@phdthesis{Unterstab2005, author = {Unterstab, Gunhild}, title = {Charakterisierung der viralen Genprodukte p10 und P des Borna Disease Virus}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-6905}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2005}, abstract = {Das Borna Disease Virus (BDV, Bornavirus) besitzt ein einzelstr{\"a}ngiges RNA-Genom negativer Polarit{\"a}t und ist innerhalb der Ordnung Mononegavirales der Prototyp einer eigenen Virusfamilie, die der Bornaviridae. Eine außergew{\"o}hnliche Eigenschaft des Virus ist seine nukle{\"a}re Transkription und Replikation, eine weitere besteht in seiner F{\"a}higkeit, als neurotropes Virus sowohl in vivo als auch in vitro persistente Infektionen zu etablieren. Die zugrunde liegenden Mechanismen sowohl der Replikation als auch der Persistenz sind derzeit noch unzureichend verstanden, auch deshalb, weil das Virus noch relativ „jung" ist: Erste komplette Sequenzen des RNA-Genoms wurden 1994 publiziert und erst vor einigen Monaten gelang die Generierung rekombinanter Viren auf der Basis klonierter cDNA. Im Mittelpunkt dieser Arbeit standen das p10 Protein und das Phosphoprotein (P), die von der gemeinsamen Transkriptionseinheit II in {\"u}berlappenden Leserahmen kodiert werden. Als im Kern der Wirtszelle replizierendes Virus ist das Bornavirus auf zellul{\"a}re Importmechanismen angewiesen, um den Kernimport aller an der Replikation beteiligten viralen Proteine zu gew{\"a}hrleisten. Das p10 Protein ist ein negativer Regulator der viralen RNA-abh{\"a}ngigen RNA-Polymerase (L). In vitro Importexperimente zeigten, dass p10 {\"u}ber den klassischen Importin alpha/beta abh{\"a}ngigen Kernimportweg in den Nukleus transportiert wird. Dies war unerwartet, da p10 kein vorhersagbares klassisches Kernlokalisierungssignal (NLS) besitzt und weist darauf hin, dass der zellul{\"a}re Importapparat offensichtlich flexibler ist als allgemein angenommen. Die ersten 20 N-terminalen AS vermitteln sowohl Kernimport als auch die Bindung an den Importrezeptor Importin alpha. Durch Di-Alanin-Austauschmutagenese wurden die f{\"u}r diesen Transportprozess essentiellen AS identifiziert und die Bedeutung hydrophober und polarer AS-Reste demonstriert. Die F{\"a}higkeit des Bornavirus, persistente Infektionen zu etablieren, wirft die Frage auf, wie das Virus die zellul{\"a}ren antiviralen Abwehrmechanismen, insbesondere das Typ I Interferon (IFN)-System, unterwandert. Das virale P Protein wurde in dieser Arbeit als potenter Antagonist der IFN-Induktion charakterisiert. Es verhindert die Phosphorylierung des zentralen Transkriptionsfaktors IRF3 durch die zellul{\"a}re Kinase TBK1 und somit dessen Aktivierung. Der Befund, dass P mit TBK1 Komplexe bildet und zudem auch als Substrat f{\"u}r die zellul{\"a}re Kinase fungiert, erlaubt es, erstmalig einen Mechanismus zu postulieren, in dem ein virales Protein (BDV-P) als putatives TBK1-Pseudosubstrat die IRF3-Aktivierung kompetitiv hemmt.}, subject = {Interferon }, language = {de} } @phdthesis{Neichel2003, author = {Neichel, Dajana}, title = {Charakterisierung und in vitro - Wirkung agonistischer AT1-Rezeptor Autoantik{\"o}rper bei Pr{\"a}eklampsie-Patienten}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-0001126}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2003}, abstract = {Die Pr{\"a}eklampsie ist eine schwangerschaftsspezifische Bluthochdruck-Erkrankung, die im Allgemeinen nach der 20. Schwangerschaftswoche auftritt. Neben der Hypertonie sind die Proteinurie und die {\"O}dembildung charakteristische Symptome der Pr{\"a}eklampsie. Obwohl heute die Pathophysiologie der Pr{\"a}eklampsie zum großen Teil verstanden ist, ist die {\"A}tiologie dieser Erkrankung noch unklar. 1999 konnten wir in den Seren von Pr{\"a}eklampsie-Patientinnen agonistische Autoantik{\"o}rper, die gegen den Angiotensin II AT1-Rezeptor gerichtet sind (AT1-AAK), nachweisen. Diese AT1-AAK geh{\"o}ren zur Antik{\"o}rpersubklasse IgG3. Die AT1-AAK f{\"u}hren in Kulturen neonataler Rattenkardiomyozyten AT1-Rezeptor spezifisch zu einem positiv chronotropen Effekt. Mittels Immunpr{\"a}zipitation wurde gezeigt, dass AT1-AAK spezifisch den AT1-Rezeptor pr{\"a}zipitieren. Kontrollproben, aus denen die AT1-AAK entfernt wurden, f{\"u}hren zu keiner Pr{\"a}zipitation des AT1-Rezeptors. Die Pr{\"a}zipitation des AT1-Rezeptors bleibt ebenfalls aus, wenn die AT1-AAK mit einem Peptid, welches der Aminos{\"a}uresequenz des zweiten extrazellul{\"a}ren Loops des humanen AT1-Rezeptors entspricht, behandelt wurden. Eine Langzeitbehandlung der Kulturen neonataler Rattenherzzellen mit AT1-AAK vermindert die funktionelle Ansprechbarkeit der Zellen auf einen erneuten AT1-Rezeptor-Stimulus. Eine ver{\"a}nderte AT1-Rezeptorexpression wurde nicht nachgewiesen. In guter {\"U}bereinstimmung mit den in vitro-Expressionsdaten wurde gezeigt, dass die plazentare AT1-Rezeptorexpression bei Pr{\"a}eklampsie-Patientinnen nicht verschieden von der plazentaren AT1-Rezeptorexpression gesunder Schwangerer mit nicht pathogen ver{\"a}ndertem Blutdruck ist. Im Zellsystem der neonatalen Rattenherzzellen f{\"u}hren die AT1-AAK zur Aktivierung von Gi-Proteinen und zu verringerten intrazellul{\"a}ren cAMP-Spiegeln. Des Weiteren wurde gezeigt, dass die AT1-AAK in Kulturen neonataler Rattenherzzellen die Transkriptionsfaktoren AP-1 und NFkB aktivieren. Die Aktivierung des Transkriptionsfaktors NFkB wurde vornehmlich in den Nicht-Myozyten der Rattenherzzellkultur nachgewiesen. Generell wurde festgestellt, dass sich die AT1-AAK pharmakologisch wie der nat{\"u}rliche Agonist des AT1-Rezeptors, Angiotensin II, verhalten. Erste Daten dieser Arbeit deuten auf einen eventuellen Einfluss der AT1-AAK auf die Expression von Komponenten der extrazellul{\"a}ren Matrix bzw. assoziierter Faktoren (Kollagen III, MMP-2, TIMP-2, Colligin) hin. In allen in dieser Arbeit untersuchten Seren von klinisch diagnostizierten Pr{\"a}eklampsie-Patientinnen wurden agonistische AT1-AAK nachgewiesen. Wir vermuten daher, dass die AT1-AAK m{\"o}glicherweise bedeutend in der Pathogenese der Pr{\"a}eklampsie sind.}, language = {de} } @phdthesis{Pruefer2023, author = {Pr{\"u}fer, Mareike}, title = {Charakterisierung und wechselfeldgest{\"u}tzte Herstellung von Enzym-Nanoarrays}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-61232}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-612329}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {104}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Dielektrophorese ist die Manipulation polarisierbarer Partikel durch inhomogene elektrische Wechselfelder. In dieser Arbeit wurden drei verschiedene Enzyme durch Dielektrophorese immobilisiert und anschließend hinsichtlich ihrer katalytischen Aktivit{\"a}t untersucht: Meerrettichperoxidase, Cholinoxidase aus Alcaligenes sp. und Glucoseoxidase aus Aspergillus niger. Die Immobilisierung erfolgte durch Dielektrophorese auf nano-Elektrodenarrays aus Wolfram-Zylindern mit 500 nm Durchmesser oder aus Titannitrid-Ringen mit 20 nm Breite. Die Immobilisierung der Enzyme konnte fluoreszenzmikroskopisch entweder anhand der intrinsischen Fluoreszenz oder aufgrund einer Fluoreszenzmarkierung vor oder nach der Immobilisierung f{\"u}r alle getesteten Enzyme nachgewiesen werden. Die Messung der Enzymaktivit{\"a}t erfolgte quantitativ durch den direkten oder indirekten Nachweis des gebildeten Produktes oder, im Falle der Cholinoxidase, durch Beobachtung der intrinsischen Fluoreszenz des Cofaktors FAD, die vom Oxidationszustand dieses Enzyms abh{\"a}ngt. F{\"u}r die Meerrettichperoxidase konnte so eine hohe erhaltene Enzymaktivit{\"a}t nach der Immobilisierung nachgewiesen werden. Die Aktivit{\"a}t der permanent immobilisierten Fraktion der Meerrettichperoxidase entsprach bis zu 47 \% der h{\"o}chstm{\"o}glichen Aktivit{\"a}t einer Monolage dieses Enzyms auf den Elektroden des Chips. Diese Aktivit{\"a}t kann als aktive, aber zuf{\"a}llig gegen{\"u}ber der Oberfl{\"a}che ausgerichtete Enzymschicht interpretiert werden. F{\"u}r die permanent immobilisierte Glucoseoxidase wurde nur eine Aktivit{\"a}t entsprechend <1,3 \% der Aktivit{\"a}t einer solchen Enzymschicht detektiert, w{\"a}hrend f{\"u}r die immobilisierte Cholinoxidase gar keine Aktivit{\"a}t nachgewiesen werden konnte. Die Aktivit{\"a}t der durch DEP immobilisierten Enzyme konnte somit quantitativ bestimmt werden. Der Anteil an erhaltener Aktivit{\"a}t h{\"a}ngt dabei stark vom verwendeten Enzym ab.}, language = {de} } @phdthesis{Pellengahr2004, author = {Pellengahr, Klaus}, title = {Charakterisierung von ausgew{\"a}hlten Protein-Phosphatasen und MATE-Proteinen aus Arabidopsis thaliana}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-2500}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2004}, abstract = {Im ersten Teil der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde die Genexpression der Protein Phosphatase-gene TOPP1, TOPP2, TOPP5, STH1 und STH2 analysiert. Alle f{\"u}nf ausgew{\"a}hlten Gene kodieren f{\"u}r PP des PP1/PP2A-Typs. Es wurde untersucht, ob homologen PP-Isoformen individuelle Expressionsmuster zugewiesen werden konnten. Besonderes Augenmerk richtete sich dabei auf die Expression von PP-Genen in den Schließzellen von A. thaliana. In mehreren Inhibitorstudien wurde beschrieben, dass PP1/PP2A-Proteine eine wichtige Rolle in der Signaltransduktion pflanzlicher Schließzellen spielen. Bisher konnte allerdings noch keine der entsprechenden katalytischen Untereinheiten auf molekularer Ebene identifiziert werden. Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wurde zum ersten Mal nachgewiesen, dass mit TOPP1 ein Protein des PP1-Typs pr{\"a}ferenziell in den Schließzellen von A. thaliana exprimiert wird. Ein Vergleich der Genexpression von TOPP1, TOPP2 und TOPP5 zeigte f{\"u}r die drei homologen Gene sehr Isoform-spezifische Expressionsmuster. Dies war ein deutlicher Hinweis, dass diese eng verwandten PP trotz großer {\"U}bereinstimmung auf Aminos{\"a}ureebene vermutlich unterschiedliche Funktionen in planta haben. Die Untersuchung der Genexpression von STH1 und STH2 zeigte, dass die fast identischen Proteine zum Teil in unterschiedlichen Geweben vorkommen. Die Transkripte der beiden Gene, welche eine eigene Untergruppe von PP2A-verwandten Sequenzen bilden, konnten aus EF isoliert werden. Der in dieser Arbeit entwickelte Screeningansatz erm{\"o}glichte es, die sehr {\"a}hnlichen cDNA-Fragmente eindeutig voneinander zu unterscheiden. Die gefundenen Isoform-spezifischen Expressionsmuster waren ein deutlicher Hinweis auf unterschiedliche Funktionen in planta. Zur weiteren Untersuchung der PP-Funktionen in planta wurden Pflanzen mit ver{\"a}nderter Genaktivit{\"a}t von TOPP2 oder STH1 untersucht. In Pflanzen mit RNAi-vermittelter Reduktion des TOPP2-Transkriptgehalts ließ sich ein deutlich ver{\"a}ndertes Blattwachstum beobachten. Die eingerollten oder asymmetrisch entwickelten Bl{\"a}tter waren vermutlich ein Hinweis, dass diese PP1-Isoform auch in A. thaliana eine Rolle bei der Zellteilung spielt. F{\"u}r TOPP2-Expression in Hefen wurde diese Funktion schon nachgewiesen. Die Analyse von Insertions-mutanten mit T-DNA Insertionen in beiden STH1-Allelen waren neben den Expressions-studien ein weiterer Hinweis, dass sich STH1 nicht funktionell durch STH2 ersetzen l{\"a}sst. Die Experimente in dieser Arbeit zeigten, dass das Fehlen der STH1-Genaktivit{\"a}t zu einem deutlichen Blattph{\"a}notyp mit gezahnten Blattr{\"a}ndern f{\"u}hrte. F{\"u}r STH2-Insertionsmutanten wurde dieses ver{\"a}nderte Wachstum nicht beschrieben. Im zweiten Teil dieser Arbeit wurde das Gen NIC1, welches f{\"u}r ein MATE-Membranprotein kodiert, identifiziert und charakterisiert. Die Sequenzierung des Genoms von A. thaliana hatte gezeigt, dass mindestens 56 MATE-Gene in dieser Pflanze vorhanden sind. Zum Zeitpunkt der Identifikation von NIC1 war keines dieser Gene charakterisiert. Außer f{\"u}r das MATE-Protein ERC1 aus S. cerevisiae gab es keine Studien zu eukaryotischen Mitgliedern dieser großen Familie von Membranproteinen. Anhand NIC1 wurden heterologe Expressionssysteme zur funktionellen Charakterisierung von MATE-Proteinen aus Pflanzen etabliert. Die cDNA von NIC1 wurde nach ihrer Klonierung in X. laevis Oozyten und S. cerevisiae exprimiert. In S. cerevisiae erh{\"o}hte die NIC1-Expression die Lithumtoleranz der Hefen und f{\"u}hrte zu einer Verminderung der Natriumtoleranz. Parallele Versuche mit NIC2 und NIC4 (in den Diplomarbeiten von Blazej Dolniak und Mandy Kursawe) zeigten, dass auch diese beiden Proteine die Salztoleranz von S. cerevisiae beeinflussten. W{\"a}hrend NIC2 die Lithium- und Natriumtoleranz erh{\"o}hte, f{\"u}hrte NIC4-Expresion zu einer h{\"o}heren Sensibilit{\"a}t gegen{\"u}ber diesen beiden Kationen. Die unterschiedlichen Eigenschaften der drei homologen Proteine zeigten sich auch bei ihrer Expression in X. laevis Oozyten. NIC1 induzierte in den Oozyten ausw{\"a}rts gerichtete Chloridstr{\"o}me, die spannungsabh{\"a}ngig waren und durch mikromolare Konzentrationen der trivalenten Kationen Lanthan oder Gadolinium inhibiert werden konnten. NIC4 induzierte Barium-inhibierbare Kaliumstr{\"o}me, die spannungsunabh{\"a}ngig waren. F{\"u}r NIC2 ließ sich in diesem Expressionssystem keine Aktivit{\"a}t detektieren. Zur Untersuchung der NIC1-Funktion in planta wurde die Genaktivit{\"a}t in transgenen Pflanzen lokalisiert und reduziert. Die NIC1-Genexpression war haupts{\"a}chlich in den vaskul{\"a}ren Geweben der Pflanze detektierbar und einer Verminderung des NIC1-Transkriptgehalts beeinflusste die Entwicklungsgeschwindigkeit der Pflanzen. Sie entwickelten sich deutlich langsamer als der parallel kultivierte Wildtyp. Der deutliche Ph{\"a}notyp bei Ver{\"a}nderung der Genaktivit{\"a}t von nur einem der mindestens 56 vorhandenen MATE-Gene in A. thaliana zeigte, dass vermutlich keine weitere MATE-Isoform in der Lage ist, die Funktion von NIC1 zu {\"u}bernehmen.}, subject = {Biologie}, language = {de} } @phdthesis{Nitezki2017, author = {Nitezki, Tina}, title = {Charakterisierung von Stereotypien bei der FVB/NJ-Maus hinsichtlich metabolischer und immunologischer Aspekte auf die Stoffwechselleistung}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-402265}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {149}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Im Sinne des Refinements von Tierversuchen sollen alle Bedingungen w{\"a}hrend der Zucht, der Haltung und des Transports von zu Versuchszwecken gehaltenen Tieren und alle Methoden w{\"a}hrend des Versuchs so verbessert werden, dass die verwendeten Tiere ein minimales Maß an potentiellem Distress, Schmerzen oder Leiden erfahren. Zudem soll ihr Wohlbefinden durch die M{\"o}glichkeit des Auslebens speziesspezifischer Verhaltensweisen und die Anwendung tierschonender Verfahren maximal gef{\"o}rdert werden. Zur Etablierung von Grunds{\"a}tzen des Refinements sind grundlegende Kenntnisse {\"u}ber die physiologischen Bed{\"u}rfnisse und Verhaltensanspr{\"u}che der jeweiligen Spezies unabdingbar. Die Experimentatoren sollten das Normalverhalten der Tiere kennen, um potentielle Verhaltensabweichungen, wie Stereotypien, zu verstehen und interpretieren zu k{\"o}nnen. Standardisierte Haltungsbedingungen von zu Versuchszwecken gehaltenen M{\"a}usen weichen in diversen Aspekten von der nat{\"u}rlichen Umgebung ab und erfordern eine gewisse Adaptation. Ist ein Tier {\"u}ber einen l{\"a}ngeren Zeitraum unf{\"a}hig, sich an die gegebenen Umst{\"a}nde anzupassen, k{\"o}nnen abnormale Verhaltensweisen, wie Stereotypien auftreten. Stereotypien werden definiert als Abweichungen vom Normalverhalten, die repetitiv und ohne Abweichungen im Ablauf ausgef{\"u}hrt werden, scheinbar keiner Funktion dienen und der konkreten Umweltsituation nicht immer entsprechen. Bisher war unklar, in welchem Ausmaß stereotypes Verhalten den metabolischen Ph{\"a}notyp eines Individuums beeinflusst. Ziel dieser Arbeit war es daher, das stereotype Verhalten der FVB/NJ-Maus erstmals detailliert zu charakterisieren, systematisch zusammenzutragen, welche metabolischen Konsequenzen dieses Verhalten bedingt und wie sich diese auf das Wohlbefinden der Tiere und die Verwendung stereotyper Tiere in Studien mit tierexperimentellem Schwerpunkt auswirken. Der Versuch begann mit der Charakterisierung der m{\"u}tterlichen F{\"u}rsorge in der Parentalgeneration. Insgesamt wurden 35 Jungtiere der F1-Generation vom Absatz an, {\"u}ber einen Zeitraum von 11 Wochen einzeln gehalten, kontinuierlich beobachtet, bis zum Versuchsende w{\"o}chentlich Kotproben gesammelt und das K{\"o}rpergewicht bestimmt. Zus{\"a}tzlich erfolgten begleitende Untersuchungen wie Verhaltenstests und die Erfassung der physischen Aktivit{\"a}t und metabolischer Parameter. Anschließend wurden u.a. die zerebralen Serotonin- und Dopamingehalte, f{\"a}kale Glucocorticoidlevels, hepatisches Glykogen und muskul{\"a}re Glykogen- und Triglyceridlevels bestimmt. Nahezu unabh{\"a}ngig von der m{\"u}tterlichen Herkunft entwickelte sich bei mehr als der H{\"a}lfte der 35 Jungtiere in der F1-Generation stereotypes Verhalten. Diese Daten deuten darauf hin, dass es keine Anzeichen f{\"u}r das Erlernen oder eine direkte genetische Transmission stereotypen Verhaltens bei der FVB/NJ-Maus gibt. {\"U}ber den gesamten Beobachtungszeitraum zeichneten sich die stereotypen FVB/NJ-M{\"a}use durch ein eingeschr{\"a}nktes Verhaltensrepertoire aus. Zu Gunsten der erh{\"o}hten Aktivit{\"a}t und des Aus{\"u}bens stereotypen Verhaltens lebten sie insgesamt weniger andere Verhaltensweisen (Klettern, Graben, Nagen) aus. Dar{\"u}ber hinaus waren Stereotypien sowohl im 24-Stunden Open Field Test als auch in der Messeinrichtung der indirekten Tierkalorimetrie mit einer erh{\"o}hten Aktivit{\"a}t und Motilit{\"a}t assoziiert, w{\"a}hrend die circadiane Rhythmik nicht divergierte. Diese erh{\"o}hte k{\"o}rperliche Bet{\"a}tigung spiegelte sich in den niedrigeren K{\"o}rpergewichtsentwicklungen der stereotypen Tiere wieder. Außerdem unterschieden sich die K{\"o}rperfett- und K{\"o}rpermuskelanteile. Zusammenfassend l{\"a}sst sich sagen, dass das Aus{\"u}ben stereotypen Verhaltens zu Differenzen im metabolischen Ph{\"a}notyp nicht-stereotyper und stereotyper FVB/NJ-M{\"a}use f{\"u}hrt. Im Sinne der „Guten Wissenschaftlichen Praxis" sollte das zentrale Ziel jedes Wissenschaftlers sein, aussagekr{\"a}ftige und reproduzierbare Daten hervorzubringen. Jedoch k{\"o}nnen keine validen Resultate von Tieren erzeugt werden, die in Aspekten variieren, die f{\"u}r den vorgesehenen Zweck der Studie nicht ber{\"u}cksichtigt wurden. Deshalb sollten nicht-stereotype und stereotype Individuen nicht innerhalb einer Versuchsgruppe randomisiert werden. Stereotype Tiere demzufolge von geplanten Studien auszuschließen, w{\"u}rde allerdings dem Gebot des zweiten R's - der Reduction - widersprechen. Um Refinement zu garantieren, sollte der Fokus auf der maximal erreichbaren Pr{\"a}vention stereotypen Verhaltens liegen. Diverse Studien haben bereits gezeigt, dass die Anreicherung der Haltungsumwelt (environmental enrichment) zu einer Senkung der Pr{\"a}valenz von Stereotypien bei M{\"a}usen f{\"u}hrt, dennoch kommen sie weiterhin vor. Daher sollte environmental enrichment zuk{\"u}nftig weniger ein „Kann", sondern ein „Muss" sein - oder vielmehr: der Goldstandard. Zudem w{\"u}rde eine profunde ph{\"a}notypische Charakterisierung dazu beitragen, Mausst{\"a}mme zu erkennen, die zu Stereotypien neigen und den f{\"u}r den spezifischen Zweck am besten geeigneten Mausstamm zu identifizieren, bevor ein Experiment geplant wird.}, language = {de} } @phdthesis{Teubner2001, author = {Teubner, Wera}, title = {Charakterisierung von Sulfotransferasen im Gastrointestinaltrakt von Mensch und Ratte und Aktivierung von Promutagenen in V79-Zellen, die eine intestinale Form (1B1) des Menschen und der Ratte exprimieren}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-0000084}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2001}, abstract = {Die Ausstattung der gastrointestinalen Mukosa des Menschen und der Ratte mit Sulfotransferasen wurde mit Hilfe von Immunodetektion und Enzymaktivit{\"a}tsmessungen untersucht. In Proben aus Colon und Rektum von 39 Personen wurden die Formen h1A1, h1A3 und h1B1 identifiziert, wobei in einer weiteren Probe, die als einzige von einem an Colitis Ulcerosa erkrankten Patienten stammte, keine Sulfotransferasen nachgewiesen werden konnten. Bei der Immunblot-Analyse war das Expressionsmuster der einzelnen Formen in allen Proben {\"a}hnlich. In wenigen Proben waren die relativen Signalintensit{\"a}ten der h1A1 und der h1B1 um die H{\"a}lfte erniedrigt. Der Gehalt von SULT an zytosolischem Protein zeigte einen bis zu 8 - 10fachen Unterschied, er betrug jedoch bei zwei Dritteln der Proben zwischen 0,15 und 0,3 (h1A1 und h1A3) bzw. 0,6 und 0,8 Promille (h1B1). Die Variation konnte nicht auf Alter, Geschlecht oder Krankheitsbild der Patienten zur{\"u}ckgef{\"u}hrt werden. Auch der f{\"u}r die allelischen Varianten der h1A1 beschriebene Effekt auf die Enzymaktivi{\"a}t bzw. Stabilit{\"a}t konnte in der Menge an immunreaktivem Protein nicht in diesem Ausmaß detektiert werden. Die Allelh{\"a}ufigkeit von h1A1*R und h1A1*H war gegen{\"u}ber der gesunden Bev{\"o}lkerung nicht ver{\"a}ndert. In den sieben Proben aus dem D{\"u}nndarm (Coecum, viermal Ileum, Jejunum) konnten zus{\"a}tzlich die Formen h1E1 und h2A1 identifiziert werden. Ein m{\"o}glicherweise der Form h1C1 entsprechendes Protein wurde im Magen detektiert. Im Vergleich zum Menschen war die Expression in der Ratte st{\"a}rker auf die Leber konzentriert. W{\"a}hrend beim Menschen in allen untersuchten Abschnitten Sulfotransferasen in Mengen detektiert wurden, die in zwei F{\"a}llen (h1B1 und h1A3) sogar den Gehalt in der Leber {\"u}berstiegen, beschr{\"a}nkte sich die Expression in der Ratte auf im Vergleich zur Leber geringe Mengen im Magen und Dickdarm. Nachgewiesen wurden die r1B1, r1A1 sowie eine nicht identifizierte Form von 35kD, bei der es sich vermutlich um die r1C2 handelt. Im Vergleich zur Leber enthielt der Dickdarm der Ratte 20 - 30 \% an r1B1 und 3 \% an r1A1, w{\"a}hrend im Dickdarm des Menschen die 3 - 5fache Menge an h1B1 und 25 - 50 \% an h1A1 gefunden wurden. Die nicht identifizierte Form verhielt sich wie die r1B1. Die f{\"u}r die Leber der Ratte bekannte geschlechtsabh{\"a}ngige Expression wurde im Gastrointestinaltrakt nicht beobachtet. Die Verteilung der Sulfotransferasen im Colon und Ileum des Menschen wurde immunhistochemisch untersucht; f{\"u}r die Gewebe der Ratte war die Spezifit{\"a}t der zur Verf{\"u}gung stehenden Antiseren nicht ausreichend. Im Colon traten h1B1-spezifische F{\"a}rbungen in den differenzierten Enterozyten am oberen Ende der Krypten auf, im D{\"u}nndarm wurden die Epithelzellen der Zotten gef{\"a}rbt. Die F{\"a}rbung konzentrierte sich auf das Zytoplasma. Eine {\"a}hnliche Verteilung zeigte sich f{\"u}r h1A1 und h1A3, außer daß zus{\"a}tzlich eine intensive F{\"a}rbung der Endothelzellen der Kapillaren in der Submukosa des Ileums auftrat. Im Dickdarm war dies nur bei den Kapillaren in den Lymphfollikeln zu erkennen. Die h2A1 war lediglich im Zytoplasma der Epithelzellen der Zotten des Ileums nachzuweisen, w{\"a}hrend im Colon keine Farbreaktion auftrat. Durch die Verwendung der rekombinanten Indikatorst{\"a}mme TA1538-h1A1, -h1A3 und -h1B1 und des Ausgangsstammes Salmonella typhimurium TA1538 im Ames-Test wurde gezeigt, daß verschiedene benzylische und allylische Alkohole durch im humanen Colon exprimierte Sulfotransferasen zu Mutagenen aktiviert werden. In den meisten F{\"a}llen erwies sich eine der drei Sulfotransferasen als besonders effizient in der Bioaktivierung, w{\"a}hrend durch die anderen Formen kein oder nur ein schwacher Effekt verursacht wurde. Die Bioaktivierung von Promutagenen durch Sulfotransferasen im Colon muß im Zusammenhang mit der Lokalisation diskutiert werden. Die Zellen im Darm, in denen immunhistochemisch Sulfotransferasen detektiert wurden, haben mit Ausnahme des Endothels je nach Abschnitt eine Lebensdauer von maximal f{\"u}nf Tagen und machen keine weiteren Zellteilungen mehr durch. Daher sind DNA-Sch{\"a}den in diesen Zellen ein sehr geringes Risiko f{\"u}r den Organismus. Soweit die reaktiven Metabolite in diesen Zellen gefangen bleiben, kann die Bioaktivierung in diesen Zellen und die Bildung von Addukten als protektiv betrachten werden, da letztere nach wenigen Tagen mit den toten Zellen in das Darmlumen abgegeben werden. F{\"u}r den Vergleich der Bioaktiverung von Promutagenen durch die Form 1B1 des Menschen und der Ratte wurden aus V79 Lungenfibroblasten des Chinesischen Hamsters abgeleitete Zellinien hergestellt, die je eine der beiden Formen stabil exprimieren. Damit standen 1B1-profiziente Indikatorzellen f{\"u}r den HPRT-Genmutationstest zur Verf{\"u}gung, und die 1B1-abh{\"a}ngige Bioaktivierung konnte in einem System untersucht werden, die dem eukaryontischen Organismus n{\"a}her steht als die f{\"u}r die Ames-Tests verwendeten Bakterien. So war z.B. die Sulfotransferase wie im Gewebe im Zytoplasma lokalisiert. Als Modellsubstanzen wurden hierbei die bereits in TA1538-h1B1 mutagen wirkenden benzylischen Alkohole 6-Hydroxymethylbenzo[a]pyren und 4-Hydroxycyclopenta-[def]chrysen getestet. Da die Sensitivit{\"a}t einer Sulfotransferase-exprimierenden V79-Zellinie sowohl durch die Menge an Sulfotransferase als auch durch die Verf{\"u}gbarkeit des Sulfodonors limitiert sein k{\"o}nnte, wurden die Mutagenit{\"a}tsexperimente mit V79-r1B1-Zellinien durchgef{\"u}hrt, die sich in ihrer Enzymaktivit{\"a}t um das Zwanzigfache unterschieden: V79-r1B1/A und -/B. Eine starke Erh{\"o}hung der Mutantenfrequenz wurde nur in der hoch exprimierenden Zellinie V79-r1B1/A (1019 \&\#177; 224 pmol/mg/min) beobachtet, so daß eine gravierende Beeintr{\"a}chtigung der Sensitivit{\"a}t durch einen Mangel an Kosubstrat ausgeschlossen wurde. In der niedriger exprimierenden Zellinie V79-r1B1/B (57 \&\#177; 9 pmol/mg/min) war nur mit 6-Hydroxymethylbenzo[a]pyren ein schwacher Anstieg der Mutantenfrequenz zu erkennen, der mit 0,3 \&\#181;M bei einer in etwa 100fach h{\"o}heren Konzentration begann als bei V79-r1B1/A. Die zytosolische Fraktion aus V79-r1B1/B-Zellen enthielt in etwa die dreifache Menge an r1B1-Protein wie die aus Colonmucosa der Ratte. Da zumindest f{\"u}r die humane Mukosa gezeigt wurde, daß die 1B1 nur im einschichtigen Epithel, nicht aber in allen Zellen der Mukosa exprimiert wird, repr{\"a}sentiert die zytosolische Fraktion aus der Mukosa nur bedingt die Expression in den Epithelzellen und der Vergleich mit den V79-1B1-Zellen ist grob. Im Gegensatz zu V79-r1B1/B war die Zellinie V79-h1B1, die ebenfalls nur mit Darm und Leber vergleichbare Mengen an h1B1 exprimierte, in der Lage, beide benzylischen Alkohole zu aktivieren. Der Erh{\"o}hung der Mutantenfrequenz im Vergleich zur KontrollZellinie war {\"a}hnlich wie bei der stark exprimierenden Zellinie V79-r1B1/A, erforderte aber 10fach h{\"o}here Konzentrationen. Somit unterscheiden sich Mensch und Ratte nicht nur insgesamt in ihrer Ausstattung des Gastrointestinaltrakts mit Sulfotransferasen, auch bei Betrachtung einer einzelnen Form zeigten sich deutliche Unterschiede in der Aktivierung von zwei Promutagenen. Die Ratte ist daher ein ungeeignetes Modell, um die Rolle von Sulfotransferasen bei tumorinitiierenden Prozessen im Darm zu untersuchen. Dies unterstreicht die Bedeutung von rekombinanten in-vitro-Systemen f{\"u}r die Erfassung des humanen Metabolismus von Fremdstoffen. Insgesamt kennt man nur eine geringe Anzahl von Substanzen, die im Tierexperiment Colontumore erzeugen, und mit Ausnahme der heterozyklischen aromatischen Amine sind diese lediglich von experimenteller Bedeutung. Dies spricht f{\"u}r effiziente Schutzmechanismen der Darmmukosa gegen{\"u}ber Mutagenen und l{\"a}ßt die Frage nach der hohen Inzidenz des Kolorektalkarzinoms offen.}, language = {de} } @phdthesis{Hille2006, author = {Hille, Carsten}, title = {Charakterisierung von Transportmechanismen in der Speicheldr{\"u}se der Schabe Periplaneta americana}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-9422}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2006}, abstract = {Die Aktivierung der Speichelsekretion erfolgt in der innervierten Speicheldr{\"u}se der Schabe Periplaneta americana durch die biogenen Amine Dopamin (DA) und Serotonin (5-HT). Die Acini der Speicheldr{\"u}se sezernieren einen Prim{\"a}rspeichel, der in den Ausf{\"u}hrg{\"a}ngen modifiziert wird. Die durch DA und 5-HT aktivierten Signalwege sowie die an der Elektrolyt- und Fl{\"u}ssigkeitssekretion bzw. Speichel-modifikation beteiligten Transportmechanismen sind weitgehend unbekannt. Mikrofluorometrische Ca2+-, Na+- und pH-Messungen in Kombination mit pharmakologischen Experimenten, biochemische Messungen der Aktivit{\"a}ten von Ionentransport-ATPasen sowie videomikroskopische Analysen zu transepithelialen Wasserbewegungen wurden in dieser Arbeit durchgef{\"u}hrt. Sie sollten Informationen {\"u}ber die an der Speichelbildung und -modifikation beteiligten Transportmechanismen und die Signalwege liefern, welche durch DA und/oder 5-HT aktiviert werden. Wesentliche Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit waren:
  • Messungen des intrazellul{\"a}ren pH (pHi) in Gangzellen zeigten, dass isolierte Ausf{\"u}hrg{\"a}nge mit Acini bei Stimulierung mit DA und 5-HT stark ans{\"a}uerten. In isolierten Ausf{\"u}hrg{\"a}ngen ohne Acini verursachte nur DA eine schwache Ans{\"a}uerung. Da nur die Ausf{\"u}hrg{\"a}nge dopaminerg innerviert sind, die Acini jedoch dopaminerg und serotonerg, zeigt dieses Ergebnis, dass die DA- und/oder 5-HT-induzierte Prim{\"a}rspeichelbildung die Ursache f{\"u}r die pHi-{\"A}nderungen in den Gangzellen ist. pHi-Messungen in den Gangzellen geben also auch Hinweise auf Transportvorg{\"a}nge in den Acini.
