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With the downscaling of CMOS technologies, the radiation-induced Single Event Transient (SET) effects in combinational logic have become a critical reliability issue for modern integrated circuits (ICs) intended for operation under harsh radiation conditions. The SET pulses generated in combinational logic may propagate through the circuit and eventually result in soft errors. It has thus become an imperative to address the SET effects in the early phases of the radiation-hard IC design. In general, the soft error mitigation solutions should accommodate both static and dynamic measures to ensure the optimal utilization of available resources. An efficient soft-error-aware design should address synergistically three main aspects: (i) characterization and modeling of soft errors, (ii) multi-level soft error mitigation, and (iii) online soft error monitoring. Although significant results have been achieved, the effectiveness of SET characterization methods, accuracy of predictive SET models, and efficiency of SET mitigation measures are still critical issues. Therefore, this work addresses the following topics: (i) Characterization and modeling of SET effects in standard combinational cells, (ii) Static mitigation of SET effects in standard combinational cells, and (iii) Online particle detection, as a support for dynamic soft error mitigation.
Since the standard digital libraries are widely used in the design of radiation-hard ICs, the characterization of SET effects in standard cells and the availability of accurate SET models for the Soft Error Rate (SER) evaluation are the main prerequisites for efficient radiation-hard design. This work introduces an approach for the SPICE-based standard cell characterization with the reduced number of simulations, improved SET models and optimized SET sensitivity database. It has been shown that the inherent similarities in the SET response of logic cells for different input levels can be utilized to reduce the number of required simulations. Based on characterization results, the fitting models for the SET sensitivity metrics (critical charge, generated SET pulse width and propagated SET pulse width) have been developed. The proposed models are based on the principle of superposition, and they express explicitly the dependence of the SET sensitivity of individual combinational cells on design, operating and irradiation parameters. In contrast to the state-of-the-art characterization methodologies which employ extensive look-up tables (LUTs) for storing the simulation results, this work proposes the use of LUTs for storing the fitting coefficients of the SET sensitivity models derived from the characterization results. In that way the amount of characterization data in the SET sensitivity database is reduced significantly.
The initial step in enhancing the robustness of combinational logic is the application of gate-level mitigation techniques. As a result, significant improvement of the overall SER can be achieved with minimum area, delay and power overheads. For the SET mitigation in standard cells, it is essential to employ the techniques that do not require modifying the cell structure. This work introduces the use of decoupling cells for improving the robustness of standard combinational cells. By insertion of two decoupling cells at the output of a target cell, the critical charge of the cell’s output node is increased and the attenuation of short SETs is enhanced. In comparison to the most common gate-level techniques (gate upsizing and gate duplication), the proposed approach provides better SET filtering. However, as there is no single gate-level mitigation technique with optimal performance, a combination of multiple techniques is required. This work introduces a comprehensive characterization of gate-level mitigation techniques aimed to quantify their impact on the SET robustness improvement, as well as introduced area, delay and power overhead per gate. By characterizing the gate-level mitigation techniques together with the standard cells, the required effort in subsequent SER analysis of a target design can be reduced. The characterization database of the hardened standard cells can be utilized as a guideline for selection of the most appropriate mitigation solution for a given design.
As a support for dynamic soft error mitigation techniques, it is important to enable the online detection of energetic particles causing the soft errors. This allows activating the power-greedy fault-tolerant configurations based on N-modular redundancy only at the high radiation levels. To enable such a functionality, it is necessary to monitor both the particle flux and the variation of particle LET, as these two parameters contribute significantly to the system SER. In this work, a particle detection approach based on custom-sized pulse stretching inverters is proposed. Employing the pulse stretching inverters connected in parallel enables to measure the particle flux in terms of the number of detected SETs, while the particle LET variations can be estimated from the distribution of SET pulse widths. This approach requires a purely digital processing logic, in contrast to the standard detectors which require complex mixed-signal processing. Besides the possibility of LET monitoring, additional advantages of the proposed particle detector are low detection latency and power consumption, and immunity to error accumulation.
The results achieved in this thesis can serve as a basis for establishment of an overall soft-error-aware database for a given digital library, and a comprehensive multi-level radiation-hard design flow that can be implemented with the standard IC design tools. The following step will be to evaluate the achieved results with the irradiation experiments.
Recognizing, understanding, and responding to quantities are considerable skills for human beings. We can easily communicate quantities, and we are extremely efficient in adapting our behavior to numerical related tasks. One usual task is to compare quantities. We also use symbols like digits in numerical-related tasks. To solve tasks including digits, we must to rely on our previously learned internal number representations.
This thesis elaborates on the process of number comparison with the use of noisy mental representations of numbers, the interaction of number and size representations and how we use mental number representations strategically. For this, three studies were carried out.
In the first study, participants had to decide which of two presented digits was numerically larger. They had to respond with a saccade in the direction of the anticipated answer. Using only a small set of meaningfully interpretable parameters, a variant of random walk models is described that accounts for response time, error rate, and variance of response time for the full matrix of 72 digit pairs. In addition, the used random walk model predicts a numerical distance effect even for error response times and this effect clearly occurs in the observed data. In relation to corresponding correct answers error responses were systematically faster. However, different from standard assumptions often made in random walk models, this account required that the distributions of step sizes of the induced random walks be asymmetric to account for this asymmetry between correct and incorrect responses.
Furthermore, the presented model provides a well-defined framework to investigate the nature and scale (e.g., linear vs. logarithmic) of the mapping of numerical magnitude onto its internal representation. In comparison of the fits of proposed models with linear and logarithmic mapping, the logarithmic mapping is suggested to be prioritized.
