Refine
Year of publication
Document Type
- Master's Thesis (57)
- Study Thesis (15)
- Bachelor Thesis (9)
- Article (7)
- Working Paper (5)
- Part of a Book (1)
- Conference Proceeding (1)
Language
- English (95) (remove)
Has Fulltext
- yes (95)
Keywords
- Germany (15)
- USA (12)
- Market Research (11)
- Export Opportunities (9)
- EOS (8)
- Ecosystem services (3)
- Sustainability (3)
- Assessment (2)
- Business Intelligence (2)
- Ecuador (2)
Faculty
- Fakultät 12 / Institut für Technologie und Ressourcenmanagement in den Tropen und Subtropen (41)
- Fakultät 04 / Schmalenbach Institut für Wirtschaftswissenschaften (16)
- Fakultät 10 / Advanced Media Institute (10)
- Fakultät 10 / Institut für Informatik (8)
- Fakultät 07 / Institut für Nachrichtentechnik (5)
- Angewandte Naturwissenschaften (F11) (4)
- Fakultät 07 / Institut für Medien- und Phototechnik (4)
- Fakultät 01 / Institut für interkulturelle Bildung und Entwicklung (1)
- Fakultät 03 / Institut für Informationsmanagement (1)
- Fakultät 04 / Institut für Versicherungswesen (1)
The amount of data produced and stored in multiple types of distributed data sources is growing steadily. A crucial factor that determines whether data can be analyzed efficiently is the use of adequate visualizations. Almost simultaneously with the ongoing availability of data numerous types of visualization techniques have emerged. Since ordinary business intelligence users typically lack expert visualization knowledge, the selection and creation of visualizations can be a very time- and knowledge-consuming task. To encounter these problems an architecture that aims at supporting ordinary BI users in the selection of adequate visualizations is developed in this thesis. The basic idea is to automatically provide visualization recommendations based on the concrete BI scenario and formalized visualization knowledge. Ontologies that formalize all relevant knowledge play an important role in the developed architecture and are the key to make the knowledge machine-processable.
With a rapidly growing population and urbanization, most modern slums (favelas) also proliferated in Brazil since the 1950s when many people left rural areas of Brazil and moved into the cities. Rio de Janeiro is one of those cities having a vast amount of favelas with poor living conditions. One of the main problems of electricity supply in favelas is illegal electricity use, called ‘Gato’ in Portuguese. Recent unexpected severe drought, economic crisis, and rapidly increased electricity price in Brazil affected the reliable supply of affordable electricity in favelas.
Considering abundant solar radiation of the country and the government’s willingness trying to shift the framework of energy supply from hydropower to renewable energy, this study analyzes the solar PV potentials to ensure a reliable supply of affordable electricity in favelas in Rio de Janeiro.
Literature reviews regarding solar PV development in Brazil, energy policy analysis in Brazil and electricity issues in favelas are revised. As a case study, the chosen favela ‘Babilônia’ is presented. The survey analysis about electricity consumption situation with social dimension targeting residences in Babilônia is implemented. Lastly, through economic analyses with cost-benefit calculation such as Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Net Present Value (NPV), Discounted Cash Flow, Payback period, Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and Weighted-Average Cost of Capital (WACC) models, this study develops the possible financing alternatives to implement a solar PV project with different scenario analyses in the current solar PV market and solar energy policy of Brazil.
The results of this study can be used as an aid to comprehend the electricity supply issue of the most vulnerable class in Brazil and the solar PV as a solution.
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.
An empirical evaluation of using the Swift language as the underlying technology of RESTful APIs
(2016)
The purpose of the current thesis is to determine the appropriateness of using the Swift language as the underlying technology for the development of RESTful APIs in a Linux environment. The current paper describes the process of designing, implementing and testing individual RESTful API components based on Node.js, PHP, Python and Swift and seeks to determine whether Swift is a viable alternative.
The thesis begins by defining a methodology for implementing and testing individual RESTful API components based on Node.js, PHP, Python and Swift. It then proceeds to detail the implementation and testing processes, following with an analytic discussion regarding the advantages and drawbacks of using the Swift language as the underlying technology for RESTful APIs and server-side Linux-based applications in general.
Based on the implementation process and on the results of the previously mentioned evaluation phase, it can be stated that the Swift language is not yet ready to be used in a production environment. However, its rapid evolution and potential for surpassing its competitors in the foreseeable future make it an ideal candidate for implementing RESTful APIs to be used in development environments.
The effects of global warming, the depletion of non-renewable resources, the loss of biodiversity and a growing population, has affected nature and humanity over the past decades. Unless we change course in how we produce and consume, severe consequences for life on this Planet in the future are likely to follow. Based on that background, this paper looks at one area of consumption, namely food, and analyses a particular market within this area which causes high environmental pressures, i.e. the meat market. After having laid the theoretical foundation of sustainable consumption, an overview of the problems arising in the food sector in general and the meat market in particular is given. An in-depth analysis of the consumption of meat in one country, namely Germany, follows. Germany has been chosen as an exemplary for a country showing an excessive consumption of meat. This contributes to the problems linked to the meat market. The past development of the consumption of meat is evaluated and forms the basis for predicting a possible development of meat consumption in Germany until 2025. Based on the findings, conclusions are drawn about a possible trend towards sustainable consumption in the German meat market.
Ghana’s timber industries have traditionally focussed on certifying international demand (exports) to the detriment of domestic wood consumption. The legal wood supply to the domestic market has become insufficient to satisfy the growing needs of the local population. This research aims at gaining greater insight into the sources of wood supply to Ghana’s domestic wood markets focusing on the contribution of legal wood by the mainstream timber companies.
The study used random and purposive sampling techniques for selecting the respondents in the domestic wood market, wood producers as well as consumers. Additionally, the views of the respondents were sought through well semi-structured questionnaires. On the other hand, views from key informants, mostly experts, and regulators in Ghana’s wood industry were solicited through interviews.
The result indicates that the formal timber processors supply 73% of their processed lumber to the export market and 27% to the domestic market. The destination of the 27% is both the domestic market and other lumber demanded sectors especially large scale construction and furniture companies. The carving industry on other hand obtains wood directly from the farmers and not necessary from the domestic wood market. At the domestic timber market, dealers receive lumber supply from both formal (16. 7%) and informal (83.3%) sources.
