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The military in Mexico started out as a revolutionary army that secured the regime of the governmental party PRI. The article discusses the change of this army into a national and hemispheric police force under the influence of the USA. Today, the functions of the Mexican army are a mix of fighting against drugs, organized delinquency, terrorism and counterinsurgency and cooperating with US as well as other Latin American forces.
Collisions of black holes and neutron stars, named mixed binaries in the following, are interesting because of at least two reasons. Firstly, it is expected that they emit a large amount of energy as gravitational waves, which could be measured by new detectors. The form of those waves is expected to carry information about the internal structure of such systems. Secondly, collisions of such objects are the prime suspects of short gamma ray bursts. The exact mechanism for the energy emission is unknown so far. In the past, Newtonian theory of gravitation and modifications to it were often used for numerical simulations of collisions of mixed binary systems. However, near to such objects, the gravitational forces are so strong, that the use of General Relativity is necessary for accurate predictions. There are a lot of problems in general relativistic simulations. However, systems of two neutron stars and systems of two black holes have been studies extensively in the past and a lot of those problems have been solved. One of the remaining problems so far has been the use of hydrodynamic on excision boundaries. Inside excision regions, no evolution is carried out. Such regions are often used inside black holes to circumvent instabilities of the numerical methods near the singularity. Methods to handle hydrodynamics at such boundaries have been described and tests are shown in this work. One important test and the first application of those methods has been the simulation of a collapsing neutron star to a black hole. The success of these simulations and in particular the performance of the excision methods was an important step towards simulations of mixed binaries. Initial data are necessary for every numerical simulation. However, the creation of such initial data for general relativistic situations is in general very complicated. In this work it is shown how to obtain initial data for mixed binary systems using an already existing method for initial data of two black holes. These initial data have been used for evolutions of such systems and problems encountered are discussed in this work. One of the problems are instabilities due to different methods, which could be solved by dissipation of appropriate strength. Another problem is the expected drift of the black hole towards the neutron star. It is shown, that this can be solved by using special gauge conditions, which prevent the black hole from moving on the computational grid. The methods and simulations shown in this work are only the starting step for a much more detailed study of mixed binary system. Better methods, models and simulations with higher resolution and even better gauge conditions will be focus of future work. It is expected that such detailed studies can give information about the emitted gravitational waves, which is important in view of the newly built gravitational wave detectors. In addition, these simulations could give insight into the processes responsible for short gamma ray bursts.
The occurrence of earthquakes is characterized by a high degree of spatiotemporal complexity. Although numerous patterns, e.g. fore- and aftershock sequences, are well-known, the underlying mechanisms are not observable and thus not understood. Because the recurrence times of large earthquakes are usually decades or centuries, the number of such events in corresponding data sets is too small to draw conclusions with reasonable statistical significance. Therefore, the present study combines both, numerical modeling and analysis of real data in order to unveil the relationships between physical mechanisms and observational quantities. The key hypothesis is the validity of the so-called "critical point concept" for earthquakes, which assumes large earthquakes to occur as phase transitions in a spatially extended many-particle system, similar to percolation models. New concepts are developed to detect critical states in simulated and in natural data sets. The results indicate that important features of seismicity like the frequency-size distribution and the temporal clustering of earthquakes depend on frictional and structural fault parameters. In particular, the degree of quenched spatial disorder (the "roughness") of a fault zone determines whether large earthquakes occur quasiperiodically or more clustered. This illustrates the power of numerical models in order to identify regions in parameter space, which are relevant for natural seismicity. The critical point concept is verified for both, synthetic and natural seismicity, in terms of a critical state which precedes a large earthquake: a gradual roughening of the (unobservable) stress field leads to a scale-free (observable) frequency-size distribution. Furthermore, the growth of the spatial correlation length and the acceleration of the seismic energy release prior to large events is found. The predictive power of these precursors is, however, limited. Instead of forecasting time, location, and magnitude of individual events, a contribution to a broad multiparameter approach is encouraging.
