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Among the different meanings carried by numerical information, cardinality is fundamental for survival and for the development of basic as well as of higher numerical skills. Importantly, the human brain inherits from evolution a predisposition to map cardinality onto space, as revealed by the presence of spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) in humans and animals. Here, the mapping of cardinal information onto physical space is addressed as a hallmark signature characterizing numerical cognition.
According to traditional approaches, cognition is defined as complex forms of internal information processing, taking place in the brain (cognitive processor). On the contrary, embodied cognition approaches define cognition as functionally linked to perception and action, in the continuous interaction between a biological body and its physical and sociocultural environment.
Embracing the principles of the embodied cognition perspective, I conducted four novel studies designed to unveil how SNAs originate, develop, and adapt, depending on characteristics of the organism, the context, and their interaction. I structured my doctoral thesis in three levels. At the grounded level (Study 1), I unfold the biological foundations underlying the tendency to map cardinal information across space; at the embodied level (Study 2), I reveal the impact of atypical motor development on the construction of SNAs; at the situated level (Study 3), I document the joint influence of visuospatial attention and task properties on SNAs. Furthermore, I experimentally investigate the presence of associations between physical and numerical distance, another numerical property fundamental for the development of efficient mathematical minds (Study 4).
In Study 1, I present the Brain’s Asymmetric Frequency Tuning hypothesis that relies on hemispheric asymmetries for processing spatial frequencies, a low-level visual feature that the (in)vertebrate brain extracts from any visual scene to create a coherent percept of the world. Computational analyses of the power spectra of the original stimuli used to document the presence of SNAs in human newborns and animals, support the brain’s asymmetric frequency tuning as a theoretical account and as an evolutionarily inherited mechanism scaffolding the universal and innate tendency to represent cardinality across horizontal space.
In Study 2, I explore SNAs in children with rare genetic neuromuscular diseases: spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). SMA children never accomplish independent motoric exploration of their environment; in contrast, DMD children do explore but later lose this ability. The different SNAs reported by the two groups support the critical role of early sensorimotor experiences in the spatial representation of cardinality.
In Study 3, I directly compare the effects of overt attentional orientation during explicit and implicit processing of numerical magnitude. First, the different effects of attentional orienting based on the type of assessment support different mechanisms underlying SNAs during explicit and implicit assessment of numerical magnitude. Secondly, the impact of vertical shifts of attention on the processing of numerical distance sheds light on the correspondence between numerical distance and peri-personal distance.
In Study 4, I document the presence of different SNAs, driven by numerical magnitude and numerical distance, by employing different response mappings (left vs. right and near vs. distant).
In the field of numerical cognition, the four studies included in the present thesis contribute to unveiling how the characteristics of the organism and the environment influence the emergence, the development, and the flexibility of our attitude to represent cardinal information across space, thus supporting the predictions of the embodied cognition approach. Furthermore, they inform a taxonomy of body-centred factors (biological properties of the brain and sensorimotor system) modulating the spatial representation of cardinality throughout the course of life, at the grounded, embodied, and situated levels.
If the awareness for different variables influencing SNAs over the course of life is important, it is equally important to consider the organism as a whole in its sensorimotor interaction with the world. Inspired by my doctoral research, here I propose a holistic perspective that considers the role of evolution, embodiment, and environment in the association of cardinal information with directional space. The new perspective advances the current approaches to SNAs, both at the conceptual and at the methodological levels.
Unveiling how the mental representation of cardinality emerges, develops, and adapts is necessary to shape efficient mathematical minds and achieve economic productivity, technological progress, and a higher quality of life.
«Musik erfinden und gestalten» hat grosses musikpädagogisches Potenzial: mit Klängen experimentieren, ein Gespür für dramaturgische Verläufe entwickeln, nonverbal kommunizieren – Musik erfinden und gestalten eröffnet ein breites Feld musikalischer Aktivitäten und Erfahrungsmöglichkeiten. Doch im regulären Musikunterricht in der Volksschule der Schweiz sind produktionsdidaktische Ansätze noch eher die Ausnahme und Musiklehrkräften fehlt es an Anleitungsstrategien.
Für das vorliegende Buch untersuchte der Autor in Form einer Design-based-Research-Studie, wie Primarlehrkräfte ihre Anleitungsstrategien bei der Durchführung von musikalischen Gestaltungsprozessen in ihren Schulklassen schrittweise entwickeln. Dabei begleitete der Forscher die Lehrkräfte in der schulischen Praxis und intervenierte gezielt mit Reflexionsimpulsen, um den Professionalisierungsprozess zu unterstützen.
