@misc{KienzlerPechKreibichetal.2014, author = {Kienzler, Sarah and Pech, I. and Kreibich, Heidi and M{\"u}ller, M. and Thieken, Annegret}, title = {After the extreme flood in 2002}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Mathematisch Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Mathematisch Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {488}, issn = {1866-8372}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-40805}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-408056}, pages = {505 -- 526}, year = {2014}, abstract = {In the aftermath of the severe flooding in Central Europe in August 2002, a number of changes in flood policies were launched in Germany and other European countries, aiming at improved risk management. The question arises as to whether these changes have already had an impact on the residents' ability to cope with floods, and whether flood-affected private households are now better prepared than they were in 2002. Therefore, computer-aided telephone interviews with private households in Germany that suffered from property damage due to flooding in 2005, 2006, 2010 or 2011 were performed and analysed with respect to flood awareness, precaution, preparedness and recovery. The data were compared to a similar investigation conducted after the flood in 2002. After the flood in 2002, the level of private precautions taken increased considerably. One contributing factor is the fact that, in general, a larger proportion of people knew that they were at risk of flooding. The best level of precaution was found before the flood events in 2006 and 2011. The main reason for this might be that residents had more experience with flooding than residents affected in 2005 or 2010. Yet, overall, flood experience and knowledge did not necessarily result in building retrofitting or flood-proofing measures, which are considered as mitigating damages most effectively. Hence, investments still need to be stimulated in order to reduce future damage more efficiently. Early warning and emergency responses were substantially influenced by flood characteristics. In contrast to flood-affected people in 2006 or 2011, people affected by flooding in 2005 or 2010 had to deal with shorter lead times and therefore had less time to take emergency measures. Yet, the lower level of emergency measures taken also resulted from the people's lack of flood experience and insufficient knowledge of how to protect themselves. Overall, it was noticeable that these residents suffered from higher losses. Therefore, it is important to further improve early warning systems and communication channels, particularly in hilly areas with rapid-onset flooding.}, language = {en} } @article{SchroeterKreibichVogeletal.2014, author = {Schroeter, Kai and Kreibich, Heidi and Vogel, Kristin and Riggelsen, Carsten and Scherbaum, Frank and Merz, Bruno}, title = {How useful are complex flood damage models?}, series = {Water resources research}, volume = {50}, journal = {Water resources research}, number = {4}, publisher = {American Geophysical Union}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0043-1397}, doi = {10.1002/2013WR014396}, pages = {3378 -- 3395}, year = {2014}, abstract = {We investigate the usefulness of complex flood damage models for predicting relative damage to residential buildings in a spatial and temporal transfer context. We apply eight different flood damage models to predict relative building damage for five historic flood events in two different regions of Germany. Model complexity is measured in terms of the number of explanatory variables which varies from 1 variable up to 10 variables which are singled out from 28 candidate variables. Model validation is based on empirical damage data, whereas observation uncertainty is taken into consideration. The comparison of model predictive performance shows that additional explanatory variables besides the water depth improve the predictive capability in a spatial and temporal transfer context, i.e., when the models are transferred to different regions and different flood events. Concerning the trade-off between predictive capability and reliability the model structure seem more important than the number of explanatory variables. Among the models considered, the reliability of Bayesian network-based predictions in space-time transfer is larger than for the remaining models, and the uncertainties associated with damage predictions are reflected more completely.