  • Der Na+-K+-2Cl--Symporter und der Cl--HCO3--Antiporter, gekoppelt mit dem Na+ H+-Antiporter (NHE) waren an der NaCl-Aufnahme in die peripheren Zellen der Acini zur Bildung des NaCl-reichen Prim{\"a}rspeichels beteiligt. Die Aktivit{\"a}t dieser Transporter hing von der CO2/HCO3--Verf{\"u}gbarkeit ab und war Ca2+-abh{\"a}ngig.
  • Die starke Ans{\"a}uerung in den Gangzellen hing nicht von der Aktivit{\"a}t der apikalen vakuol{\"a}ren Protonen-ATPase (V-H+-ATPase), aber von der Aktivit{\"a}t der basolateralen Na+-K+-ATPase ab, die anscheinend in den Ausf{\"u}hrg{\"a}ngen die Speichelmodifikation energetisiert.
  • In isolierten Ausf{\"u}hrg{\"a}ngen mit Acini waren die V-H+-ATPase und Na+-abh{\"a}ngige Transporter (u. a. NHE) an der Erholung von einer DA-induzierten oder einer NH4Cl-Vorpuls-induzierten Ans{\"a}uerung in den Gangzellen beteiligt. Bei der Regulation des pHi in unstimulierten Gangzellen spielten diese Transporter keine Rolle.
  • In isolierten Ausf{\"u}hrg{\"a}ngen mit Acini induzierte DA in den Gangzellen einen Anstieg der [Na+]i und, zeitlich verz{\"o}gert, auch der [Ca2+]i. Der [Na+]i-Anstieg war von der Aktivit{\"a}t der Acini abh{\"a}ngig und erfolgte m{\"o}glicherweise {\"u}ber apikale Na+-Kan{\"a}le. Der [Ca2+]i-Anstieg war graduiert und tonisch. Der DA-induzierte [Na+]i-Anstieg in den Gangzellen und deren Depolarisation f{\"u}hrten dazu, dass der basolaterale Na+-Ca2+-Antiporter in den Ca2+-Influx-Modus umkehrte. Die daraus resultierende tonische [Ca2+]i-Erh{\"o}hung k{\"o}nnte an der Regulation der Na+-R{\"u}ckresorption beteiligt sein.
  • Zum Nachweis transepithelialer Fl{\"u}ssigkeitsbewegungen in isolierten Ausf{\"u}hrg{\"a}ngen wurde eine videomikroskopische Methode entwickelt. Isolierte Ausf{\"u}hrg{\"a}nge ohne Acini resorbierten im unstimulierten Zustand Fl{\"u}ssigkeit aus dem Ausf{\"u}hrganglumen. M{\"o}glicherweise sezernieren die Acini auch im unstimulierten Zustand mit geringerer Rate einen Prim{\"a}rspeichel, der in den Ausf{\"u}hrg{\"a}ngen resorbiert wird. Die Resorption war ATP-abh{\"a}ngig. Der ATP-verbrauchende Transportmechanismus konnte nicht identifiziert werden. Weder die Na+-K+-ATPase noch die V-H+-ATPase waren an der Resorption beteiligt.
Diese Arbeit trug zur Kenntnis der komplexen Funktionsweise von Speicheldr{\"u}sen in Insekten bei und erweiterte das l{\"u}ckenhafte Wissen {\"u}ber die zellul{\"a}ren Wirkungen biogener Amine in Insekten. Zudem wurden in dieser Arbeit viele Parallelen zu Funktionsweisen der Speicheldr{\"u}sen in Vertebraten deutlich.}, subject = {Speicheldr{\"u}se}, language = {de} } @phdthesis{Haseeb2023, author = {Haseeb, Haider}, title = {Charge and heat transport across interfaces in nanostructured porous silicon}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-61122}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-611224}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {84}, year = {2023}, abstract = {This thesis discusses heat and charge transport phenomena in single-crystalline Silicon penetrated by nanometer-sized pores, known as mesoporous Silicon (pSi). Despite the extensive attention given to it as a thermoelectric material of interest, studies on microscopic thermal and electronic transport beyond its macroscopic characterizations are rarely reported. In contrast, this work reports the interplay of both. PSi samples synthesized by electrochemical anodization display a temperature dependence of specific heat 𝐶𝑝 that deviates from the characteristic 𝑇^3 behaviour (at 𝑇<50𝐾). A thorough analysis reveals that both 3D and 2D Einstein and Debye modes contribute to this specific heat. Additional 2D Einstein modes (~3 𝑚𝑒𝑉) agree reasonably well with the boson peak of SiO2 in pSi pore walls. 2D Debye modes are proposed to account for surface acoustic modes causing a significant deviation from the well-known 𝑇^3 dependence of 𝐶𝑝 at 𝑇<50𝐾. A novel theoretical model gives insights into the thermal conductivity of pSi in terms of porosity and phonon scattering on the nanoscale. The thermal conductivity analysis utilizes the peculiarities of the pSi phonon dispersion probed by the inelastic neutron scattering experiments. A phonon mean-free path of around 10 𝑛𝑚 extracted from the presented model is proposed to cause the reduced thermal conductivity of pSi by two orders of magnitude compared to p-doped bulk Silicon. Detailed analysis indicates that compound averaging may cause a further 10-50\% reduction. The percolation threshold of 65\% for thermal conductivity of pSi samples is subsequently determined by employing theoretical effective medium models. Temperature-dependent electrical conductivity measurements reveal a thermally activated transport process. A detailed analysis of the activation energy 𝐸𝐴𝜎 in the thermally activated transport exhibits a Meyer Neldel compensation rule between different samples that originates in multi-phonon absorption upon carrier transport. Activation energies 𝐸𝐴𝑆 obtained from temperature-dependent thermopower measurements provide further evidence for multi-phonon assisted hopping between localized states as a dominant charge transport mechanism in pSi, as they systematically differ from the determined 𝐸𝐴𝜎 values.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Roland2017, author = {Roland, Steffen}, title = {Charge carrier recombination and open circuit voltage in organic solar cells}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-397721}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {VI, 145}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Tremendous progress in the development of thin film solar cell techniques has been made over the last decade. The field of organic solar cells is constantly developing, new material classes like Perowskite solar cells are emerging and different types of hybrid organic/inorganic material combinations are being investigated for their physical properties and their applicability in thin film electronics. Besides typical single-junction architectures for solar cells, multi-junction concepts are also being investigated as they enable the overcoming of theoretical limitations of a single-junction. In multi-junction devices each sub-cell operates in different wavelength regimes and should exhibit optimized band-gap energies. It is exactly this tunability of the band-gap energy that renders organic solar cell materials interesting candidates for multi-junction applications. Nevertheless, only few attempts have been made to combine inorganic and organic solar cells in series connected multi-junction architectures. Even though a great diversity of organic solar cells exists nowadays, their open circuit voltage is usually low compared to the band-gap of the active layer. Hence, organic low band-gap solar cells in particular show low open circuit voltages and the key factors that determine the voltage losses are not yet fully understood. Besides open circuit voltage losses the recombination of charges in organic solar cells is also a prevailing research topic, especially with respect to the influence of trap states. The exploratory focus of this work is therefore set, on the one hand, on the development of hybrid organic/inorganic multi-junctions and, on the other hand, on gaining a deeper understanding of the open circuit voltage and the recombination processes of organic solar cells. In the first part of this thesis, the development of a hybrid organic/inorganic triple-junction will be discussed which showed at that time (Jan. 2015) a record power conversion efficiency of 11.7\%. The inorganic sub-cells of these devices consist of hydrogenated amorphous silicon and were delivered by the Competence Center Thin-Film and Nanotechnology for Photovoltaics in Berlin. Different recombination contacts and organic sub-cells were tested in conjunction with these inorganic sub-cells on the basis of optical modeling predictions for the optimal layer thicknesses to finally reach record efficiencies for this type of solar cells. In the second part, organic model systems will be investigated to gain a better understanding of the fundamental loss mechanisms that limit the open circuit voltage of organic solar cells. First, bilayer systems with different orientation of the donor and acceptor molecules were investigated to study the influence of the donor/acceptor orientation on non-radiative voltage loss. Secondly, three different bulk heterojunction solar cells all comprising the same amount of fluorination and the same polymer backbone in the donor component were examined to study the influence of long range electrostatics on the open circuit voltage. Thirdly, the device performance of two bulk heterojunction solar cells was compared which consisted of the same donor polymer but used different fullerene acceptor molecules. By this means, the influence of changing the energetics of the acceptor component on the open circuit voltage was investigated and a full analysis of the charge carrier dynamics was presented to unravel the reasons for the worse performance of the solar cell with the higher open circuit voltage. In the third part, a new recombination model for organic solar cells will be introduced and its applicability shown for a typical low band-gap cell. This model sheds new light on the recombination process in organic solar cells in a broader context as it re-evaluates the recombination pathway of charge carriers in devices which show the presence of trap states. Thereby it addresses a current research topic and helps to resolve alleged discrepancies which can arise from the interpretation of data derived by different measurement techniques.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{CamachoGonzalez2006, author = {Camacho Gonz{\´a}lez, Francisco}, title = {Charge-Storage mechanisms in polymer electrets}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-8756}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2006}, abstract = {In view of the importance of charge storage in polymer electrets for electromechanical transducer applications, the aim of this work is to contribute to the understanding of the charge-retention mechanisms. Furthermore, we will try to explain how the long-term storage of charge carriers in polymeric electrets works and to identify the probable trap sites. Charge trapping and de-trapping processes were investigated in order to obtain evidence of the trap sites in polymeric electrets. The charge de-trapping behavior of two particular polymer electrets was studied by means of thermal and optical techniques. In order to obtain evidence of trapping or de-trapping, charge and dipole profiles in the thickness direction were also monitored. In this work, the study was performed on polyethylene terephthalate (PETP) and on cyclic-olefin copolymers (COCs). PETP is a photo-electret and contains a net dipole moment that is located in the carbonyl group (C = O). The electret behavior of PETP arises from both the dipole orientation and the charge storage. In contrast to PETP, COCs are not photo-electrets and do not exhibit a net dipole moment. The electret behavior of COCs arises from the storage of charges only. COC samples were doped with dyes in order to probe their internal electric field. COCs show shallow charge traps at 0.6 and 0.11 eV, characteristic for thermally activated processes. In addition, deep charge traps are present at 4 eV, characteristic for optically stimulated processes. PETP films exhibit a photo-current transient with a maximum that depends on the temperature with an activation energy of 0.106 eV. The pair thermalization length (rc) calculated from this activation energy for the photo-carrier generation in PETP was estimated to be approx. 4.5 nm. The generated photo-charge carriers can recombine, interact with the trapped charge, escape through the electrodes or occupy an empty trap. PETP possesses a small quasi-static pyroelectric coefficient (QPC): ~0.6 nC/(m²K) for unpoled samples, ~60 nC/(m²K) for poled samples and ~60 nC/(m²K) for unpoled samples under an electric bias (E ~10 V/µm). When stored charges generate an internal electric field of approx. 10 V/µm, they are able to induce a QPC comparable to that of the oriented dipoles. Moreover, we observe charge-dipole interaction. Since the raw data of the QPC-experiments on PETP samples is noisy, a numerical Fourier-filtering procedure was applied. Simulations show that the data analysis is reliable when the noise level is up to 3 times larger than the calculated pyroelectric current for the QPC. PETP films revealed shallow traps at approx. 0.36 eV during thermally-stimulated current measurements. These energy traps are associated with molecular dipole relaxations (C = O). On the other hand, photo-activated measurements yield deep charge traps at 4.1 and 5.2 eV. The observed wavelengths belong to the transitions in PETP that are analogous to the π - π* benzene transitions. The observed charge de-trapping selectivity in the photocharge decay indicates that the charge detrapping is from a direct photon-charge interaction. Additionally, the charge de-trapping can be facilitated by photo-exciton generation and the interaction of the photo-excitons with trapped charge carriers. These results indicate that the benzene rings (C6H4) and the dipolar groups (C = O) can stabilize and share an extra charge carrier in a chemical resonance. In this way, this charge could be de-trapped in connection with the photo-transitions of the benzene ring and with the dipole relaxations. The thermally-activated charge release shows a difference in the trap depth to its optical counterpart. This difference indicates that the trap levels depend on the de-trapping process and on the chemical nature of the trap site. That is, the processes of charge detrapping from shallow traps are related to secondary forces. The processes of charge de-trapping from deep traps are related to primary forces. Furthermore, the presence of deep trap levels causes the stability of the charge for long periods of time.}, subject = {Charge-Storage}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Boroudjerdi2005, author = {Boroudjerdi, Hoda}, title = {Charged polymer-macroion complexes}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-6282}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2005}, abstract = {This work explores the equilibrium structure and thermodynamic phase behavior of complexes formed by charged polymer chains (polyelectrolytes) and oppositely charged spheres (macroions). Polyelectrolyte-macroion complexes form a common pattern in soft-matter physics, chemistry and biology, and enter in numerous technological applications as well. From a fundamental point of view, such complexes are interesting in that they combine the subtle interplay between electrostatic interactions and elastic as well as entropic effects due to conformational changes of the polymer chain, giving rise to a wide range of structural properties. This forms the central theme of theoretical studies presented in this thesis, which concentrate on a number of different problems involving strongly coupled complexes, i.e. complexes that are characterized by a large adsorption energy and small chain fluctuations. In the first part, a global analysis of the structural phase behavior of a single polyelectrolyte-macroion complex is presented based on a dimensionless representation, yielding results that cover a wide range of realistic system parameters. Emphasize is made on the interplay between the effects due to the polyelectrolytes chain length, salt concentration and the macroion charge as well as the mechanical chain persistence length. The results are summarized into generic phase diagrams characterizing the wrapping-dewrapping behavior of a polyelectrolyte chain on a macroion. A fully wrapped chain state is typically obtained at intermediate salt concentrations and chain lengths, where the amount of polyelectrolyte charge adsorbed on the macroion typically exceeds the bare macroion charge leading thus to a highly overcharged complex. Perhaps the most striking features occur when a single long polyelectrolyte chain is complexed with many oppositely charged spheres. In biology, such complexes form between DNA (which carries the cell's genetic information) and small oppositely charged histone proteins serving as an efficient mechanism for packing a huge amount of DNA into the micron-size cell nucleus in eucaryotic cells. The resultant complex fiber, known as the chromatin fiber, appears with a diameter of 30~nm under physiological conditions. Recent experiments indicate a zig-zag spatial arrangement for individual DNA-histone complexes (nucleosome core particles) along the chromatin fiber. A numerical method is introduced in this thesis based on a simple generic chain-sphere cell model that enables one to investigate the mechanism of fiber formation on a systematic level by incorporating electrostatic and elastic contributions. As will be shown, stable complex fibers exhibit an impressive variety of structures including zig-zag, solenoidal and beads-on-a-string patterns, depending on system parameters such as salt concentration, sphere charge as well as the chain contour length (per sphere). The present results predict fibers of compact zig-zag structure within the physiologically relevant regime with a diameter of about 30~nm, when DNA-histone parameters are adopted. In the next part, a numerical method is developed in order to investigate the role of thermal fluctuations on the structure and thermodynamic phase behavior of polyelectrolyte-macroion complexes. This is based on a saddle-point approximation, which allows to describe the experimentally observed reaction (or complexation) equilibrium in a dilute solution of polyelectrolytes and macroions on a systematic level. This equilibrium is determined by the entropy loss a single polyelectrolyte chain suffers as it binds to an oppositely charged macroion. This latter quantity can be calculated from the spectrum of polyelectrolyte fluctuations around a macroion, which is determined by means of a normal-mode analysis. Thereby, a stability phase diagram is obtained, which exhibits qualitative agreement with experimental findings. At elevated complex concentrations, one needs to account for the inter-complex interactions as well. It will be shown that at small separations, complexes undergo structural changes in such a way that positive patches from one complex match up with negative patches on the other. Furthermore, one of the polyelectrolyte chains may bridge between the two complexes. These mechanisms lead to a strong inter-complex attraction. As a result, the second virial coefficient associated with the inter-complex interaction becomes negative at intermediate salt concentrations in qualitative agreement with recent experiments on solutions of nucleosome core particles.}, subject = {Biopolymere}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Moreira2001, author = {Moreira, Andr{\´e} Gu{\´e}rin}, title = {Charged systems in bulk and at interfaces}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-0000677}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2001}, abstract = {Eine der Faustregeln der Kolloid- und Oberfl{\"a}chenphysik ist, dass die meisten Oberfl{\"a}chen geladen sind, wenn sie mit einem L{\"o}sungsmittel, normalerweise Wasser, in Kontakt treten. Dies ist zum Beispiel bei ladungsstabilisierten Kolloidalen Suspensionen der Fall, bei denen die Oberfl{\"a}che der Kolloidteilchen geladen ist (gew{\"o}hnlich mit einer Ladung von mehreren Hunderttausend Elementarladungen), oder bei Monoschichten ionischer Tenside, die auf einer Luft-Wasser Grenzfl{\"a}che sitzen (wobei die wasserliebenden Kopfgruppen durch die Freisetzung von Gegenionen geladen werden), sowie bei Doppelschichten, die geladene phospholipide enthalten (wie Zellmembranen). In dieser Arbeit betrachten wir einige Modellsysteme, die zwar eine vereinfachte Fassung der Realit{\"a}t darstellen, von denen wir aber dennoch erwarten koennen, dass wir mit ihrer Hilfe einige physikalische Eigenschaften realer geladener Systeme (Kolloide und Elektrolyte) einfangen k{\"o}nnen.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Qin2019, author = {Qin, Qing}, title = {Chemical functionalization of porous carbon-based materials to enable novel modes for efficient electrochemical N2 fixation}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-44339}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-443397}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {146}, year = {2019}, abstract = {The central motivation of the thesis was to provide possible solutions and concepts to improve the performance (e.g. activity and selectivity) of electrochemical N2 reduction reaction (NRR). Given that porous carbon-based materials usually exhibit a broad range of structural properties, they could be promising NRR catalysts. Therefore, the advanced design of novel porous carbon-based materials and the investigation of their application in electrocatalytic NRR including the particular reaction mechanisms are the most crucial points to be addressed. In this regard, three main topics were investigated. All of them are related to the functionalization of porous carbon for electrochemical NRR or other electrocatalytic reactions. In chapter 3, a novel C-TixOy/C nanocomposite has been described that has been obtained via simple pyrolysis of MIL-125(Ti). A novel mode for N2 activation is achieved by doping carbon atoms from nearby porous carbon into the anion lattice of TixOy. By comparing the NRR performance of M-Ts and by carrying out DFT calculations, it is found that the existence of (O-)Ti-C bonds in C-doped TixOy can largely improve the ability to activate and reduce N2 as compared to unoccupied OVs in TiO2. The strategy of rationally doping heteroatoms into the anion lattice of transition metal oxides to create active centers may open many new opportunities beyond the use of noble metal-based catalysts also for other reactions that require the activation of small molecules as well. In chapter 4, a novel catalyst construction composed of Au single atoms decorated on the surface of NDPCs was reported. The introduction of Au single atoms leads to active reaction sites, which are stabilized by the N species present in NDPCs. Thus, the interaction within as-prepared AuSAs-NDPCs catalysts enabled promising performance for electrochemical NRR. For the reaction mechanism, Au single sites and N or C species can act as Frustrated Lewis pairs (FLPs) to enhance the electron donation and back-donation process to activate N2 molecules. This work provides new opportunities for catalyst design in order to achieve efficient N2 fixation at ambient conditions by utilizing recycled electric energy. The last topic described in chapter 5 mainly focused on the synthesis of dual heteroatom-doped porous carbon from simple precursors. The introduction of N and B heteroatoms leads to the construction of N-B motives and Frustrated Lewis pairs in a microporous architecture which is also rich in point defects. This can improve the strength of adsorption of different reactants (N2 and HMF) and thus their activation. As a result, BNC-2 exhibits a desirable electrochemical NRR and HMF oxidation performance. Gas adsorption experiments have been used as a simple tool to elucidate the relationship between the structure and catalytic activity. This work provides novel and deep insights into the rational design and the origin of activity in metal-free electrocatalysts and enables a physically viable discussion of the active motives, as well as the search for their further applications. Throughout this thesis, the ubiquitous problems of low selectivity and activity of electrochemical NRR are tackled by designing porous carbon-based catalysts with high efficiency and exploring their catalytic mechanisms. The structure-performance relationships and mechanisms of activation of the relatively inert N2 molecules are revealed by either experimental results or DFT calculations. These fundamental understandings pave way for a future optimal design and targeted promotion of NRR catalysts with porous carbon-based structure, as well as study of new N2 activation modes.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Boeche2011, author = {Boeche, Corrado}, title = {Chemical gradients in the Milky Way from unsupervised chemical abundances measurements of the RAVE spectroscopic data set}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-52478}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2011}, abstract = {The present thesis was born and evolved within the RAdial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) with the goal of measuring chemical abundances from the RAVE spectra and exploit them to investigate the chemical gradients along the plane of the Galaxy to provide constraints on possible Galactic formation scenarios. RAVE is a large spectroscopic survey which aims to observe spectroscopically ~10^6 stars by the end of 2012 and measures their radial velocities, atmospheric parameters and chemical abundances. The project makes use of the UK Schmidt telescope at Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO) in Siding Spring, Australia, equipped with the multiobject spectrograph 6dF. To date, RAVE collected and measured more than 450,000 spectra. The precision of the chemical abundance estimations depends on the reliability of the atomic and atmosphere parameters adopted (in particular the oscillator strengths of the absorption lines and the effective temperature, gravity, and metallicity of the stars measured). Therefore we first identified 604 absorption lines in the RAVE wavelength range and refined their oscillator strengths with an inverse spectral analysis. Then, we improved the RAVE stellar parameters by modifying the RAVE pipeline and the spectral library the pipeline rely on. The modifications removed some systematic errors in stellar parameters discovered during this work. To obtain chemical abundances, we developed two different processing pipelines. Both of them perform chemical abundances measurements by assuming stellar atmospheres in Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium (LTE). The first one determines elements abundances from equivalent widths of absorption lines. Since this pipeline showed poor sensibility on abundances relative to iron, it has been superseded. The second one exploits the chi^2 minimization technique between observed and model spectra. Thanks to its precision, it has been adopted for the creation of the RAVE chemical catalogue. This pipeline provides abundances with uncertains of about ~0.2dex for spectra with signal-to-noise ratio S/N>40 and ~0.3dex for spectra with 20>S/N>40. For this work, the pipeline measured chemical abundances up to 7 elements for 217,358 RAVE stars. With these data we investigated the chemical gradients along the Galactic radius of the Milky Way. We found that stars with low vertical velocities |W| (which stay close to the Galactic plane) show an iron abundance gradient in agreement with previous works (~-0.07\$ dex kpc^-1) whereas stars with larger |W| which are able to reach larger heights above the Galactic plane, show progressively flatter gradients. The gradients of the other elements follow the same trend. This suggests that an efficient radial mixing acts in the Galaxy or that the thick disk formed from homogeneous interstellar matter. In particular, we found hundreds of stars which can be kinetically classified as thick disk stars exhibiting a chemical composition typical of the thin disk. A few stars of this kind have already been detected by other authors, and their origin is still not clear. One possibility is that they are thin disk stars kinematically heated, and then underwent an efficient radial mixing process which blurred (and so flattened) the gradient. Alternatively they may be a transition population" which represents an evolutionary bridge between thin and thick disk. Our analysis shows that the two explanations are not mutually exclusive. Future follow-up high resolution spectroscopic observations will clarify their role in the Galactic disk evolution.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Brauer2016, author = {Brauer, Doroth{\´e}e}, title = {Chemo-kinematic constraints on Milky Way models from the spectroscopic surveys SEGUE \& RAVE}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-403968}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {vii, 197}, year = {2016}, abstract = {The Milky Way is only one out of billions of galaxies in the universe. However, it is a special galaxy because it allows to explore the main mechanisms involved in its evolution and formation history by unpicking the system star-by-star. Especially, the chemical fingerprints of its stars provide clues and evidence of past events in the Galaxy's lifetime. These information help not only to decipher the current structure and building blocks of the Milky Way, but to learn more about the general formation process of galaxies. In the past decade a multitude of stellar spectroscopic Galactic surveys have scanned millions of stars far beyond the rim of the solar neighbourhood. The obtained spectroscopic information provide unprecedented insights to the chemo-dynamics of the Milky Way. In addition analytic models and numerical simulations of the Milky Way provide necessary descriptions and predictions suited for comparison with observations in order to decode the physical properties that underlie the complex system of the Galaxy. In the thesis various approaches are taken to connect modern theoretical modelling of galaxy formation and evolution with observations from Galactic stellar surveys. With its focus on the chemo-kinematics of the Galactic disk this work aims to determine new observational constraints on the formation of the Milky Way providing also proper comparisons with two different models. These are the population synthesis model TRILEGAL based on analytical distribution functions, which aims to simulate the number and distribution of stars in the Milky Way and its different components, and a hybrid model (MCM) that combines an N-body simulation of a Milky Way like galaxy in the cosmological framework with a semi-analytic chemical evolution model for the Milky Way. The major observational data sets in use come from two surveys, namely the "Radial Velocity Experiment" (RAVE) and the "Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration" (SEGUE). In the first approach the chemo-kinematic properties of the thin and thick disk of the Galaxy as traced by a selection of about 20000 SEGUE G-dwarf stars are directly compared to the predictions by the MCM model. As a necessary condition for this, SEGUE's selection function and its survey volume are evaluated in detail to correct the spectroscopic observations for their survey specific selection biases. Also, based on a Bayesian method spectro-photometric distances with uncertainties below 15\% are computed for the selection of SEGUE G-dwarfs that are studied up to a distance of 3 kpc from the Sun. For the second approach two synthetic versions of the SEGUE survey are generated based on the above models. The obtained synthetic stellar catalogues are then used to create mock samples best resembling the compiled sample of observed SEGUE G-dwarfs. Generally, mock samples are not only ideal to compare predictions from various models. They also allow validation of the models' quality and improvement as with this work could be especially achieved for TRILEGAL. While TRILEGAL reproduces the statistical properties of the thin and thick disk as seen in the observations, the MCM model has shown to be more suitable in reproducing many chemo-kinematic correlations as revealed by the SEGUE stars. However, evidence has been found that the MCM model may be missing a stellar component with the properties of the thick disk that the observations clearly show. While the SEGUE stars do indicate a thin-thick dichotomy of the stellar Galactic disk in agreement with other spectroscopic stellar studies, no sign for a distinct metal-poor disk is seen in the MCM model. Usually stellar spectroscopic surveys are limited to a certain volume around the Sun covering different regions of the Galaxy's disk. This often prevents to obtain a global view on the chemo-dynamics of the Galactic disk. Hence, a suitable combination of stellar samples from independent surveys is not only useful for the verification of results but it also helps to complete the picture of the Milky Way. Therefore, the thesis closes with a comparison of the SEGUE G-dwarfs and a sample of RAVE giants. The comparison reveals that the chemo-kinematic relations agree in disk regions where the samples of both surveys show a similar number of stars. For those parts of the survey volumes where one of the surveys lacks statistics they beautifully complement each other. This demonstrates that the comparison of theoretical models on the one side, and the combined observational data gathered by multiple surveys on the other side, are key ingredients to understand and disentangle the structure and formation history of the Milky Way.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Bierbaum2011, author = {Bierbaum, Veronika}, title = {Chemomechanical coupling and motor cycles of the molecular motor myosin V}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-53614}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2011}, abstract = {In the living cell, the organization of the complex internal structure relies to a large extent on molecular motors. Molecular motors are proteins that are able to convert chemical energy from the hydrolysis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) into mechanical work. Being about 10 to 100 nanometers in size, the molecules act on a length scale, for which thermal collisions have a considerable impact onto their motion. In this way, they constitute paradigmatic examples of thermodynamic machines out of equilibrium. This study develops a theoretical description for the energy conversion by the molecular motor myosin V, using many different aspects of theoretical physics. Myosin V has been studied extensively in both bulk and single molecule experiments. Its stepping velocity has been characterized as a function of external control parameters such as nucleotide concentration and applied forces. In addition, numerous kinetic rates involved in the enzymatic reaction of the molecule have been determined. For forces that exceed the stall force of the motor, myosin V exhibits a 'ratcheting' behaviour: For loads in the direction of forward stepping, the velocity depends on the concentration of ATP, while for backward loads there is no such influence. Based on the chemical states of the motor, we construct a general network theory that incorporates experimental observations about the stepping behaviour of myosin V. The motor's motion is captured through the network description supplemented by a Markov process to describe the motor dynamics. This approach has the advantage of directly addressing the chemical kinetics of the molecule, and treating the mechanical and chemical processes on equal grounds. We utilize constraints arising from nonequilibrium thermodynamics to determine motor parameters and demonstrate that the motor behaviour is governed by several chemomechanical motor cycles. In addition, we investigate the functional dependence of stepping rates on force by deducing the motor's response to external loads via an appropriate Fokker-Planck equation. For substall forces, the dominant pathway of the motor network is profoundly different from the one for superstall forces, which leads to a stepping behaviour that is in agreement with the experimental observations. The extension of our analysis to Markov processes with absorbing boundaries allows for the calculation of the motor's dwell time distributions. These reveal aspects of the coordination of the motor's heads and contain direct information about the backsteps of the motor. Our theory provides a unified description for the myosin V motor as studied in single motor experiments.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Leonhardt2017, author = {Leonhardt, Helmar}, title = {Chemotaxis, shape and adhesion dynamics of amoeboid cells studied by impedance fluctuations in open and confined spaces}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-405016}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {98}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Die vorliegende Arbeit befasst sich mit elektrischen Impedanzmessungen von ameoboiden Zellen auf Mikroelektroden. Der Modellorganismus Dictyostelium discoideum zeigt unter der Bedingung des Nahrungsentzugs einen {\"U}bergang zum kollektiven Verhalten, bei dem sich chemotaktische Zellen zu einem multizellul{\"a}ren Aggregat zusammenschliessen. Wir zeigen wie Impedanzaufnahmen {\"u}ber die Dynamik der Zell-substrat Adh{\"a}sion ein pr{\"a}zises Bild der Phasen der Aggregation liefern. Dar{\"u}berhinaus zeigen wir zum ersten mal systematische Einzelzellmessungen von Wildtyp-Zellen und vier Mutanten, die sich in der St{\"a}rke der Substratadh {\"a}sion unterscheiden. Wir zeichneten die projizierte Zellfl{\"a}che durch Zeitverlaufsmikroskopie auf und fanden eine Korrelation zwischen den quasi-periodischen Oszillationen in der Kinetik der projizierten Fl{\"a}che - der Zellform-Oszillation - und dem Langzeittrend des Impedanzsignals. Amoeboidale Motilit{\"a}t offenbart sich typischerweise durch einen Zyklus von Membranausst{\"u}lpung, Substratadh{\"a}sion, Vorw{\"a}rtsziehen des Zellk{\"o}rpers und Einziehen des hinteren Teils der Zelle. Dieser Motilit{\"a}tszyklus resultiert in quasi-periodischen Oszillationen der projizierten Zellfl{\"a}che und der Impedanz. In allen gemessenen Zelllinien wurden f{\"u}r diesen Zyklus {\"a}hnliche Periodendauern beobachtet trotz der Unterschiede in der Anhaftungsst{\"a}rke. Wir beobachteten, dass die St{\"a}rke der Zell-substrat Anhaftung die Impedanz stark beeinflusst, indem die Abweichungen vom Mittelwert (die Gr{\"o}sse der Fluktuationen) vergr{\"o}ssert sind bei Zellen, die die vom Zytoskelett generierten Kr{\"a}fte effektiv auf das Substrat {\"u}bertragen. Zum Beispiel sind bei talA- Zellen, in welchen das Actin verankernde Protein Talin fehlt, die Fluktuationen stark reduziert. Einzelzellkraft-Spektroskopie und Ergebnisse eines Abl{\"o}sungsassays, bei dem Adh{\"a}sionskraft gemessen wird indem Zellen einer Scherspannung ausgesetzt werden, best{\"a}tigen, dass die Gr{\"o}sse der Impedanz-fluktuationen ein korrektes Mass f{\"u}r die St{\"a}rke der Substratadh{\"a}sion ist. Schliesslich haben wir uns auch mit dem Einbau von Zell-substrat-Impedanz-Sensoren in mikro-fluidische Apparaturen befasst. Ein chip-basierter elektrischer Chemotaxis Assay wurde entwickelt, der die Geschwindigkeit chemotaktischer Zellen misst, welche entlang eines chemischen Konzentrationsgradienten {\"u}ber Mikroelektroden wandern.