Daraus wurden drei Reflexionstools generiert: Das Reflexionstool try-outs beinhaltet konkrete Handlungsanregungen und Reflexionsfragen für das Anleiten musikalischer Gestaltungsprozesse. Das Onlinetool improspider ist ein Selbstreflexionsinstrument zur Einschätzung personaler Orientierungen. Das Kompetenzmodell Kompetenzflyer bietet eine Reflexionsfolie für die Ansteuerung eigenständiger Kompetenzerwerbsschritte.
Die Reflexionstools sind außerdem online in Form eines Lernobjekts verfügbar.
Organizational commitments to equality change how people view women’s and men’s professional success
(2024)
To address women’s underrepresentation in high-status positions, many organizations have committed to gender equality. But is women’s professional success viewed less positively when organizations commit to women’s advancement? Do equality commitments have positive effects on evaluations of successful men? We fielded a survey experiment with a national probability sample in Germany (N = 3229) that varied employees’ gender and their organization’s commitment to equality. Respondents read about a recently promoted employee and rated how decisive of a role they thought intelligence and effort played in getting the employee promoted from 1 “Not at all decisive” to 7 “Very decisive” and the fairness of the promotion from 1 “Very unfair” to 7 “Very fair.” When organizations committed to women’s advancement rather than uniform performance standards, people believed intelligence and effort were less decisive in women’s promotions, but that intelligence was more decisive in men’s promotions. People viewed women’s promotions as least fair and men’s as most fair in organizations committed to women’s advancement. However, women’s promotions were still viewed more positively than men’s in all conditions and on all outcomes, suggesting people believed that organizations had double standards for success that required women to be smarter and work harder to be promoted, especially in organizations that did not make equality commitments.
Unsere Würde in Euren Händen
(2024)
Our dignity in your hands
(2024)
Water stored in the unsaturated soil as soil moisture is a key component of the hydrological cycle influencing numerous hydrological processes including hydrometeorological extremes. Soil moisture influences flood generation processes and during droughts when precipitation is absent, it provides plant with transpirable water, thereby sustaining plant growth and survival in agriculture and natural ecosystems.
Soil moisture stored in deeper soil layers e.g. below 100 cm is of particular importance for providing plant transpirable water during dry periods. Not being directly connected to the atmosphere and located outside soil layers with the highest root densities, water in these layers is less susceptible to be rapidly evaporated and transpired. Instead, it provides longer-term soil water storage increasing the drought tolerance of plants and ecosystems.
Given the importance of soil moisture in the context of hydro-meteorological extremes in a warming climate, its monitoring is part of official national adaption strategies to a changing climate. Yet, soil moisture is highly variable in time and space which challenges its monitoring on spatio-temporal scales relevant for flood and drought risk modelling and forecasting.
Introduced over a decade ago, Cosmic-Ray Neutron Sensing (CRNS) is a noninvasive geophysical method that allows for the estimation of soil moisture at relevant spatio-temporal scales of several hectares at a high, subdaily temporal resolution. CRNS relies on the detection of secondary neutrons above the soil surface which are produced from high-energy cosmic-ray particles in the atmosphere and the ground. Neutrons in a specific epithermal energy range are sensitive to the amount of hydrogen present in the surroundings of the CRNS neutron detector. Due to same mass as the hydrogen nucleus, neutrons lose kinetic energy upon collision and are subsequently absorbed when reaching low, thermal energies. A higher amount of hydrogen therefore leads to fewer neutrons being detected per unit time. Assuming that the largest amount of hydrogen is stored in most terrestrial ecosystems as soil moisture, changes of soil moisture can be estimated through an inverse relationship with observed neutron intensities.
Although important scientific advancements have been made to improve the methodological framework of CRNS, several open challenges remain, of which some are addressed in the scope of this thesis. These include the influence of atmospheric variables such as air pressure and absolute air humidity, as well as, the impact of variations in incoming primary cosmic-ray intensity on observed epithermal and thermal neutron signals and their correction. Recently introduced advanced neutron-to-soil moisture transfer functions are expected to improve CRNS-derived soil moisture estimates, but potential improvements need to be investigated at study sites with differing environmental conditions. Sites with strongly heterogeneous, patchy soil moisture distributions challenge existing transfer functions and further research is required to assess the impact of, and correction of derived soil moisture estimates under heterogeneous site conditions. Despite its capability of measuring representative averages of soil moisture at the field scale, CRNS lacks an integration depth below the first few decimetres of the soil. Given the importance of soil moisture also in deeper soil layers, increasing the observational window of CRNS through modelling approaches or in situ measurements is of high importance for hydrological monitoring applications.
