartment models, fractional diffusion models, partial differential equations (PDE) models, and integro-differential models are used to describe spatial propagation of the diseases.
We will make use of different optimization techniques to adapt the models to medical data and estimate the relevant parameters or finding optimal control techniques for containing diseases using both Metropolis and Lagrangian methods. Reasonable estimates for the unknown parameters are found, especially in initial stages of pandemics, when little to no information is available and the majority of the population has not got in contact with the disease. The longer a disease is present, the more complex the modelling gets and more things (vaccination, different types, etc.) appear and reduce the estimation and prediction quality of the mathematical models.
While it is possible to create highly complex models with numerous equations and parameters, such an approach presents several challenges, including difficulties in comparing and evaluating data, increased risk of overfitting, and reduced generalizability. Therefore, we will also consider criteria for model selection based on fit and complexity as well as the sensitivity of the model with respect to specific parameters. This also gives valuable information on which political interventions should be more emphasized for possible variations of parameter values.
Furthermore, the presented models, particularly the optimization using the Metropolis algorithm for parameter estimation, are compared with other established methods. The quality of model calculation, as well as computational effort and applicability, play a role in this comparison. Additionally, the spatial integro-differential model is compared with an established agent-based model. Since the macroscopic results align very well, the computationally faster integro-differential model can now be used as a proxy for the slower and non-traditionally optimizable agent-based model, e.g., in order to find an apt control strategy.
In a world where language defines the boundaries of one's understanding, the words of Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein resonate profoundly. Wittgenstein's assertion that "Die Grenzen meine Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt" (Wittgenstein 2016: v. 5.6) underscores the vital role of language in shaping our perceptions. Today, in a globalized and interconnected society, fluency in foreign languages is indispensable for individual success. Education must break down these linguistic barriers, and one promising approach is the integration of foreign languages into content subjects.
Teaching content subjects in a foreign language, a practice known as Content Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), not only enhances language skills but also cultivates cognitive abilities and intercultural competence. This approach expands horizons and aligns with the core principles of European education (Leaton Gray, Scott & Mehisto 2018: 50). The Kultusministerkonferenz (KMK) recognizes the benefits of CLIL and encourages its implementation in German schools (cf. KMK 2013a).
With the rising popularity of CLIL, textbooks in foreign languages have become widely available, simplifying teaching. However, the appropriateness of the language used in these materials remains an unanswered question. If textbooks impose excessive linguistic demands, they may inadvertently limit students' development and contradict the goal of CLIL.
This thesis focuses on addressing this issue by systematically analyzing language requirements in CLIL teaching materials, emphasizing receptive and productive skills in various subjects based on the Common European Framework of Reference. The aim is to identify a sequence of subjects that facilitates students' language skill development throughout their school years. Such a sequence would enable teachers to harness the full potential of CLIL, fostering a bidirectional approach where content subjects facilitate language learning.
While research on CLIL is extensive, studies on language requirements for bilingual students are limited. This thesis seeks to bridge this gap by presenting findings for History, Geography, Biology, and Mathematics, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of language demands. This research endeavors to enrich the field of bilingual education and CLIL, ultimately benefiting the academic success of students in an interconnected world.
Bauxite is, among other raw materials, an important material for the production of refractories. However, the availability of refractory raw material grades is limited worldwide. As high iron contents have a negative influence on the temperature resistance of the refractory material produced, a maximum iron oxide content of 2 wt.-% in the bauxite is acceptable. This means that only native raw materials from a few deposits can be used. In order to counteract the problem of too high iron oxide contents in natural bauxites, the possibility of processing bauxite for the refractory industry by using an acid leaching process was to be investigated within the scope of this work. In previous studies on this topic, some investigations on iron leaching have already been carried out on individual bauxites. However, the resulting bauxite composition was mostly neglected in its entirety and only the influences of individual leaching parameters on the leaching result were investigated independently. Moreover, the results and procedures generated are not generally valid and cannot be transferred to bauxites of other chemical or mineralogical compositions.
In order to clarify the open questions in the processing of natural bauxites, leaching tests with hydrochloric acid were carried out on five different bauxites within this work. By using computerized statistical design of experiments, an individual model was generated for each bauxite to predict the optimal factor settings. The factors investigated were acid concentration, solid-acid ratio, leaching temperature, leaching time and grain fraction. The general planning method for bauxite processing developed in this context contains all necessary factors, useful factor settings and the effects to be considered during planning and evaluation. It could be shown that, based on this planning method, a significant, individual model can be created for each of the bauxites investigated, which predicts the optimal leaching settings for the corresponding bauxite. Furthermore, it was found that the transfer of an already created model to another bauxite of similar composition is possible. Based on the results obtained from the leaching tests and model fittings, in combination with further results on the structural analysis of the bauxites, insights into the leachability of various aluminium and iron minerals from bauxite could be gained.
To develop a sustainable acid leaching process, the possibility of regenerating the contaminated acid produced was also tested as an example. It was shown that liquid-liquid extraction can extract more than 99 % of the iron present in the solution and that the regenerated acid can then be reused for the leaching process.
Wie hingen Sprache und Gewalt im Nationalsozialismus zusammen? Ausgehend von der konstitutiven Sprachphilosophie des kanadischen Philosophen Charles Taylor untersucht die Dissertation die destruktive Wirkmacht der Sprache am Fall des Nationalsozialismus, der auf ungekannte Weise in die Sprache eingriff und damit Gewalt begünstigte, die bis heute ohnegleichen ist.
The trends of industry 4.0 and the further enhancements toward an ever changing factory lead to more mobility and flexibility on the factory floor. With that higher need of mobility and flexibility the requirements on wireless communication rise. A key requirement in that setting is the demand for wireless Ultra-Reliability and Low Latency Communication (URLLC). Example use cases therefore are cooperative Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and mobile robotics in general. Working along that setting this thesis provides insights regarding the whole network stack. Thereby, the focus is always on industrial applications. Starting on the physical layer, extensive measurements from 2 GHz to 6 GHz on the factory floor are performed. The raw data is published and analyzed. Based on that data an improved Saleh-Valenzuela (SV) model is provided. As ad-hoc networks are highly depended onnode mobility, the mobility of AGVs is modeled. Additionally, Nodal Encounter Patterns (NEPs) are recorded and analyzed. A method to record NEP is illustrated. The performance by means of latency and reliability are key parameters from an application perspective. Thus, measurements of those two parameters in factory environments are performed using Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) (IEEE 802.11n), private Long Term Evolution (pLTE) and 5G. This showed auto-correlated latency values. Hence, a method to construct confidence intervals based on auto-correlated data containing rare events is developed. Subsequently, four performance improvements for wireless networks on the factory floor are proposed. Of those optimization three cover ad-hoc networks, two deal with safety relevant communication, one orchestrates the usage of two orthogonal networks and lastly one optimizes the usage of information within cellular networks.
Finally, this thesis is concluded by an outlook toward open research questions. This includes open questions remaining in the context of industry 4.0 and further the ones around 6G. Along the research topics of 6G the two most relevant topics concern the ideas of a network of networks and overcoming best-effort IP.
Harvesting Season?
(2022)
Efforts to induce customers to buy groceries through the Internet have existed for around twenty years. Early on, the market structures of the digital grocery trade were still strongly fragmented and poorly coordinated. Due to the technological advancement in the past decade, the digital purchase of groceries has become more attractive. The adoption rate of these services varies greatly between different regions. In Germany in particular, the digital grocery trade is stagnating at a comparatively low level. In this regard, this dissertation analyzes both the retail-side market structures and the expectations and obstacles of German consumers.
The year 2020 connotes a turning point for the online grocery trade, as daily routines such as grocery shopping were subject to strict regulations imparted at a governmental level in order to reduce COVID-19 infections. At the same time, despite this opportunity, the digital grocery trade has not yet established itself nationwide in Germany. This can be attributed to a lack of investments, but also to inadequate digitization measures. A stronger synchronization between the digital and stationary offer, better integration of digital food services at a regional level as well as adapted, target group-appropriate digital solutions for the efficient breakdown of usage barriers will benefit service usage. The importance of stable food chains and distribution channels was illustrated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Further research should help to develop the digital food trade into a stable and sustainable supplementation of the stationary store.
Fungicide effects on the structure and functioning of leaf-associated aquatic fungal communities
(2022)
Aquatic hyphomycetes are a polyphyletic group of saprotrophic fungi growing abundantly on submerged leaf litter. In stream ecosystems shaped by allochthonous leaf litter inputs, they play a central functional role as decomposers and food source for other organisms. Fungicides pose a threat to aquatic hyphomycetes and their functions, since these substances are inherently toxic to fungi and contaminate surface waters around the world due to their widespread use in agricultural and urban landscapes. While fungicides’ potential to reduce fungal diversity are discerned, the extent of impacts on biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships (B EF) remains unclear. This is partly attributed to methodological constraints in the detection and quantification of single aquatic hyphomycete species within microbial leaf-associated communities. The primary aim of this thesis was, therefore, (1) to assess the ecotoxicological impacts of fungicides on B-EF relationships in aquatic hyphomycete communities. To facilitate this, subordinate aims were to (2) develop DNA-based biomolecular tools (i.e., qPCR assays) to detect and to quantify the biomass of different aquatic hyphomycete species in mixed cultures and (3) to investigate the mechanisms underlying B-EF relationships in the absence of chemical stressors.
In the course of this thesis, qPCR assays were developed for detection and species-specific biomass quantification of ten common aquatic hyphomycete species and successfully validated for application in eco( toxico )logical microcosm experiments. Via a systematic manipulation of fungal diversity, these assays allow the examination of B-EF relationships by assessments of deviations between observed and (monoculture-based) predicted activities in fungal mixed cultures. Taking advantage of these tools in a microcosm experiment, it was uncovered that leaf decomposition results from the additive activity of community members, even though functionally distinct species were present. Colonization dynamics are characterized by complex interactions. Colonization success of aquatic hyphomycetes is higher if co-occurring species are genetically and functionally distinct (i.e., complementary interactions). However, the co-occurrence of aquatic hyphomycete species does not necessarily result in a greater colonization success compared to monocultures, unless bacteria are present. Accordingly, the presence of other microbial groups such as bacteria may induce new fungal diversity-based feedback loops, which ultimately enable coexistence of aquatic hyphomycete species in the environment. Exposure to fungicides revealed substantial differences in sensitivities among aquatic hyphomycetes. The most productive species were able to cope with extremely high fungicide concentrations up to the mg/L-range. In assemblages containing these species, leaf decomposition was maintained under fungicide exposure. Yet, already at environmentally relevant fungicide concentrations, tolerant species displaced more sensitive ones, potentially affecting leaves’ nutritional quality for consumers. This thesis thus indicates that fungicide exposure poses a risk to stream food webs rather than the microbial leaf decomposition process per se.