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Eilers2021, author = {Eilers, Sarah}, title = {Children's processing of anaphora during reading comprehension}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-52714}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-527141}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {107}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Viele Kinder haben Schwierigkeiten, w{\"a}hrend des Lesens einen Textinhalt ad{\"a}quat zu erfassen. Lesen ist eine komplexe kognitive Aufgabe, die verschiedene Unteraufgaben umfasst, darunter zum Beispiel das Dekodieren von W{\"o}rtern und das Verkn{\"u}pfen mehrerer aufeinander folgender S{\"a}tze. Einen Teil dieser Verkn{\"u}pfungen machen referenzielle Ausdr{\"u}cke aus. Referenzen wie nominale Anaphern (Minky/die Katze) oder Pronomen (Minky/sie) signalisieren den Lesenden, wie die Protagonisten und Protagonistinnen in aufeinander folgenden S{\"a}tzen zusammenh{\"a}ngen. Die Lesenden verkn{\"u}pfen diese Information in einem mentalen Modell des Textes, nachdem sie die Referenz aufgel{\"o}st haben. Besonders Personalpronomen (er/sie) k{\"o}nnen ohne einen solchen Aufl{\"o}sungsprozess nicht verstanden werden. Sie m{\"u}ssen mit einem passenden Antezedenten in Verbindung gebracht werden, oder das mentale Modell bleibt unvollst{\"a}ndig. Gelungene Pronomenaufl{\"o}sung ist somit besonders bedeutsam f{\"u}r ein gutes Textverst{\"a}ndnis. Die vorliegende Dissertation besch{\"a}ftigt sich mit der Pronomenaufl{\"o}sung von Grundschulkindern im Alter von 8-9 Jahren und geht dabei der grunds{\"a}tzlichen Frage nach, ob Kinder in diesem Alter Pronomen in nat{\"u}rlichen Lesesituationen spontan aufl{\"o}sen. Zudem wurde am Beispiel der Geschlechtsinformation des Pronomens untersucht, welchen Einfluss die Informationsdichte um die Pronomenregion auf die Blickbewegungen von Kindern hat. Dabei ging es auch um den Einfluss von Leseentwicklung und Lesefertigkeiten auf die Blickbewegungen beim Lesen, sowie auf das Verstehen eines Pronomens. Die erste Studie untersuchte das Lesen kurzer Texte, die aus jeweils drei S{\"a}tzen bestanden. Der erste Satz f{\"u}hrte einen Protagonisten mit Namen ein (Mia), auf den sich der zweite oder dritte Satz bezog, entweder mit einer Wiederholung des Namens (Mia) oder einem Pronomen (sie). Die Studie ging der Frage nach, ob Kinder bei solchen salienten Antezedenten ein Pronomen (sie) als referenziellen Ausdruck dem wiederholten Namen (Mia) vorziehen. In der Literatur zum Lesen Erwachsener ist dieser Befund als repeated name penalty effect bekannt: Der Lesefluss von ge{\"u}bten Lesenden wird durch die Wiederholung einer Nominalphrase deutlich beeintr{\"a}chtigt. F{\"u}r Kinder dagegen wurde die Hypothese aufgestellt, dass deren Lesefluss durch die Wiederholung verbessert werden k{\"o}nnte, und zwar aufgrund der sich {\"u}berlappenden Wortform (Mia - Mia) die eine kognitiv aufw{\"a}ndige Aufl{\"o}sung des Pronomens (Mia - sie) {\"u}berfl{\"u}ssig macht. Die zweite Studie untersuchte die Verarbeitung von kongruenten und inkongruenten Geschlechtsinformation auf dem Pronomen. Die Kinder bekamen komplexe S{\"a}tze zu lesen, bei denen das Pronomen entweder passend zum Antezedenten gew{\"a}hlt war (Mia - sie) oder unpassend (Mia - er). Erg{\"a}nzend wurden Leseverstehen und Lesefl{\"u}ssigkeit erhoben und mit der F{\"a}higkeit der Kinder, spontan ein inkongruentes Pronomen w{\"a}hrend des Lesens zu erkennen, in Verbindung gebracht. Die dritte Studie untersuchte die Blickbewegungen auf dem Pronomen in Abh{\"a}ngigkeit von variierender Geschlechtsinformationen genauer. Sie verglich den Lesefluss und das Leseverstehen von Kindern in Pronomenregionen, in denen das Pronomen anhand von der Geschlechtsinformation eindeutig einem Protagonisten zugeordnet werden kann (Peter und Paula…, er…) mit Lesesituationen, in denen der weitere Satzkontext zur Aufl{\"o}sung herangezogen werden muss (Peter und Paul, … er…). Dabei wurden die Blickbewegungen auf der Pronomenregion mit dem Leseverstehen, insbesondere dem Verstehen des Pronomens, in Verbindung gebracht. Dieses Experiment wurde im Sinne einer Longitudinalstudie in Klasse 3 und Klasse 4 mit der gleichen Gruppe von 70 Kindern durchgef{\"u}hrt. Zusammengefasst belegen die Ergebnisse dieser Dissertation, dass Kinder im Alter zwischen 8 und 9 Jahren noch deutliche Schwierigkeiten mit dem Verstehen von Pronomen in Leseaufgaben haben. Die Antworten auf Verst{\"a}ndnisfragen zum Pronomen zeigen insbesondere, dass Kinder die Kontextinformation in S{\"a}tzen nur unzureichend f{\"u}r die Pronomenaufl{\"o}sung nutzen, und dass ihr Verst{\"a}ndnis eines Pronomens wesentlich davon abh{\"a}ngt, ob das Pronomen anhand der Geschlechtsinformation eindeutig einem Antezedenten zugewiesen werden kann. Dies zeigte sich bei Kindern im 3., aber auch noch im 4. Schuljahr. Die Ergebnisse der Analyse von Blickbewegungsdaten, welche den wesentlichen Beitrag der vorliegenden Dissertation zum Forschungsfeld darstellen, zeigen zun{\"a}chst, dass Kinder ein Pronomen erwarten, wenn der Antezent salient ist (Studie 1). Anders als angenommen gibt es keinen Beleg daf{\"u}r, dass der kindliche Lesefluss von einer Wiederholung des Antezedenten profitiert. Der Befund eines repeated name penalty effects bei Kindern dieser Altersgruppe belegt im Gegenteil eine Sensitivit{\"a}t f{\"u}r die Diskursregeln, nach denen Pronomen auf saliente Antezedenten referieren. Allerdings kann daraus nicht abgeleitet werden, dass die Online-Pronomenaufl{\"o}sung von Kindern mit denen von erwachsenen Lesenden vergleichbar ist. Die Ergebnisse der Analyse von Blickbewegungsdaten auf der Pronomenregion (Studien 2 und 3) belegen wichtige Unterschiede zwischen Kindern und Erwachsenen, sowie deutliche interindividuelle Unterschiede in Zusammenhang mit dem Leseverstehen und der Lesefl{\"u}ssigkeit der Kinder. Die Ergebnisse der Studie 2 belegen einen Zusammenhang zwischen der Lesefl{\"u}ssigkeit eines Kindes und der F{\"a}higkeit, eine Inkongruenz zwischen Pronomen und Antezedenten w{\"a}hrend des Lesens wahrzunehmen. W{\"a}hrend alle Kinder l{\"a}ngere gaze durations (erste Verweildauer) auf einem inkongruenten Pronomen hatten, zeigte sich nur bei Kindern mit hoher Lesefl{\"u}ssigkeit eine Tendenz zu regressiven Blickbewegungen aus der fraglichen Pronomenregion. Diese regressiven Blickbewegungen gelten als Signal f{\"u}r eine lokale Verarbeitungsschwierigkeit und werden als Versuch interpretiert, diese Schwierigkeit aufzul{\"o}sen. Eine hohe Lesefl{\"u}ssigkeit war also korreliert mit dem Erkennen der Inkongruenz. Dar{\"u}ber hinaus war das Blickbewegungsmuster der Kinder, die die Inkongruenz erkannten, vergleichbarer mit dem der erwachsenen Kontrollgruppe. Die Befunde werden so interpretiert, dass Kinder mit einer h{\"o}heren Lesefl{\"u}ssigkeit mehr kognitive Ressourcen f{\"u}r die {\"U}berwachung ihres eigenen Leseprozesses zur Verf{\"u}gung stehen, und sie diese freien Ressourcen zur Pronomenaufl{\"o}sung auch in schwierigen Satzkontexten nutzen k{\"o}nnen. Kinder unterscheiden sich stark in ihrem Leseverstehen, auch innerhalb einer Kohorte. Die Ergebnisse der vorliegenden Dissertation belegen, dass vorwiegend Kinder mit gutem Leseverstehen in der Lage sind, Pronomen w{\"a}hrend des Lesens anhand derer Geschlechtsinformation aufzul{\"o}sen. Es l{\"a}sst sich zeigen, dass sich gute Lesende nachweislich mehr Zeit in einer Pronomenregion nehmen, wenn das Pronomen anhand der Geschlechtsinformation direkt aufgel{\"o}st werden kann. Darin unterscheiden sie sich von schlechteren Lesenden, auch wenn diese insgesamt eine l{\"a}ngere Lesedauer zeigen. Das Alter der Kinder war dabei weniger entscheidend als ihre individuelle Leistung im Leseverstehens- und Lesefl{\"u}ssigkeitstest. Zusammengefasst l{\"a}sst sich sagen, dass gute Lesende unter den Kindern in der Lage sind, Pronomen w{\"a}hrend des Lesens spontan aufzul{\"o}sen. Dabei ist das Leseverstehen ein entscheidender Faktor in beiden untersuchten Altersstufen. F{\"u}r einen Einfluss des Alters der Kinder gab es dagegen kein Indiz. Der Beitrag der vorliegenden Dissertation zum Forschungsfeld ist die Untersuchung und Darstellung der spezifischen Blickbewegungsmuster im Zusammenhang mit einer erfolgreichen Aufl{\"o}sung von Pronomen bei Kindern. Das Blickbewegungsverhalten in der Pronomenregion ist abh{\"a}ngig vom Leseverstehen und der Lesefl{\"u}ssigkeit der Kinder. Die vorliegenden Ergebnisse lassen vermuten, dass viele Kinder Pronomen w{\"a}hrend des Satzverstehens nicht spontan aufl{\"o}sen, was sich negativ auf ihr Leseverstehen auswirkt, und zwar vermutlich umso mehr in komplexeren Textzusammenh{\"a}ngen. Die vorliegende Arbeit verdeutlicht die kognitiven Anforderungen, die erfolgreiche Pronomenaufl{\"o}sung an Kinder stellt. Nicht zuletzt gibt sie wichtige Impulse f{\"u}r die Untersuchung von {\"u}bergeordneten Leseprozessen in nat{\"u}rlichen Leseumgebungen mittels Eyetracking auch bei j{\"u}ngeren Kindern.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Wundrak2008, author = {Wundrak, Rixta}, title = {Chinesen in Bukarest : Diskurse und Geschichten}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-29175}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2008}, abstract = {In dieser ethnographisch-soziologischen Fallstudie wird die Geschichte der chinesischen Immigration in Bukarest nach 1990 in ihrer Besonderheit und ihren allgemeinen Strukturen nachvollzogen. Dies geschieht durch eine Doppelperspektive auf den Fall: Die Rekonstruktion der diskursiven (Re-)Pr{\"a}sentation des Falles als methodisch-analytische Vorstufe wurde einer anschließenden historischen Rekon-struktion der erlebten Geschichte der Migranten vorangestellt. Die anschließende Kontrastierung der Ergebnisse aus beiden Analyseschritten diente der Heraus-arbeitung vorher noch nicht sichtbarer Interdependenzen und Bez{\"u}ge zwischen diesen beiden Ebenen. Mit anderen Worten: Die diskursive Ebene und die historische bzw. erlebte Ebene bilden gemeinsam und in Verschr{\"a}nkung miteinander die konstitutive/n Struktur/en des Falles: Erstens geht es um die Besonderheit der Post-1989-Migration von China nach Rum{\"a}nien im Kontext von Transformationen. So ist f{\"u}r die Struktur und den Verlauf des Falles bestimmend, dass sich mehrere Wandlungsprozesse sowohl im Herkunfts- als auch im Einwanderungskontext zugleich ereigneten. Dazu geh{\"o}ren die Globalisierung allgemein sowie die als Transformationen bezeichneten Prozesse in China seit 1978 und in Rum{\"a}nien seit 1989. Auf nationaler, lokaler Ebene sowie auf der Ebene der allt{\"a}glichen sozialen Wirklichkeit der Stadtbev{\"o}lkerung und der Immigranten in Bukarest war zu beobachten, dass diese mit rapiden Ver{\"a}nderungen konfrontiert waren und sind. So kamen zu Beginn der 1990er Jahre einige Pioniere mit Koffern voll China-Ware in Bukarest an und verkauften ihre Ware auf den unz{\"a}hligen kleinen Straßenm{\"a}rkten der Stadt. Im Jahr 2007 befindet sich auf einem großen Areal am Stadtrand von Bukarest ein Baukomplex aus acht großen Shopping-Malls. Chinesische UnternehmerInnen investieren nun in Großprojekte wie etwa der Telekommunikation in Rum{\"a}nien. Neu ist auch die Rekrutierung von chinesischen Textilarbeiterinnen durch rum{\"a}nische Unternehmer. Diese Entwicklung h{\"a}ngt mit dem gegenw{\"a}rtigen Mangel an rum{\"a}nischen Arbeitskr{\"a}ften aufgrund der Auswanderungs-wellen aus Rum{\"a}nien zusammen. Charakteristisch ist jedoch, dass diese ge-sellschaftlich tiefgreifenden {\"A}nderungen, die nicht nur die hier genannten {\"o}ko-nomischen, sondern auch politische und soziale Konsequenzen haben, in einem starken Kontrast dazu stehen, dass ihre soziale Wirklichkeit in der Forschung, der Politik und {\"O}ffentlichkeit unbeachtet und unbekannt blieb. Als zweites Themenfeld ist das Spannungsverh{\"a}ltnis von lokalen und globalen Prozessen f{\"u}r die Geschichte der Migranten zu nennen. Dabei sind die Bedeutung der „Verortung" einerseits und die der Transnationalit{\"a}t andererseits strukturbildend f{\"u}r die Fallgeschichte. Dabei spielte die Auseinandersetzung mit dem wissenschaftlichen Transnationalismuskonzept eine besondere Rolle: Dieses behandelte ich als theo-retischen Diskurs, der zun{\"a}chst kritisch betrachtet wurde. Die Frage, ob und wie die chinesische Community in Bukarest transnational lebt und was transnationale Lebens-formen sein k{\"o}nnten, wurde empirisch beantwortet. Drittens habe ich unter Bezugnahme auf das Konzept des sozialen Deutungsmusters aufgezeigt, dass Informalit{\"a}t als soziales Konstrukt auf unterschiedlichen Ebenen fallbestimmend ist. Informalisierungsprozesse sowie damit verbundene Illegalisierung und Kriminalisierung der Migranten in Europa bilden also ein weiteres Themenfeld der Fallstruktur. Schließlich stellt die gesellschaftliche Konstruktion kultureller Deutungsmuster {\"u}ber chinesische Migranten ein viertes zentrales Thema der Fallstruktur dar. Die chinesischen Migranten in Bukarest leben im Fadenkreuz unterschiedlicher Zuschreibungen. Im Herkunftsland werden sie als patriotische Kapitalisten, die Moder-nit{\"a}t ins Land bringen, gefeiert. In Europa werden sie der internationalen Welle ‚illegaler Migration' zugeordnet und auf Kriminelle und/oder Opfer reduziert. In Bukarest leben sie mit und in Konkurrenz der Bewertungen bzw. Abwertungen von Minderheitengruppen, wie etwa der Roma-Minderheit. Diese Bewertungen und Zuschreibungen haben mehrere Konsequenzen. Eine davon ist, dass chinesische Immigranten in Bukarest es gelernt haben, mit diesen aktiv umzugehen. So wurde deutlich, dass sich kulturelle Deutungsmuster nicht nur habituell verankern oder als biographisches Kapital gelebt werden, sondern situationsangemessen genutzt oder sogar teilsweise inszeniert werden, mit dem Ziel, einen Weg in die Gesellschaft zu finden und in dieser als Minderheitengruppe in eine respektierte Position zu gelangen.}, language = {de} } @phdthesis{Oey2008, author = {Oey, Melanie}, title = {Chloroplasts as bioreactors : high-yield production of active bacteriolytic protein antibiotics}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-28950}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2008}, abstract = {Plants, more precisely their chloroplasts with their bacterial-like expression machinery inherited from their cyanobacterial ancestors, can potentially offer a cheap expression system for proteinaceous pharmaceuticals. This system would be easily scalable and provides appropriate safety due to chloroplasts maternal inheritance. In this work, it was shown that three phage lytic enzymes (Pal, Cpl-1 and PlyGBS) could be successfully expressed at very high levels and with high stability in tobacco chloroplasts. PlyGBS expression reached an amount of foreign protein accumulation (> 70\% TSP) that has never been obtained before. Although the high expression levels of PlyGBS caused a pale green phenotype with retarded growth, presumably due to exhaustion of plastid protein synthesis capacity, development and seed production were not impaired under greenhouse conditions. Since Pal and Cpl-1 showed toxic effects when expressed in E. coli, a special plastid transformation vector (pTox) was constructed to allow DNA amplification in bacteria. The construction of the pTox transformation vector allowing a recombinase-mediated deletion of an E. coli transcription block in the chloroplast, leading to an increase of foreign protein accumulation to up to 40\% of TSP for Pal and 20\% of TSP for Cpl-1. High dose-dependent bactericidal efficiency was shown for all three plant-derived lytic enzymes using their pathogenic target bacteria S. pyogenes and S. pneumoniae. Confirmation of specificity was obtained for the endotoxic proteins Pal and Cpl-1 by application to E. coli cultures. These results establish tobacco chloroplasts as a new cost-efficient and convenient production platform for phage lytic enzymes and address the greatest obstacle for clinical application. The present study is the first report of lysin production in a non-bacterial system. The properties of chloroplast-produced lysins described in this work, their stability, high accumulation rate and biological activity make them highly attractive candidates for future antibiotics.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Ehrlenspiel2006, author = {Ehrlenspiel, Felix}, title = {Choking under pressure : attention and motor control in performance situations}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-12377}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2006}, abstract = {When top sports performers fail or "choke" under pressure, everyone asks: why? Research has identified a number of conditions (e.g. an audience) that elicit choking and that moderate (e.g. trait-anxiety) pressure - performance relation. Furthermore, mediating processes have been investigated. For example, explicit monitoring theories link performance failure under psychological stress to an increase in attention paid to a skill and its step-by-step execution (Beilock \& Carr, 2001). Many studies have provided support for these ideas. However, so far only overt performance measures have been investigated which do not allow more thorough analyses of processes or performance strategies. But also a theoretical framework has been missing, that could (a) explain the effects of explicit monitoring on skill execution and that (b) makes predictions as to what is being monitored during execution. Consequently in this study, the nodalpoint hypothesis of motor control (Hossner \& Ehrlenspiel, 2006) was taken to predict movement changes on three levels of analysis at certain "nodalpoints" within the movement sequence. Performance in two different laboratory tasks was assessed with respect to overt performance (the observable result, for example accuracy in the target), covert performance (description of movement execution, for example the acceleration of body segements) and task exploitation (the utilization of task properties such as covariation). A fake competition (see Beilock \& Carr, 2002) was used to invoke pressure. In study 1 a ball bouncing task in a virtual-reality set-up was chosen. Previous studies (de Rugy, Wei, M{\"u}ller, \& Sternad, 2003) have shown that learners are usually able to "passively" exploit the dynamical stability of the system. According to explicit monitoring theories, choking should be expected either if the task itself evokes an "active control" (Experiment 1) or if learners are provided with explicit instructions (Experiment 2). In both experiments, participants first went through a practice phase on day 1. On day 2, following the Baseline Test participants were divided into a High-Stress or No-Stress Group for the final Performance Test. The High-Stress Group entered a fake competition. Overt performance was measured by the Absolute Error (AE) of ball amplitudes from target height; covert performance was measured by Period Modulation between successive hits and task exploitation was measured by Acceleration (AC) at ball-racket impact and Covariation (COV) of impact parameters. To evoke active control in Exp. 1 (N=20), perturbations to the ball flight were introduced. In Exp. 2 (N=39) half of the participants received explicit skill-focused instructions during learning. For overt performance, results generally show an interaction between Stress Group and Test, with better performance (i. e. lower AE) for the High-Stress group in the final Performance Test. This effect is also independent of the Instructions that participants had received during learning (Exp. 2). Similar effects were found for COV but not for AC. In study 2 a visuomotor tracking task in which participants had to pursuit a target cross that was moving on an invisible curve. This curve consisted of 3 segments of 6 turning points sequentially ordered around the x-axis. Participants learned two short movement sequences which were then concatenated to form a single sequence. It was expected that under pressure, this sequence should "fall apart" at the point of concatenation. Overt Performance was assessed by the Root Mean Square Error between target and pursuit cross as well as the Absolute Error at the turning points, covert performance was measured by the Latency from target to pursuit turning and task exploitation was measured by the temporal covariation between successive intervals between turning points. Experiment 3 (intraindividual variation) as well as Experiment 4 (interindividual variation) show performance enhancement in the pressure situation on the overt level with matching results on covert and task exploitation level. Thus, contrary to previous studies, no choking under pressure was found in any of the experiments. This may be interpreted as a failure in the experimental manipulation. But certainly also important characteristics of the task are highlighted. Choking should occur in tasks where performers do not have the time to use action or thought control strategies, that are more relevant to their "self" and that are discrete in nature.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Makuch2007, author = {Makuch, Martin}, title = {Circumplanetary dust dynamics : application to Martian dust tori and Enceladus dust plumes}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-14404}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2007}, abstract = {Our Solar system contains a large amount of dust, containing valuable information about our close cosmic environment. If created in a planet's system, the particles stay predominantly in its vicinity and can form extended dust envelopes, tori or rings around them. A fascinating example of these complexes are Saturnian rings containing a wide range of particles sizes from house-size objects in the main rings up to micron-sized grains constituting the E ring. Other example are ring systems in general, containing a large fraction of dust or also the putative dust-tori surrounding the planet Mars. The dynamical life'' of such circumplanetary dust populations is the main subject of our study. In this thesis a general model of creation, dynamics and death'' of circumplanetary dust is developed. Endogenic and exogenic processes creating dust at atmosphereless bodies are presented. Then, we describe the main forces influencing the particle dynamics and study dynamical responses induced by stochastic fluctuations. In order to estimate the properties of steady-state population of considered dust complex, the grain mean lifetime as a result of a balance of dust creation, life'' and loss mechanisms is determined. The latter strongly depends on the surrounding environment, the particle properties and its dynamical history. The presented model can be readily applied to study any circumplanetary dust complex. As an example we study dynamics of two dust populations in the Solar system. First we explore the dynamics of particles, ejected from Martian moon Deimos by impacts of micrometeoroids, which should form a putative tori along the orbit of the moon. The long-term influence of indirect component of radiation pressure, the Poynting-Robertson drag gives rise in significant change of torus geometry. Furthermore, the action of radiation pressure on rotating non-spherical dust particles results in stochastic dispersion of initially confined ensemble of particles, which causes decrease of particle number densities and corresponding optical depth of the torus. Second, we investigate the dust dynamics in the vicinity of Saturnian moon Enceladus. During three flybys of the Cassini spacecraft with Enceladus, the on-board dust detector registered a micron-sized dust population around the moon. Surprisingly, the peak of the measured impact rate occurred 1 minute before the closest approach of the spacecraft to the moon. This asymmetry of the measured rate can be associated with locally enhanced dust production near Enceladus south pole. Other Cassini instruments also detected evidence of geophysical activity in the south polar region of the moon: high surface temperature and extended plumes of gas and dust leaving the surface. Comparison of our results with this in situ measurements reveals that the south polar ejecta may provide the dominant source of particles sustaining the Saturn's E ring.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Gudipudi2017, author = {Gudipudi, Venkata Ramana}, title = {Cities and global sustainability}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-407113}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xxii, 101}, year = {2017}, abstract = {In the wake of 21st century, humanity witnessed a phenomenal raise of urban agglomerations as powerhouses for innovation and socioeconomic growth. Driving much of national (and in few instances even global) economy, such a gargantuan raise of cities is also accompanied by subsequent increase in energy, resource consumption and waste generation. Much of anthropogenic transformation of Earth's environment in terms of environmental pollution at local level to planetary scale in the form of climate change is currently taking place in cities. Projected to be crucibles for entire humanity by the end of this century, the ultimate fate of humanity predominantly lies in the hands of technological innovation, urbanites' attitudes towards energy/resource consumption and development pathways undertaken by current and future cities. Considering the unparalleled energy, resource consumption and emissions currently attributed to global cities, this thesis addresses these issues from an efficiency point of view. More specifically, this thesis addresses the influence of population size, density, economic geography and technology in improving urban greenhouse gas (GHG) emission efficiency and identifies the factors leading to improved eco-efficiency in cities. In order to investigate the in uence of these factors in improving emission and resource efficiency in cities, a multitude of freely available datasets were coupled with some novel methodologies and analytical approaches in this thesis. Merging the well-established Kaya Identity to the recently developed urban scaling laws, an Urban Kaya Relation is developed to identify whether large cities are more emission efficient and the intrinsic factors leading to such (in)efficiency. Applying Urban Kaya Relation to a global dataset of 61 cities in 12 countries, this thesis identifed that large cities in developed regions of the world will bring emission efficiency gains because of the better technologies implemented in these cities to produce and utilize energy consumption while the opposite is the case for cities in developing regions. Large cities in developing countries are less efficient mainly because of their affluence and lack of efficient technologies. Apart from the in uence of population size on emission efficiency, this thesis identified the crucial role played by population density in improving building and on-road transport sector related emission efficiency in cities. This is achieved by applying the City Clustering Algorithm (CCA) on two different gridded land use datasets and a standard emission inventory to attribute these sectoral emissions to all inhabited settlements in the USA. Results show that doubling the population density would entail a reduction in the total CO2 emissions in buildings and on-road sectors typically by at least 42 \%. Irrespective of their population size and density, cities are often blamed for their intensive resource consumption that threatens not only local but also global sustainability. This thesis merged the concept of urban metabolism with benchmarking and identified cities which are eco-efficient. These cities enable better socioeconomic conditions while being less burden to the environment. Three environmental burden indicators (annual average NO2 concentration, per capita waste generation and water consumption) and two socioeconomic indicators (GDP per capita and employment ratio) for 88 most populous European cities are considered in this study. Using two different non-parametric ranking methods namely regression residual ranking and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), eco-efficient cities and their determining factors are identified. This in-depth analysis revealed that mature cities with well-established economic structures such as Munich, Stockholm and Oslo are eco-efficient. Further, correlations between objective eco-efficiency ranking with each of the indicator rankings and the ranking of urbanites' subjective perception about quality of life are analyzed. This analysis revealed that urbanites' perception about quality of life is not merely confined to the socioeconomic well-being but rather to their combination with lower environmental burden. In summary, the findings of this dissertation has three general conclusions for improving emission and ecological efficiency in cities. Firstly, large cities in emerging nations face a huge challenge with respect to improving their emission efficiency. The task in front of these cities is threefold: (1) deploying efficient technologies for the generation of electricity and improvement of public transportation to unlock their leap frogging potential, (2) addressing the issue of energy poverty and (3) ensuring that these cities do not develop similar energy consumption patterns with infrastructure lock-in behavior similar to those of cities in developed regions. Secondly, the on-going urban sprawl as a global phenomenon will decrease the emission efficiency within the building and transportation sector. Therefore, local policy makers should identify adequate fiscal and land use policies to curb urban sprawl. Lastly, since mature cities with well-established economic structures are more eco-efficient and urbanites' perception re ects its combination with decreasing environmental burden; there is a need to adopt and implement strategies which enable socioeconomic growth in cities whilst decreasing their environment burden.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Alexoudi2023, author = {Alexoudi, Xanthippi}, title = {Clarifying the discrepant results in the characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-60565}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-605659}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xvi, 125}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Planets outside our solar system, so-called "exoplanets", can be detected with different methods, and currently more than 5000 exoplanets have been confirmed, according to NASA Exoplanet Archive. One major highlight of the studies on exoplanets in the past twenty years is the characterization of their atmospheres usingtransmission spectroscopy as the exoplanet transits. However, this characterization is a challenging process and sometimes there are reported discrepancies in the literature regarding the atmosphere of the same exoplanet. One potential reason for the observed atmospheric inconsistencies is called impact parameter degeneracy, and it is highly driven by the limb darkening effect of the host star. A brief introductionto those topics in presented in chapter 1, while the motivation and objectives of thiswork are described in chapter 2.The first goal is to clarify the origin of the transmission spectrum, which is anindicator of an exoplanet's atmosphere; whether it is real or influenced by the impactparameter degeneracy. A second goal is to determine whether photometry from space using the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), could improve on the major parameters, which are responsible for the aforementioned degeneracy, of known exoplanetary systems. Three individual projects were conducted in order toaddress those goals. The three manuscripts are presented, in short, in the manuscriptoverview in chapter 3.More specifically, in chapter 4, the first manuscript is presented, which is an ex-tended investigation on the impact parameter degeneracy and its application onsynthetic transmission spectra. Evidently, the limb darkening of the host star isan important driver for this effect. It keeps the degeneracy persisting through different groups of exoplanets, based on the uncertainty of their impact parameter and on the type of their host star. The second goal, was addressed in the second and third manuscripts (chapter 5 and chapter 6 respectively). Using observationsfrom the TESS mission, two samples of exoplanets were studied; 10 transiting inflated hot-Jupiters and 43 transiting grazing systems. Potentially, the refinement or confirmation of their major system parameters' measurements can assist in solving current or future discrepancies regarding their atmospheric characterization.In chapter 7 the conclusions of this work are discussed, while in chapter 8 itis proposed how TESS's measurements can be able to discern between erroneousinterpretations of transmission spectra, especially on systems where the impact parameter degeneracy is likely not applicable.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{AlhosseiniAlmodarresiYasin2024, author = {Alhosseini Almodarresi Yasin, Seyed Ali}, title = {Classification, prediction and evaluation of graph neural networks on online social media platforms}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-62642}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-626421}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xviii, 78}, year = {2024}, abstract = {The vast amount of data generated on social media platforms have made them a valuable source of information for businesses, governments and researchers. Social media data can provide insights into user behavior, preferences, and opinions. In this work, we address two important challenges in social media analytics. Predicting user engagement with online content has become a critical task for content creators to increase user engagement and reach larger audiences. Traditional user engagement prediction approaches rely solely on features derived from the user and content. However, a new class of deep learning methods based on graphs captures not only the content features but also the graph structure of social media networks. This thesis proposes a novel Graph Neural Network (GNN) approach to predict user interaction with tweets. The proposed approach combines the features of users, tweets and their engagement graphs. The tweet text features are extracted using pre-trained embeddings from language models, and a GNN layer is used to embed the user in a vector space. The GNN model then combines the features and graph structure to predict user engagement. The proposed approach achieves an accuracy value of 94.22\% in classifying user interactions, including likes, retweets, replies, and quotes. Another major challenge in social media analysis is detecting and classifying social bot accounts. Social bots are automated accounts used to manipulate public opinion by spreading misinformation or generating fake interactions. Detecting social bots is critical to prevent their negative impact on public opinion and trust in social media. In this thesis, we classify social bots on Twitter by applying Graph Neural Networks. The proposed approach uses a combination of both the features of a node and an aggregation of the features of a node's neighborhood to classify social bot accounts. Our final results indicate a 6\% improvement in the area under the curve score in the final predictions through the utilization of GNN. Overall, our work highlights the importance of social media data and the potential of new methods such as GNNs to predict user engagement and detect social bots. These methods have important implications for improving the quality and reliability of information on social media platforms and mitigating the negative impact of social bots on public opinion and discourse.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{DeVeaughGeiss2020, author = {De Veaugh-Geiss, Joseph P.}, title = {Cleft exhaustivity}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-44642}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-446421}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {viii, 243}, year = {2020}, abstract = {In this dissertation a series of experimental studies are presented which demonstrate that the exhaustive inference of focus-background it-clefts in English and their cross-linguistic counterparts in Akan, French, and German is neither robust nor systematic. The inter-speaker and cross-linguistic variability is accounted for with a discourse-pragmatic approach to cleft exhaustivity, in which -- following Pollard \& Yasavul 2016 -- the exhaustive inference is derived from an interaction with another layer of meaning, namely, the existence presupposition encoded in clefts.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Mtilatila2023, author = {Mtilatila, Lucy Mphatso Ng'ombe}, title = {Climate change effects on drought, freshwater availability and hydro-power generation in an African environment}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-59929}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-599298}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xv, 167}, year = {2023}, abstract = {The work is designed to investigate the impacts and sensitivity of climate change on water resources, droughts and hydropower production in Malawi, the South-Eastern region which is highly vulnerable to climate change. It is observed that rainfall is decreasing and temperature is increasing which calls for the understanding of what these changes may impact the water resources, drought occurrences and hydropower generation in the region. The study is conducted in the Greater Lake Malawi Basin (Lake Malawi and Shire River Basins) and is divided into three projects. The first study is assessing the variability and trends of both meteorological and hydrological droughts from 1970-2013 in Lake Malawi and Shire River basins using the standardized precipitation index (SPI) and standardized precipitation and evaporation Index (SPEI) for meteorological droughts and the lake level change index (LLCI) for hydrological droughts. And later the relationship of the meteorological and hydrological droughts is established. While the second study extends the drought analysis into the future by examining the potential future meteorological water balance and associated drought characteristics such as the drought intensity (DI), drought months (DM), and drought events (DE) in the Greater Lake Malawi Basin. The sensitivity of drought to changes of rainfall and temperature is also assessed using the scenario-neutral approach. The climate change projections from 20 Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) models for Africa based on two scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) for the periods 2021-2050 and 2071-2100 are used. The study also investigates the effect of bias-correction (i.e., empirical quantile mapping) on the ability of the climate model ensemble in reproducing observed drought characteristics as compared to raw climate projections. The sensitivity of key hydrologic variables and hydropower generation to climate change in Lake Malawi and Shire River basins is assessed in third study. The study adapts the mesoscale Hydrological Model (mHM) which is applied separately in the Upper Lake Malawi and Shire River basins. A particular Lake Malawi model, which focuses on reservoir routing and lake water balance, has been developed and is interlinked between the two basins. Similar to second study, the scenario-neutral approach is also applied to determine the sensitivity of climate change on water resources more particularly Lake Malawi level and Shire River flow which later helps to estimate the hydropower production susceptibility. Results suggest that meteorological droughts are increasing due to a decrease in precipitation which is exacerbated by an increase in temperature (potential evapotranspiration). The hydrological system of Lake Malawi seems to have a >24-month memory towards meteorological conditions since the 36-months SPEI can predict hydrological droughts ten-months in advance. The study has found the critical lake level that would trigger hydrological drought to be 474.1 m.a.s.l. Despite the differences in the internal structures and uncertainties that exist among the climate models, they all agree on an increase of meteorological droughts in the future in terms of higher DI and longer events (DM). DI is projected to increase between +25\% and +50\% during 2021-2050 and between +131\% and +388\% during 2071-2100. This translates into +3 to +5, and +7 to +8 more drought months per year during both periods, respectively. With longer lasting drought events, DE is decreasing. Projected droughts based on RCP8.5 are 1.7 times more severe than droughts based on RCP4.5. It is also found that an annual temperature increase of 1°C decreases mean lake level and outflow by 0.3 m and 17\%, respectively, signifying the importance of intensified evaporation for Lake Malawi's water budget. Meanwhile, a +5\% (-5\%) deviation in annual rainfall changes mean lake level by +0.7 m (-0.6 m). The combined effects of temperature increase and rainfall decrease result in significantly lower flows on Shire River. The hydrological river regime may change from perennial to seasonal with the combination of annual temperature increase and precipitation decrease beyond 1.5°C (3.5°C) and -20\% (-15\%). The study further projects a reduction in annual hydropower production between 1\% (RCP8.5) and 2.5\% (RCP4.5) during 2021-2050 and between 5\% (RCP4.5) and 24\% (RCP8.5) during 2071-2100. The findings are later linked to global policies more particularly the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)'s Paris Agreement and the United Nations (UN)'s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and how the failure to adhere the restriction of temperature increase below the global limit of 1.5°C will affect drought and the water resources in Malawi consequently impact the hydropower production. As a result, the achievement of most of the SDGs will be compromised. The results show that it is of great importance that a further development of hydro energy on the Shire River should take into account the effects of climate change. The information generation is important for decision making more especially supporting the climate action required to fight against climate change. The frequency of extreme climate events due to climate change has reached the climate emergency as saving lives and livelihoods require urgent action.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Waha2012, author = {Waha, Katharina}, title = {Climate change impacts on agricultural vegetation in sub-Saharan Africa}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-64717}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2012}, abstract = {Agriculture is one of the most important human activities providing food and more agricultural goods for seven billion people around the world and is of special importance in sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of people depends on the agricultural sector for their livelihoods and will suffer from negative climate change impacts on agriculture until the middle and end of the 21st century, even more if weak governments, economic crises or violent conflicts endanger the countries' food security. The impact of temperature increases and changing precipitation patterns on agricultural vegetation motivated this thesis in the first place. Analyzing the potentials of reducing negative climate change impacts by adapting crop management to changing climate is a second objective of the thesis. As a precondition for simulating climate change impacts on agricultural crops with a global crop model first the timing of sowing in the tropics was improved and validated as this is an important factor determining the length and timing of the crops´ development phases, the occurrence of water stress and final crop yield. Crop yields are projected to decline in most regions which is evident from the results of this thesis, but the uncertainties that exist in climate projections and in the efficiency of adaptation options because of political, economical or institutional obstacles have to be considered. The effect of temperature increases and changing precipitation patterns on crop yields can be analyzed separately and varies in space across the continent. Southern Africa is clearly the region most susceptible to climate change, especially to precipitation changes. The Sahel north of 13° N and parts of Eastern Africa with short growing seasons below 120 days and limited wet season precipitation of less than 500 mm are also vulnerable to precipitation changes while in most other part of East and Central Africa, in contrast, the effect of temperature increase on crops overbalances the precipitation effect and is most pronounced in a band stretching from Angola to Ethiopia in the 2060s. The results of this thesis confirm the findings from previous studies on the magnitude of climate change impact on crops in sub-Saharan Africa but beyond that helps to understand the drivers of these changes and the potential of certain management strategies for adaptation in more detail. Crop yield changes depend on the initial growing conditions, on the magnitude of climate change, and on the crop, cropping system and adaptive capacity of African farmers which is only now evident from this comprehensive study for sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore this study improves the representation of tropical cropping systems in a global crop model and considers the major food crops cultivated in sub-Saharan Africa and climate change impacts throughout the continent.