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Electroplating generates high volumes of rinse water that is contaminated with heavy metals. This study presents an approach for direct metal recovery and recycling from simulated rinse water, made up of an electroplating electrolyte used in industry, using reverse osmosis (RO). To simulate the real industrial application, the process was examined at various permeate fluxes, ranging from 3.75 to 30 L·m−2·h−1 and hydraulic pressures up to 80 bar. Although permeance decreased significantly with increasing water recovery, rejections of up to 93.8% for boric acid, >99.9% for chromium and 99.6% for sulfate were observed. The final RO retentate contained 8.40 g/L chromium and was directly used in Hull cell electroplating tests. It was possible to deposit cold-hued chromium layers under a wide range of relevant current densities, demonstrating the reusability of the concentrate of the rinsing water obtained by RO.
Resilience in the urban context can be described as a continuum of absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities. The need to move toward a sustainable future and bounce forward after any disruption has led recent urban resilience initiatives to engage with the concept of transformative resilience when and where conventional and top-down resilience initiatives are less likely to deliver effective strategies, plans, and implementable actions. Transformative resilience pathways emphasize the importance of reflexive governance, inclusive co-creation of knowledge, innovative and collaborative learning, and self-organizing processes. To support these transformative pathways, considering techno-social co-evolution and digital transformation, using new data sources such as Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) and crowdsourcing are being promoted. However, a literature review on VGI and transformative resilience reveals that a comprehensive understanding of the complexities and capacities of utilizing VGI for transformative resilience is lacking. Therefore, based on a qualitative content analysis of available resources, this paper explores the key aspects of using VGI for transformative resilience and proposes a comprehensive framework structured around the identified legal, institutional, social, economic, and technical aspects to formalize the process of adopting VGI in transformative resilience initiatives.
Surrogate-based optimization, nature-inspired metaheuristics, and hybrid combinations have become state of the art in algorithm design for solving real-world optimization problems. Still, it is difficult for practitioners to get an overview that explains their advantages in comparison to a large number of available methods in the scope of optimization. Available taxonomies lack the embedding of current approaches in the larger context of this broad field. This article presents a taxonomy of the field, which explores and matches algorithm strategies by extracting similarities and differences in their search strategies. A particular focus lies on algorithms using surrogates, nature-inspired designs, and those created by automatic algorithm generation. The extracted features of algorithms, their main concepts, and search operators, allow us to create a set of classification indicators to distinguish between a small number of classes. The features allow a deeper understanding of components of the search strategies and further indicate the close connections between the different algorithm designs. We present intuitive analogies to explain the basic principles of the search algorithms, particularly useful for novices in this research field. Furthermore, this taxonomy allows recommendations for the applicability of the corresponding algorithms.
Folgende Aspekte lassen sich im Rahmen dieser Forschung festhalten:
• Im ORSA Bericht 2022 dient eine Anlehnung an die Klimawandelszenarien des „Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS)“ (ein Zusammenschluss der Aufsichtsbehörden und Zentralbanken) als erste Orientierung.
• In Anlehnung an das NGFS sind zwei langfristige (mind. 30 Jahre) Temperaturanstiegsszenarien (< 2°C und ≥ 2°C) zur weiteren Analyse auszuwählen.
• Hierfür bietet sich ein Szenario mit hohem Transitionsrisiko (z.B. „Delayed Transition“) und ein Szenario mit hohem physischen Risiko (z.B. „Current Policies“) an.
• Im ORSA 2022 dienen einfach gehaltene, quantitative Analysen als Basis, um daraus qualitative Aussagen abzuleiten, z.B.:
o Neubewertung per heute (Sensitivitätsanalyse)
o Stresstest mit instantanen Schocks („Zeitreise“)
o Projektion (statisch oder mit Managementregeln)
• Schließlich sind bei der Ableitung von Ergebnissen die Besonderheiten der verschiedenen Bereiche/Sparten zu berücksichtigen:
o die Kapitalanlagen könnten beispielsweise langfristig durch Transitionsrisiken geprägt sein (z.B. steigende Energiepreise)
o die Schaden/Unfallversicherung ist geprägt durch das reformierte Baurecht (klimabewusstes Bauen)
o die Personenversicherung ist geprägt durch lange Vertragslaufzeiten.