By addressing these challenges, this thesis aids to closing knowledge gaps and finding answers to some of the open questions in CRNS research. Influences of different environmental variables are quantified, correction approaches are being tested and developed. Neutron-to-soil moisture transfer functions are evaluated and approaches to reduce effects of heterogeneous soil moisture distributions are presented. Lastly, soil moisture estimates from larger soil depths are derived from CRNS through modified, simple modelling approaches and in situ estimates by using CRNS as a downhole technique. Thereby, this thesis does not only illustrate the potential of new, yet undiscovered applications of CRNS in future but also opens a new field of CRNS research. Consequently, this thesis advances the methodological framework of CRNS for above-ground and downhole applications. Although the necessity of further research in order to fully exploit the potential of CRNS needs to be emphasised, this thesis contributes to current hydrological research and not least to advancing hydrological monitoring approaches being of utmost importance in context of intensifying hydro-meteorological extremes in a changing climate.
Overcoming natural biomass limitations in gram-negative bacteria through synthetic carbon fixation
(2024)
The carbon demands of an ever-increasing human population and the concomitant rise in net carbon emissions requires CO2 sequestering approaches for production of carbon-containing molecules. Microbial production of carbon-containing products from plant-based sugars could replace current fossil-based production. However, this form of sugar-based microbial production directly competes with human food supply and natural ecosystems. Instead, one-carbon feedstocks derived from CO2 and renewable energy were proposed as an alternative. The one carbon molecule formate is a stable, readily soluble and safe-to-store energetic mediator that can be electrochemically generated from CO2 and (excess off-peak) renewable electricity. Formate-based microbial production could represent a promising approach for a circular carbon economy. However, easy-to-engineer and efficient formate-utilizing microbes are lacking. Multiple synthetic metabolic pathways were designed for better-than-nature carbon fixation. Among them, the reductive glycine pathway was proposed as the most efficient pathway for aerobic formate assimilation. While some of these pathways have been successfully engineered in microbial hosts, these synthetic strains did so far not exceed the performance of natural strains. In this work, I engineered and optimized two different synthetic formate assimilation pathways in gram-negative bacteria to exceed the limits of a natural carbon fixation pathway, the Calvin cycle.
The first chapter solidified Cupriavidus necator as a promising formatotrophic host to produce value-added chemicals. The formate tolerance of C. necator was assessed and a production pathway for crotonate established in a modularized fashion. Last, bioprocess optimization was leveraged to produce crotonate from formate at a titer of 148 mg/L.
In the second chapter, I chromosomally integrated and optimized the synthetic reductive glycine pathway in C. necator using a transposon-mediated selection approach. The insertion methodology allowed selection for condition-specific tailored pathway expression as improved pathway performance led to better growth. I then showed my engineered strains to exceed the biomass yields of the Calvin cycle utilizing wildtype C. necator on formate. This demonstrated for the first time the superiority of a synthetic formate assimilation pathway and by extension of synthetic carbon fixation efforts as a whole.
In chapter 3, I engineered a segment of a synthetic carbon fixation cycle in Escherichia coli. The GED cycle was proposed as a Calvin cycle alternative that does not perform a wasteful oxygenation reaction and is more energy efficient. The pathways simple architecture and reasonable driving force made it a promising candidate for enhanced carbon fixation. I created a deletion strain that coupled growth to carboxylation via the GED pathway segment. The CO2 dependence of the engineered strain and 13C-tracer analysis confirmed operation of the pathway in vivo.
In the final chapter, I present my efforts of implementing the GED cycle also in C. necator, which might be a better-suited host, as it is accustomed to formatotrophic and hydrogenotrophic growth. To provide the carboxylation substrate in vivo, I engineered C. necator to utilize xylose as carbon source and created a selection strain for carboxylase activity. I verify activity of the key enzyme, the carboxylase, in the decarboxylative direction. Although CO2-dependent growth of the strain was not obtained, I showed that all enzymes required for operation of the GED cycle are active in vivo in C. necator.
I then evaluate my success with engineering a linear and cyclical one-carbon fixation pathway in two different microbial hosts. The linear reductive glycine pathway presents itself as a much simpler metabolic solution for formate dependent growth over the sophisticated establishment of hard-to-balance carbon fixation cycles. Last, I highlight advantages and disadvantages of C. necator as an upcoming microbial benchmark organism for synthetic metabolism efforts and give and outlook on its potential for the future of C1-based manufacturing.
§ 115 Ordnungswidrigkeiten
(2024)
MARLA
(2024)
Serious games
(2024)
Künstliche Intelligenz (KI) und Robotik sind in aller Munde. Dabei erscheinen manche der diskutierten Anwendungsfälle noch als reine Theorie. Anders ist dies in der Medizin. Das Werk befasst sich mit den drängendsten juristischen Fragen, blickt dabei aber auch über den Tellerrand, indem medizinisch-technische sowie ethisch-philosophische Aspekte nicht ausgeklammert bleiben.
