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This market research paper has been prepared under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Veit of TH Köln and Prof. Dr. Carol Scovotti of University of Wisconsin-Whitewater in the course of the inter-university cross-border collaboration student research project “Export Opportunity Surveys (EOS)”. This study explores organic lipstick export opportunities to the German and US markets.
Water shortage and a rising water demand are prevalent issues on the political agenda worldwide. Available water resources must not only be provided to ensure a domestic and drinking water supply for a steadily increasing population but also for the growing industrial and agricultural sectors. This work outlines how the use of the innovative vacuum multi‐effect membrane distillation contributes to improve the water management efficiency in the following key industry sectors: desalination, drinking water and beverage industry, pharmaceutical, agro and chemical as well as oil and gas industry.
Resilience in relation to flood risk management (FRM) is not a new concept, yet parts of the FRM community are still struggling to apply it. The main challenge this study addresses is the question as to whether parts of the FRM community should still adopt, or rather “leap‐frog,” resilience. The main purpose is to evaluate whether resilience is a still on‐going trend or, already subsiding. Research suggests that resilience is an on‐going trend that connects research and policy and has gained international recognition as expressed by international guidelines and bodies promoting its research but also its operationalization. Academic literature in the area of FRM also shows a significant continuing development. Resilience enables to analyze dynamics and transformations of riverine areas, or coastal zones in connection to an integrated social‐environmental system approach with more emphasis and conceptual basis than previous concepts. Resilience is more than a short‐lived notion and it appears that FRM researchers cannot avoid addressing it. Resilience often is a convergence of ideas and mainstreaming of efforts, which in many venues is absolutely necessary and can help, for example, to decrease silo‐thinking. But as academics, we have a mandate to remain skeptical and remain on the look‐out for novel ideas, too.
This article is categorized under:
Engineering Water > Planning Water
The quantification of greenhouse gas emissions from aquatic ecosystems requires knowledge about the spatial and temporal dynamics of free gas in sediments. Freezing the sediment in situ offers a promising method for obtaining gas‐bearing sediment samples, unaffected by changes in hydrostatic pressure and sample temperature during core withdrawal and subsequent analysis. This article presents a novel freeze coring technique to preserve the in situ stratigraphy and gas bubble characteristics. Nondestructive X‐ray computed tomography (CT) scans were used to identify and characterize coring disturbances of gravity and freeze cores associated with gassy sediment, as well as the effect of the freezing process on the gas bubble characteristics. Real‐time X‐ray CT scans were conducted to visualize the progression of the freezing process. Additional experiments were conducted to determine the freezing rate to assess the probability of sediment particle/bubble migration, and gas bubble nucleation at the phase transition of pore water to ice. The performance of the freeze coring technique was evaluated under field conditions in Olsberg and Urft Reservoir (Germany). The results demonstrate the capability of the freeze coring technique for the preservation of gas‐bearing sediments and the analysis of gas bubble distribution pattern in both reservoirs. Nevertheless, the obtained cores showed that nearly all gravity and freeze cores show some degree of coring disturbances.
Anaerobic digestion plants have the potential to produce biogas on demand to help balance renewable energy production and energy demand by consumers. A proportional integral (PI) controller is constructed and tuned with a novel tuning method to control biogas production in an optimal manner. In this approach, the proportional part of the controller is a function of the feeding rate and system's degree of stability. To estimate the degree of stability, a simulation‐based soft sensor is developed. By means of the PI controller, the requirement for gas storage capacity of the digester is reduced by approximately 30 % compared to a constant, continuous feeding regime of the digester.
Grasping and manipulation with anthropomorphic robotic and prosthetic hands presents a scientific challenge regarding mechanical design, sensor system, and control. Apart from the mechanical design of such hands, embedding sensors needed for closed-loop control of grasping tasks remains a hard problem due to limited space and required high level of integration of different components. In this paper we present a scalable design model of artificial fingers, which combines mechanical design and embedded electronics with a sophisticated multi-modal sensor system consisting of sensors for sensing normal and shear force, distance, acceleration, temperature, and joint angles. The design is fully parametric, allowing automated scaling of the fingers to arbitrary dimensions in the human hand spectrum. To this end, the electronic parts are composed of interchangeable modules that facilitate the echanical scaling of the fingers and are fully enclosed by the mechanical parts of the finger. The resulting design model allows deriving freely scalable and multimodally sensorised fingers for robotic and prosthetic hands. Four physical demonstrators are assembled and tested to evaluate the approach.
Ecosystems provide a wide range of goods, services or ecosystem services (ES) to society. Estimating the impact of land use and land cover (LULC) changes on ES values (ESV) is an important tool to support decision making. This study used remote sensing and GIS tools to analyze LULC change and transitions from 2001 to 2016 and assess its impact on ESV in a tropical forested landscape in the southern plains of Nepal. The total ESV of the landscape for the year 2016 is estimated at USD 1264 million year−1. As forests are the dominant land cover class and have high ES value per hectare, they have the highest contribution in total ESV. However, as a result of LULC change (loss of forests, water bodies, and agricultural land), the total ESV of the landscape has declined by USD 11 million year−1. Major reductions come from the loss in values of climate regulation, water supply, provision of raw materials and food production. To halt the ongoing loss of ES and maintain the supply and balance of different ES in the landscape, it is important to properly monitor, manage and utilize ecosystems. We believe this study will inform policymakers, environmental managers, and the general public on the ongoing changes and contribute to developing effective land use policy in the region.
Metallic tubular micro-components play an important role in a broad range of products,
from industrial microsystem technology, such as medical engineering, electronics and optoelectronics, to sensor technology or microfluidics. The demand for such components is increasing, and forming processes can present a number of advantages for industrial manufacturing. These include, for example, a high productivity, enhanced shaping possibilities, applicability of a wide spectrum of materials and the possibility to produce parts with a high stiffness and strength. However, certain difficulties arise as a result of scaling down conventional tube forming processes to the microscale. These include not only the influence of the known size effects on material and friction behavior, but also constraints in the feasible miniaturization of forming tools. Extensive research work has been conducted over the past few years on micro-tube forming techniques, which deal with the development of novel and optimized processes, to counteract these restrictions. This paper reviews the relevant advances in micro-tube fabrication and shaping. A particular focus is enhancement in forming possibilities, accuracy and obtained component characteristics, presented in the reviewed research work. Furthermore, achievements in severe plastic deformation for micro-tube generation and in micro-tube testing methods are discussed.
Sensors can monitor physical attributes and record multimodal data in order to provide feedback. The application calligraphy trainer, exploits these affordances in the context of handwriting learning. It records the expert’s handwriting performance to compute an expert model. The application then uses the expert model to provide guidance and feedback to the learners.
However, new learners can be overwhelmed by the feedback as handwriting learning is a tedious task. This paper presents the pilot study done with the calligraphy trainer to evaluate the mental effort induced by various types of feedback provided by the application. Ten participants, five in the control group and five in the treatment group, who were Ph.D. students in the technology-enhanced learning domain, took part in the study. The participants used the application to learn three characters from the Devanagari script. The results show higher mental effort in the treatment group when all types of feedback are provided simultaneously. The mental efforts for individual feedback were similar to the control group. In conclusion, the feedback provided by the calligraphy trainer does not impose high mental effort and, therefore, the design considerations of the calligraphy trainer can be insightful for multimodal feedback designers.
Multidrug resistance (MDR) in tumors and pathogens remains a major problem in the efficacious treatment of patients by reduction of therapy options and subsequent treatment failure. Various mechanisms are described to be involved in the development of MDR with overexpression of ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters reflecting the most extensively studied. These membrane transporters translocate a wide variety of substrates utilizing energy from ATP hydrolysis leading to decreased intracellular drug accumulation and impaired drug efficacy. One treatment strategy might be inhibition of transporter-mediated efflux by small molecules. Isocoumarins and 3,4-dihydroisocoumarins are a large group of natural products derived from various sources with great structural and functional variety, but have so far not been in the focus as potential MDR reversing agents. Thus, three natural products and nine novel 3,4-dihydroisocoumarins were designed and analyzed regarding cytotoxicity induction and inhibition of human ABC transporters P-glycoprotein (P-gp), multidrug resistance-associated protein 1 (MRP1) and breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP) in a variety of human cancer cell lines as well as the yeast ABC transporter Pdr5 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Dual inhibitors of P-gp and BCRP and inhibitors of Pdr5 were identified, and distinct structure-activity relationships for transporter inhibition were revealed. The strongest inhibitor of P-gp and BCRP, which inhibited the transporters up to 80 to 90% compared to the respective positive controls, demonstrated the ability to reverse chemotherapy resistance in resistant cancer cell lines up to 5.6-fold. In the case of Pdr5, inhibitors were identified that prevented substrate transport and/or ATPase activity with IC50 values in the low micromolar range. However, cell toxicity was not observed. Molecular docking of the test compounds to P-gp revealed that differences in inhibition capacity were based on different binding affinities to the transporter. Thus, these small molecules provide novel lead structures for further optimization.
Life cycle assessment is a crucial tool in evaluating systems performances for sustainability and decision-making. This paper provided environmental impact of integrating renewable energy systems to the utility-grid based on a baseline optimized energy production data from “HOMER” for renewable systems modelling of a site in northern Nigeria. The ultimate goal was to ascertain the best hybrid option(s) in sustaining the environment. Different assumptions and scenarios were modelled and simulated using Ganzleitlichen Bilanz (GaBi). Uncertainty analysis was ensured to the impact data based on pedigree-matrix and Excel-program, as well as overall policy relevance. The results of the impact categories revealed first scenario (i.e., conventional path-based) with the highest impacts on global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential (AP), human toxicity potential (HTP), and abiotic depletion potential (ADP fossils). The lowest impacts arise in
the renewable-based scenarios for all the considered categories except the Ozone-layer depletion potential Category where the highest contribution falls in the third scenario (i.e., photovoltaic (PV)/biomass-biogas system) although all values being infinitesimal. In quantitative terms, the reduction in the GWP from the highest being the first scenario to the lowest being the fourth scenario (i.e., wind/biomass-biogas system) was 96.5%. Hence, with the outstanding contributions of the hybrid renewable systems, adopting them especially the lowest impact scenarios with expansions is relevant for environmental sustainability.
This contribution deals with the topic of the consistent further development of a wheel hub motor for battery electric vehicles (BEV) based on the principle of an outer rotor switched reluctance machine (SRM). The research work presented in this paper was founded by the ERDF.NRW program, Investment for Growth and Employment and the European Regional Development Fund. The R&D project was named Switched - Reluctance fo(u)r wheel (SR4Wheel). Based on the experience made by first prototype Evolution 0 (EVO 0), developed in the Laboratory for Automation Engineering, Power Electronics and Electrical Drives of the Cologne University of Applied Sciences (CUAS), the test results of EVO 1, as well as the redesign, EVO 2 is presented in this paper.