Today’s agriculture heavily relies on pesticides to manage diverse pests and maximise crop yields. Despite elaborate regulation of pesticide use based on a complex environmental risk assessment (ERA) scheme, the widespread use of these biologically active compounds has been shown to be a threat to the environment. For surface waters, pesticide exposure has been observed to exceed safe concentration levels and negatively impact stream ecology leading to the question whether current ERA schemes ensure a sustainable use of pesticides. To answer this, the large-scale “Kleingewässer-Monitoring” (KgM) assessed the occurrence of pesticides and related effects in 124 streams throughout Germany, Central Europe, in 2018 and 2019.
Based on five scientific publications originating from the KgM, this thesis evaluated pesticide exposure in streams, ecological effects and the regulatory implications. More than 1,000 water samples were analysed for over 100 pesticide analytes to characterise occurrence patterns (publication 1). Measured concentrations and effects were used to validate the exposure and effect concentrations predicted in the ERA (publication 2). By jointly analysing real-world pesticide application data and measured pesticide mixtures in streams, the disregard of environmental pesticide mixtures in the ERA was evaluated (publication 3). The toxic potential of mixtures in stream water was additionally investigated using suspect screening for 395 chemicals and a battery of in-vitro bioassays (publication 4). Finally, the results from the KgM stream monitoring were used to assess the capability to identify pesticide risks in governmental monitoring programmes (publication 5).
The results of this thesis reveal the widespread occurrence of pesticides in non-target stream ecosystems. The water samples contained a variety of pesticides occurring in complex mixtures predominantly in short-term peaks after rainfall events (publications 1 & 4). Respective pesticide concentration maxima were linked to declines in vulnerable invertebrate species and exceeded regulatory acceptable concentrations in about 80% of agricultural streams, while these thresholds were still estimated partly insufficient to protect the invertebrate community (publication 2). The co-occurrence of pesticides in streams led to a risk underestimated in the single substance-oriented ERA by a factor of about 3.2 in realistic worst-case scenarios, which is further exacerbated by a high frequency at which non-target organism are exposed to pesticides (publication 3). Stream water samples taken after rainfall caused distinct effects in bioassays which were only explainable to a minor extent by the many analytes, indicating the relevance of unknown chemical or biological mixture components (publication 4). Finally, the regulatory monitoring of surface waters under the Water Framework Directive (WFD) was found to significantly underestimate pesticide risks, as about three quarters of critical pesticides and more than half of streams at risk were overlooked (publication 5).
Essentially, this thesis involves a new level of validation of the ERA of pesticides in aquatic ecosystems by assessing pesticide occurrence and environmental impacts at a scale so far unique. The overall results demonstrate that the current agricultural use of pesticides leads to significant impacts on stream ecology that go beyond the level tolerated under the ERA. This thesis identified the underestimation of pesticide exposure, the potential insufficiency of regulatory thresholds and the general inertia of the authorisation process as the main causes why the ERA fails to meet its objectives. To achieve a sustainable use of pesticides, the thesis proposes substantial refinements of the ERA. Adequate monitoring programmes such as the KgM, which go beyond current government monitoring efforts, will continue to be needed to keep pesticide regulators constantly informed of the validity of their prospective ERA, which will always be subject to uncertainty.
In the last decades, it became evident that the world is facing an unprecedented, human-induced global biodiversity crisis with amphibians being one of the most threatened species groups. About 41% of the amphibian species are classified as endangered by the IUCN, but even in amphibian species that are listed as "least concern", population declines can be observed on a local level. With land-use change and agrochemicals (i.e. pesticides), two of the main drivers for this amphibian decline are directly linked to intensive agriculture, which is the dominant landscape type in large parts of Europe. Thus, understanding the situation of amphibians in the agricultural landscape is crucial for conservation measures. In the present thesis, I investigated the effects of viticulture on amphibian populations around Landau in der Pfalz (Germany) in terms of habitat use, pesticide exposure, biometric traits as well as genetic and age structure. From the perspective of amphibians, land-use change means usually the destruction of habitats in agricultural landscapes, which often leads to landscape fragmentation. Thus, I followed the question if also vineyards lead to the fragmentation of the landscape and if pesticides that are frequently used in viticulture have to be considered as a factor too, so if there is a chemical landscape fragmentation. Using telemetry, I could show that common toads (Bufo bufo) can be found directly in vineyards, but that they tend to avoid them as habitat. Analysing the genetic structure of common frogs (Rana temporaria) revealed that vineyards have to be considered as a barrier for amphibians. To identify if pesticides contribute to the resulting landscape fragmentation, I conducted an arena choice experiment in the laboratory in which I found evidence for an avoidance of pesticide-contaminated soil. Such an avoidance could be one of the underlying reasons for a potential chemical landscape fragmentation. By combining telemetry data with information about pesticide applications from local wine growers, I could show that a large part of the common toads is likely to come in contact with pesticides. Further, I demonstrated that the agricultural landscape, probably due to the application of pesticides, can have negative effects on the reproduction capacity of common toads. By studying palmate newts (Lissotriton helveticus) I found that adult newts from agricultural ponds are smaller than those from forest ponds. As I did not find differences in the age structure and growth, these differences might be carry-over effects from earlier life stages. While agricultural ponds might be suitable habitats for adult palmate newts, the potential carry-over effect indicates suboptimal conditions for larvae and/or juveniles. I conclude that the best management measure for sustaining amphibians in the agricultural landscape would be a heterogeneous cultural landscape with a mosaic of different habitat patches that work without or at least a reduced amount of pesticides. Green corridors between populations and different habitats would allow migrating individuals to avoid agricultural and thus pesticide-contaminated areas. This would reduce the pesticide exposure risk of amphibians, while preventing the fragmentation of the landscape and thus the isolation of populations.
This thesis was motivated by the need to advance the knowledge on the variability and dynamics of energy fluxes in lakes and reservoirs, as well as about the physical processes that regulate the fluxes at both the air and water side of the air-water interface.
In the first part, I re-examine how mechanical energy, resulting from its major source – the vertical wind energy flux - distributes into the various types of water motions, including turbulent flows and surface and internal waves. Although only a small fraction of the wind energy flux from the atmosphere is transferred to the water, it is crucial for physical, biogeochemical and ecological processes in lentic ecosystems. Based on extensive air- and water-side measurements collected at two small water bodies (< 10 km2), we estimated the energy fluxes and energy content in surface and in internal waves. Overall, the estimated energy fluxes and energy content agree well with results reported for larger water bodies, suggesting that the energetics driving the water motions in enclosed basins is similar, independently of the basin size. Our findings highlight the importance of the surface waves that receive the largest fraction of the wind energy flux, which strongly nonlinearly increases for wind speeds exceeding 3 m s-1. We found that the existing parameterization of the wave height as a function of wind speed and fetch length did not reproduce the measured wave amplitude in lakes. On average, the highest energy content was observed in basin-scale internal waves, together with high-frequency internal waves exhibiting seasonal variability and varies among the aquatic systems. During our analysis, we discovered the diurnal variability of the energy dissipation rates in the studied lake, suggesting biogenic turbulence generation, which appears to be a widespread phenomenon in lakes and reservoirs.
In the second part of the thesis, I addressed current knowledge gaps related to the bulk transfer coefficients (also known as the drag coefficient, the Stanton number and the Dalton number), which are of a particular importance for the bulk estimation of the surface turbulent fluxes of momentum, sensible and latent heat in the atmospheric boundary layer. Their inaccurate representation may lead to significant errors in flux estimates, affecting, for example, the weather and climate predictions or estimations of the near-surface current velocities in lake hydrodynamic models. Although the bulk transfer coefficients have been extensively studied over the past several decades (mainly in marine and large-lake environments), there has been no systematic analysis of measurements obtained at lakes of different size. A significant increase of the transfer coefficients at low wind speeds (< 3 m s-1) has been observed in several studies, but, to date, it has remained unexplained. We evaluated
the bulk transfer coefficients using flux measurements from 31 lakes and reservoirs. The estimates were generally within the range reported in previous studies for large lakes and oceans. All transfer coefficients increased substantially at low wind speeds, which was found to be associated with the presence of gusts and capillary waves (except the Dalton number). We found that the Stanton number is systematically higher than the Dalton number. This challenges the assumption made in the Bowen-ratio method, which is widely used for estimating evaporation rates from micrometeorological measurements. We found that the variability of the transfer coefficients among the lakes could be associated with lake surface area. In flux parameterizations at lake surfaces, it is recommended to consider variations in the drag coefficient and the Stanton number due to wind gustiness and capillary wave roughness while the Dalton number could be considered as constant at all wind speeds.
In the third part of the thesis, I address the key drivers of the near-surface turbulence that control the gas exchange in a large regulated river. As all inland waters, rivers are an important natural source of greenhouse gases. The effects of the widespread alteration and regulation of river flow for human demands on gas exchange is largely unknown. In particular, the near-surface turbulence in regulated rivers has been rarely measured and its drivers have not been identified. While in lakes and reservoirs, near-surface turbulence is mainly related to atmospheric forcing, in shallow rivers and streams it is generated by bottom friction of the gravity-forced flow. The studied large regulated river represents a transition between these two cases. Atmospheric forcing and gravity were the dominant drivers of the near-surface turbulence for a similar fraction of the measurement period. Based on validated scalings, we derived a simple model for estimating the relative contributions of wind and bottom friction to near-surface turbulence in lotic ecosystems with different flow depths. Large diel variability in the near-surface energy dissipation rates due to flow regulation leads to the same variability in gas exchange. This suggests that estimates of gas fluxes from rivers are biased by measurements performed predominantly during daytime.
In addition, the novelty in all the analyses described above is the use of the turbulent surface fluxes measured directly by the eddy-covariance technique – at the moment of writing, the most advanced method. Overall, this thesis is of a potential interest for a broad range of scientific disciplines, including limnology, micrometeorology and open channel hydraulics.