Changing our unsustainable linear water management pattern is necessary to face growing global water challenges. This article proposes an integrated framework to analyse and understand the role of different contextual conditions in the possible transition towards water circularity. Our framework combines a systematic multi-level perspective to explore the water system and the institutional work theory for technology legitimation. The framework consists of the following stages: (1) describing and understanding the water context, (2) assessment of the selected technologies’ circularity level, (3) assessment of the alternative circular technologies’ legitimacy, and (4) identification of the legitimation actions to support the upscale of alternative circular technologies. The practical applicability of the integrated assessment framework and its four assessment stages was demonstrated in the exploration of circular water technologies for the horticulture sector in Westland, the Netherlands. The results revealed the conditions that hinder or enable the legitimation of the circular water technologies, such as political environmentalism, trust in water governing authorities, and technical, financial, and knowledge capabilities.
Das Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit besteht darin, die Frage zu beantworten wie Yosys Verilog einliest und daraus RTLIL generiert. Mit der Beantwortung dieser Frage, soll die Datenstruktur RTLIL und die Verknüpfung zu einem Verilog Design besser verstanden werden. Dafür wurde das Frontend von Yosys untersucht und die Datenstruktur RTLIL näher eleuchtet. Als Ergebnis konnte festgehalten werden, dass die AstNode Datenstruktur eine wesentliche Rolle bei der Konvertierung von Verilog zu RTLIL spielt, und mit deren Hilfe beim Einlesen ein abstrakter Syntaxbaum gebildet wird. Allein der Typ des Knotens beeinflusst, wie der RTLIL Generator damit umgeht. Weiter ist die Generierung von RTLIL::Cell Objekten als erster Schritt zur Synthese zu verstehen, da sie durch Technologie Mapping reale Komponenten abbilden können
Sinkende Mitgliederzahlen, ein wachsendes Aufgabenspektrum und gefährlichere Einsatzlagen bedingen auch in den Feuerwehren eine Digitalisierung, um die aktiven Feuerwehrangehörigen im Einsatz zu entlasten und zu schützen.
In der vorliegenden Bachelorarbeit werden aktuelle und zukünftige Technologien auf ihre Potenziale und Gefahren als Einsatzmittel für die Feuerwehr analysiert. Neben einer Betrachtung dieser Technologien als Ursache eines Feuerwehreinsatzes werden Unterstützungsmöglichkeiten für die Feuerwehrangehörigen aufgezeigt, die aus der Nutzung fremder Technologien oder einer Eigenbeschaffung resultieren. In der Arbeit werden ausschließlich Technologien fokussiert, die als Entwicklung aus dem Internet der Dinge hervorgehen. Ziel der Arbeit ist es, die Technologien auf ihren Unterstützungscharakter zu analysieren, damit die Einsatzkräfte zielgerichtet entlastet und besser geschützt werden.
Climate change includes the change of the long-term average values and the change of the tails of probability density functions, where the extreme events are located. However, obtaining average values are more straightforward than the high temporal resolution information necessary to catch the extreme events on those tails. Such information is difficult to get in areas lacking sufficient rain stations. Thanks to the development of Satellite Precipitation Estimates with a daily resolution, this problem has been overcome, so Extreme Precipitation Indices (EPI) can be calculated for the entire Colombian territory. However, Colombia is strongly affected by the ENSO (El Niño—Southern Oscillation) phenomenon. Therefore, it is pertinent to ask if the EPI’s long-term change due to climate change is more critical than the anomalies due to climate variability induced by the warm and cold phases of ENSO (El Niño and La Niña, respectively). In this work, we built EPI annual time series at each grid-point of the selected Satellite Precipitation Estimate (CHIRPSv2) over Colombia to answer the previous question. Then, the Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test was used to compare the samples drawn in each case (i.e., change tests due to both long-term and climatic variability). After performing the analyses, we realized that the importance of the change depends on the region analyzed and the considered EPI. However, some general conclusions became evident: during El Niño years (La Niña), EPI’s anomaly follows the general trend of reduction -drier conditions- (increase; -wetter conditions-) observed in Colombian annual precipitation amount, but only on the Pacific, the Caribbean, and the Andean region. In the Eastern plains of Colombia (Orinoquía and Amazonian region), EPI show a certain insensitivity to change due to climatic variability. On the other hand, EPI’s long-term changes in the Pacific, the Caribbean, and the Andean region are spatially scattered. Still, long-term changes in the eastern plains have a moderate spatial consistency with statistical significance.
The challenges facing the reinsurance industry remain considerable. For the reinsurance sector, 2021 was marked by claims for natural disasters (Hurricane Ida, flooding in Europe, etc.) and the coronavirus pandemic.
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 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.
There are ten researchers and four professors currently 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. This funding helped facilitate the doctorate of Mr Frank Cremer, among other things.
At the 14th Annual Meeting of the Sponsoring Group Reinsurance held in 2021, a decision was taken to provide financial support to the non-profit organisation ‘Hilfe für Guinea e.V.’ The donation will benefit the La Lumière Scolaire project. This project finances the construction and operation of schools for the children of disabled and homeless people in Guinea.