The prototype EVO 0, a first proof of concept leads to several optimizations and lessons learned for the predecessor model EVO 1. The overall target of developing such a gearless outer rotor wheel hub motor is the full integration of the complete machine including its power electronics into the given space between the original friction brake and the rim. Furthermore, due to the additional integration of the power electronics, great opportunities in terms of new vehicle design as well as retrofitting capabilities of already existing vehicle platforms can be achieved. Thereby, further drive train assembly space like the engine compartment is no longer necessary. The SRM does not require magnets for torque production which leads to independence from the changeable commodity prices on the rare earth element markets. This paper presents the developing process, testing, and verification of the innovative drive train concept starting with the final CAD of EVO 1. During the testing and verification process a machine characteristic mapping is performed on a drive train test bench and subsequently the results of a finite element analysis (FEA) are plausibility checked by the test bench results. The process continues with energy conversion test scenarios of the project demonstrator vehicle on a roller test bench focused on noise vibrationharshness (NVH) behavior and efficiency. As a conclusion, the gained knowledge by evaluating two EVO 1 prototypes on the rear axle of the test vehicle, and the design for the front axle drive train EVO 2 will be presented. As a major task on the front axle, the limited space due to the large disc brake can be identified and solved.
Im Blickpunkt stehen ältere Menschen, die in ihrer privaten Lebensführung zurückgezogen leben, wenig in lokale Beziehungsnetzwerke involviert sind und die von Informationen und Angeboten der Altenhilfeträger bisher nicht erreicht werden. Für diese Menschen wurde die Idee einer „kommunikativen Informationsinfrastruktur“ im Sozialraum des Wohnviertels und Stadtteils entwickelt. Mit dem Infrastrukturmodell soll vermieden werden, dass solche Personen unerkannt in Notsituationen geraten, aber auch sichergestellt werden, dass sie kontinuierlich über Gelegenheiten zur erfolgreichen Bewältigung ihrer Lebenssituation informiert werden. Das Buch beschreibt das entwickelte Modell und die Erfahrungen mit der praktischen Umsetzung. Das Modell zeigt Perspektiven für die Sozialplanung auf, dass zwischen privater Lebensführung im Alter und öffentlicher Daseinsvorsorge der Altenhilfe wirkungsvoll vermittelt werden kann. Zurückgezogen lebende ältere Menschen werden aus dem lokalen Umfeld unterstützt, sich umfassend zu informieren und Chancen zur Mitgestaltung von Angeboten gemäß ihren Bedürfnissen wahrzunehmen.
Achieving urban water security is a major challenge for many countries. While several studies have assessed water security at a regional level, many studies have also emphasized the lack of assessment of water security and application of measures to achieve it at the urban level.
Recent studies that have focused on measuring urban water security are not holistic, and there is still no agreed-upon understanding of how to operationalize and identify an assessment framework to measure the current state and dynamics of water security. At present, there is also no clearly defined and widely endorsed definition of urban water security. To address this challenge, this study provides a systematic approach to better understand urban water security, with a working definition and an assessment framework to be applied in peri-urban and urban areas. The proposed working definition of urban water security is based on the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goal on water and sanitation and the human rights on water and sanitation. It captures issues of urban-level technical, environmental, and socio-economic indicators that emphasize credibility, legitimacy, and salience.
The assessment framework depends on four main dimensions to achieve urban water security: Drinking water and human beings, ecosystem, climate change and water-related hazards, and socio-economic factors (DECS). The framework further enables the analysis of relationships and trade-off between urbanization and water security, as well as between DECS indicators. Applying this framework will help governments, policy-makers, and water stakeholders to target scant resources more eff ectively and sustainably. The study reveals that achieving urban water security requires a holistic and integrated approach with collaborative stakeholders to provide a meaningful way to improve understanding and managing urban water security.
Proceedings des Researchers‘ Corner zur 12. Jahrestagung des Förderkreises Rückversicherung 2019
(2019)
Am 5. Juli 2019 fand die 12. Jahrestagung des Förderkreises Rückversicherung in Niederkassel bei Köln statt. Etwa 80 Repräsentanten der in dem Förderkreis mitwirkenden (Rück-) Versicherungsunternehmen und Gäste nahmen daran teil. Im Rahmen der Jahrestagung wurde zum fünften Mal der Researchers‘ Corner durchgeführt, in dessen Verlauf acht der in der Kölner Forschungsstelle
Rückversicherung beschäftigten wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeiter*innen einen Vortrag zu dem jeweilig aktuell bearbeiteten Forschungsprojekt hielten.
In drei Sessions – mit je 2-3 parallel gehaltenen Vorträgen mit Poster – wurden die wichtigsten Ergebnisse der wissenschaftlichen Untersuchungen der Kölner
Forschungsstelle Rückversicherung präsentiert und diskutiert. Die Heterogenität der vorgetragenen Themen der wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeiter*innen spiegelt die
Verzahnung der Kölner Forschungsstelle mit der Rückversicherungspraxis wider.
Session 1
a) Manuel Dietmann (M.Sc.): Zunehmende Bedeutung der
Risikomanagementfunktion in Versicherungsunternehmen
b) Robert Joniec (M.Sc., FCII, cand. PhD): Wie geht es dem Rückversicherungs-Zyklus?
c) Wolfgang Koch (M.Sc., FCII): Informationsasymmetrien
zwischen Rückversicherungsmaklern und Zedenten
Session 2
a) Jörg Dirks (M.Sc., FCII): Unbemannte Fluggeräte
– Evolution des Luftfahrt-(Rück-)Versicherungsmarktes
b) Fabian Lassen (M.Sc., FCII): Senkung der Volatilität durch Einsatz eines versicherungstechnischen Swaps
c) Fabian Pütz (M.Sc., cand. PhD): Transfer von Cat-Risiken von Schwellenländern aus volkswirtschaftlicher Perspektive
Session 3
a) Kai-Olaf Knocks (M.A., FCII): Der ILS-Markt 2019 – abgeschreckt oder abwartend?
b) Lihong Wang (M.Sc., FCII, cand. PhD): China InsurTech Development
Mit der Veröffentlichungsreihe „Proceedings des Researchers‘ Corner“ entspricht die Kölner Forschungsstelle Rückversicherung dem Wunsch, die
Forschungsergebnisse unserer Wissenschaftler*innen sowie die entsprechenden Poster und Diskussionen zu publizieren. Dabei werden die Titel gemäß der oben
aufgeführten Agenda des Researchers‘ Corner der 12. Jahrestagung des Förderkreises Rückversicherung wiedergegeben. Im Rahmen der Veranstaltung führte Herr Prof. Materne des Weiteren ein Interview mit Herrn Ingo Wichelhaus (Senior Director, Mount Street) zum Thema Risiko- und Portfoliomanagement. Hierbei wurde insbesondere auf das breite Risikospektrum von Finanzierungen im Schifffahrtssektor eingegangen.
Unser Dank gilt den Fördermittelgebern, die sowohl diese Veranstaltung als auch die Forschung der Wissenschaftler*innen erst ermöglichen.
The 12th Annual Meeting of the Sponsoring Group Reinsurance [Förderkreis Rückversicherung] was held 5th July 2019 in Niederkassel, near Cologne. Some 80
representatives of the (re)insurance companies involved in the Sponsoring Group took part in the meeting, along with guests. Offered for the fifth time as part of the
Annual Meeting, the Researchers’ Corner gave eight members of academic staff at the Cologne Research Centre for Reinsurance an opportunity to deliver a presentation on their respective current research projects. In three sessions – each featuring 2-3 parallel lectures with posters – the most important results of the scientific studies by the Cologne Research Centre for Reinsurance were presented and discussed. The heterogeneity of the topics presented by academic staff reflects the dovetailing of Cologne Research Centre with reinsurance practice.
Session 1
a) Manuel Dietmann (M.Sc.): The increasing importance of the riskmanagement function in insurance companies
b) Robert Joniec (M.Sc., FCII, cand. PhD): How is the reinsurance cycle doing?
c) Wolfgang Koch (M.Sc., FCII): Information asymmetries between reinsurance brokers and assignors
Session 2
a) Jörg Dirks (M.Sc., FCII): Unmanned aircraft – Evolution of the market for aviation (re-)insurance
b) Fabian Lassen (M.Sc., FCII): Reducing volatility through use of an insurance swap
c) Fabian Pütz (M.Sc., cand. PhD): Transferring cat risks from emerging markets from a macroeconomic perspective Session 3
a) Kai-Olaf Knocks (M.A., FCII): The ILS market in 2019 – discouragement or wait-and-see?
b) Lihong Wang (M.Sc., FCII, cand. PhD): China InsurTech development
With the publication series, ‘Proceedings of the Researchers’ Corner’, the Cologne Research Centre for Reinsurance meets the desire for publication of the research results of our scholars together with the accompanying posters and discussions. The titles are reproduced in keeping with the above agenda of the Researchers’ Corner for the 12th Annual Meeting of the Sponsoring Group Reinsurance. As part of the event, Prof. Materne also conducted an interview with Mr Ingo Wichelhaus (Senior Director, Mount Street) on the topic of risk management and portfolio management. Particular attention was devoted to the broad spectrum of risk for financing in the shipping sector.
Durch das permanente Wachstum der Weltbevölkerung wird der Bedarf von Textilien stetig steigen. Die Produktvielfalt sowie der Konsum der Textilien werden immer größer. Die aktuellen Recyclingtechniken ermöglichen es nicht, den Rohstoffkreislauf für Textilien zu schließen. Dies liegt auch darin begründet, dass derzeit große Mengen der Textilien aus Mischgeweben zwischen Baumwolle und PET bestehen. Die Trennung dieser Komponenten ist jedoch eine Grundvoraussetzung für die Entwicklung eines geschlossenen Rohstoffkreislaufs und stellt gleichzeitig eine große Herausforderung für das Recycling dar. Durch chemische Recyclingverfahren können die Rohstoffe getrennt, aufbereitet und in die Textilproduktion zurückgeführt werden. In dieser Arbeit wird aufgezeigt, wie ein chemischer Recyclingprozess, der einen geschlossenen Rohstoffkreislauf erlaubt, technisch realisiert werden kann. Der Prozess erzeugt eine PET-Fraktion und eine Celluloselösung, die in weiteren Verarbeitungsschritten zu einer Regeneratfaser versponnen wird. In dieser frühen Projektphase werden in dieser Arbeit ebenfalls die Investitionsausgaben und die Herstellungskosten für das Verfahren abgeschätzt.
Die vorliegende Masterarbeit behandelt die Bewertung der eingegangenen Unternehmensrisiken im Rahmen der Lebensversicherung und die hiervon abgeleiteten Auswirkungen zur Unternehmenssteuerung.