}, language = {en} } @misc{BaldKopyraKeller2014, author = {Bald, Ilko and Kopyra, Janina and Keller, Adrian}, title = {On the role of fluoro-substituted nucleosides in DNA radiosensitization for tumor radiation therapy}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-73412}, pages = {6825 -- 6829}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Gemcitabine (2′,2′-difluorocytidine) is a well-known radiosensitizer routinely applied in concomitant chemoradiotherapy. During irradiation of biological media with high-energy radiation secondary low-energy (<10 eV) electrons are produced that can directly induce chemical bond breakage in DNA by dissociative electron attachment (DEA). Here, we investigate and compare DEA to the three molecules 2′-deoxycytidine, 2′-deoxy-5-fluorocytidine, and gemcitabine. Fluorination at specific molecular sites, i.e., nucleobase or sugar moiety, is found to control electron attachment and subsequent dissociation pathways. The presence of two fluorine atoms at the sugar ring results in more efficient electron attachment to the sugar moiety and subsequent bond cleavage. For the formation of the dehydrogenated nucleobase anion, we obtain an enhancement factor of 2.8 upon fluorination of the sugar, whereas the enhancement factor is 5.5 when the nucleobase is fluorinated. The observed fragmentation reactions suggest enhanced DNA strand breakage induced by secondary electrons when gemcitabine is incorporated into DNA.}, language = {en} } @article{BaldKellerKopyra2014, author = {Bald, Ilko and Keller, Adrian and Kopyra, Janina}, title = {On the role of fluoro-substituted nucleosides in DNA radiosensitization for tumor radiation therapy}, series = {RSC Advances : an international journal to further the chemical sciences}, volume = {4}, journal = {RSC Advances : an international journal to further the chemical sciences}, number = {13}, publisher = {Royal Society of Chemistry}, issn = {2046-2069}, doi = {10.1039/C3RA46735J}, pages = {6825 -- 6829}, year = {2014}, abstract = {Gemcitabine (2′,2′-difluorocytidine) is a well-known radiosensitizer routinely applied in concomitant chemoradiotherapy. During irradiation of biological media with high-energy radiation secondary low-energy (<10 eV) electrons are produced that can directly induce chemical bond breakage in DNA by dissociative electron attachment (DEA). Here, we investigate and compare DEA to the three molecules 2′-deoxycytidine, 2′-deoxy-5-fluorocytidine, and gemcitabine. Fluorination at specific molecular sites, i.e., nucleobase or sugar moiety, is found to control electron attachment and subsequent dissociation pathways. The presence of two fluorine atoms at the sugar ring results in more efficient electron attachment to the sugar moiety and subsequent bond cleavage. For the formation of the dehydrogenated nucleobase anion, we obtain an enhancement factor of 2.8 upon fluorination of the sugar, whereas the enhancement factor is 5.5 when the nucleobase is fluorinated. The observed fragmentation reactions suggest enhanced DNA strand breakage induced by secondary electrons when gemcitabine is incorporated into DNA.}, language = {en} } @misc{PinhasiFernandesSiraketal.2015, author = {Pinhasi, Ron and Fernandes, Daniel and Sirak, Kendra and Novak, Mario and Connell, Sarah and Alpaslan-Roodenberg, Song{\"u}l and Gerritsen, Fokke and Moiseyev, Vyacheslav and Gromov, Andrey and Raczky, P{\´a}l and Anders, Alexandra and Pietrusewsky, Michael and Rollefson, Gary and Jovanovic, Marija and Trinhhoang, Hiep and Bar-Oz, Guy and Oxenham, Marc and Matsumura, Hirofumi and Hofreiter, Michael}, title = {Optimal ancient DNA yields from the inner ear part of the human petrous bone}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschafliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschafliche Reihe}, number = {515}, issn = {1866-8372}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-40955}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-409557}, pages = {13}, year = {2015}, abstract = {The invention and development of next or