In der Biologie stellt das Zeichnen eine zentrale Arbeitstechnik dar. Viele Studien konnten auf einen positiven Effekt des Zeichnens für bestimmte Situationen hinweisen. Schülerinnen und Schüler müssen diese Technik jedoch zunächst erlernen. Hierbei können zahlreiche Schwierigkeiten auftreten, die die inhaltliche Auseinandersetzung gefährden. Jedoch wurden sowohl Schwierigkeiten im Umgang mit unterschiedlichen Repräsentationsformen als auch der Zeichenprozess bislang nur lückenhaft untersucht. Die Studie dieser Arbeit hat daher zum Ziel, (I) den Zeichenprozess auf der Ebene der Sichtstruktur zu beschreiben, (II) die manifesten Schwierigkeiten von Lernenden zu erfassen, auf die sie während der Konstruktion biologisch bedeutsamer Repräsentationsformen (Ablaufdiagramme, mikroskopische Zeichnungen) treffen, (III) und auf Grundlage der empirischen Befunde Schülertypen abzuleiten. Vor diesem Hintergrund waren 21 Schülerinnen und Schüler angehalten, jeweils ein Ablaufdiagramm auf Grundlage eines Texts und eine mikroskopische Zeichnung auf Grundlage eines Präparats zu konstruieren und dabei laut zu denken. Fragen zur Vorerfahrung sowie retrospektiv gestellte Fragen zum Vorgehen der Teilnehmenden umrahmten den videografisch dokumentierten Prozess. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der Zeichenprozess mehr als zehn unterschiedliche Tätigkeiten umfassen kann, wobei die Kerntätigkeit des Zeichnens durchschnittlich nur rund ein Drittel des Prozesses ausmacht. Die Prozessstruktur zwischen Fällen variiert erheblich. Weiterhin konnten etwa 30 Schwierigkeiten bzw. Fehler identifiziert werden, die während der Konstruktion beider Repräsentationsformen auftreten. Diese können dabei sowohl einzelne als auch mehrere Tätigkeiten betreffen und zu Tätigkeitsabbrüchen führen. Schwierigkeiten stehen häufig in Verbindung mit Tätigkeiten, die außerhalb der Kerntätigkeit des Zeichnens liegen (z. B. Abgleich mit der Textgrundlage). Bezogen auf Ablaufdiagramme stellt das Verhältnis depiktional bzw. deskriptional dargestellter Textinformationen den Ausgangspunkt der Typisierung dar: Typ I: realistisch abbildend, II: alternierend abbildend und III: schriftorientiert abbildend. Für mikroskopische Zeichnungen war die Häufigkeit des Abgleichs mit dem Objekt grundlegend für die Typisierung: Typ I: oberflächlich abbildend, II: objektorientiert abbildend und III: undifferenziert detailliert abbildend. Die Studie liefert erstmals Kategoriensysteme, die es erlauben, die Prozessstruktur des Zeichnens sichtbar und zwischen Fällen vergleichbar zu machen sowie schwierigkeitsbezogenes Grundlagenwissen zur Konstruktion von Zeichnungen, basierend auf Texten und Beobachtungen. Die Übertragbarkeit der Befunde auf andere Repräsentationsformen ist an vielen Stellen denkbar. Die theoretisch fundierte Systematisierung von Schwierigkeiten kann von weiterführenden Untersuchungsansätze aufgegriffen werden und erlaubt die Verortung situationsangemessener Unterstützungsmaßnahmen.
This dissertation is dedicated to a new concept for capturing renunciation-oriented attitudes and beliefs — sufficiency orientation. Sufficiency originates in the interdisciplinary sustain-ability debate. In contrast to efficiency and consistency, sufficiency considers human behaviour as the cause of socio-ecological crises and strives for a reduction in consumption respecting the planetary boundaries. The present work places sufficiency in a psychological research context and explores it qualitatively and quantitatively. On the basis of five manuscripts, the overarching question pursued is to what extent sufficiency orientation contributes to socio-ecological transformation. Based on one qualitative study and five further quantitative studies, sufficiency orientation is investigated in different behavioural contexts that are of particular importance with regard to CO2 emissions. In addition, sufficiency orientation is linked to a wider range of psychologically relevant theories that help gain an overview of correlates and possible causes for the development of a sufficiency orientation.
Manuscript 1 uses expert interviews (N = 21) to develop a heuristic framework on a transformation towards societal sufficiency orientation including barriers and enablers, as well as ambiguities on such a change. The derived elements are interpreted in the light of the leverage points approach. This framework can serve as a heuristic for future research and to develop measures concerning sufficiency orientation.
As part of an online study (N = 648), Manuscript 2 examines the extent to which sufficiency orientation can be embedded in classic models for explaining pro-environmental intentions and behaviour (Theory of Planned Behaviour, Norm Activation Model), and showed a significant contribution to the explanation of intentions and behaviour in the field of plastic consumption.
Manuscript 3 reports two framing experiments (Study 1, N = 123, Study 2, N = 330) to investigate how pro-social justice sensitivity contributes to making sufficiency orientation more salient and promoting it. While sufficiency orientation and pro-social facets of justice sensitivity were positively related to each other, there was no effect of the framing intervention in the hypothesised direction. The results indicate that justice-related information at least in the presented manner is more likely to generate reactance.
Manuscript 4 presents an online study (N = 317) and targets the importance of sufficiency orientation for predicting actual greenhouse gas emissions in relation to flight behav-iour and policy support for the decarbonisation of mobility. In addition, the connection between sufficiency orientation and global identity is examined. It turns out that sufficiency orientation is superior to global identity in predicting actual emissions and decarbonisation policies. Contrary to expectations, sufficiency orientation and the form of global identity operationalised in the presented study shows a positive correlation and are compatible.
Manuscript 5 reports a reflective diary intervention (N = 252) that should lead to a short- and long-term increase in sufficiency orientation by satisfying basic psychological needs through induced self-reflection. For both groups with or without the intervention, sufficiency orientation increased slightly but significantly. Although no specific effect of the manipulation was found, basic psychological need satisfaction turns out to be the largest predictor for sufficiency orientation. Subjective well-being is positively associated with sufficiency orientation, while time affluence shows no clear associations in the study.
Overall, the results highlight the relevance of sufficiency orientation in relation to socio-ecological transformation and actual behavioural change. Sufficiency orientation is related to low-emission behaviour and support for political measures to decarbonize infrastructures. These results contribute to the discussion on the intention-behaviour gap in regard to impact-relevant behaviour, i.e. behaviour producing high emissions. The present findings suggest, that sufficiency orientation could be related to a strong intention-behavioural consistency. However, further research is needed to validate these results and improve the measurement of sufficiency orientation. Furthermore, the studies provided insights on correlates of sufficiency orientation: justice sensitivity, global identity, subjective well-being and left-wing liberal political ideologies are all found to be positively related to sufficiency orien-tation. Moreover, basic psychological need satisfaction was identified as a potential mechanism that can support the emergence of sufficiency orientation, however, causality remains unclear. From these findings, the work derives practical implications how to possibly strengthen sufficiency orientation on the micro, meso and macro levels of society.
Taken together, the dissertation provides important insights into a new and still developing concept, and shows its connectivity to psychological theories. However, future research is required in order to grasp more precisely the complexity of sufficiency orientation and to understand origins and predictors of sufficiency orientation. This work contributes to the interdisciplinary debate on socio-ecological transformation and points out that sufficiency orientation can serve to a future worth living as being related to reduced consumption.
Social networks are ubiquitous structures that we generate and enrich every-day while connecting with people through social media platforms, emails, and any other type of interaction. While these structures are intangible to us, they carry important information. For instance, the political leaning of our friends can be a proxy to identify our own political preferences. Similarly, the credit score of our friends can be decisive in the approval or rejection of our own loans. This explanatory power is being leveraged in public policy, business decision-making and scientific research because it helps machine learning techniques to make accurate predictions. However, these generalizations often benefit the majority of people who shape the general structure of the network, and put in disadvantage under-represented groups by limiting their resources and opportunities. Therefore it is crucial to first understand how social networks form to then verify to what extent their mechanisms of edge formation contribute to reinforce social inequalities in machine learning algorithms.
To this end, in the first part of this thesis, I propose HopRank and Janus two methods to characterize the mechanisms of edge formation in real-world undirected social networks. HopRank is a model of information foraging on networks. Its key component is a biased random walker based on transition probabilities between k-hop neighborhoods. Janus is a Bayesian framework that allows to identify and rank plausible hypotheses of edge formation in cases where nodes possess additional information. In the second part of this thesis, I investigate the implications of these mechanisms - that explain edge formation in social networks - on machine learning. Specifically, I study the influence of homophily, preferential attachment, edge density, fraction of inorities, and the directionality of links on both performance and bias of collective classification, and on the visibility of minorities in top-k ranks. My findings demonstrate a strong correlation between network structure and machine learning outcomes. This suggests that systematic discrimination against certain people can be: (i) anticipated by the type of network, and (ii) mitigated by connecting strategically in the network.
This study examines the contribution of saving and credit cooperatives (SACCOS) on the improvement of members‘ socio economic development in Rwanda: Opportunities and challenges‖, Evidence from Umwalimu SACCO- Huye District‖. The appearance of saving and credit cooperatives or credit unions has been known as remedy for social ills rooted in poverty because of its efficiency in loans or credits dispensation, social equality for enhancement and reduction of poverty amongst low income earners. Therefore, millions and millions of poor people and non-bankable in developing countries (or third world countries) have been provided access to formal financial services through saving and credit cooperatives‘ programs.
The targeted population concerned by the study was 1,940 members of USACCO from which a sample of 92 respondents was purposively selected. The study has adopted a combination of correlation and descriptive research design. It has employed both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The study used both primary and secondary data. The primary data was collected using questionnaire and interview and, while secondary data was collected using documentations techniques whereby, Manual of procedures and Credit policies of USACCO and financial reports have been consulted. The analysis of data was done using SPSS version 21. The data was presented in form of tables, charts and graphs designed by SPSS v. 21. The bio-characteristics of respondents showed that, the majority of respondents were women with 55.4%, majority of respondents‘ age is between 26 to 45 years Furthermore, and majority 77.20% of respondents were married. 100% of respondents attended school, where the majority of respondents attended secondary school with certificate A2.
The study has revealed that Umwalimu SACCO services offered to its members have a positive effect on the improvement of members‘ welfare. It was found that USACCO services have slightly affected income level of members, assets acquired, access to education and medical care as well as small income generating activities established by members in Huye District. The analysis of data also revealed that there are some variables which have effected USACCO members‘ socio-economic status, these were listed as: Education background of a member, number of dependents, the occupation of a member, and number of loans got from USACCO, government programs against teachers‘ welfare, and membership duration played very important role on the improvement of standard living of teachers. All these variables were found to have positive effects on teachers‘ socio-economic status, except the family size of respondents.