The domestic wood sector provides livelihood support to both wood dealers, consumers as well as artisans. About 70% of respondents (wood dealers) used in the survey have no other source of livelihood for existence except wood business.
Owing to the immense contribution of the domestic wood market to the country’s economy and developmental agenda, a calls for policy review especially 20% supply of formal processed lumber to the domestic market is timely. Additionally, looking at the various interventions to curtail illegal chain saw and the continued market demand, the study believes more regulated measures will better help the nation to grasped huge revenue lost as a result of illegalities to embark on vigorous afforestation programs to sustain the domestic wood market.
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.
The increase in greenhouse gas emissions, mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels and land use change, has led to changes in the global climate. Agriculture is one of the economic sectors most vulnerable to the impacts generated by climate change. For this reason, the challenge facing humanity today is to develop innovative solutions to address the complexity of agricultural sustainability.
On the other hand, sugarcane is one of the crops that emits the most pollutants into the atmosphere, mainly due to the burning of sugarcane before and after harvesting. Most of these atmospheric pollutants are precursors of climate change and have an impact on the health and quality of life of communities. Moreover, this agricultural practice causes the gradual deterioration of the soil, directly affecting sugarcane production. Consequently, several sugarcane-producing countries have established regulations or dispositions to eliminate this agricultural practice, and one option to eliminate it is the mechanization of harvesting. However, its implementation implies social, environmental, and economic impacts that must be analyzed systemically to avoid potential failures during the technological transition process. It is for this reason that this research, through the MICMAC method, focused on identifying the variables associated with the reduction of sugarcane burning in Campos dos Goytacazes and Tamasopo, to subsequently analyze their direct and indirect interrelationship, and, thus, determine the opportunities and limitations of each locality for the reduction of sugarcane burning.
Through this analysis, it became evident that although the technological transition is an imminent step for the sustainability of sugarcane cultivation, certain factors such as legislation, technological innovation, and the perception of the stakeholders regarding the consequences of sugarcane burning, is what defines in the study sites the speed and subsequent success of this process of change towards green harvesting.
Human civilization has a great history of managing Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WaSH) services. But such services in rural areas have been neglected throughout our history. Numerous multimillion dollars WaSH interventions have been implemented in rural areas to eradicate open defecation, but most of them failed to create a demand for sanitation. Lack of equity and fair participation in approaches to change behavior and mindset, rather than habits, has made it hard for governments to achieve their WaSH related targets. Participatory rural sanitation approaches that focus on behavior change and ownership building among the community members have helped in the transition to open defecation free (ODF) societies. A justice-focused sanitation approach shows potential in fast-tracking this transition. Just transition is a concept that has not been endured in the sanitation discussion yet but shows the potential of sustainable WaSH solutions. This social empirical research has explored the feasibility of a justice-based sanitation approach guiding a transition towards societies with universal access to sanitation services. A just sanitation transition framework was adapted from the considered theoretical foundations and was used to map the capability and justice dimensions of two rural sanitation approaches being implemented in schools in the Mukuyu community in Trans-Nzoia county, Kenya. The adapted framework has been able to compute both sanitation approaches on a scoring tool, quantitatively assessing the productivity and justice dimensions of both approaches. This research has helped in establishing the viability of a just sanitation transition framework to produce an informed understanding of the potential of rural sanitation approaches to produce desired results while being just. Study findings help in filling research gaps and laying the foundation to the just transition debate in the sanitation sector and opens a window to further researches on the same, in the future.
Mangrove forests have been studied broadly in the recent three decades for their outstanding ability to sequester carbon in the beneath soil and other beneficial ecosystem services. Endeavors to conserve and regenerate mangrove cover are still increasing worldwide as a mechanism to include them in NDCs and carbon markets. Therefore, decision-makers in the private and public sectors require identify possible areas for conservation and restoration prior to blue carbon project investment. Thus, an integral assessment of potential mangrove carbon reservoirs in a landscape scale, considering environmental and socioeconomic factors was performed. This study was aimed to determine areas with the highest blue carbon sequestration potential in the Gulf of Guayaquil through the construction of a Blue Carbon Potential Index (BCPI) based on Spatial Multicriteria Analysis (SMCA). A narrative integrative literature review was employed to select indicators of mangrove carbon sequestration gains and losses. These indicators were pondered following the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) with the judgments of two experts and reclassified in four potential categories based on their thresholds. Since no consensus was achieved in the indicator importance hierarchization, a comparative of equal weighting method and AHP weighting was implemented. The linear combination rule was used to integrate these factors into a unique-scaled index supported by a geographic Information System (GIS). The results showed that 15.82% and 16.21% of the study area belonged to high and moderate potential of blue carbon sequestration respectively. Moreover, no significant differences were found between the two weighting methods applied. The BCPI provides a comprehensive understanding of spatial distribution of blue carbon potential reservoirs and grants a quantification of this potential to prioritize conservation and restoration areas.
Carbon Sequestration under different land uses and soils in the State of Quintana Roo, Mexico
(2017)
Rising in global temperature is evidently related to atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) concentrations; this has become an environmental problem. The use of renewable energy, the development of eco-friendly merchandise and the enforcement of biomass management have been proposed to mitigate the issue. In the ecosphere, the pedosphere stores 1,500 to 2,500 PgC, which is four times more than the carbon stored in biomass; hence, it is very important to carry out soil carbon studies because of more long-term stability of such storage. In the study, soil carbon quantification was applied to the entire state of Quintana Roo, using a purpose oriented sampling, to observe the dynamic between land uses and soils, relating all relevant characteristics and properties of the landscape. To study the carbon content stored in soils, total carbon was estimated through loss-on-ignition, organic carbon by Walkley-Black method and inorganic carbon by calcium carbonate determination. The result portrays that the coastal dune vegetation-Arenosol (1,256 Mg C ha-1) is the combination with the highest soil carbon density, while Leptosol is the soil type with the highest storage capacity (852 MtC). Consequently, the soil carbon storage not only relates to soil properties but also associates with the surface area occupied by the specific soil type. In addition, the characteristics of the landscape play an important role in the storage of soil carbon. Due to that, soil carbon storage can be explained by biogeomorphoedaphic factors.