second generation sequencing methods has resulted in a dramatic transformation of ancient DNA research and allowed shotgun sequencing of entire genomes from fossil specimens. However, although there are exceptions, most fossil specimens contain only low (similar to 1\% or less) percentages of endogenous DNA. The only skeletal element for which a systematically higher endogenous DNA content compared to other skeletal elements has been shown is the petrous part of the temporal bone. In this study we investigate whether (a) different parts of the petrous bone of archaeological human specimens give different percentages of endogenous DNA yields, (b) there are significant differences in average DNA read lengths, damage patterns and total DNA concentration, and (c) it is possible to obtain endogenous ancient DNA from petrous bones from hot environments. We carried out intra-petrous comparisons for ten petrous bones from specimens from Holocene archaeological contexts across Eurasia dated between 10,0001,800 calibrated years before present (cal. BP). We obtained shotgun DNA sequences from three distinct areas within the petrous: a spongy part of trabecular bone (part A), the dense part of cortical bone encircling the osseous inner ear, or otic capsule (part B), and the dense part within the otic capsule (part C). Our results confirm that dense bone parts of the petrous bone can provide high endogenous aDNA yields and indicate that endogenous DNA fractions for part C can exceed those obtained for part B by up to 65-fold and those from part A by up to 177-fold, while total endogenous DNA concentrations are up to 126-fold and 109-fold higher for these comparisons. Our results also show that while endogenous yields from part C were lower than 1\% for samples from hot (both arid and humid) parts, the DNA damage patterns indicate that at least some of the reads originate from ancient DNA molecules, potentially enabling ancient DNA analyses of samples from hot regions that are otherwise not amenable to ancient DNA analyses.}, language = {en} } @misc{BubeckAertsdeMoeletal.2016, author = {Bubeck, Philip and Aerts, Jeroen C. J. H. and de Moel, Hans and Kreibich, Heidi}, title = {Preface}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {609}, issn = {1866-8372}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-41238}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-412387}, pages = {6}, year = {2016}, abstract = {kein abstract}, language = {en} } @article{RoezerMuellerBubecketal.2016, author = {R{\"o}zer, Viktor and M{\"u}ller, Meike and Bubeck, Philip and Kienzler, Sarah and Thieken, Annegret and Pech, Ina and Schr{\"o}ter, Kai and Buchholz, Oliver and Kreibich, Heidi}, title = {Coping with Pluvial Floods by Private Households}, series = {Water}, volume = {8}, journal = {Water}, publisher = {MDPI}, address = {Basel}, issn = {2073-4441}, doi = {10.3390/w8070304}, pages = {24}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Pluvial floods have caused severe damage to urban areas in recent years. With a projected increase in extreme precipitation as well as an ongoing urbanization, pluvial flood damage is expected to increase in the future. Therefore, further insights, especially on the adverse consequences of pluvial floods and their mitigation, are needed. To gain more knowledge, empirical damage data from three different pluvial flood events in Germany were collected through computer-aided telephone interviews. Pluvial flood awareness as well as flood experience were found to be low before the respective flood events. The level of private precaution increased considerably after all events, but is mainly focused on measures that are easy to implement. Lower inundation depths, smaller potential losses as compared with fluvial floods, as well as the fact that pluvial flooding may occur everywhere, are expected to cause a shift in damage mitigation from precaution to emergency response. However, an effective implementation of emergency measures was constrained by a low dissemination of early warnings in the study areas. Further improvements of early warning systems including dissemination as well as a rise in pluvial flood preparedness are important to reduce future pluvial flood damage.