In addition, the findings showed that, the majority of respondents confirmed that, they did not find opportunities to save with other financial institutions, and other respondents did not have access to loan from other financial institutions due to complicated loan requirements. In addition, after they
have joined USACCO, their deplorable status somewhat changed, both socially and economically which has contributed to the improvement of their welfare. Therefore, the study testified that, the welfare of USACCO members in terms of assets acquired, income increased was improved compared to situation before joining USACCO. The study concludes that ―the level of improvement of living conditions of teachers depends largely to the level of loan granted by USACCO to teachers and membership duration. If the level of teachers‘ loan and saving increases, there will be also improvement of teachers‘ wellbeing‖ and finally, USACCO financial service is a veritable instrument for better improvement of economic and social conditions of teachers. The study recommends that, USACCO should provide frequent and regular trainings on business management game to their members. This could help members for good management of their loans and reducing loan defaulters‘ cases observed at USACCO. Challenges observed were lack of physical collateral security required by USACCO, complicated loan requirements terms and conditions and insufficient trainings on business management game.
Instructor feedback on written assignments is one of the most important elements in the writing process, especially for students writing in English as a foreign language. However, students are often critical of both the amount and quality of the feedback they receive. In order to better understand what makes feedback effective, this study explored the nature of students’ assessments of the educational alliance, and how their receptivity to, perceptions of, and decisions about using their instructors’ feedback differed depending on how strong they believed the educational alliance to be. This exploratory case study found that students not only assessed the quality of the educational alliance based on goal compatibility, task relevance, and teacher effectiveness, but that there was also a reciprocal relationship between these elements. Furthermore, students’ perceptions of the educational alliance directly influenced how they perceived the feedback, which made the instructor’s choice of feedback method largely irrelevant. Stronger educational alliances resulted in higher instances of critical engagement, intrinsic motivation, and feelings of self-efficacy. The multidirectional influence of goal, task, and bond mean that instructors who want to maximize their feedback efforts need to attend to all three.
The presented study was motivated by the dynamic phenomena observed in basic catalytic surface reactions, especially by bi- and tristability, and the interactions between these stable states. In this regard, three reaction-diffusion models were developed and examined using bifurcation theory and numerical simulations.
A first model was designed to extend the bistable CO oxidation on Ir(111) to include hydrogen and its oxidation. The differential equation system was analyzed within the framework of bifurcation theory, revealing three branches of stable solutions.
One state is characterized by high formation rates (upper rate state, UR), while the other two branches display low formation rates (lower rate (LR) \& very low rate (VLR) states).
The overlapping branches form the shape of a `swallowtail', the curve of saddle-node bifurcations forming two cusps. Increasing the temperature leads to a subsequent unfolding and hence decreases the system complexity.
A series of numerical simulations representing possible experiments was conducted to illustrate the experimental accessibility (or the lack) of said states. Relaxation experiments show partially long decay times. Quasistatic scanning illustrates the existence of all three states within the tristable regime and their respective conversion once crossing a fold.
A first attempt regarding the state dominance in reaction-diffusion fronts was done. While UR seems to dominate in 1D, a 2D time-evolution shows that LR invades the interphase between UR and VLR.
Subsequently, a generic monospecies mock model was used for the comprehensive study of reaction-diffusion fronts. A quintic polynomial as reaction term was chosen, derived by the sixth-order potential associated with the `butterfly bifurcation'. This ensures up to three stable solutions($u_{0}$,$u_{1}$,$u_{2}$), depending on the four-dimensional parameter space.
The model was explored extensively, identifying regions with similar behaviors.
A term for the front velocity connecting two stable states was derived, depending only on the relative difference of the states' potential wells.
Equipotential curves were found, where the front velocity vanishes of a given front. Numerical simulations on a two-dimensional, finite disk using a triangulated mesh supported these findings.
Additionally, the front-splitting instability was observed for certain parameters. The front solution $u_{02}$ becomes unstable and divides into $u_{01}$ and $u_{12}$, exhibiting different front velocities. A good estimate for the limit of the front splitting region was given and tested using time evolutions.
Finally, the established mock model was modified from continuous to discrete space, utilizing a simple domain in 1D and three different lattices in 2D (square, hexagonal, triangular).
For low diffusivities or large distances between coupling nodes, fronts can become pinned, if the parameters are within range of the equipotential lines. This phenomenon is known as propagation failure and its extent in parameter space was explored in 1D. In 2D, an estimate was given for remarkable front orientations respective to the lattice using a pseudo-2D approximation. Near the pinning region, front velocities differ significantly from the continuous expectation as the shape of the curve potential becomes significant. Factors that decide the size and shape of the pinning regions are the coupling strength, the lattice, the front orientation relative to the lattice, and the front itself. The bifurcation diagram shows a snaking curve in the pinning region, each alternating branch representing a stable or unstable frozen front solution. Numerical simulations supported the observations concerning propagation failure and lattice dependence.
Furthermore, the influence of front orientation on the front velocity was explored in greater detail, showing that fronts with certain lattice-dependent orientations are more or less prone to propagation failure. This leads to the possibility of pattern formation, reflecting the lattice geometry. An attempt to quantify the front movement depending on angular front orientation has shown reasonable results and good agreement with the pseudo-2D approach.
Beim Zugang zur dualen Berufsausbildung haben Jugendliche und junge Erwachsene mit Migrationshintergrund schlechtere Chancen in eine betriebliche Berufsausbildung einzumünden. Vermehrt wird ein Forschungsbedarf thematisiert, der den Blick darauf richtet, wie die entsprechenden Auswahlentscheidungen in den Betrieben getroffen werden. Die Dissertation setzt an dieser Frage an und befasst sich mittels eines biographischen Zugangs mit den Personalentscheiderinnen und Personalentscheidern, den sogenannten Gatekeepern, in den Betrieben. Im Erkenntnisinteresse steht die Frage, ob und wie biographische Erfahrungen Bedeutung für Auswahlentscheidungen zugunsten zugewanderter junger Menschen haben.
This study was conducted in Nyungwe National Park (NNP); a biodiversity hotspot Mountain rainforest of high conservation importance in Central Africa, but with little knowledge of its insect communities including butterflies, good indicators of climate change, and forest ecosystem health. The study aimed at availing baseline data on butterfly species diversity and distribution in NNP, for future use in monitoring climate change-driven shifts and the effects of forest fragmentation on the biodiversity of Nyungwe. Butterflies were collected seasonally using fruit-baited traps and hand nets along elevational transects spanning from 1700 m up to 2950 m of altitude. Two hundred forty-two species including 28 endemics to the Albertine Rift and 18 potential local climate change indicators were documented. Species richness and abundance declined with increasing elevation and higher seasonal occurrence was observed during the dry season. This was the first study on the spatial and temporal distribution of butterflies in NNP and further studies could be conducted to add more species and allow a depth understanding of the ecology of Nyungwe butterflies.
Semantic Web technologies have been recognized to be key for the integration of distributed and heterogeneous data sources on the Web, as they provide means to define typed links between resources in a dynamic manner and following the principles of dataspaces. The widespread adoption of these technologies in the last years led to a large volume and variety of data sets published as machine-readable RDF data, that once linked constitute the so-called Web of Data. Given the large scale of the data, these links are typically generated by computational methods that given a set of RDF data sets, analyze their content and identify the entities and schema elements that should be connected via the links. Analogously to any other kind of data, in order to be truly useful and ready to be consumed, links need to comply with the criteria of high quality data (e.g., syntactically and semantically accurate, consistent, up-to-date). Despite the progress in the field of machine learning, human intelligence is still essential in the quest for high quality links: humans can train algorithms by labeling reference examples, validate the output of algorithms to verify their performance on a data set basis, as well as augment the resulting set of links. Humans —especially expert humans, however, have limited availability. Hence, extending data quality management processes from data owners/publishers to a broader audience can significantly improve the data quality management life cycle.
Recent advances in human computation and peer-production technologies opened new avenues for human-machine data management techniques, allowing to involve non-experts in certain tasks and providing methods for cooperative approaches. The research work presented in this thesis takes advantage of such technologies and investigates human-machine methods that aim at facilitating link quality management in the Semantic Web. Firstly, and focusing on the dimension of link accuracy, a method for crowdsourcing ontology alignment is presented. This method, also applicable to entities, is implemented as a complement to automatic ontology alignment algorithms. Secondly, novel measures for the dimension of information gain facilitated by the links are introduced. These entropy-centric measures provide data managers with information about the extent the entities in the linked data set gain information in terms of entity description, connectivity and schema heterogeneity. Thirdly, taking Wikidata —the most successful case of a linked data set curated, linked and maintained by a community of humans and bots— as a case study, we apply descriptive and predictive data mining techniques to study participation inequality and user attrition. Our findings and method can help community managers make decisions on when/how to intervene with user retention plans. Lastly, an ontology to model the history of crowd contributions across marketplaces is presented. While the field of human-machine data management poses complex social and technical challenges, the work in this thesis aims to contribute to the development of this still emerging field.
Die Arbeit stellt eine Systematisierung der wissenschaftsphilosophischen Gedanken der klassischen Pragmatisten (Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey) dar.
Deren Erfahrungstheorie sowie die Bestimmung des Verhältnisses von Theorie und Praxis bilden die Grundlage einer holistischen Wissenschaftsphilosophie.
Die exemplarische Anwendung auf klassische wissenschaftstheoretische Fragestellungen zeigt die Aktualität des Ansatzes.
Die Ukraine sieht seit dem Euromaidan im Jahr 2014 ihre Zukunft in einer stabilen Veran-kerung im westlichen Wertesystem. Für die EU ist die Ukraine ein priority partner und damit von besonderem Gewicht. Deshalb lag es folgerichtig im Interesse der EU, die Ukra-ine nach Kräften auf diesem Weg zu unterstützen.
Die wissenschaftliche Forschung zur EU-Demokratieförderung konzentrierte sich bis-her im Wesentlichen auf Staaten mit konkreter EU-Beitrittsperspektive. Sie kam zu dem Ergebnis, dass der Erfolg der Demokratieförderung maßgeblich von der Konditionierung eines EU-Beitritts getragen war. Damit konnte dieser Erfolg der EU als dominanter Träger der Demokratieförderung zugeordnet werden.
Mit dem Fokus auf Staaten ohne EU-Beitrittsperspektive entfällt diese Konditionie-rung. Auch weitere Akteure traten bei der Demokratieförderung hinzu, und die Wirksam-keit der Demokratieförderung kann nicht mehr der EU direkt zugeordnet werden. Es ent-stand also eine Forschungslücke, in welcher Weise jetzt die Wirksamkeit der EU-Demokratieförderung analysiert werden kann. Die vorliegende Studie greift diese For-schungslücke auf.
Zunächst wird analysiert, welcher Demokratiestatus der Ukraine und welche Defizite sich für den Untersuchungszeitraum ermitteln lassen. Im Anschluss erfolgt die Analyse der EU-Demokratieförderung auf der Grundlage einer eigens dafür entworfenen Definition von kohärenter Strategie, die eine statische und eine dynamische Dimension abbildet.
