Постановка проблемы: при проектировании современных морских робототехнических комплексов возникают различные проблемы: анализа информационных потребностей автономных агентов; исследования и моделирования информационных структур и процессов, связанных с поиском, получением, накоплением и обработкой информации искусственными когнитивными агентами; изучения методов формирования оценок, мнений и знаний искусственными когнитивными агентами на основе перерабатываемой ими информации. Для решения этих проблем авторами предлагается общая модель навигации робототехнического комплекса, основанная на агентно-ориентированной методологии, в которой рассматриваемые системы и их компоненты интерпретируются как когнитивные агенты. Результаты: исследованы основные особенности проектирования робототехнических комплексов с использованием агентно-ориентированного подхода, в том числе раскрыты особенности архитектуры и функционирования интеллектуальных агентов. Описана особенность искусственных когнитивных агентов, которая отличает их от других интеллектуальных систем, - получение информации непосредственно от человека, от сенсорной сети и из своей базы знаний и данных. Разработана общая структура комбинированной навигации когнитивного агента, обеспечивающая его функционирование в двух разных режимах: «первичной» навигации, связанной с перемещением агента к цели на основе гранулярной информации; «уточненной» навигации, опирающейся на текущие числовые данные о среде, получаемые от сенсорной системы. Сформирована иерархическая двухконтурная система управления, где обычная схема классического управления дополняется подсистемой нечеткого управления. Практическая значимость: предложенная авторами навигационная модель, основанная на агентно-ориентированном подходе, может быть использована при проектировании морских робототехнических комплексов как гражданского, так и военного назначения, что позволит значительно уменьшить трудоемкость проектирования в целом. ; Purpose: In the design of modern marine robotic complexes, various problems arise: analyzing the informational needs of autonomous agents; studying and modeling the information structures and processes associated with the search, acquisition, accumulation and processing of the information by artificial cognitive agents; the development of estimates, opinions and knowledge by artificial cognitive agents on the basis of the information they process. To solve these problems, the authors propose a general model of a navigational robotic complex based on agent-oriented methodology where the systems and their components are interpreted as cognitive agents. Results: The main features of developing robotic complexes using agent-oriented approach were studied, including the architectural features and intelligent agent functioning. A feature of artificial cognitive agents was described which distinguishes them from other intelligent systems getting information from three sources: directly from a human, from a sensory system and from its own database/knowledge base. A general scheme was developed of a combined navigation for a cognitive agent, which provides its functioning in two different modes: "rough" navigation associated with the movement of the agent to the target on the base of the granular information, and "accurate" navigation based on the current numerical data about the environment obtained from the sensor system. A hierarchical dual control system was formed where the classical control scheme is complemented by a fuzzy control subsystem. Practical relevance: The proposed navigation model based on the agent-oriented approach can be used in the design of marine robotic complexes for both civilian and military purposes, which will greatly reduce the complexity of the design as a whole.
La prova informatica richiede l'adozione di precauzioni come in un qualsiasi altro accertamento scientifico. Si fornisce una panoramica sugli aspetti metodologici e applicativi dell'informatica forense alla luce del recente standard ISO/IEC 27037:2012 in tema di trattamento del reperto informatico nelle fasi di identificazione, raccolta, acquisizione e conservazione del dato digitale. Tali metodologie si attengono scrupolosamente alle esigenze di integrità e autenticità richieste dalle norme in materia di informatica forense, in particolare della Legge 48/2008 di ratifica della Convenzione di Budapest sul Cybercrime. In merito al reato di pedopornografia si offre una rassegna della normativa comunitaria e nazionale, ponendo l'enfasi sugli aspetti rilevanti ai fini dell'analisi forense. Rilevato che il file sharing su reti peer-to-peer è il canale sul quale maggiormente si concentra lo scambio di materiale illecito, si fornisce una panoramica dei protocolli e dei sistemi maggiormente diffusi, ponendo enfasi sulla rete eDonkey e il software eMule che trovano ampia diffusione tra gli utenti italiani. Si accenna alle problematiche che si incontrano nelle attività di indagine e di repressione del fenomeno, di competenza delle forze di polizia, per poi concentrarsi e fornire il contributo rilevante in tema di analisi forensi di sistemi informatici sequestrati a soggetti indagati (o imputati) di reato di pedopornografia: la progettazione e l'implementazione di eMuleForensic consente di svolgere in maniera estremamente precisa e rapida le operazioni di analisi degli eventi che si verificano utilizzando il software di file sharing eMule; il software è disponibile sia in rete all'url http://www.emuleforensic.com, sia come tool all'interno della distribuzione forense DEFT. Infine si fornisce una proposta di protocollo operativo per l'analisi forense di sistemi informatici coinvolti in indagini forensi di pedopornografia. ; Digital evidences require precautions as in any other scientific investigation. We provide an overview about methodology and application of computer forensics based on the recent ISO / IEC 27037:2012 relating to the processing of finding information in the stages of identification, collection, acquisition and preservation of digital data. These methods comply with the requirements of integrity and authenticity of the rules of computer forensics, in particular the Law 48/2008 about the ratification of the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime. Concering the child pornography crime, we offer an overview of EU and national legislation, with emphasis on relevant aspects for computer forensic analysis. We provide an overview of the peer-to-peer protocols and systems used for file sharing, with an emphasis on the eDonkey and eMule software that are widely spread in Italy. The design and implementation of eMuleForensic allows the computer forenser to perform a highly accurate and rapid operations analysis of the events that occur using eMule; the software is available in the url http://www.emuleforensic.com network, both as a forensic tool in the distribution DEFT. Finally, we provide a proposal for an operating protocol for forensic analysis of computer systems involved in forensic investigations on child pornography.
BACKGROUND. The term Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) is generally associated with Web applications that provide the features and functionality of traditional desktop applications. Ten years after the introduction of the term, an ample amount of research has been carried out to study various aspects of RIAs. It has thus become essential to summarize this research and provide an adequate overview. OBJECTIVE. The objective of our study is to assemble, classify, and analyze all RIA research performed in the scientific community, thus providing a consolidated overview thereof, and to identify well-established topics, trends, and open research issues. Additionally, we provide a qualitative discussion of the most interesting findings. This work therefore serves as a reference work for beginning and established RIA researchers alike, as well as for industrial actors that need an introduction in the field, or seek pointers to (a specific subset of) the state-of-the-art. METHOD. A systematic mapping study is performed in order to identify all RIA-related publications, define a classification scheme, and categorize, analyze, and discuss the identified research according to it. RESULTS. Our source identification phase resulted in 133 relevant, peer-reviewed publications, published between 2002 and 2011 in a wide variety of venues. They were subsequently classified according to four facets: development activity, research topic, contribution type, and research type. Pie, stacked bar, and bubble charts were used to depict and analyze the results. A deeper analysis is provided for the most interesting and/or remarkable results. CONCLUSION. Analysis of the results shows that, although the RIA term was coined in 2002, the first RIA-related research appeared in 2004. From 2007 there was a significant increase in research activity, peaking in 2009 and decreasing to pre-2009 levels afterwards. All development phases are covered in the identified research, with emphasis on "design" (33%) and "implementation" (29%). The majority of research proposes a "method" (44%), followed by "model" (22%), "methodology" (18%), and "tools" (16%); no publications in the category "metrics" were found. The preponderant research topic is "models, methods and methodologies" (23%) and, to a lesser extent, "usability and accessibility" and "user interface" (11% each). On the other hand, the topic "localization, internationalization and multilinguality" received no attention at all, and topics such as "deep Web" (under 1%), "business processing", "usage analysis", "data management", "quality and metrics" (all under 2%), "semantics", and "performance" (slightly above 2%) received very little attention. Finally, there is a large majority of "solution proposals" (66%), few "evaluation research" (14%), and even fewer "validation" (6%), although the latter have been increasing in recent years. ; S. Casteleyn was partly supported by a European Commission Marie Curie grant FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IEF, no. 254383. This work was also supported by the EU CityBench project under the ESPON 2013 Programme, and partially funded by the IN.MIND project from University of Alicante (Spain) and the MANTRA project (GV/2011/035) from Valencia Government (Spain).