}, language = {en} } @article{GeigerFrielerLevermann2016, author = {Geiger, Tobias and Frieler, Katja and Levermann, Anders}, title = {High-income does not protect against hurricane losses}, series = {Environmental research letters}, volume = {11}, journal = {Environmental research letters}, publisher = {IOP Publ. Ltd.}, address = {Bristol}, issn = {1748-9326}, doi = {10.1088/1748-9326/11/8/084012}, pages = {10}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Damage due to tropical cyclones accounts for more than 50\% of all meteorologically-induced economic losses worldwide. Their nominal impact is projected to increase substantially as the exposed population grows, per capita income increases, and anthropogenic climate change manifests. So far, historical losses due to tropical cyclones have been found to increase less than linearly with a nation's affected gross domestic product (GDP). Here we show that for the United States this scaling is caused by a sub-linear increase with affected population while relative losses scale super-linearly with per capita income. The finding is robust across a multitude of empirically derived damage models that link the storm's wind speed, exposed population, and per capita GDP to reported losses. The separation of both socio-economic predictors strongly affects the projection of potential future hurricane losses. Separating the effects of growth in population and per-capita income, per hurricane losses with respect to national GDP are projected to triple by the end of the century under unmitigated climate change, while they are estimated to decrease slightly without the separation.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Wolf2017, author = {Wolf, Julia}, title = {Schadenserkennung in Beton durch {\"U}berwachung mit eingebetteten Ultraschallpr{\"u}fk{\"o}pfen}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-397363}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Potsdam}, pages = {ix, 142}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Die zerst{\"o}rungsfreien Pr{\"u}fungen von Bauwerken mit Hilfe von Ultraschallmessverfahren haben in den letzten Jahren an Bedeutung gewonnen. Durch Ultraschallmessungen k{\"o}nnen die Geometrien von Bauteilen bestimmt sowie von außen nicht sichtbare Fehler wie Delaminationen und Kiesnester erkannt werden. Mit neuartigen, in das Betonbauteil eingebetteten Ultraschallpr{\"u}fk{\"o}pfen sollen nun Bauwerke dauerhaft auf Ver{\"a}nderungen {\"u}berpr{\"u}ft werden. Dazu werden Ultraschallsignale direkt im Inneren eines Bauteils erzeugt, was die M{\"o}glichkeiten der herk{\"o}mmlichen Methoden der Bauwerks{\"u}berwachung wesentlich erweitert. Ein Ultraschallverfahren k{\"o}nnte mit eingebetteten Pr{\"u}fk{\"o}pfen ein Betonbauteil kontinuierlich integral {\"u}berwachen und damit auch stetig fortschreitende Gef{\"u}ge{\"a}nderungen, wie beispielsweise Mikrorisse, registrieren. Sicherheitsrelevante Bauteile, die nach dem Einbau f{\"u}r Messungen unzug{\"a}nglich oder mittels Ultraschall, beispielsweise durch zus{\"a}tzliche Beschichtungen der Oberfl{\"a}che, nicht pr{\"u}fbar sind, lassen sich mit eingebetteten Pr{\"u}fk{\"o}pfen {\"u}berwachen. An bereits vorhandenen Bauwerken k{\"o}nnen die Ultraschallpr{\"u}fk{\"o}pfe mithilfe von Bohrl{\"o}chern und speziellem Verpressm{\"o}rtel auch nachtr{\"a}glich in das Bauteil integriert werden. F{\"u}r Fertigbauteile bieten sich eingebettete Pr{\"u}fk{\"o}pfe zur Herstellungskontrolle sowie zur {\"U}berwachung der Baudurchf{\"u}hrung als Werkzeug der Qualit{\"a}tssicherung an. Auch die schnelle Schadensanalyse eines Bauwerks nach Naturkatastrophen, wie beispielsweise einem Erdbeben oder einer Flut, ist denkbar. Durch die gute Ankopplung erm{\"o}glichen diese neuartigen Pr{\"u}fk{\"o}pfe den Einsatz von empfindlichen Auswertungsmethoden, wie die Kreuzkorrelation, die Coda-Wellen-Interferometrie oder die Amplitudenauswertung, f{\"u}r die Signalanalyse. Bei regelm{\"a}ßigen Messungen k{\"o}nnen somit sich anbahnende Sch{\"a}den eines Bauwerks fr{\"u}hzeitig erkannt werden. Da die Sch{\"a}digung eines Bauwerks keine direkt messbare Gr{\"o}ße darstellt, erfordert eine eindeutige Schadenserkennung in der Regel die Messung mehrerer physikalischer Gr{\"o}ßen die geeignet verkn{\"u}pft werden. Physikalische Gr{\"o}ßen