Die statische Dimension geht der Frage nach, ob die Zielsetzungen und Vorhaben der EU-Demokratieförderung auf die Demokratiedefizite zugeschnitten waren. Die dynami-sche Dimension des Transformationsprozesses beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, ob das jewei-lige Vorgehen den Prinzipien aus sozialkonstruktivistischer Perspektive folgte. Mit dieser sozialkonstruktivistischen Perspektive wird ein Weg aufgezeigt, wie man ohne eine EU-Beitritts-Konditionierung die Transformation demokratischer Werte und Normen erfolg-reich ausgestalten kann.
Das Ergebnis ist, dass die EU-Strategie der Demokratieförderung zwar mit ihren Ziel-setzungen und Vorhaben auf die Demokratiedefizite der Ukraine ausgerichtet war, aber auch, dass das Vorgehen in einem Fall nicht den Prinzipien aus sozialkonstruktivistischer Perspektive entsprach. Diesem Vorgehen lag keine kohärente EU-Strategie zugrunde.
Die Analyse auf der Ebene der Strategie lässt der EU-Demokratieförderung keine di-rekte Wirkung zuweisen, da auch andere Akteure eine Wirkung entfalten. Auf der Ebene eines konkreten Reformprojekts konnte dann der Nachweis geführt werden, dass die De-zen-tralisierungsreform direkt der EU zugeordnet werden kann, das Vorgehen den Prinzi-pien aus sozialkonstruktivistischer Perspektive folgt und eine positive Wirkung entfaltet.
Begünstigt wurde dieser Erfolg, da er sich auf demokratische Werte und Normen ab-stützen konnte, die in überdurchschnittlicher Ausprägung bereits vorhanden waren. Dar-über hinaus wurde aufgezeigt, dass dieses Projekt eine breit gefächerte potenzielle Wirkung auf den Reformprozess in Richtung Demokratie entfaltet.
Die Dissertation wurde am 14. Dezember 2021 abgeschlossen und an der Universität Koblenz-Landau eingereicht. Im Nachgang bietet ein „Postskript“ mit Datum September 2022 unter Berücksichtigung aktueller Entwicklungen eine Perspektive für weiterführende Forschungsfragen.
Eine Ursache des Insektenrückgangs ist die Abnahme der für Arthropoden wichtigen Lebensräume. Der kleinstrukturierte Obstanbau als Dauerkultur mit vielfältigen Strukturen (Bäume, Grünland, offener Boden) kann als Refugium wirken. Gerade Dauerkulturen, welche über viele Jahre bestehen bleiben, können einen großen ökologischen Wert für Insekten und Spinnentiere darstellen, wenn die negativen Einflüsse der Bewirtschaftung durch gezielte Maßnahmen minimiert werden. Im Gegensatz zu den gut untersuchten Streuobstwiesen liegen bisher nur wenige oder ungenaue Daten über die Arthropodenfauna in Erwerbsobstanlagen vor. Ziele dieser Arbeit sind eine genauere Erfassung der Arthropodenfauna in Erwerbsobstanlagen, Benennung der Einflussfaktoren und Erarbeitung einer indikatorgestützten Bewertungsmethode mit Entwicklung von Maßnahmen zur Förderung der Biodiversität. Es wurde eine intensive Erfassung der Insekten und Spinnentiere auf Basis von Individuenzahlen, Verteilung der Tiere auf Großgruppen, Artenzahlen der Käfer (inkl. Rote Liste) und Wanzen, deren Diversität und der sie beeinflussenden Faktoren auf vier Erwerbsobstflächen und einer Streuobstwiese als Referenzfläche in der Gemeinde Zornheim (Rheinland-Pfalz) untersucht. Mittels des erarbeiteten Bewertungsbogens wurden die Auswirkungen der fünf Faktorenkomplexe: Sonderstrukturen, Anlagenstruktur, Beschattung, Mahdregime und Einsatz von Pflanzenschutzmitteln auf die Arthropodenfauna erhoben und die auf der Fläche zu erwartende Biodiversität ermittelt. Die visuelle Darstellung der Einflussfaktoren mit Netzdiagrammen zeigt biodiversitätsbeeinträchtigende Faktoren und ermöglicht so Empfehlungen zur Aufwertung der Biodiversität. Die Bewertungsmethode kann nach Verifizierung im Rahmen von erfolgsorientierten Agrarumwelt- und Klimamaßnahmen (AUKM), zur Anerkennung von Kompensationsmaßnahmen (z.B. PIK) und zur Ermittlung des ökologischen Wertes (Ökosystemdienstleistung) von Obstanlagen genutzt werden. In modifizierter Form könnte es ebenfalls im Bereich der Flächenbewertung in Landschafts- und Bauleitplanung eingesetzt werden.
Formen des Zugangs in der Jugendhilfe – zur Gestaltung von Zugängen zum System der Hilfen zur Erziehung Kindern, Jugendlichen und Erwachsenen in unterschiedlichen familiären Beziehungen und Lebenslagen stehen in Deutschland bei Bedarf und auf Wunsch öffentliche Hilfeleistungen rund um das Thema Erziehung zur Verfügung. Repräsentiert wird dieses Angebot als Rechtsanspruch öffentlicher Hilfe in der Regel durch die örtlichen Jugendämter. In Folge der Einführung des Sozialgesetzbuches VIII (Kinder- und Jugendhilfegesetz, jetzt: Kinder- und Jugendstärkungsgesetzt/KJSG) befassten sich wiederholt wissenschaftliche Erhebungen mit dem Nutzen und den Wirkungen der in den Hilfen zur Erziehung vorhandenen Angebote aus Sicht der Adressatinnen und Adressaten, also den Kindern, Jugendlichen und Eltern. Dem Rechtsanspruch mit dem Angebot auf die Hilfen zur Erziehung auf der einen Seite, stehen die Adressatinnen und Adressaten dieser Hilfen auf der anderen zunächst gegenüber. Im Fokus der damit einhergehenden Adressaten- und Adressatinnenforschung steht die Frage, wie Adressatinnen und Adressaten den Zugang zu diesen Hilfen in ihrem Alltagsleben erhalten und ggf. integrieren. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es daher zu untersuchen, wie sich aus Sicht von Eltern mit Jugendhilfeerfahrung dieser Zugang gestaltet, wie sie ihre diesbezüglichen Erfahrungen einordnen und bewerten. Um sich die Lebenswelten und Sinnhorizonte der Eltern zu erschließen, erfolgte die Datenerhebung durch transkribierte narrative Interviews. Diese wurden mittels qualitativ inhaltsanalytischer Verfahren strukturiert und sequenziert untersucht, um relevante Kodes, Konzepte und Kategorien aus den Erzählungen herauszuarbeiten. Dabei stellte sich heraus, dass es den einen Zugang nicht gibt, im Weiteren auch kein einfaches Setting zwischen Angebot und Nachfrage vorliegt. Vielmehr zeigen sich unterschiedliche Zugangsformen und individuelle Faktoren, die einen Zugang begünstigen oder behindern können. Zentral sind hier vor allem die Wirkung Anderer in der Biografie der Eltern, gleich ob aus Familie oder auf Seiten der Fachkräfte sowie deren Haltungen und das Vorhandensein von Ressourcen wie z.B. Wissen. Für die Praxis der Sozialen Arbeit bedeutet dies, sich den zunächst fremden Lebenswelten
der Adressatinnen und Adressaten verstehend zu nähern und nicht außer Acht zu lassen, dass diese ihnen mit ihren Bildern, Ideen, Wünschen und Lebenserfahrungen gegenüber treten, welche wahrgenommen und verstanden werden wollen.
Ralf Schauf
Social media provides a powerful way for people to share opinions and sentiments about a specific topic, allowing others to benefit from these thoughts and feelings. This procedure generates a huge amount of unstructured data, such as texts, images, and references that are constantly increasing through daily comments to related discussions. However, the vast amount of unstructured data presents risks to the information-extraction process, and so decision making becomes highly challenging. This is because data overload may cause the loss of useful data due to its inappropriate presentation and its accumulation. To this extent, this thesis contributed to the field of analyzing and detecting feelings in images and texts. And that by extracting the feelings and opinions hidden in a huge collection of image data and texts on social networks After that, these feelings are classified into positive, negative, or neutral, according to the features of the classified data. The process of extracting these feelings greatly helps in decision-making processes on various topics as will be explained in the first chapter of the thesis. A system has been built that can classify the feelings inherent in the images and texts on social media sites, such as people’s opinions about products and companies, personal posts, and general messages. This thesis begins by introducing a new method of reducing the dimension of text data based on data-mining approaches and then examines the sentiment based on neural and deep neural network classification algorithms. Subsequently, in contrast to sentiment analysis research in text datasets, we examine sentiment expression and polarity classification within and across image datasets by building deep neural networks based on the attention mechanism.
Scientific experimentation in the special needs schools for pupils with intellectual disabilities
(2022)
Naturwissenschaftliches Experimentieren im Förderschwerpunkt geistige Entwicklung: An Schulen mit dem Förderschwerpunkt geistige Entwicklung führen Schülerinnen und Schüler nur selten naturwissenschaftliche Experimente durch. Doch auch diese Schülerschaft kann mit adressatengerechten Lernmaterialien Experimente durchführen, deren Gestaltungskriterien in dieser Studie ermittelt werden. Zudem wird in der Studie erfasst, wie sich die Schülerinnen und Schüler über ein Schuljahr in ihrer experimentellen Kompetenz weiterentwickeln.
Manmade dams have been constructed from centuries for multiple purposes, and in the past decades they have been constructed in a fast pace, with the hotspot in tropical and subtropical regions. However, studies that explore hydrodynamics in these areas are scarce and biased to the rich literature available for temperate regions. Lakes and reservoirs have the same controlling mechanisms for physical processes and primary production, hence, analyses that were initially conceptualized for lakes are frequently applied for reservoirs. Nevertheless, longitudinal gradients in reservoirs challenges the application of these approaches.
Degradation of water quality in reservoirs is a major concern, and it is expected to be aggravated with climate change. Therefore, studies that explore mechanisms controlling water quality are essential for the maintenance of these systems, especially in tropical and subtropical regions. The aim of this thesis is to comprehend the role of hydrodynamic processes in the fate of nutrients in reservoirs and its implications on water quality, in a subtropical region. With focus on the relevance of different density current patterns. For that, analyses combining field measurements and numerical simulations were performed in a medium to small size subtropical drinking water reservoir for a complete seasonal cycle. Measurements were conducted combining several approaches: traditional sampling, sensors in high temporal and spatial resolution, and remote sensing. Besides, hydrodynamic models were set up and calibrated to reproduce observations, and to simulate scenarios that assisted on the analysis.