Ethiopia's national development strategy, A Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty for 2005/06 to 2009/10 (PASDEP) places a major emphasis on achieving high rates of agricultural and overall economic growth. Consistent with the PASDEP, Ethiopia is also in the process of implementing the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) together with other African governments. As part of CAADP, the country has committed itself to meeting targets of devoting at least 10 percent of public expenditures to agriculture and to achieving a 6 percent growth rate in agricultural GDP. Ethiopia has already met these targets in recent years. The challenge remains, however, to continue to devote these public resources and to achieve high growth rates through 2015. This paper analyzes agricultural growth options that can support high levels of agricultural development using a new computable general equilibrium (CGE) model for Ethiopia based on data from the EDRI 2005/06 Ethiopia SAM (Ahmed et al. 2009). The CGE model results indicated that if Ethiopia can meet its targets for crop yields and livestock productivity, then it should be possible to reach and sustain the six percent agricultural growth target during 2006-2015. Even though these yield targets are below the maximum potential yields identified by agricultural field trials, they are still ambitious given the short timeframe of the CAADP initiative (i.e., seven years). Achieving agricultural growth of six percent per year would reduce national poverty to 18.4 percent by 2015, lifting an additional 3.7 million people out of poverty compared to a base simulation using medium term growth rates. Most households are expected to benefit from faster agricultural growth. However, some agro-ecological zones that grow higher value cereals and export-oriented crops and which are better situated to larger urban markets (e.g., the rainfall sufficient highlands) stand to gain more than other parts of the country. Both rural and urban households benefit from faster agricultural growth (and thereby overall economic growth), as rural producers benefit from increased agricultural productivity and incomes, while net purchasers of food in both rural and urban areas benefit from moderate declines in real food prices. Composition of agricultural growth matters, though. Additional growth driven by cereals has larger impacts on poverty reduction, because these crops already constitute a large share of rural incomes and so can contribute substantially to achieving broad-based agricultural growth. Yield improvements in these crops not only benefit farm households directly, by increasing incomes from agricultural production, but also by allowing farmers to diversify their land allocation towards other higher-value crops. Increased productivity of cereals that reduces real cereal prices is also effective at raising rural real incomes and reducing poverty, especially amongst the poorest households. Thus, high priority should be afforded to improving cereals yields and opening market opportunities for upstream processing to reduce demand constraints. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI2; GRP32; ESSP ; DSGD
The Primary objective of the present study is to assess and evaluate the general performance and challenges of MSSAs in Wolkite and Boutajira city administrations. In order to meet objectives of the study, various books, journals, policy and strategy documents and regulations were referred. Structured questionnaires were also distributed to 92 selected operators of the associations. Furthermore, 5 officials and experts from both Wolkite and Boutajira cities were interviewed and have provided important information. In the study areas, Wolkite and Boutajira, the MSSEs development program has been implemented since 2003. MSSAs have been established in the areas of construction, Metal and Wood works, urban agriculture, textile and tailoring, municipality services and food processing and preparation. Various support-Services including access to market, finance and credit, spaces, training and counseling, machineries, equipments and inputs have been given to the MSSAs. After carefully looking in to and analyzing the available data, the study has found out that these supports have not been directed towards ensuring sustainability of the associations. The practice of service provision in the two cities is not inline with the principles and objectives of the national strategy. The associations exhibit high closure rate and dropout of members. They cannot create long-term jobs. The participation of women in the association is also found insignificant. The study has also come up with the fact that the associations have been given priority in the market access from the public institutions. Even if this priority helps them to get market at the start-up stage, it makes them also entirely dependent on single market opportunity from the government that limited their over-all performance Because of this over-protection and dependence, the associations finally become politicized and they are not market-oriented entities. The MSSAs also suffer from various challenges and constraints. Among them, the fact that they face shortage of access to technical and vocational training, spaces, finance, inputs and better machineries and equipments. There is no any networking among the associations. Members are also not clear about the legal forms of their associations. found weak. The expected linkage with TVET institutions is also Furthermore, the associations do not have necessary accounting records and do not prepare financial statements regularly so that analyzing their financial progress is found difficult. MSSAs in order to play the expected role in socio-economic development of the two cities, establishing large number of associations and providing them support alone is not enough. All support services must be designed in such away that ensure sustainable growth of the associations and the attitudes of members should be also shaped through continuous awareness programs. As much as possible, they should be insulated from the direct political involvement. Furthermore, problems related with the access to space, finance, inputs and other services should be settled
La progettazione di sistemi elettronici nel settore dell'image e video processing sta prendendo sempre più campo, data la crescente diffusione sul mercato di apparecchi portatili per l'acquisizione di immagini statiche e video. La realizzazione di sistemi dedicati all'elaborazione delle immagini trova impiego a partire da sistemi industriali e militari di video sorveglianza, fino alle applicazioni di tipo consumer, come videocamere, fotocamere e telefonia di terza generazione. Da non sottovalutare sono anche gli impieghi in attività di tipo automotive e nella robotica. Un particolare settore di interesse per la ricerca scientifica ed industriale è lo studio di tecniche per il miglioramento delle immagini acquisite in condizioni di illuminazione non ottimali. Queste problematiche trovano ampio riscontro nelle applicazioni citate in precedenza. Infatti, per ottenere immagini soddisfacenti, sarebbe necessario regolare continuamente alcuni parametri, si pensi ad esempio al diaframma di una macchina fotografica o alla regolazione del fuoco. Questi sistemi cercano di riprodurre alcune capacità dell'apparato visivo umano, che di per sé è un sistema reazionato, in grado di rispondere agli stimoli esterni costituiti da luce e colori. L'occhio umano, infatti, è in grado di distinguere contorni e colori di un oggetto in vari casi di illuminazione, come la luce solare diretta, l'illuminazione artificiale o la penombra. Un sistema elettronico invece in generale risente delle condizioni esterne e, in alcune situazioni, non è in grado di acquisire correttamente le immagini. Si presentano spesso fenomeni di sotto e sopra esposizione, specialmente se le informazioni sono state acquisite in condizioni ambientali di illuminazione non uniforme, come ad esempio in controluce o in presenza di intense fonti luminose in ambienti bui. In questi casi, si può incorrere nel rischio di perdere parte delle informazioni contenute nell'immagine o, quantomeno, di ottenere una scarsa visibilità di alcuni dettagli. Esistono degli algoritmi fondati su vere e proprie teorie della percezione, in grado di ottimizzare l'illuminazione di un'immagine, preservando i dettagli e recuperandone altri laddove l'acquisizione è stata problematica. I sistemi classici, quali l'equalizzazione di istogramma ed il ricorso a filtri di tipo FIR o IIR non forniscono soluzioni soddisfacenti, poiché tendono a sbiancare uniformemente l'immagine sorgente semplicemente traslando tutti i valori acquisiti verso i valori del bianco. Il risultato è buono nelle aree scure dell'immagine, ma dove la luminosità era già soddisfacente si perdono dei dettagli. Tra le tecniche proposte, un metodo interessante è quello del Retinex, che ha origine dall'omonima teoria di percezione del colore ideata dall'americano Edwin Herbert Land nel 1971. L'obiettivo di questo lavoro di tesi è implementare l'algoritmo Retinex, già disponibile come software per utilizzo su PC in programmi di fotoritocco, su circuiti digitali a basso consumo di potenza ed a bassa complessità in modo da poter realizzare il miglioramento della qualità delle immagini in tempo reale, direttamente sul dispositivo di acquisizione. I principali problemi da affrontare saranno ottenere un basso consumo del circuito per poter pensare di operare su dispositivi portatili alimentati a batterie e la semplificazione degli operatori non lineari con altri implementabili sui moderni sistemi digitali.
The intermunicipal, cross-border co-operation in the European border regions has experienced a dynamic thrust of development in the last few years. This was facilitated by the changes in the political, legal and financial framework conditions, to which the community initiative INTERREG provided a considerable contribution. An additional factor in the Saar-Lor-Lux region is that subunits form in the actual border regions within the generously measured, regional work areas of the interregional co-operation, characterised by a fairy homogenous regional structure. Using three case examples, it is demonstrated that cross-border organisation structures have developed within these small regions on a municipal level. These are being institutionalised more and more. Using the regional development model of the network of cities, which is being discussed with regards to its cross-border applicability, we can in this context speak of local co-operation networks. In the case of the Agglomération Transfrontalière du Pôle Européen de Développement (PED) in the Belgian-French-Luxembourg state triangle, the participating local authority districts and government authorities have joined together to form an association and maintain a joint Observatoire de l'Urbanisme, responsible among other things since 1996 for the registration and processing of regional data as well as for the development of land use concepts. The M eeting of Mayors and/or the Ronde des Trois Frontières, responsible for the development of tourism in the German-French-Luxembourg Moselle Valley, are considerably less formal network structures. The co-operation between the border local authority districts was institutionalised in the Saar-Rosselle region in the form of the Intermunicipal Association for Work. The latter maintains a co-operation office with the Saarbrücken city association, principally responsible for co-ordination tasks with regards to current and developing, cross-border projects. Despite the depicted structural and legal impediments, an increased institutionalisation of the co-operations can be observed; this goes hand in hand with a topical diversification, which deincreasingly covers subject areas which have been avoided up until now because of the potential conflicts found therein, as demonstrated by the example of the joint commercial area development in the case of the Agglomération du PED. These observed case examples deal with increasingly integrated core regions within a border region which can provide important impulses for the interregional and also international dialogue. At the same time, practical measures were implemented on this level, which are perceived by the local population in day to day life and therefore have greater identity-forming effects. In this context, these measures can provide an essential or even exemplary contribution to overcoming the interior borders of the EU. These approaches can be understood as being a basis for integration "from the bottom up" which make a greater sustainability and acceptance in the various sectors of day to day living more probable, unlike the top-down forces which dominate the realisation of the European common market or the currency union.