Catastrophe insurance without premium payment – The concept of contigent liability in Switzerland
(2023)
No later than with the heavy rainfalls of 2021, discussions in Germany have resumed around the introduction of compulsory insurance for natural hazards. Natural hazards exhibit a high potential for loss, and insurance is a building block with which to bolster resilience. In practice, there are already a host of functioning solution concepts to provide cover for natural hazards, including insurance pools and state guarantees. All of the concepts, however, are predicated on payment of an ongoing insurance premium.
Agents with antifungal activity play a vital role as therapeutics in health care, as do fungicides in agriculture. Effectiveness, toxicological profile, and eco-friendliness are among the properties used to select suitable substances. Furthermore, a steady supply of new agents with different modes of action is required to counter the well-known potential of human and phyto-pathogenic fungi to develop resistance against established antifungals. Here, we use an in vitro growth assay to investigate the activity of the calcineurin inhibitor tacrolimus in combination with the commercial fungicides cyproconazole and hymexazol, as well as with two earlier reported novel {2-(3-R-1H-1,2,4-triazol-5-yl)phenyl}amines, against the fungi Aspergillus niger, Colletotrichum higginsianum, Fusarium oxysporum and the oomycete Phytophthora infestans, which are notoriously harmful in agriculture. When tacrolimus was added in a concentration range from 0.25 to 25 mg/L to the tested antifungals (at a fixed concentration of 25 or 50 mg/L), the inhibitory activities were distinctly enhanced. Molecular docking calculations revealed triazole derivative 5, (2-(3-adamantan-1-yl)-1H-1,2,4-triazol-5-yl)-4-chloroaniline), as a potent inhibitor of chitin deacetylases (CDA) of Aspergillus nidulans and A. niger (AnCDA and AngCDA, respectively), which was stronger than the previously reported polyoxorin D, J075-4187, and chitotriose. The results are discussed in the context of potential synergism and molecular mode of action.
Policy measures are essential tools for the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources in the electricity generation. Feed-in tariffs (FITs) are the most used policy for support of renewable technologies globally. Nevertheless, Ecuador phased-out FITs in 2016 and adopted auctions in 2015. Ecuador’s implementation of auctions reflects an approach with little relation to practices in other countries and without a technology-specific design. On the other hand, Germany demonstrates a long trajectory in policy-making with vast experience in FITs. Moreover, in 2017 Germany adopted auctions as the official policy to support renewable projects with a scope larger than 750 kW. However, FITs are still in use and complement auctions.
This thesis analyses and compares the country-specific contexts where these policies are implemented through the lens of a multi-level perspective framework. As a result, the most important success factors in Germany have been identified: long-term planning, institutional continuity, legislative stability and principally an actively participating society, which is environmentally aware. Obstacles for the transition in Ecuador are institutional discontinuity, legislative inconsistency, the lack of long-term planning and absence of society as actors of the transition. Due to Germany’s pioneering role plus the successful growth of renewable sources during the last twenty years, their policy implementations appear desirable to adopt in other contexts. Therefore, a prospective transferability of the auction policy from Germany to Ecuador is additionally analyzed.
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 paper gives a practical approach to the area of business ethics, in particular to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), via analyzing how the retail chain REWE shows its commitment to its social responsibilities as defined by the four-part model of CSR. As Fairtrade offers one way for fulfilling social responsibilities, in particular the ethical and philanthropic responsibilities of CSR, REWE’s participation in selling Fairtrade products is analyzed. This analysis is conducted by applying the criteria for receiving the Fairtrade Award to REWE which allows drawing conclusions about REWE’s commitment to Fairtrade. Information for this assessment is taken from publicly available sources as well as from personal communication with the Fairtrade organization TransFair. The paper further gives an indication about the match between REWE’s communication – as the selling of Fairtrade products is communicated via REWE’s sustainability program – and REWE’s action concerning social responsibility, expressed by its commitment to Fairtrade. Implementing a sustainability program is one way for companies to exercise CSR and thus the analysis conducted concerning REWE’s commitment to Fairtrade is an attempt to answer the question whether companies’ communication about their CSR efforts matches their actions.
Water risk assessment is becoming an essential part of any decision-making process in the business sector. In the world where freshwater resources are becoming scarcer, water risks are growing and causing high costs to businesses. Therefore, numerous frameworks, guidelines, methodologies, tools, and other approaches were developed during the last century. Various scholars have appeared to give an economic value or price for environment goods in order to understand trade-offs better. Nowadays, the corporate world tends to use different approaches to convert sustainability management data to the financial language of decision-makers. This study explores the possible ways for a company to measure the costs of water related risks. It examines how to convert water risks to financial risks using a Peruvian agricultural company. The results show, that from all today’s available frameworks, guidelines or tools there is no one commonly accepted and recognised as the best for water risk assessment and monetising. It was learned, that available tools could provide just a simple overview of possible water related risks and calculate their costs in a very general way. The work also highlights the importance of regular and appropriate data collection on the company level in order to be able to assess water risk related costs for the business.
Due to the present developments of the Internet and its technical components, the skills of the web experts have to be more and more complex and specific. The Internet experts in the creative field are located distributedly around the whole world. As a result, many companies have problems to find the needed experts on site and are dependent on creative cooperations and virtual teams with the help of technical tools. The virtual working place is an important issue, particularly in modern times and the market offers more and more cooperation systems for exactly this purpose: Creative cooperation in distributed working situations. This thesis examines the approaches of creative cooperation and cooperation technologies with an analysis about existing cooperation systems with a creative context. It spans a wide range of tools. On the one hand, there are approaches which offer only straightforward solutions for single design tasks. On the other hand, there are providers which recognised the great need of creative cooperation systems and working at full speed to extend their systems. The examined areas of this work lead to a design process oriented approach with flexible frames and enough space for the creative development of every single user. The cooperation in a creative context stays in the foreground and is the base for future approaches for the web design sector.
This paper presents the design procedure and implementation results of a proposed software defined radio (SDR) using Altera Cyclone II family board. The implementation uses Matlab/SimulinkTM, Embedded MatlabTM blocks, and Cyclone II development and educational board. The design has first implemented in Matlab/SimulinkTM environment. It is then converted to VHDL level using Simulink HDL coder. The design is synthesized and fitted with Quartus II 9.0 Web Edition® software, and downloaded to Altera Cyclone II board. The results show that it is easy to develop and understand the implementation of SDR using programmable logic tools. The paper also presents an efficient design flow of the procedure followed to obtain VHDL netlists that can be downloaded to FPGA boards.