Dabei wird einerseits die Angemessenheit der sog. „Standardformel“ nach Solvency II überprüft, die in den europäischen Mitgliedsstaaten einen weitestgehend einheitlichen Ansatz bei der Bewertung der Risiken von Versicherungsunternehmen verwendet. Andererseits werden unter ökonomischen Überlegungen versicherungsmathematische Methoden vorgestellt, wie ein Lebensversicherer seine Risiken unternehmensindividueller ermitteln und damit seinen tatsächlichen Risikokapitalbedarf bestimmen kann.
Zur Quantifizierung der Ergebnisse werden die Berechnungsvorgaben der Standardformel für ausgewählte Risikomodule nachgebildet und mit den in dieser Arbeit vorgestellten unternehmensindividuellen Berechnungen verglichen und analysiert. Es zeigt sich, dass trotz der Komplexität des Solvency II-Modells eine noch differenziertere Herangehensweise notwendig ist, damit ein einzelnes Unternehmen seine Risiken adäquat und möglichst individuell bestimmen kann. Zur Gewährleistung einer nicht bestandsgefährdenden Unternehmensfortführung müssen die Versicherungsunternehmen bei Betrachtung ihrer Risiken mithilfe des EU-weiten Aufsichtssystems Solvency II in der Lage sein, die korrekten Rückschlüsse zur Unternehmenssteuerung zu ziehen. Die in dieser Arbeit vorgestellten versicherungsmathematischen Ansätze können dabei den Prozess zur unternehmenseigenen Risiko- und Solvabilitätsbeurteilung (ORSA) unterstützen.
The reinsurance market continues to face major challenges – at this point we would like to outline just two of these. While renewal of the reinsurance contracts as at 1st January 2019 was largely ‘riskadjusted flat’, renewal of the retrocession contracts was decidedly late. As at the date when this Annual Report 2018 went to press (2nd January 2019), the final trend is still not yet discernible. However, there are signs of a substantial hardening in prices and conditions in the retrocession area. Reinsurers, which are depend on the resource of retrocession capacity, would then be placed in an even more difficult position of increasing the price of retrocession, yet these additional costs cannot be passed on to the assignors under their active reinsurance contracts. Not least the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority [BaFin] is also certain to set its sights on this aspect in its analysis of the prevailing reinsurance price level, which has been announced for 2019. Of particular interest with regard to a potential determination of insufficient market conditions would also be the resulting reaction by BaFin (and the basis on which this would occur). A decisive factor for a possible strengthening of the retrocession market would be a changed attitude on the part of alternative capital, which in recent years already provided 50-70% of the retrocession capacity – and rising – via ILS funds and other mechanisms. Unlike traditional reinsurers, ‘innocent investors’ such as pension funds were increasingly nervous as a result of the high number of claims again in 2018 – particularly the California wildfires in Q4 2018 – as well as the drop in the fund share price of numerous ILS funds prior to the renewal at 1st January 2019.
A further substantial burden on the business climate lies in the utter ambiguity with regard to the modalities of Brexit on 29th March 2019. A no-deal Brexit would seem to be a real – and perhaps even a probable – alternative. This would create a large vacuum
in legal certainty by eliminating many EU-UK contracts and agreements. The Cologne Research Centre for Reinsurance analyses the latest developments in the reinsurance market and, where appropriate, monitors these through research projects. In the process, the Cologne Research Centre for Reinsurance links its research activities with practices in the reinsurance sector. Hereby, and facilitated through organisation
of the annual Cologne Reinsurance Symposium and the Annual Meeting of the Sponsoring Group Reinsurance [Förderkreis Rückversicherung], a bi-directional
transfer of knowledge between theory and practice is pursued. The content of these two scientific events, as well as the completed research projects, are incorporated into scholarship and instruction at the Institute of Insurance Studies, rounding out practice-oriented training in the field of reinsurance.
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Currently, there are nine researchers and two employees responsible for science management on the staff of the Cologne Research Centre for Reinsurance. Thereby, all
material and personnel costs are fully financed by third-party funds provided by the Sponsoring Group Reinsurance.
We want to thank the Sponsoring Group Reinsurance, the University leadership and administration, ivwKöln [the Institute of Insurance Cologne] and the employees of the
Cologne Research Centre for Reinsurance for all their support for the research projects and events of the past year.
Der Rückversicherungsmarkt steht auch weiterhin vor großen Herausforderungen –
an dieser Stelle sollen nur zwei von diesen kurz angerissen werden.
Während die Erneuerung der Rückversicherungsverträge zum 1. Januar 2019 weitestgehend ‚risk adjusted flat‘ verlief, erfolgte die Erneuerung der Retrozessionsverträge ausgesprochen spät. Zum Zeitpunkt der Drucklegung dieses Jahresberichts 2018 (2. Januar 2019) ist der schlussendliche Trend noch nicht erkennbar. Es gibt jedoch Anzeichen für eine substantielle Preis- und Bedingungsverhärtung im Retrozessionsbereich. Dies würde dann die Rückversicherer, die von der Ressource Retrozessionskapazität abhängen, in die noch schwierigere Lage bringen, dass sich die
Retrozessionsnahme verteuert, diese Mehrkosten jedoch an die Zedenten unter ihren aktiven Rückversicherungsverträgen nicht weitergegeben werden können. Nicht zuletzt die BaFin wird sich in der für 2019 angekündigten Analyse des herrschenden
Rückversicherungspreisniveaus sicherlich auch diesem Aspekt widmen. Von Interesse wäre bezüglich der etwaigen Feststellung von insuffizienten Marktverhältnissen
insbesondere auch die daraus abgeleitete Reaktion der BaFin (und auf welcher Basis diese erfolgen würde).
Ausschlaggebend für eine mögliche Verhärtung des Retrozessionsmarktes wäre eine geänderte Haltung des Alternative Capitals, das in den letzten Jahren über ILS
Funds und andere Mechanismen bereits 50-70 % der Retrozessionskapazität – mit jeweils steigender Tendenz – zur Verfügung gestellt hat. Im Gegensatz zu den traditionellen Rückversicherern zeigten sich die ‚Innocent Investors‘ wie Pension Funds infolge der hohen Anzahl von Schäden auch in 2018 – insbesondere der California Wildfires in Q4-2018 – sowie des Verfalls des Fund Share Price zahlreicher ILS Funds vor der Erneuerung zum 1. Januar 2019 zunehmend nervös.
Eine weitere substantielle Belastung des Geschäftsklimas liegt in der völligen Unklarheit hinsichtlich der Modalitäten des Brexits am 29. März 2019 begründet. Ein
No-Deal Brexit erscheint eine reale – wenn nicht sogar wahrscheinliche – Alternative.
Dieser würde durch den Wegfall vieler EU-UK Verträge und Vereinbarungen ein großes Vakuum hinsichtlich Rechtssicherheit entstehen lassen.
Die Kölner Forschungsstelle Rückversicherung analysiert die aktuellen Entwicklungen des Rückversicherungsmarktes und begleitet diese gegebenenfalls durch Forschungsprojekte. Dabei verbindet die Kölner Forschungsstelle Rückversicherung ihre Forschungsaktivitäten mit der Rückversicherungspraxis. Hiermit und mit Hilfe der Durchführung des jährlichen Kölner Rückversicherungs-Symposiums und der
Jahrestagung des Förderkreises Rückversicherung wird ein bidirektionaler Wissenstransfer zwischen Theorie und Praxis betrieben.
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Die Inhalte dieser beiden wissenschaftlichen Veranstaltungen sowie die bearbeiteten
Forschungsprojekte fließen in die Lehre an dem Institut für Versicherungswesen ein und komplettieren so die praxisorientierte Ausbildung in dem Bereich der Rückversicherung. In der Kölner Forschungsstelle Rückversicherung sind derzeit neun forschende und
zwei für das Wissenschaftsmanagement zuständige Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter beschäftigt. Dabei werden sämtliche Personal-, Sach- und Reisekosten vollständig aus Drittmitteln des Förderkreises Rückversicherung finanziert. Dem Förderkreis Rückversicherung, der Hochschulleitung und –verwaltung, ivwKöln sowie den Mitarbeitern der Kölner Forschungsstelle Rückversicherung gilt unser Dank
für die Unterstützung der Forschungsprojekte und Veranstaltungen im vergangenen Jahr.
The climate is changing and this increases the risk of climate threats, which is affecting the most vulnerable populations, mainly peasant farmers. In order to minimize impacts on these populations, interest has been aroused to develop strategies that increase their resilience to climate-related risks. This issue has been little addressed in Ecuador, despite the increased frequency and intensity of climate-related risks, which are directly affecting agroecosystems and farmers' livelihoods. This research addresses the resilience of farmers to climate risks in the canton of Pedro Carbo, an area located on the Ecuadorian coast of Guayas Province characterized by a high rate of poverty and dedicated mainly to agriculture.
The overall objective of this research was to carry out an analysis of the resilience of small farmers to climate risks, as well as to recommend adaptation/transformation strategies to increase their resilience to climate. For this, farmers' perceptions were considered, as well as the opinion of experts on the subject. Multiple methods were applied such as: literature review, map generation, household surveys, participatory workshops with farmers and interviews with experts. In addition, a multidimensional matrix was developed to analyze quantitative and qualitative data through indicators that measure resilience in the study area. The main findings in this research reflect that farmers have very low resilience due to their socioeconomic characteristics, agricultural practices, lack of infrastructure and technologies, weak community organizations, limited access to credit and insurance, as well as lack of capacity building and technical assistance. Finally, recommendations for strategies to support planning and decision-making were developed.
Keywords: climate-related risks, peasant family farming, resilience, resilience assessment, climate resilience, farmers perceptions, Pedro Carbo
While global food production greatly exceeds dietary energy demand, undernutrition remains, and diets largely fail to ensure the health of the population. Agricultural biodiversity is crucial for the world’s food security, but genetic diversity has been degraded. In Mexico, the dietary transition towards processed foods has contributed to malnutrition and a rise of diet-related chronic diseases. Mexico’s indigenous people are conserving and creating valuable plant genetic resources in their swidden milpas and traditional agroforestry systems but remain the country’s most vulnerable population group. The Teenek (or Huastec), an indigenous group that habitat the Huasteca Potosina, a region in north-eastern Mexico cultivate a high diversity of edible plants in their home gardens (solar), milpas, and agroforestry systems (te’lom, or finca). However, migration has been leading to the abandonment of traditional farming in the region.