Results showed that different flow paths of density currents did not influence on phytoplankton dynamics. At the regions where the main nutrient supply was the river inflow (upstream), the density currents did not vary, the euphotic zone usually covered the entire depth, and vertical mixing was observed on a daily basis, turning the flow path of the density currents irrelevant. At downstream regions, the remobilization of nutrients in the sediment was the main source for primary production. Even though density currents had a seasonal pattern in the downstream region, thermal stratification conditions were the driver for variations in chlorophyll-a concentrations, with peaks after vertical mixing. This mechanism had in its favor the frequent anoxic conditions in the hypolimnion that enhanced the dissolution of reactive phosphorus from the sediment. Anoxic conditions were easily reached because the sediment in the downstream area was rich in organic matter. Phytoplankton produced in the upstream area was transported by the density currents, and for this reason, large concentrations of chl-a was observed below the euphotic zone. Further, the extensive measurements of temperature, and flow velocities, together with the hydrodynamic models, provided insights about the hydrodynamics of reservoirs. For instance, that the relevant processes occurred along the longitudinal, and mixing conditions varied along it. The relevance of inflow conditions regarding the presence of structures such as forebays and pre-dams, and the degree of stream shading in the catchment was assessed. And turbulence and internal waves had different features than the documented for high latitudes. Those findings can assist on the management of reservoirs, based on the comprehension of the physical processes.
The use of agricultural plastic covers has become common practice for its agronomic benefits such as improving yields and crop quality, managing harvest times better, and increasing pesticide and water use efficiency. However, plastic covers are suspected of partially breaking down into smaller debris and thereby contributing to soil pollution with microplastics. A better understanding of the sources and fate of plastic debris in terrestrial systems has so far been hindered by the lack of adequate analytical techniques for the mass-based and polymer-selective quantification of plastic debris in soil. The aim of this dissertation was thus to assess, develop, and validate thermoanalytical methods for the mass-based quantification of relevant polymers in and around agricultural fields previously covered with fleeces, perforated foils, and plastic mulches. Thermogravimetry/mass spectrometry (TGA/MS) enabled direct plastic analyses of 50 mg of soil without any sample preparation. With polyethylene terephthalate (PET) as a preliminary model, the method limit of detection (LOD) was 0.7 g kg−1. But the missing chromatographic separation complicated the quantification of polymer mixtures. Therefore, a pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py-GC/MS) method was developed that additionally exploited the selective solubility of polymers in specific solvents prior to analysis. By dissolving polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), and polystyrene (PS) in a mixture of 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene and p-xylene after density separation, up to 50 g soil became amenable to routine plastic analysis. Method LODs were 0.7–3.3 mg kg−1, and the recovery of 20 mg kg−1 PE, PP, and PS from a reference loamy sand was 86–105%. In the reference silty clay, however, poor PS recoveries, potentially induced by the additional separation step, suggested a qualitative evaluation of PS. Yet, the new solvent-based Py-GC/MS method enabled a first exploratory screening of plastic-covered soil. It revealed PE, PP, and PS contents above LOD in six of eight fields (6% of all samples). In three fields, PE levels of 3–35 mg kg−1 were associated with the use of 40 μm thin perforated foils. By contrast, 50 μm PE films were not shown to induce plastic levels above LOD. PP and PS contents of 5–19 mg kg−1 were restricted to single observations in four fields and potentially originated from littering. The results suggest that the short-term use of thicker and more durable plastic covers should be preferred to limit plastic emissions and accumulation in soil. By providing mass-based information on the distribution of the three most common plastics in agricultural soil, this work may facilitate comparisons with modeling and effect data and thus contribute to a better risk assessment and regulation of plastics. However, the fate of plastic debris in the terrestrial environment remains incompletely understood and needs to be scrutinized in future, more systematic research. This should include the study of aging processes, the interaction of plastics with other organic and inorganic compounds, and the environmental impact of biodegradable plastics and nanoplastics.
Enterprise Collaboration Systems (ECS) werden zunehmend als Kernkomponenten des digitalen Arbeitsplatzes in Unternehmen eingesetzt, die mit der Implementierung dieser neuen Softwaregattung jeweils unterschiedliche Ziele für die innerbetriebliche Zusammenarbeit verfolgen. Diese Ziele werden in der Praxis oftmals nicht eindeutig genug formuliert. Der Einsatz von traditionellen Controlling-Kennzahlen mit dem Schwerpunkt auf Termineinhaltung und Kosten sind zudem ungeeignet, um die Realisierung des individuellen Nutzens von ECS zu messen. Diese Forschungsarbeit beschreibt die Entwicklung und Anwendung des Benefits Scorecards for Collaboration Platforms in Enterprises (SCoPE) Frameworks, das als ein Rahmenwerk für die kennzahlengestützte Nutzenmessung von ECS dient und an dem Goal-Question-Metrics-Approach der NASA sowie der Balance Scorecard von Kaplan & Norton angelehnt ist. Die Ergebnisse tragen zu einem breiteren Verständnis der kennzahlenbasierten Nutzenanalyse für ECS in Organisationen bei. Das Benefits-SCoPE-Framework wurde in enger Zusammenarbeit mit Experten aus 16 Anwenderunternehmen im Rahmen der Initiative IndustryConnect entwickelt. In einem design-orientierten Ansatz wurde ein ausgewählter Methodenmix angewandt, inklusive Experteninterview, Fokusgruppe, Workshop und Card Sorting. Der von Anwenderunternehmen erwartete Nutzen des ECS wird in spezifische, durch Kennzahlen beantwortbare Fragestellungen umformuliert und fragmentiert. Insgesamt konnten so 313 nutzenorientierte Fragen von drei Anwenderunternehmen identifiziert werden. Die durchgeführte Kategorisierung der Fragen verdeutlicht zum einen das gemeinsame Verständnis der Unternehmen hinsichtlich der entscheidenden Faktoren für die Nutzenrealisierung von ECS und zum anderen die Nutzen-ziele, die die Unternehmen durch den Einsatz des ECS anvisieren. Die Entwicklung und Erhebung von Kennzahlen zur quantitativen Beantwortung von ausgewählten Fragestellungen wird mit funktions-fähigen Prototypen auf einer operativen Kollaborationsplattform demonstriert, die seit mehr als sieben Jahren im Einsatz ist und mehr als 5.000 registrierte Benutzer aufweist. Die Kennzahlenentwicklung, die Auswahl der Datenerhebungsmethode, die Durchführung der Messung sowie die Interpretation der Messergebnisse werden im Framework durch die Verwendung von Benefits Scorecards unterstützt. Die individuelle Orchestrierung mehrerer Benefits Scorecards repräsentiert die Struktur eines Ordnungssystems zur ECS-Nutzenanalyse in Anwenderunternehmen und verdeutlicht das Vorgehen zur Erhebung der äquivalenten Daten.
Die Studie thematisiert die Positionierung und Subjektivierung von Medienpädagog*innen im Diskurs um Gewaltdarstellungen in Computerspielen. Der sogenannte ‚Killerspiel‘-Diskurs in den Jahren 2001 bis 2016 stellt für medienpädagogische Fachkräfte ein Feld widersprüchlicher Handlungserwartungen dar, Gewaltdarstellungen in Computerspielen entweder als Problem wahrzunehmen und dieses zu bearbeiten oder Computerspiele als Chance zu begreifen. Als rele-vante Multiplikator*innen diskursiver Wissensbestände wurden deswegen für diese Studie Me-dienpädagog*innen interviewt, die an maßgeblichen Positionen in der Schnittstelle zwischen Wissenschaft und Praxis agieren und daher für viele Kolleg*innen deutungs- und praxisrelevan-tes Wissen generieren. Um die Ausrichtung dieses Wissens zu prüfen, wurde in dieser Studie die Frage gestellt, wie sich diese medienpädagogischen Fachkräfte, die korrigierend in Diskurse ein-greifen, positionieren und inwiefern (medien-)pädagogische Professionalität als Ressource und Grenze der Positionierung fungiert.
Um die Fragestellung zu beantworten wurden zwei empirisch analytische Untersuchungen durchgeführt. Zuerst wurde eine Sekundäranalyse bestehender Diskursanalysen zum ‚Killer-spiel‘-Diskurs durchgeführt, um die Subjektpositionen herauszuarbeiten, mit denen sich die Me-dienpädagog*innen auseinandersetzen mussten. In einem zweiten Schritt wurde eine qualitative Interviewstudie mit neun Medienpädagog*innen durchgeführt. Im Anschluss an die semi-narrativen Expert*inneninterviews wurden diese in einem dreistufigen Verfahren ausgewertet. Nach der deduktiven und induktiven Kategorienbildung in Anlehnung an die inhaltlich struktu-rierende Inhaltsanalyse, wurde im Rahmen einer Deutungsmusteranalyse das Deutungswissen der Medienpädagog*innen und der Sinnhorizont ihrer Intervention in den Diskurs feinanalytisch rekonstruiert. Zuletzt wurden drei biographische Fallanalysen durchgeführt, um die Relationie-rung zwischen Diskurs und (Berufs-)biographie zu diskutieren.
Im Rahmen der Sekundäranalyse des ‚Killerspiel‘-Diskurses konnte die bisher in Diskursanaly-sen rekonstruierte Differenzierung von Risiko- und Chancennarrativ erweitert werden. Durch die Abgrenzung jeweils zweier Deutungsmuster des Problemdiskurses (‚Gefahr‘ und ‚Risiko‘) und des Gegendiskurses (‚Optimierung von Lernchancen‘ und ‚Kultur‘) konnten dadurch Positionie-rungen in multiplen Konfliktfeldern sichtbar gemacht werden. So war es möglich die fachliche Positionierung der Medienpädagog*innen als Zwischenraum zu fassen, in dem sowohl Deutun-gen des Gegendiskurses als auch des Problemdiskurses eigenwillig miteinander relationiert wer-den. Die eigenwillige Aneignung diskursiver Problem- und Deutungsmuster verläuft bei den Medienpädagog*innen über unterschiedliche fachliche Schnittstellen und Kopplungen. Statt den Diskurs mit der eigenen Lebensgeschichte zu relationieren wird er mit der in Handlungsfeld-strukturen situierten fachlichen medienpädagogischen Praxis in Beziehung gesetzt. Dabei ist eine Pädagogisierung des Diskurses und eine Diskursivierung pädagogischer Handlungsfelder zu beobachten. Mittels mehrerer Pädagogiken werden diskursive Deutungsmuster transformiert und das medienpädagogische Handeln durch die Re-Interpretation medienpädagogischer Hand-lungsfelder im Sinnhorizont des Diskurses als Intervention in den Diskurs gerahmt. Gleichzeitig wird in einem ‚Opportunismus der Uneindeutigkeit‘ die Anschlussfähigkeit an Problemdeutun-gen durch die Selbstdarstellung als verantwortliche Problembearbeiter*innen gewahrt, wodurch die eigene Handlungsfähigkeit, die Legitimität des Handelns und der Zugang zu gesellschaftli-chen Ressourcen gesichert wird.