Data de publicació electrònica: 31-01-2022 ; We report the synthesis of plasmonic nanocapsules and the cellular responses they induce in 3D melanoma models for their perspective use as a photothermal therapeutic agent. The wall of the nanocapsules is composed of polyelectrolytes. The inner part is functionalized with discrete gold nanoislands. The cavity of the nanocapsules contains a fluorescent payload to show their ability for loading a cargo. The nanocapsules exhibit simultaneous two-photon luminescent, fluorescent properties and X-ray contrasting ability. The average fluorescence lifetime (τ) of the nanocapsules measured with FLIM (0.3 ns) is maintained regardless of the intracellular environment, thus proving their abilities for bioimaging of models such as 3D spheroids with a complex architecture. Their multimodal imaging properties are exploited for the first time to study tumorspheres cellular responses exposed to the nanocapsules. Specifically, we studied cellular uptake, toxicity, intracellular fate, generation of reactive oxygen species, and effect on the levels of hypoxia by using multi-photon and confocal laser scanning microscopy. Because of the high X-ray attenuation and atomic number of the gold nanostructure, we imaged the nanocapsule-cell interactions without processing the sample. We confirmed maintenance of the nanocapsules' geometry in the intracellular milieu with no impairment of the cellular ultrastructure. Furthermore, we observed the lack of cellular toxicity and no alteration in oxygen or reactive oxygen species levels. These results in 3D melanoma models contribute to the development of these nanocapsules for their exploitation in future applications as agents for imaging-guided photothermal therapy. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: The novelty of the work is that our plasmonic nanocapsules are multimodal. They are responsive to X-ray and to multiphoton and single-photon excitation. This allowed us to study their interaction with 2D and 3D cellular structures and specifically to obtain information on tumor cell parameters such as hypoxia, reactive oxygen species, and toxicity. These nanocapsules will be further validated as imaging-guided photothermal probes. ; Pilar Rivera Gil acknowledges the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (MICINN); the AEI (AEI-PID2019–106755RB-I00, RYC-2012–10059, MDM-2014–0370–04/ BES-2015–075020, CTQ2013–45433-P[FEDER], MAT2016–75362-C3–2-R, AEI-SAF2015–73052-EXP, CEX2018–000792-M); and the AGAUR (2017 SGR 1054) for financial support. We thank the UPF/CRG Advanced Microscopy Unit (PRBB, Barcelona) for assistance in the setup of multiphoton microscopy. Work also supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación de España (project PID2019-106211RB-I00), by the Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid (B2017/BMD-3867 RENIM-CM), and co-financed by the European Structural and Investment fund. Additional funding was provided by the European Union's Horizon 2020 FET Open program (Grant Agreement No. 801305, NanoTBTech), and also by COST action CA17140.
The consumers have an increasing interest about food traceability with respect to safety, quality and typicality issues. Food traceability is an important issue in food safety and quality control, with impacts on food security, its quantity and overall availability. Furthermore, the possibility of tracing the origin of foodstuff is assuming an increasingly important role at the legislative level, as a tool that may allow to prove on product authenticity and to control adulteration. So, establish systems to trace food products through specified stages of production, processing and distribution play a key role also to ensure food safety. In the last years, several of analytical techniques have been tested to found ways to establish the geographical origin of different kinds of food and many works reported that the combination of different analytical methods associated a multifactorial analysis of the data seems to be the most promising system to establish univocal traceability systems. The honey is a natural food well appreciated in the world and the detection of potential fraud could be favored through tools linking the chemistry composition of this production to producing area. A small number of investigations regarding traceability of honey can be found in the scientific literature. Therefore, in these contest the development of fingerprinting techniques based on the determination of the specific markers of provenance analyzed whit chemometric approach represents an interesting area of research. Recent works have been demonstrated the potentiality of the study of the distribution patterns of rare earth as a promising analytical method for traceability of food products due coherent and predictable chemical behavior of these compounds. Also, have been demonstrated that their distribution in soil keeps unaltered in plants growing on that soil and eventually in agricultural products obtained from those plants and through the normalization of the REEs distribution, it is possible to appreciate their relative enrichments in soil-plant- agro food products The aim of the research was to observe if the REEs normalizated pattern of honey of Sulla (Hedysarum coronarium L.) was kept unaltered respect the soils of production to establish a correlation between geographic area and honey product. For this study, different production areas of Sulla in Sicily were considered. The production fields explored by the bees within 2 km of the hives were taken into consideration, the soil and the flowering plants were sampled. Flowers and leaves were analyzed from the plant. In the hive, pollen and honey were taken in three different days during the flowering period of the Sulla. Of same areas were sampled to the same methods in different periods where other monofloral honeys were product, these samples were used for a control. In this study the REE approach, give very intriguing results in the geographical traceability of honey samples and are the first. The results have been supported by statistical treatment.
Umweltinformationssysteme sind Informationssysteme, deren Anwendungsgebiet im Bereich von umweltbezogenen Fragestellungen liegt. Sie kommen zum Einsatz, wenn Umweltdaten und -informationen erhoben, verwaltet und beobachtet werden sowie bei der Lösung von umweltbezogenen Entscheidungsproblemen. Umweltinformationssysteme bilden keinen eigenen Typ von Informationssystemen, stattdessen kann jeder Informationssystemtyp, z.B. Expertensystem, Managementinformationssystem, Entscheidungsunterstützungssystem, Kollaborationssystem, Geodateninfrastruktursystem etc. zu den Umweltinformationssystemen zählen, wenn das entsprechende System für umweltbezogene Fragestellungen eingesetzt wird. Die Entwicklung von Lösungen für die großen Umweltherausforderungen der heutigen Zeit, wie z.B. Landnutzungsänderungen, Luftverschmutzung und Klimawandel, erfordert zumeist interdisziplinäre Forschung, den Umgang mit großen Datensätzen und den Transfer von wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen in die Praxis. Umweltinformationssysteme können dabei als technische Basis für das Datenmanagement, die Informationsextraktion, den Wissenstransfer und die Identifikation von Wissenslücken dienen. Die vorliegende Arbeit trägt zur Weiterentwicklung des Wissenschaftsgebiets der Umweltinformationssysteme bei, indem in Anlehnung an den gestaltungsorientierten Forschungsansatz der Wirtschaftsinformatik fallstudienbasiert IT-Artefakte entwickelt und diskutiert werden. Zwei Fallstudien beschreiben das Design und die Implementierung von Entscheidungsunterstützungssystemen und eine dritte Fallstudie dokumentiert die Entwicklung einer unterstützenden eResearch-Infrastruktur und deren Komponenten. Die drei Systeme präsentieren verschiedene neue Lösungen, um die bestehenden Lücken hinsichtlich der Konzeption und Implementierung von Umweltinformationssystemen in ihrem jeweiligen Anwendungsbereich zu schließen. Eine gemeinsame Eigenschaft all dieser Systeme ist, dass Sie vorhandenes Wissen und IT-Artefakte integrieren und zu neuen innovativen Systemen kombinieren. Während das erste Entscheidungsunterstützungssystem inbesondere methodische und technische Herausforderungen bezüglich der Kopplung bestehender Modelle in ein integriertes Simulationssystem löst, stellt das zweite Entscheidungsunterstützungssystem eine Lösung der Wissensintegration durch die Einbindung von Inputdateien vor. Die eResearch- Infrastruktur wurde durch die Übertragung und Kombination bestehender IT-Artefakte zu einer umfassenden Kollaborations- sowie Daten- und Informationsmanagement-Infrastruktur geschaffen. Die erste Fallstudie beschreibt ein Entscheidungsunterstützungssystem für die individuelle Nutzung. DSS-WuK ist ein web-basiertes System zur Folgenabschätzung des Klimawandels für Wälder hinsichtlich biotischer und abiotischer Störungen, ergänzt um eine ökonomische Evaluation. Der Kern dieses Entscheidungsunterstützungssystems ist sein Mastermodell, das die verschiedenen etablierten Teilmodelle verbindet und den Prozess- und Datenfluss koordiniert. Die Teilmodelle beschreiben die verschiedenen Störungsregime und sind in unterschiedlichen Programmiersprachen implementiert. Nach bestem Wissen des Autors war dies der erste erfolgreiche Ansatz für die Implementierung eines integrierten Simulationssystems, das auf etablierten Modellen basiert und auf ganz Deutschland anwendbar ist. Mit dem hier beschriebenen System konnten die bisherigen konzeptionellen und technischen Hindernisse überwunden werden. Der präsentierte Lösungsansatz kann auf andere Systeme, bei denen existierende Modelle integriert werden müssen, übertragen werden. Ein Anwendungsbeispiel des Simulationssystems auf bewirtschaftete Fichtenbestände wird vorgestellt und besprochen. Die zweite Fallstudie beschreibt ein Entscheidungsunterstützungssystem für die Nutzung in Gruppenentscheidungsprozessen unter Einsatz partizipativer Modellierung. BEAST ist eine Desktop-Anwendung für die Entwicklung und Evaluation verschiedener Szenarien der Produktion von holziger Biomasse für die energetische Nutzung basierend auf einer multikriteriellen Entscheidungsanalyse. Das Werkzeug kann genutzt werden, um politsche Ziele der Energiewende hinsichtlich des verfügbaren Biomassepotentials in einer Region vor dem Hintergrund von definierten ökonomischen und ökologischen Rahmenbedingungen zu evaluieren. Es kann für die Entwicklung