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Olonscheck2016, author = {Olonscheck, Mady}, title = {Climate change impacts on electricity and residential energy demand}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-98378}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {XXIV, 127}, year = {2016}, abstract = {The energy sector is both affected by climate change and a key sector for climate protection measures. Energy security is the backbone of our modern society and guarantees the functioning of most critical infrastructure. Thus, decision makers and energy suppliers of different countries should be familiar with the factors that increase or decrease the susceptibility of their electricity sector to climate change. Susceptibility means socioeconomic and structural characteristics of the electricity sector that affect the demand for and supply of electricity under climate change. Moreover, the relevant stakeholders are supposed to know whether the given national energy and climate targets are feasible and what needs to be done in order to meet these targets. In this regard, a focus should be on the residential building sector as it is one of the largest energy consumers and therefore emitters of anthropogenic CO 2 worldwide. This dissertation addresses the first aspect, namely the susceptibility of the electricity sector, by developing a ranked index which allows for quantitative comparison of the electricity sector susceptibility of 21 European countries based on 14 influencing factors. Such a ranking has not been completed to date. We applied a sensitivity analysis to test the relative effect of each influencing factor on the susceptibility index ranking. We also discuss reasons for the ranking position and thus the susceptibility of selected countries. The second objective, namely the impact of climate change on the energy demand of buildings, is tackled by means of a new model with which the heating and cooling energy demand of residential buildings can be estimated. We exemplarily applied the model to Germany and the Netherlands. It considers projections of future changes in population, climate and the insulation standards of buildings, whereas most of the existing studies only take into account fewer than three different factors that influence the future energy demand of buildings. Furthermore, we developed a comprehensive retrofitting algorithm with which the total residential building stock can be modeled for the first time for each year in the past and future. The study confirms that there is no correlation between the geographical location of a country and its position in the electricity sector susceptibility ranking. Moreover, we found no pronounced pattern of susceptibility influencing factors between countries that ranked higher or lower in the index. We illustrate that Luxembourg, Greece, Slovakia and Italy are the countries with the highest electricity sector susceptibility. The electricity sectors of Norway, the Czech Republic, Portugal and Denmark were found to be least susceptible to climate change. Knowledge about the most important factors for the poor and good ranking positions of these countries is crucial for finding adequate adaptation measures to reduce the susceptibility of the electricity sector. Therefore, these factors are described within this study. We show that the heating energy demand of residential buildings will strongly decrease in both Germany and the Netherlands in the future. The analysis for the Netherlands focused on the regional level and a finer temporal resolution which revealed strong variations in the future heating energy demand changes by province and by month. In the German study, we additionally investigated the future cooling energy demand and could demonstrate that it will only slightly increase up to the middle of this century. Thus, increases in the cooling energy demand are not expected to offset reductions in heating energy demand. The main factor for substantial heating energy demand reductions is the retrofitting of buildings. We are the first to show that the given German and Dutch energy and climate targets in the building sector can only be met if the annual retrofitting rates are substantially increased. The current rate of only about 1 \% of the total building stock per year is insufficient for reaching a nearly zero-energy demand of all residential buildings by the middle of this century. To reach this target, it would need to be at least tripled. To sum up, this thesis emphasizes that country-specific characteristics are decisive for the electricity sector susceptibility of European countries. It also shows for different scenarios how much energy is needed in the future to heat and cool residential buildings. With this information, existing climate mitigation and adaptation measures can be justified or new actions encouraged.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Holsten2013, author = {Holsten, Anne}, title = {Climate change vulnerability assessments in the regional context}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-66836}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Adapting sectors to new conditions under climate change requires an understanding of regional vulnerabilities. Conceptually, vulnerability is defined as a function of sensitivity and exposure, which determine climate impacts, and adaptive capacity of a system. Vulnerability assessments for quantifying these components have become a key tool within the climate change field. However, there is a disagreement on how to make the concept operational in studies from a scientific perspective. This conflict leads to many still unsolved challenges, especially regarding the quantification and aggregation of the components and their suitable level of complexity. This thesis therefore aims at advancing the scientific foundation of such studies by translating the concept of vulnerability into a systematic assessment structure. This includes all components and implies that for each considered impact (e.g. flash floods) a clear sensitive entity is defined (e.g. settlements) and related to a direction of change for a specific climatic stimulus (e.g. increasing impact due to increasing days with heavy precipitation). Regarding the challenging aggregation procedure, two alternative methods allowing a cross-sectoral overview are introduced and their advantages and disadvantages discussed. This assessment structure is subsequently exemplified for municipalities of the German state North Rhine-Westphalia via an indicator-based deductive approach using information from literature. It can be transferred also to other regions. As for many relevant sectors, suitable indicators to express the vulnerability components are lacking, new quantification methods are developed and applied in this thesis, for example for the forestry and health sector. A lack of empirical data on relevant thresholds is evident, for example which climatic changes would cause significant impacts. Consequently, the multi-sectoral study could only provide relative measures for each municipality, in relation to the region. To fill this gap, an exemplary sectoral study was carried out on windthrow impacts in forests to provide an absolute quantification of the present and future impact. This is achieved by formulating an empirical relation between the forest characteristics and damage based on data from a past storm event. The resulting measure indicating the sensitivity is then combined with wind conditions. Multi-sectoral vulnerability assessments require considerable resources, which often hinders the implementation. Thus, in a next step, the potential for reducing the complexity is explored. To predict forest fire occurrence, numerous meteorological indices are available, spanning over a range of complexity. Comparing their performance, the single variable relative humidity outperforms complex indicators for most German states in explaining the monthly fire pattern. This is the case albeit it is itself an input factor in most indices. Thus, this meteorological factor alone is well suited to evaluate forest fire danger in many Germany regions and allows a resource-efficient assessment. Similarly, the complexity of methods is assessed regarding the application of the ecohydrological model SWIM to the German region of Brandenburg. The inter-annual soil moisture levels simulated by this model can only poorly be represented by simpler statistical approach using the same input data. However, on a decadal time horizon, the statistical approach shows a good performance and a strong dominance of the soil characteristic field capacity. This points to a possibility to reduce the input factors for predicting long-term averages, but the results are restricted by a lack of empirical data on soil water for validation. The presented assessments of vulnerability and its components have shown that they are still a challenging scientific undertaking. Following the applied terminology, many problems arise when implementing it for regional studies. Advances in addressing shortcomings of previous studies have been made by constructing a new systematic structure for characterizing and aggregating vulnerability components. For this, multiple approaches were presented, but they have specific advantages and disadvantages, which should also be carefully considered in future studies. There is a potential to simplify some methods, but more systematic assessments on this are needed. Overall, this thesis strengthened the use of vulnerability assessments as a tool to support adaptation by enhancing their scientific basis.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Schwager2005, author = {Schwager, Monika}, title = {Climate change, variable colony sizes and temporal autocorrelation : consequences of living in changing environments}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-5744}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2005}, abstract = {Natural and human induced environmental changes affect populations at different time scales. If they occur in a spatial heterogeneous way, they cause spatial variation in abundance. In this thesis I addressed three topics, all related to the question, how environmental changes influence population dynamics. In the first part, I analysed the effect of positive temporal autocorrelation in environmental noise on the extinction risk of a population, using a simple population model. The effect of autocorrelation depended on the magnitude of the effect of single catastrophic events of bad environmental conditions on a population. If a population was threatened by extinction only, when bad conditions occurred repeatedly, positive autocorrelation increased extinction risk. If a population could become extinct, even if bad conditions occurred only once, positive autocorrelation decreased extinction risk. These opposing effects could be explained by two features of an autocorrelated time series. On the one hand, positive autocorrelation increased the probability of series of bad environmental conditions, implying a negative effect on populations. On the other hand, aggregation of bad years also implied longer periods with relatively good conditions. Therefore, for a given time period, the overall probability of occurrence of at least one extremely bad year was reduced in autocorrelated noise. This can imply a positive effect on populations. The results could solve a contradiction in the literature, where opposing effects of autocorrelated noise were found in very similar population models. In the second part, I compared two approaches, which are commonly used for predicting effects of climate change on future abundance and distribution of species: a "space for time approach", where predictions are based on the geographic pattern of current abundance in relation to climate, and a "population modelling approach" which is based on correlations between demographic parameters and the inter-annual variation of climate. In this case study, I compared the two approaches for predicting the effect of a shift in mean precipitation on a population of the sociable weaver Philetairus socius, a common colonially living passerine bird of semiarid savannahs of southern Africa. In the space for time approach, I compared abundance and population structure of the sociable weaver in two areas with highly different mean annual precipitation. The analysis showed no difference between the two populations. This result, as well as the wide distribution range of the species, would lead to the prediction of no sensitive response of the species to a slight shift in mean precipitation. In contrast, the population modelling approach, based on a correlation between reproductive success and rainfall, predicted a sensitive response in most model types. The inconsistency of predictions was confirmed in a cross-validation between the two approaches. I concluded that the inconsistency was caused, because the two approaches reflect different time scales. On a short time scale, the population may respond sensitively to rainfall. However, on a long time scale, or in a regional comparison, the response may be compensated or buffered by a variety of mechanisms. These may include behavioural or life history adaptations, shifts in the interactions with other species, or differences in the physical environment. The study implies that understanding, how such mechanisms work, and at what time scale they would follow climate change, is a crucial precondition for predicting ecological consequences of climate change. In the third part of the thesis, I tested why colony sizes of the sociable weaver are highly variable. The high variation of colony sizes is surprising, as in studies on coloniality it is often assumed that an optimal colony size exists, in which individual bird fitness is maximized. Following this assumption, the pattern of bird dispersal should keep colony sizes near an optimum. However, I showed by analysing data on reproductive success and survival that for the sociable weaver fitness in relation to colony size did not follow an optimum curve. Instead, positive and negative effects of living in large colonies overlaid each other in a way that fitness was generally close to one, and density dependence was low. I showed in a population model, which included an evolutionary optimisation process of dispersal that this specific shape of the fitness function could lead to a dispersal strategy, where the variation of colony sizes was maintained.}, subject = {Populationsbiologie}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Huber2010, author = {Huber, Veronika Emilie Charlotte}, title = {Climate impact on phytoplankton blooms in shallow lakes}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-42346}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2010}, abstract = {Lake ecosystems across the globe have responded to climate warming of recent decades. However, correctly attributing observed changes to altered climatic conditions is complicated by multiple anthropogenic influences on lakes. This thesis contributes to a better understanding of climate impacts on freshwater phytoplankton, which forms the basis of the food chain and decisively influences water quality. The analyses were, for the most part, based on a long-term data set of physical, chemical and biological variables of a shallow, polymictic lake in north-eastern Germany (M{\"u}ggelsee), which was subject to a simultaneous change in climate and trophic state during the past three decades. Data analysis included constructing a dynamic simulation model, implementing a genetic algorithm to parameterize models, and applying statistical techniques of classification tree and time-series analysis. Model results indicated that climatic factors and trophic state interactively determine the timing of the phytoplankton spring bloom (phenology) in shallow lakes. Under equally mild spring conditions, the phytoplankton spring bloom collapsed earlier under high than under low nutrient availability, due to a switch from a bottom-up driven to a top-down driven collapse. A novel approach to model phenology proved useful to assess the timings of population peaks in an artificially forced zooplankton-phytoplankton system. Mimicking climate warming by lengthening the growing period advanced algal blooms and consequently also peaks in zooplankton abundance. Investigating the reasons for the contrasting development of cyanobacteria during two recent summer heat wave events revealed that anomalously hot weather did not always, as often hypothesized, promote cyanobacteria in the nutrient-rich lake studied. The seasonal timing and duration of heat waves determined whether critical thresholds of thermal stratification, decisive for cyanobacterial bloom formation, were crossed. In addition, the temporal patterns of heat wave events influenced the summer abundance of some zooplankton species, which as predators may serve as a buffer by suppressing phytoplankton bloom formation. This thesis adds to the growing body of evidence that lake ecosystems have strongly responded to climatic changes of recent decades. It reaches beyond many previous studies of climate impacts on lakes by focusing on underlying mechanisms and explicitly considering multiple environmental changes. Key findings show that climate impacts are more severe in nutrient-rich than in nutrient-poor lakes. Hence, to develop lake management plans for the future, limnologists need to seek a comprehensive, mechanistic understanding of overlapping effects of the multi-faceted human footprint on aquatic ecosystems.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Wilhelm2007, author = {Wilhelm, Susann}, title = {Climate induced impacts on lake functioning in summer}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-14599}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2007}, abstract = {Es gibt bereits viele Hinweise daf{\"u}r, dass Seen sehr sensibel auf die anthropogen verursachte Klimaerw{\"a}rmung reagiert haben. Bis jetzt haben sich die Studien der Klimafolgenforschung haupts{\"a}chlichst auf die Auswirkungen der Erw{\"a}rmung im Winter und Fr{\"u}hling konzentriert. {\"U}ber den Einfluss der Klimaerw{\"a}rmung auf Seen in den gem{\"a}ßigten Breiten im Sommer ist weniger bekannt. In der vorliegenden Doktorarbeit habe ich einige Faktoren, welche die Reaktion von Seen auf die Erw{\"a}rmung im Sommer vermutlich stark mitbestimmt haben, untersucht. Der Schwerpunkt lag dabei auf klimatisch induzierten Auswirkungen auf die thermische Charakteristik und die Ph{\"a}nologie und Abundanz des Planktons eines flachen und polymiktischen Sees (M{\"u}ggelsee, Berlin). Zuerst wurde der Einfluss der Klimaerw{\"a}rmung auf die Ph{\"a}nologie und Abundanz des Planktons in verschiedenen Jahreszeiten untersucht. Das schnellwachsende Phyto- und Zooplankton (Daphnia) im Fr{\"u}hjahr hat sich vorwiegend synchron vorverschoben, wohingegen Ver{\"a}nderungen des Sommerzooplanktons deutlich artspezifisch und nicht synchron waren. Die Ph{\"a}nologie oder Abundanz einiger Sommercopepoden hat sich entsprechend der individuellen thermischen Anforderungen innerhalb bestimmter Entwicklungsstufen, wie zum Beispiel der Emergenz von der Diapause im Fr{\"u}hling, ver{\"a}ndert. Die Studie unterstreicht, dass nicht nur der Grad der Erw{\"a}rmung, sondern auch dessen Zeitpunkt innerhalb des Jahres von großer {\"o}kologischer Bedeutung ist. Um die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels auf die thermischen Eigenschaften des Sees zu erforschen, habe ich die Langzeitentwicklung der t{\"a}glichen epilimnischen Temperaturextrema w{\"a}hrend des Sommers untersucht. Durch diese Studie wurde zum ersten Mal f{\"u}r Seen gezeigt, dass die t{\"a}glichen epilimnischen Minima (Nacht) st{\"a}rker angestiegen sind als die Maxima (Tag), wodurch sich der t{\"a}gliche epilimnische Temperaturbereich deutlich verringert hat. Diese Tag-Nacht-Asymmetrie in der epilimnischen Temperatur wurde durch eine erh{\"o}hte Emission von Langwellenstrahlung aus der Atmosph{\"a}re w{\"a}hrend der Nacht verursacht. Dies unterstreicht, dass nicht nur Erh{\"o}hungen der Lufttemperatur, sondern auch {\"A}nderungen anderer meteorologischer Variablen wie der Windgeschwindigkeit, der Luftfeuchte und der Bew{\"o}lkung eine wichtige Rolle bei der Bestimmung der Seetemperatur im Hinblick auf weitere Klimaver{\"a}nderungen spielen werden. Zudem wurde eine Kurzzeitanalyse zum Schichtungsverhalten des polymiktischen Sees durchgef{\"u}hrt, um die H{\"a}ufigkeit und Dauer von Schichtungsereignissen und deren Einfluss auf den gel{\"o}sten Sauerstoff, die gel{\"o}sten N{\"a}hrstoffe und das Phytoplankton zu untersuchen. Selbst w{\"a}hrend der l{\"a}ngsten Schichtungsereignisse (Hitzewellen 2003 und 2006) unterschieden sich die Auswirkungen auf den See von denen, welche in flachen dimiktischen Seen w{\"a}hrend der kontinuierlichen Sommerschichtung auftreten. Die hypolimnische Temperatur war h{\"o}her, was die Sauerstoffzehrung und die Akkumulation von gel{\"o}sten N{\"a}hrstoffen beg{\"u}nstigt hat. Die thermische Schichtung wird in Zukunft sehr wahrscheinlich zunehmen. Dies l{\"a}sst darauf schließen, dass polymiktische Seen sehr anf{\"a}llig gegen{\"u}ber {\"A}nderungen im Hinblick auf projizierte Klimaver{\"a}nderungen sein werden. Abschließend wurde eine Studie {\"u}ber Lang- und Kurzzeitver{\"a}nderungen in der Entwicklung der planktischen Larven der Muschel Dreissena polymorpha durchgef{\"u}hrt, um den Einfluss der Ver{\"a}nderungen im thermischen und trophischen Regime des Sees zu analysieren. Die Klimaerw{\"a}rmung und die Verringerung in der externen N{\"a}hrstofffracht haben die Abundanz der Larven stark beeinflusst indem sie jeweils auf bestimmte Entwicklungsphasen dieser Art w{\"a}hrend der warmen Jahreszeiten gewirkt haben. Der Anstieg in der Abundanz und der L{\"a}nge der Larven stand im Zusammenhang mit dem R{\"u}ckgang der N{\"a}hrstofffracht und der Ver{\"a}nderung der Phytoplanktonzusammensetzung. Die Hitzewellen in den Jahren 2003 und 2006 haben diesen positiven Effekt auf die Larvenabundanz jedoch durch ung{\"u}nstige Sauerstoffkonzentrationen w{\"a}hrend der sehr langen Schichtung aufgehoben. Die Klimaerw{\"a}rmung kann demzufolge entgegenwirkende Effekte in produktiven flachen Seen, in welchen die externe N{\"a}hrstofffracht reduziert wurde, ausl{\"o}sen. Aus diesen Ergebnissen schließe ich, dass nicht nur die Art des Klimawandels und damit der Zeitpunkt der Erw{\"a}rmung und das Auftreten von Extremen wie Hitzewellen, sondern auch standortspezifische Bedingungen wie Schichtungsverhalten und Trophiegrad entscheidende Faktoren sind, welche die Auswirkungen der Klimaerw{\"a}rmung auf interne Seeprozesse im Sommer bestimmen. Somit sollte sich die weiterf{\"u}hrende Klimafolgenforschung f{\"u}r Seen darauf konzentrieren, wie verschiedene Seetypen auf die komplexen Umweltver{\"a}nderungen im Sommer reagieren, damit ein umfassenderes Verst{\"a}ndnis {\"u}ber den Einfluss von anthropogen verursachten Ver{\"a}nderungen auf Seen der gem{\"a}ßigten Breiten erreicht wird.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Castino2016, author = {Castino, Fabiana}, title = {Climate variability and extreme hydro-meteorological events in the Southern Central Andes, NW Argentina}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-396815}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xi, 144}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Extreme hydro-meteorological events, such as severe droughts or heavy rainstorms, constitute primary manifestations of climate variability and exert a critical impact on the natural environment and human society. This is particularly true for high-mountain areas, such as the eastern flank of the southern Central Andes of NW Argentina, a region impacted by deep convection processes that form the basis of extreme events, often resulting in floods, a variety of mass movements, and hillslope processes. This region is characterized by pronounced E-W gradients in topography, precipitation, and vegetation cover, spanning low to medium-elevation, humid and densely vegetated areas to high-elevation, arid and sparsely vegetated environments. This strong E-W gradient is mirrored by differences in the efficiency of surface processes, which mobilize and transport large amounts of sediment through the fluvial system, from the steep hillslopes to the intermontane basins and further to the foreland. In a highly sensitive high-mountain environment like this, even small changes in the spatiotemporal distribution, magnitude and rates of extreme events may strongly impact environmental conditions, anthropogenic activity, and the well-being of mountain communities and beyond. However, although the NW Argentine Andes comprise the catchments for the La Plata river that traverses one of the most populated and economically relevant areas of South America, there are only few detailed investigations of climate variability and extreme hydro-meteorological events. In this thesis, I focus on deciphering the spatiotemporal variability of rainfall and river discharge, with particular emphasis on extreme hydro-meteorological events in the subtropical southern Central Andes of NW Argentina during the past seven decades. I employ various methods to assess and quantify statistically significant trend patterns of rainfall and river discharge, integrating high-quality daily time series from gauging stations (40 rainfall and 8 river discharge stations) with gridded datasets (CPC-uni and TRMM 3B42 V7), for the period between 1940 and 2015. Evidence for a general intensification of the hydrological cycle at intermediate elevations (~ 0.5 - 3 km asl) at the eastern flank of the southern Central Andes is found both from rainfall and river-discharge time-series analysis during the period from 1940 to 2015. This intensification is associated with the increase of the annual total amount of rainfall and the mean annual discharge. However, most pronounced trends are found at high percentiles, i.e. extreme hydro-meteorological events, particularly during the wet season from December to February.An important outcome of my studies is the recognition of a rapid increase in the amount of river discharge during the period between 1971 and 1977, most likely linked to the 1976-77 global climate shift, which is associated with the North Pacific Ocean sea surface temperature variability. Interestingly, after this rapid increase, both rainfall and river discharge decreased at low and intermediate elevations along the eastern flank of the Andes. In contrast, during the same time interval, at high elevations, extensive areas on the arid Puna de Atacama plateau have recorded increasing annual rainfall totals. This has been associated with more intense extreme hydro-meteorological events from 1979 to 2014. This part of the study reveals that low-, intermediate, and high-elevation sectors in the Andes of NW Argentina respond differently to changing climate conditions. Possible forcing mechanisms of the pronounced hydro-meteorological variability observed in the study area are also investigated. For the period between 1940 and 2015, I analyzed modes of oscillation of river discharge from small to medium drainage basins (102 to 104 km2), located on the eastern flank of the orogen. First, I decomposed the relevant monthly time series using the Hilbert-Huang Transform, which is particularly appropriate for non-stationary time series that result from non-linear natural processes. I observed that in the study region discharge variability can be described by five quasi-periodic oscillatory modes on timescales varying from 1 to ~20 years. Secondly, I tested the link between river-discharge variations and large-scale climate modes of variability, using different climate indices, such as the BEST ENSO (Bivariate El Ni{\~n}o-Southern Oscillation Time-series) index. This analysis reveals that, although most of the variance on the annual timescale is associated with the South American Monsoon System, a relatively large part of river-discharge variability is linked to Pacific Ocean variability (PDO phases) at multi-decadal timescales (~20 years). To a lesser degree, river discharge variability is also linked to the Tropical South Atlantic (TSA) sea surface temperature anomaly at multi-annual timescales (~2-5 years). Taken together, these findings exemplify the high degree of sensitivity of high-mountain environments with respect to climatic variability and change. This is particularly true for the topographic transitions between the humid, low-moderate elevations and the semi-arid to arid highlands of the southern Central Andes. Even subtle changes in the hydro-meteorological regime of these areas of the mountain belt react with major impacts on erosional hillslope processes and generate mass movements that fundamentally impact the transport capacity of mountain streams. Despite more severe storms in these areas, the fluvial system is characterized by pronounced variability of the stream power on different timescales, leading to cycles of sediment aggradation, the loss of agriculturally used land and severe impacts on infrastructure.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Scherler2010, author = {Scherler, Dirk}, title = {Climate variability and glacial dynamics in the Himalaya}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-49871}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2010}, abstract = {In den Hochgebirgen Asiens bedecken Gletscher eine Fl{\"a}che von ungef{\"a}hr 115,000 km² und ergeben damit, neben Gr{\"o}nland und der Antarktis, eine der gr{\"o}ßten Eisakkumulationen der Erde. Die Sensibilit{\"a}t der Gletscher gegen{\"u}ber Klimaschwankungen macht sie zu wertvollen pal{\"a}oklimatischen Archiven in Hochgebirgen, aber gleichzeitig auch anf{\"a}llig gegen{\"u}ber rezenter und zuk{\"u}nftiger globaler Erw{\"a}rmung. Dies kann vor allem in dicht besiedelten Gebieten S{\"u}d-, Ost- und Zentralasiens zu großen Problem f{\"u}hren, in denen Gletscher- und Schnee-Schmelzw{\"a}sser eine wichtige Ressource f{\"u}r Landwirtschaft und Stromerzeugung darstellen. Eine erfolgreiche Prognose des Gletscherverhaltens in Reaktion auf den Klimawandel und die Minderung der sozio{\"o}konomischen Auswirkungen erfordert fundierte Kenntnisse der klimatischen Steuerungsfaktoren und der Dynamik asiatischer Gletscher. Aufgrund ihrer Abgeschiedenheit und dem erschwerten Zugang gibt es nur wenige glaziologische Gel{\"a}ndestudien, die zudem r{\"a}umlich und zeitlich sehr begrenzt sind. Daher fehlen bisher grundlegende Informationen {\"u}ber die Mehrzahl asiatischer Gletscher. In dieser Arbeit benutze ich verschiedene Methoden, um die Dynamik asiatischer Gletscher auf mehreren Zeitskalen zu untersuchen. Erstens teste ich eine Methode zur pr{\"a}zisen satelliten-gest{\"u}tzten Messung von Gletscheroberfl{\"a}chen-Geschwindigkeiten. Darauf aufbauend habe ich eine umfassende regionale Erhebung der Fliessgeschwindigkeiten und Frontdynamik asiatischer Gletscher f{\"u}r die Jahre 2000 bis 2008 durchgef{\"u}hrt. Der gewonnene Datensatz erlaubt einmalige Einblicke in die topographischen und klimatischen Steuerungsfaktoren der Gletscherfließgeschwindigkeiten in den Gebirgsregionen Hochasiens. Insbesondere dokumentieren die Daten rezent ungleiches Verhalten der Gletscher im Karakorum und im Himalaja, welches ich auf die konkurrierenden klimatischen Einfl{\"u}sse der Westwinddrift im Winter und des Indischen Monsuns im Sommer zur{\"u}ckf{\"u}hre. Zweitens untersuche ich, ob klimatisch bedingte Ost-West Unterschiede im Gletscherverhalten auch auf l{\"a}ngeren Zeitskalen eine Rolle spielen und gegebenenfalls f{\"u}r dokumentierte regional asynchrone Gletschervorst{\"o}ße relevant sind. Dazu habe ich mittels kosmogener Nuklide Oberfl{\"a}chenalter von erratischen Bl{\"o}cken auf Mor{\"a}nen ermittelt und eine glaziale Chronologie f{\"u}r das obere Tons Tal, in den Quellgebieten des Ganges, erstellt. Dieses Gebiet befindet sich in der {\"U}bergangszone von monsunaler zu Westwind beeinflusster Feuchtigkeitszufuhr und ist damit ideal gelegen, um die Auswirkungen dieser beiden atmosph{\"a}rischen Zirkulationssysteme auf Gletschervorst{\"o}ße zu untersuchen. Die ermittelte glaziale Chronologie dokumentiert mehrere Gletscherschwankungen w{\"a}hrend des Endstadiums der letzten Pleistoz{\"a}nen Vereisung und w{\"a}hrend des Holz{\"a}ns. Diese weisen darauf hin, dass Gletscherschwankungen im westlichen Himalaja weitestgehend synchron waren und auf graduelle glaziale-interglaziale Temperaturver{\"a}nderungen, {\"u}berlagert von monsunalen Niederschlagsschwankungen h{\"o}herer Frequenz, zur{\"u}ck zu f{\"u}hren sind. In einem dritten Schritt kombiniere ich Satelliten-Klimadaten mit Eisfluss-Absch{\"a}tzungen und topographischen Analysen, um den Einfluss der Gletscher Hochasiens auf die Reliefentwicklung im Hochgebirge zu untersuchen. Die Ergebnisse dokumentieren ausgepr{\"a}gte meridionale Unterschiede im Grad und im Stil der Vergletscherung und glazialen Erosion in Abh{\"a}ngigkeit von topographischen und klimatischen Faktoren. Gegens{\"a}tzlich zu bisherigen Annahmen deuten die Daten darauf hin, dass das monsunale Klima im zentralen Himalaja die glaziale Erosion schw{\"a}cht und durch den Erhalt einer steilen orographischen Barriere das Tibet Plateau vor lateraler Zerschneidung bewahrt. Die Ergebnisse dieser Arbeit dokumentieren, wie klimatische und topographische Gradienten die Gletscherdynamik in den Hochgebirgen Asiens auf Zeitskalen von 10^0 bis 10^6 Jahren beeinflussen. Die Reaktionszeit der Gletscher auf Klimaver{\"a}nderungen sind eng an Eigenschaften wie Schuttbedeckung und Neigung gekoppelt, welche ihrerseits von den topographischen Verh{\"a}ltnissen bedingt sind. Derartige Einflussfaktoren m{\"u}ssen bei pal{\"a}oklimatischen Rekonstruktion und Vorhersagen {\"u}ber die Entwicklung asiatischer Gletscher ber{\"u}cksichtigt werden. Desweiteren gehen die regionalen topographischen Unterschiede der vergletscherten Gebiete Asiens teilweise auf klimatische Gradienten und den langfristigen Einfluss der Gletscher auf die topographische Entwicklung des Gebirgssystems zur{\"u}ck.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Weege2017, author = {Weege, Stefanie}, title = {Climatic drivers of retrogressive thaw slump activity and resulting sediment and carbon release to the nearshore zone of Herschel Island, Yukon Territory, Canada}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-397947}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {163}, year = {2017}, abstract = {The Yukon Coast in Canada is an ice-rich permafrost coast and highly sensitive to changing environmental conditions. Retrogressive thaw slumps are a common thermoerosion feature along this coast, and develop through the thawing of exposed ice-rich permafrost on slopes and removal of accumulating debris. They contribute large amounts of sediment, including organic carbon and nitrogen, to the nearshore zone. The objective of this study was to 1) identify the climatic and geomorphological drivers of sediment-meltwater release, 2) quantify the amount of released meltwater, sediment, organic carbon and nitrogen, and 3) project the evolution of sediment-meltwater release of retrogressive thaw slumps in a changing future climate. The analysis is based on data collected over 18 days in July 2013 and 18 days in August 2012. A cut-throat flume was set up in the main sediment-meltwater channel of the largest retrogressive thaw slump on Herschel Island. In addition, two weather stations, one on top of the undisturbed tundra and one on the slump floor, measured incoming solar radiation, air temperature, wind speed and precipitation. The discharge volume eroding from the ice-rich permafrost and retreating snowbanks was measured and compared to the meteorological data collected in real time with a resolution of one minute. The results show that the release of sediment-meltwater from thawing of the ice-rich permafrost headwall is strongly related to snowmelt, incoming solar radiation and air temperature. Snowmelt led to seasonal differences, especially due to the additional contribution of water to the eroding sediment-meltwater from headwall ablation, lead to dilution of the sediment-meltwater composition. Incoming solar radiation and air temperature were the main drivers for diurnal and inter-diurnal fluctuations. In July (2013), the retrogressive thaw slump released about 25 000 m³ of sediment-meltwater, containing 225 kg dissolved organic carbon and 2050 t of sediment, which in turn included 33 t organic carbon, and 4 t total nitrogen. In August (2012), just 15 600 m³ of sediment-meltwater was released, since there was no additional contribution from snowmelt. However, even without the additional dilution, 281 kg dissolved organic carbon was released. The sediment concentration was twice as high as in July, with sediment contents of up to 457 g l-1 and 3058 t of sediment, including 53 t organic carbon and 5 t nitrogen, being released. In addition, the data from the 36 days of observations from Slump D were upscaled to cover the main summer season of 1 July to 31 August (62 days) and to include all 229 active retrogressive thaw slumps along the Yukon Coast. In total, all retrogressive thaw slumps along the Yukon Coast contribute a minimum of 1.4 Mio. m³ sediment-meltwater each thawing season, containing a minimum of 172 000 t sediment with 3119 t organic carbon, 327 t nitrogen and 17 t dissolved organic carbon. Therefore, in addition to the coastal erosion input to the Beaufort Sea, retrogressive thaw slumps additionally release 3 \% of sediment and 8 \% of organic carbon into the ocean. Finally, the future evolution of retrogressive thaw slumps under a warming scenario with summer air temperatures increasing by 2-3 °C by 2081-2100, would lead to an increase of 109-114\% in release of sediment-meltwater. It can be concluded that retrogressive thaw slumps are sensitive to climatic conditions and under projected future Arctic warming will contribute larger amounts of thawed permafrost material (including organic carbon and nitrogen) into the environment.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Appajaiah2004, author = {Appajaiah, Anilkumar}, title = {Climatic stability of polymer optical fibers (POF)}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-0001661}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2004}, abstract = {Optische Polymerfasern stellen ein relativ neues Medium zur Hochgeschwindigkeitsdaten{\"u}bertragung mittels moduliertem Licht dar. Sie gestatten die Verbreitung großer Datenmengen {\"u}ber Entfernungen bis zu ca. 100 m, ohne eine Beeinflussung durch externe elektromagnetischen Feldern. Jedoch reagieren die Fasern und somit auch ihre optischen Eigenschaften aufgrund des organischchemischen Faseraufbaus empfindlich auf das Klima ihrer Umgebung. Die Ursachen f{\"u}r die Abnahme der optischen Transmission aufgrund von klimatischen Einfl{\"u}ssen (Alterung, Degradation) werden mittels chemisch analytischer Verfahren wie Chemilumineszenz (CL) und Fourier Transform Infrarot (FTIR) Spektroskopie untersucht. Dabei kommen f{\"u}nf, von verschiedenen Herstellern bezogene, Multimode- POFs aus PMMA in sieben verschiedenen Klimaten zum Einsatz. Drei dieser f{\"u}nf POFs werden genauer untersucht, um den Einfluss einzelner Parameter festzustellen und optische Langzeitstabilit{\"a}t aufgrund von Kurzzeittests vorherzusagen. Als erstes erfolgt eine Kennzeichnung unbeanspruchter POF Komponenten (Kern, Mantel und nackte POF als Kombination von Kern und Mantel) {\"u}ber ihre physikalischen und chemischen Eigenschaften. Die Glas- und die Schmelztemperaturen liegen im Bereich von 120 °C bis 140 °C, das Molekulargewicht des Kerns bei gr{\"o}ßenordnungsm{\"a}ßig 105 g mol-1 ;. FTIR-Messungen zeigen zwar Unterschiede in der chemischen Zusammensetzung der M{\"a}ntel aber keine Unterschiede bei den Kernen. Bei zwei der POF Proben , die als Kabel (Kern, Mantel und Schutzh{\"u}lle) f{\"u}r 3300 Stunden einem Klima aus 92 °C und 95 \% relativer Feuchte (r.F.) ausgesetzt waren, verringern sich daraufhin die optische Transmissionen in unterschiedlicher Weise. Die Untersuchung der zugeh{\"o}rigen nackten POFs mittels CL, FTIR, Thermogravimetrie (TG), UV/VIS und Gel Permeation Chromatographie (GPC) l{\"a}sst eine st{\"a}rkere Sch{\"a}digung der M{\"a}ntel als der Kerne vermuten. Wahrscheinlich f{\"u}hrt eine starke Manteldegradation zu einer erh{\"o}hten Absorption und Fehlstellen im Mantel und damit zu einer Transmissionsabnahme. Daher scheint die optische Stabilit{\"a}t der POF st{\"a}rker durch die thermo-oxidative Stabilit{\"a}t des Mantels bestimmt zu sein als durch die des Kernes. Drei nackte POFs (Kern und Mantel) sind unterschiedlich lang (30 Stunden bis 3000 Stunden) folgenden Klimaten ausgesetzt: 92 °C / 95 \% r.F., 92 °C / 50 \% r.F., 50 °C / 95 \% r.F., 90 °C / geringe Feuchte, 100 °C / geringe Feuchte, 110 °C / geringe Feuchte and 120 °C / geringe Feuchte. Auch in diesen Klimaten ergaben sich probenbedingte unterschiedliche Transmissions{\"a}nderungen. Die Ergebnisse deuten stark darauf hin, dass bei gleichzeitig hoher Temperatur und hoher Feuchte physikalische {\"A}nderungen wie die Volumenausdehnung die Hauptursachen f{\"u}r die Abnahme der optischen Transmission bilden. Ein weiterer Einflussfaktor ist die chemische Zusammensetzung der M{\"a}ntel. Bei Kombination von hoher Temperatur und geringer Feuchte erzeugen in den Anfangsstadien der Alterung physikalische {\"A}nderungen Transmissionsabnahmen, vermutlich entstehen Fehlstellen in der Kern-Mantel-Grenzschicht. Hinzukommen in den sp{\"a}teren Stadien wahrscheinlich zunehmende Lichtabsorption in Kern und Mantel. L. Jankowski (Doktorand in der BAM) best{\"a}tigt diese Annahme durch parallel ausgef{\"u}hrte optische Simulationsrechnungen. Auch f{\"u}r nackte POFs scheint also die thermo-oxidative Stabilit{\"a}t die optische Stabilit{\"a}t zu bestimmen. Kurzzeitalterungstests sollen Aufschluss {\"u}ber den Einfluss individueller Klimaparameter auf die POF Eigenschaften geben. Es zeigt sich bei dauerhaft hoher Temperatur und variabler Feuchte aufgrund des physikalisch absorbierten Wassers bis zu einem gewissen Grad ein reversibles Verhalten des Transmissionsverlustes. Dieses Verhalten tritt aber nur kaum merkbar auf, wenn bei konstanter hoher Feuchte die Temperatur variiert wird. Bei Raumtemperatur und variabler Feuchte stellt sich jedoch ein voll reversibles Verhalten des Transmissionsverlustes ein. Die hier beschriebenen Untersuchungen sind als Ausgangspunkt f{\"u}r weitergehende Forschungen zu verstehen. Die begrenzte Zurverf{\"u}gungstellung von POF Basisdaten durch die Hersteller und der zeitaufwendige klimabedingte Alterungsprozess beschr{\"a}nken die Ergebnisse mehr oder weniger auf die untersuchten Proben. Signifikante allgemeine Aussagen erfordern aber beispielsweise zus{\"a}tzliche statistische Daten der Produktionsschwankungen von POF Eigenschaften. Dennoch besitzen die hier beschriebenen Tests das Potential f{\"u}r eine Ann{\"a}herung an die optische Langzeitstabilit{\"a}t und deren Vorhersage.