k{\"o}nnen sein: Ultraschalllaufzeit, Amplitude des Ultraschallsignals und Umgebungstemperatur. Dazu m{\"u}ssen Korrelationen zwischen dem Zustand des Bauwerks, den Umgebungsbedingungen und den Parametern des gemessenen Ultraschallsignals untersucht werden. In dieser Arbeit werden die neuartigen Pr{\"u}fk{\"o}pfe vorgestellt. Es wird beschrieben, dass sie sich, sowohl in bereits errichtete Betonbauwerke als auch in der Konstruktion befindliche, einbauen lassen. Experimentell wird gezeigt, dass die Pr{\"u}fk{\"o}pfe in mehreren Ebenen eingebettet sein k{\"o}nnen da ihre Abstrahlcharakteristik im Beton nahezu ungerichtet ist. Die Mittenfrequenz von rund 62 kHz erm{\"o}glicht Abst{\"a}nde, je nach Betonart und SRV, von mindestens 3 m zwischen Pr{\"u}fk{\"o}pfen die als Sender und Empf{\"a}nger arbeiten. Die Empfindlichkeit der eingebetteten Pr{\"u}fk{\"o}pfe gegen{\"u}ber Ver{\"a}nderungen im Beton wird an Hand von zwei Laborexperimenten gezeigt, einem Drei-Punkt-Biegeversuch und einem Versuch zur Erzeugung von Frost-Tau-Wechsel Sch{\"a}den. Die Ergebnisse werden mit anderen zerst{\"o}rungsfreien Pr{\"u}fverfahren verglichen. Es zeigt sich, dass die Pr{\"u}fk{\"o}pfe durch die Anwendung empfindlicher Auswertemethoden, auftretende Risse im Beton detektieren, bevor diese eine Gefahr f{\"u}r das Bauwerk darstellen. Abschließend werden Beispiele von Installation der neuartigen Ultraschallpr{\"u}fk{\"o}pfe in realen Bauteilen, zwei Br{\"u}cken und einem Fundament, gezeigt und basierend auf dort gewonnenen ersten Erfahrungen ein Konzept f{\"u}r die Umsetzung einer Langzeit{\"u}berwachung aufgestellt.}, language = {de} } @misc{SpekkersRoezerThiekenetal.2017, author = {Spekkers, Matthieu and R{\"o}zer, Viktor and Thieken, Annegret and ten Veldhuis, Marie-Claire and Kreibich, Heidi}, title = {A comparative survey of the impacts of extreme rainfall in two international case studies}, series = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Mathematisch Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe}, journal = {Postprints der Universit{\"a}t Potsdam : Mathematisch Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe}, number = {640}, issn = {1866-8372}, doi = {10.25932/publishup-41843}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-418432}, pages = {1337 -- 1355}, year = {2017}, abstract = {Flooding is assessed as the most important natural hazard in Europe, causing thousands of deaths, affecting millions of people and accounting for large economic losses in the past decade. Little is known about the damage processes associated with extreme rainfall in cities, due to a lack of accurate, comparable and consistent damage data. The objective of this study is to investigate the impacts of extreme rainfall on residential buildings and how affected households coped with these impacts in terms of precautionary and emergency actions. Analyses are based on a unique dataset of damage characteristics and a wide range of potential damage explaining variables at the household level, collected through computer-aided telephone interviews (CATI) and an online survey. Exploratory data analyses based on a total of 859 completed questionnaires in the cities of Munster (Germany) and Amsterdam (the Netherlands) revealed that the uptake of emergency measures is related to characteristics of the hazardous event. In case of high water levels, more efforts are made to reduce damage, while emergency response that aims to prevent damage is less likely to be effective. The difference in magnitude of the events in Munster and Amsterdam, in terms of rainfall intensity and water depth, is probably also the most important cause for the differences between the cities in terms of the suffered financial losses. Factors that significantly contributed to damage in at least one of the case studies are water contamination, the presence of a basement in the building and people's awareness of the upcoming event. Moreover, this study confirms conclusions by previous studies that people's experience with damaging events positively correlates with precautionary behaviour. For improving future damage data acquisition, we recommend the inclusion of cell phones in a CATI survey to avoid biased sampling towards certain age groups.}, language = {en} }