und Analyse von regionalen Klimamanagementplänen eingesetzt werden. Neben der Potentialberechnung für Waldholz und Landschaftspflegeholz ist die Hauptfunktion von BEAST die Suche nach optimalen Standorten für die Anlage von Kurzumtriebsplantagen. Diese anwendungsreife Standalone-Anwendung mit ihrer hohen Flexibilität schließt die Lücke zwischen bereits bestehenden Papier-und-Stift Entscheidungsunterstützungsrahmenwerken, einfachen tabellenkalkulationsbasierten Endbenutzer- DSS und komplexen wissenschaftlichen Bioenergie-Simulationssystemen. Nach bestem Wissen des Autors ist es das erste Entscheidungsunterstützungssystem zur Standortanalyse für Kurzumtriebsplantagen mit einem Design, das bestehende Ansätze ergänzt anstatt sie zu ersetzen und Endnutzer mit einem gebrauchsfertigen Softwareprodukt versorgt, welches multikriterielle Szenariogenerierung und -simulation mit GIS-basierter Prozessierung und Ergebnispräsentation auf einer mittleren Detailebene kombiniert. Wie erwähnt, erfordern die großen Umweltherausforderungen interdisziplinare Forschungen sowie den Umgang mit großen Datensätzen. Hier setzt die dritte Fallstudie der vorliegenden Arbeit an, indem die Architektur und Entwicklung einer unterstützenden eResearch- Infrastruktur mit Komponenten für das Informations- und Datenmanagement sowie Kollaborationswerkzeugen präsentiert und diskutiert werden. Diese Fallstudie zeigt, wie bestehende Software-Tools auf Anwendungsszenarien der wissenschaftlichen Zusammenarbeit übertragen werden können. Für die Wissenschaftler in den beiden Forschungsprojekten war die Nutzung von Tools wie Wikis, Videokonferenz- und Datenmanagementsystemen neu. Die Nutzung von Softwaretools für die Kollaboration sowie das Informations- und Datenmanagement auf Basis offener Standards ermöglichte eine erhöhte Effizienz bei der Generierung neuer wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse. Einer kritischen Auseinandersetzung mit den gewonnenen Erkenntnissen schließt die vorliegende Arbeit ab und zeigt Vorschläge für weitere Forschungsfragen auf. ; Environmental Information Systems are Information Systems developed and applied in the environmental domain to handle environmental data and information and to support the management of environmental challenges. Environmental Information Systems do not form an own type of Information Systems. Instead, any type of Information System, e.g. Expert System, Management Information System, Decision Support System, Collaboration System, Spatial Data Infrastructure etc. is an Environmental Information System if it is applied in the environmental domain. Finding answers to the large environmental challenges such as land-use change, air pollution and climate change, often requires interdisciplinary research, management of large datasets and a transfer of research findings to practical application. Environmental Information Systems can serve as a technical base to support data handling, information extraction, and knowledge transfer as well as identifying knowledge gaps. According to the design-oriented research approach of business informatics, the present thesis contributes a set of case studies with corresponding IT artifacts to the scientific field of Environmental Information Systems by describing and discussing the design and implementation of two different Environmental Decision Support Systems and a supporting eResearch Infrastructure. The three systems present different new solutions to fill gaps in their field of application regarding the design and implementation of the Environmental Information Systems. A common feature of all of these systems is that they integrate existing knowledge and IT artifacts and combine them to new innovative systems. While the first DSS addresses especially methodological and technical aspects of the coupling of existing models into an integrated simulation system, the second DSS presents a solution of knowledge Integration by the consumption of input files. The eResearch Infrastructure was created by the Adoption and combination of existing IT artifacts to a new comprehensive collaboration as well as data and information management infrastructure. The first case study is a Decision Support System for individual use. DSS-WuK is a webbased system offering climate change impact assessments on forests, regarding biotic and abiotic disturbers complemented by an economic evaluation. The key of this DSS is its mastermodel connecting established models describing different climate change impacts and being written in different programming languages. To the best of the author's knowledge, this was the first successful approach in building an integrated simulation system based on established models applicable to whole Germany due to former conceptional and technical issues. The presented solution is adaptable to other systems integrating existing models. An application example of the simulation system to managed forest stands of Norway spruce is presented and discussed. The second case study is a Decision Support System for group-decision making and participatory modeling. BEAST is a Desktop application for specifying and evaluating different scenarios of woody bioenergy production based on Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis. Using this tool, political goals can be assessed in the context of the available biomass potentials of a region and the defined economic as well as ecological framework. Therefore, it supports the development and analysis of regional climate management plans. Beside the scenario-based calculation of biomass potentials of wood from forests and landscape measurements, a main focus of BEAST is to find optimal locations for sitting Short Rotation Coppices (SRC). This end-user-ready standalone application with its high flexibility fills the gap between already existing paper-and-pencil DSS frameworks, simple spreadsheet-based end-user DSS and highly complex scientific bioenergy simulation systems. To the best of the author's knowledge it is the first system that provides a SRC location analysis with a design that complements existing approaches and addresses end-users with a ready-to-use software product that delivers multi-criteria scenario generation and simulation combined with GIS-based processing and output presentation at an intermediate level of detail. As mentioned, large environmental challenges, such as land-use and climate change, require interdisciplinary research as well as management of large datasets. Therefore, the third case study of this thesis presents an eResearch Infrastructure with tools for information and data management as well as collaboration. This case study shows how to transfer existing software tools to application scenarios in scientific collaboration. For the collaborating researchers in the two research projects it was completely new to use tools such as Wikis, video conference and data management systems. The usage of innovative software tools for collaboration, information and data management based on open standards supports an increased efficiency in the generation of new scientific findings. The present thesis closes with a description of the lessons learned and suggests aspects for further research.
Natural resources and rural livelihoods in Africa are under pressure due to climate change and ineffective management. It particularly affects countries where most of the population depends on natural resources for their livelihood, like Ethiopia. Even though, there is scientific and local knowledge on environmental management in the form of national strategies, stakeholders, and actions at multiple governance levels, it is lacking a proper interlinkage and public communication. This research aims to contribute to narrow gaps between knowledge systems and enhance adaptive capacity by understanding barriers and drivers for knowledge generation and management in climate change adaptation. The study interlinks political ecology and social theoretical concepts for climate change adaptation and knowledge management in a multi-level governance framework representing one country. Ethiopia is focused on in this study because it is and will be greatly affected by climate change and has elaborated a national strategy to become a climate resilient middle-income country by 2025. The governance levels are analyzed with (1) determining the institutional framework, stakeholders, and networks at national level, (2) analyzing the structure, role and capacity of the extension system, (3) investigating local capacities and thresholds for access and participation in knowledge and governance processes for natural resource management. A focus is put on (4) area closures, as an example for an applied and common intervention of natural resource management in Ethiopia, which can serve as contribution to cope with climate change consequences. In a final step (5) interlinkages and compatibility of the governance levels in Ethiopia are evaluated to draw conclusions for a generalization of obstacles and potentials. A two-level case study design was applied incorporating the national and local level of Ethiopia:Acknowledgements I Abstract III Zusammenfassung V Table of Content VII List of Abbreviations X List of Figures XII List of Tables XIV List of Appendices XV 1. Introduction 1 1.1. Social and Governance Limits to Climate Change Adaptation 1 1.2. Justification of the Study and Focus on Knowledge Management 3 1.3. Objectives and Structure of the Study 6 2. Theoretical Framework 9 2.1. State of Scientific Knowledge: Multi-Level Governance and Knowledge in Environmental Management in Africa 9 2.1.1. Multi-Level Governance for Environmental Management 9 2.1.2. Knowledge Systems and Social Dimensions in Climate Change Adaptation and Governance in Africa 11 2.1.3. Environmental Situation and Governance in Ethiopia 14 2.1.4. Area Closures for Climate Change Adaptation and Governance in Ethiopia 16 2.2. Conceptual Framework: Knowledge Management for Climate Change Adaptation in a Multi-Level Governance System 17 3. Methodology 19 3.1. Research Design and Concept 19 3.1.1. Multi-Level Case Study Design for Multi-Level Social Research 19 3.1.2. Description of the Case Study Country and Local Sites in Ethiopia 21 3.1.3. Research Matrix and Phases 23 3.2. Data Collection Methods & Materials 27 3.2.1. Secondary Literature and Data Review 27 3.2.2. Interviewing Techniques with Organizations 27 3.2.3. Community Survey 30 3.2.4. Observation 34 3.3. Data Analysis 35 3.3.1. Data