The objective of this study was to analyse if the managed agricultural biodiversity of the different traditional land use systems contributes to the food security of the farming households in the community of Jol Mom. Food availability and access were investigated. In total, 40 households were surveyed. Dietary patterns were identified through principal component analysis. Informal interviews, semi-structured interviews and participant observation allowed to account for the people’s own perceptions and provided additional insights. Findings showed that traditional Teenek farming systems are the source of a variety of nutritious foods and resulted to be the most important provider of fruits and vegetables. The average production diversity was 34 out of 56 crops, farmers cultivating more than one or two farming systems showed an increase of four and 11 produced species respectively. Production diversity was strongly correlated with food variety in a household’s diet, with an increment of one per 0.85 produced crop. Two main diverging dietary patterns were revealed, a westernized diet relying largely on purchased foods, to which the younger generation was more inclined, and a traditional diet characterized by a high consumption of cultivated products, mostly observed in the older households.
In conclusion, farming households in Jol Mom profit from the agricultural diversity of their production systems, either through the consumption of nutritious foods or by the sale of agricultural products. However, a tendency towards nutrient-poor diets was observed. Increasing agricultural diversity and consumption of locally produced foods might help to fight this trend but would require a valorisation of traditional foods and an appreciation of the contribution of indigenous people’s traditional agriculture to food security.
In dieser Arbeit wird die Frage nach der Zusammensetzung einer aus konservatorischer Sicht unbedenklichen Stempelfarbe untersucht. Es konnten vier Kategorien von Stempelfarben ermittelt werden: die leinölhaltigen, die mineralölhaltigen, die glykol-/glycerolhaltigen und die harzhaltigen. Neun Stempelfarben aus diesen vier Kategorien wurden in einer umfangreichen Testreihe auf ihre Licht- und Klimabeständigkeit, ihre Löse- und Bleichmittelfestigkeit, ihre Wischfestigkeit und ihr Durchschlagvermögen überprüft. Drei rein pigmenthaltige Stempelfarben haben diese Tests bestanden. Von diesen hatte nur die leinölhaltige Stempelfarbe eine gute Dokumentenechtheit. Zudem werden im letzten Kapitel Möglichkeiten zur Entfernung von Stempelfarben auf Papier vorgestellt.
Soils are complex, evolving systems that simultaneously shape and are shaped by numerous biotic and abiotic factors in a vast web of interactions that creates the conditions for the propagation of life and the maintenance of human societies. Yet, land use and land use change (LULUC) and anthropogenic climate change (CC) are forcing substantial and rapid alterations into soil’s properties and processes, thus affecting the functions and services derived from it. The resulting land degradation (LD) is now spread, according to recent estimates, over nearly 30 % of the world’s total land, mostly on the population dense and impoverished tropics, a zone predicted to withstand the worst impacts of CC. The Atlantic Forest in Brazil is a particularly vulnerable environment, and the unusual drought of 2014-2017 that hit its Southeastern region is likely the harbinger of a progressively drier future.
The way the prelude of what might be an increasingly frequent hazard affected farmers’ livelihoods and natural resources, and the manner in which they reacted to those impacts can thus reveal points of strength and fragility that could be respectively harnessed or addressed to develop a more sustainable agriculture and climate resilience. This master thesis focused on characterizing those impacts and reactions on distinct dairy production systems in two municipalities in Northwestern Rio de Janeiro: Santo Antônio de Pádua and Cambuci. Through interviews and in loci observations, the researcher collected data concerning environmental services (erosion prevention, soil cover and water provision), production variables (inputs and outputs), socio-economic information, farm system management and farmers’ future perspectives. The results show that dairy production systems in the region are heterogeneous and, although they may share common characteristics, drought outcomes were closely tied to the specificities of each farm. Ultimately, outcomes originated from differences in water supply, water demand, and feed availability, their subsequent change by the drought and farmers’ reaction to those changes at each property.
Das vorliegende Paper fasst die Erkenntnisse zum Einsatz von Kundenbeziehungs-management (engl. Customer Relationship Management (CRM)) und geeignete Tools für junge Unternehmen zusammen.
Es basiert auf der Bachelorarbeit von Herrn Enes Zafer, die von August bis Oktober 2019 von Prof. Dr. Monika Engelen betreut wurde. Neben einer Recherche der grundle-genden Theorie zu Customer Relationship Management wurden zehn CRM Tools an-hand Ihrer Funktionen beurteilt und verglichen.
Der Kerninhalt dieses Papers ist, sowohl ein Verständnis für Kundenbeziehungsma-nagement zu schaffen als auch einen Überblick und Empfehlung von CRM Tools für junge Unternehmen abzuleiten.
As the number and intensity of environmental challenges increase, more faiths have initiated religiously motivated change within their communities or have been involved in cooperation projects with NGOs or GOs dedicated to conservation. Even though a lot of quantitative research had been done on the correlation of religiosity and concern for the environment, no scientific study dealt about the argumentation lines that drive or discourage believers to get involved in environmental conversation. As a basis for the research the Theory of Planned Behavior of Ajzen was modified into a model. By the means of Semi-Standardized Interview guidelines 15 members and leaders of different church communities in Amman were interrogated to retrieve meaning of and cause-effect-chains between the different components of the model. Their answers were coded and analyzed with cross tables to identify interconnections and their tendencies.
The results show that interviewees’ religious convictions about God and the world were the strongest influencer, whereas the community and leaders rarely gave a reason for people to adapt water saving measures. External factors such as governmental, societal, political or economic mostly discouraged people to adapt environmentfriendly behaviors. Approaches by the GIZ have already started catering to those challenges and potentials, however the range of impact did not reach until most of the interviewees.
Neben den großen Anbietern digitaler Comics mit elektronischem Kopierschutz (DRM) haben sich auch Anbieter für DRM-freie Comics etabliert. Als Open Source-Alternative zu den Plattformen Ersterer wurde im Rahmen des Praxisprojekts die Software ComicLib als Web-App zur Verwaltung digitaler Comicsammlungen geschaffen. Diese ermöglicht die gemeinsame Verwaltung DRM-geschützter sowie -freier Comics. Letz-tere sind außerdem im Webbrowser lesbar. Die im Rahmen dieser Arbeit entstandene And-roid-App soll eine Open Source-Alternative zu den mobilen Apps der Plattformen der gro-ßen Anbieter sein und ComicLib um eine mobile App zur Offline-Nutzung der Comics erwei-tern. Der erste Prototyp wird im Nachgang des Projekts weiter getestet und verbessert, be-vor die erste stabile Version veröffentlicht wird.
The post-conflict setting in Colombia resulted after the signing of the peace agreement between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the national Government at the end of 2016, faces two main problems. On one hand, the environmental degradation and the pressure over the ecosystems now exposed to the economic and socio-demographic dynamics of the country; and on the other hand, the increase of violence in rural areas characterized by the abundance of natural resources. These two problems can be linked through the complex dynamics of natural resources appropriation. Among the natural resources affecting the course of the post-conflict in Colombia, gold appears as one of the most relevant sources of violence and environmental degradation. This condition makes it crucial to understand the complex local dynamics of mining regions in order to propose alternatives for consolidating a sustaining peace. The armed groups, the state, the private companies, and traditional gold mining communities are all stakeholders involved in gold mining and the conflicts around this activity. Nevertheless, communities have been denied as a formal actor.
This work aims to give voice to those communities, understanding them as a key actor for peacebuilding. This research seeks to understand the relationship between gold mining and the social-armed conflict in Colombia, to identify which are the drivers for the increasing of this activity during the post-conflict, as well as which strategies developed by traditional gold mining communities can contribute to peacebuilding. Thus, an integrative analytical framework is developed. This theoretical framework integrates 1) environmental peacebuilding to evaluate the possibilities of natural resources to becoming tools for cooperation, and 2) political ecology to clarify, from a multi-scalar approach, the socio-political context in which the conflict takes place. Hence, from a qualitative approach that involves several ethnographic methods is found that artisanal-ancestral miners and traditional miners organized to remain in their territories in a context of dispossession, have developed socio-ecological systems and natural resources management strategies relevant to implement initiatives of environmental peacebuilding that can be sustained over time and aimed to overcome the structural causes of violence and environmental degradation.
Über Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ist alles gesagt, oder? 1886 in Aachen geboren, entwickelte er sich zu einem der renommiertesten und bekanntesten Architekten weltweit – mit ikonischen Bauten wie der Neuen Nationalgalerie in Berlin oder Bauten wie dem Seagram Building in New York. Viele Publikationen sind zu seinem Leben und seinen Arbeiten erschienen. Jedoch finden die nordrhein-westfälischen Projekte, mit Ausnahme der Krefelder Villen Lange und Esters, darin erstaunlich wenig Beachtung.
Erstaunlich deshalb, weil sich besonders an diesen Projekten sehr eindrucksvoll sein Lebensweg aufzeigen lässt – vom rheinischen Handwerkslehrling über den Bauhausdirektor bis hin zum weltweit agierenden Architekten. Innerhalb der Baukunst des 20. Jahrhunderts spiegeln seine Arbeiten im heutigen Nordrhein-Westfalen die Entwicklung vom Jugendstil zum International Style.
Der Erforschung dieser vielfältigen Spuren widmen sich mittlerweile seit vielen Jahren Studentinnen und Studenten sowie Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler unterschiedlicher westdeutscher Architektur-Hochschulen. Unter der Leitung der beiden Herausgeber, Prof. Dr. Daniel Lohmann und Prof. Norbert Hanenberg, dieses Architekturführers wurden die Projekte dokumentiert, Spuren gelesen, Quellen ausgewertet, und die Geschichte von „Mies im Westen“ wurde nachvollzogen.
Die vorliegende Publikation ist in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Museum für Architektur und Ingenieurkunst NRW im Rahmen der Lehrveranstaltungen der TH Köln und der TH Mittelhessen (Gießen) mit Studierenden entstanden.
Entwicklung einer freien Software zur Verwaltung von digitalen Comics auf Basis von Web Technologien
(2019)
Mit dem Aufkommen von E-Books sind auch Comics im digitalen Zeitalter angekommen. Digitale Comicsammlungen bestehen meistens aus Dateien unterschiedlicher, teils proprietärer Dateiformate. Da Comics in proprietären Formaten nur in den Anwendungen der Hersteller geöffnet werden können, gestaltet sich die gemeinsame Verwaltung aller Comics einer Sammlung schwierig. Da die Verwaltung der Comics bei diesen Herstellern zentralisiert auf deren Servern erfolgt, ist das Lesen von Comics bei diesen über deren Apps standortunabhängig möglich. Diesen Vorteil bieten Comics in nicht-proprietären Formaten nicht. Für den maximalen Komfort muss man sich also für einen einzelnen Anbieter entscheiden und eine Fragmentierung der eigenen Comicsammlung über mehrere Anbieter hinweg vermeiden. Diese Probleme soll dieses Projekt lösen und dazu mit ComicLib eine freie Software zur zentralen Verwaltung und Bereitstellung digitaler Comicsammlungen schaffen. Da ein Öffnen der proprietären Dateien nicht möglich ist, soll die Beschaffung von Informationen zu Comics, Serien und Verlagen über den Zugriff auf die ComicVine API1 von Gamespot2 erfolgen. Bei Comics in nicht-proprietären Dateiformaten soll das Lesen direkt in der Software möglich sein, bei den proprietären Formaten soll die Datei stattdessen nur zum Download bereitgestellt werden. Eine eigene Programmierschnittstelle soll die Erweiterung von ComicLib um mobile Apps ermöglichen. Die Implementation als Webanwendung soll eine Nutzung der Comicverwaltung auf Computern, Tablets und Smartphones ermöglichen.
