@phdthesis{Weisshuhn2020, author = {Weißhuhn, Peter}, title = {Assessing biotope vulnerability to landscape changes}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-44277}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-442777}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {v, 134}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Largescale patterns of global land use change are very frequently accompanied by natural habitat loss. To assess the consequences of habitat loss for the remaining natural and semi-natural biotopes, inclusion of cumulative effects at the landscape level is required. The interdisciplinary concept of vulnerability constitutes an appropriate assessment framework at the landscape level, though with few examples of its application for ecological assessments. A comprehensive biotope vulnerability analysis allows identification of areas most affected by landscape change and at the same time with the lowest chances of regeneration. To this end, a series of ecological indicators were reviewed and developed. They measured spatial attributes of individual biotopes as well as some ecological and conservation characteristics of the respective resident species community. The final vulnerability index combined seven largely independent indicators, which covered exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity of biotopes to landscape changes. Results for biotope vulnerability were provided at the regional level. This seems to be an appropriate extent with relevance for spatial planning and designing the distribution of nature reserves. Using the vulnerability scores calculated for the German federal state of Brandenburg, hot spots and clusters within and across the distinguished types of biotopes were analysed. Biotope types with high dependence on water availability, as well as biotopes of the open landscape containing woody plants (e.g., orchard meadows) are particularly vulnerable to landscape changes. In contrast, the majority of forest biotopes appear to be less vulnerable. Despite the appeal of such generalised statements for some biotope types, the distribution of values suggests that conservation measures for the majority of biotopes should be designed specifically for individual sites. Taken together, size, shape and spatial context of individual biotopes often had a dominant influence on the vulnerability score. The implementation of biotope vulnerability analysis at the regional level indicated that large biotope datasets can be evaluated with high level of detail using geoinformatics. Drawing on previous work in landscape spatial analysis, the reproducible approach relies on transparent calculations of quantitative and qualitative indicators. At the same time, it provides a synoptic overview and information on the individual biotopes. It is expected to be most useful for nature conservation in combination with an understanding of population, species, and community attributes known for specific sites. The biotope vulnerability analysis facilitates a foresighted assessment of different land uses, aiding in identifying options to slow habitat loss to sustainable levels. It can also be incorporated into planning of restoration measures, guiding efforts to remedy ecological damage. Restoration of any specific site could yield synergies with the conservation objectives of other sites, through enhancing the habitat network or buffering against future landscape change. Biotope vulnerability analysis could be developed in line with other important ecological concepts, such as resilience and adaptability, further extending the broad thematic scope of the vulnerability concept. Vulnerability can increasingly serve as a common framework for the interdisciplinary research necessary to solve major societal challenges.}, language = {en} } @article{MeijeringKernTobi2014, author = {Meijering, Jurian V. and Kern, Kristine and Tobi, Hilde}, title = {Identifying the methodological characteristics of European green city rankings}, series = {Ecological indicators : integrating monitoring, assessment and management}, volume = {43}, journal = {Ecological indicators : integrating monitoring, assessment and management}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {1470-160X}, doi = {10.1016/j.ecolind.2014.02.026}, pages = {132 -- 142}, year = {2014}, abstract = {City rankings that aim to measure the environmental sustainability of European cities may contribute to the evaluation and development of environmental policy of European cities. The objective of this study is to identify and evaluate the methodological characteristics of these city rankings. First, a methodology was developed to systematically identify methodological characteristics of city rankings within different steps of the ranking development process. Second, six city rankings (European Energy Award, European Green Capital Award, European Green City Index, European Soot-free City Ranking, RES Champions League, Urban Ecosystem Europe) were examined. Official websites and any methodological documents found on those websites were content analyzed using the developed methodology. Interviews with representatives of the city rankings were conducted to acquire any additional information. Results showed that the city rankings varied greatly with respect to their methodological characteristics and that all city rankings had methodological weaknesses. Developers of city rankings are advised to use the methodology developed in this study to find methodological weaknesses and improve their ranking. In addition, developers ought to be more transparent about the methodological characteristics of their city rankings. End-users of city rankings are advised to use the developed methodology to identify and evaluate the methodological characteristics of city rankings before deciding to act on ranking results. (c) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Kunze2013, author = {Kunze, Matthias}, title = {Searching business process models by example}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-68844}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Business processes are fundamental to the operations of a company. Each product manufactured and every service provided is the result of a series of actions that constitute a business process. Business process management is an organizational principle that makes the processes of a company explicit and offers capabilities to implement procedures, control their execution, analyze their performance, and improve them. Therefore, business processes are documented as process models that capture these actions and their execution ordering, and make them accessible to stakeholders. As these models are an essential knowledge asset, they need to be managed effectively. In particular, the discovery and reuse of existing knowledge becomes challenging in the light of companies maintaining hundreds and thousands of process models. In practice, searching process models has been solved only superficially by means of free-text search of process names and their descriptions. Scientific contributions are limited in their scope, as they either present measures for process similarity or elaborate on query languages to search for particular aspects. However, they fall short in addressing efficient search, the presentation of search results, and the support to reuse discovered models. This thesis presents a novel search method, where a query is expressed by an exemplary business process model that describes the behavior of a possible answer. This method builds upon a formal framework that captures and compares the behavior of process models by the execution ordering of actions. The framework contributes a conceptual notion of behavioral distance that quantifies commonalities and differences of a pair of process models, and enables process model search. Based on behavioral distances, a set of measures is proposed that evaluate the quality of a particular search result to guide the user in assessing the returned matches. A projection of behavioral aspects to a process model enables highlighting relevant fragments that led to a match and facilitates its reuse. The thesis further elaborates on two search techniques that provide concrete behavioral distance functions as an instantiation of the formal framework. Querying enables search with a notion of behavioral inclusion with regard to the query. In contrast, similarity search obtains process models that are similar to a query, even if the query is not precisely matched. For both techniques, indexes are presented that enable efficient search. Methods to evaluate the quality and performance of process model search are introduced and applied to the techniques of this thesis. They show good results with regard to human assessment and scalability in a practical setting.}, language = {en} } @misc{Kraemer2009, author = {Kr{\"a}mer, Raimund}, title = {Editorial und Inhaltsverzeichnis}, issn = {0944-8101}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-34230}, year = {2009}, abstract = {Editorial und Inhaltsverzeichnis.}, language = {de} } @misc{Kraemer2009, author = {Kr{\"a}mer, Raimund}, title = {Editorial und Inhaltsverzeichnis}, issn = {0944-8101}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-34062}, year = {2009}, abstract = {Editorial und Inhaltsverzeichnis}, language = {de} }