base and processing 35 3.3.2. Qualitative Content Analysis 35 3.3.3. Statistical Evaluation 38 3.3.4. Social Network Analysis 38 3.4. Research Ethics and Limitations of the Study 40 4. Climate Change Adaptation at Country Level in Ethiopia 43 4.1. Legal Framework and Perceptions of Activities tackling Climate Change and Adaptation in Ethiopia 43 4.2. Organizational, Collaboration and Communication Structures 48 4.3. The Extension System: Function and Performance 57 4.4. Institutionalization and Perception of Area Closure Management 63 5. Knowledge Systems and Natural Resource Management at Local Level in Rural Ethiopia 67 5.1. Case Study I: Adami Tulu Jido Kombolcha Woreda, Oromia Region 67 5.1.1. Facts and Description of the Study Area 67 5.1.2. Climatic and Environment Change: Perceptions and Activities 72 5.1.3. Information, Communication, and Social Networks 76 5.1.4. Development and Extension Structure and Processes 84 5.1.5. Organizational Capacities and Collaboration Structures 90 5.1.6. Management and Performance of Area Closures 95 5.2. Case Study II: Wogera Woreda, Amhara Region 104 5.2.1. Facts and Description of the Study Area 104 5.2.2. Climatic and Environment Change: Perceptions and Activities 107 5.2.3. Information Access, Communication, and Social Networks 111 5.2.4. Development and Extension Structure and Processes 115 5.2.5. Organizational Capacities and Collaboration Structures 121 5.2.6. Management and Performance of Area Closures 126 5.3. Synopsis of the Local Case Studies 132 5.3.1. Comparative Analysis of the Woredas ATJK and Wogera 132 5.3.2. Conclusions on Structures and Conditions for Knowledge Generation and Management at Local Level 138 6. Synthesis: Knowledge Management for Climate Change Adaptation 143 6.1. (In)Compatibility of National Visions and Local Reality in Ethiopia 143 6.2. Future Pathways: Three Scenarios for Knowledge Management and Climate Change Adaptation in Ethiopia 146 6.2.1. Scenario I: Business-As-Usual 146 6.2.2. Scenario II: Collective Action at Community Level 148 6.2.3. Scenario III: Multi-Level Stakeholder Dialogue 150 6.2.4. Recommendations for Actions in Ethiopia 152 6.3. Framework of Multi-Level Governance for Strengthening Knowledge Management on Climate Change Adaptation 155 7. Conclusion 159 7.1. Lessons Learned 159 7.2. Methodological critique and suggestions for further research 160 References 161 Appendices 177
Background: Per definition, traumatic events include exposures to death, threatened death, actual or threatened serious injury, or actual or threatened sexual violence. Exposure to traumatic events is associated with persistent alterations in biological and psychological processes that are involved in the etiology of mental disorders. In fact, traumatic events are associated with a higher risk for various mental disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance use disorders, but also with treatment resistance. Thus, it is crucial to develop early interventions to prevent these adverse trauma-related outcomes. However, existing pharmacological and psychological early intervenions only have a limited efficacy so far. A major reason is that only a minority of trauma-exposed individuals actually develops adverse consequences making universally applied interventions ineffective. Thus, it is crucial to identify moderators of adverse responses to trauma exposure. Aims: This thesis aimed at (1) providing estimates on the prevelance of traumatic event exposure and trauma-related mental disorders for the general population and high-risk populations and (2) investigating moderators of adverse mental health consequences following traumatic event exposure. The following potential moderators were investigated: (i) the susceptibility to others' emotions, (ii) childhood traumas, (iii) biological stress markers and (iv) a specific genetic polymorphism involved in the degradation of monoamines (i.e. MAOA gene). These investigations were conducted with respect to differenct outcomes relevant in the processing of traumatic events including the initial affective and biological reaction, mental disorder symptoms (focusing on PTSD and alcohol use symptoms) and treatment response. Methods: To answer the research questions, different methods and designs were applied. First, epidemiological data from a national study program in German soldiers deployed to Afghanistan were used. These data included diagnostic interview data as well as biological markers. Second, an experimental study with a randomized trauma analogue design was used to investigate moderators of acute trauma responses. Third, a genetic moderator of trauma effects on treatment response was investigated using data from a multi-center trial of exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy of panic and agoraphobia patients. Main results: Only a small minority of trauma-exposed individuals develops mental disorders. This also applies to populations with a high risk for multiple and/or severe trauma exposure. The investigations of potential moderators suggeted that individuals with a higher susceptibility to negative emotions of others show a higher stress reactivity after trauma exposure. Males with childhood traumas show a higher increase in alcohol craving after trauma exposure. Moreover, individuals with lower basal cortisol levels have a higher risk of increased PTSD symptoms and alcohol use following trauma exposure. Finally, a subgroup of traumatized female panic disorder patients with the low-active variant of the MAOA gene benefits less from exposure-based psychotherapy. Conclusions: These findings suggest novel targets for moderating factors and show the relevance of previously discovered moderators in novel contexts. Some of the identified moderators represent promising targets for risk markers before or in the direct aftermath of traumatic event exposure. Further research is needed to comfirm the suggested moderators and to investigate the exact mechanisms involved. Moreover, future studies should aim at integrating findings on different moderators and translate them into effective risk assessments and targeted early interventions. ; Hintergrund: Traumatische Ereignisse sind definiert als Konfrontation mit tatsächlichem oder droghenden Tod, ernsthafter Verletzung oder sexueller Gewalt. Das Erleben traumatischer Ereignisse ist mit andauernder Veränderungen in biologischen und psychischen Prozesssen assoziiert, welche eine bedeutende Rolle in der Ätiologie psychischer Störungen spielen. Tatsächlich sind traumatische Ereignisse mit einem höheren Risiko für zahlreiche psychische Störungen assoziiert, darunter vor allem die Posttraumatische Belastungsstörung (PTBS) und Substanzstörungen. Zudem zeigen Personen mit traumatischen Erfahrungen häufiger ein schlechteres Ansprechen auf Behandlungen. Die Entwicklung möglichst früher Inteventionen zur Vermeidung dieser Traumafolgen ist somit von großer Bedeutung. Allerdings sind bestehende frühe Interventionen nach traumatischen Eriegnissen bislang nur sehr begrenzt effektiv. Ein wesentlicher Grund hierfür besteht darin, dass überhaupt nur ein kleiner Anteil von traumatisierten Personen negative Folgen entwickelt. Es ist demnach entscheidend, solche Faktoren zu identifizieren, die das Risiko negativer Folgen nach traumatischen Ereignissen moderieren. Ziele: (1) Darstellung der Prävalenz von traumatischen Ereignissen und trauma-bezogenen psychischen Störungen für die Allgemeinbevölkerung und für spezifische Risikopopulationen, sowie (2) die Untersuchung von Moderatoren negativer Traumafolgen, wobei folgende potenzielle Moderatoren untersucht wurden: (i) die Ansteckbarkeit für die Emotionen anderer, (ii) Kindheitstraumata, (iii) biologische Stressmarker und (iv) ein genetischer Polymorphismus, der beim Abbau von Monoaminen involviert ist (MAOA Gen). Diese Moderatoren wurden in Bezug auf unterschiedliche Outcomes untersucht, welche Aspekte der Verarbeitung traumatischer Ereignisse darstellen: die unmittelbare emotionale und biologische Reaktion, Symptome psychischer Störungen (mit Fokus auf PTBS und Alkoholkonsum) sowie das Ansprechen auf Behandlung. Methoden: Zur Beantwortung der Fragestellungen wurden verschiedene Methoden und Studiendesigns genutzt. Diese beinhalteten zum einen epidemiologische Daten eines bundesweiten Studienprogramms bei deutschen Soldaten mit Militäreinsatz in Afghanistan. Diese Daten umfassten diagnostische Interviews sowie biologische Stressmarker. Weiterhin wurde eine experimentelle randomisierte Analogstudie durchgeführt, um Moderatoren von initialen Traumareaktionen zu identifizieren. Schließlich wurden Daten einer Multi-Center Therapiestudie bei Patienten mit Paniskstörung und Agoraphobie verwendet, um die Moderation des Effekts vorangegangener Traumatisierung auf den Therapieerfolg durch einen genetischen Faktor (MAOA Gen) zu untersuchen. Hauptergebnisse: Nur ein geringer Anteil von Betroffenen entwickelt nach der Konfrontation mit einem trauamtischen Ereignis psychische Störungen. Dies gilt auch in Populationen mit einem erhöhten Risiko für multiple und schwere Traumata. Die durchgeführten Studien zur Identifikation von Moderatoren weisen darauf hin, dass Personen mit einer erhöhten Ansteckbarkeit für negative Emotionen anderer eine stärkere initiale Stressreaktion bei Traumaexposition aufweisen. Darüber hinaus zeigen Männer mit Traumatisierung in der Kindheit einen stärkeren Anstieg von Alkoholcraving nach der Konfrontation mit einem akuten Trauma. Weiterhin sind niedrige basale Cortisol Level mit einem höheren Risiko für einen Anstieg der PTBS Symptomatik sowie im Alkoholkonsum nach traumatischen Ereignissen assoziiert. Schließlich gibt es Hinweise auf geringere Therapieeffekte bei vorangegangener Traumatisierung bei einer Subgruppe von weiblichen Patientinnen mit Panikstörung mit der niedrig aktiven Variante des MAOA Gens. Schlussfolgerungen: Es konnten neue Kandidaten für mögliche Moderatoren identifiziert sowie die Relevanz bekannter Moderatoren in neuen Kontexten gezeigt werden. Einige dieser Moderatorvariablen stellen vielversprechende Ziele für Risikomarker vor und unmittelbar nach der Konfrontation mir traumatischen Ereignissen dar. Weitere Forschung ist nötig, um die hier identifizierten Moderatoren zu bestätigen und die zugrundeliegenden Mechanismen aufzudecken. Zudem sollte künftige Forschung die Befunde zu verschiedenen Moderatoren integrieren um daraus effektive Risikobewertungen und gezielte Frühinterventionen ableiten zu können.