Web browsers use HTTP caches to reduce the amount of data to be transferred over the network and allow Web pages to load faster. Content such as scripts, images, and style sheets, which are static most of the time or shared across multiple websites, are stored and loaded locally when recurring requests ask for cached resources. This behaviour can be exploited if the cache is based on a naive implementation. This paper summarises possible attacks on the browser cache and shows through extensive experiments that even modern web browsers still do not provide enough safeguards to protect their users. Moreover, the available built-in as well as addable cache controls offer rather limited functionality in terms of protection and ease of use. Due to the volatile and inhomogeneous APIs for controlling the cache in modern browsers, the development of enhanced user-centric cache controls remains -until further notice- in the hands of browser manufacturers.
Online services such as social networks, online shops, and search engines deliver different content to users depending on their location, browsing history, or client device. Since these services have a major influence on opinion forming, understanding their behavior from a social science perspective is of greatest importance. In addition, technical aspects of services such as security or privacy are becoming more and more relevant for users, providers, and researchers. Due to the lack of essential data sets, automatic black box testing of online services is currently the only way for researchers to investigate these services in a methodical and reproducible manner. However, automatic black box testing of online services is difficult since many of them try to detect and block automated requests to prevent bots from accessing them.
In this paper, we introduce a testing tool that allows researchers to create and automatically run experiments for exploratory studies of online services. The testing tool performs programmed user interactions in such a manner that it can hardly be distinguished from a human user. To evaluate our tool, we conducted - among other things - a large-scale research study on Risk-based Authentication (RBA), which required human-like behavior from the client. We were able to circumvent the bot detection of the investigated online services with the experiments. As this demonstrates the potential of the presented testing tool, it remains to the responsibility of its users to balance the conflicting interests between researchers and service providers as well as to check whether their research programs remain undetected.
Bei Low-Code Entwicklungsplattformen handelt es sich um Lösungen zur Entwicklung und Bereitstellung von Software mit geringerem Anteil von Quelltext als in der Anwendungsentwicklung sonst erforderlich. Die Forschungsarbeit prüft, ob Low-Code Entwicklungsplattformen dazu geeignet sind, moderne webbasierte Geschäftsanwendungen umzusetzen. Dabei zeigt die Arbeit auf, wie Programmierparadigmen, Methoden der modellgetriebenen Softwareentwicklung (MDSD) und des Rappid Application Developments (RAD) als Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) Lösungen zur Anwendungsentwicklung durch Anbieter kombiniert werden. Aktuell offerierte Lösungen werden in einem Marktüberblick hinsichtlich ihrer Funktionalität und Anwendungszielgruppe eingeordnet.
Zur Klärung der Forschungsfrage werden gängige Anforderungen an eine Geschäftsanwendung gesammelt und deren Implementierung durch die prototypische Realisierung eines Anwendungsfalls mit der Low-Code Entwicklungsplattform Oracle Application Express (APEX) validiert. Auf dieser Basis zeigt die Arbeit den tatsächlich erforderlichen Quelltextanteil auf. Dabei werden jedoch auch funktionelle Einschränkungen sowie möglicheorganisatorische Risiken, z.B. durch Vendor Lock-In Effekte, dargestellt.
STEPsCON 2018 was jointly organized by the Faculty of Applied Natural Sciences of TH Köln (Germany) and the University of Oulu (Finland) on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Leverkusen – Oulu town twinning. The conference focused on sustainability issues and covered the current state of research in four key topics:
1. Sustainable Medicine and Pharmaceuticals
2. Resources and Bioremediation
3. Sustainable Chemistry & Industrial Biotechnology
4. Innovative Materials & Formulations
For use in a landfill, a laboratory reactor for safe and environmentally friendly biological utilization of low-concentration methane gas will be further developed. The current principle of denitrification-coupled aerobic methane oxidation will be replaced by methane oxidation under anaerobic conditions. Anaerobic methane oxidation offers the advantage that, in addition to methane, nitrate also undergoes biodegradation. Another advantage is that the oxygen content can be significantly lower. This reduces the risk of the formation of an explosive atmosphere in the reactor. Currently, the principle of anaerobic methane oxidation is known. However, organisms capable of doing so are not yet available as a pure culture. Therefore, several biomasses were probed for the ability of anaerobic methane oxidation. It was found that moor-heavy sediment, activated sludge from the leachate treatment plant and biomass from the local biogas plant oxidize methane after the natural carbon source (C source) was been removed.
The synthesis of 17-hydroxy-oleic acid based oligomeric esters was investigated with immobilized Pseudozyma antarctica Lipase B and hexanediol as co-substrate. The effects of different reaction parameters on velocity and product composition at equilibrium conditions were analyzed. The synthesis of oleic acid esters was used as a reference system for initial evaluation of reaction parameters. The reaction with oleic acid and hexanediol was fastest at an enzyme concentration of 5% at 60 °C and high conversions of > 90 % were achieved in non-polar solvents in the presence of molecular sieves. In heptane an oleic acid conversion of 96 % was reached with a final diester to monoester ratio of > 4:1. In syntheses trials with 17-hydroxy-oleic acid the formation of oligomers was verified with GPC, however; conversion was generally lower than with oleic acid. Removal of hydroxyl fatty acid monomers and dimers and the formation ester functionalities could be verified by GC analysis. An increase of the degree of oligomerization was observed simultaneously by GPC analysis. The number-average molecular weight was around 1400 in the best trials corresponding to a degree of oligomerization of around 4 units of hydroxyl-fatty acid attached to a hexanediol core. Though transformations were not complete, the final oligomer size was in the lower range of polyester diols used for polyurethane manufacturing.
Due to the worldwide shortage of petrochemical based resources, the usage of renewable bio-based raw materials for established and novel products becomes increasingly important.[1] Such bio-based resources are already used for the fabrication of a variety of products, e. g. paper, lubricants, detergents or cosmetics. In the future they are expected to emerge in many more applications in industry and household.[1]
A very promising approach relies on the use of glycolipids as a source of hydroxy-oleic acid.[2] Microbial glycolipids are produced for instance via fermentation from natural resources such as plant oils and sugar.[3] After fermentation complex product mixtures are obtained with the composition depending on the microorganism, substrate and fermentation time.[3] The successful use of microbial glycolipids and hydroxy-oleic acid (HOA) derived therefrom as bio-based intermediates requires reliable analytical methods as well as robust manufacturing processes for the synthesis and cleavage of bio-based molecules. In order to obtain hydroxy-oleic acids as bio-based intermediates, the acidic cleavage of microbial derived sophorolipid was investigated. In addition the implementation of HOA in polyurethane (PU) systems was explored.
The introduction of Feed-in tariffs in the German Renewable Energy Act (EEG) fuelled the growth of anaerobic digestion (AD) industry making Germany the country with highest number of operational AD plants. However, the rapid expansion of AD industry resulted in some unwanted side-effects such as food vs fuel debate, increased prices for electricity and the temporal mismatch between supply and demand of electricity grid. Subsequent amendments in EEG has tried to address some of these issues by reduction in Feed-in tariffs, introduction of a cap on cereal based feedstocks and providing premium for energy production in accordance with market demand. Furthermore, the Feed-in tariffs which were introduced for 20 years are soon going to expire. The changes in legal and political discourse is soon going to introduce some new challanges to the AD industry. This paper has discussed some of these challanges and their potential solutions.
The electricity network is undergoing a change due to reducing costs for renewable energy sources. Subsidy programs for renewable energy sources are changing and the funding available is being reduced. This will have an impact on anaerobic digestion which in some cases may struggle financially. Overfeeding is one of the most common mechanisms of inhibition in the process, and by shifting to intermittent feeding for on-demand production, this change will provide more information about the digestion process and could be used to detect the beginning of inhibition due to overfeeding. This paper discusses the shift towards intermittent production and how this change can be used to monitor the anaerobic digestion process.
Comparative analysis of non-natural acceptor glucosylation with sucrase enzymes of family GH 70
(2019)
Mutan- and alternansucrase were analyzed for their non-natural glucosylation potential with catecholic compounds caffeic acid and nordihydroguaiaretic acid (NDGA) as well as with non-catecolic p-coumaric acid and umbellic acid. Mutansucrase accepted both catecholic substrates and high glucosylation yields of 92 % with caffeic acid and 81 % with NDGA were obtained. The enzyme showed a clear regio-preference for the catechol 4-OH, which corresponds to findings from our previous work with Leuconostoc and Weissella derived glucansucrases. The substrate spectrum of the alternansucrase was broader and all substrates were successfully glucosylated with a preference for the catechols. Interestingly alternansucrase possessed a different regio-specificity. With caffeic acid the 3-O-α-D-glucoside was the major product. A similar substrate spectrum and regioselectivity pattern was observed in previous glucansucrase screenings only with glucansucrase from strain Weissella beninensis DSM 22752. Therefore it may be concluded that the W. beninensis enzyme is an alternansucrase type enzyme as well.
In the degradation of ammonia (NH4+) to gaseous nitrogen (N2), the nitrification is one of the two reaction steps. The nitrification itself is divided in two steps and is performed by two different types of bacteria. Current literature has shown that there are types of bacteria, which have the genetic equipment to perform both steps in one bacteria. Nevertheless, in wastewater and landfill leachate treatment, ammonia-oxidizing organisms (AOO) and nitrite-oxidizing organisms (NOO) occur as a symbiosis. The intermediate of the two consecutive reaction steps (NO2-, nitrite) is toxic. For this reason, both steps are necessary for the two bacterial groups. To determine the ratio of AOO, NOO and heterotrophic bacteria (which use organic compounds as carbon and energy source) the oxygen uptake rate (OUR) with selective inhibition with N-allylthiourea (ATU) and azide is used. In the inflow of a pilot plant in one street a step by step increased amount of a process water out of a fermentation plant was added to the landfill leachate. For comparison, the other street was supplied only with landfill leachate with the same amount of nitrogen. As a result, comparable values for the different bacterial groups and reproducible results were measured and lead to a better understanding of the analysed nitrification sludge. Deeper understanding of the behavior of the different groups will result in a reduce risk of malfunctions and a more stable operation in the wastewater or landfill leachate treatment plant.
