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Hauptanliegen der Dissertation ist es, einen Entwurf einer praktischen Ästhetik zu lancieren, der an der Schnittstelle zwischen philosophischer Ästhetik und Kunst – genauer Performancekunst - im Zeichen der Bezugsgrösse der Verletzbarkeit steht. In jüngeren Ästhetikansätzen hat sich eine Auffassung herauskristallisiert, die nicht über, sondern mit Kunst reflektiert. Die Pointe im ‚Mit’ liegt darin, dass diese Ästhetiken die Kunst nicht erklären, sie bestimmen und damit ihre Bedeutung festlegen, sondern dass diese entlang der Kunst die Brüche, Widerstände und Zäsuren zwischen Wahrnehmen und Denken markieren und diese als produktiv bewerten. Diese Lesart etabliert ein Denken, das nicht aus der Distanz auf etwas schaut (theoria), sondern ästhetisch-reflektierend (zurückwendend, auch selbstkritisch) mit der Kunst denkt. Die Disziplin der Ästhetik - als aisthesis: Lehre der sinnlichen Wahrnehmung - nimmt innerhalb der Philosophie eine besondere Stellung ein, weil sie auf ebendiese Differenz verweist und deshalb sinnliche und nicht nur logisch-argumentatorische Denkfiguren stärkt. Als eine Möglichkeit, die Kluft, das Nicht-Einholbare, die brüchige Unzulänglichkeit des begrifflich Denkenden gegenüber ästhetischer Erfahrung zu stärken, schlage ich die Bezugsgrösse der Verletzbarkeit vor. Eine solche Ästhetik besteht aus dem Kreieren verletzbarer Orte, wobei diese auf zweierlei Weisen umkreist werden: Zum einen aus der Kunstpraxis heraus anhand der ästhetischen Figur des verletzbaren Körpes, wie er sich in der zeitgenössischen Performance zeigt. Zum anderen als ein Kreieren von Begriffen im Bewusstsein ihrer Verletzbarkeit. Ausgangspunkte sind die Denkentwürfe von Gilles Deleuze und Hans Blumenberg: Die Ästhetik von Gilles Deleuze entwirft eine konkrete Überschneidungsmöglichkeit von Kunst und Philosophie, aus der sich meine These des Mit-Kunst-Denkens entwickeln lässt. Sie kann aus der Grundvoraussetzung des Deleuzeschen Denkens heraus begründet werden, die besagt, dass nicht nur die Kunst, sondern auch die Philosophie eine schöpferische Tätigkeit ist. Beide Disziplinen beruhen auf dem Prinzip der creatio continua, durch welche die Kunst Empfindungen und die Philosophie Begriffe schöpft, wobei eben genau dieser schöpferische Prozess Kunst und Philosophie in ein produktives Verhältnis zueinander treten lässt. Wie Deleuze seine Begriffsarbeit entlang künstlerischer Praxis entwickelt, wird anhand der Analyse des bis heute wenig rezipierten Textes Ein Manifest weniger in Bezug auf das Theater von Carmelo Bene analysiert. Eine ganz anderen Zugang zum Entwurf einer praktischen Ästhetik liefert Hans Blumenberg, der eine Theorie der Unbegrifflichkeit in Aussicht stellt. Im Anschluss an seine Forderung, die Metapher wieder vermehrt in die philosophische Denkpraxis zu integrieren, radikalisiert er seine Forderung, auch das Nichtanschauliche zu berücksichtigen, indem er das gänzlich Unbegriffliche an die Seite des Begrifflichen stellt. Definitorische Schwäche zeigt sich als wahrhaftige Stärke, die in der Unbegrifflichkeit ihren Zenit erreicht. Der Schiffbruch wird von mir als zentrale Metapher – gewissermassen als Metapher der Metapher – verstanden, die das Auf-Grund-Laufen des Allwissenden veranschaulicht. Im Schiffbruch wird die produktive Kollision von Theorie und Praxis deutlich. Deleuze und Blumenberg zeigen über ‚creatio continua’ und ‚Unbegrifflichkeit’ die Grenzen des Begreifens, indem sie betonen, dass sich Ästhetik nicht nur auf künstlerische Erfahrungen bezieht, sondern selber in das Gegenwärtigmachen von Erfahrungen involviert ist. Daraus folgt, dass ästhetische Reflexion nicht nur begrifflich agieren muss. Die praktische Ästhetik animiert dazu, andere darstellerische Formen (Bilder, Töne, Körper) als differente und ebenbürtige reflexive Modi anzuerkennen und sie als verletzbarmachende Formate der Sprache an die Seite zu stellen. Diese Lesart betont den gestalterischen Aspekt der Ästhetik selber. Zur Verdeutlichung dieser Kluft zwischen (Körper-)Bild und Begriff ist der von mir mitgestaltete Film Augen blickeN der Dissertation als Kapitel beigefügt. Dieser Film zeigt Performer und Performerinnen, die sich bewusst entschieden haben, ihren ‚abweichenden’ Körper auf der Bühne zu präsentieren. Das Wort Verletzbarkeit verweist auf die paradoxe Situation, etwas Brüchiges tragfähig zu machen und dadurch auch auf eine besondere Beziehungsform und auf ein existenzielles Aufeinander-Verwiesensein der Menschen. Verletzbarkeit geht alle an, und stiftet deshalb eine Gemeinsamkeit besonderer Art. In diesem Sinne sind verletzbare Orte nicht nur ästhetische, sondern auch ethische Orte, womit die politische Dimension des Vorhabens betont wird.