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Hoffmann2007, author = {Hoffmann, Toni}, title = {Cloning and characterisation of the HMA3 gene and its promoter from Arabidopsis halleri (L.) O'Kane and Al'Shehbaz and Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) Heynhold}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-15259}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2007}, abstract = {Being living systems unable to adjust their location to changing environmental conditions, plants display homeostatic networks that have evolved to maintain transition metal levels in a very narrow concentration range in order to avoid either deficiency or toxicity. Hence, plants possess a broad repertoire of mechanisms for the cellular uptake, compartmentation and efflux, as well as for the chelation of transition metal ions. A small number of plants are hypertolerant to one or a few specific transition metals. Some metal tolerant plants are also able to hyperaccumulate metal ions. The Brassicaceae family member Arabidopis halleri ssp. halleri (L.) O´KANE and AL´SHEHBAZ is a hyperaccumulator of zinc (Zn), and it is closely related to the non-hypertolerant and non-hyperaccumulating model plant Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) HEYNHOLD. The close relationship renders A. halleri a promising emerging model plant for the comparative investigation of the molecular mechanisms behind hypertolerance and hyperaccumulation. Among several potential candidate genes that are probably involved in mediating the zinc-hypertolerant and zinc-hyperaccumulating trait is AhHMA3. The AhHMA3 gene is highly similar to AtHMA3 (AGI number: At4g30120) in A. thaliana, and its encoded protein belongs to the P-type IB ATPase family of integral membrane transporter proteins that transport transition metals. In contrast to the low AtHMA3 transcript levels in A. thaliana, the gene was found to be constitutively highly expressed across different Zn treatments in A. halleri, especially in shoots. In this study, the cloning and characterisation of the HMA3 gene and its promoter from Arabidopsis halleri (L.) O´KANE and AL´SHEHBAZ and Arabidopsis thaliana (L.) HEYNHOLD is described. Heterologously expressed AhHMA3 mediated enhanced tolerance to Zn and to a much lesser degree to cadmium (Cd) but not to cobalt (Co) in metal-sensitive mutant strains of budding yeast. It is demonstrated that the genome of A. halleri contains at least four copies of AhHMA3, AhHMA3-1 to AhHMA3-4. A copy-specific real-time RT-PCR indicated that an AhHMA3-1 related gene copy is the source of the constitutively high transcript level in A. halleri and not a gene copy similar to AhHMA3-2 or AhHMA3-4. In accordance with the enhanced AtHMA3mRNA transcript level in A. thaliana roots, an AtHMA3 promoter-GUS gene construct mediated GUS activity predominantly in the vascular tissues of roots and not in shoots. However, the observed AhHMA3-1 and AhHMA3-2 promoter-mediated GUS activity in A. thaliana or A. halleri plants did not reflect the constitutively high expression of AhHMA3 in shoots of A. halleri. It is suggested that other factors e. g. characteristic sequence inserts within the first intron of AhHMA3-1 might enable a constitutively high expression. Moreover, the unknown promoter of the AhHMA3-3 gene copy could be the source of the constitutively high AhHMA3 transcript levels in A. halleri. In that case, the AhHMA3-3 sequence is predicted to be highly homologous to AhHMA3-1. The lack of solid localisation data for the AhHMA3 protein prevents a clear functional assignment. The provided data suggest several possible functions of the AhHMA3 protein: Like AtHMA2 and AtHMA4 it might be localised to the plasma membrane and could contribute to the efficient translocation of Zn from root to shoot and/or to the cell-to-cell distribution of Zn in the shoot. If localised to the vacuolar membrane, then a role in maintaining a low cytoplasmic zinc concentration by vacuolar zinc sequestration is possible. In addition, AhHMA3 might be involved in the delivery of zinc ions to trichomes and mesophyll leaf cells that are major zinc storage sites in A. halleri.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Pourteau2011, author = {Pourteau, Amaury}, title = {Closure of the Neotethys Ocean in Anatolia : structural, petrologic and geochronologic insights from low-grade high-pressure metasediments, Afyon Zone}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-57803}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2011}, abstract = {The complete consumption of the oceanic domain of a tectonic plate by subduction into the upper mantle results in continent subduction, although continental crust is typically of lower density than the upper mantle. Thus, the sites of former oceanic domains (named suture zones) are generally decorated with stratigraphic sequences deposited along continental passive margins that were metamorphosed under low-grade, high-pressure conditions, i.e., low temperature/depth ratios (< 15°C/km) with respect to geothermal gradients in tectonically stable regions. Throughout the Mesozoic and Cenozoic (i.e., since ca. 250 Ma), the Mediterranean realm was shaped by the closure of the Tethyan Ocean, which likely consisted in numerous oceanic domains and microcontinents. However, the exact number and position of Tethyan oceans and continents (i.e., the Tethyan palaeogeography) remains debated. This is particularly the case of Western and Central Anatolia, where a continental fragment was accreted to the southern composite margin of the Eurasia sometime between the Late Cretaceous and the early Cenozoic. The most frontal part of this microcontinent experienced subduction-related metamorphism around 85-80 Ma, and collision-related metamorphism affected more external parts around 35 Ma. This unsually-long period between subduction- and collision-related metamorphisms (ca. 50 Ma) in units ascribed to the same continental edge constitutes a crucial issue to address in order to unravel how Anatolia was assembled. The Afyon Zone is a tectono-sedimentary unit exposed south and structurally below the front high-pressure belt. It is composed of a Mesozoic sedimentary sequence deposited on top of a Precambrian to Palaeozoic continental substratum, which can be traced from Northwestern to southern Central Anatolia, along a possible Tethyan suture. Whereas the Afyon Zone was defined as a low-pressure metamorphic unit, high-pressure minerals (mainly Fe-Mg-carpholite in metasediments) were recently reported from its central part. These findings shattered previous conceptions on the tectono-metamorphic evolution of the Afyon Zone in particular, and of the entire region in general, and shed light on the necessity to revise the regional extent of subduction-related metamorphism by re-inspecting the petrology of poorly-studied metasediments. In this purpose, I re-evaluated the metamorphic evolution of the entire Afyon Zone starting from field observations. Low-grade, high-pressure mineral assemblages (Fe-Mg-carpholite and glaucophane) are reported throughout the unit. Well-preserved carpholite-chloritoid assemblages are useful to improve our understanding of mineral relations and transitions in the FeO-MgO-Al2O3-SiO2-H2O system during rocks' travel down to depth (prograde metamorphism). Inspection of petrographic textures, minute variations in mineral composition and Mg-Fe distribution among carpholite-chloritoid assemblages documents multistage mineral growth, accompanied by a progressive enrichment in Mg, and strong element partitioning. Using an updated database of mineral thermodynamic properties, I modelled the pressure and temperature conditions that are consistent with textural and chemical observations. Carpholite-bearing assemblages in the Afyon Zone account for a temperature increase from 280 to 380°C between 0.9 and 1.1 GPa (equivalent to a depth of 30-35 km). In order to further constrain regional geodynamics, first radiometric ages were determined in close association with pressure-temperature estimates for the Afyon Zone, as well as two other tectono-sedimentary units from the same continental passive margin (the {\"O}ren and Kurudere-Nebiler Units from SW Anatolia). For age determination, I employed 40Ar-39Ar geochronology on white mica in carpholite-bearing rocks. For thermobarometry, a multi-equilibrium approach was used based on quartz-chlorite-mica and quartz-chlorite-chloritoid associations formed at the expense of carpholite-bearing assemblages, i.e., during the exhumation from the subduction zone. This combination allows deciphering the significance of the calculated radiometric ages in terms of metamorphic conditions. Results show that the Afyon Zone and the {\"O}ren Unit represent a latest Cretaceous high-pressure metamorphic belt, and the Kurudere-Nebiler Unit was affected by subduction-related metamorphism around 45 Ma and cooled down after collision-related metamorphism around 26 Ma. The results provided in the present thesis and from the literature allow better understanding continental amalgamation in Western Anatolia. It is shown that at least two distinct oceanic branches, whereas only one was previously considered, have closed during continuous north-dipping subduction between 92 and 45 Ma. Between 85-80 and 70-65 Ma, a narrow continental domain (including the Afyon Zone) was buried into a subduction zone within the northern oceanic strand. Parts of the subducted continent crust were exhumed while the upper oceanic plate was transported southwards. Subduction of underlying lithosphere persisted, leading to the closure of the southern oceanic branch and to subduct the front of a second continental domain (including the Kurudere-Nebiler Unit). This followed by a continental collisional stage characterized by the cease of subduction, crustal thicknening and the detachment of the subducting oceanic slab from the accreted continent lithosphere. The present study supports that in the late Mesozoic the East Mediterranean realm had a complex tectonic configuration similar to present Southeast Asia or the Caribbean, with multiple, coexisting oceanic basins, microcontinents and subduction zones.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Calitri2023, author = {Calitri, Francesca}, title = {Co-evolution of erosion rates, weathering and profile development in soil landscapes of hummocky ground moraines}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-60138}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-601387}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {XXVII, 163, V}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Soil is today considered a non-renewable resource on societal time scale, as the rate of soil loss is higher than the one of soil formation. Soil formation is complex, can take several thousands of years and is influenced by a variety of factors, one of them is time. Oftentimes, there is the assumption of constant and progressive conditions for soil and/or profile development (i.e., steady-state). In reality, for most of the soils, their (co-)evolution leads to a complex and irregular soil development in time and space characterised by "progressive" and "regressive" phases. Lateral transport of soil material (i.e., soil erosion) is one of the principal processes shaping the land surface and soil profile during "regressive" phases and one of the major environmental problems the world faces. Anthropogenic activities like agriculture can exacerbate soil erosion. Thus, it is of vital importance to distinguish short-term soil redistribution rates (i.e., within decades) influenced by human activities differ from long-term natural rates. To do so, soil erosion (and denudation) rates can be determined by using a set of isotope methods that cover different time scales at landscape level. With the aim to unravel the co-evolution of weathering, soil profile development and lateral redistribution on a landscape level, we used Pluthonium-239+240 (239+240Pu), Beryllium-10 (10Be, in situ and meteoric) and Radiocarbon (14C) to calculate short- and long-term erosion rates in two settings, i.e., a natural and an anthropogenic environment in the hummocky ground moraine landscape of the Uckermark, North-eastern Germany. The main research questions were: 1. How do long-term and short-term rates of soil redistributing processes differ? 2. Are rates calculated from in situ 10Be comparable to those of using meteoric 10Be? 3. How do soil redistribution rates (short- and long-term) in an agricultural and in a natural landscape compare to each other? 4. Are the soil patterns observed in northern Germany purely a result of past events (natural and/or anthropogenic) or are they imbedded in ongoing processes? Erosion and deposition are reflected in a catena of soil profiles with no or almost no erosion on flat positions (hilltop), strong erosion on the mid-slope and accumulation of soil material at the toeslope position. These three characteristic process domains were chosen within the CarboZALF-D experimental site, characterised by intense anthropogenic activities. Likewise, a hydrosequence in an ancient forest was chosen for this study and being regarded as a catena strongly influenced by natural soil transport. The following main results were obtained using the above-mentioned range of isotope methods available to measure soil redistribution rates depending on the time scale needed (e.g., 239+240Pu, 10Be, 14C): 1. Short-term erosion rates are one order of magnitude higher than long-term rates in agricultural settings. 2. Both meteoric and in situ 10Be are suitable soil tracers to measure the long-term soil redistribution rates giving similar results in an anthropogenic environment for different landscape positions (e.g., hilltop, mid-slope, toeslope) 3. Short-term rates were extremely low/negligible in a natural landscape and very high in an agricultural landscape - -0.01 t ha-1 yr-1 (average value) and -25 t ha-1 yr-1 respectively. On the contrary, long-term rates in the forested landscape are comparable to those calculated in the agricultural area investigated with average values of -1.00 t ha-1 yr-1 and -0.79 t ha-1 yr-1. 4. Soil patterns observed in the forest might be due to human impact and activities started after the first settlements in the region, earlier than previously postulated, between 4.5 and 6.8 kyr BP, and not a result of recent soil erosion. 5. Furthermore, long-term soil redistribution rates are similar independently from the settings, meaning past natural soil mass redistribution processes still overshadow the present anthropogenic erosion processes. Overall, this study could make important contributions to the deciphering of the co-evolution of weathering, soil profile development and lateral redistribution in North-eastern Germany. The multi-methodological approach used can be challenged by the application in a wider range of landscapes and geographic regions.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Rubertus2024, author = {Rubertus, Elina}, title = {Coarticulatory changes across childhood}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-63012}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-630123}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {X, 131}, year = {2024}, abstract = {The present dissertation investigates changes in lingual coarticulation across childhood in German-speaking children from three to nine years of age and adults. Coarticulation refers to the mismatch between the abstract phonological units and their seemingly commingled realization in continuous speech. Being a process at the intersection of phonology and phonetics, addressing its changes across childhood allows for insights in speech motor as well as phonological developments. Because specific predictions for changes in coarticulation across childhood can be derived from existing speech production models, investigating children's coarticulatory patterns can help us model human speech production. While coarticulatory changes may shed light on some of the central questions of speech production development, previous studies on the topic were sparse and presented a puzzling picture of conflicting findings. One of the reasons for this lack is the difficulty in articulatory data acquisition in a young population. Within the research program this dissertation is embedded in, we accepted this challenge and successfully set up the hitherto largest corpus of articulatory data from children using ultrasound tongue imaging. In contrast to earlier studies, a high number of participants in tight age cohorts across a wide age range and a thoroughly controlled set of pseudowords allowed for statistically powerful investigations of a process known as variable and complicated to track. The specific focus of my studies is on lingual vocalic coarticulation as measured in the horizontal position of the highest point of the tongue dorsum. Based on three studies on a) anticipatory coarticulation towards the left, b) carryover coarticulation towards the right side of the utterance, and c) anticipatory coarticulatory extent in repeated versus read aloud speech, I deduct the following main theses: 1. Maturing speech motor control is responsible for some developmental changes in coarticulation. 2. Coarticulation can be modeled as the coproduction of articulatory gestures. 3. The developmental change in coarticulation results from a decrease of vocalic activation width.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Boettle2015, author = {B{\"o}ttle, Markus}, title = {Coastal floods in view of sea level rise}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-91074}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xiii, 111}, year = {2015}, abstract = {The sea level rise induced intensification of coastal floods is a serious threat to many regions in proximity to the ocean. Although severe flood events are rare they can entail enormous damage costs, especially when built-up areas are inundated. Fortunately, the mean sea level advances slowly and there is enough time for society to adapt to the changing environment. Most commonly, this is achieved by the construction or reinforcement of flood defence measures such as dykes or sea walls but also land use and disaster management are widely discussed options. Overall, albeit the projection of sea level rise impacts and the elaboration of adequate response strategies is amongst the most prominent topics in climate impact research, global damage estimates are vague and mostly rely on the same assessment models. The thesis at hand contributes to this issue by presenting a distinctive approach which facilitates large scale assessments as well as the comparability of results across regions. Moreover, we aim to improve the general understanding of the interplay between mean sea level rise, adaptation, and coastal flood damage. Our undertaking is based on two basic building blocks. Firstly, we make use of macroscopic flood-damage functions, i.e. damage functions that provide the total monetary damage within a delineated region (e.g. a city) caused by a flood of certain magnitude. After introducing a systematic methodology for the automatised derivation of such functions, we apply it to a total of 140 European cities and obtain a large set of damage curves utilisable for individual as well as comparative damage assessments. By scrutinising the resulting curves, we are further able to characterise the slope of the damage functions by means of a functional model. The proposed function has in general a sigmoidal shape but exhibits a power law increase for the relevant range of flood levels and we detect an average exponent of 3.4 for the considered cities. This finding represents an essential input for subsequent elaborations on the general interrelations of involved quantities. The second basic element of this work is extreme value theory which is employed to characterise the occurrence of flood events and in conjunction with a damage function provides the probability distribution of the annual damage in the area under study. The resulting approach is highly flexible as it assumes non-stationarity in all relevant parameters and can be easily applied to arbitrary regions, sea level, and adaptation scenarios. For instance, we find a doubling of expected flood damage in the city of Copenhagen for a rise in mean sea levels of only 11 cm. By following more general considerations, we succeed in deducing surprisingly simple functional expressions to describe the damage behaviour in a given region for varying mean sea levels, changing storm intensities, and supposed protection levels. We are thus able to project future flood damage by means of a reduced set of parameters, namely the aforementioned damage function exponent and the extreme value parameters. Similar examinations are carried out to quantify the aleatory uncertainty involved in these projections. In this regard, a decrease of (relative) uncertainty with rising mean sea levels is detected. Beyond that, we demonstrate how potential adaptation measures can be assessed in terms of a Cost-Benefit Analysis. This is exemplified by the Danish case study of Kalundborg, where amortisation times for a planned investment are estimated for several sea level scenarios and discount rates.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Linnik2016, author = {Linnik, Anastasia}, title = {Coherence and structure in aphasic and non-aphasic spoken discourse}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-42320}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-423202}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xii, 106}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Discourse production is crucial for communicative success and is in the core of aphasia assessment and treatment. Coherence differentiates discourse from a series of utterances/sentences; it is internal unity and connectedness, and, as such, perhaps the most inherent property of discourse. It is unclear whether people with aphasia, who experience various language production difficulties, preserve the ability to produce coherent discourse. A more general question of how coherence is established and represented linguistically has been addressed in the literature, yet remains unanswered. This dissertation presents an investigation of discourse production in aphasia and the linguistic mechanisms of establishing coherence.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Goldobin2007, author = {Goldobin, Denis S.}, title = {Coherence and synchronization of noisy-driven oscillators}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-15047}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2007}, abstract = {In the present dissertation paper we study problems related to synchronization phenomena in the presence of noise which unavoidably appears in real systems. One part of the work is aimed at investigation of utilizing delayed feedback to control properties of diverse chaotic dynamic and stochastic systems, with emphasis on the ones determining predisposition to synchronization. Other part deals with a constructive role of noise, i.e. its ability to synchronize identical self-sustained oscillators. First, we demonstrate that the coherence of a noisy or chaotic self-sustained oscillator can be efficiently controlled by the delayed feedback. We develop the analytical theory of this effect, considering noisy systems in the Gaussian approximation. Possible applications of the effect for the synchronization control are also discussed. Second, we consider synchrony of limit cycle systems (in other words, self-sustained oscillators) driven by identical noise. For weak noise and smooth systems we proof the purely synchronizing effect of noise. For slightly different oscillators and/or slightly nonidentical driving, synchrony becomes imperfect, and this subject is also studied. Then, with numerics we show moderate noise to be able to lead to desynchronization of some systems under certain circumstances. For neurons the last effect means "antireliability" (the "reliability" property of neurons is treated to be important from the viewpoint of information transmission functions), and we extend our investigation to neural oscillators which are not always limit cycle ones. Third, we develop a weakly nonlinear theory of the Kuramoto transition (a transition to collective synchrony) in an ensemble of globally coupled oscillators in presence of additional time-delayed coupling terms. We show that a linear delayed feedback not only controls the transition point, but effectively changes the nonlinear terms near the transition. A purely nonlinear delayed coupling does not affect the transition point, but can reduce or enhance the amplitude of collective oscillations.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{LopezGarcia2019, author = {L{\´o}pez Garc{\´i}a, Patricia}, title = {Coiled coils as mechanical building blocks}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-42956}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-429568}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xi, 130}, year = {2019}, abstract = {The natural abundance of Coiled Coil (CC) motifs in cytoskeleton and extracellular matrix proteins suggests that CCs play an important role as passive (structural) and active (regulatory) mechanical building blocks. CCs are self-assembled superhelical structures consisting of 2-7 α-helices. Self-assembly is driven by hydrophobic and ionic interactions, while the helix propensity of the individual helices contributes additional stability to the structure. As a direct result of this simple sequence-structure relationship, CCs serve as templates for protein design and sequences with a pre-defined thermodynamic stability have been synthesized de novo. Despite this quickly increasing knowledge and the vast number of possible CC applications, the mechanical function of CCs has been largely overlooked and little is known about how different CC design parameters determine the mechanical stability of CCs. Once available, this knowledge will open up new applications for CCs as nanomechanical building blocks, e.g. in biomaterials and nanobiotechnology. With the goal of shedding light on the sequence-structure-mechanics relationship of CCs, a well-characterized heterodimeric CC was utilized as a model system. The sequence of this model system was systematically modified to investigate how different design parameters affect the CC response when the force is applied to opposing termini in a shear geometry or separated in a zipper-like fashion from the same termini (unzip geometry). The force was applied using an atomic force microscope set-up and dynamic single-molecule force spectroscopy was performed to determine the rupture forces and energy landscape properties of the CC heterodimers under study. Using force as a denaturant, CC chain separation is initiated by helix uncoiling from the force application points. In the shear geometry, this allows uncoiling-assisted sliding parallel to the force vector or dissociation perpendicular to the force vector. Both competing processes involve the opening of stabilizing hydrophobic (and ionic) interactions. Also in the unzip geometry, helix uncoiling precedes the rupture of hydrophobic contacts. In a first series of experiments, the focus was placed on canonical modifications in the hydrophobic core and the helix propensity. Using the shear geometry, it was shown that both a reduced core packing and helix propensity lower the thermodynamic and mechanical stability of the CC; however, with different effects on the energy landscape of the system. A less tightly packed hydrophobic core increases the distance to the transition state, with only a small effect on the barrier height. This originates from a more dynamic and less tightly packed core, which provides more degrees of freedom to respond to the applied force in the direction of the force vector. In contrast, a reduced helix propensity decreases both the distance to the transition state and the barrier height. The helices are 'easier' to unfold and the remaining structure is less thermodynamically stable so that dissociation perpendicular to the force axis can occur at smaller deformations. Having elucidated how canonical sequence modifications influence CC mechanics, the pulling geometry was investigated in the next step. Using one and the same sequence, the force application points were exchanged and two different shear and one unzipping geometry were compared. It was shown that the pulling geometry determines the mechanical stability of the CC. Different rupture forces were observed in the different shear as well as in the unzipping geometries, suggesting that chain separation follows different pathways on the energy landscape. Whereas the difference between CC shearing and unzipping was anticipated and has also been observed for other biological structures, the observed difference for the two shear geometries was less expected. It can be explained with the structural asymmetry of the CC heterodimer. It is proposed that the direction of the α-helices, the different local helix propensities and the position of a polar asparagine in the hydrophobic core are responsible for the observed difference in the chain separation pathways. In combination, these factors are considered to influence the interplay between processes parallel and perpendicular to the force axis. To obtain more detailed insights into the role of helix stability, helical turns were reinforced locally using artificial constraints in the form of covalent and dynamic 'staples'. A covalent staple bridges to adjacent helical turns, thus protecting them against uncoiling. The staple was inserted directly at the point of force application in one helix or in the same terminus of the other helix, which did not experience the force directly. It was shown that preventing helix uncoiling at the point of force application reduces the distance to the transition state while slightly increasing the barrier height. This confirms that helix uncoiling is critically important for CC chain separation. When inserted into the second helix, this stabilizing effect is transferred across the hydrophobic core and protects the force-loaded turns against uncoiling. If both helices were stapled, no additional increase in mechanical stability was observed. When replacing the covalent staple with a dynamic metal-coordination bond, a smaller decrease in the distance to the transition was observed, suggesting that the staple opens up while the CC is under load. Using fluorinated amino acids as another type of non-natural modification, it was investigated how the enhanced hydrophobicity and the altered packing at the interface influences CC mechanics. The fluorinated amino acid was inserted into one central heptad of one or both α-helices. It was shown that this substitution destabilized the CC thermodynamically and mechanically. Specifically, the barrier height was decreased and the distance to the transition state increased. This suggests that a possible stabilizing effect of the increased hydrophobicity is overruled by a disturbed packing, which originates from a bad fit of the fluorinated amino acid into the local environment. This in turn increases the flexibility at the interface, as also observed for the hydrophobic core substitution described above. In combination, this confirms that the arrangement of the hydrophobic side chains is an additional crucial factor determining the mechanical stability of CCs. In conclusion, this work shows that knowledge of the thermodynamic stability alone is not sufficient to predict the mechanical stability of CCs. It is the interplay between helix propensity and hydrophobic core packing that defines the sequence-structure-mechanics relationship. In combination, both parameters determine the relative contribution of processes parallel and perpendicular to the force axis, i.e. helix uncoiling and uncoiling-assisted sliding as well as dissociation. This new mechanistic knowledge provides insight into the mechanical function of CCs in tissues and opens up the road for designing CCs with pre-defined mechanical properties. The library of mechanically characterized CCs developed in this work is a powerful starting point for a wide spectrum of applications, ranging from molecular force sensors to mechanosensitive crosslinks in protein nanostructures and synthetic extracellular matrix mimics.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Goktas2019, author = {Goktas, Melis}, title = {Coiled coils as molecular force sensors for the extracellular matrix}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-42749}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-427493}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xiv, 124}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Kraft spielt eine fundamentale Rolle bei der Regulation von biologischen Prozessen. Zellen messen mechanische Eigenschaften der extrazellul{\"a}ren Matrix und benutzen diese Information zur Regulierung ihrer Funktion. Dazu werden im Zytoskelett Kr{\"a}fte generiert und auf extrazellul{\"a}re Rezeptor-Ligand Wechselwirkungen {\"u}bertragen. Obwohl der grundlegende Einfluss von mechanischen Signalen f{\"u}r das Zellschicksal eindeutig belegt ist, sind die auf molekularer Ebene wirkenden Kr{\"a}fte kaum bekannt. Zur Messung dieser Kr{\"a}fte wurden verschiedene molekulare Kraftsensoren entwickelt, die ein mechanisches Inputsignal aufnehmen und in einen optischen Output (Fluoreszenz) umwandeln. Diese Arbeit etabliert einen neuen Kraftsensor-Baustein, der die mechanischen Eigenschaften der extrazellul{\"a}ren Matrix nachbildet. Dieser Baustein basiert auf nat{\"u}rlichen Matrixproteinen, sogenannten coiled coils (CCs), die α-helikale Strukturen im Zytoskelett und der Matrix formen. Eine Serie an CC-Heterodimeren wurde konzipiert und mittels Einzelmolek{\"u}l-Kraftspektroskopie und Molekulardynamik-Simulationen charakterisiert. Es wurde gezeigt, dass eine anliegende Scherkraft die Entfaltung der helikalen Struktur induziert. Die mechanische Stabilit{\"a}t (Separation der CC Helices) wird von der CC L{\"a}nge und der Zuggeschwindigkeit bestimmt. Im Folgenden wurden 2 CCs unterschiedlicher L{\"a}nge als Kraftsensoren verwendet, um die Adh{\"a}sionskr{\"a}fte von Fibroblasten und Endothelzellen zu untersuchen. Diese Kraftsensoren deuten an, dass diese Zelltypen unterschiedlich starke Kr{\"a}ften generieren und mittels Integrin-Rezeptoren auf einen extrazellul{\"a}ren Liganden (RGD-Peptid) {\"u}bertragen. Dieses neue CC-basierte Sensordesign ist ein leistungsstarkes Werkzeug zur Betrachtung zellul{\"a}rer Kraftwahrnehmungsprozesse auf molekularer Ebene, das neue Erkenntnisse {\"u}ber die involvierten Mechanismen und Kr{\"a}fte an der Zell-Matrix-Schnittstelle erm{\"o}glicht. Dar{\"u}ber hinaus wird dieses Sensordesign auch Anwendung bei der Entwicklung mechanisch kontrollierter Biomaterialien finden. Dazu k{\"o}nnen mechanisch charakterisierte, und mit einem Fluoreszenzreporter versehene, CCs in Hydrogele eingef{\"u}gt werden. Dies erlaubt die Untersuchung der Zusammenh{\"a}nge zwischen molekularer und makroskopischer Mechanik und er{\"o}ffnet neue M{\"o}glichkeiten zur Diskriminierung von lokalen und globalen Faktoren, die die zellul{\"a}re Antwort auf mechanische Signale bestimmen.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Trescher2012, author = {Trescher, Karoline}, title = {Cokulturtestsystem f{\"u}r die Untersuchung des Einflusses physikochemischer Eigenschaften von Copolymeren auf das Verhalten von Keratinozyten und Fibroblasten}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-62915}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2012}, abstract = {Chemische und physikalische Eigenschaften von Polymeren k{\"o}nnen verschiedene Zelltypen unterschiedlich, z. B. hinsichtlich Adh{\"a}renz oder Funktionalit{\"a}t, beeinflussen. Die Elastizit{\"a}t eines Polymers beeinflusst vor allem, welche Zugkr{\"a}fte eine Zelle gegen{\"u}ber ihrem Substrat entwickeln kann. Das Zellverhalten wird dann {\"u}ber intrazellul{\"a}re R{\"u}ckkopplungsmechanismen reguliert. Die Oberfl{\"a}chenladung und/oder Hydrophilie eines Polymers beeinflusst zun{\"a}chst die Adsorption von Ionen, Proteinen und anderen Molek{\"u}len. Vor allem {\"u}ber die Zusammensetzung, Dichte und Konformation der adsorbierten Komponenten werden anschließend die Wechselwirkungen mit den Zellen vermittelt. Des Weiteren k{\"o}nnen verschiedene Zelltypen unterschiedliche membranassoziierte Proteine, Zucker und Lipide aufweisen, so dass Polymereigenschaften zellspezifische Effekte bewirken k{\"o}nnen. F{\"u}r biotechnologische Anwendungen und f{\"u}r den Einsatz in der regenerativen Medizin gewinnen Polymere, die spezifische Zellreaktionen regulieren k{\"o}nnen, immer weiter an Bedeutung. Die Isolierung und Kultur von prim{\"a}ren Keratinozyten ist noch immer anspruchsvoll und die ad{\"a}quate Heilung von Hautwunden stellt eine fortw{\"a}hrende medizinische Herausforderung dar. Ein Polymer, das eine bevorzugte Adh{\"a}renz von Keratinozyten bei gleichzeitig verminderter Anheftung dermaler Fibroblasten erm{\"o}glicht, w{\"u}rde erhebliche Vorteile f{\"u}r den Einsatz in der Keratinozyten-Zellkultur und als Wundauflage bieten. Um den potentiell spezifischen Einfluss bestimmter Polymereigenschaften auf prim{\"a}re humane Keratinozyten und dermale Fibroblasten zu untersuchen, wurde in der vorliegenden Arbeit ein Zellkultursystem f{\"u}r die Mono- und Cokultur beider Zelltypen entwickelt. Das Testsystem wurde als Screening konzipiert, um den Einfluss unterschiedlicher Polymereigenschaften in mehreren Abstufungen auf die Zellen zu untersuchen. Folgende Parameter wurden untersucht: 1. Vitalit{\"a}t und Dichte adh{\"a}renter und nicht-adh{\"a}rierter Zellen, 2. Sch{\"a}digung der Zellmembran, 3. selektive Adh{\"a}renz von Keratinozyten in Cokultur durch die spezifische immunzytochemische F{\"a}rbung von Keratin14 und Vimentin. F{\"u}r die Polymere mit variabler Elastizit{\"a}t wurden zus{\"a}tzlich die Ablagerung extrazellul{\"a}rer Matrixkomponenten und die Sekretion l{\"o}slicher Faktoren durch die Zellen untersucht. Als Modellpolymere f{\"u}r die Variation der Elastizit{\"a}t wurden vernetzte Poly(n-butylacrylate) (cPnBA) verwendet, da deren Elastizit{\"a}t durch den Anteil des Vernetzers eingestellt werden kann. Auf dem weniger elastischen cPnBA zeigte sich in der Cokultur ein doppelt so hohes Verh{\"a}ltnis von Keratinozyten zu Fibroblasten wie auf dem elastischeren cPnBA, so dass ein leichter zellselektiver Effekt angenommen werden kann. Acrylnitril-basierte Copolymere wurden als Modellpolymere f{\"u}r die Variation der Oberfl{\"a}chenladung und Hydrophilie verwendet, da die Eigenschaften durch Art und molaren Anteil des Comonomers eingestellt werden k{\"o}nnen. Durch Variation des molaren Anteils der Comonomere mit positiver bzw. negativer Ladung, Methacryls{\"a}ure-2-aminoethylester-hydrochhlorid (AEMA) und N-3-Aminopropyl-methacrylamid-hydro-chlorid (APMA) bzw. Natriumsalz der 2-Methyl-2-propen-1-sulfons{\"a}ure (NaMAS), wurde der Anteil der positiven bzw. negativen Ladung im Copolymer variiert. Durch die Erh{\"o}hung des molaren Anteils des hydrophilen Comonomers N-Vinylpyrrolidon (NVP) wurde die Hydrophilie des Copolymers gesteigert. Die Erh{\"o}hung des molaren Anteils an positiv geladenem Comonomer AEMA im Copolymer f{\"u}hrte tendenziell zu einer h{\"o}heren Keratinozytendichte, wobei die Fibroblastendichte unver{\"a}ndert blieb. Durch die Erh{\"o}hung des molaren Anteils des positiv geladenen Comonomers APMA ergaben sich keine deutlichen Unterschiede in Dichte, Vitalit{\"a}t oder Selektivit{\"a}t der Zellen. Durch die stufenweise Erh{\"o}hung des molaren Anteils des negativ geladenen Comonomers NaMAS konnte, wie im Falle von AEMA, eine Tendenz zur verbesserten Keratinozytenadh{\"a}renz beobachtet werden. Die Steigerung der Hydrophilie der Copolymere f{\"u}hrte sowohl f{\"u}r Keratinozyten als auch f{\"u}r Fibroblasten zu einer reduzierten Adh{\"a}renz und Vitalit{\"a}t. In der vorliegenden Doktorarbeit wurde ein Testverfahren etabliert, das die Untersuchung von prim{\"a}ren humanen Keratinozyten und prim{\"a}ren humanen Fibroblasten in Monokultur und Cokultur auf verschiedenen Polymeren erm{\"o}glicht. Die bisherigen Ergebnisse zeigen, dass sich durch die gezielte Modifizierung verschiedener Polymereigenschaften die Adh{\"a}renz und Vitalit{\"a}t beider Zelltypen beeinflussen l{\"a}sst. Die Reduktion der Elastizit{\"a}t sowie die Erh{\"o}hung des molaren Anteils geladener Comonomere f{\"u}hrten zu einer Zunahme der Keratinozytenadh{\"a}renz. Da die Fibroblasten unbeeinflusst blieben, zeigte sich f{\"u}r einige der untersuchten Polymere eine leichte Zellselektivit{\"a}t. Diese k{\"o}nnte durch die weitere Erh{\"o}hung der Steifigkeit oder des Anteils geladener Comonomere m{\"o}glicherweise weiter gesteigert werden.