The whole site of the waste disposal centre Leppe in Lindlar has been modified by the project :metabolon into an authentic learning site for knowledge transfer. Addressing all age groups, the project offers insights into environmental knowledge and explains contexts of resources and material flows. The site conditions allow practical outlooks on future energy systems. Following the meta theme of “lifetime learning”, pupils and students are addressed by different modules, considering their individual learning levels.
Aerobic microbial cultivations are industrially important group of processes and pose challenges for the reactor design. In particular, estimation of industrial scale conditions is difficult from laboratory and pilot scale data. Due to complex interaction of gas/liquid phase hydrodynamics, mass transfer parameters and microbial metabolism, both improvement of modelling tools and reactor design are desired. We present an approach to estimate growth conditions in industrial scale reactor by combining black-box metabolic models with CFD-model.
The reactor type used here is Outotec OKTOP9000®, which is used in the industrial hydrometallurgical processes at 900 m3 scale. It is adopted to a laboratory setting and compared to stirred tank reactor (STR) in gas dispersion, mass transfer and yeast cultivation experiments. In addition, a kinetic model for the yeast growth is developed based on literature sources and validated by the laboratory scale batch cultivations. This kinetic model is used along with CFD-model that is developed to describe the flow and mass transfer conditions in the industrial scale reactor.
The laboratory scale experiments show the feasibility of OKTOP9000® reactor when compared to STR, particularly with improved gas handling capacity. The modelling approach shows qualitatively similar behavior in the large scale simulations when compared to laboratory scale cultivations.
Before transporting the landfill leachate to municipal wastewater treatment plant it has to be treated in a landfill leachate treatment plant, as it comprises high concentrations of ammonium. The elimination of ammonium load in the leachate is usually done by the combined processes of nitrification and denitrification with a specially adapted biocenosis in the activated sludge (AS). For each of the steps, specialized bacteria such as Nitrosomonas, Nitrobacter and Paracoccus are used to transfer the ammonia to gaseous nitrogen. The aim of this investigation was to find suitable process parameters for a complementary treatment of fermentation water from a biogas plant together with landfill leachate. The processed water of the biogas plant consists of a higher concentration of ammonium and carbon sources or easily degradable volatile fatty acids. It can save the usage of external carbon source (acetic acid) and additionally it could also compensate the missing volumes of leachate in times of low rain and low leachate flows. To maintain the high workload for the existing leachate treatment pilot plant (LTPP), a combined treatment of landfill leachate and process water is also of economic and of ecological interest. The long-term adaption process of the biocenosis needs to be done step-by-step. Innovative process monitoring is needed to prevent biocenosis collapse. In our study, we present our set-up, a closer look at the ongoing experiment and the long-term changes in the biocenosis.
Pseudozyma antarctica Lipase B catalyzed esterification and transesterification in deep eutectic solvents (DES) was investigated in reaction systems with alcohols of different polarity. Coconut oil and crude biodiesel were deacidified successfully with non-immobilized CALBL and final acid values of 1.2 for biodiesel and 0.5 for coconut oil were obtained, while no esterification with ethanol was observed without DES. Water depletion of the lipid phase in the presence of water adsorbing DES causes this difference. Analysis of water contents revealed a 10 fold lower water content of the lipid phase in the presence of a second DES phase than in trials without utilization of DES. In contrast reactions of hydrophilic polyols are suppressed in the presence of DES. While the esterification of fructose and the transesterification with glycerol worked well in the polar solvent 2-methyl-2-butanol, almost no fructose esterification and a decreased transesterification with glycerol were observed in the presence of DES. Analysis of logP values of the substrates explains the substrate dependent differences in reactivity. The polar alcohols are probably bound strongly in the hydrogen-bonding network of the DES phase and are thus not available for lipase catalyzed reactions.
Modern industrial biomass combustion plants are regulated by the power and/or combustion control. In this process, the implemented sensors collect the relevant measured data. The aim is to achieve ideal combustion with optimum efficiency and to minimize gas emissions. For this purpose, a group within the research project Metabolon developed new regulatory procedures in order to record the combustion process of a biomass combustion plant using a webcam. The recordings were evaluated automatically and were used for a better monitoring of the process. In addition, the webcam-based method aims, among other things, to provide private homes with a cost-effective variant as an alternative to industrial system solutions.
In the last few decades raw material molasses, used in large scale fermentations in the production of bioethanol, citric acid, (baker´s) yeast and yeast extracts, has become more and more expensive. That is why agro-industrial wastes have become an interesting alternative. They are being produced in large volumes every day and represent a serious environmental problem considering its high organic content. The present contribution aims to demonstrate how waste products of wine production can be employed as substrate in bioethanol production. Cultivation of yeast and bioethanol production on molasses and grape pomace extract was studied in flasks in laboratory scale. This work should be regarded as an example of integrated sustainability which demonstrates how the waste from one industrial process is used as feedstock for another.
Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) und Mixed Reality (MR) stoßen als innovative Technologien inzwischen auf breites öffentliches Interesse. Unter dem neuen Oberbegriff Cross Reality (XR) erreichen Anwendungen von VR, AR als auch MR dabei zusehends eine größere Zielgruppe – sowohl im B2B als auch im B2C-Segment. XR-Technologie ist nicht mehr nur Spezialisten vorbehalten, sondern hält Einzug in Industrie, Kreation und Entertainment: mit 360-Grad-Videos und VR-Games, beim Produktdesign, als Hilfe bei Orientierung im Raum, für Trainingssimulationen und virtuelle Konferenzen. Die Struktur und Entwicklung dieser noch jungen, sich dynamisch entwickelnden Branche untersucht diese Studie. Die XR-Branche in NRW besteht aus 134 Akteuren. Die meisten Unternehmen haben Ihren Sitz in Köln und die wichtigsten Zielbranchen sind Medien/Information/Kommunikation und das Verarbeitende Gewerbe. In der Branche herrscht eine positive Stimmung und eine schnelle Internetverbindung sowie die Verfügbarkeit von technischen Mitarbeitern sind die wichtigsten Standortfaktoren.
Die Funktionsfähigkeit der öffentlichen Verwaltung ist auch und gerade bei einem Ausfall oder einer Beeinträchtigung Kritischer Infrastrukturen notwendig für die Aufrechterhaltung der Gesellschaft und des Staates. Ausgehend von dieser These wird zwischen Dezember 2018 und Februar 2019 eine Umfrage in den Landkreisen, Städten und Gemeinden des Regierungsbezirks Stuttgart durchgeführt. In ihr wird der Vorbereitungsgrad der öffentlichen Verwaltung hinsichtlich einer Versorgungsmangellage erfasst. Dabei wird ausschließlich die Versorgung des Personals innerhalb der Verwaltungseinrichtung betrachtet. Es wird untersucht, ob Vorsorgemaßnahmen für die Bereiche Trinkwasser, Nahrungsmittel, beheizte und beleuchte Räumlichkeiten, Sanitäranlagen, Ruhe- und Schlafmöglichkeit sowie Bargeld für die Gehälter der Mitarbeitenden getroffen sind. Als Vorsorgemaßnahmen werden generelle Planungen, Vorräte und Rahmenverträge mit Privatunternehmen betrachtet. Die Antworten werden von den Umfrageteilnehmenden hinsichtlich ihrer zeitlichen Auslegung eingeordnet. Zusätzlich werden die Teilnehmenden zu Planungsgrundlagen, Verbesserungspotenzial und einer Einschätzung der eigenen Vorbereitungen befragt. Diese Bachelorarbeit wertet die Umfrageergebnisse aus. Die Antworten zeigen, dass rund die Hälfte der Befragten eine Notstromversorgung besitzt und rund jede fünfte Einrichtung Planungen für die Trinkwasserversorgung der Mitarbeitenden vorhält. Darüber hinaus sind Vorbereitungen zur Versorgung des Personals nur vereinzelt vorhanden. Spezifische Vorräte für einen Ausfall der Versorgungsleistungen sind nur bei wenigen Befragten in geringem Maße vorhanden. Dennoch zeigt sich durch Alltagsvorhaltungen eine Latenzzeit bis zum Funktionsausfall. Rahmenverträge zur redundanten Sicherstellung der Versorgung sind nur selten abgeschlossen. Die Befragten geben an, dass sie für die Bearbeitung der Thematik Bedarf an weiteren Hilfestellungen haben. Die bekannten Schutzniveaus 72 Stunden (Notstromversorgung) und 14 Tage (Notvorräte der Bevölkerung) sind nicht oder nur sehr bedingt auf den Sektor Staat und Verwaltung zu übertragen. In der Auswertung der Ergebnisse werden drei Möglichkeiten identifiziert, um den Vorbereitungsgrad zu optimieren: Die Erhöhung der Vorhaltungen, das Optimieren der Planungen und das Abschließen von Rahmenverträgen. Darüber hinaus sind langfristig und einrichtungsunabhängig die derzeitigen Zuständigkeiten zu prüfen, einheitliche Schutzniveaus zu etablieren sowie eine gesellschaftliche und politische Kommunikationskultur hinsichtlich der Risiken eines Ausfalls oder einer Beeinträchtigung Kritischer Infrastrukturen aufzubauen.
Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich im übergeordneten Kontext mit den Bounding Volume Hierarchies zur Veinfachung des Intersection Testings beim Raytracing. Die derzeitige Problematik besteht vor allem in der immer noch zu optimierenden Laufzeit. Dementsprechend wird trotz der bereits bestehenden Beschleunigungsdatenstrukturen wie unter anderem der Bounding Volume Hierarchy versucht, effizientere Strukturen oder Erstellungsprozeduren zu entwickeln. Für die Bounding Volume Hierarchy bedeutet dies, dass vor allem hinsichtlich verschiedener Splitting-Methoden und Möglichkeiten für die Baumoptimierung geforscht wird. Explizit wird daher innerhalb dieser Arbeit untersucht, wie die Bounding Volume Hierarchy durch die Verwendung der Hauptkomponentenanalyse bei der Erstellung optimiert werden kann und wie effizient der daraus resultierende Ansatz gegenüber der klassischen Bounding Volume Hierarchy sowie deren Splitting-Methoden ist. Eine Evaluation anhand 12 verschiedener Szenen zeigte, dass der vorliegende Ansatz unter Verwendung der SAH-Methode wie auch mit der Middle-Methode 17.70% respektive 13.14% geringere Renderlaufzeiten als der distanzbasierte Ansatz aufweist. Des Weiteren konnte mittels der kombinierten Verwendung aus klassischer SAH-Methode und PCA-basierter SAH-Methode eine weitere Verbesserung um 6.65% gegenüber der SAH-Methode der PCA-BVH erreicht werden.