Motion capturing plays an important role in computer animation and combines many different fields of research in media engineering, such as camera calibration, marker detection via image processing and 3D reconstruction. Most professional motion capture systems are distributed proprietarily by a handful of companies and do not grant much insight into detailed workflows. The motivation for the project this thesis is based on was to autonomously develop a simpler, yet similar system, which would capture static poses of a puppet. This thesis points out the designing steps of this system and illustrates how many of the aforementioned aspects of motion capturing are answered using the example of the stop-motion capture system, thus building a basis for the comprehension of more complex systems.
This bachelor thesis deals with framework-agnostic design systems in the environment of micro frontends. The properties of micro frontends and design systems are developed individually, to finally get combined. Important disciplines of this research are in particular cybernetics and system thinking, whereby further properties in the relationships between the stakeholders and the design system are highlighted and defined. In addition, based on the highlighted properties, a practically oriented evaluation is prepared, which demonstratively verifies how framework-agnostic design systems can be realized using Svelte and Tailwind CSS. The insights gained from this work can be used for further considerations in other works within the domain, or similar domains. In particular the cybernetic view of systematic design offers potential for further investigations.
Development of renewable energy projects within photovoltaic energy sector has reached unrestrainable pace in recent years and thus the investors are more vigilantly considering the further business deployment towards this sector. Underpinned with clear support from KfW Development Bank, the company MACS Energy & Water GmbH decided to facilitate future verification of credit lines towards these projects by deploying special eSaveTM software which would include technical and financial appraisals specially designed for their clients. Hereof this thesis comprises the initial phase development of this software within the MS Excel and endeavors to provide a proper guideline for the software engineers included in this task in the company. In order to simplify the explanation process this report sticks to 50 kW power plant project in Prokuplje. It is anticipated that this model would enhance, improve and expedite the feasibility analysis between the cooperatives by delivering the projections of energy yield, payback periods and sensitivity analysis of the loan conditions specified for the target country and PV projects in the same. However, besides this main task this report aims to fulfill all the other necessary prerequisites for accomplishing a good due diligence practice. Therefore the thesis places its focus to Republic of Serbia where exceptional due diligence reports were made, among which the Prokuplje project, and compiles the assessments in terms of legal, environmental and risk into one general framework for PV projects in this country. By doing so, the desktop-based model and results obtained with this user-friendly tool can lean on the full due diligence assessment and provide the reader a clear comprehensive overview of possibility to invest into this renewable energy sector in Republic of Serbia.
Keywords: PV, Due diligence, Serbia, eSaveTM, feasibility, model
In 2015, the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the Paris Agreement provided a basis for considerable optimism for the fight against climate change and efforts to promote sustainable development, but their implementation remains an enormous challenge. Finance, in turn, plays a key role in implementation. This thesis thus seeks to provide new insights into the challenge of implementing the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda by examining pertinent financial flows while taking into considering that making use of thematic overlaps between these two agendas can help to leverage synergies, especially if financial flows take adequate account of these overlaps. Since energy plays an essential role in both the goals of the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda (in SDG 7 and beyond it), this thesis focuses on countries’ energy-related national commitments. Against this background, this thesis investigates the question which role energy plays in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement and to what extent climate finance is considered in the context of the energy system transition. The key finding is that financial flow for renewable energy and energy efficiency improves globally with an unchanged track of non-renewable energy in the post-NDC period.
This thesis presents the perspective and basis for modeling of retail electricity price components in Germany. Detailed Python models are developed to provide predictions for yearly development of average network charges, EEG, StromNEV-19 and KWK surcharges for the period 2015-2035. For network charges and EEG surcharge, scenario-B (2035) from NEP2015 has been chosen as the model scenario. For KWK surcharge, the 2025 KWK share target, set by KWKG-2016, has been chosen as the model scenario. Individual component model results are validated against available academic literature and institutional reports. Model results for EEG surcharge, indicate an increasing yearly EEG costs till 2024, after which the expiring EEG plants of past will unburden the related high costs and EEG surcharge will drop but still be around 99% of 2015 level in 2035. Model results for network charges indicate a consistently increasing yearly trend owing to high grid investments needed for reaching the target RE share of 57%. KWK model results also indicate a growing KWK surcharge until 2020 which then would remain stagnant at that level onwards. All model results are collected under three consumption categories, namely, households, privileged and nonprivileged industries. The final results indicate that the average German household will face an overall increase of around 3.37 Cents/kWh in retail electricity prices (excluding VAT) till 2028, after which the retail prices will drop a little due to dropping EEG surcharge. The similar but slightly reduced trend can be seen for nonprivileged industrial consumption. The increment effect, however, is only minute for privileged industrial consumption due to high exemptions in EEG & KWK surcharges and reduced individual network charges.
This bachelor thesis addresses the issue of how school resilience can be measured and assessed quantitatively. Schools as social infrastructures have a significant value for society. Yet, on a global scale, they, and therefore the respective community as well, are continuously endangered by a variety of threats such as natural disasters or violence and mental abuse affecting students, parents and school staff. However, these threats differ greatly depending on climatic and geographical conditions as well as on the socio-cultural context of the corresponding community. To strengthen school resilience against potential threats and to ensure education continuity despite the occurrence of these disruptions, a methodology is developed to measure and assess school resilience in conjunction with its specific circumstances. Initially, qualitative and quantitative (composite) indicators are identified and categorised with the help of a Systematic Literature Review and Mayring's Qualitative Content Analysis. These are subsequently developed into a Comprehensive Index for School Resilience (CISR). Building on this, a pre-existing assessment methodology, which uses Likert-Scales arranged in questionnaires to assign quantitative values to the composite indicators, is adapted to operationalise the CISR and by an exemplary application at Europaschule Troisdorf, the methodology is adapted to the socio-cultural conditions in Germany using an expert’s operational and contextual knowledge. The results obtained show that the methodologies and techniques described in current international research can, after an appropriate adaptation, successfully be applied to schools in Germany as well. Nevertheless, by identifying research limitations and errors as well as potential improvements, it is evident that further research and development is needed to provide stakeholders with a decision-making tool to strengthen the resilience of schools in the future, such as an exhaustive supplement to the CISR or the integration of more precise quantification methodologies and techniques.