}, language = {de} } @phdthesis{Quinzan2023, author = {Quinzan, Francesco}, title = {Combinatorial problems and scalability in artificial intelligence}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-61111}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-611114}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xi, 141}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Modern datasets often exhibit diverse, feature-rich, unstructured data, and they are massive in size. This is the case of social networks, human genome, and e-commerce databases. As Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly used to detect pattern in data and predict future outcome, there are growing concerns on their ability to process large amounts of data. Motivated by these concerns, we study the problem of designing AI systems that are scalable to very large and heterogeneous data-sets. Many AI systems require to solve combinatorial optimization problems in their course of action. These optimization problems are typically NP-hard, and they may exhibit additional side constraints. However, the underlying objective functions often exhibit additional properties. These properties can be exploited to design suitable optimization algorithms. One of these properties is the well-studied notion of submodularity, which captures diminishing returns. Submodularity is often found in real-world applications. Furthermore, many relevant applications exhibit generalizations of this property. In this thesis, we propose new scalable optimization algorithms for combinatorial problems with diminishing returns. Specifically, we focus on three problems, the Maximum Entropy Sampling problem, Video Summarization, and Feature Selection. For each problem, we propose new algorithms that work at scale. These algorithms are based on a variety of techniques, such as forward step-wise selection and adaptive sampling. Our proposed algorithms yield strong approximation guarantees, and the perform well experimentally. We first study the Maximum Entropy Sampling problem. This problem consists of selecting a subset of random variables from a larger set, that maximize the entropy. By using diminishing return properties, we develop a simple forward step-wise selection optimization algorithm for this problem. Then, we study the problem of selecting a subset of frames, that represent a given video. Again, this problem corresponds to a submodular maximization problem. We provide a new adaptive sampling algorithm for this problem, suitable to handle the complex side constraints imposed by the application. We conclude by studying Feature Selection. In this case, the underlying objective functions generalize the notion of submodularity. We provide a new adaptive sequencing algorithm for this problem, based on the Orthogonal Matching Pursuit paradigm. Overall, we study practically relevant combinatorial problems, and we propose new algorithms to solve them. We demonstrate that these algorithms are suitable to handle massive datasets. However, our analysis is not problem-specific, and our results can be applied to other domains, if diminishing return properties hold. We hope that the flexibility of our framework inspires further research into scalability in AI.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{HoffmannRothe2002, author = {Hoffmann-Rothe, Arne}, title = {Combined structural and magnetotelluric investigation across the West Fault Zone in northern Chile}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-0000569}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2002}, abstract = {Untersuchungen zur internen Architektur von großen St{\"o}rungszonen beschr{\"a}nken sich {\"u}blicherweise auf die, an der Erdoberfl{\"a}che aufgeschlossene, st{\"o}rungsbezogene Deformation. Eine Methode, die es erm{\"o}glicht, Informationen {\"u}ber die Tiefenfortsetzung einer St{\"o}rung zu erhalten, ist die Abbildung der elektrischen Leitf{\"a}higkeit des Untergrundes. Die vorliegende Arbeit besch{\"a}ftigt sich mit der kombinierten strukturgeologischen und magnetotellurischen Untersuchung eines Segmentes der 'West Fault'-St{\"o}rung in den nordchilenischen Anden. Die West Fault ist ein Abschnitt des {\"u}ber 2000 km langen Pr{\"a}kordilleren-St{\"o}rungssystem, welches im Zusammenhang mit der Subduktion vor der s{\"u}damerikanischen Westk{\"u}ste entstanden ist. Die Aktivit{\"a}t dieses St{\"o}rungssystems reichte vom Eoz{\"a}n bis in das Quart{\"a}r. Der Verlauf der West Fault ist im Untersuchungsgebiet (22\&\#176;04'S, 68\&\#176;53'W) an der Oberfl{\"a}che klar definiert und weist {\"u}ber viele zehner Kilometer eine konstante Streichrichtung auf. Die Aufschlussbedingungen und die Morphologie des Arbeitsgebietes sind ideal f{\"u}r kombinierte Untersuchungen der st{\"o}rungsbezogenen Deformation und der elektrischen Leitf{\"a}higkeit des Untergrundes mit Hilfe magnetotellurischer Experimente (MT) und der erdmagnetischen Tiefensondierung (GDS). Ziel der Untersuchungen war es, eine m{\"o}gliche Korrelation der beiden Meßmethoden herauszuarbeiten, und die interne St{\"o}rungsarchitektur der West Fault umfassend zu beschreiben. Die Interpretation von Spr{\"o}dbruch-Strukturen (kleinmaßst{\"a}bliche St{\"o}rungen sowie St{\"o}rungsfl{\"a}chen mit/ohne Bewegungslineationen) im Untersuchungsgebiet weist auf {\"u}berwiegend seitenverschiebende Deformation entlang von subvertikal orientierten Scherfl{\"a}chen hin. Dextrale und sinistrale Bewegungsrichtungen k{\"o}nnen innerhalb der St{\"o}rungszone best{\"a}tigt werden, was auf Reaktivierungen des St{\"o}rungssystems schliessen l{\"a}ßt. Die j{\"u}ngsten Deformationen im Arbeitsgebiet haben dehnenden Charakter, wobei die kinematische Analyse eine unterschiedliche Orientierung der Extensionsrichtung beiderseits der St{\"o}rung andeutet. Die Bruchfl{\"a}chendichte nimmt mit Ann{\"a}herung an die St{\"o}rung zu und zeichnet einen etwa 1000 m breiten Bereich erh{\"o}hter Deformationsintensit{\"a}t um die St{\"o}rungsspur aus (damage zone). Im Zentrum dieser Zone weist das Gestein eine intensive Alteration und Brekzierung auf, die sich {\"u}ber eine Breite von etwa 400 m erstreckt. Kleine St{\"o}rungen und Scherfl{\"a}chen in diesem zentralen Abschnitt der St{\"o}rung fallen {\"u}berwiegend steil nach Osten ein (70-80\&\#176;). Innerhalb desselben Arbeitsgebietes wurde ein 4 km langes MT/GDS Profil vermessen, welches senkrecht zum Streichen der West Fault verl{\"a}uft. F{\"u}r die zentralen 2 km dieses Hauptprofils betr{\"a}gt der Abstand der Meßstationen jeweils 100 m. Ein weiteres Profil, bestehend aus 9 Stationen mit einem Abstand von 300 m zueinander, quert die St{\"o}rung einige Kilometer entfernt vom eigentlichen Arbeitsgebiet. Die Aufzeichnung der Daten erfolgte mit vier S.P.A.M MkIII Apparaturen in einem Frequenzbereich von 1000 Hz bis 0.001 Hz. In den GDS Daten beider Profile ist die St{\"o}rung f{\"u}r Frequenzen >1 Hz deutlich abgebildet: Die Induktionspfeile kennzeichnen eine mehrere hundert Meter breite Zone erh{\"o}hter Leitf{\"a}higkeit, welche sich entlang der West Fault erstreckt. Die Dimensionalit{\"a}tsanalyse der MT Daten rechtfertigt die Anpassung der gemessenen Daten mit einem zwei-dimensionalen Modell f{\"u}r einen Frequenzbereich von 1000 Hz bis 0.1 Hz. In diesem Frequenzbereich, der eine Aufl{\"o}sung der Leitf{\"a}higkeitsstruktur bis mindestens 5 km Tiefe erm{\"o}glicht, l{\"a}ßt sich eine regionale geoelektrische Streichrichtung parallel zum Verlauf der West Fault nachweisen. Die Modellierung der MT Daten beruht auf einem Inversionsalgorithmus von Mackie et al. (1997). Leitf{\"a}higkeitsanomalien, die sich aus der Inversions-Modellierung ergeben, werden anhand von empirischen Sensitivit{\"a}tsstudien auf ihre Robustheit {\"u}berpr{\"u}ft. Dabei werden die Eigenschaften (Geometrie, Leitf{\"a}higkeit) der Strukturen systematisch variiert und sowohl Vorw{\"a}rts- als auch Inversionsrechnungen der modifizierten Modelle durchgef{\"u}hrt. Die jeweiligen Modellergebnisse werden auf ihre Konsistenz mit dem Ausgangsdatensatz {\"u}berpr{\"u}ft. Entlang beider MT Profile wird ein guter elektrischer Leiter im zentralen Abschnitt der West Fault aufgel{\"o}st, wobei die Bereiche erh{\"o}hter Leitf{\"a}higkeit {\"o}stlich der St{\"o}rungsspur liegen. F{\"u}r das dicht vermessene MT Profil ergibt sich eine Breite des St{\"o}rungsleiters von etwa 300 m sowie ein steiles Einfallen der Anomalie nach Osten (70\&\#176;). Der St{\"o}rungsleiter reicht bis in eine Tiefe von mindestens 1100 m, w{\"a}hrend die Modellierungsstudien auf eine maximale Tiefenerstreckung <2000 m hinweisen. Das Profil zeigt weitere leitf{\"a}hige Anomalien, deren Geometrie aber weniger genau aufgel{\"o}st ist. Die St{\"o}rungsleiter der beiden MT Profile stimmen in ihrer Position mit der Alterationszone {\"u}berein. Im zentralen Bereich des Hauptprofils korreliert dar{\"u}ber hinaus das Einfallen der Spr{\"o}dbruch-Strukturen und der Leitf{\"a}higkeitsanomalie. Dies weist darauf hin, daß die Erh{\"o}hung der Leitf{\"a}higkeit im Zusammenhang mit einem Netzwerk von Bruchstrukturen steht, welches m{\"o}gliche Wegsamkeiten f{\"u}r Fluide bietet. Der miteinander in Verbindung stehende Gesteins-Porenraum, der ben{\"o}tigt wird, um die gemessene Erh{\"o}hung der Leitf{\"a}higkeit durch Fluide im Gestein zu erkl{\"a}ren, kann anhand der Salinit{\"a}t einiger Grundwasserproben abgesch{\"a}tzt werden (Archies Gesetz). Wasserproben aus gr{\"o}ßerer Tiefe, weisen aufgrund intensiverer Fluid-Gesteins-Wechselwirkung eine h{\"o}here Salinit{\"a}t, und damit eine verbesserte Leitf{\"a}higkeit, auf. F{\"u}r eine Probe aus einer Tiefe von 200 m ergibt sich demnach eine ben{\"o}tigte Porosit{\"a}t im Bereich von 0.8\% - 4\%. Dies legt nahe, daß W{\"a}sser, die von der Oberfl{\"a}che in die Bruchzone der St{\"o}rung eindringen, ausreichen, um die beobachtete Leitf{\"a}higkeitserh{\"o}hung zu erkl{\"a}ren. Diese Deutung wird von der geochemischen Signatur von Gesteinsproben aus dem Alterationsbereich best{\"a}tigt, wonach die Alteration in einem Regime niedriger Temperatur (<95\&\#176;C) stattfand. Der Einfluß von aufsteigenden Tiefenw{\"a}ssern wurde hier nicht nachgewiesen. Die geringe Tiefenerstreckung des St{\"o}rungsleiters geht wahrscheinlich auf Verheilungs- und Zementationsprozesse der Bruchstrukturen zur{\"u}ck, die aufgrund der L{\"o}sung und F{\"a}llung von Mineralen in gr{\"o}ßerer Tiefe, und damit bei erh{\"o}hter Temperatur, aktiv sind. Der Vergleich der Untersuchungsergebnisse der zur Zeit seismisch inaktiven West Fault mit ver{\"o}ffentlichten Studien zur elektrischen Leitf{\"a}higkeitsstruktur der aktiven San Andreas St{\"o}rung, deutet darauf hin, daß die Tiefenerstreckung und die Leitf{\"a}higkeit von St{\"o}rungsleitern eine Funktion der St{\"o}rungsaktivit{\"a}t ist. Befindet sich eine St{\"o}rung in einem Stadium der Deformation, so bleibt das Bruchnetzwerk f{\"u}r Fluide permeabel und verhindert die Versiegelung desselben.}, subject = {Anden / St{\"o}rung / Strukturgeologie / Magnetotellurik / Chile }, language = {en} } @phdthesis{BaumannWilke2013, author = {Baumann-Wilke, Maria}, title = {Combining body wave tomography, surface wave inversion, seismic interferometry and laboratory measurements to characterize the black shales on Bornholm at different scales}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-69007}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2013}, abstract = {Black shales are sedimentary rocks with a high content of organic carbon, which leads to a dark grayish to black color. Due to their potential to contain oil or gas, black shales are of great interest for the support of the worldwide energy supply. An integrated seismic investigation of the Lower Palaeozoic black shales was carried out at the Danish island Bornholm to locate the shallow-lying Alum Shale layer and its surrounding formations and to characterize its potential as a source rock. Therefore, two seismic experiments at a total of three crossing profiles were carried out in October 2010 and in June 2012 in the southern part of the island. Two different active measurements were conducted with either a weight drop source or a minivibrator. Additionally, the ambient noise field was recorded at the study location over a time interval of about one day, and also a laboratory analysis of borehole samples was carried out. The seismic profiles were positioned as close as possible to two scientific boreholes which were used for comparative purposes. The seismic field data was analyzed with traveltime tomography, surface wave inversion and seismic interferometry to obtain the P-wave and S-wave velocity models of the subsurface. The P-wave velocity models which were determined for all three profiles clearly locate the Alum Shale layer between the Komstad Limestone layer on top and the L{\ae}s{\aa} Sandstone Formation at the base of the models. The black shale layer has P-wave velocities around 3 km/s which are lower compared to the adjacent formations. Due to a very good agreement of the sonic log and the vertical velocity profiles of the two seismic lines, which are directly crossing the borehole where the sonic log was conducted, the reliability of the traveltime tomography is proven. A correlation of the seismic velocities with the content of organic carbon is an important task for the characterization of the reservoir properties of a black shale formation. It is not possible without calibration but in combination with a full 2D tomographic image of the subsurface it gives the subsurface distribution of the organic material. The S-wave model obtained with surface wave inversion of the vibroseis data of one of the profiles images the Alum Shale layer also very well with S-wave velocities around 2 km/s. Although individual 1D velocity models for each of the source positions were determined, the subsurface S-wave velocity distribution is very uniform with a good match between the single models. A really new approach described here is the application of seismic interferometry to a really small study area and a quite short time interval. Also new is the selective procedure of only using time windows with the best crosscorrelation signals to achieve the final interferograms. Due to the small scale of the interferometry even P-wave signals can be observed in the final crosscorrelations. In the laboratory measurements the seismic body waves were recorded for different pressure and temperature stages. Therefore, samples of different depths of the Alum Shale were available from one of the scientific boreholes at the study location. The measured velocities have a high variance with changing pressure or temperature. Recordings with wave propagation both parallel and perpendicular to the bedding of the samples reveal a great amount of anisotropy for the P-wave velocity, whereas the S-wave velocity is almost independent of the wave direction. The calculated velocity ratio is also highly anisotropic with very low values for the perpendicular samples and very high values for the parallel ones. Interestingly, the laboratory velocities of the perpendicular samples are comparable to the velocities of the field experiments indicating that the field measurements are sensitive to wave propagation in vertical direction. The velocity ratio is also calculated with the P-wave and S-wave velocity models of the field experiments. Again, the Alum Shale can be clearly separated from the adjacent formations because it shows overall very low vP/vS ratios around 1.4. The very low velocity ratio indicates the content of gas in the black shale formation. With the combination of all the different methods described here, a comprehensive interpretation of the seismic response of the black shale layer can be made and the hydrocarbon source rock potential can be estimated.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Leins2023, author = {Leins, Johannes A.}, title = {Combining model detail with large scales}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-58283}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-582837}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xv, 168}, year = {2023}, abstract = {The global climate crisis is significantly contributing to changing ecosystems, loss of biodiversity and is putting numerous species on the verge of extinction. In principle, many species are able to adapt to changing conditions or shift their habitats to more suitable regions. However, change is progressing faster than some species can adjust, or potential adaptation is blocked and disrupted by direct and indirect human action. Unsustainable anthropogenic land use in particular is one of the driving factors, besides global heating, for these ecologically critical developments. Precisely because land use is anthropogenic, it is also a factor that could be quickly and immediately corrected by human action. In this thesis, I therefore assess the impact of three climate change scenarios of increasing intensity in combination with differently scheduled mowing regimes on the long-term development and dispersal success of insects in Northwest German grasslands. The large marsh grasshopper (LMG, Stethophyma grossum, Linn{\´e} 1758) is used as a species of reference for the analyses. It inhabits wet meadows and marshes and has a limited, yet fairly good ability to disperse. Mowing and climate conditions affect the development and mortality of the LMG differently depending on its life stage. The specifically developed simulation model HiLEG (High-resolution Large Environmental Gradient) serves as a tool for investigating and projecting viability and dispersal success under different climate conditions and land use scenarios. It is a spatially explicit, stage- and cohort-based model that can be individually configured to represent the life cycle and characteristics of terrestrial insect species, as well as high-resolution environmental data and the occurrence of external disturbances. HiLEG is a freely available and adjustable software that can be used to support conservation planning in cultivated grasslands. In the three case studies of this thesis, I explore various aspects related to the structure of simulation models per se, their importance in conservation planning in general, and insights regarding the LMG in particular. It became apparent that the detailed resolution of model processes and components is crucial to project the long-term effect of spatially and temporally confined events. Taking into account conservation measures at the regional level has further proven relevant, especially in light of the climate crisis. I found that the LMG is benefiting from global warming in principle, but continues to be constrained by harmful mowing regimes. Land use measures could, however, be adapted in such a way that they allow the expansion and establishment of the LMG without overly affecting agricultural yields. Overall, simulation models like HiLEG can make an important contribution and add value to conservation planning and policy-making. Properly used, simulation results shed light on aspects that might be overlooked by subjective judgment and the experience of individual stakeholders. Even though it is in the nature of models that they are subject to limitations and only represent fragments of reality, this should not keep stakeholders from using them, as long as these limitations are clearly communicated. Similar to HiLEG, models could further be designed in such a way that not only the parameterization can be adjusted as required, but also the implementation itself can be improved and changed as desired. This openness and flexibility should become more widespread in the development of simulation models.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Reusser2011, author = {Reusser, Dominik Edwin}, title = {Combining smart model diagnostics and effective data collection for snow catchments}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-52574}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2011}, abstract = {Complete protection against flood risks by structural measures is impossible. Therefore flood prediction is important for flood risk management. Good explanatory power of flood models requires a meaningful representation of bio-physical processes. Therefore great interest exists to improve the process representation. Progress in hydrological process understanding is achieved through a learning cycle including critical assessment of an existing model for a given catchment as a first step. The assessment will highlight deficiencies of the model, from which useful additional data requirements are derived, giving a guideline for new measurements. These new measurements may in turn lead to improved process concepts. The improved process concepts are finally summarized in an updated hydrological model. In this thesis I demonstrate such a learning cycle, focusing on the advancement of model evaluation methods and more cost effective measurements. For a successful model evaluation, I propose that three questions should be answered: 1) when is a model reproducing observations in a satisfactory way? 2) If model results deviate, of what nature is the difference? And 3) what are most likely the relevant model components affecting these differences? To answer the first two questions, I developed a new method to assess the temporal dynamics of model performance (or TIGER - TIme series of Grouped Errors). This method is powerful in highlighting recurrent patterns of insufficient model behaviour for long simulation periods. I answered the third question with the analysis of the temporal dynamics of parameter sensitivity (TEDPAS). For calculating TEDPAS, an efficient method for sensitivity analysis is necessary. I used such an efficient method called Fourier Amplitude Sensitivity Test, which has a smart sampling scheme. Combining the two methods TIGER and TEDPAS provided a powerful tool for model assessment. With WaSiM-ETH applied to the Weisseritz catchment as a case study, I found insufficient process descriptions for the snow dynamics and for the recession during dry periods in late summer and fall. Focusing on snow dynamics, reasons for poor model performance can either be a poor representation of snow processes in the model, or poor data on snow cover, or both. To obtain an improved data set on snow cover, time series of snow height and temperatures were collected with a cost efficient method based on temperature measurements on multiple levels at each location. An algorithm was developed to simultaneously estimate snow height and cold content from these measurements. Both, snow height and cold content are relevant quantities for spring flood forecasting. Spatial variability was observed at the local and the catchment scale with an adjusted sampling design. At the local scale, samples were collected on two perpendicular transects of 60 m length and analysed with geostatistical methods. The range determined from fitted theoretical variograms was within the range of the sampling design for 80\% of the plots. No patterns were found, that would explain the random variability and spatial correlation at the local scale. At the watershed scale, locations of the extensive field campaign were selected according to a stratified sample design to capture the combined effects of elevation, aspect and land use. The snow height is mainly affected by the plot elevation. The expected influence of aspect and land use was not observed. To better understand the deficiencies of the snow module in WaSiM-ETH, the same approach, a simple degree day model was checked for its capability to reproduce the data. The degree day model was capable to explain the temporal variability for plots with a continuous snow pack over the entire snow season, if parameters were estimated for single plots. However, processes described in the simple model are not sufficient to represent multiple accumulation-melt-cycles, as observed for the lower catchment. Thus, the combined spatio-temporal variability at the watershed scale is not captured by the model. Further tests on improved concepts for the representation of snow dynamics at the Weißeritz are required. From the data I suggest to include at least rain on snow and redistribution by wind as additional processes to better describe spatio-temporal variability. Alternatively an energy balance snow model could be tested. Overall, the proposed learning cycle is a useful framework for targeted model improvement. The advanced model diagnostics is valuable to identify model deficiencies and to guide field measurements. The additional data collected throughout this work helps to get a deepened understanding of the processes in the Weisseritz catchment.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Ahnert2010, author = {Ahnert, Karsten}, title = {Compactons in strongly nonlinear lattices}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-48539}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2010}, abstract = {In the present work, we study wave phenomena in strongly nonlinear lattices. Such lattices are characterized by the absence of classical linear waves. We demonstrate that compactons - strongly localized solitary waves with tails decaying faster than exponential - exist and that they play a major role in the dynamics of the system under consideration. We investigate compactons in different physical setups. One part deals with lattices of dispersively coupled limit cycle oscillators which find various applications in natural sciences such as Josephson junction arrays or coupled Ginzburg-Landau equations. Another part deals with Hamiltonian lattices. Here, a prominent example in which compactons can be found is the granular chain. In the third part, we study systems which are related to the discrete nonlinear Schr{\"o}dinger equation describing, for example, coupled optical wave-guides or the dynamics of Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices. Our investigations are based on a numerical method to solve the traveling wave equation. This results in a quasi-exact solution (up to numerical errors) which is the compacton. Another ansatz which is employed throughout this work is the quasi-continuous approximation where the lattice is described by a continuous medium. Here, compactons are found analytically, but they are defined on a truly compact support. Remarkably, both ways give similar qualitative and quantitative results. Additionally, we study the dynamical properties of compactons by means of numerical simulation of the lattice equations. Especially, we concentrate on their emergence from physically realizable initial conditions as well as on their stability due to collisions. We show that the collisions are not exactly elastic but that a small part of the energy remains at the location of the collision. In finite lattices, this remaining part will then trigger a multiple scattering process resulting in a chaotic state.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Hoffmann2011, author = {Hoffmann, Anne}, title = {Comparative aerosol studies based on multi-wavelength Raman LIDAR at Ny-{\AA}lesund, Spitsbergen}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-52426}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2011}, abstract = {The Arctic is a particularly sensitive area with respect to climate change due to the high surface albedo of snow and ice and the extreme radiative conditions. Clouds and aerosols as parts of the Arctic atmosphere play an important role in the radiation budget, which is, as yet, poorly quantified and understood. The LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) measurements presented in this PhD thesis contribute with continuous altitude resolved aerosol profiles to the understanding of occurrence and characteristics of aerosol layers above Ny-{\AA}lesund, Spitsbergen. The attention was turned to the analysis of periods with high aerosol load. As the Arctic spring troposphere exhibits maximum aerosol optical depths (AODs) each year, March and April of both the years 2007 and 2009 were analyzed. Furthermore, stratospheric aerosol layers of volcanic origin were analyzed for several months, subsequently to the eruptions of the Kasatochi and Sarychev volcanoes in summer 2008 and 2009, respectively. The Koldewey Aerosol Raman LIDAR (KARL) is an instrument for the active remote sensing of atmospheric parameters using pulsed laser radiation. It is operated at the AWIPEV research base and was fundamentally upgraded within the framework of this PhD project. It is now equipped with a new telescope mirror and new detection optics, which facilitate atmospheric profiling from 450m above sea level up to the mid-stratosphere. KARL provides highly resolved profiles of the scattering characteristics of aerosol and cloud particles (backscattering, extinction and depolarization) as well as water vapor profiles within the lower troposphere. Combination of KARL data with data from other instruments on site, namely radiosondes, sun photometer, Micro Pulse LIDAR, and tethersonde system, resulted in a comprehensive data set of scattering phenomena in the Arctic atmosphere. The two spring periods March and April 2007 and 2009 were at first analyzed based on meteorological parameters, like local temperature and relative humidity profiles as well as large scale pressure patterns and air mass origin regions. Here, it was not possible to find a clear correlation between enhanced AOD and air mass origin. However, in a comparison of two cloud free periods in March 2007 and April 2009, large AOD values in 2009 coincided with air mass transport through the central Arctic. This suggests the occurrence of aerosol transformation processes during the aerosol transport to Ny-{\AA}lesund. Measurements on 4 April 2009 revealed maximum AOD values of up to 0.12 and aerosol size distributions changing with altitude. This and other performed case studies suggest the differentiation between three aerosol event types and their origin: Vertically limited aerosol layers in dry air, highly variable hygroscopic boundary layer aerosols and enhanced aerosol load across wide portions of the troposphere. For the spring period 2007, the available KARL data were statistically analyzed using a characterization scheme, which is based on optical characteristics of the scattering particles. The scheme was validated using several case studies. Volcanic eruptions in the northern hemisphere in August 2008 and June 2009 arose the opportunity to analyze volcanic aerosol layers within the stratosphere. The rate of stratospheric AOD change was similar within both years with maximum values above 0.1 about three to five weeks after the respective eruption. In both years, the stratospheric AOD persisted at higher rates than usual until the measurements were stopped in late September due to technical reasons. In 2008, up to three aerosol layers were detected, the layer structure in 2009 was characterized by up to six distinct and thin layers which smeared out to one broad layer after about two months. The lowermost aerosol layer was continuously detected at the tropopause altitude. Three case studies were performed, all revealed rather large indices of refraction of m = (1.53-1.55) - 0.02i, suggesting the presence of an absorbing carbonaceous component. The particle radius, derived with inversion calculations, was also similar in both years with values ranging from 0.16 to 0.19 μm. However, in 2009, a second mode in the size distribution was detected at about 0.5 μm. The long term measurements with the Koldewey Aerosol Raman LIDAR in Ny-{\AA}lesund provide the opportunity to study Arctic aerosols in the troposphere and the stratosphere not only in case studies but on longer time scales. In this PhD thesis, both, tropospheric aerosols in the Arctic spring and stratospheric aerosols following volcanic eruptions have been described qualitatively and quantitatively. Case studies and comparative studies with data of other instruments on site allowed for the analysis of microphysical aerosol characteristics and their temporal evolution.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Durek2008, author = {Durek, Pawel}, title = {Comparative analysis of molecular interaction networks : the interplay between spatial and functional organizing principles}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-31439}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2008}, abstract = {The study of biological interaction networks is a central theme in systems biology. Here, we investigate common as well as differentiating principles of molecular interaction networks associated with different levels of molecular organization. They include metabolic pathway maps, protein-protein interaction networks as well as kinase interaction networks. First, we present an integrated analysis of metabolic pathway maps and protein-protein interaction networks (PIN). It has long been established that successive enzymatic steps are often catalyzed by physically interacting proteins forming permanent or transient multi-enzyme complexes. Inspecting high-throughput PIN data, it has been shown recently that, indeed, enzymes involved in successive reactions are generally more likely to interact than other protein pairs. In this study, we expanded this line of research to include comparisons of the respective underlying network topologies as well as to investigate whether the spatial organization of enzyme interactions correlates with metabolic efficiency. Analyzing yeast data, we detected long-range correlations between shortest paths between proteins in both network types suggesting a mutual correspondence of both network architectures. We discovered that the organizing principles of physical interactions between metabolic enzymes differ from the general PIN of all proteins. While physical interactions between proteins are generally dissortative, enzyme interactions were observed to be assortative. Thus, enzymes frequently interact with other enzymes of similar rather than different degree. Enzymes carrying high flux loads are more likely to physically interact than enzymes with lower metabolic throughput. In particular, enzymes associated with catabolic pathways as well as enzymes involved in the biosynthesis of complex molecules were found to exhibit high degrees of physical clustering. Single proteins were identified that connect major components of the cellular metabolism and hence might be essential for the structural integrity of several biosynthetic systems. Besides metabolic aspects of PINs, we investigated the characteristic topological properties of protein interactions involved in signaling and regulatory functions mediated by kinase interactions. Characteristic topological differences between PINs associated with metabolism, and those describing phosphorylation networks were revealed and shown to reflect the different modes of biological operation of both network types. The construction of phosphorylation networks is based on the identification of specific kinase-target relations including the determination of the actual phosphorylation sites (P-sites). The computational prediction of P-sites as well as the identification of involved kinases still suffers from insufficient accuracies and specificities of the underlying prediction algorithms, and the experimental identification in a genome-scale manner is not (yet) doable. Computational prediction methods have focused primarily on extracting predictive features from the local, one-dimensional sequence information surrounding P-sites. However the recognition of such motifs by the respective kinases is a spatial event. Therefore, we characterized the spatial distributions of amino acid residue types around P-sites and extracted signature 3D-profiles. We then tested the added value of spatial information on the prediction performance. When compared to sequence-only based predictors, a consistent performance gain was obtained. The availability of reliable training data of experimentally determined P-sites is critical for the development of computational prediction methods. As part of this thesis, we provide an assessment of false-positive rates of phosphoproteomic data.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Boeuf2002, author = {Boeuf, St{\´e}phane}, title = {Comparative study of gene expression during the differentiation of white and brown preadipocytes}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-0000542}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2002}, abstract = {Einleitung S{\"a}ugetiere haben zwei verschiedene Arten von Fettgewebe: das weiße Fettgewebe, welches vorwiegend zur Lipidspeicherung dient, und das braune Fettgewebe, welches sich durch seine F{\"a}higkeit zur zitterfreien Thermogenese auszeichnet. Weiße und braune Adipozyten sind beide mesodermalen Ursprungs. Die Mechanismen, die zur Entwicklung von Vorl{\"a}uferzellen in den weißen oder braunen Fettzellphenotyp f{\"u}hren, sind jedoch unbekannt. Durch verschiedene experimentelle Ans{\"a}tze konnte gezeigt werden, daß diese Adipocyten vermutlich durch die Differenzierung zweier Typen unterschiedlicher Vorl{\"a}uferzellen entstehen: weiße und braune Preadipozyten. Von dieser Hypothese ausgehend, war das Ziel dieser Studie, die Genexpression weißer und brauner Preadipozyten auf Unterschiede systematisch zu analysieren. Methoden Die zu vergleichenden Zellen wurden aus prim{\"a}ren Zellkulturen weißer und brauner Preadipozyten des dsungarischen Zwerghamsters gewonnen. „Representational Difference Analysis" wurde angewandt, um potentiell unterschiedlich exprimierte Gene zu isolieren. Die daraus resultierenden cDNA Fragmente von Kandidatengenen wurden mit Hilfe der Microarraytechnik untersucht. Die Expression dieser Gene wurde in braunen und weißen Fettzellen in verschiedenen Differenzierungsstadien und in braunem und weißem Fettgewebe verglichen. Ergebnisse 12 Gene, die in braunen und weißen Preadipozyten unterschiedlich exprimiert werden, konnten identifiziert werden. Drei Komplement Faktoren und eine Fetts{\"a}uren Desaturase werden in weißen Preadipozyten h{\"o}her exprimiert; drei Struktur Gene (Fibronectin, Metargidin und a Actinin 4), drei Gene verbunden mit transkriptioneller Regulation (Necdin, Vigilin und das „small nuclear ribonucleoprotein polypeptide A") sowie zwei Gene unbekannter Funktion werden in braunen Preadipozyten h{\"o}her exprimiert. Mittels Clusteranalyse (oder Gruppenanalyse) wurden die gesamten Genexpressionsdaten charakterisiert. Dabei konnten die Gene in 4 typischen Expressionsmuster aufgeteilt werden: in weißen Preadipozyten h{\"o}her exprimierte Gene, in braunen Preadipozyten h{\"o}her exprimierte Gene, w{\"a}hrend der Differenzierung herunter regulierte Gene und w{\"a}hrend der Differenzierung hoch regulierte Gene. Schlußfolgerungen In dieser Studie konnte gezeigt werden, daß weiße und braune Preadipozyten aufgrund der Expression verschiedener Gene unterschieden werden k{\"o}nnen. Es wurden mehrere Kandidatengene zur Bestimmung weißer und brauner Preadipozyten identifiziert. Außerdem geht aus den Genexpressionsdaten hervor, daß funktionell unterschiedliche Gruppen von Genen eine wichtige Rolle bei der Differenzierung von weißen und braunen Preadipozyten spielen k{\"o}nnten, wie z.B. Gene des Komplementsystems und der extrazellul{\"a}ren Matrix.}, subject = {S{\"a}ugetiere ; Fettgewebe ; Zelldifferenzierung ; Genexpression}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Wittek2023, author = {Wittek, Laura}, title = {Comparison of metabolic cages - analysis of refinement measures on the welfare and metabolic parameters of laboratory mice}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-61120}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-611208}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {IV, 160}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Housing in metabolic cages can induce a pronounced stress response. Metabolic cage systems imply housing mice on metal wire mesh for the collection of urine and feces in addition to monitoring food and water intake. Moreover, mice are single-housed, and no nesting, bedding, or enrichment material is provided, which is often argued to have a not negligible impact on animal welfare due to cold stress. We therefore attempted to reduce stress during metabolic cage housing for mice by comparing an innovative metabolic cage (IMC) with a commercially available metabolic cage from Tecniplast GmbH (TMC) and a control cage. Substantial refinement measures were incorporated into the IMC cage design. In the frame of a multifactorial approach for severity assessment, parameters such as body weight, body composition, food intake, cage and body surface temperature (thermal imaging), mRNA expression of uncoupling protein 1 (Ucp1) in brown adipose tissue (BAT), fur score, and fecal corticosterone metabolites (CMs) were included. Female and male C57BL/6J mice were single-housed for 24 h in either conventional Macrolon cages (control), IMC, or TMC for two sessions. Body weight decreased less in the IMC (females—1st restraint: 6.94\%; 2nd restraint: 6.89\%; males—1st restraint: 8.08\%; 2nd restraint: 5.82\%) compared to the TMC (females—1st restraint: 13.2\%; 2nd restraint: 15.0\%; males—1st restraint: 13.1\%; 2nd restraint: 14.9\%) and the IMC possessed a higher cage temperature (females—1st restraint: 23.7°C; 2nd restraint: 23.5 °C; males—1st restraint: 23.3 °C; 2nd restraint: 23.5 °C) compared with the TMC (females—1st restraint: 22.4 °C; 2nd restraint: 22.5 °C; males—1st restraint: 22.6 °C; 2nd restraint: 22.4 °C). The concentration of fecal corticosterone metabolites in the TMC (females—1st restraint: 1376 ng/g dry weight (DW); 2nd restraint: 2098 ng/g DW; males—1st restraint: 1030 ng/g DW; 2nd restraint: 1163 ng/g DW) was higher compared to control cage housing (females—1st restraint: 640 ng/g DW; 2nd restraint: 941 ng/g DW; males—1st restraint: 504 ng/g DW; 2nd restraint: 537 ng/g DW). Our results show the stress potential induced by metabolic cage restraint that is markedly influenced by the lower housing temperature. The IMC represents a first attempt to target cold stress reduction during metabolic cage application thereby producing more animal welfare friendly data.