We investigate the rotational and thermal properties of star-forming molecular clouds using hydrodynamic simulations. Stars form from molecular cloud cores by gravoturbulent fragmentation. Understanding the angular momentum and the thermal evolution of cloud cores thus plays a fundamental role in completing the theoretical picture of star formation. This is true not only for current star formation as observed in regions like the Orion nebula or the ρ-Ophiuchi molecular cloud but also for the formation of stars of the first or second generation in the universe. In this thesis we show how the angular momentum of prestellar and protostellar cores evolves and compare our results with observed quantities. The specific angular momentum of prestellar cores in our models agree remarkably well with observations of cloud cores. Some prestellar cores go into collapse to build up stars and stellar systems. The resulting protostellar objects have specific angular momenta that fall into the range of observed binaries. We find that collapse induced by gravoturbulent fragmentation is accompanied by a substantial loss of specific angular momentum. This eases the "angular momentum problem" in star formation even in the absence of magnetic fields. The distribution of stellar masses at birth (the initial mass function, IMF) is another aspect that any theory of star formation must explain. We focus on the influence of the thermodynamic properties of star-forming gas and address this issue by studying the effects of a piecewise polytropic equation of state on the formation of stellar clusters. We increase the polytropic exponent γ from a value below unity to a value above unity at a certain critical density. The change of the thermodynamic state at the critical density selects a characteristic mass scale for fragmentation, which we relate to the peak of the IMF observed in the solar neighborhood. Our investigation generally supports the idea that the distribution of stellar masses depends mainly on the thermodynamic state of the gas. A common assumption is that the chemical evolution of the star-forming gas can be decoupled from its dynamical evolution, with the former never affecting the latter. Although justified in some circumstances, this assumption is not true in every case. In particular, in low-metallicity gas the timescales for reaching the chemical equilibrium are comparable or larger than the dynamical timescales. In this thesis we take a first approach to combine a chemical network with a hydrodynamical code in order to study the influence of low levels of metal enrichment on the cooling and collapse of ionized gas in small protogalactic halos. Our initial conditions represent protogalaxies forming within a fossil HII region -- a previously ionized HII region which has not yet had time to cool and recombine. We show that in these regions, H2 is the dominant and most effective coolant, and that it is the amount of H2 formed that controls whether or not the gas can collapse and form stars. For metallicities Z <= 10<sup>-3 Zsun, metal line cooling alters the density and temperature evolution of the gas by less than 1% compared to the metal-free case at densities below 1 cm<sup>-3 and temperatures above 2000 K. We also find that an external ultraviolet background delays or suppresses the cooling and collapse of the gas regardless of whether it is metal-enriched or not. Finally, we study the dependence of this process on redshift and mass of the dark matter halo.
To investigate eye-movement control in reading, the present thesis examined three phenomena related to the eyes’ landing position within words, (1) the optimal viewing position (OVP), (2) the preferred viewing location (PVL), and (3) the Fixation-Duration Inverted-Optimal Viewing Position (IOVP) Effect. Based on a corpus-analytical approach (Exp. 1), the influence of variables word length, launch site distance, and word frequency was systematically explored. In addition, five experimental manipulations were conducted. First, word center was identified as the OVP, that is the position within a word where refixation probability is minimal. With increasing launch site distance, however, the OVP was found to move towards the word beginning. Several possible causes of refixations were discussed. The issue of refixation saccade programming was extensively investigated, suggesting that pre-planned and directly controlled refixation saccades coexist. Second, PVL curves, that is landing position distributions, show that the eyes are systematically deviated from the OVP, due to visuomotor constraints. By far the largest influence on mean and standard deviation of the Gaussian PVL curve was exhibited by launch site distance. Third, it was investigated how fixation durations vary as a function of landing position. The IOVP effect was replicated: Fixations located at word center are longer than those falling near the edges of a word. The effect of word frequency and/or launch site distance on the IOVP function mainly consisted in a vertical displacement of the curve. The Fixation-Duration IOVP effect is intriguing because word center (the OVP) would appear to be the best place to fixate and process a word. A critical part of the current work was devoted to investigate the origin of the effect. It was suggested that the IOVP effect arises as a consequence of mislocated fixations, i.e. fixations on unintended words, which are caused by saccadic errors. An algorithm for estimating the proportion of mislocated fixations from empirical data was developed, based on extrapolations of landing position distributions beyond word boundaries. As a new central theoretical claim it was suggested that a new saccade program is started immediately if the intended target word is missed. On average, this will lead to decreased durations for mislocated fixations. Because mislocated fixations were shown to be most prevalent at the beginning and end of words, the proposed mechanism generated the inverted U-shape for fixation durations when computed as a function of landing position. The proposed mechanism for generating the effect is generally compatible with both oculomotor and cognitive models of eye-movement control in reading.