This research analyzes the effects that eco-labels have on the demand for organic (Bio) and Fairtrade (FT) food products. The thesis also discusses the individual determinants and motivations behind those effects. The analysis builds on data obtained from a self-programmed and self-conducted survey, with a sample of 869 students from different universities of Cologne, Germany. The Bio/FT preference is measured experimentally by randomly assigning individuals to treatment and control groups. The experiment simulates life decisions using actual pictures and prices of four products: packed and processed spaghetti, fresh tomatoes, packed raw meat, and packed orange juice.
The existence, size, and direction of statistically significant eco-label effects were obtained with two sample tests of proportions. The results prove that the FT label has a positive differential effect on consumer’s demand. The presence of the FT label makes the purchase of this juice 9.1% higher than other juices not labeled as FT. This finding confirms the hypothesis that eco-labels have a positive effect on sustainable consumption. A surprising finding is that the presence of the Bio label lowers the purchase of organic pasta and tomatoes 7.7% and 9.4% respectively. This finding is interesting because it suggests that Bio labels are not driving the demand for sustainable tomatoes or pasta for this population. Regional and cheaper alternatives are preferred by consumers in this cases.
The motivations behind consumer choices of different options were thoroughly analyzed. Binomial logistic regressions and qualitative text analysis show that the variance in the intention to consume eco-labeled food is explained mainly by price concerns and attitudes about value for money, but also by the influence of life partners as shopping referents, and the perceived behavioral controls of time and ability to monitor compliance of label standards, thus trust them.
The final remarks support the use of the Fairtrade eco-label as a market-based instrument to guide sustainable food consumption among young adults in this context, and propose changes that could make the Bio label more attractive for the targeted population. The thesis demonstrates which individual factors should be inevitably considered when implementing labeling to foster sustainable consumption. Hence, it is useful for evaluations of public and private certification schemes, and for companies that support sustainable food markets. Projects looking to understand and drive sustainable production and consumption decisions should consider this reading.
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
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.
Observational studies and clinical trials have become increasingly important over recent years and play an essential role in advancing medical knowledge. In today’s world of clinical research, it is not possible to imagine trials without the founda-tion of a well-established it-infrastructure. Electronic capture and usage of data is pervasive.
In practice, medical progress requires the ability to integrate data from different systems. An essential factor in enabling different actors, such as institutions and hospitals, to have their systems exchange structured data and make use of the information is the interoperability of the data and systems.
FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperable Resources) is a free and easily customizable HL7 platform standard, based on 30 years of experience of HL7. It is focused on providing health-related information and defines a set of capabilities used in the health care process.
This thesis will provide a conceptual approach for working with FHIR, as well as concrete approaches for working with FHIR profiles and for customizing the standard for particular use cases. It will be carried out in cooperation with the Medical Systems R&D, which is a service provider within the University Hospital of Cologne.
The guiding request approach will focus on the evaluation of requirements for clini-cal trials and how clinical research protocols can be represented in an interoperable and machine-parsable format using FHIR.
The topic for the thesis originated from the CAP4ACCESS project run by the European Commission and its partners, which deals towards the sensiti-zation of people and development of tools for awareness about people with movement disabilities. The explorative analysis is never ending and to explore and find interest-ing patterns and the results is a tedious task. Therefore, a scientific approach was very important. To start with, familiarizing the domain and the data sources were done. Thereafter, selection of methodology for data analysis was done which resulted in the use of CRISP-DM methodology. The data sources are the source of blood to the analysis methodology, and as there were two sources of data that is MICROM and OSM Wheelchair History(OWH), it was important to integrate them together to extract relevant datasets. Therefore a functional and technically impure data warehouse was created, from which the datasets are extracted and analysed.The next task was to select appropriate tools for analysis. This task was very important as the data set although was not big data but con-tained a large number of rows. After careful analysis, Apache spark and its machine learning library were utilized for building and testing supervised models. DataFrame API for Python, Pandas, the machine learning library Sci-kit learn provided unsupervised algorithms for analysis, the association rule analysis was performed using WEKA. Tableau[21] and Matplotlib[24] provide attractive visualizations for representation and analysis.
Blogging has established itself as an important and influential part of the
modern online media. At the dawn of the blogosphere people were publishing
their diaries and life journals. Nowadays, some bloggers operate blogs that are
hardly any different from online newspapers and magazines. On the one hand
professional blogging is broadly accepted in the society, but on the other hand
it is poorly understood. The purpose of this explorative study is to broaden
the understanding of blogging as a professional activity. In particular, this
study explores the aspects of professional blogging and the interplay between
credibility, authenticity and monetisation in blogs.
To understand blogging as a professional activity an extensive literature
research is conducted. First, main concepts of blogging as a social activity
are discussed. Then, the changes that come together with the transformation
of a social activity into a professional activity of blogging are discussed. To
look at the activity of blogging from an unusual perspective, a comprehensive
qualitative survey is conducted with blog readers. The survey examines
not only readers’ perception of blogging as a professional activity, but also
motivations for reading blogs and attitude to monetising practices and labelling
of monetised content in blogs. Information received from the survey is used to
draw some conclusions about the state of the art of blogging as a professional
activity, and challenges and opportunities blogging industry faces nowadays.
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.
This study paper introduces different tools, i.e. analytical methods and visualizations, in business intelligence environments. It especially emphasizes the use of OLAP-based technologies as a tradtional kind of data analysis in contrast to as graph analysis and formal concept analysis as rather new approaches in the area of visual analytics.
Since the development of eGovernment systems is gaining worldwide momentum, the European Union is constantly increasing its efforts to induce the development of eGovernment systems in its member states. The currently running strategy is the ’eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020’, which understands itself as a catalyst for developments in the member states.