El presente trabajo de investigación reporta los resultados de la influencia del paso del tiempo post exodoncia en el reborde alveolar en los pacientes atendidos en el Centro de Salud Militar Rímac en el año 2013. El estudio es de tipo no experimental, descriptivo, prospectivo y longitudinal de panel. Como población se considerará a 50 pacientes cuyas edades están com prendidas entre los 18 y 19 años de edad, los mismos que fueron atendidos en el Centro de Salud Militar–Rímac, ubicado en el distrito del Rímac y la muestra fue todas las piezas dentarias extraídas a esos pacientes durante los 3 meses. El tipo de muestreo es no probabilístico al azar simple. Los pacientes y las piezas dentarias en estudio, además fueron seleccionados de acuerdo a los criterios de inclusión y exclusión. El método que se utilizará será la observación y la medición. La técnica de recolección de datos se hará utilizando un micrómetro para medir el reborde alveolar: El procesado de los datos se llevó a cabo en una laptop de marca HP, modelo DV4-1120, de 4GB de memoria RAM con sistema operativo Windows 8. La información recolectada fue analizada con el paquete estadístico SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Science) en su versión 22; en la cual se llevó a cabo la aplicación de estadística descriptiva para establecer la distribución de los datos recolectados a través de medidas de tendencia central y dispersión. También se utilizó estadística inferencial para la docimasia de las hipótesis de la investigación, la cual se llevó a cabo mediante la realización de la prueba estadística no paramétrica Prueba de Rangos de Friedman para la comprobación de las hipótesis bivariadas con más de dos grupos de medidas relacionadas, previa identificación de la distribución normal de los datos aplicando la prueba Kolmogorov-Smirnov. Tanto los resultados de las pruebas estadísticas descriptivas como inferenciales fueron expresadas mediante tablas y gráficos. Los resultados indican que de manera general el paso del tiempo post-exodoncia modifica las dimensiones del reborde alveolar, encontrándose que esta influencia tiene un carácter negativo sobre los tejidos de soporte y protección. Asimismo en sentido horizontal, la pérdida de reborde alveolar suele ser mayoritariamente de grado moderado, encontrándose diferencias estadísticamente significativas entre las mediciones longitudinales (p<0.05), lo que nos evidencia que existe una dependencia comprobada entre el paso del tiempo y la magnitud del espesor horizontal. Finalmente tomando en consideración la pérdida de reborde óseo alveolar en sentido vertical (altura), se puede encontrar que el paso del tiempo influye significativamente en esta medida (p<0.05); adicionalmente se observa que dicha asociación entre variables sigue con comportamiento lineal directo con el paso del tiempo, donde a las 12 semanas post-exodoncia se manifiesta la mayor pérdida del reborde alveolar en sentido vertical. ; This research reports the results of the influence of the passage of time in the post extraction alveolar bone ridge in patients treated at the Center for Military Health Rimac in 2013. The study is not experimental, descriptive, prospective and longitudinal type of panel. Population will be considered as 50 patients who were treated at the Center for Military Health-Rimac, located in the district of Rimac and the sample was extracted teeth all these patients within 3 months. The type of non-probability sampling is simple random. Patients and study teeth also were selected according to the criteria of inclusion and exclusion. The method used is the observation and measurement. The technique of data collection will be done using a micrometer to measure the alveolar ridge: The processing of the data was performed on a HP laptop brand, model DV4-1120, 4GB of RAM with operating system Windows 8. information collected was analyzed with SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) version 22; in which was conducted applying descriptive statistics to establish the distribution of the data collected through measures of central tendency and dispersion. Inferential statistics were also used for docimasia the hypothesis of the research, which was conducted by performing non-parametric statistical test ranges Friedman test for testing hypotheses bivariate more than two groups of related measures upon identification of the normal distribution of data using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Both test results descriptive and inferential statistics were expressed in tables and graphs. The results indicate that in general over time post-extraction modifies the dimensions of the alveolar ridge, finding that this character has a negative influence on bone tissue support. Also horizontally, loss of alveolar ridge is usually mostly moderate, being statistically significant difference between the longitudinal measurements (p <0.05), which shows us that there is a proven link between the passage of time and the magnitude of the thickness dependence horizontal. Finally taking into account the loss of alveolar bone ridge vertically (height), you may find that over time this measure significantly influences (p <0.05); additionally it shows that the association between variables follows with direct linear behavior over time, where at 12 weeks post-extraction greater alveolar bone loss occurs vertically.
Climate change, air pollution, water stress, and biodiversity loss are the most important global environmental impacts that need to be addressed in the coming decades. This thesis shows that most of these impacts are caused by the extraction and processing of materials, food, and fuels, summarized as "materials" here. With the demand for materials expected to double by 2050, improved sustainability policies are critical. As many materials are produced in another country than ultimately consumed, such policies require detailed information on global value chains and their environmental impacts. Multi-regional input-output (MRIO) analysis plays a key role in providing this information, but several research gaps exist. One gap is the lack of an accurate method for assessing scope 3 impacts of materials, industries, and nations, including cumulative upstream and direct impacts (for any impact category). Also, no method exists for analyzing downstream impacts, which is a particular issue for greenhouse gas (GHG) and particulate matter (PM) emissions of fuels, such as coal. Another gap is the limited spatial and sectoral resolution and the incomplete coverage of sustainability indicators in current MRIO databases. This includes the lack of regionalized assessment of water and land use impacts. Due to these gaps, an accurate and extensive environmental assessment of materials is missing both globally and nationally. The objective of this thesis was to provide an improved MRIO method and database for creating transparency in global value chains and their impacts, to support sustainable policy-making. For this purpose, a method was developed that allows assessing the scope 3 impacts of any sector and region of an MRIO database (Chapter 2), tracking them along the global value chain (for GHG emissions and any other impact category), and analyzing downstream impacts (for GHG and PM emissions of fuels, Chapter 4 and 5). Furthermore, an automated, transparent, and time-efficient approach was developed to improve the resolution and quality of an existing MRIO database (Chapter 3). It was applied to merge the global MRIO databases EXIOBASE3 and Eora26 and add data from FAOSTAT and previous studies to create an MRIO database with high spatial (189 countries), sectoral (163 sectors), and temporal resolution (year 1995–2015). Finally, a set of sustainability indicators was implemented into the database: Climate change from GHG emissions, health impacts from PM emissions (primary and secondary particles), water stress and land-use-related biodiversity loss (both regionalized), value added, and number of workers (Chapter 2–5). The importance, versatility, and broad applicability of the improved method and database was illustrated by several application examples. These include a case study on material production globally (Chapter 2) and for the G20 (Chapter 4). An in-depth analysis of the role of coal combustion is provided in Chapter 4 for the production of metals and construction materials, and in Chapter 5 for global plastics production. A detailed analysis of the food supply chain and the related water and land footprint is shown in Chapter 3 for the European Union (EU). The case study on global material production (Chapter 2) showed that previous MRIO methods either underestimated or overestimated the environmental impacts of material production by 20–60%. The improved method found that material production causes half of global GHG emissions, one-third of global PM health impacts, and, because of biomass production, more than 90% of global water stress and land-use related biodiversity loss. Since 1995, global material-related impacts have increased by 52% (GHG emissions), 56% (PM health impacts), and 22% (water stress). While high-income regions mainly use materials for private consumption, emerging economies use a large share of materials for infrastructure build-up. Although the latter was the main driver of the rising material-related GHG emissions, material-related carbon footprints of high-income regions are still several times higher than those of emerging economies on a per-capita level (year 2015). This underscores the need to decouple environmental impacts from economic growth and to promote sufficiency measures. Material production for building infrastructure in emerging economies, mainly China, has also driven the increase in the G20's overall carbon footprint (Chapter 4). Since 1995, China's carbon footprint of metals and construction materials has quadrupled, causing more than 10% of global GHG emissions in 2015. Similarly, the case study on plastics (Chapter 5) showed that plastics-related carbon footprints of China's transportation, Indonesia's electronics industry, and India's construction sector have increased more than 50-fold. Thus, measures to reduce, reuse, recycle, and substitute high-impact materials are critical to mitigate the environmental impacts of the expected economic growth in developing countries. Reliance on coal to produce materials has been another key driver of the G20's rising carbon footprint (Chapter 4). In 2015, half of global coal was used for the G20's production of metals and construction materials, the majority in China and India. Thus, 85% of India's total domestic coal was used for the production of these materials in 2015. This points to the need for a rapid phase-out of coal and a shift to renewables in the G20's material production chain. Similarly, it was found that due to the growth in plastics production in coal-based economies, the carbon and PM health footprint of plastics has doubled since 1995 (Chapter 5). In 2015, 6% of global coal electricity was used for plastics production. Moreover, plastics accounted for 4.5% of global GHG emissions. This is higher than expected, as previous studies did not account for the increased reliance on coal energy in the plastics sector. It was also assumed that equal amounts of oil were used as fuel and feedstock in plastics production, while this thesis shows that twice as much fossil carbon is combusted as fuel than contained as feedstock. Even in a worst-case scenario where all plastics were incinerated, the production stage would still contribute most to plastics-related GHG and PM emissions. This means that previous studies have underestimated the relative significance of the production versus the disposal phase, and thus the enormous potential to reduce the carbon and PM health footprint of plastics by renewable energy investments. High-income regions have significantly contributed to the rising environmental impacts by outsourcing the extraction of resources and processing into materials to lower-income regions with less stringent environmental policies, more water stress, and high biodiversity (Chapter 2–5). Due to increasing imports of plastics from coal-based economies, the share of the plastic-related carbon footprint generated abroad increased to 67% in the EU, 79% in the USA, 90% in Canada, and 95% in Australia in 2015 (Chapter 5). Similarly, the case study on the EU's water-stress and land-use related biodiversity loss footprint found that most of the associated impacts are caused abroad (Chapter 3). This is mainly attributed to food imports from emerging and developing countries where water is scarce (e.g. Egypt) and biodiversity is high (e.g. Madagascar). The improved spatial resolution (189 countries instead of 49 regions) and regionalized impact assessment led to a significant increase in the EU's water and land impact footprint induced abroad. These results highlight the need for expanding environmental policy initiatives (e.g., the Paris Agreement and the EU's Green Deal) from production-based to consumption-based accounting to foster improved supply chain management. This includes the investment in clean energy production throughout the supply chain and the use of regional comparative advantage for reducing water stress and biodiversity loss. In addition to environmental impacts, the value added and workforce associated with material production are also unequally distributed around the world. Trade in materials reinforces this imbalance (Chapter 2–5). It was shown that although high-income regions strongly rely on low-paid work abroad due to material imports (mainly food), they generate most of the associated value added inland (e.g., due to food processing). The extent of this imbalance was highlighted, e.g., in the G20 case study: Since 2011, the number of workers employed globally to meet Australia's material demand is greater than the number of workers employed in the entire Australian economy (Chapter 4). Similarly, the plastics case study found that although 70% of the workforce required for plastics consumption in the EU was employed abroad, 80% of the associated value added was generated domestically (year 2015), as only the low-paid steps in the plastics value chain have been outsourced (Chapter 5). The method and database of this thesis are open access and can be applied by researchers, industries, and policy makers for a more accurate impact assessment of various materials, commodities, industries, and nations. The method is available as a software tool that can be used to track the scope 3 impacts of industries and nations for a range of sustainability indicators along the global value chain (Chapter 2). Future work can apply the approach of Chapter 3 to improve the spatial, sectoral, and temporal resolution and quality of the database by integrating further MRIO databases and data sources. Also, future work is needed to incorporate detailed bottom-up inventories and use remote sensing data to improve the resolution and coverage of life-cycle inventories.