Aim The aim of the present study was to examine young female volleyballers’ body build, physical abilities, technical skills and psychophysiological properties in relation to their performance at competitions. The sample consisted of 46 female volleyballers aged 13-16 years. 49 basic anthropometric measurements were measured and 65 proportions and body composition characteristics were calculated. 9 physical ability tests, 9 volleyball technical skills tests and 21 psychophysiological tests were carried out. The game performance was recorded by the computer program Game. The program enabled to fix the performance of technical elements in case of each player. The computer program Game calculated the index of proficiency in case of each girl for each element. The first control group consisted of 74 female volleyballers aged 13–15 years with whom reduced anthropometry was provided and 28 games were recorded. The second control group consisted of 586 ordinary schoolgirls aged 13–16 years with whom full anthropometry was provided. Results In order to systematize all anthropometric characteristics, we first studied the essence of the anthropometric structure of the body as a whole. It turned out to be a characteristic system where all variables are in significant correlation between one another and where the leading characteristics are height and weight. Therefore we based the classification on the mean height and weight of the whole sample. We formed a 5 class SD classification. There are three classes of concordance between height and weight: small height – small weight, medium height – medium height, big height – big weight. The other two classes were classes of disconcordance between height and weight- pycnomorphs and leptomorphs. We managed to show that gradual increase in height and weight brought about statistically significant increase in length, breadth and depth measurements, circumferences, bone thicknesses and skinfolds. There were also systematic changes in indeces and body composition characteristics. Pycnomorphs and leptomorphs also showed differences specific to their body types in body measurements and body composition. The results of all tests were submitted to basic statistical analysis and all correlations were found between all the tests (volleyball technical skills, psychophysiological abilities, physical abilities), and all basic anthropometric variables (n = 49) and all proportions and body composition characteristics (n = 65). All anthropometric measurements and test results were correlated with the index of proficiency for all elements of the game. The best linear regression models were calculated for predicting proficiency in different elements of the game. We can see that body build and all kind of tests took part in predicting the proficiency of the game. The most essential for performing attack, block and feint were anthropometric and psychophysiological models. The studied complex of body build characteristics and tests results determine the players’ proficiency at competitions, are an important tool for testing the player’s individual development, enable to choose volleyballers from among schoolgirls and represent the whole body constitutional model of a young female volleyballer. Outlook Our outlook for the future is to continue recording of all Estonian championship games with the computer program Game, to continue the players’ anthropometric measuring and psychophysiological testing at competitions and to compile a national register for assessment of development of individual players and teams.