Despite these ongoing efforts by the European Union regarding eGovernment, stud- ies are repeatedly revealing that the quality and acceptance by the citizens of dig- ital public services are varying heavily within the EU. Being based on the same political guidelines provided by the EU, the national strategies implemented the core principles to different degrees. These different implementation rates, analyzed for Germany, the United Kingdom and Estonia, supplement the holistic analysis of the eGovernment policies, applications and usage in each member state. This gets proven by the connection of this indicator with related studies in the field of eGov- ernment applications and usage within the European Union.
The aim of this thesis is, on the one hand, to quantify differences in the implementa- tion of the ’eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020’ into national policies in Germany, the UK and Estonia and, on the other hand, establish this indicator as a valuable asset for evaluating and monitoring the eGovernment efforts by the EU member states.
The present thesis research was focused on the assessment of hydrological drought in the Tempisque-Bebedero catchment system in Costa Rica as part of the TropiSeca project framework. The study area is in the province of Guanacaste and has an extension of 5449.94 Km2, the region is characterized by a defined wet and dry season resulting in a marked seasonality in precipitation and streamflow regime which provokes frequent periods of water deficits considered as drought.
The main objective of this research is to conduct an analysis on hydrological drought in the study area through the understanding of the behavior of hydrological cycle and its implications for the rice sector by applying different drought indices such as Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and Streamflow Drought Index (SDI). From the values obtained in the calculation of drought indices were studied the temporal distribution and spatial distribution based on the characterization of drought periods in terms of frequency, severity, duration, and seasonality.
For the characterization of meteorological drought in the study area an approach based on area average precipitation was implemented to calculate a regional representative SPI for each sub-basin, in contrast, hydrological drought was assessed using only two streamflow gauges data provided by the ICE from 1973 until 2003.
As result, Tempisque showed longer drought periods in comparison with Bebedero whose mean duration was lower but the number of drought events were more frequent. In terms of spatial distribution, it could be found that the upper basin experienced extreme meteorological drought periods at high time scales tied to a severe streamflow deficit probably justified by its low permeability due to geological characteristics that allow a slow movement of groundwater.
Additionally, one of the aims of this thesis was to analyze the existence of correlation between precipitation and streamflow anomalies with rice yield and, to determine the influence of ENSO in climate variability using Sea Surface Temperature indices; in this phase of the research was found that climate patterns in the catchment system exhibited a significant influence by ENSO events with a significance level of 99% (r > 0.7) showing an important dependence of meteorological drought periods presented during the period 1980-2016.
In terms of temporal behavior of rice yield anomalies was revealed moderate correlation coefficients (r < 0.4) in both watersheds due to in most of the cases the response of water deficit did not have significant impact in terms of magnitude as expected; in some periods in which drought period was present categorized as mild-drought, rice yield had a considerable decreasing compared with those in which was categorized as extreme event; these differences can be justified mostly because crop yield depends not only on weather, but also on variety of seed used and its coping capacity to periods of water scarcity, fertilizers, soil moisture, farming techniques, sowing date, temperature, irrigation, use of pesticides etc.
The results of this thesis can be used to motivate future researches in the elaboration of crop models to predict yields based on physiological processes during plant development considering water requirement to take enough measures to mitigate the effects of drought periods. Furthermore, it should be considered to implement a drought monitor system in the area as an important tool of early warning system and as an indicator for the efficient water resources management.
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.
This thesis focuses on the identification of influential users, also known as key opinion leaders, within the social network Instagram. Instagram is a very popular platform to share images with the option to categorise the images by certain tags. It is possible to collect public data from Instagram via the open API of the platform.
This thesis presents a concept to create an automated crawler for this API and col- lect data into a database in order to apply algorithms from graph theory to identify opinion leaders afterwards. The sample topic for this thesis has been veganfood and all associated posts from Instagram have been crawled.
After the user data has been crawled a graph has been created to do further research with common social network analysis tools. The graph contained a total set of more than 26,000 nodes.
To identify opinion leaders from this graph, five di↵erent metrics have been applied, in particular PageRank, Betweenness centrality, Closeness Centrality, Degree and Eigen- vector centrality. After applying the di↵erent algorithms the results have been eval- uated and additionally an marketing expert with focus on social media analysed the results.
This project was able to figured out that it is possible to find opinion leaders by using the PageRank algorithm and that those opinion leaders have a very good value of en- gagement. This indicates that they show a high interaction with other users on their posts. In conclusion the additional research options are discussed to provide a future outlook.
Illegal Gold mining and water quality. A case study of River Offin in the Central Region of Ghana
(2018)
Ghana as a country in the west of Africa is naturally endowed with many rich natural resources some of which includes; Gold, diamond, bauxite, manganese, cocoa, etc. Currently, it’s the second leading producer of gold production in Africa after South Africa. Gold production has produced a lot of benefits to the nation but at the same time contributed to many negativities ranging from pollution (water and air), land degradation, ethnic conflicts and deforestation. Industrial gold mining itself was never a big issue that caused any panic in the country till illegal gold miners “Galamseyers” also commenced operating. The sole objectives of this research were to determine the level of some specific heavy metal (Mercury, Lead, Arsenic and Zinc) concentrations within the Offin River in Dunkwa-on-Offin, Buabenso, Ayanfuri and Nkotumso. Results after the research revealed that, Ayanfuri recorded the highest level of concentrations. Nkotumso followed in that order before Buabenso with Dunkwa-on-Offin recording the least concentrations. It also became clear later that, even though the degree of intensiveness of the illegal mining “Galamsey” operations could have been a main factor for the increased concentrations, another finding was that, towns or communities that recorded higher concentrations throughout the study also showed to be towns that made use of inorganic fertilizers on its farms. The Minerals and mining Act 2006 of Ghana was then analyzed and conclusion was that, though the country has very strong policies regarding illegal mining termed “Galamsey”, there seemed to be institutional loop holes that have not been strong enough to combat illegal mining in the country. In recommending policy directives to improve the river quality, six (6) institutions including the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology(MEST), Minerals Commission of Ghana, Environmental Protection Agency, Forestry Commission and the water Resources Commission were identified with detailed recommended roles clearly spelt out for each institution.
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.
The objective of this paper is to implement a baseband OFDM transceiver on FPGA hardware. The design uses 8-point SLT/ISLT (Slantlet/Inverse Slantlet) for the processing module with processing block of 8 inputs data wide. All modules are designed and implemented using VHDL programming language. Software tools used in this work includes Altera Quartus II 7.2 and ModelSim Altera 6.1g, to assist the design process and downloading process into FPGA board while Cyclone III board EP3C120F780C7 is used to realize the designed module.