In den Fallanalysen zeigte sich, dass diese fachlichen Positionierungen nur dann einen Subjekti-vierungsprozess dokumentieren, wenn die Erzählbausteine des Diskurses (Deutungsmuster und diskursiver Konflikt) als Material für die eigene Selbsterzählung herangezogen und als Professi-onsverständnis re-artikuliert werden. Das Konfliktszenario wird dann über dessen öffentliche Thematisierung hinaus als berufsbiographisches Projekt formulierbar, was sich insbesondere da-rin zeigt, dass prospektive Zukunftsentwürfe weiterhin im Deutungs- und Konfliktspektrum des Diskurses verortet werden. Subjektivierung professioneller Akteure kann daher als über fachliche Positionierungen (als fachlich orientierte, kommentierende Auseinandersetzungen mit im Diskurs verhandelten Deutungsmustern und Wissensbeständen) hinausgehende Prozesse der Deutung des eigenen Professionalitätsverständnisses, die Ausbildung von Pädagogiken und die Veranke-rung berufsbiographischer Ziele im Horizont des Deutungsspektrum des Diskurses gefasst wer-den.
In der medienpädagogischen Professionsforschung können die Deutungsmuster und Subjektpo-sitionen des Diskurses als Professionalitätserwartungen analytisch Anwendung finden. Ihr Vor-teil gegenüber den hierfür auch herangezogenen Paradigmen der Medienpädagogik ist der Aktu-alitäts- und Gegenstandsbezug. Auch in anderen Themenbereichen (bspw. Mediensucht) können die Deutungsmuster des Diskurses sinnvoll Anwendung finden. Die Studie konnte zudem zei-gen, dass eine Subjektivierungsheuristik sinnvoll auf professionelle Akteure anwendbar ist, da fachliche Positionierungen von Subjektivierungen deutlich unterschieden werden können. Dafür wurde eine spezielle für professionelle Akteure konzipierte Subjektivierungsheuristik entworfen, die insbesondere den unterschiedlichen Funktionen diverser Wissensformen Rechnung tragen kann und in der Professionsforschung die Relevanz des diskursiven Wissens als relevanter Wis-sensform für professionelle Praxis herausstellt.
Currently, there are a variety of digital tools in the humanities, such
as annotation, visualization, or analysis software, which support researchers in their work and offer them new opportunities to address different research questions. However, the use of these tools falls far
short of expectations. In this thesis, twelve improvement measures are
developed within the framework of a design science theory to counteract the lack of usage acceptance. By implementing the developed design science theory, software developers can increase the acceptance of their digital tools in the humanities context.
For software engineers, conceptually understanding the tools they are using in the context of their projects is a daily challenge and a prerequisite for complex tasks. Textual explanations and code examples serve as knowledge resources for understanding software languages and software technologies. This thesis describes research on integrating and interconnecting
existing knowledge resources, which can then be used to assist with understanding and comparing software languages and software technologies on a conceptual level. We consider the following broad research questions that we later refine: What knowledge resources can be systematically reused for recovering structured knowledge and how? What vocabulary already exists in literature that is used to express conceptual knowledge? How can we reuse the
online encyclopedia Wikipedia? How can we detect and report on instances of technology usage? How can we assure reproducibility as the central quality factor of any construction process for knowledge artifacts? As qualitative research, we describe methodologies to recover knowledge resources by i.) systematically studying literature, ii.) mining Wikipedia, iii.) mining available textual explanations and code examples of technology usage. The theoretical findings are backed by case studies. As research contributions, we have recovered i.) a reference semantics of vocabulary for describing software technology usage with an emphasis on software languages, ii.) an annotated corpus of Wikipedia articles on software languages, iii.) insights into technology usage on GitHub with regard to a catalog of pattern and iv.) megamodels of technology usage that are interconnected with existing textual explanations and code examples.
To render the surface of a material capable of withstanding mechanical and electrochemical loads, and to perform well in service, the deposition of a thin film or coating is a solution. In this project, such a thin film deposition is carried out. The coating material chosen is titanium nitride (TiN) which is a ceramic material known to possess a high hardness (>10 GPa) as well as good corrosion resistance. The method of deposition selected is high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) that results in coatings with high quality and enhanced properties. Sputtering is a physical process that represents the removal or dislodgment of surface atoms by energetic particle bombardment. The term magnetron indicates that a magnetic field is utilized to increase the efficiency of the sputtering process. In HiPIMS, a high power is applied in pulses of low duty cycles to a cathode that is sputtered and that consists of the coating material. As result of the high power, the ionization of the sputtered material takes place giving the possibility to control these species with electric and magnetic field allowing thereby the improvement and tuning of coating properties. However, the drawback of HiPIMS is a low deposition rate.
In this project, it is demonstrated first that it is possible to deposit TiN coating using HiPIMS with an optimized deposition rate, by varying the magnetic field strength. It was found that low magnetic field strength (here 22mT) results in a deposition rate similar to that of conventional magnetron sputtering in which the average power is applied continuously, called also direct current magnetron sputtering (dcMS). The high deposition rate at low magnetic field strength was attributed to a reduction in the back attraction probability of the sputtered species. The magnetic field strength did not show noticeable influence on the mechanical properties. The proposed explanation was that the considered peak current density interval 1.22-1.72 A∙cm-2 does not exhibit dramatic changes in the plasma dynamics.
In a second part, using the optimized deposition rate, the optimized chemical composition of TiN was determined. It was shown that the chemical composition of TiN does not significantly influence the corrosion performance but impacts considerably the mechanical properties. It was also shown that the corrosion resistance of the coatings deposited using HiPIMS was higher than that of the coatings deposited using dcMS.
The third study was the effect of annealing post deposition on the properties of TiN coating deposited using HiPIMS. The hardness of the coatings showed a maximum at 400°C reaching 24.8 GPa. Above 400°C however, a lowering of the hardness was measured and was due to the oxidation of TiN which led to the formation of TiN-TiO2 composites with lower mechanical properties.
The coating microscopic properties such as crystal orientation, residual stresses, average grain size were determined from X-ray diffraction data and the roughness was measured using atomic force microscopy. These properties were found to vary with the magnetic field strength, the chemical composition as well as the annealing temperature.
Genetically modified plants have been grown commercially for about 25 years. Bt plants, which contain genes from the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) and produce Cry proteins, are used particularly frequently. Risk assessment has long focused on the terrestrial environment. Only since the publication of Rosi-Marshall et al. in 2007 potential effects on the aquatic environment came into focus. The first part of this dissertation analyse the existing literature on lower-tier effect studies and fate studies examining the effects of GM plants on the aquatic environment. Potential effects on aquatic organisms are apparent. Some studies also demonstrate the entry of GM plant material into the aquatic environment and the leaching of toxins into the water.
The second part of the dissertation investigate the effects of Cry1Ab toxin on two species of caddisfly larvae (Chaetopterryx spec., Sericostoma spec.). Trichopterans are phylogenetically closely related to lepidopterans, which are often the target organisms of Cry toxins. In order to be able to create several concentrations, a new spiking method was used in which dissolved Cry1Ab toxin was applied on leaves of black alder (Alnus glutinosa). Effects were particularly evident at sublethal endpoints. The lipid content of Chaetopteryx spec. larvae was lower after twelve weeks with increasing Cry1Ab concentration. The reduction in lipid content may indicate an increase in energy requirements for repair mechanisms. Sericostoma spec. showed a slowdown in larval development at the highest Cry1Ab concentration after six weeks, which could lead to later emergence and thus effects on the food chain.
In the third part of the dissertation, the assessment of impacts of GM crops on the aquatic environment was investigated using higher-tier studies. Since higher-tier studies are already common with pesticides, these were compared to the higher-tier studies already conducted with GM crops. It is found that there is no standardization of higher-tier studies with GM crops, which is necessary for quality assurance and comparability of studies. In addition, there are great difficulties in establishing different test concentrations, which is necessary for the investigation of a dose-response relationship.
Overall, it is clear that there are still significant knowledge gaps of the effects of GM plants on the aquatic environment. Further studies are essential for a comprehensive and meaningful risk assessment.
The present study deals with the synthesis of N-phenacylpyridinium salts and their use as photoinitiators for epoxy resins. The use and suitability of phenacyl salts as photoinitiators for epoxy resins has already been described in previous studies. The individual impact of the specific components on the rate constants of epoxy reaction has not been investigated in detail. Based on the structure of N-phenacylpyridinium salt the substances described in the present study were varied due to the exchange of counter ion and different substituents. Investigating the impact of the specific substituent with focus on the reaction of epoxy groups there is a dependence found for three main factors. First, depending on whether to use a phenyl or methyl group as substituent there was found an impact on the process of photolysis. Furthermore, concerning the dependences on the pyridine derivative and the counter ion, it was found that pyridine derivatives with electron withdrawing groups and counter ions, which can build strong acids, accelerate the rate constants of the epoxy reaction. Vice versa, pyridine derivatives with electron donating groups and counter ions, which can form weaker acids, decrease the rate constants.
The determined rate constants and the formulation of substances discussed in the present thesis in an adhesive formulation show the suitability of selected substances as photoinitiators for the polymerization of epoxy resins.