Matter retention in streams and rivers is an ecosystem service of outstanding ecological as well as economic importance. Studying and monitoring instream nitrate dynamics is essential to reduce the tremendous consequences of eutrophication of freshwater systems and coastal zones. Moreover, the cycling of nitrate in lotic systems is a paradigm for the instream transport and transformation behavior of any other reactive substance subjected to human perturbation of its natural cycle. Identifying instream processes and drivers that dictate nitrate transport in rivers and quantifying the capacity of rivers to retain nitrate is therefore of scientific as well as political interest and was the motivation for this thesis. Even though understanding and monitoring of instream nitrate dynamics is advanced compared to most other emerging substances of concern (e.g. pharmaceuticals, synthetic and natural hormones), methodologies to directly assess nitrate dynamics are still limited, leaving a high degree of uncertainty to descriptive and predictive models. One major problem of common data acquisition is that the temporal and spatial variability of nitrate processing rates arising from the complex interactions of hydrological and biogeochemical drivers cannot be captured with traditional methods. For technical reasons, most studies have been conducted in small (and rather pristine) streams. Thus, particularly the functional behavior of larger rivers and anthropogenically modified systems is widely uncharacterized. In this work, two methodologies were developed which allow quantitatively assessing nitrate dynamics on two relevant scales: The reach scale (1), which is of particular interest for monitoring strategies and local hyporheic nutrient fluxes (2), with the hyporheic zone being a key compartment in instream solute cycling. In order to assess the seasonal fluctuation in nitrate dynamics (3), a primary demand on the methods was that they operate continuous or over longer time spans. On the reach scale, a combined two-station time-series and longitudinal profiling approach based on measurements from automated sensors, provided novel insights into seasonal variations of nitrogen processing and allowed quantitative comparison of the dynamics in a natural versus a heavily modified reach. Uptake was lower and the influence of season on uptake rates more marked in the modified reach. Continuous implementation of the proposed approach, fully covering the annual variations, can essentially improve existing monitoring practices by quantifying the effect of altered morphology and water chemistry on retention rates. Hyporheic passive flux meters are an efficient tool to quantify time integrative hyporheic nutrient fluxes. In combination with other measurements, the results from a field application unraveled an unexpected hyporheic source-sink behavior for nitrate at the study reach. Different to common observations, not the upper most layer of the hyporheic zone but the layer between 15 and 30 cm was most efficient in removing nitrate, assumedly because substrate limitation is irrelevant in agricultural (nutrient and DOC enriched) streams. Further, higher discharge did not increase hyporheic exchange, because the monotonous morphology and absence of bedforms reduced the usually dominating effect of increased drag resistance with higher flow. The studies presented here deliver empirical evidence that, on both investigated scales, anthropogenic modifications substantially impact instream nitrate dynamics. Alterations to channel morphology, riparian vegetation, hydrology and water quality change principal ecosystem functions relevant for solute retention in streams and rivers. The presented results show that anthropogenically modified systems may therefore behave unexpectedly if predictions are built on the driver-response correlations observed in natural systems. Worldwide a large proportion of rivers and streams are modified by humans. However, altered systems are not adequately represented in studies focusing on solute dynamics. Efficient management of such systems, including evaluation of measures to reduce the nitrogen burden on receiving water bodies, requires quantitative knowledge on instream processes and governing drivers. Continuous or time integrative observations are more representative for the solute cycling characteristics of a system than "snapshot"-like assessments. The new methodologies thereby also facilitate extrapolation of local measurements and linking the resulting data with catchment scale models. Overall synthesis of the presented results suggests that such measurements of nitrate dynamics in streams may be used as an indicator for the ecosystem integrity.:Acknowledgments i List of Tables vii List of figures viii List of Abbreviations and acronyms ix Summary xi 1. Introduction 1 1.1. Goals and questions 3 1.1.1. Reach scale quantification of nitrate dynamics 4 1.1.2. Quantifying hyporheic nitrate fluxes 5 1.1.3. Hyporheic nitrate dynamics in an anthropogenically modified stream 6 2. High frequency measurements of reach scale nitrogen uptake in a 4th order river with contrasting hydromorphology and variable water chemistry (Weiße Elster, Germany) 8 2.1. Abstract 8 2.2. Introduction 9 2.3. Methods and Materials 12 2.3.1. Study site 12 2.3.2. Two stations time-series 14 2.3.3. Longitudinal Profiling 17 2.4. Results 19 2.4.1. Two stations time-series 19 2.4.2. Longitudinal profiling 23 2.5. Discussion 26 2.5.1. Diel variation 26 2.5.2. Comparison between sampling periods 28 2.5.3. Inter-reach comparison 29 2.5.4. Comparison of the Weiße Elster and other rivers 30 2.6. Conclusions 31 2.7. References 33 3. Quantifying nutrient fluxes with a new Hyporheic Passive Flux Meter (HPFM) 39 3.1. Abstract 39 3.2. Introduction 40 3.3. Methods 44 3.3.1. Construction and materials 44 3.3.2. Selection and characterization of resin 45 3.3.3. Preparation of activated carbon with alcohol tracers 47 3.3.4. Deployment and retrieval procedure 49 3.3.5. Analysis and data treatment 49 3.3.6. Field testing of hyporheic passive flux meters (HPFMs) 51 3.4. Results 56 3.4.1. Laboratory experiments 56 3.4.2. Field testing 56 3.5. Discussion 63 3.6. Conclusion and Outlook 69 3.7. References 70 4. Hyporheic passive flux meters reveal unexpected source-sink behavior of nitrogen in an anthropogenically modified stream (Holtemme, Germany) 79 4.1. Abstract 79 4.2. Introduction 80 4.3. Methods 82 4.3.1. Study site 83 4.3.2. Instrumental set-up 84 4.3.3. Deriving hyporheic denitrification rates 89 4.2. Results 92 4.2.1. Hyporheic nutrient fluxes and Darcy velocities 92 4.2.2. Nutrient concentrations in pore water 94 4.2.3. O2 and temperature 94 4.2.4. Hyporheic residence time and denitrification 95 4.5. Discussion 97 4.5.1.Darcy velocities and angle of hyporheic flow 97 4.5.2. Biotic activity 98 4.5.3. Extent of active hyporheic zone 98 4.5.4. The effect of redox conditions and residence time on the NO3 source-sink function of the Hyporheic zone 99 4.5.5. Anthropogenic influence on water quality 101 4.6. Conclusions 102 4.7. References 104 5. Discussion 110 5.1. Evaluation of the new methodology 110 5.1.1. High frequency measurements of nitrogen removal in rivers 110 5.1.2. Hyporheic passive flux meter for the quantification of nutrient fluxes 113 5.2. Results from the field studies and scientific implications 115 5.2.1. Nitrogen processing in aquatic ecosystems 115 5.2.2. Reach scale nitrogen dynamics in the Weiße Elster 117 5.2.3. Hyporheic nutrient fluxes at the Holtemme 120 5.3. Moving beyond and Outlook 123 5.3.1. Scaling and representability 124 5.3.2. Modified ecosystems 128 6. References 130 Note on the commencement of the doctoral procedure 151 Curriculum Vitae 152 ; Der Rückhalt von Stoffen in Flüssen und Bächen ist eine Ökosystem-Dienstleistung von grösster ökologischer wie auch wirtschaftlicher Bedeutung. Um die negativen Auswirkungen durch Eutrophierung von Süsswasserkörpern und Küstengebieten zu reduzieren, ist es erforderlich, die Stickstoffdynamik in Fliessgewässern zu untersuchen und zu überwachen. Darüber hinaus, kann der Umsatz von Nitrat in lotischen Systemen als Paradigma für den Transport und die Transformation anderer reaktiver