Water is an eminently important element for societal development. It must be available in sufficient quantity and quality to meet human requirements of consumption, food production and sanitation. The riverine ecosystems are increasingly deteriorated due to human interventions. This leads to changes in the natural flow patterns. The concept of environmental flow started to emerge. Due to the importance of environmental flow in the integrated river basin management, researchers and scientists worldwide have made great efforts towards assessing the environmental flow requirements in river ecosystems. Various tools and techniques were defined. Governmental authorities and water ministries (all over the world including Egypt) have introduced regulations and policies to assure the vitality of environmental flow in river management and water allocation too.
Although different methods are available for the environmental flow assessment, those techniques are not practically applied. Implementing the environmental flow in real world is a challenge, due to the lack of political will and the stakeholder support, the institutional barriers and conflicts of interest, and finally the insufficient resources and capacity in environmental management institutions. It is a multidisciplinary and intersectoral process.
The present study aims to report the importance of environmental flow regarding the inhabitants’ daily life as well as the overall Egyptian socio-economic, political and health status. It demonstrates the methods of applying the Environmental flow concept in Egypt with a focus on social and political aspects, detailing the current situation in Egypt, and clarifying the obstacles that face the implementation process. The data was collected via local people questionnaires, stakeholders’ interviews and field visits. The study proposes solutions to evade the environmental flow implementation obstacles and overcome current challenges. Moreover, the study predicts future issues and offers solutions to avoid their occurrence.
There is a dramatic shift in credit card fraud from the offline to the online world. Large online retailers have tried to establish countermeasures and transaction data analysis technologies to lower the rate of fraudulent transactions to a manageable amount. But as retailers will always have to make a trade-off between the performance of the transaction processing, the usability of the web shop, and the overall security of it, one can assume that e-commerce fraud will still happen in the future. Thus, retailers have to collaborate with relevant business partners on the incident to find a common ground and take coordinated (legal) actions against it.
Trying to combine the information from different stakeholders will face issues due to different wordings and data formats, competing incentives of the stakeholders to participate on information sharing, as well as possible sharing restrictions that prevent them from making the information available to a larger audience. Moreover, as some of the information might be confidential or business-critical to at least one of the parties involved, a centralized system (e.g. a service in the public cloud) can not be used.
This Master Thesis is therefore analysing how far a computer supported collaborative work system based on peer-to-peer communication and Semantic Web technologies can improve the efficiency and effectivity of e-commerce fraud investigations within an inter-institutional team.
Amboseli-Tsavo Ecosystem is a unique landscape in Kenya’s semi-arid rangelands to the border of Tanzania. It is characterized by high abundances of wildlife which frequently disperses between three National Parks, namely Amboseli, Tsavo West and Chyulu Hills. Due to an increased population and a land-use change from prior nomadic pastoralism to sedentary farming activities, the land became highly fragmented and transformed into a human-dominated area. Increasingly wildlife migration routes are becoming blocked, leading to isolation of the National Parks and multiplied human-wildlife conflicts. The African elephant (Loxodonta africana) is sadly famous as the most common conflict animal causing damage to properties, cropland and injuring or killing livestock and, in the worst case, people. However, elephants are at the same time a flagship species and represent the backbone for tourism activities around Amboseli. Therefore, the elephant is both a very valuable and problematic asset in the area. Unfortunately, wildlife conservation practices over the last decades, favoring animals over humans, have led to a negative perception of wildlife among the population in the ecosystem which challenges appropriate conservation mechanisms.
To maintain the tourism attraction of viewing elephants and to minimise the conflicts between local communities and animals, migration routes should remain open. The concept of landscape connectivity ensures biodiversity conservation, particularly for far-distance migration animals such as elephants. The elephant was therefore chosen as a keystone species in this study on which the analysis is based.
Using a least-cost path analysis (LCP) in ArcGIS, “cheapest” travel routes of Loxodonta africana between the three National Parks were identified. Factors included were selected and weighted by information gathered in expert interviews. Satellite imagery were classified using ESA SNAP toolbox to obtain vegetation covers and waterbodies for two different seasons (dry and wet), aiming to illustrate the temporal variability of potential connectivity paths. Additionally, key informant interviews and interviews of Group Ranch members around Amboseli National Park were conducted to gather information regarding the current state of management in the ecosystem and perceptions about wildlife management. A subsequent SWOT Analysis on three optimum routes obtained through LCP, takes the social-political factors and information obtained into account to discuss the different options for their conflict solving potential.
On the one hand, recommendations resulting from this study identify possible elephant migration routes that should be maintained by using a participatory conservation approach to secure landscape connectivity in long-term. On the other hand, management recommendations include a design for improved relationships between Group Ranch members and the responsible governmental institutions by equally distributing benefits, implementing financial benefits and establishing a functioning and adequate compensation scheme. By ensuring peoples’ active participation in conservation and wildlife management, a more positive attitude towards wildlife might be induced, which will positively influence the wildlife conflict in long run.
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.
Jordan is deemed as one of the least water-endowed regions in the world. The acute water shortage, accompanied with changing climatic conditions have necessitated the increasing use of treated wastewater (TWW), predominantly in irrigated agriculture sector. This is especially true with the upper Zarqa River. The ample supply of TWW resources can be found there; paradoxically, the practical implementation of TWW reuse is hindered by the enforcement of irrigation water quality standard, compounding pressure on the dwindling groundwater resources. In light of the large potential source of TWW, this study aims to supply knowledge on maximizing the safe reuse of TWW while minimizing the environmental impacts within the local environment of the upper Zarqa River. A SWOT analysis was conducted to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of TWW reuse for agriculture in the local context. In recognition of the projected growth in the treated effluent to more than 135 MCM in the coming ten years, and how it would affect the water use on the study region, several plausible development scenarios were proposed based on expected developments on the ground. Considering the vital role of TWW in sustaining multiple ecosystem services, this study addresses the need to review current standard, encourages managed aquifer recharge with TWW, recommends crops type modification, and enhances knowledge on suitable practices at farm level. Each of these factors is needed in order to deliver a range of ecosystem services to sustain the local rural communities and to advance them in the face of profound challenges, thereby leading to its stability and increased productivity.