We examine how the gender of business owners is related to the wages paid to female relative to male employees working in their firms. Using Finnish register data and employing firm fixed effects, we find that the gender pay gap is—starting from a gender pay gap of 11 to 12%—two to three percentage points lower for hourly wages in female-owned firms than in male-owned firms. Results are robust to how the wage is measured, as well as to various further robustness checks. More importantly, we find substantial differences between industries. While, for instance, in the manufacturing sector, the gender of the owner plays no role in the gender pay gap, in several service sector industries, like ICT or business services, no or a negligible gender pay gap can be found, but only when firms are led by female business owners. Businesses with male ownership maintain a gender pay gap of around 10% also in the latter industries. With increasing firm size, the influence of the gender of the owner, however, fades. In large firms, it seems that others—firm managers—determine wages and no differences in the pay gap are observed between male- and female-owned firms.
Money matters!
(2024)
This paper examines the context dependency of attitudes toward maternal employment. We test three sets of factors that may affect these attitudes—economic benefits, normative obligations, and child-related consequences—by analyzing data from a unique survey experimental design implemented in a large-scale household panel survey in Germany (17,388 observations from 3,494 respondents). Our results show that the economic benefits associated with maternal employment are the most important predictor of attitudes supporting maternal employment. Moreover, we find that attitudes toward maternal employment vary by individual, household, and contextual characteristics (in particular, childcare quality). We interpret this variation as an indication that negative attitudes toward maternal employment do not necessarily reflect gender essentialism; rather, gender role attitudes are contingent upon the frames individuals have in mind.
Governments engage in corporatization by creating corporate entities or reorganizing existing ones. These corporatization activities reflect an interplay between political agency and environmental pressures, including (changing) notions of state-market relations. This paper discusses two ideal-typed organizational models of corporatization: the state as a marketizer and the marketization of the state. Whereas the first emphasizes the role of political design and agency in corporatization, the second emphasizes the role of (actors in) the environment for corporatization. Both models are assessed across five corporatization episodes in Norway and Sweden, where we also demonstrate the interplay between political agency and environmental pressure.
Systematic review and meta-analysis of ex-post evaluations on the effectiveness of carbon pricing
(2024)
Today, more than 70 carbon pricing schemes have been implemented around the globe, but their contributions to emissions reductions remains a subject of heated debate in science and policy. Here we assess the effectiveness of carbon pricing in reducing emissions using a rigorous, machine-learning assisted systematic review and meta-analysis. Based on 483 effect sizes extracted from 80 causal ex-post evaluations across 21 carbon pricing schemes, we find that introducing a carbon price has yielded immediate and substantial emission reductions for at least 17 of these policies, despite the low level of prices in most instances. Statistically significant emissions reductions range between –5% to –21% across the schemes (–4% to –15% after correcting for publication bias). Our study highlights critical evidence gaps with regard to dozens of unevaluated carbon pricing schemes and the price elasticity of emissions reductions. More rigorous synthesis of carbon pricing and other climate policies is required across a range of outcomes to advance our understanding of “what works” and accelerate learning on climate solutions in science and policy.
“Ick bin een Berlina”
(2024)
Background: Robots are increasingly used as interaction partners with humans. Social robots are designed to follow expected behavioral norms when engaging with humans and are available with different voices and even accents. Some studies suggest that people prefer robots to speak in the user’s dialect, while others indicate a preference for different dialects.
Methods: Our study examined the impact of the Berlin dialect on perceived trustworthiness and competence of a robot. One hundred and twenty German native speakers (Mage = 32 years, SD = 12 years) watched an online video featuring a NAO robot speaking either in the Berlin dialect or standard German and assessed its trustworthiness and competence.
Results: We found a positive relationship between participants’ self-reported Berlin dialect proficiency and trustworthiness in the dialect-speaking robot. Only when controlled for demographic factors, there was a positive association between participants’ dialect proficiency, dialect performance and their assessment of robot’s competence for the standard German-speaking robot. Participants’ age, gender, length of residency in Berlin, and device used to respond also influenced assessments. Finally, the robot’s competence positively predicted its trustworthiness.
Discussion: Our results inform the design of social robots and emphasize the importance of device control in online experiments.
Der Data Act
(2024)
Der Data Act bildet den vorläufigen Schlussstein der EU-Datenregulierung. Die verschiedenen Instrumente der Verordnung tarieren vor allem die Beziehungen der Datenökonomie mit Datenzugangsrechten, weitreichenden Regelungen zu Datenverträgen und Cloud-Services sowie mit spezifischen Interoperabilitätsvorgaben neu aus. Der Beitrag gibt – mit einem Schwerpunkt im Datenwirtschaftsrecht – einen Überblick über die Neuregelungen, zeigt übergreifende Weichenstellungen auf und benennt strukturelle Herausforderungen.