Aufgrund ihrer aktuellen Bedeutung im Zusammenhang des Internet of Things werden in der vorliegenden Arbeit Time Series Databases und Event Stores miteinander vergli-chen. Ziel ist, die Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede der beiden Arten von Datenbank Management Systemen herauszustellen.
Der erste, theoretische Teil des Vergleichs erfolgt anhand der funktionalen Kriterien Speichersystem, Performance und Funktionen sowie der nicht-funktionalen Kriterien Usability und Support. Im zweiten Teil des Vergleichs wird anhand eines konkreten An-wendungsfalls untersucht, ob sich Time Series Databases und Event Stores gleicher-maßen für die Speicherung und in einem zweiten Schritt für die Abfrage von Zeitreihen-daten eignen.
Zumal der theoretische Vergleich Unterschiede zwischen einzelnen Time Series Data-bases und Event Stores in Bezug auf die betrachteten Kriterien erkennen lässt, wird für den praktischen Vergleich unter Berücksichtigung der im konkreten Anwendungsfall gegebenen Anforderungen nur die am besten geeignetste Time Series Database (In-fluxDB) und der am besten geeignetste Event Store (Event Store) ausgewählt. Der prak-tische Vergleich zeigt, dass die Zeitreihendaten im konkreten Anwendungsfall zwar in beiden Arten von Datenbank Management Systemen gespeichert werden können, die Nutzung der auf Zeitreihendaten spezialisierten Time Series Database InfluxDB jedoch offensichtliche Vorteile gegenüber dem Event Store aufweist.
The southeast of Córdoba province used to be originally covered by hundreds of wetlands that got heavily modified or drained in the last few decades. Since wetlands provide various important ecosystem services (ESS) for human well-being, their degradation created several problems in La Picasa basin, among which floods are the most obvious one. The wise use of wetlands is increasingly acknowledged to be part of nature-based solution approaches reducing disaster risk. However, in the study area these approaches remain a relatively new concept to decision makers and the lack of knowledge on their effectiveness and implementation process poses a serious barrier to their adoption.
To overcome this obstacle, this dissertation applies an ESS perspective on the current problems of La Picasa basin and sets it in a context of socio-ecological system (SES) theory. A comprehensive analysis of (1) the role wetlands have played in the historic development of the SES, (2) important stakeholder dynamics that create opportunities or restrictions for the conservation of wetlands and (3) possible management approaches to inverse negative ESS trade-offs and feedback loops, was performed.
Results demonstrate that the current problems of floods have both natural and anthropogenic causes. In this regard, wetlands hold a vital role in the complex historic interactions between the social and ecological drivers of changes in the water balance. Although a social network between stakeholders exists, several conflicts prevent a proper functioning of a basin-wide integrated management concept based on wetland restoration. Nature-based solution approaches, putting wetlands in the center of attention of future management strategies, were found to hold a high potential to reduce the risk of floods and, as a side-effect boost biodiversity and habitat quality in the study area.
In the Mesoamerican forest Selva Maya, multiple driving forces create an imbalance in the sensitive human-nature relation and demand for innovative management strategies for its re-establishment. Within the Guatemalan Maya Biosphere Reserve (MBR), core areas are under strict protective legislation and agricultural activity is permitted only within a bordering buffer zone (BZ), which covers great part of the Guatemalan department Petén. Here, the implementation of agroecological practices by multiple stakeholders aims at tackling the principle driving forces of environmental degradation and thus at reducing the pressure on Central America’s largest tropical forest area. Since 2011, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) has assisted local stakeholders by carrying out the project “Conservation and sustainable use of the Selva Maya”. This project has offered technical support, cooperated with national institutions, and assisted multiple target groups to nudge agroecological transitions at the household and community level. As the establishment of agroecological systems face main obstacles stemming from the socio-ecological setting of the respective area, the following work presents a context specific analysis for the adaption of established strategies in the MBR BZ. Therefore, it raises the following research questions: What are the current properties of the socio-ecological system that describes the BZ? How has the GIZ’s project nudged and guided agroecological transitions? Which factors have favored or limited the turn to agroecological farming? And finally: Which recommendations derive for the navigation of agroecological transitions? The overall research approach is orientated on the framework of ecosystem stewardship1 and incorporates elements of system theory and resilience science. The framework has been adapted by combining two approaches on different management levels. The social-ecological system approach2 is used to describe the socio-ecological system of the BZ, while the evaluation of the pilot groups‘ AESs follows the Mexican MESMIS3 approach for sustainability assessments. By the integration of both approaches, it is revealed that the socio-economic context impedes or hinders the implementation of agroecological strategies for the majority of farmers. The application of the MESMIS framework has revealed that the installed monitoring mechanism is dysfunctional. Findings further indicate that there is potential for transitions of individual AESs, but they demand investments and support with the current circumstances of reducing farmers’ vulnerability. The rapidly decreasing social and environmental conditions for family farmers in the BZ are most likely not addressed by solutions that the agroecological approach tackles. Recommendations for the immediate improvement of the strategy include adjustments of the project’s proceedings as well as fundamental changes in conservation paradigm and governance to maintain the necessary functionality of the socio-ecological system.
The ‘Energy Crisis’ has become the talk of the town in pretty much every developing and lower developing countries in today’s world. It is characterized by a state where the country’s locally available energy resources are being depleted and it is dependent on imported fuel. The problem is considered as although not parallel, but a descendant of the food crisis in terms of the seriousness of the problems in developing nations essentially in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Ethiopia is one such country which nevertheless going through a rapid scale of development (nearly 11 % annual growth rate as of 2017 according to the World Bank) and also is endowed with an enormous amount of natural resources such as hydro, wind, solar, geothermal energy potential. The Ethiopian power sector is heavily dependent on the country’s hydropower resources. However, it needs to diversify its energy sector and integrate new and other renewable energy sources because, in the longer term, its extreme hydropower dependence may put its power sector vulnerable to natural risks like droughts which are very likely scenarios due to the climate change. Since the lack of access to modern forms of energy services left no choice for the Ethiopians than to continue their traditional biomass use, and it results in unsustainable environmental harm with deforestation, soil erosion, and many others. To address this issue, Ethiopia is taking necessary steps towards climate-friendly industrialization of the economy.
In order to understand this transition, a socio-technical analysis of Ethiopian ambitious transformation from an agrarian society to a climate resilient green society has been presented in this paper. An analytical framework will be formulated as a prerequisite for the study by introducing the theory of Multilevel Perspective (MLP). This theory enables the understanding of three different levels of socio-technical environment namely niches, regime, and landscape in which the respective actors interact with each other to facilitate the process of transition. As a part of laying the groundwork, this thorough analysis constitutes all the country’s energy-related activities and associated energy demands, conversion technologies, current fuel mix, primary energy resources, and energy policies in the Ethiopian energy system. The LEAP analysis results from Mr. Md Alam Mondal and group are summarized to obtain an understanding of the country’s total energy demand scenarios.
Consequently, the actors from each socio-technical level have been identified in the context of Ethiopia and their dynamics of interaction have been explained in order to understand the process of energy system transition of Ethiopia in the direction of diversification of its energy system and hence result in the expansion of new renewable energy sector. Most importantly the assessment suggests that the transition process is majorly driven by top-down forces and intra-level reconfiguration of regime actors. There are no bottom-up forces acting as only a little research and development work takes place in the country to develop new radical changes/technological niches. A developing country like Ethiopia has undoubtedly a bright future ahead with all systems in place and the nature-gifted natural resource potential. The ambitious goals set by the country and the international help from developed allies are definitely working in tandem to ensure their accomplishment. With its guiding vision towards development and the global climate change movement, Ethiopia surely has the potential to lead by example.
La Picasa basin, an interjurisdictional endorreic basin of 5282 km2 located in the “Central Pampa” in Argentina, has suffered repeated flooding caused by an increasing water level of La Picasa lagoon, affecting livelihoods, infrastructure, transportation and agriculture. Although water infrastructure has been built to regulate water excesses, it has not been effective in reducing the flood risk.
To improve the knowledge of the hydrological system, the master’s thesis aimed to develop a water balance model of La Picasa lagoon at a monthly time step between the hydrological years 2007/2008 and 2016/2017. Specifically, the objectives were to identify and quantify the most important components and processes determining its water level, area and volume and to propose hypothetical simulation scenarios based on different pumping operation schemes.
The description of the conceptual model and implementation of a sensitivity analysis allowed to identify the inflow and outflow components of the water balance and quantify their relative contributions, namely precipitation, water discharge from channels, surface runoff from surrounding sub-basins of the lagoon, evaporation and pumping. The performance tests applied to the model during the calibration and validation showed a very good performance. Additionally, two simulation scenarios were proposed, namely potential pumping and adjusted pumping, which reflected different trajectories of the water balance.
The master’s thesis concluded that precipitation and evaporation were the most determinant inflow and outflow components in the water balance of La Picasa lagoon respectively. However, the flooding event in 2016/2017 was caused by a simultaneous reduction of net evaporation and an increase in water discharge, surface runoff and intermittent pumping. The simulation scenarios suggested that an optimal operation of the pumping stations could have been effective to increase the storage capacity of the lagoon. However, during longer humid periods, it might not be enough to outweigh additional inflows.
Die Nutzung von Online-Videos nimmt immer weiter zu und eröffnet neuen Akteuren den Eintritt in diesen, sich entwickelnden Markt. Mediencluster können diesen Trend nutzen, indem sie versuchen, einige dieser neuen Akteure anzuziehen. Gleichwohl ist die Standortentscheidung von Online-Video-Produzenten bisher kaum untersucht. Um mögliche Webvideo-Cluster zu identifizieren, die Struktur der Branche zu untersuchen und Faktoren für die Standortentscheidung aufzudecken, wurden 2.130 Webvideo-Unternehmen, die deutsch- oder englischsprachige Videos auf YouTube, Facebook, Instagram oder Twitch in Deutschland distribuieren, erfasst und befragt. Die meisten Webvideo-Unternehmen haben ihren Sitz in Berlin, Köln, Hamburg oder München. 60 Prozent der Unternehmen agieren als Einzelunternehmer/in (bzw. als Privatperson) und ein Großteil arbeitet kostendeckend bzw. mit einem Gewinnüberschuss. Die räumliche Nähe zur Kreativ- und Medienwirtschaft und die Verfügbarkeit medientechnischer Mitarbeiter am Standort sowie ein urbanes Umfeld und eine gute Infrastruktur sind die wichtigsten Standortfaktoren für die Webvideo-Unternehmen.