Die effektive Erzeugung von Wissen ist eine der zentralen Herausforderungen des 21. Jahrhunderts. Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien, wie die Neuen Medien, durchdringen alle Bereiche des täglichen Lebens. Sie ermöglichen den Zugriff auf gigantische Datenmengen, die die Grundvoraussetzung für die Generierung von Wissen darstellen, aber gleichzeitig eine Datenflut bedeuten, der wir ohnmächtig gegenüberstehen. Innerhalb der raumwissenschaftlichen Fachdisziplinen spielen die Neuen Medien für die Kommunikation von Sachinformation eine wichtige Rolle. Die internetbasierte Distribution von Karten, angereichert mit zusätzlichen Informationen in Form von Audiosequenzen oder Filmausschnitten, spiegelt diese Entwicklung wieder. Vor diesem Hintergrund erfolgt die Untersuchung der Frage, ob Neue Medien dazu genutzt werden können, raumwissenschaftliche Fachinhalte zu vermitteln. Von besonderem Interesse ist dabei die Frage, ob durch den Einsatz Neuer Medien in der Lehre ein Mehrwert für die Benutzer entsteht. Der Ausgangspunkt dieser Forschungsfrage besteht in der herausragenden Bedeutung von Visualisierung zur leicht verständlichen Darstellung komplexer Sachverhalte, sowie der entsprechenden Werkzeug- und Methodenkompetenz für die Nutzung Neuer Medien in den raumwissen-schaftlichen Disziplinen. Die Grundlage für die Entwicklung von mehrwertigen Lernangeboten ist die Betrachtung von Lernen als Kommunikationsprozess zur Konstruktion von Wissen, was bedeutet, dass der Entwickler derartiger Angebote über Möglichkeiten zur Optimierung dieses Kommunikationsprozesses verfügt. Auf dieser Basis erfolgt eine Erweiterung des in den raumwissenschaftlichen Disziplinen verwendeten Kommunikationsbegriffs um den Aspekt der Lehre von Fachinhalten. Als relevante Ansatzpunkte für die Optimierung der Kommunikation von Fachinhalten werden die didaktische und die mediale Aufbereitung identifiziert. Diese können zum einen die Motivation der Lernenden positiv beeinflussen und zum anderen durch Wirkung auf die Wahrnehmung der Lernenden zu einem vereinfachten Verständnis beitragen. Im Mittelpunkt der didaktischen Aufbereitung steht die problemorientierte Vermittlung der Inhalte, d.h. sie werden anhand konkreter Problemsituationen aus der Praxis vermittelt und gelten deshalb als besonders anschaulich und anwendungsorientiert. Bei der medialen Aufbereitung steht die Verwendung einer Kombination aus Text und Graphik/Animation im Mittelpunkt, die darauf abzielt, das Verstehen komplexer Sachverhalte zu erleichtern. Zur Überprüfung der Forschungsfrage haben Studierende raumwissenschaftlicher Studiengänge der Universität Potsdam das Lernangebot ausprobiert und anhand eines Fragebogens verschiedene Aspekte bewertet. Themenschwerpunkt dieser Evaluation waren die Akzeptanz, die Bedienbarkeit, die didak-tische und mediale Aufbereitung der Inhalte, die Auswahl und Verständlichkeit der Inhalte sowie die Praxistauglichkeit. Ein Großteil der Befragten hat dem Lernangebot einen Mehrwert gegenüber konventionellen Bildungsangeboten bescheinigt. Als Aspekte dieses Mehrwertes haben sich vor allem die Praxisnähe, die Unabhängigkeit von Zeit und Ort bei der Nutzung und die Vermittlung der Inhalte auf der Grundlage einer Kombination aus Text und interaktiven Animationen herauskristallisiert.
The scope of this study is to investigate the environmental change in the German part of the Elbe river basin, whereby the focus is on two water related problems: having too little water and having water of poor quality. The Elbe region is representative of humid to semi-humid landscapes in central Europe, where water availability during the summer season is the limiting factor for plant growth and crop yields, especially in the loess areas, where the annual precipitation is lower than 500 mm. It is most likely that water quantity problems will accelerate in future, because both the observed and the projected climate trend show an increase in temperature and a decrease in annual precipitation, especially in the summer. Another problem is nutrient pollution of rivers and lakes. In the early 1990s, the Elbe was one of the most heavily polluted rivers in Europe. Even though nutrient emissions from point sources have notably decreased in the basin due to reduction of industrial sources and introduction of new and improved sewage treatment facilities, the diffuse sources of pollution are still not sufficiently controlled. The investigations have been done using the eco-hydrological model SWIM (Soil and Water Integrated Model), which has been embedded in a model framework of climate and agro-economic models. A global scenario of climate and agro-economic change has been regionalized to generate transient climate forcing data and land use boundary conditions for the model. The model was used to transform the climate and land use changes into altered evapotranspiration, groundwater recharge, crop yields and river discharge, and to investigate the development of water quality in the river basin. Particular emphasis was given to assessing the significance of the impacts on the hydrology, taking into account in the analysis the inherent uncertainty of the regional climate change as well as the uncertainty in the results of the model. The average trend of the regional climate change scenario indicates a decrease in mean annual precipitation up to 2055 of about 1.5 %, but with high uncertainty (covering the range from -15.3 % to +14.8 %), and a less uncertain increase in temperature of approximately 1.4 K. The relatively small change in precipitation in conjunction with the change in temperature leads to severe impacts on groundwater recharge and river flow. Increasing temperature induces longer vegetation periods, and the seasonality of the flow regime changes towards longer low flow spells in summer. As a results the water availability will decrease on average of the scenario simulations by approximately 15 %. The increase in temperatures will improve the growth conditions for temperature limited crops like maize. The uncertainty of the climate trend is particularly high in regions where the change is the highest. The simulation results for the Nuthe subbasin of the Elbe indicate that retention processes in groundwater, wetlands and riparian zones have a high potential to reduce the nitrate concentrations of rivers and lakes in the basin, because they are located at the interface between catchment area and surface water bodies, where they are controlling the diffuse nutrient inputs. The relatively high retention of nitrate in the Nuthe basin is due to the long residence time of water in the subsurface (about 40 years), with good conditions for denitrification, and due to nitrate retention and plant uptake in wetlands and riparian zones. The concluding result of the study is that the natural environment and communities in parts of Central Europe will have considerably lower water resources under scenario conditions. The water quality will improve, but due to the long residence time of water and nutrients in the subsurface, this improvement will be slower in areas where the conditions for nutrient turn-over in the subsurface are poor.