The Cologne Research Centre for Reinsurance is accredited as an official research focus of the Cologne University of Applied Sciences.
Bei der Interaktion mit technischen und sozialen Systemen treten für Menschen mit und ohne Beeinträchtigungen Barrieren auf. Die vorliegende Arbeit befasst sich mit der Identifikation dieser Barrieren. Dabei wird der wissenschaftliche Diskurs über die Ursachen von Barrieren als ein mehrdimensionales Handlungsfeld betrachtet. Der Bezug zur Mensch-Computer-Interaktion wird hergestellt und Philosophien zur Umsetzung von Barrierefreiheit im Gestaltungsprozess werden erläutert. Es wird ein grundlegender Vergleich von Barrierefreiheit und Usability gezogen. Der objekt- und subjektbasierte Ansatz zur Identifizierung von Barrieren wird ebenfalls vorgestellt.
Die gewonnenen Erkenntnisse werden im Kontext des ehrenamtlichen Musikvereins Junges Musical Leverkusen e. V. praktisch umgesetzt. Für den Kooperationspartner wird der Service rund um ein Ticketverkaufssystem auf mögliche Barrieren untersucht. Dazu wird die Domäne analytisch dargestellt und anschließend empirisch untersucht. Es werden Interviews mit fünf Personen mit unterschiedlichen Beeinträchtigungen geführt. Aus den daraus resultierenden identifizierten Barrieren werden Gestaltungsempfehlungen abgeleitet und deren Nutzen für den:die Benutzer:in und Umsetzbarkeit für den Kooperationspartner diskutiert.
Folgende Aspekte lassen sich im Rahmen dieser Forschung festhalten:
• Im ORSA Bericht 2022 dient eine Anlehnung an die Klimawandelszenarien des „Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS)“ (ein Zusammenschluss der Aufsichtsbehörden und Zentralbanken) als erste Orientierung.
• In Anlehnung an das NGFS sind zwei langfristige (mind. 30 Jahre) Temperaturanstiegsszenarien (< 2°C und ≥ 2°C) zur weiteren Analyse auszuwählen.
• Hierfür bietet sich ein Szenario mit hohem Transitionsrisiko (z.B. „Delayed Transition“) und ein Szenario mit hohem physischen Risiko (z.B. „Current Policies“) an.
• Im ORSA 2022 dienen einfach gehaltene, quantitative Analysen als Basis, um daraus qualitative Aussagen abzuleiten, z.B.:
o Neubewertung per heute (Sensitivitätsanalyse)
o Stresstest mit instantanen Schocks („Zeitreise“)
o Projektion (statisch oder mit Managementregeln)
• Schließlich sind bei der Ableitung von Ergebnissen die Besonderheiten der verschiedenen Bereiche/Sparten zu berücksichtigen:
o die Kapitalanlagen könnten beispielsweise langfristig durch Transitionsrisiken geprägt sein (z.B. steigende Energiepreise)
o die Schaden/Unfallversicherung ist geprägt durch das reformierte Baurecht (klimabewusstes Bauen)
o die Personenversicherung ist geprägt durch lange Vertragslaufzeiten.
Am Beispiel von Naturkatastrophen (NatKat) Rückversicherung lässt sich erkennen, dass wesentliche Elemente klassischer Rückversiche¬rungs-transaktionen darauf abzielen, Informationsprobleme zwischen Erst- und Rückversicherer zu reduzieren. Aktuell gibt es in der Rückversicherungs¬literatur keinerlei Hinweise auf ein Verständnis darüber, wie sich der klassische Transaktionsprozess auf Ergebnisse auswirkt, noch darauf wie sich Auktionen in ihrer Wirkung unterscheiden / wie sich diese auf Ergebnisse auswirken. Ein wichtiges Ziel ist somit die Grundlagenschaffung für die zukünftige Entwicklung einer Marktdesign Diskussion im Rückversicherungskontext.
Anhand bestehender Erkenntnisse in der Auktionstheorie ist nicht eindeutig, ob und in welchen Fällen Einheitspreise oder individuelle Preise zu besseren Ergebnissen für die Verkäufer (Versicherer) führen würden. Weiterhin ist nicht klar, ob öffentliche Auktionen oder verdeckte Auktionen bessere Ergebnisse liefern würden.
Ein Auktionsdesign, das der klassischen Brokerplatzierung nahekommt, ist die Ausubel Auktion (Ausubel, 2004). Dennoch lassen sich keine generellen Aussagen darüber treffen, ob die klassische Platzierung oder Auktionen bessere Allokations¬mechanismen darstellen (vgl. Bulow and Klemperer 1996).