Diet-related effects of antimicrobials in aquatic decomposer-shredder and periphyton-grazer systems
(2022)
Leaf-associated microbial decomposers as well as periphyton serve as important food sources for detritivorous and herbivorous macroinvertebrates (shredders and grazers) in streams. Shredders and grazers, in turn, provide not only collectors with food but also serve as prey for predators. Therefore, decomposer-shredder and periphyton-grazer systems (here summarized as freshwater biofilm-consumer systems) are highly important for the energy and nutrient supply in heterotrophic and autotrophic stream food webs. However, both systems can be affected by chemical stressors, amongst which antimicrobials (e.g., antibiotics, fungicides and algaecides) are of particular concern. Antimicrobials can impair shredders and grazers not only via waterborne exposure (waterborne effect pathway) but also through dietary exposure and microorganism-mediated alterations in the food quality of their diet (dietary effect pathway). Even though the relevance of the latter pathway received more attention in recent years, little is known about the mechanisms that are responsible for the observed effects in shredders and grazers. Therefore, the first objective of this thesis was to broaden the knowledge of indirect antimicrobial effects in a model shredder and grazer via the dietary pathway. Moreover, although freshwater biofilm-consumer systems are most likely exposed to antimicrobial mixtures comprised of different stressor groups, virtually nothing is known of these mixture effects in both systems. Therefore, the second objective was to assess and predict diet-related antimicrobial mixture effects in a model freshwater biofilm-consumer system. During this thesis, positive diet-related effects of a model antibiotic on the energy processing and physiology of the shredder Gammarus fossarum were observed. They were probably triggered by shifts in the leaf-associated microbial community in favor of aquatic fungi that increased the food quality of leaves for the shredder. Contrary to that, a model fungicide induced negative effects on the energy processing of G. fossarum via the dietary pathway, which can be explained by negative impacts on the microbial decomposition efficiency leading to a reduced food quality of leaf litter for gammarids. For diet-related antimicrobial effects in periphyton-grazer systems, a model algaecide altered the periphyton community composition by increasing nutritious and palatable algae. This resulted in an enhanced consumption and physiological fitness of the grazer Physella acuta. Finally, it was shown that complex horizontal interactions among leaf-associated microorganisms are involved, making diet-related antimicrobial mixture effects in the shredder G. fossarum difficult to predict. Thus, this thesis provides new insights into indirect diet-related effects of antimicrobials on shredders and grazers as well as demonstrates uncertainties of antimicrobial mixture effect predictions for freshwater biofilm-consumer systems. Moreover, the findings in this thesis are not only informative for regulatory authorities, as indirect effects and effects of mixtures across chemical classes are not considered in the environmental risk assessment of chemical substances, but also stimulate future research to close knowledge gaps identified during this work.
Inland waters play an active role in the global carbon cycle. They collect carbon from upstream landmasses and transport it downstream until it finally reaches the ocean. Along this path, manifold processing steps are evident, resulting in (permanent) retention of carbon by sediment burial as well as loss by evasion to the atmosphere. Constraining these carbon fluxes and their anthropogenic perturbation is an urgent need. In this context, attention needs to be set on a widespread feature of inland waters: their partial desiccation. This results in the emergence of formerly inundated sediments to the atmosphere, referred to as dry inland waters. One observed feature of dry inland waters are disproportional high carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. However, this observation was so far based on local case studies and knowledge on the global prevalence and fundamental mechanisms of these emissions is lacking. Against this background, this thesis aims to provide a better understanding of the magnitude and mechanisms of carbon emissions from dry inland waters on the global and local scale and to assess the impact of dry inland waters on the global carbon cycle. The specific research questions of this thesis were: (1) How do gaseous carbon emissions from dry inland waters integrate into the global carbon cycle and into global greenhouse gas (GHG) budgets? (2) What effect do seasonal and long term drying have on the carbon cycling of inland waters? The thesis revealed that dry inland waters emit disproportional large amounts of CO 2 on a global scale and that these emissions share common drivers across ecosystems. Quantifying global reservoir drawdown and upscaling carbon fluxes to the global scale suggests that reservoirs emit more carbon than they bury, challenging the current understanding of reservoirs as net carbon sinks. On the local scale, this thesis revealed that both, heterogeneous emission pattern between different habitats and seasonal variability of carbon emissions from the drawdown area, needs to be considered. Further, this thesis showed that re-mobilization of buried carbon upon permanent desiccation of water bodies can explain the observed emission rates, supporting the hypothesis of a positive feedback-loop between climate change and desiccation of inland waters. Overall, the present thesis highlights the importance of adding emissions from dry inland waters as a pathway to the global carbon cycle of inland waters.
Invasive species play increasing roles worldwide. Invasions are considered successful when species establish and spread in their exotic range. Subsequently, dispersal is a major determinant of species’ range dynamics. Mermessus trilobatus, native to North America, has rapidly spread in Europe via aerial dispersal. Here we investigated the interplay of ecological and evolutionary processes behind its colonisation success.
First, we examined two possible ecological mechanisms. Similar to other invasive invertebrates, the colonisation success of Mermessus trilobatus might be related to human-induced habitat disturbance. Opposite to this expectation, our results showed that densities of Mermessus trilobatus decreased with soil disturbance in grasslands suggesting that its invasion success was not connected to a ruderal strategy. Further, invasive species often escape the ecological pressures from novel enemies in their exotic ranges. Unexpectedly, invasive Mermessus trilobatus was more sensitive to a native predator than native Erigone dentipalpis during our predator susceptibility trials. This indicates that the relation between the invasive spider and its native predator is dominated by prey naïveté rather than enemy release.
The remaining three chapters of the thesis investigated the dispersal behaviour of this invasive species. Hitherto, studies of passive aerial dispersal used wind as the primary dispersal-initiating factor despite a recent demonstration of the effects of the atmospheric electric fields on spiders’ pre-dispersal behaviour. During our experiments, only the wind facilitated the flight, although electric fields induced pre-dispersal behaviour in spiders. Consequently, studies around passive aerial dispersal should control electric fields but use wind as a stimulating factor.
Rapidly expanding species might be disproportionately distributed in their exotic range, with an accumulation of dispersive genotypes at the leading edge of their range. Such imbalanced spatial segregation is possible when the dispersal behaviour of expanding species is heritable. Our results showed that the dispersal traits of Mermessus trilobatus were heritable through both parents and for both sexes with recessive inheritance of high dispersal ability in this species.
Following the heritability experiments, we documented an accelerated spread of Mermessus trilobatus in Europe and tested whether dispersal, reproduction or competing ability was at the source of this pattern. Our results showed that the accumulation of more mobile but not reproductive or competitive genotypes at the expansion front of this invasive species gave rise to an accelerated range expansion by more than 1350 km in under 45 years.
Invasive Mermessus trilobatus is inferior to native sympatric species with respect to competing ability (Eichenberger et al., 2009), disturbance tolerance and predation pressure. Nevertheless, the species successfully established in its exotic range and spread by accelerating its expansion rate. Rapid reproduction that balances the high ecological pressures might be the other potential mechanism behind its colonisation success in Europe and deserves further investigation.
Der Arbeitsmarkt in Deutschland erlebt einen technologisch bedingten Strukturwandel. Durch Digitalisierung werden Tätigkeiten substituierbar, Berufsbilder und dafür benötigte Qualifikationsprofile wandeln sich. Für die Arbeitskräfte resultiert daraus ein Anpassungsdruck, sich zum Erhalt ihres Humankapitals bzw. ihrer Beschäftigungsfähigkeit weiterzubilden. Fraglich ist, inwieweit die Individuen diesen Druck wahrnehmen und mit entsprechenden Weiterbildungen reagieren. Um einen Erklärungsbeitrag zum Weiterbildungsverhalten der Arbeitskräfte in Bezug auf den technologischen Wandel zu leisten, widmet sich das Promotionsvorhaben der Forschungsfrage: „Inwieweit reagieren Arbeitskräfte bezüglich ihres Weiterbildungsverhaltens auf einen sich digitalisierungsbedingt wandelnden Arbeitsmarkt?“
Agricultural intensification is leading to a severe decline in farmland biodiversity worldwide. The resulting landscape simplification through the expansion of monocultures and removal of non-crop habitats has a major impact on arthropod communities in agricultural landscapes. While arable fields are often highly disturbed and ephemeral habitats that are unsuitable for many species, non-crop habitats in agroecosystems can provide important refugia. The creation of non-crop habitats through agri-environmental schemes (AES) in intensive agricultural landscapes, such as the ‘Maifeld’ region in western Germany, is intended to mitigate the negative effects of agricultural intensification, although the effectiveness of these measures for nature conservation is still controversial. Therefore, this work focuses on the taxonomic and functional diversity of beetles (Coleoptera) and spiders (Araneida), being important providers of ecosystem services, between wheat fields and different non-crop habitats, namely grassy field margins adjacent to wheat and oilseed rape fields, small- and large-scale set-aside areas sown with wildflowers, and permanent grassland fallows. Arthropods were collected between 2019 and 2020 using pitfall traps and suction sampling. Land-use type influenced beetle and spider diversity in the study area, with significantly higher values in grassland fallows than wheat fields. Surprisingly, species diversity differed little among all non-crop habitats, but all harboured distinct species assemblages. In particular, large long-term grassland fallows showed the largest within-group variation of beetle and spider assemblages and represented important habitats, especially for habitat specialists and threatened species, likely due to their variable soil moisture and complex habitat structure. In contrast, the homogeneous arthropod assemblages of wheat fields exhibited lower trait richness and were dominated by a few predatory species adapted to such disturbed, man-made habitats. Interestingly, all conservation measures complemented each other in that they contributed in different ways to supporting beetles and spiders in agricultural landscapes. Even small-scale non-crop habitats and existing habitat boundaries in an agricultural matrix appear to be valuable habitats for farmland arthropods by enhancing taxonomic diversity. Field margins and small wildflower-sown patches can link isolated non-crop habitats and contribute to a heterogeneous agricultural landscape. Consequently, a combination of various small- and large-scale greening measures leads to increased compositional and configurational landscape heterogeneity, resulting in improved beetle and spider diversity. Considering the ongoing loss of farmland biodiversity worldwide, agri-environmental schemes should be promoted in the future, as they are particularly important for arthropod conservation in intensive agricultural landscapes such as the Maifeld region.
The ongoing loss of species is a global threat to biodiversity, affecting ecosystems worldwide. This also concerns arthropods such as insects and spiders, which are especially endangered in agricultural ecosystems. Here, one of the main causing factors is management intensification. In areas with a high proportion of traditionally managed grassland, extensive hay meadows that are cut only once per year can still hold high levels of biodiversity, but are threatened by conversion into highly productive silage grassland. The Westerwald mountain range, western Germany, is such a region. In this thesis, I compare the local diversity of bees, beetles, hoverflies, leafhoppers, and spiders of five grassland management regimes along a gradient of land-use intensity. These comprise naturally occurring grassland fallows, three types of traditionally managed hay meadows, and intensively used silage grassland. By using three different sampling methods, I recorded ground-dwelling, flower-visiting, and vegetation-dwelling species. The results show that in most cases species richness and diversity are highest on fallows, whereas variation among different managed grassland types is very low. Also, for most sampled taxa, fallows harbour the most distinct species assemblages, while that of other management regimes are largely overlapping. Management has the largest effect on species composition, whereas environmental parameters are of minor importance. Long-term grassland fallows seem to be highly valuable for arthropod conservation, even in a landscape with a low overall land-use intensity, providing structural heterogeneity. In conclusion, such fallows should be subsidized agri-environmental schemes, to preserve insect and spider diversity.