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Zhang2020, author = {Zhang, Jianrui}, title = {Completely water-based emulsions as compartmentalized systems via pickering stabilization}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-47654}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-476542}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {II, 119}, year = {2020}, abstract = {Completely water-based systems are of interest for the development of novel material for various reasons: On one hand, they provide benign environment for biological systems and on the other hand they facilitate effective molecular transport in a membrane-free environment. In order to investigate the general potential of aqueous two-phase systems (ATPSs) for biomaterials and compartmentalized systems, various solid particles were applied to stabilize all-aqueous emulsion droplets. The target ATPS to be investigated should be prepared via mixing of two aqueous solutions of water-soluble polymers, which turn biphasic when exceeding a critical polymer concentration. Hydrophilic polymers with a wide range of molar mass such as dextran/poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) can therefore be applied. Solid particles adsorbed at the interfaces can be exceptionally efficient stabilizers forming so-called Pickering emulsions, and nanoparticles can bridge the correlation length of polymer solutions and are thereby the best option for water-in-water emulsions. The first approach towards the investigation of ATPS was conducted with all aqueous dextran-PEG emulsions in the presence of poly(dopamine) particles (PDP) in Chapter 4. The water-in-water emulsions were formed with a PEG/dextran system via utilizing PDP as stabilizers. Studies of the formed emulsions were performed via laser scanning confocal microscope (CLSM), optical microscope (OM), cryo-scanning electron microscope (SEM) and tensiometry. The stable emulsions (at least 16 weeks) were demulsified easily via dilution or surfactant addition. Furthermore, the solid PDP at the water-water interface were crosslinked in order to inhibit demulsification of the Pickering emulsion. Transmission electron microscope (TEM) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) were used to visualize the morphology of PDP before and after crosslinking. PDP stabilized water-in-water emulsions were utilized in the following Chapter 5 to form supramolecular compartmentalized hydrogels. Here, hydrogels were prepared in pre-formed water-in-water emulsions and gelled via α-cyclodextrin-PEG (α-CD-PEG) inclusion complex formation. Studies of the formed complexes were performed via X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and the mechanical properties of the hydrogels were measured with oscillatory shear rheology. In order to verify the compartmentalized state and its triggered decomposition, hydrogels and emulsions were assessed via OM, SEM and CLSM. The last chapter broadens the investigations from the previous two systems by utilizing various carbon nitrides (CN) as different stabilizers in ATPS. CN introduces another way to trigger demulsification, namely irradiation with visible light. Therefore, emulsification and demulsification with various triggers were probed. The investigated all aqueous multi-phase systems will act as model for future fabrication of biocompatible materials, cell micropatterning as well as separation of compartmentalized systems.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Gentsch2010, author = {Gentsch, Rafael}, title = {Complex bioactive fiber systems by means of electrospinning}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-44900}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2010}, abstract = {Nanofibrous mats are interesting scaffold materials for biomedical applications like tissue engineering due to their interconnectivity and their size dimension which mimics the native cell environment. Electrospinning provides a simple route to access such fiber meshes. This thesis addresses the structural and functional control of electrospun fiber mats. In the first section, it is shown that fiber meshes with bimodal size distribution could be obtained in a single-step process by electrospinning. A standard single syringe set-up was used to spin concentrated poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) and poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) solutions in chloroform and meshes with bimodal-sized fiber distribution could be directly obtained by reducing the spinning rate at elevated humidity. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and mercury porosity of the meshes suggested a suitable pore size distribution for effective cell infiltration. The bimodal fiber meshes together with unimodal fiber meshes were evaluated for cellular infiltration. While the micrometer fibers in the mixed meshes generate an open pore structure, the submicrometer fibers support cell adhesion and facilitate cell bridging on the large pores. This was revealed by initial cell penetration studies, showing superior ingrowth of epithelial cells into the bimodal meshes compared to a mesh composed of unimodal 1.5 μm fibers. The bimodal fiber meshes together with electrospun nano- and microfiber meshes were further used for the inorganic/organic hybrid fabrication of PCL with calcium carbonate or calcium phosphate, two biorelevant minerals. Such composite structures are attractive for the potential improvement of properties such as stiffness or bioactivity. It was possible to encapsulate nano and mixed sized plasma-treated PCL meshes to areas > 1 mm2 with calcium carbonate using three different mineralization methods including the use of poly(acrylic acid). The additive seemed to be useful in stabilizing amorphous calcium carbonate to effectively fill the space between the electrospun fibers resulting in composite structures. Micro-, nano- and mixed sized fiber meshes were successfully coated within hours by fiber directed crystallization of calcium phosphate using a ten-times concentrated simulated body fluid. It was shown that nanofibers accelerated the calcium phosphate crystallization, as compared to microfibers. In addition, crystallizations performed at static conditions led to hydroxyapatite formations whereas in dynamic conditions brushite coexisted. In the second section, nanofiber functionalization strategies are investigated. First, a one-step process was introduced where a peptide-polymer-conjugate (PLLA-b-CGGRGDS) was co-spun with PLGA in such a way that the peptide is enriched on the surface. It was shown that by adding methanol to the chloroform/blend solution, a dramatic increase of the peptide concentration at the fiber surface could be achieved as determined by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Peptide accessibility was demonstrated via a contact angle comparison of pure PLGA and RGD-functionalized fiber meshes. In addition, the electrostatic attraction between a RGD-functionalized fiber and a silica bead at pH ~ 4 confirmed the accessibility of the peptide. The bioactivity of these RGD-functionalized fiber meshes was demonstrated using blends containing 18 wt\% bioconjugate. These meshes promoted adhesion behavior of fibroblast compared to pure PLGA meshes. In a second functionalization approach, a modular strategy was investigated. In a single step, reactive fiber meshes were fabricated and then functionalized with bioactive molecules. While the electrospinning of the pure reactive polymer poly(pentafluorophenyl methacrylate) (PPFPMA) was feasible, the inherent brittleness of PPFPMA required to spin a PCL blend. Blends and pure PPFPMA showed a two-step functionalization kinetics. An initial fast reaction of the pentafluorophenyl esters with aminoethanol as a model substance was followed by a slow conversion upon further hydrophilization. This was analysed by UV/Vis-spectroscopy of the pentaflurorophenol release upon nucleophilic substitution with the amines. The conversion was confirmed by increased hydrophilicity of the resulting meshes. The PCL/PPFPMA fiber meshes were then used for functionalization with more complex molecules such as saccharides. Aminofunctionalized D-Mannose or D-Galactose was reacted with the active pentafluorophenyl esters as followed by UV/Vis spectroscopy and XPS. The functionality was shown to be bioactive using macrophage cell culture. The meshes functionalized with D-Mannose specifically stimulated the cytokine production of macrophages when lipopolysaccharides were added. This was in contrast to D-Galactose- or aminoethanol-functionalized and unfunctionalized PCL/PPFPMA fiber mats.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Yeldesbay2014, author = {Yeldesbay, Azamat}, title = {Complex regimes of synchronization}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-73348}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {ii, 60}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Synchronization is a fundamental phenomenon in nature. It can be considered as a general property of self-sustained oscillators to adjust their rhythm in the presence of an interaction. In this work we investigate complex regimes of synchronization phenomena by means of theoretical analysis, numerical modeling, as well as practical analysis of experimental data. As a subject of our investigation we consider chimera state, where due to spontaneous symmetry-breaking of an initially homogeneous oscillators lattice split the system into two parts with different dynamics. Chimera state as a new synchronization phenomenon was first found in non-locally coupled oscillators system, and has attracted a lot of attention in the last decade. However, the recent studies indicate that this state is also possible in globally coupled systems. In the first part of this work, we show under which conditions the chimera-like state appears in a system of globally coupled identical oscillators with intrinsic delayed feedback. The results of the research explain how initially monostable oscillators became effectivly bistable in the presence of the coupling and create a mean field that sustain the coexistence of synchronized and desynchronized states. Also we discuss other examples, where chimera-like state appears due to frequency dependence of the phase shift in the bistable system. In the second part, we make further investigation of this topic by modeling influence of an external periodic force to an oscillator with intrinsic delayed feedback. We made stability analysis of the synchronized state and constructed Arnold tongues. The results explain formation of the chimera-like state and hysteric behavior of the synchronization area. Also, we consider two sets of parameters of the oscillator with symmetric and asymmetric Arnold tongues, that correspond to mono- and bi-stable regimes of the oscillator. In the third part, we demonstrate the results of the work, which was done in collaboration with our colleagues from Psychology Department of University of Potsdam. The project aimed to study the effect of the cardiac rhythm on human perception of time using synchronization analysis. From our part, we made a statistical analysis of the data obtained from the conducted experiment on free time interval reproduction task. We examined how ones heartbeat influences the time perception and searched for possible phase synchronization between heartbeat cycles and time reproduction responses. The findings support the prediction that cardiac cycles can serve as input signals, and is used for reproduction of time intervals in the range of several seconds.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Rusu2004, author = {Rusu, Viorel Marin}, title = {Composite materials made of chitosan and nanosized apatite : preparation and physicochemical characterization}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-2316}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2004}, abstract = {Taking inspiration from nature, where composite materials made of a polymer matrix and inorganic fillers are often found, e.g. bone, shell of crustaceans, shell of eggs, etc., the feasibility on making composite materials containing chitosan and nanosized hydroxyapatite were investigated. A new preparation approach based on a co-precipitation method has been developed. In its earlier stage of formation, the composite occurs as hydrogel as suspended in aqueous alkaline solution. In order to get solid composites various drying procedures including freeze-drying technique, air-drying at room temperature and at moderate temperatures, between 50oC and 100oC were used. Physicochemical studies showed that the composites exhibit different properties with respect to their structure and composition. IR and Raman spectroscopy probed the presence of both chitosan and hydroxyapatite in the composites. Hydroxyapatite as dispersed in the chitosan matrix was found to be in the nanosize range (15-50 nm) and occurs in a bimodal distribution with respect to its crystallite length. Two types of distribution domains of hydroxyapatite crystallites in the composite matrix such as cluster-like (200-400 nm) and scattered-like domains were identified by the transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and by confocal scanning laser microscopy (CSLM) measurements. Relaxation NMR experiments on composite hydrogels showed the presence of two types of water sites in their gel networks, such as free and bound water. Mechanical tests showed that the mechanical properties of composites are one order of magnitude less than those of compact bone but comparable to those of porous bone. The enzymatic degradation rates of composites showed slow degradation processes. The yields of degradation were estimated to be less than 10\% by loss of mass, after incubation with lysozyme, for a period of 50 days. Since the composite materials were found biocompatible by the in vivo tests, the simple mode of their fabrication and their properties recommend them as potential candidates for the non-load bearing bone substitute materials.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{BrandtKobele2014, author = {Brandt-Kobele, Oda-Christina}, title = {Comprehension of verb inflection in German-speaking children}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}tsverlag Potsdam}, address = {Potsdam}, isbn = {978-3-86956-216-2}, issn = {1869-3822}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-62046}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xx, 325}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Previous studies on the acquisition of verb inflection in normally developing children have revealed an astonishing pattern: children use correctly inflected verbs in their own speech but fail to make use of verb inflections when comprehending sentences uttered by others. Thus, a three-year old might well be able to say something like 'The cat sleeps on the bed', but fails to understand that the same sentence, when uttered by another person, refers to only one sleeping cat but not more than one. The previous studies that have examined children's comprehension of verb inflections have employed a variant of a picture selection task in which the child was asked to explicitly indicate (via pointing) what semantic meaning she had inferred from the test sentence. Recent research on other linguistic structures, such as pronouns or focus particles, has indicated that earlier comprehension abilities can be found when methods are used that do not require an explicit reaction, like preferential looking tasks. This dissertation aimed to examine whether children are truly not able to understand the connection the the verb form and the meaning of the sentence subject until the age of five years or whether earlier comprehension can be found when a different measure, preferential looking, is used. Additionally, children's processing of subject-verb agreement violations was examined. The three experiments of this thesis that examined children's comprehension of verb inflections revealed the following: German-speaking three- to four-year old children looked more to a picture showing one actor when hearing a sentence with a singular inflected verb but only when their eye gaze was tracked and they did not have to perform a picture selection task. When they were asked to point to the matching picture, they performed at chance-level. This pattern indicates asymmetries in children's language performance even within the receptive modality. The fourth experiment examined sensitivity to subject-verb agreement violations and did not reveal evidence for sensitivity toward agreement violations in three- and four-year old children, but only found that children's looking patterns were influenced by the grammatical violations at the age of five. The results from these experiments are discussed in relation to the existence of a production-comprehension asymmetry in the use of verb inflections and children's underlying grammatical knowledge.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Shenar2017, author = {Shenar, Tomer}, title = {Comprehensive analyses of massive binaries and implications on stellar evolution}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-104857}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {187}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Via their powerful radiation, stellar winds, and supernova explosions, massive stars (Mini \& 8 M☉) bear a tremendous impact on galactic evolution. It became clear in recent decades that the majority of massive stars reside in binary systems. This thesis sets as a goal to quantify the impact of binarity (i.e., the presence of a companion star) on massive stars. For this purpose, massive binary systems in the Local Group, including OB-type binaries, high mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs), and Wolf-Rayet (WR) binaries, were investigated by means of spectral, orbital, and evolutionary analyses. The spectral analyses were performed with the non-local thermodynamic equillibrium (non-LTE) Potsdam Wolf-Rayet (PoWR) model atmosphere code. Thanks to critical updates in the calculation of the hydrostatic layers, the code became a state-of-the-art tool applicable for all types of hot massive stars (Chapter 2). The eclipsing OB-type triple system δ Ori served as an intriguing test-case for the new version of the PoWR code, and provided key insights regarding the formation of X-rays in massive stars (Chapter 3). We further analyzed two prototypical HMXBs, Vela X-1 and IGR J17544-2619, and obtained fundamental conclusions regarding the dichotomy of two basic classes of HMXBs (Chapter 4). We performed an exhaustive analysis of the binary R 145 in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), which was claimed to host the most massive stars known. We were able to disentangle the spectrum of the system, and performed an orbital, polarimetric, and spectral analysis, as well as an analysis of the wind-wind collision region. The true masses of the binary components turned out to be significantly lower than suggested, impacting our understanding of the initial mass function and stellar evolution at low metallicity (Chapter 5). Finally, all known WR binaries in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) were analyzed. Although it was theoretical predicted that virtually all WR stars in the SMC should be formed via mass-transfer in binaries, we find that binarity was not important for the formation of the known WR stars in the SMC, implying a strong discrepancy between theory and observations (Chapter 6).}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Boelling2006, author = {B{\"o}lling, Christian}, title = {Comprehensive metabolite analysis in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii : method development and application to the study of environmental and genetic perturbations}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-11329}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2006}, abstract = {This study introduces a method for multiparallel analysis of small organic compounds in the unicellular green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, one of the premier model organisms in cell biology. The comprehensive study of the changes of metabolite composition, or metabolomics, in response to environmental, genetic or developmental signals is an important complement of other functional genomic techniques in the effort to develop an understanding of how genes, proteins and metabolites are all integrated into a seamless and dynamic network to sustain cellular functions. The sample preparation protocol was optimized to quickly inactivate enzymatic activity, achieve maximum extraction capacity and process large sample quantities. As a result of the rapid sampling, extraction and analysis by gas chromatography coupled to time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC-TOF) more than 800 analytes from a single sample can be measured, of which over a 100 could be positively identified. As part of the analysis of GC-TOF raw data, aliquot ratio analysis to systematically remove artifact signals and tools for the use of principal component analysis (PCA) on metabolomic datasets are proposed. Cells subjected to nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), sulfur (S) or iron (Fe) depleted growth conditions develop highly distinctive metabolite profiles with metabolites implicated in many different processes being affected in their concentration during adaptation to nutrient deprivation. Metabolite profiling allowed characterization of both specific and general responses to nutrient deprivation at the metabolite level. Modulation of the substrates for N-assimilation and the oxidative pentose phosphate pathway indicated a priority for maintaining the capability for immediate activation of N assimilation even under conditions of decreased metabolic activity and arrested growth, while the rise in 4-hydroxyproline in S deprived cells could be related to enhanced degradation of proteins of the cell wall. The adaptation to sulfur deficiency was analyzed with greater temporal resolution and responses of wild-type cells were compared with mutant cells deficient in SAC1, an important regulator of the sulfur deficiency response. Whereas concurrent metabolite depletion and accumulation occurs during adaptation to S deprivation in wild-type cells, the sac1 mutant strain is characterized by a massive incapability to sustain many processes that normally lead to transient or permanent accumulation of the levels of certain metabolites or recovery of metabolite levels after initial down-regulation. For most of the steps in arginine biosynthesis in Chlamydomonas mutants have been isolated that are deficient in the respective enzyme activities. Three strains deficient in the activities of N-acetylglutamate-5-phosphate reductase (arg1), N2 acetylornithine-aminotransferase (arg9), and argininosuccinate lyase (arg2), respectively, were analyzed with regard to activation of endogenous arginine biosynthesis after withdrawal of externally supplied arginine. Enzymatic blocks in the arginine biosynthetic pathway could be characterized by precursor accumulation, like the amassment of argininosuccinate in arg2 cells, and depletion of intermediates occurring downstream of the enzymatic block, e.g. N2-acetylornithine, ornithine, and argininosuccinate depletion in arg9 cells. The unexpected finding of substantial levels of the arginine pathway intermediates N-acetylornithine, citrulline, and argininosuccinate downstream the enzymatic block in arg1 cells provided an explanation for the residual growth capacity of these cells in the absence of external arginine sources. The presence of these compounds, together with the unusual accumulation of N-Acetylglutamate, the first intermediate that commits the glutamate backbone to ornithine and arginine biosynthesis, in arg1 cells suggests that alternative pathways, possibly involving the activity of ornithine aminotransferase, may be active when the default reaction sequence to produce ornithine via acetylation of glutamate is disabled.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Schneider2019, author = {Schneider, Jan Niklas}, title = {Computational approaches for emotion research}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-45927}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-459275}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xv, 145}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Emotionen sind ein zentrales Element menschlichen Erlebens und spielen eine wichtige Rolle bei der Entscheidungsfindung. Diese Dissertation identifiziert drei methodische Probleme der aktuellen Emotionsforschung und zeigt auf, wie diese mittels computergest{\"u}tzter Methoden gel{\"o}st werden k{\"o}nnen. Dieser Ansatz wird in drei Forschungsprojekten demonstriert, die die Entwicklung solcher Methoden sowie deren Anwendung auf konkrete Forschungsfragen beschreiben. Das erste Projekt beschreibt ein Paradigma welches es erm{\"o}glicht, die subjektive und objektive Schwierigkeit der Emotionswahrnehmung zu messen. Dar{\"u}ber hinaus erm{\"o}glicht es die Verwendung einer beliebigen Anzahl von Emotionskategorien im Vergleich zu den {\"u}blichen sechs Kategorien der Basisemotionen. Die Ergebnisse deuten auf eine Zunahme der Schwierigkeiten bei der Wahrnehmung von Emotionen mit zunehmendem Alter der Darsteller hin und liefern Hinweise darauf, dass junge Erwachsene, {\"a}ltere Menschen und M{\"a}nner ihre Schwierigkeit bei der Wahrnehmung von Emotionen untersch{\"a}tzen. Weitere Analysen zeigten eine geringe Relevanz personenbezogener Variablen und deuteten darauf hin, dass die Schwierigkeit der Emotionswahrnehmung vornehmlich durch die Auspr{\"a}gung der Wertigkeit des Ausdrucks bestimmt wird. Das zweite Projekt zeigt am Beispiel von Arousal, einem etablierten, aber vagen Konstrukt der Emotionsforschung, wie Face-Tracking-Daten dazu genutzt werden k{\"o}nnen solche Konstrukte zu sch{\"a}rfen. Es beschreibt, wie aus Face-Tracking-Daten Maße f{\"u}r die Entfernung, Geschwindigkeit und Beschleunigung von Gesichtsausdr{\"u}cken berechnet werden k{\"o}nnen. Das Projekt untersuchte wie diesen Maße mit der Arousal-Wahrnehmung in Menschen mit und ohne Autismus zusammenh{\"a}ngen. Der Abstand zum Neutralgesicht war pr{\"a}diktiv f{\"u}r die Arousal-Bewertungen in beiden Gruppen. Die Ergebnisse deuten auf eine qualitativ {\"a}hnliche Wahrnehmung von Arousal f{\"u}r Menschen mit und ohne Autismus hin. Im dritten Projekt stellen wir die Partial-Least-Squares-Analyse als allgemeine Methode vor, um eine optimale Repr{\"a}sentation zur Verkn{\"u}pfung zweier hochdimensionale Datens{\"a}tze zu finden. Das Projekt demonstriert die Anwendbarkeit dieser Methode in der Emotionsforschung anhand der Frage nach Unterschieden in der Emotionswahrnehmung zwischen M{\"a}nnern und Frauen. Wir konnten zeigen, dass die emotionale Wahrnehmung von Frauen systematisch mehr Varianz der Gesichtsausdr{\"u}cke erfasst und dass signifikante Unterschiede in der Art und Weise bestehen, wie Frauen und M{\"a}nner einige Gesichtsausdr{\"u}cke wahrnehmen. Diese konnten wir als dynamische Gesichtsausdr{\"u}cke visualisieren. Um die Anwendung der entwickelten Methode f{\"u}r die Forschungsgemeinschaft zu erleichtern, wurde ein Software-Paket f{\"u}r die Statistikumgebung R geschrieben. Zudem wurde eine Website entwickelt (thisemotiondoesnotexist.com), die es Besuchern erlaubt, ein Partial-Least-Squares-Modell von Emotionsbewertungen und Face-Tracking-Daten interaktiv zu erkunden, um die entwickelte Methode zu verbreiten und ihren Nutzen f{\"u}r die Emotionsforschung zu illustrieren.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{LissonHernandez2022, author = {Liss{\´o}n Hern{\´a}ndez, Paula J.}, title = {Computational models of sentence comprehension in aphasia}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-55548}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-555487}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {vi, 159}, year = {2022}, abstract = {It is well-known that individuals with aphasia (IWA) have difficulties understanding sentences that involve non-adjacent dependencies, such as object relative clauses or passives (Caplan, Baker, \& Dehaut, 1985; Caramazza \& Zurif, 1976). A large body of research supports the view that IWA's grammatical system is intact, and that comprehension difficulties in aphasia are caused by a processing deficit, such as a delay in lexical access and/or in syntactic structure building (e.g., Burkhardt, Pi{\~n}ango, \& Wong, 2003; Caplan, Michaud, \& Hufford, 2015; Caplan, Waters, DeDe, Michaud, \& Reddy, 2007; Ferrill, Love, Walenski, \& Shapiro, 2012; Hanne, Burchert, De Bleser, \& Vasishth, 2015; Love, Swinney, Walenski, \& Zurif, 2008). The main goal of this dissertation is to computationally investigate the processing sources of comprehension impairments in sentence processing in aphasia. In this work, prominent theories of processing deficits coming from the aphasia literature are implemented within two cognitive models of sentence processing -the activation-based model (Lewis \& Vasishth, 2005) and the direct-access model (McEl- ree, 2000)-. These models are two different expressions of the cue-based retrieval theory (Lewis, Vasishth, \& Van Dyke, 2006), which posits that sentence processing is the result of a series of iterative retrievals from memory. These two models have been widely used to account for sentence processing in unimpaired populations in multiple languages and linguistic constructions, sometimes interchangeably (Parker, Shvarts- man, \& Van Dyke, 2017). However, Nicenboim and Vasishth (2018) showed that when both models are implemented in the same framework and fitted to the same data, the models yield different results, because the models assume different data- generating processes. Specifically, the models hold different assumptions regarding the retrieval latencies. The second goal of this dissertation is to compare these two models of cue-based retrieval, using data from individuals with aphasia and control participants. We seek to answer the following question: Which retrieval mechanism is more likely to mediate sentence comprehension? We model 4 subsets of existing data: Relative clauses in English and German; and control structures and pronoun resolution in German. The online data come from either self-paced listening experiments, or visual-world eye-tracking experiments. The offline data come from a complementary sentence-picture matching task performed at the end of the trial in both types of experiments. The two competing models of retrieval are implemented in the Bayesian framework, following Nicenboim and Vasishth (2018). In addition, we present a modified version of the direct-acess model that - we argue - is more suitable for individuals with aphasia. This dissertation presents a systematic approach to implement and test verbally- stated theories of comprehension deficits in aphasia within cognitive models of sen- tence processing. The conclusions drawn from this work are that (a) the original direct-access model (as implemented here) cannot account for the full pattern of data from individuals with aphasia because it cannot account for slow misinterpretations; and (b) an activation-based model of retrieval can account for sentence comprehension deficits in individuals with aphasia by assuming a delay in syntactic structure building, and noise in the processing system. The overall pattern of results support an activation-based mechanism of memory retrieval, in which a combination of processing deficits, namely slow syntax and intermittent deficiencies, cause comprehension difficulties in individuals with aphasia.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Liebs2007, author = {Liebs, Nadine}, title = {Computer Augmented Reality in der technischen Instandhaltung : Evaluation eines alternativen CAR-basierten Informations- und Dokumentationssystems}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-19826}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2007}, abstract = {Die Technologie der Computer Erweiterten Realit{\"a}t (engl.: Computer Augmented Reality, CAR) erm{\"o}glicht die Anreicherung der Sinneswahrnehmung des Menschen mit computergenerierten Informationen. Diese situationsangepassten Informationen unterst{\"u}tzen den Benutzer bei der Ausf{\"u}hrung seiner Handlungen in der Realit{\"a}t. Durch den Einsatz dieser Technologie im industriellen Bereich wird eine Steigerung der Qualit{\"a}t und Effizienz von Industrieprozessen erwartet. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht den CAR-Einsatz zur Unterst{\"u}tzung von T{\"a}tigkeiten im Bereich technischer Instandhaltung. Am Institut f{\"u}r Prozess- und Produktionsleittechnik der Technischen Universit{\"a}t Clausthal wurde der Prototyp eines CAR-basierten Informations- und Dokumentationssystems f{\"u}r die Instandhaltung entwickelt. Er stellt eine alternative, praxistaugliche und kosteng{\"u}nstige Systeml{\"o}sung dar, verglichen mit traditionellen CAR-Systemen, deren industrieller Einsatz durch technische, ergonomische und kostenbedingte Probleme nach wie vor erschwert wird. In einer Reihe von Benutzertests wurde die Gebrauchstauglichkeit dieses Prototyps zur Unterst{\"u}tzung von Instandhaltungst{\"a}tigkeiten durch die Bereitstellung CAR-basierter Bedienungsanleitungen evaluiert. Des Weiteren wurde der Einfluss der speziellen interaktiven Eigenschaften des virtuell erweiterten Umgebungsbildes dieses Prototyps auf die r{\"a}umliche Orientierung des Benutzers in einer gr{\"o}ßeren, unbekannten Umgebung untersucht. Die Ergebnisse sprechen deutlich f{\"u}r eine Eignung des Systems. Neben zeitlichen Einsparungen sind insbesondere reduzierte Fehlerzahlen und eine erleichterte r{\"a}umliche Orientierung in gr{\"o}ßeren, komplex aufgebauten sowie in nicht oder wenig bekannten Umgebungen zu nennen. Durch die M{\"o}glichkeit, Objekte einer Anlage eindeutig zu identifizieren, wird letztlich die Arbeitssicherheit erh{\"o}ht.}, language = {de} } @phdthesis{Partosch2015, author = {Partosch, Falko}, title = {Computergest{\"u}tzte Analysen in der Toxikologie}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-82334}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {XVII, 131, ix}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Im Rahmen der EU-weiten REACH-Verordnung haben Alternativmethoden zum Tierversuch in der Toxikologie an Bedeutung gewonnen. Die Alternativmethoden gliedern sich auf in In-vitro- und In-silico-Methoden. In dieser Dissertation wurden verschiedene Konzepte der In-silico-Toxikologie behandelt. Die bearbeiteten Themen reichen von quantitativen Strukturaktivit{\"a}tsbeziehungen (QSAR) {\"u}ber eine neue Herangehensweise an das g{\"a}ngige Konzept zur Festlegung von Grenzwerten bis hin zu computerbasierten Modellierungen zum Alkohol- und Bisphenol-A-Stoffwechsel. Das Kapitel {\"u}ber QSAR befasst sich im Wesentlichen mit der Erstellung und Analyse einer Datenbank mit 878 Substanzen, die sich aus Tierversuchsstudien aus dem Archiv des Bundesinstituts f{\"u}r Risikobewertung zusammensetzt. Das Design wurde dabei an eine bereits bestehende Datenbank angepasst, um so einen m{\"o}glichst großen Datenpool zu generieren. In der Analyse konnte u.a. gezeigt werden, dass Stoffe mit niedrigerem Molekulargewicht ein erh{\"o}htes Potential f{\"u}r toxikologische Sch{\"a}den aufwiesen als gr{\"o}ßere Molek{\"u}le. Mit Hilfe des sogenannten TTC-Konzepts k{\"o}nnen Grenzwerte f{\"u}r Stoffe geringer Exposition festgelegt werden, zu denen keine toxikologischen Daten zur Verf{\"u}gung stehen. In dieser Arbeit wurden f{\"u}r die Stoffe dreier Datenbanken entsprechende Grenzwerte festgelegt. Es erfolgte zun{\"a}chst eine g{\"a}ngige strukturbasierte Aufteilung der Substanzen in die Kategorien "nicht toxisch", "m{\"o}glicherweise toxisch" und "eindeutig toxisch". Substanzen, die aufgrund ihrer Struktur in eine der drei Klassen eingeordnet werden, erhalten den entsprechenden Grenzwert. Da in die dritte Klasse auch Stoffe eingeordnet werden, deren Toxizit{\"a}t nicht bestimmbar ist, ist sie sehr groß. Daher wurden in dieser Arbeit die ersten beiden Klassen zusammengelgt, um einen gr{\"o}ßeren Datenpool zu erm{\"o}glichen. Eine weitere Neuerung umfasst die Erstellung eines internen Grenzwerts. Diese Vorgehensweise hat den Vorteil, dass der Expositionsweg herausgerechnet wird und somit beispielsweise Studien mit oraler Verabreichung mit Studien dermaler Verabreichung verglichen werden k{\"o}nnen. Mittels physiologisch basiertem kinetischem Modelling ist es m{\"o}glich, Vorg{\"a}nge im menschlichen K{\"o}rper mit Hilfe spezieller Software nachzuvollziehen. Durch diese Vorgehensweise k{\"o}nnen Expositionen von Chemikalien simuliert werden. In einem Teil der Arbeit wurden Alkoholexpositionen von gestillten Neugeborenen simuliert, deren M{\"u}tter unmittelbar zuvor alkoholische Getr{\"a}nke konsumiert hatten. Mit dem Modell konnte gezeigt werden, dass die Expositionen des Kindes durchweg gering waren. Nach einem Glas Wein wurden Spitzenkonzentrationen im Blut von Neugeborenen von 0,0034 Promille ermittelt. Zum Vergleich wurde die Exposition durch ein f{\"u}r S{\"a}uglinge zugelassenes alkoholhaltiges pflanzliches Arzneimittel simuliert. Hier wurden Spitzenkonzentrationen von 0,0141 Promille erreicht. Daher scheinen Empfehlungen wie gelegentlicher Konsum ohne sch{\"a}digende Wirkung auf das Kind wissenschaftlich fundiert zu sein. Ein weiteres Kinetik-Modell befasste sich mit dem Stoffwechsel von Bisphenol A. Teils widerspr{\"u}chliche Daten zur Belastung mit BPA in der wissenschaftlichen Literatur f{\"u}hren wiederholt zu Anregungen, den Grenzwert der Chemikalie anzupassen. Die Funktionalit{\"a}t der am Metabolismus beteiligten Enzyme kann je nach Individuum unterschiedlich ausgepr{\"a}gt sein. Mittels Modellings konnte hier gezeigt werden, dass dies maßgeblich dazu f{\"u}hrt, dass sich berechnete Plasmaspiegel von Individuen bis zu 4,7-fach unterscheiden. Die Arbeit konnte somit einen Beitrag zur Nutzung und Weiterentwicklung von In-silico-Modellen f{\"u}r diverse toxikologische Fragestellungen leisten.}, language = {de} } @phdthesis{Limberger2024, author = {Limberger, Daniel}, title = {Concepts and techniques for 3D-embedded treemaps and their application to software visualization}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-63201}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-632014}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xi, 118}, year = {2024}, abstract = {This thesis addresses concepts and techniques for interactive visualization of hierarchical data using treemaps. It explores (1) how treemaps can be embedded in 3D space to improve their information content and expressiveness, (2) how the readability of treemaps can be improved using level-of-detail and degree-of-interest techniques, and (3) how to design and implement a software framework for the real-time web-based rendering of treemaps embedded in 3D. With a particular emphasis on their application, use cases from software analytics are taken to test and evaluate the presented concepts and techniques. Concerning the first challenge, this thesis shows that a 3D attribute space offers enhanced possibilities for the visual mapping of data compared to classical 2D treemaps. In particular, embedding in 3D allows for improved implementation of visual variables (e.g., by sketchiness and color weaving), provision of new visual variables (e.g., by physically based materials and in situ templates), and integration of visual metaphors (e.g., by reference surfaces and renderings of natural phenomena) into the three-dimensional representation of treemaps. For the second challenge—the readability of an information visualization—the work shows that the generally higher visual clutter and increased cognitive load typically associated with three-dimensional information representations can be kept low in treemap-based representations of both small and large hierarchical datasets. By introducing an adaptive level-of-detail technique, we cannot only declutter the visualization results, thereby reducing cognitive load and mitigating occlusion problems, but also summarize and highlight relevant data. Furthermore, this approach facilitates automatic labeling, supports the emphasis on data outliers, and allows visual variables to be adjusted via degree-of-interest measures. The third challenge is addressed by developing a real-time rendering framework with WebGL and accumulative multi-frame rendering. The framework removes hardware constraints and graphics API requirements, reduces interaction response times, and simplifies high-quality rendering. At the same time, the implementation effort for a web-based deployment of treemaps is kept reasonable. The presented visualization concepts and techniques are applied and evaluated for use cases in software analysis. In this domain, data about software systems, especially about the state and evolution of the source code, does not have a descriptive appearance or natural geometric mapping, making information visualization a key technology here. In particular, software source code can be visualized with treemap-based approaches because of its inherently hierarchical structure. With treemaps embedded in 3D, we can create interactive software maps that visually map, software metrics, software developer activities, or information about the evolution of software systems alongside their hierarchical module structure. Discussions on remaining challenges and opportunities for future research for 3D-embedded treemaps and their applications conclude the thesis.