Unter Berücksichtigung von klimatischen und sozioökonomischen Trends ist ein besseres Verständnis der beschriebenen Zusammenhänge für die Stärkung des Rückversicherungsmarktes zunehmend dringend.
Cloud Computing ist der zentrale Faktor zur Beschleunigung der Digitalisierung in Deutschland und wird in den kommenden Jahren eine wichtige Rolle in jedem deutschen Unternehmen spielen. Für Unternehmen wird es dabei um die Umsetzung von
Cloud-Strategien und die praktische Einbindung in die täglichen Betriebsprozesse gehen. Zusätzlich müssen Unternehmen ihre bestehende Datenlandschaft in moderne Architekturen zum Datenmanagement in die Cloud migrieren. Dabei können Unternehmen auf eine Vielzahl an unterschiedlichen unternehmensweiten Datenarchitekturen
zurückgreifen. Die vorliegende Masterarbeit gibt eine Einführung in die aktuelle Entwicklung von Cloud Computing und erläutert, mit Data Fabric, Data Lakehouse und Data Mesh, drei unternehmensweite Datenarchitekturen für die Cloud. Data Fabric, Data Lakehouse und Data Mesh bilden dabei aktuell die modernsten Konzepte für unternehmensweite Datenarchitekturen. Zusätzlich werden ein Data Lakehouse und ein Data Mesh in einer ausgewählten Cloud-Umgebungen entworfen, prototypisch aufgebaut und praktisch analysiert. Ziel der Masterarbeit ist es, die unternehmensweiten Datenarchitekturen in der Cloud zu erläutern, konkrete technologische Architekturen zu entwerfen und entsprechende Hinweise zu Aufwandstreibern in Unternehmen zu identifizieren.
The management of the liquid fraction of digestate produced from the anaerobic digestion of biodegradable municipal solid waste is a difficult affair, as its land application is limited due to high ammonium concentrations and the municipal waste that water treatment plants struggle to treat due to high pollutant loads. The amount of leachate and the pollutant load in the leachate produced by landfills usually decreases with the time, which increases the capacity of landfill leachate treatment plants (LLTPs) to treat additional wastewater. In order to solve the above two challenges, the co-treatment of landfill leachate and the liquid fraction of anaerobic digestate in an industrial-scale LLTP was investigated along with the long-term impacts of the liquid fraction of anaerobic digestate on biocoenosis and its impact on LLTP operational expenses. The co-treatment of landfill leachate and liquid fraction of anaerobic digestate was compared to conventional leachate treatment in an industrial-scale LLTP, which included the use of two parallel lanes (Lane-1 and Lane-2). The average nitrogen removal efficiencies in Lane-1 (co-treatment) were 93.4%, 95%, and 92%, respectively, for C/N ratios of 8.7, 8.9, and 9.4. The average nitrogen removal efficiency in Lane-2 (conventional landfill leachate treatment), meanwhile, was 88%, with a C/N ratio of 6.5. The LLTP’s average chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiencies were 63.5%, 81%, and 78% during phases one, two, and three, respectively. As the volume ratios of the liquid fraction of anaerobic digestate increased, selective oxygen uptake rate experiments demonstrated the dominance of heterotrophic bacteria over ammonium and nitrite-oxidising organisms. The inclusion of the liquid fraction of anaerobic digestate during co-treatment did not cause a significant increase in operational resources, i.e., oxygen, the external carbon source, activated carbon, and energy.
Concept for Combining LCA and Hazardous Building Material Assessment for Decision Support Using BIM
(2022)
AbstractThe construction and building sector is responsible for a large part of the world’s resource and energy consumption and is considered the largest global emitter of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Hazardous and toxic substances in building materials affect indoor air quality as well as the environment and thus have a high impact on human health, as we spend around 90 percent of our lives in buildings. Life cycle assessment (LCA) and hazardous building material requirements of green building certification systems allow to reduce the environmental and health impacts of building products and materials. However, they are usually very complex and time-consuming to perform and require expert knowledge to use the results for decision support. Digital approaches to support the simplified application of these methods and intuitive visualization of results are becoming increasingly important. Especially Building Information Modeling (BIM) offers a high potential for this purpose, as the integration and linking of geometric and semantic information in 3D-models for LCA and hazardous building material assessment can be done much more efficiently and intuitively. Within the scope of this work, the following three objectives were pursued (1) development of a method for combining LCA and hazardous building material assessment, (2) simplification of the results by converting them into comprehensible indicators for decision support, and (3) implementation of the method in a BIM-based digital assistant for intuitive visualization and communication. The preliminary results show a concept for combined use of LCA and hazardous building material assessment in Germany with differentiation in six use cases. A prototypical implementation as BIM-integrated digital assistant was developed for one of these use cases. For the first time, this prototype provides understandable feedback in real time of LCA and hazardous building material requirements. This research project contributes to the awareness in the context of embodied impacts and low emitting materials in buildings and advances the current digitalization potentials.