When it comes to web applications and their dynamic content, one seemingly common trouble area is that of layouts. Frequently, web designers resort to frameworks or JavaScript-based solutions to achieve various layouts where the capabilities of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) fall short. Although the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is attempting to address the demand for more robust and concise layout solutions to handle dynamic content with the recent and upcoming specifications, a generic approach to creating layouts using constraint syntax has been proposed and implementations have been created. Yet, the introduction of constraint syntax would change the CSS paradigm in a fundamental way, demanding further analysis to determine the viability of its inclusion in core web standards. This thesis focuses on one particular aspect of the introduction of constraint syntax: how intuitive constraint syntax will be for designers. To this end, an experiment is performed involving participants thinking aloud while reading code snippets. Also, cursor movements are recorded as a proxy for eye movement over the code snippets. The results indicate that, upon first-impression, constraint syntax within CSS is not intuitive for designers.
A test tool for Langton's ant-based algorithms is created. Among other things, it can create test files for the NIST-Statistical-Test-Suite. The test tool is used to investigate the invertibility, ring formation and randomness of 7 created models which are extensions of Langton’s ant. The models are examined to possibly use them as pseudo-random generator (PRG) or block cipher. All models use memories which are based on tori. This property is central, because this is how rings are formed in the first place and in addition the behavior of all models at the physical boundaries of the memory is clearly defined in this way. The different models have special properties which are also investigated. These include variable color sets, discrete convolution, multidimensionality, and the use of multiple ants, which are arranged fractal hierarchically and influence each other. The extensions convolution, multidimensional scalable and multidimensional scalable fractal ant colony are presented here for the first time. It is shown that well-chosen color sets and high-dimensional tori are particularly well suited as a basis for Langton's ant based PRGs. In addition, it is shown that a block cipher can be generated on this basis.
Chagas disease is a parasitic infection endemic to America, caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi and mainly transmitted to humans by contact with insect species of the Triatominae subfamily (Hemiptera). The disease is known to affect disproportionally rural impoverished human communities where it is known to cause premature death and is considered a social and economic burden. The Mexican government has made important progress into the detection, surveillance, treatment, and prevention of the disease in the last decades, however, Chagas disease has also been reported in areas where it had not been previously reported, and there are still barriers for access to treatment. In the state of San Luis Potosi, the disease is more studied in the east, nevertheless, it has been estimated that the reported cases of the entire state have been underestimated. New approaches to detect Chagas risk areas could help prioritize locations for Chagas disease education and prevention programs, detect cases of the disease in a timely manner, and provide access to the necessary treatments. The objective of this study was to identify risk areas for the transmission of Chagas disease in San Luis Potosí using species distribution modelling to estimate vectors and reservoirs’ distributions. To do this, firstly, important vectors and one reservoir species of T. cruzi were identified by reviewing their reported infection rates in literature and the number of times reported in Mexico. Next, species distribution models were calculated for the chosen vector and reservoir species present in the state. The models were done using the Maxent algorithm. Lastly, the resulting distribution models were combined into a risk map by thresholding the model outputs to produce binary predictions and then performing an overlap spatial analysis. Vector species were found to have suitable areas in 36.08% of the state’s territory while areas suitable for both vectors and reservoir were 7.4% of the state’s total area. While this figure may look small at first glance, the analysis suggests that 30% of the rural population and 52% of the urban population of the state are living in an area suitable for vectors and reservoir and therefore at risk. Species distribution modelling can be a powerful tool for identifying human populations at risk of contracting Chagas disease. In the future, including different species of reservoirs into the analysis could help to discover new risk areas in the state.
Researchers are always looking for innovative ways to collect the environmental data and ease the process of data collection on the field. Advancement in sensor technologies and drones has led to easy technological access to design custom solutions even with basic electronics and technical knowledge. This paper documents, construction and working of “ITT Smart Sense”, which is a low power, easy to use and cost effective environment monitoring system using wireless sensor network that runs autonomously on battery power for an extended period of time. Along with that, a UAV based platform, titled “ITT Smart Sense Fly”, focused on environmental monitoring and scientific research and is tailored to the needs of researchers has been proposed in this paper. This platform is comprised of an autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)/Drone with a camera sensor, an autopilot mobile app for mission planning and other required Photogrammetry tools. The drone navigates over the area of interest based on a pre-programmed flight plan and captures a series of photographs using the on-board camera. The collected image data set is processed to create orthomosaics, high resolution maps and 3D point cloud. The proposed solutions were demonstrated with three distinct case studies.
Located in the Urubamba mountain range, the Chicón glacier is the third highest tropical glacier of this area and the source of water for the Chicón watershed. Moreover, from this watershed four communities obtain water for human consumption and agriculture, which is their main economic activity. In the last years glacier retreat is evident in the area and threatens the livelihoods of the people because it affects the availability of fresh water.
The general objective of this research is to analyse the perception of people living in this watershed to climate change, disaster risk, and ecosystem-based solutions. The specific objectives are to identify natural hazards and climate change effects in the community, to recognise potential ecosystem services suitable for Ecosystem-based Adaptation (EbA) and Ecosystem-based Disaster Risk Reduction (Eco-DRR), and to assess to which climate change effects and disasters the communities are vulnerable based on their own perception. The methodological steps are based on literature review, expert interviews, questionnaires to the community, a workshop and field observations.
The results show that people perceive changes in the climate such as increase in temperature, less precipitation and shifts of the rainy and the dry season. The climate-related disasters that were identified are Glacier Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF), droughts, frosts and hailstorms. However, GLOFs are not frequent in the area and drought is the hazard that people consider will be more frequent. Additionally, pests were identified as biological hazards. Several ecosystems services can be obtained for EbA and Eco-DRR from forests, especially if native trees such as Qiwiña (Polylepis spp.), Chachacoma (Escallonia resinosa) and Aliso (Alnus jorullensis) are used in ecosystem management. Finally, the hypothesis was partially accepted since people in the study area are to some extent aware of climate change impacts, but only partially understand causes and effects. Further, they recognize most of the ecosystem services that forests provide. Therefore they are starting to implement ecosystem-based solutions in the watershed with the support of external institutions.