Das Ziel der vorliegenden Bachelorarbeit war es, Technologietrends von Enterprise-Resource-Planning (ERP) Systemen zu definieren und anhand eines modernen Produktes vorzustellen. Ein ERP-System unterstützt Unternehmen in der Organisation und Durchführung von sämtlichen Geschäftsprozessen. Zur Untersuchung der wünschenswerten Eigenschaften eines ERP-Systems wurden anhand von Literaturarbeit Anforderungen definiert. Dabei wurde deutlich, dass die Verarbeitung von sämtlichen Geschäftsdaten in Echtzeit einen hohen Stellenwert hat. Hierfür bietet das ERP-System S/4HANA mit verschieden Technologien eine Lösung auf dem Datenbanksystem an. So zeigt ein direkter Performancevergleich zwischen den Datenbanksystemen von S/4HANA und einem aktuellen Konkurrenzprodukt, dass das Verarbeiten von großen Datenmengen in kürzester Zeit möglich ist. Diese Arbeit ist an Fachkreise der Wirtschaftsinformatik und Personengruppen mit Interesse an ERP und Datenbanken Systemen gerichtet.
In dieser Arbeit wurde eine Machbarkeitsstudie zur Speicherung von Wasserstoff in Liquid organic hydrogen carriers (LOHCs) anhand eines gewählten Stoffsystems, Dibenzyltoluen, durchgeführt. Die Arbeit umfasst Bilanzierungen und Auslegungen für eine reversible Hydrierung und Dehydrierung in zwei getrennten Anlagen. Eine class 4-Kostenschätzung bildet die Grundlage für eine Wirtschaftlichkeitsberechnung. So konnten die Technologieziele hinsichtlich der Speicherfähigkeiten nicht realisiert werden. Dennoch zeigen die ermittelten Produktionskosten die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit dieses Ansatzes.
Kontakt: Fabian.Piehl@outlook.com
REST became the go to approach when it comes to large scale distributed systems on, or outside the World Wide Web. This paper aims to give a brief overview of what REST is and what its main draws and benefits are. Secondly, I will showcase the implementation of REST using HTTP and why this approach became as popular as it is today. Based on my research I concluded that REST’s advantages in scalability, coupling, performance and its seamless integration with HTTP enabled it to rightfully overtake classic RPC based approaches.
Risk-based authentication (RBA) is an adaptive security measure to strengthen password-based authentication. RBA monitors additional implicit features during password entry such as device or geolocation information, and requests additional authentication factors if a certain risk level is detected. RBA is recommended by the NIST digital identity guidelines, is used by several large online services, and offers protection against security risks such as password database leaks, credential stuffing, insecure passwords and large-scale guessing attacks. Despite its relevance, the procedures used by RBA-instrumented online services are currently not disclosed. Consequently, there is little scientific research about RBA, slowing down progress and deeper understanding, making it harder for end users to understand the security provided by the services they use and trust, and hindering the widespread adoption of RBA.
In this paper, with a series of studies on eight popular online services, we (i) analyze which features and combinations/classifiers are used and are useful in practical instances, (ii) develop a framework and a methodology to measure RBA in the wild, and (iii) survey and discuss the differences in the user interface for RBA. Following this, our work provides a first deeper understanding of practical RBA deployments and helps fostering further research in this direction.
Zivile unbemannte Luftfahrtsysteme in der Akutphase internationaler humanitärer Hilfseinsätze
(2019)
Diese Arbeit konstruiert Einsatzbereiche ziviler unbemannter Luftfahrtsysteme in humanitären Hilfseinsätzen unmittelbar nach einer Katastrophe. Die Auswertung der Schnittmenge der technischen Fähigkeitsanalyse mit der – unter Verwendung von Experteninterviews durchgeführten – operativen Bedarfsanalyse des humanitären Sektors stellt die Basis für die Konstruktion der neun Anwendungsbereiche dar. Abschließend werden diese vor einem technischen, rechtlichen sowie ethischen Hintergrund diskutiert und bewertet.
Thematisiert werden Graphendatenbanken und die Umsetzung eines bestimmten Typen davon. Für die Umsetzung wird eine Rationale Datenbank genommen und diese in eine Graphdatenbank überführt. Es wird auf die Unterschiedlichen Typen von Graphdatenbanken eingegangen, deren Verwendungszweck und wie diese Typen Unterschieden werden. Die Umsetzung erfolgt mit Neo4j auf dessen Funktionen und Sprache ich eingehen werde. Danach wird auf die Modellierungsart der Graphdatenbank eingegangen und wie diese realisiert wurde.
Die 11. Jahrestagung des Förderkreises Rückversicherung zum Thema Rückversicherung fand am 13. Juli 2018 in Niederkassel bei Köln statt. Etwa 85 eingeladene Repräsentanten aus dem Förderkreis unterstützenden (Rück-)Versicherungsunternehmen und Gäste nahmen daran teil.
Im Rahmen der Jahrestagung wurde zum vierten Mal der Researchers‘ Corner durchgeführt, in dessen Verlauf acht der in der Kölner Forschungsstelle Rückversicherung beschäftigten Wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeiter einen Vortrag zu dem jeweilig individuell bearbeiteten Forschungsprojekt hielten. Des Weiteren wurden von Prof. Materne Interviews mit den Herren Dr. Falk Niehörster (Climate Risk Innovations) und Dr. Magnus Kobel (YAS.life) geführt. Dr. Niehörster berichtete über seine Forschungen und Beratungstätigkeit hinsichtlich der maritimen Klimaveränderung und Dr. Kobel über das Geschäftsmodell seines InsurTecs YAS.life und seine allgemeinen Erfahrungen bei Gründung und Entwicklungen von Start-ups.
In drei Sessions – mit je 2-3 jeweils drei parallel laufenden Vorträgen mit Poster – wurden die wichtigsten Ergebnisse der wissenschaftlichen Untersuchungen der Kölner Forschungsstelle Rückversicherung präsentiert und diskutiert. Die Heterogenität in den vorgetragenen Themen der wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeiter spiegelt die Verzahnung der Forschungstheorie mit der Praxistätigkeit wider.
Das Suchen ist eine der, wenn nicht die am häufigsten durchgeführte Tätigkeit im Internet. Täglich werden Suchmaschinen mit Problemen aus aller Welt und aller Domänen befragt, in der Hoffnung, dass das Internet eine Lösung bereitstellt. Neben dem Web der Dokumente, welches überwiegend die großen Suchmaschinenhersteller wie Google und Microsoft durchsuchen, existiert auch das weniger bekannte Web der Daten. In diesem Teil des Internets werden Daten, keine Dokumente, in einem festen Format kodiert.
Dadurch soll die Möglichkeit geschaffen werden, dass nicht nur Menschen, sondern auch Maschinen, diese Daten verarbeiten können. Die Daten enthalten untereinander Verlinkungen, weswegen man auch von Linked Data spricht. Mit der vom W3C standardisierten Abfragesprache SPARQL ist es möglich, diese Daten nach selbst definierten Kriterien abzufragen.
Diese Arbeit befasst sich mit der Entwicklung einer SPARQL Abfrage zur Ermittlung von Sehenswürdigkeiten in Köln. Anhand dieses Anwendungsbeispiels soll beschrieben werden, inwieweit Linked Data in der Lage ist, mit Problemen und Fragestellungen des Alltags umzugehen. Es wird sich zeigen, dass es grundsätzlich möglich ist, derartige Anwendungsszenarien mit Linked Data zu lösen. Ein umfassendes Suchergebnis, welches beispielsweise Reiseführer geben, konnte jedoch nicht erzielt werden. Grund dafür sind hauptsächlich, wie in dieser Arbeit dargelegt wird, inkonsistente Daten. Um diese Beobachtung aufstellen zu können, wurden präzisere Suchkriterien für Sehenswürdigkeiten spezifiziert.Weitere Auffälligkeiten, die während der Entwicklung bemerkt wurden, wurden entsprechend dokumentiert.
This project is focused on the generation of hardware independent code for PLCs and the comparison for energy consumption patterns of hydraulic and electric drive unit. This works is dedicated to MLC (mould level control) in a continuous casting machine, which is used to cast steel slabs continuously. The code generation is done with the help of the PLC coder which is present in the software Simulink. The programming is done entirely in MATLAB. The application of the generated code is tested on the Siemens S7-1500 PLC. For executing the code and the development of the HMI (human machine
interface) Siemens software TIA Portal V15 has been used. Moreover, for further analysis of signals and testing the code, a PDA or process data acquisition system, IBA system is used. For energy analysis also the IBA system is used.
This paper summarizes the findings on marketing automation and suitable tools, especially for companies in the Start-Up and early development phases.
It is based on Nadine Männel's bachelor thesis, which was supervised by Prof. Dr. Monika Engelen from October to December 2018. In addition to researching the basic theory of Start-Ups and Marketing Automation, 12 tools were analysed for their usability in Start-Ups.
The core content of this paper is both to create an understanding of marketing automa-tion and to derive concrete recommendations for applicable tools for marketing automation.
Die TH Köln hat sich in ihrer Transferstrategie 2025 zur Förderung von Existenzgründungen und Entrepreneurship Education positioniert. Für diese Positionierung ist es bedeutsam, den Status Quo der derzeitigen Start-up-Kultur an der TH Köln zu ermitteln. Die vorliegende Studie geht insbesondere den folgenden Fragen nach: Wie viele Studierende sind bereits selbstständig? Wie viele haben Interesse an dem Thema Existenzgründung? Welche Angebote, die die TH Köln bereits zur Verfügung stellt, sind bekannt und welche zusätzlichen Angebote werden gewünscht? Fühlen sich die Studierenden ausreichend informiert und welche Anregungen haben sie zur Etablierung und Förderung der Start-up-Kultur an der TH Köln?
Entrepreneurship im Kontext der Hochschulausbildung gewinnt immer mehr an Bedeutung und muss nachdrücklich im Hochschulalltag adressiert werden, um eine zukunftsfähige, unternehmerische Hochschule Gestalt annehmen zu lassen. Die Einbindung aller Stakeholder in einen Prozess der Bildung von gemeinsamen, transparenten Netzwerken, Fokussierung von Interdisziplinarität und Vermittlung von unternehmerischer Handlungskompetenz sind Eckpfeiler, um die Vision einer unternehmerisch denkenden und handelnden Hochschule Wirklichkeit werden zu lassen. Aufbauend auf der empirischen Erhebung zu Entrepreneurship & Start-up-Kultur an der TH Köln, erfolgte im Wintersemester 2017/18 eine weiterführende Erhebung hinsichtlich der bereits selbstständig tätigen Studierenden der TH Köln. Ziel der Umfrage ist die Untersuchung der Gründungsarten der Studierenden sowie die Erhebung von Informationen zu Finanzierungsarten, Hürden, Gründungsklima und gezielte Unterstützungsmöglichkeiten durch die TH Köln, um die Start-up-Kultur an der TH Köln weiter zu stärken.