Configuration of energy transition factors in Inner Mongolia: A qualitative fuzzy logic approach
(2022)
Transitioning towards a low-carbon society is now increasingly becoming a global concern. The goal of successfully achieving this energy transition has become one of most pressing challenge, both among government decision makers and academia. Energy transition has raised up and become one of the top action priorities in China. Inner Mongolia, as the study area in this research, is significant in China's energy transition as one of leading provinces in terms of energy resources and electricity outward transmission.
The main goal of this dissertation is to identify configurations that influence on the energy transition in IMAR. On the basis of a multilevel perspective (MLP) framework, the method of fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) is applied within the thesis, taking 8 Chinese municipalities or leagues as study cases. A qualitative comparative study is carried out of configurations of diversified factors, which affect China’s energy transition. Eight antecedent conditions extracted from landscape level, regime level and niche level respectively.
It is shown that different transition trajectories can have a similar energy transition outcome. Energy transition itself is induced by multiple factors collaboratively. Coal resource curse does not always have negative effects on energy transition in Inner Mongolia. Within this work, two main energy transition modes (supply and demand balance reversed mode in western IMAR and energy technological transformation mode in eastern IMAR) are constructed based on regional differences and yearly dynamics, illustrating the trajectories with different municipal characteristics. The transition pattern also shows different geographical characteristics. Different east-west distribution of the electricity market distributes differently in eastern and western Inner Mongolia, however, the difference in distinct forms of electricity market does not show enough impact on the energy transition trajectory in this dissertation. Overall, this study shows that the local response and its effects on the process of energy transition, in the light of the encouragement and advocacy by the central government. Meanwhile, this study offers a deeper understanding in the feasibility of the application with a methodological combination of MLP and fsQCA in provincial level for future research.
This project was done in collaboration with CERN and is part of the detector control system of the ATLAS experiment. The primary goal foresaw the development and testing of the FPGA card for the MOPS-HUB crate with the focus on radiation tolerance. This was accomplished with the approach of designing two different PCBs. The first PCB was created as a fast prototype with the use of a commercial SOM-board. This was also beneficial for confirming that the chosen FPGA is suitable for the MOPS-HUB application. After the successful assembly and test, a second, more complex and foremost radiation tolerant PCB was designed. This was achieved by solely using components of the CERN radiation database.
The second part of this thesis focuses on increasing the distance of TMR registers with a Python script. A method was created for extracting and later parsing a design’s placement
information from Vivado. Furthermore, were system designed and implemented to recognize TMR cells, to find and validate free cells and to finally create a new placement for import into Vivado. These algorithms were tested with a multitude of configurations and the quality, based on the maximum possible frequency of a design, determined.
Remaining-useful-life (RUL) prediction of Li-ion batteries is used to provide an early indication of the expected lifetime of the battery, thereby reducing the risk of failure and increasing safety. In this paper, a detailed method is presented to make long-term predictions for the RUL based on a combination of gated recurrent unit neural network (GRU NN) and soft-sensing method. Firstly, an indirect health indicator (HI) was extracted from the charging processes using a soft-sensing method that can accurately describe power degradation instead of capacity. Then, a GRU NN with a sliding window was applied to learn the long-term performance development. The method also uses a dropout and early stopping method to prevent overfitting. To build the models and validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, a real-world NASA battery data set with various battery measurements was used. The results show that the method can produce a long-term and accurate RUL prediction at each position of the degradation progression based on several historical battery data sets.
Lihong Wang reported on the rapid expansion of Chinese Online Insurance. With the ongoing lifestyle and demographic changes, online insurance is becoming one of China's key distributional and operational business models. More than 140 Chinese insurance companies had launched an online business by 2021, with a total premium of 298 billion Yuan (US$45 billion) or 6% of the industry total. Over 7741 enterprises are registered and involved in online insurance. Despite ongoing pandemic issues and lockdowns, online insurance became the accelerators for premium growth in China, especially in the life and health insurance sectors. While the opportunities are enormous, online insurers are facing a number of challenges, such as tightening regulations, a shortage of competent advisors, rising fraud and global recessions. With over 900 million mobile users in China and a population that is ageing and witnessing a reduction in fertility, online insurance will keep growing.