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Richter2018, author = {Richter, Rico}, title = {Concepts and techniques for processing and rendering of massive 3D point clouds}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-42330}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-423304}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {v, 131}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Remote sensing technology, such as airborne, mobile, or terrestrial laser scanning, and photogrammetric techniques, are fundamental approaches for efficient, automatic creation of digital representations of spatial environments. For example, they allow us to generate 3D point clouds of landscapes, cities, infrastructure networks, and sites. As essential and universal category of geodata, 3D point clouds are used and processed by a growing number of applications, services, and systems such as in the domains of urban planning, landscape architecture, environmental monitoring, disaster management, virtual geographic environments as well as for spatial analysis and simulation. While the acquisition processes for 3D point clouds become more and more reliable and widely-used, applications and systems are faced with more and more 3D point cloud data. In addition, 3D point clouds, by their very nature, are raw data, i.e., they do not contain any structural or semantics information. Many processing strategies common to GIS such as deriving polygon-based 3D models generally do not scale for billions of points. GIS typically reduce data density and precision of 3D point clouds to cope with the sheer amount of data, but that results in a significant loss of valuable information at the same time. This thesis proposes concepts and techniques designed to efficiently store and process massive 3D point clouds. To this end, object-class segmentation approaches are presented to attribute semantics to 3D point clouds, used, for example, to identify building, vegetation, and ground structures and, thus, to enable processing, analyzing, and visualizing 3D point clouds in a more effective and efficient way. Similarly, change detection and updating strategies for 3D point clouds are introduced that allow for reducing storage requirements and incrementally updating 3D point cloud databases. In addition, this thesis presents out-of-core, real-time rendering techniques used to interactively explore 3D point clouds and related analysis results. All techniques have been implemented based on specialized spatial data structures, out-of-core algorithms, and GPU-based processing schemas to cope with massive 3D point clouds having billions of points. All proposed techniques have been evaluated and demonstrated their applicability to the field of geospatial applications and systems, in particular for tasks such as classification, processing, and visualization. Case studies for 3D point clouds of entire cities with up to 80 billion points show that the presented approaches open up new ways to manage and apply large-scale, dense, and time-variant 3D point clouds as required by a rapidly growing number of applications and systems.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Penisson2010, author = {P{\´e}nisson, Sophie}, title = {Conditional limit theorems for multitype branching processes and illustration in epidemiological risk analysis}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-45307}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2010}, abstract = {This thesis is concerned with the issue of extinction of populations composed of different types of individuals, and their behavior before extinction and in case of a very late extinction. We approach this question firstly from a strictly probabilistic viewpoint, and secondly from the standpoint of risk analysis related to the extinction of a particular model of population dynamics. In this context we propose several statistical tools. The population size is modeled by a branching process, which is either a continuous-time multitype Bienaym{\´e}-Galton-Watson process (BGWc), or its continuous-state counterpart, the multitype Feller diffusion process. We are interested in different kinds of conditioning on non-extinction, and in the associated equilibrium states. These ways of conditioning have been widely studied in the monotype case. However the literature on multitype processes is much less extensive, and there is no systematic work establishing connections between the results for BGWc processes and those for Feller diffusion processes. In the first part of this thesis, we investigate the behavior of the population before its extinction by conditioning the associated branching process X_t on non-extinction (X_t≠0), or more generally on non-extinction in a near future 0≤θ<∞ (X_{t+θ}≠0), and by letting t tend to infinity. We prove the result, new in the multitype framework and for θ>0, that this limit exists and is non-degenerate. This reflects a stationary behavior for the dynamics of the population conditioned on non-extinction, and provides a generalization of the so-called Yaglom limit, corresponding to the case θ=0. In a second step we study the behavior of the population in case of a very late extinction, obtained as the limit when θ tends to infinity of the process conditioned by X_{t+θ}≠0. The resulting conditioned process is a known object in the monotype case (sometimes referred to as Q-process), and has also been studied when X_t is a multitype Feller diffusion process. We investigate the not yet considered case where X_t is a multitype BGWc process and prove the existence of the associated Q-process. In addition, we examine its properties, including the asymptotic ones, and propose several interpretations of the process. Finally, we are interested in interchanging the limits in t and θ, as well as in the not yet studied commutativity of these limits with respect to the high-density-type relationship between BGWc processes and Feller processes. We prove an original and exhaustive list of all possible exchanges of limit (long-time limit in t, increasing delay of extinction θ, diffusion limit). The second part of this work is devoted to the risk analysis related both to the extinction of a population and to its very late extinction. We consider a branching population model (arising notably in the epidemiological context) for which a parameter related to the first moments of the offspring distribution is unknown. We build several estimators adapted to different stages of evolution of the population (phase growth, decay phase, and decay phase when extinction is expected very late), and prove moreover their asymptotic properties (consistency, normality). In particular, we build a least squares estimator adapted to the Q-process, allowing a prediction of the population development in the case of a very late extinction. This would correspond to the best or to the worst-case scenario, depending on whether the population is threatened or invasive. These tools enable us to study the extinction phase of the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy epidemic in Great Britain, for which we estimate the infection parameter corresponding to a possible source of horizontal infection persisting after the removal in 1988 of the major route of infection (meat and bone meal). This allows us to predict the evolution of the spread of the disease, including the year of extinction, the number of future cases and the number of infected animals. In particular, we produce a very fine analysis of the evolution of the epidemic in the unlikely event of a very late extinction.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Timpanaro2004, author = {Timpanaro, Salvatore}, title = {Conductive properties and morphology of conjugated molecular materials studied by local probe techniques}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-0001929}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2004}, abstract = {Die vorgelegte Arbeit befasst sich mit der Untersuchung von Zusammenh{\"a}ngen zwischen der Struktur d{\"u}nner organischer Schichten und stellt einen Bezug zur Leitf{\"a}higkeit der Schichten her. Sie liefert einen Beitrag zum vertieften Verst{\"a}ndnis der Transporteigenschaf-ten organischer Halbleiter und soll so zur Verbesserung organischer elektronischer Bauele-mente beitragen. Es ist bekannt, dass die Effizienz von Organischen Leuchtdioden (OLEDs) stark von der Qualit{\"a}t der eingesetzten d{\"u}nnen Filme abh{\"a}ngt. Es ist deshalb interessant, die Strukturen technologisch interessanter organischer Filme mittels Scanning Probe Mikrosko-pie (SPM) zu charakterisieren, um ein besseres Verst{\"a}ndnis sowohl der Oberfl{\"a}chen-Morphologie als auch der molekularen/atomaren Packungen zu erhalten. Die Untersuchung von Quaterthiophen (4T), welches vielfach in Feldeffekt-Transistoren eingesetzt wird, bildet einen ersten Schwerpunkt der Arbeit. Es konnte eine neue Kristall-struktur von 4T gefunden werden, die bisher nicht bekannt war. Daf{\"u}r wurden Quaterthi-ophen-Filme untersucht, welche auf Kaliumphthalat (KAP) aufwuchsen. Die Aufkl{\"a}rung der neuen Struktur gelang durch Kombinierten Einsatz von optischen und R{\"o}ntgen-Beugungsmessungen. Zur Best{\"a}tigung der triklinen Kristall-Einheitszelle mit den Parame-tern a = 0,721 nm, b = 0,632 nm, c = 0,956 nm und α = 91o, β = 91,4o, γ = 91o wurde außer-dem die Atomkraft-Mikroskopie (AFM) angewendet. In Fortf{\"u}hrung der rastermikroskopischen Messungen sind die Morphologien von Filmen vier weiterer organischer Materialien technologischer Relevanz untersucht worden: He-xanthiol-Monoschichten auf Gold, Azobenzenthiol-Monoschichten auf Gold, Para-Phenylenvinylen-Oligomer-Filme auf Gold und Phenyl-Oxadiazol-Filme auf Gold. Daf{\"u}r kam zus{\"a}tzlich die Ultrahochvakuum-Scanning-Tunneling-Mikroskopie (UHV-STM) zum Einsatz. Es zeigte sich eine Vielzahl morphologischer Eigenheiten, deren Besonderheiten sowohl von den gew{\"a}hlten Substraten als auch von der chemischen Struktur der untersuchten organischen Materialien abh{\"a}ngen. So zeigen Para-Phenylenvinylen-Oligomer-Filme eine St{\"a}bchen- und Oxadiazol-Filme eine K{\"o}rnchen-Struktur auf Gold. Auf Basis dieser Kenntnisse gelang es, das optisch induzierte Schalten von Azobenzen durch STM-Untersuchungen und durch Scanning Tunneling Spektroskopie (STS) auf molekularer Skale nachzuweisen. Die Topographie einer Reihe von Poly(3,4-ethylendioxythiophen)-(PEDOT)-Filmen und de-ren Bezug zu den Ladungstransporteigenschaften dieser Filme war ein weiterer Arbeits-schwerpunkt. PEDOT-Filme auf Indium-Zinn-Oxid (ITO) kommen in organischen elektro-nischen Bauelementen als Lochinjektionsschichten zum Einsatz. F{\"u}r die Schichtherstellung kamen Dispersionen des Polymers unterschiedlicher Konzentration zur Anwendung: Mittels AFM und STM konnte gezeigt werden, dass unterschiedliche Konzentrationen zu unter-schiedlichen Topographien f{\"u}hren. Besonders die Oberfl{\"a}che der Filme mit hoher Konzent-ration von PEDOT, d.h. die der leitf{\"a}higsten Filme, wird durch eine k{\"o}rnchenartige Struktur eingebetteter Teilchen charakterisiert. Durch STM Strom-Abstands-(I-d)-Untersuchungen wurde gefunden, dass diese Teilchen die „Spitze eines Eisbergs" leitf{\"a}higer Dom{\"a}nen dar-stellen. Ausgehend von dieser Erkenntnis wird ein Strukturmodell f{\"u}r die Filme vorgeschla-gen, in dem die leitf{\"a}higen Dom{\"a}nen / Partikel in eine weniger leitf{\"a}hige Matrix eingebettet sind. Durch Zugabe von Polyolen wie Sorbitol zur PEDOT-Dispersion ließen sich Filme mit h{\"o}herer Leitf{\"a}higkeit herstellen. Eine klare Abh{\"a}ngigkeit zwischen der Leitf{\"a}higkeit und der bisher nicht beschrieben nano-Morphologie wurde gefunden.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Gutjahr2007, author = {Gutjahr, Petra}, title = {Conformations of semiflexible polymers and filaments}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-15918}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2007}, abstract = {The biological function and the technological applications of semiflexible polymers, such as DNA, actin filaments and carbon nanotubes, strongly depend on their rigidity. Semiflexible polymers are characterized by their persistence length, the definition of which is the subject of the first part of this thesis. Attractive interactions, that arise e.g.~in the adsorption, the condensation and the bundling of filaments, can change the conformation of a semiflexible polymer. The conformation depends on the relative magnitude of the material parameters and can be influenced by them in a systematic manner. In particular, the morphologies of semiflexible polymer rings, such as circular nanotubes or DNA, which are adsorbed onto substrates with three types of structures, are studied: (i) A topographical channel, (ii) a chemically modified stripe and (iii) a periodic pattern of topographical steps. The results are compared with the condensation of rings by attractive interactions. Furthermore, the bundling of two individual actin filaments, whose ends are anchored, is analyzed. This system geometry is shown to provide a systematic and quantitative method to extract the magnitude of the attraction between the filaments from experimentally observable conformations of the filaments.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Guidi2017, author = {Guidi, Giovanni}, title = {Connecting simulations and observations in galaxy formation studies}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-396876}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {141}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Observational and computational extragalactic astrophysics are two fields of research that study a similar subject from different perspectives. Observational extragalactic astrophysics aims, by recovering the spectral energy distribution of galaxies at different wavelengths, to reliably measure their properties at different cosmic times and in a large variety of environments. Analyzing the light collected by the instruments, observers try to disentangle the different processes occurring in galaxies at the scales of galactic physics, as well as the effect of larger scale processes such as mergers and accretion, in order to obtain a consistent picture of galaxy formation and evolution. On the other hand, hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation in cosmological context are able to follow the evolution of a galaxy along cosmic time, taking into account both external processes such as mergers, interactions and accretion, and internal mechanisms such as feedback from Supernovae and Active Galactic Nuclei. Due to the great advances in both fields of research, we have nowadays available spectral and photometric information for a large number of galaxies in the Universe at different cosmic times, which has in turn provided important knowledge about the evolution of the Universe; at the same time, we are able to realistically simulate galaxy formation and evolution in large volumes of the Universe, taking into account the most relevant physical processes occurring in galaxies. As these two approaches are intrinsically different in their methodology and in the information they provide, the connection between simulations and observations is still not fully established, although simulations are often used in galaxies' studies to interpret observations and assess the effect of the different processes acting on galaxies on the observable properties, and simulators usually test the physical recipes implemented in their hydrodynamical codes through the comparison with observations. In this dissertation we aim to better connect the observational and computational approaches in the study of galaxy formation and evolution, using the methods and results of one field to test and validate the methods and results of the other. In a first work we study the biases and systematics in the derivation of the galaxy properties in observations. We post-process hydrodynamical cosmological simulations of galaxy formation to calculate the galaxies' Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs) using different approaches, including radiative transfer techniques. Comparing the direct results of the simulations with the quantities obtained applying observational techniques to these synthetic SEDs, we are able to make an analysis of the biases intrinsic in the observational algorithms, and quantify their accuracy in recovering the galaxies' properties, as well as estimating the uncertainties affecting a comparison between simulations and observations when different approaches to obtain the observables are followed. Our results show that for some quantities such as the stellar ages, metallicities and gas oxygen abundances large differences can appear, depending on the technique applied in the derivation. In a second work we compare a set of fifteen galaxies similar in mass to the Milky Way and with a quiet merger history in the recent past (hence expected to have properties close to spiral galaxies), simulated in a cosmological context, with data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We use techniques to obtain the observables as similar as possible to the ones applied in SDSS, with the aim of making an unbiased comparison between our set of hydrodynamical simulations and SDSS observations. We quantify the differences in the physical properties when these are obtained directly from the simulations without post-processing, or mimicking the SDSS observational techniques. We fit linear relations between the values derived directly from the simulations and following SDSS observational procedures, which in most of the cases have relatively high correlation, that can be easily used to more reliably compare simulations with SDSS data. When mimicking SDSS techniques, these simulated galaxies are photometrically similar to galaxies in the SDSS blue sequence/green valley, but have in general older ages, lower SFRs and metallicities compared to the majority of the spirals in the observational dataset. In a third work, we post-process hydrodynamical simulations of galaxies with radiative transfer techniques, to generate synthetic data that mimic the properties of the CALIFA Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS) survey. We reproduce the main characteristics of the CALIFA observations in terms of field of view and spaxel physical size, data format, point spread functions and detector noise. This 3-dimensional dataset is suited to be analyzed by the same algorithms applied to the CALIFA dataset, and can be used as a tool to test the ability of the observational algorithms in recovering the properties of the CALIFA galaxies. To this purpose, we also generate the resolved maps of the simulations' properties, calculated directly from the hydrodynamical snapshots, or from the simulated spectra prior to the addition of the noise. Our work shows that a reliable connection between the models and the data is of crucial importance both to judge the output of galaxy formation codes and to accurately test the observational algorithms used in the analysis of galaxy surveys' data. A correct interpretation of observations will be particularly important in the future, in light of the several ongoing and planned large galaxy surveys that will provide the community with large datasets of properties of galaxies (often spatially-resolved) at different cosmic times, allowing to study galaxy formation physics at a higher level of detail than ever before. We have shown that neglecting the observational biases in the comparison between simulations and an observational dataset may move the simulations to different regions in the planes of the observables, strongly affecting the assessment of the correctness of the sub-resolution physical models implemented in galaxy formation codes, as well as the interpretation of given observational results using simulations.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{BrehmJurish2005, author = {Brehm-Jurish, Eva Ute}, title = {Connective ties in discourse : three ERP-studies on causal, temporal and concessive connective ties and their influence on language processing}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-6780}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2005}, abstract = {Connective ties in discourse: Three ERP studies on causal, temporal and concessive connective ties and their influence on language processing. Questions In four experiments the influence of lexical connectives such as " darum", therefore, " danach", afterwards, and " trotzdem", nevertheless, on the processing of short two-sentence discourses was examined and compared to the processing of deictical sentential adverbs such as " gestern", yesterday, and " lieber", rather. These latter words do not have the property of signaling a certain discourse relation between two sentences, as connective ties do. Three questions were central to the work: * Do the processing contrasts found between connective and non-connective elements extend to connective ties and deictical sentential adverbs (experiments 2 and 3)? * Does the semantic content of the connective ties play the primary role, i.e is the major distinction to be made indeed between connective and non-connective or instead between causal, temporal and concessive? * When precisely is the information provided by connective ties used? There is some evidence that connective ties can have an immediate influence on the integration of subsequent elements, but the end of the second sentences appears to play an important role as well: experiments 2, 3, and 4. Conclusions First of all, the theoretical distinction between connective and non-connective elements does indeed have " cognitive reality" . This has already been shown in previous studies. The present studies do however show, that there is also a difference between one-place discourse elements (deictical sentential adverbs) and two-place discourse elements, namely connective ties, since all experiments examining this contrast found evidence for qualitatively and quantitatively different processing (experiments 1, 2, and 3). Secondly, the semantic type of the connective ties also plays a role. This was not shown for the LAN, found for all connective ties when compared to non-connective elements, and consequently interpreted as a more abstract reflection of the integration of connective ties. There was also no difference between causal and temporal connective ties before the end of the discourses in experiment 3. However, the N400 found for incoherent discourses in experiment 2, larger for connective incoherent than non-connective incoherent discourses, as well as the P3b found for concessive connective ties in the comparison between causal and concessive connective ties gave reason to assume that the semantic content of connective ties is made use of in incremental processing, and that the relation signaled by the connective tie is the one that readers attempt to construct. Concerning when the information provided by connective ties is used, it appears as if connectivity is generally and obligatorily taken at face value. As long as the meaning of a connective tie did not conflict with a preferred canonical discourse relation, there were no differences found for varying connective discourses (experiment 3). However, the fact that concessive connective ties announce the need for a more complex text representation was recognized and made use of immediately (experiment 4). Additionally, a violation of the discourse relation resulted in more difficult semantic integration if a connective tie was present (experiment 2). It is therefore concluded here that connective ties influence processing immediately. This claim has to be modified somewhat, since the sentence-final elements suggested that connective ties trigger different integration processes than non-connective elements. It seems as if the answer to the question of when connective ties are processed is neither exclusively immediately nor exclusively afterwards, but that both viewpoints are correct. It is suggested here that before the end of a discourse economy plays a central role in that a canonical relation is assumed unless there is evidence to the contrary. A connective tie could have the function of reducing the dimensions evaluated in a discourse to the one signaled by the connective tie. At the end of the discourse the representation is evaluated and verified, and an integrated situation model constructed. Here, the complexity of the different discourse relations that connective ties can signal, is expressed.}, subject = {Sprachverarbeitung }, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Jonic2021, author = {Jonic, Sanja}, title = {Constraining black hole growth across cosmic time}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-50975}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-509753}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {viii, 175}, year = {2021}, abstract = {Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are considered to be the main powering source of active galaxies, where central Super Massive Black Holes (SMBHs), with masses between 106 and 109 M⊙ gravitationally pull the surrounding material via accre- tion. AGN phenomenon expands over a very wide range of luminosities, from the most luminous high-redshift quasars (QSOs), to the local Low-Luminosity AGN (LLAGN), with significantly weaker luminosities. While "typical" luminous AGNs distinguish themselves by their characteristical blue featureless continuum, the Broad Emission Lines (BELs) with Full Widths at Half Maximum (FWHM) in order of few thousands km s1, arising from the so-called Broad Line Region (BLR), and strong radio and/or X-ray emission, detection of LLAGNs on the other hand is quite chal- lenging due to their extremely weak emission lines, and absence of the power-law continuum. In order to fully understand AGN evolution and their duty-cycles across cosmic history, we need a proper knowledge of AGN phenomenon at all luminosi- ties and redshifts, as well as perspectives from different wavelength bands. In this thesis I present a search for AGN signatures in central spectra of 542 local (0.005 < z < 0.03) galaxies from the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey. The adopted aperture of 3′′ × 3′′ corresponds to central ∼ 100 - 500 pc for the redshift range of CALIFA. Using the standard emission-line ratio diagnostic diagrams, we initially classified all CALIFA emission-line galaxies (526) into star- forming, LINER-like, Seyfert 2 and intermediates. We further detected signatures of the broad Hα component in 89 spectra from the sample, of which more than 60\% are present in the central spectra of LINER-like galaxies. These BELs are very weak, with luminosities in range 1038 - 1041 erg s-1, but with FWHMs between 1000 km s-1 and 6000 km s-1, comparable to those of luminous high-z AGN. This result implies that type 1 AGN are in fact quite frequent in the local Universe. We also identified additional 29 Seyfert 2 galaxies using the emission-line ratio diagnostic diagrams. Using the MBH - σ∗ correlation, we estimated black hole masses of 55 type 1 AGN from CALIFA, a sample for which we had estimates of bulge stellar velocity dispersions σ∗. We compared these masses to the ones that we estimated from the virial method and found large discrepancies. We analyzed the validity of both meth- ods for black hole mass estimation of local LLAGN, and concluded that most likely virial scaling relations can no longer be applied as a valid MBH estimator in such low-luminosity regime. These black holes accrete at very low rate, having Edding- ton ratios in range 4.1 × 10-5 - 2.4 × 10-3. Detection of BELs with such low lumi- nosities and at such low Eddington rates implies that these LLAGN are still able to form the BLR, although with probably modified structure of the central engine. In order to obtain full picture of black hole growth across cosmic time, it is es- sential that we study them in different stages of their activity. For that purpose, we estimated the broad AGN Luminosity Function (AGNLF) of our entire type 1 AGN sample using the 1/Vmax method. The shape of AGNLF indicates an apparent flattening below luminosities LHα ∼ 1039 erg s-1. Correspondingly we estimated ac- tive Black Hole Mass Function (BHMF) and Eddington Ration Distribution Function (ERDF) for a sub-sample of type 1 AGN for which we have MBH and λ estimates. The flattening is also present in both BHMF and ERDF, around log(MBH) ∼ 7.7 and log(λ) < 3, respectively. We estimated the fraction of active SMBHs in CALIFA by comparing our active BHMF to the one of the local quiescent SMBHs. The shape of the active fraction which decreases with increasing MBH, as well as the flattening of AGNLF, BHMF and ERDF is consistent with scenario of AGN cosmic downsizing. To complete AGN census in the CALIFA galaxy sample, it is necessary to search for them in various wavelength bands. For the purpose of completing the census we performed cross-correlations between all 542 CALIFA galaxies and multiwavelength surveys, Swift - BAT 105 month catalogue (in hard 15 - 195 keV X-ray band), and NRAO VLA Sky Survey (NVSS, in 1.4 GHz radio domain). This added 1 new AGN candidate in X-ray, and 7 in radio wavelength band to our local LLAGN count. It is possible to detect AGN emission signatures within 10 - 20 kpc outside of the central galactic regions. This may happen when the central AGN has recently switched off and the photoionized material is spread across the galaxy within the light-travel-time, or the photoionized material is blown away from the nucleus by outflows. In order to detect these extended AGN regions we constructed spatially resolved emission-line ratio diagnostic diagrams of all emission-line galaxies from the CALIFA, and found 1 new object that was previously not identified as AGN. Obtaining the complete AGN census in CALIFA, with five different AGN types, showed that LLAGN contribute a significant fraction of 24\% of the emission-line galaxies in the CALIFA sample. This result implies that AGN are quite common in the local Universe, and although being in very low activity stage, they contribute to large fraction of all local SMBHs. Within this thesis we approached the upper limit of AGN fraction in the local Universe and gained some deeper understanding of the LLAGN phenomenon.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Codeco2019, author = {Codeco, Marta Sofia Ferreira}, title = {Constraining the hydrology at Minas da Panasqueira W-Sn-Cu deposit, Portugal}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-42975}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-429752}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {xxviii, 232}, year = {2019}, abstract = {This dissertation combines field and geochemical observations and analyses with numerical modeling to understand the formation of vein-hosted Sn-W ore in the Panasqueira deposit of Portugal, which is among the ten largest worldwide. The deposit is located above a granite body that is altered by magmatic-hydrothermal fluids in its upper part (greisen). These fluids are thought to be the source of metals, but that was still under debate. The goal of this study is to determine the composition and temperature of hydrothermal fluids at Panasqueira, and with that information to construct a numerical model of the hydrothermal system. The focus is on analysis of the minerals tourmaline and white mica, which formed during mineralization and are widespread throughout the deposit. Tourmaline occurs mainly in alteration zones around mineralized veins and is less abundant in the vein margins. White mica is more widespread. It is abundant in vein margins as well as alteration zones, and also occurs in the granite greisen. The laboratory work involved in-situ microanalysis of major- and trace elements in tourmaline and white mica, and boron-isotope analysis in both minerals by secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). The boron-isotope composition of tourmaline and white mica suggests a magmatic source. Comparison of hydrothermally-altered and unaltered rocks from drill cores shows that the ore metals (W, Sn, Cu, and Zn) and As, F, Li, Rb, and Cs were introduced during the alteration. Most of these elements are also enriched in tourmaline and mica, which confirms their potential value as exploration guides to Sn-W ores elsewhere. The thermal evolution of the hydrothermal system was estimated by B-isotope exchange thermometry and the Ti-in-quartz method. Both methods yielded similar temperatures for the early hydrothermal phase: 430° to 460°C for B-isotopes and 503° ± 24°C for Ti-in-quartz. Mineral pairs from a late fault zone yield significantly lower median temperatures of 250°C. The combined results of thermometry with variations in chemical and B-isotope composition of tourmaline and mica suggest that a similar magmatic-hydrothermal fluid was active at all stages of mineralization. Mineralization in the late stage shows the same B-isotope composition as in the main stage despite a ca. 250°C cooling, which supports a multiple injection model of magmatic-hydrothermal fluids. Two-dimensional numerical simulations of convection in a multiphase NaCl hydrothermal system were conducted: (a) in order to test a new approach (lower dimensional elements) for flow through fractures and faults and (b) in order to identify conditions for horizontal fluid flow as observed in the flat-lying veins at Panasqueira. The results show that fluid flow over an intrusion (heat and fluid source) develops a horizontal component if there is sufficient fracture connectivity. Late, steep fault zones have been identified in the deposit area, which locally contain low-temperature Zn-Pb mineralization. The model results confirm that the presence of subvertical faults with enhanced permeability play a crucial role in the ascent of magmatic fluids to the surface and the recharge of meteoric waters. Finally, our model results suggest that recharge of meteoric fluids and mixing processes may be important at later stages, while flow of magmatic fluids dominate the early stages of the hydrothermal fluid circulation.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Korges2019, author = {Korges, Maximilian}, title = {Constraining the hydrology of intrusion-related ore deposits with fluid inclusions and numerical modeling}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-43484}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-434843}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {VIII, 99}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Magmatic-hydrothermal fluids are responsible for numerous mineralization types, including porphyry copper and granite related tin-tungsten (Sn-W) deposits. Ore formation is dependent on various factors, including, the pressure and temperature regime of the intrusions, the chemical composition of the magma and hydrothermal fluids, and fluid rock interaction during the ascent. Fluid inclusions have potential to provide direct information on the temperature, salinity, pressure and chemical composition of fluids responsible for ore formation. Numerical modeling allows the parametrization of pluton features that cannot be analyzed directly via geological observations. Microthermometry of fluid inclusions from the Zinnwald Sn-W deposit, Erzgebirge, Germany / Czech Republic, provide evidence that the greisen mineralization is associated with a low salinity (2-10 wt.\% NaCl eq.) fluid with homogenization temperatures between 350°C and 400°C. Quartzes from numerous veins are host to inclusions with the same temperatures and salinities, whereas cassiterite- and wolframite-hosted assemblages with slightly lower temperatures (around 350°C) and higher salinities (ca. 15 wt. NaCl eq.). Further, rare quartz samples contained boiling assemblages consisting of coexisting brine and vapor phases. The formation of ore minerals within the greisen is driven by invasive fluid-rock interaction, resulting in the loss of complexing agents (Cl-) leading to precipitation of cassiterite. The fluid inclusion record in the veins suggests boiling as the main reason for cassiterite and wolframite mineralization. Ore and coexisting gangue minerals hosted different types of fluid inclusions where the beginning boiling processes are solely preserved by the ore minerals emphasizing the importance of microthermometry in ore minerals. Further, the study indicates that boiling as a precipitation mechanism can only occur in mineralization related to shallow intrusions whereas deeper plutons prevent the fluid from boiling and can therefore form tungsten mineralization in the distal regions. The tin mineralization in the H{\"a}mmerlein deposit, Erzgebirge, Germany, occurs within a skarn horizon and the underlying schist. Cassiterite within the skarn contains highly saline (30-50 wt\% NaCl eq.) fluid inclusions, with homogenization temperatures up to 500°C, whereas cassiterites from the schist and additional greisen samples contain inclusions of lower salinity (~5 wt\% NaCl eq.) and temperature (between 350 and 400°C). Inclusions in the gangue minerals (quartz, fluorite) preserve homogenization temperatures below 350°C and sphalerite showed the lowest homogenization temperatures (ca. 200°C) whereby all minerals (cassiterite from schist and greisen, gangue minerals and sphalerite) show similar salinity ranges (2-5 wt\% NaCl eq.). Similar trace element contents and linear trends in the chemistry of the inclusions suggest a common source fluid. The inclusion record in the H{\"a}mmerlein deposit documents an early exsolution of hot brines from the underlying granite which is responsible for the mineralization hosted by the skarn. Cassiterites in schist and greisen are mainly forming due to fluid-rock interaction at lower temperatures. The low temperature inclusions documented in the sphalerite mineralization as well as their generally low trace element composition in comparison to the other minerals suggests that their formation was induced by mixing with meteoric fluids. Numerical simulations of magma chambers and overlying copper distribution document the importance of incremental growth by sills. We analyzed the cooling behavior at variable injection intervals as well as sill thicknesses. The models suggest that magma accumulation requires volumetric injection rates of at least 4 x 10-4 km³/y. These injection rates are further needed to form a stable magmatic-hydrothermal fluid plume above the magma chamber to ensure a constant copper precipitation and enrichment within a confined location in order to form high-grade ore shells within a narrow geological timeframe between 50 and 100 kyrs as suggested for porphyry copper deposits. The highest copper enrichment can be found in regions with steep temperature gradients, typical of regions where the magmatic-hydrothermal fluid meets the cooler ambient fluids.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Dall'Aglio2009, author = {Dall'Aglio, Aldo}, title = {Constraining the UV background with the proximity effect}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-38713}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, year = {2009}, abstract = {After the epoch of reionisation the intergalactic medium (IGM) is kept at a high photoionisation level by the cosmic UV background radiation field. Primarily composed of the integrated contribution of quasars and young star forming galaxies, its intensity is subject to spatial and temporal fluctuations. In particular in the vicinity of luminous quasars, the UV radiation intensity grows by several orders of magnitude. Due to an enhanced UV radiation up to a few Mpc from the quasar, the ionised hydrogen fraction significantly increases and becomes visible as a reduced level of absorption in the HI Lyman alpha (Ly-alpha) forest. This phenomenon is known as the proximity effect and it is the main focus of this thesis. Modelling the influence on the IGM of the quasar radiation, one is able to determine the UV background intensity at a specific frequency (J_nu_0), or equivalently, its photoionisation rate (Gamma_b). This is of crucial importance for both theoretical and observational cosmology. Thus far, the proximity effect has been investigated primarily by combining the signal of large samples of quasars, as it has been regarded as a statistical phenomenon. Only a handful of studies tried to measure its signature on individual lines of sight, albeit focusing on one sight line only. Our aim is to perform a systematic investigation of large samples of quasars searching for the signature of the proximity effect, with a particular emphasis on its detection on individual lines of sight. We begin this survey with a sample of 40 high resolution (R~45000), high signal to noise ratio (S/N~70) quasar spectra at redshift 2.12.3. In spite of the low resolution and limited S/N we detect the proximity effect on about 98\\% of the quasars at a high significance level. Thereby we are able to determine the evolution of the UV background photoionisation rate within the redshift range 2