To date, positive relationships between diversity and community biomass have been mainly found, especially in terrestrial ecosystems due to the complementarity and/or dominance effect. In this thesis, the effect of diversity on the performance of terrestrial plant and phytoplankton communities was investigated to get a better understanding of the underlying mechanisms in the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning context. In a large grassland biodiversity experiment, the Jena Experiment, the effect of community diversity on the individual plant performance was investigated for all species. The species pool consisted of 60 plant species belonging to 4 functional groups (grasses, small herbs, tall herbs, legumes). The experiment included 82 large plots which differed in species richness (1-60), functional richness (1-4), and community composition. Individual plant height increased with increasing species richness suggesting stronger competition for light in more diverse communities. The aboveground biomass of the individual plants decreased with increasing species richness indicating stronger competition in more species-rich communities. Moreover, in more species-rich communities plant individuals were less likely to flower out and had fewer inflorescences which may be resulting from a trade-off between resource allocation to vegetative height growth and to reproduction. Responses to changing species richness differed strongly between functional groups and between species of similar functional groups. To conclude, individual plant performance can largely depend on the diversity of the surrounding community. Positive diversity effects on biomass have been mainly found for substrate-bound plant communities. Therefore, the effect of diversity on the community biomass of phytoplankton was studied using microcosms. The communities consisted of 8 algal species belonging to 4 functional groups (green algae, diatoms, cyanobacteria, phytoflagellates) and were grown at different functional richness levels (1-4). Functional richness and community biomass were negatively correlated and all community biomasses were lower than their average monoculture biomasses of the component species, revealing community underyielding. This was mainly caused by the dominance of a fast-growing species which built up low biomasses in monoculture and mixture. A trade-off between biomass and growth rate in monoculture was found for all species, and thus fast-growing species built up low biomasses and slow-growing species reached high biomasses in monoculture. As the fast-growing, low-productive species monopolised nutrients in the mixtures, they became the dominant species resulting in the observed community underyielding. These findings suggest community overyielding when biomasses of the component species are positively correlated with their growth rates in monocultures. Aquatic microcosm experiments with an extensive design were performed to get a broad range of community responses. The phytoplankton communities differed in species diversity (1, 2, 4, 8, and 12), functional diversity (1, 2, 3, and 4) and community composition. The species/functional diversity positively affected community biomass, revealing overyielding in most of the communities. This was mainly caused by a positive complementarity effect which can be attributed to resource use complementarity and/or facilitative interaction among the species. Overyielding of more diverse communities occurred when the biomass of the component species was correlated positively with their growth rates in monoculture and thus, fast-growing and high-productive species were dominant in mixtures. This and the study mentioned above generated an emergent pattern for community overyielding and underyielding from the relationship between biomass and growth rate in monoculture as long as the initial community structure prevailed. Invasive species can largely affect ecosystem processes, whereas invasion is also influenced by diversity. To date, studies revealed negative and positive diversity effects on the invasibility (susceptibility of a community to the invasion by new species). The effect of productivity (nutrient concentration ranging from 10 to 640 µg P L-1), herbivory (presence/absence of the generalist feeder) and diversity (3, 4, 6 species were randomly chosen from the resident species pool) on the invasibility of phytoplankton communities consisting of 10 resident species was investigated using semi-continuous microcosms. Two functionally diverse invaders were chosen: the filamentous and less-edible cynaobacterium C. raciborskii and the unicellular and well-edible phytoflagellate Cryptomonas sp. The phytoflagellate indirectly benefited from grazing pressure of herbivores whereas C. raciborskii suffered more from it. Diversity did not affect the invasibility of the phytoplankton communities. Rather, it was strongly influenced by the functional traits of the resident and invasive species.