Substanzen von anthropogenem Ursprung gesehen werden. Die Prozesse zu identifizieren, die den Nitrattransport in Fliessgewässern und deren Kapazität Nitrat zurückzuhalten beeinflussen, ist somit von wissenschaftlichem wie auch von politischem Interesse und war die Motivation für diese Arbeit. Obwohl unser Wissen über das Verhalten von Nitrat in Fliessgewässern, im Vergleich zu vielen erst neuerdings an Bedeutung gewinnender Substanzen (z.B. Arzneimittelrückstände, synthetische und natürliche Hormone) fortgeschritten ist, fehlen Methoden um die Nitratdynamik im Fliessgewässer zu erfassen. Dadurch ist die Überwachung wie auch der Vorhersage des Nitratexports durch Fliessgewässer mit grossen Unsicherheiten behaftet. Ein Hauptproblem bei der Datenerfassung ist, dass die Umsatzraten von Nitrat aufgrund der komplexen Zusammenspiele von biogeochemischen wie auch hydrologischen Einflussfaktoren, sowohl räumlich wie auch zeitlich stark schwanken. Ausserdem wurden aus technischen Gründen die meisten Studien bislang in kleinen (und eher unberührten) Flüssen durchgeführt. Deshalb bestehen insbesondere über das Exportverhalten grosser und anthropogen veränderter Systeme grosse Unsicherheiten. In dieser Arbeit wurden zwei Methoden entwickelt, die es erlauben, die Nitratdynamiken auf zwei relevanten Grössenskalen zu erfassen: Einmal über eine Flussstrecke von einigen Kilometern und zum anderen lokal in der Hyporheischen Zone. Die erste Skala (Flusstrecke) ist insbesondere für die Entwicklung von Monitoring-Strategien wichtig. Die Hyporheische Zone ist als Schlüsselkompartiment für den Stoffumsatz in Fliessgewässern von Bedeutung. Da zeitliche (z.B. saisonale) Schwankungen im Nitratumsatz erfasst werden sollten, war eine primäre Herausforderung an die Methoden, dass sie für die kontinuierliche Aufzeichnung über länger Zeitspannen geeignet sind. Für die Fliessgewässerstrecke wurde eine Bilanzierung von Zeitreihen zwischen zwei Stationen mit Messungen über das Längsprofil kombiniert. Die Zeitreihen wurden mit automatisierten Sensoren aufgenommen. Der hier entwickelte Ansatz von Messung und Auswertung lieferte neue Erkenntnisse über die saisonale Variation des Stickstoffumsatzes und ermöglichte einen quantitativen Vergleich zwischen einem natürlichen und einem anthropogen überprägten Gewässerabschnitt. Der Nitratrückhalt im veränderten Abschnitt war niedriger und der Einfluss der Jahreszeit auf die Umsatzraten war stärker ausgeprägt. Eine dauerhafte Installierung des Messaufbaus, der die gesamten Jahresschwankungen abdeckt, könnte die existierenden Überwachungsverfahren erheblich verbessern, weil so der Effekt der Fliessgewässermorphologie und der Wasserchemie auf die Umsatzraten berücksichtigt werden können. Hyporheische Passive Flux Meter sind ein Instrument für die zeitlich gemittelte Quantifizierung von Nitratflüsse durch die Hyporheische Zone. In Kombination mit weiteren Messungen brachten die Ergebnisse einer Freilandmessung unerwartete Ergebnisse über die Entstehung und den Abbau von Nitrat in der Hyporheischen Zone des untersuchten Flusses zum Vorschau. Anders als üblicher Weise beobachtet, war der Abbau von Nitrat nicht in der obersten Schicht der Hyporheischen Zone, sondern in einer Tiefe von 15 bis 30 cm am effizientesten. Wahrscheinlich verhalten sich landwirtschaftlich beeinflusste Gewässer (die mit Nitrat und organischen Stoffen angereichert sind) diesbezüglich nicht laut Lehrbuchmeinung, weil es nicht zur Stofflimitierung in tieferen Schichten kommt. Ebenso unerwartet führten höhere Abflüsse nicht zu vermehrtem hyporheischen Austausch. Es zeigte sich, dass durch die Begradigung des Fliessgewässers, der normalerweise auftretende Austausch an Gewässerbettformen, der mit zunehmenden Abfluss steigt, nicht relevant ist. Die hier vorgestellten Studien liefern empirische Beweise, dass auf beiden untersuchten Skalen anthropogene Veränderungen die Nitratdynamik im Fliessgewässer erheblich beeinflussen. Eingriffe in die Morphologie, Ufervegetation, Hydrologie und Wasserqualität verändern wesentliche Ökosystem-Funktionen, die relevant für den Stoffrückhalt in Flüssen und Bächen sind. Die präsentierten Ergebnisse zeigen dass sich anthropogen veränderte Systeme überraschend verhalten, wenn Vorhersagen auf Aktio-Reaktio-Korrelationen getroffen werden, die aus Beobachtungen in natürlichen Systemen abgeleitet wurden. Weltweit ist ein grosser Anteil der Flüsse und Bäche durch Menschen verändert. Solche beeinträchtigten Fliessgewässer sind jedoch nicht angemessen in Studien über Stoffdynamiken vertreten untersuchen. Effizientes Management solcher Fliessgewässer, ebenso wie die Beurteilung von Massnahmen um die Nitratlast auf die empfangenden Fliessgewässer zu reduzieren, benötigen quantitative Aussagen über Prozesse und vorherrschende Auslöser. Kontinuierliche wie auch zeitlich integrierende Beobachtungen sind repräsentativer als Schnappschuss-Aufnahmen. Die neuen Methoden erleichtern damit auch die Übertragung lokaler Messungen und die Einbindung der gewonnenen Daten in Einzugsgebiet Modelle. Die hier vorgestellten Ergebnisse zeigen des Weiteren, dass die Nitratdynamik in einem Fliessgewässer als Indikator für die Intaktheit des Ökosystems verwendet werden kann.:Acknowledgments i List of Tables vii List of figures viii List of Abbreviations and acronyms ix Summary xi 1. Introduction 1 1.1. Goals and questions 3 1.1.1. Reach scale quantification of nitrate dynamics 4 1.1.2. Quantifying hyporheic nitrate fluxes 5 1.1.3. Hyporheic nitrate dynamics in an anthropogenically modified stream 6 2. High frequency measurements of reach scale nitrogen uptake in a 4th order river with contrasting hydromorphology and variable water chemistry (Weiße Elster, Germany) 8 2.1. Abstract 8 2.2. Introduction 9 2.3. Methods and Materials 12 2.3.1. Study site 12 2.3.2. Two stations time-series 14 2.3.3. Longitudinal Profiling 17 2.4. Results 19 2.4.1. Two stations time-series 19 2.4.2. Longitudinal profiling 23 2.5. Discussion 26 2.5.1. Diel variation 26 2.5.2. Comparison between sampling periods 28 2.5.3. Inter-reach comparison 29 2.5.4. Comparison of the Weiße Elster and other rivers 30 2.6. Conclusions 31 2.7. References 33 3. Quantifying nutrient fluxes with a new Hyporheic Passive Flux Meter (HPFM) 39 3.1. Abstract 39 3.2. Introduction 40 3.3. Methods 44 3.3.1. Construction and materials 44 3.3.2. Selection and characterization of resin 45 3.3.3. Preparation of activated carbon with alcohol tracers 47 3.3.4. Deployment and retrieval procedure 49 3.3.5. Analysis and data treatment 49 3.3.6. Field testing of hyporheic passive flux meters (HPFMs) 51 3.4. Results 56 3.4.1. Laboratory experiments 56 3.4.2. Field testing 56 3.5. Discussion 63 3.6. Conclusion and Outlook 69 3.7. References 70 4. Hyporheic passive flux meters reveal unexpected source-sink behavior of nitrogen in an anthropogenically modified stream (Holtemme, Germany) 79 4.1. Abstract 79 4.2. Introduction 80 4.3. Methods 82 4.3.1. Study site 83 4.3.2. Instrumental set-up 84 4.3.3. Deriving hyporheic denitrification rates 89 4.2. Results 92 4.2.1. Hyporheic nutrient fluxes and Darcy velocities 92 4.2.2. Nutrient concentrations in pore water 94 4.2.3. O2 and temperature 94 4.2.4. Hyporheic residence time and denitrification 95 4.5. Discussion 97 4.5.1.Darcy velocities and angle of hyporheic flow 97 4.5.2. Biotic activity 98 4.5.3. Extent of active hyporheic zone 98 4.5.4. The effect of redox conditions and residence time on the NO3 source-sink function of the Hyporheic zone 99 4.5.5. Anthropogenic influence on water quality 101 4.6. Conclusions 102 4.7. References 104 5. Discussion 110 5.1. Evaluation of the new methodology 110 5.1.1. High frequency measurements of nitrogen removal in rivers 110 5.1.2. Hyporheic passive flux meter for the quantification of nutrient fluxes 113 5.2. Results from the field studies and scientific implications 115 5.2.1. Nitrogen processing in aquatic ecosystems 115 5.2.2. Reach scale nitrogen dynamics in the Weiße Elster 117 5.2.3. Hyporheic nutrient fluxes at the Holtemme 120 5.3. Moving beyond and Outlook 123 5.3.1. Scaling and representability 124 5.3.2. Modified ecosystems 128 6. References 130 Note on the commencement of the doctoral procedure 151 Curriculum Vitae 152