The dissertation examines the use of performance information by public managers. “Use” is conceptualized as purposeful utilization in order to steer, learn, and improve public services. The main research question is: Why do public managers use performance information? To answer this question, I systematically review the existing literature, identify research gaps and introduce the approach of my dissertation. The first part deals with manager-related variables that might affect performance information use but which have thus far been disregarded. The second part models performance data use by applying a theory from social psychology which is based on the assumption that this management behavior is conscious and reasoned. The third part examines the extent to which explanations of performance information use vary if we include others sources of “unsystematic” feedback in our analysis. The empirical results are based on survey data from 2011. I surveyed middle managers from eight selected divisions of all German cities with county status (n=954). To analyze the data, I used factor analysis, multiple regression analysis, and structural equation modeling. My research resulted in four major findings: 1) The use of performance information can be modeled as a reasoned behavior which is determined by the attitude of the managers and of their immediate peers. 2) Regular users of performance data surprisingly are not generally inclined to analyze abstract data but rather prefer gathering information through personal interaction. 3) Managers who take on ownership of performance information at an early stage in the measurement process are also more likely to use this data when it is reported to them. 4) Performance reports are only one source of information among many. Public managers prefer verbal feedback from insiders and feedback from external stakeholders over systematic performance reports. The dissertation explains these findings using a deductive approach and discusses their implications for theory and practice.
Data stream processing systems (DSPSs) are a key enabler to integrate continuously generated data, such as sensor measurements, into enterprise applications. DSPSs allow to steadily analyze information from data streams, e.g., to monitor manufacturing processes and enable fast reactions to anomalous behavior. Moreover, DSPSs continuously filter, sample, and aggregate incoming streams of data, which reduces the data size, and thus data storage costs.
The growing volumes of generated data have increased the demand for high-performance DSPSs, leading to a higher interest in these systems and to the development of new DSPSs. While having more DSPSs is favorable for users as it allows choosing the system that satisfies their requirements the most, it also introduces the challenge of identifying the most suitable DSPS regarding current needs as well as future demands. Having a solution to this challenge is important because replacements of DSPSs require the costly re-writing of applications if no abstraction layer is used for application development. However, quantifying performance differences between DSPSs is a difficult task. Existing benchmarks fail to integrate all core functionalities of DSPSs and lack tool support, which hinders objective result comparisons. Moreover, no current benchmark covers the combination of streaming data with existing structured business data, which is particularly relevant for companies.
This thesis proposes a performance benchmark for enterprise stream processing called ESPBench. With enterprise stream processing, we refer to the combination of streaming and structured business data. Our benchmark design represents real-world scenarios and allows for an objective result comparison as well as scaling of data. The defined benchmark query set covers all core functionalities of DSPSs. The benchmark toolkit automates the entire benchmark process and provides important features, such as query result validation and a configurable data ingestion rate.
To validate ESPBench and to ease the use of the benchmark, we propose an example implementation of the ESPBench queries leveraging the Apache Beam software development kit (SDK). The Apache Beam SDK is an abstraction layer designed for developing stream processing applications that is applied in academia as well as enterprise contexts. It allows to run the defined applications on any of the supported DSPSs. The performance impact of Apache Beam is studied in this dissertation as well. The results show that there is a significant influence that differs among DSPSs and stream processing applications. For validating ESPBench, we use the example implementation of the ESPBench queries developed using the Apache Beam SDK. We benchmark the implemented queries executed on three modern DSPSs: Apache Flink, Apache Spark Streaming, and Hazelcast Jet. The results of the study prove the functioning of ESPBench and its toolkit. ESPBench is capable of quantifying performance characteristics of DSPSs and of unveiling differences among systems.
The benchmark proposed in this thesis covers all requirements to be applied in enterprise stream processing settings, and thus represents an improvement over the current state-of-the-art.