Finally, we discuss how our findings can help interpret complex findings (e.g., conflicting speed vs. accuracy trends) in applied studies that use number comparison as a well-established diagnostic tool. Furthermore, a novel oculomotoric effect is reported, namely the saccadic overschoot effect. The participants responded by saccadic eye movements and the amplitude of these saccadic responses decreases with numerical distance.
For the second study, an experimental design was developed that allows us to apply the signal detection theory to a task where participants had to decide whether a presented digit was physically smaller or larger. A remaining question is, whether the benefit in (numerical magnitude – physical size) congruent conditions is related to a better perception than in incongruent conditions. Alternatively, the number-size congruency effect is mediated by response biases due to numbers magnitude. The signal detection theory is a perfect tool to distinguish between these two alternatives. It describes two parameters, namely sensitivity and response bias. Changes in the sensitivity are related to the actual task performance due to real differences in perception processes whereas changes in the response bias simply reflect strategic implications as a stronger preparation (activation) of an anticipated answer. Our results clearly demonstrate that the number-size congruency effect cannot be reduced to mere response bias effects, and that genuine sensitivity gains for congruent number-size pairings contribute to the number-size congruency effect.
Third, participants had to perform a SNARC task – deciding whether a presented digit was odd or even. Local transition probability of irrelevant attributes (magnitude) was varied while local transition probability of relevant attributes (parity) and global probability occurrence of each stimulus were kept constantly. Participants were quite sensitive in recognizing the underlying local transition probability of irrelevant attributes. A gain in performance was observed for actual repetitions of the irrelevant attribute in relation to changes of the irrelevant attribute in high repetition conditions compared to low repetition conditions. One interpretation of these findings is that information about the irrelevant attribute (magnitude) in the previous trial is used as an informative precue, so that participants can prepare early processing stages in the current trial, with the corresponding benefits and costs typical of standard cueing studies.
Finally, the results reported in this thesis are discussed in relation to recent studies in numerical cognition.
What are the consequences of unemployment and precarious employment for individuals' health in Europe? What are the moderating factors that may offset (or increase) the health consequences of labor-market risks? How do the effects of these risks vary across different contexts, which differ in their institutional and cultural settings? Does gender, regarded as a social structure, play a role, and how? To answer these questions is the aim of my cumulative thesis. This study aims to advance our knowledge about the health consequences that unemployment and precariousness cause over the life course. In particular, I investigate how several moderating factors, such as gender, the family, and the broader cultural and institutional context, may offset or increase the impact of employment instability and insecurity on individual health.
In my first paper, 'The buffering role of the family in the relationship between job loss and self-perceived health: Longitudinal results from Europe, 2004-2011', I and my co-authors measure the causal effect of job loss on health and the role of the family and welfare states (regimes) as moderating factors. Using EU-SILC longitudinal data (2004-2011), we estimate the probability of experiencing 'bad health' following a transition to unemployment by applying linear probability models and undertake separate analyses for men and women. Firstly, we measure whether changes in the independent variable 'job loss' lead to changes in the dependent variable 'self-rated health' for men and women separately. Then, by adding into the model different interaction terms, we measure the moderating effect of the family, both in terms of emotional and economic support, and how much it varies across different welfare regimes. As an identification strategy, we first implement static fixed-effect panel models, which control for time-varying observables and indirect health selection—i.e., constant unobserved heterogeneity. Secondly, to control for reverse causality and path dependency, we implement dynamic fixed-effect panel models, adding a lagged dependent variable to the model.
We explore the role of the family by focusing on close ties within households: we consider the presence of a stable partner and his/her working status as a source of social and economic support. According to previous literature, having a partner should reduce the stress from adverse events, thanks to the symbolic and emotional dimensions that such a relationship entails, regardless of any economic benefits. Our results, however, suggest that benefits linked to the presence of a (female) partner also come from the financial stability that (s)he can provide in terms of a second income. Furthermore, we find partners' employment to be at least as important as the mere presence of the partner in reducing the negative effect of job loss on the individual's health by maintaining the household's standard of living and decreasing economic strain on the family. Our results are in line with previous research, which has highlighted that some people cope better than others with adverse life circumstances, and the support provided by the family is a crucial resource in that regard.
We also reported an important interaction between the family and the welfare state in moderating the health consequences of unemployment, showing how the compensation effect of the family varies across welfare regimes. The family plays a decisive role in cushioning the adverse consequences of labor market risks in Southern and Eastern welfare states, characterized by less developed social protection systems and –especially the Southern – high level of familialism.
The first paper also found important gender differences concerning job loss, family and welfare effects. Of particular interest is the evidence suggesting that health selection works differently for men and women, playing a more prominent role for women than for men in explaining the relationship between job loss and self-perceived health. The second paper, 'Gender roles and selection mechanisms across contexts: A comparative analysis of the relationship between unemployment, self-perceived health, and gender.' investigates more in-depth the gender differential in health driven by unemployment.
Being a highly contested issue in literature, we aim to study whether men are more penalized than women or the other way around and the mechanisms that may explain the gender difference. To do that, we rely on two theoretical arguments: the availability of alternative roles and social selection. The first argument builds on the idea that men and women may compensate for the detrimental health consequences of unemployment through the commitment to 'alternative roles,' which can provide for the resources needed to fulfill people's socially constructed needs. Notably, the availability of alternative options depends on the different positions that men and women have in society.
Further, we merge the availability of the 'alternative roles' argument with the health selection argument. We assume that health selection could be contingent on people's social position as defined by gender and, thus, explain the gender differential in the relationship between unemployment and health. Ill people might be less reluctant to fall or remain (i.e., self-select) in unemployment if they have alternative roles. In Western societies, women generally have more alternative roles than men and thus more discretion in their labor market attachment. Therefore, health selection should be stronger for them, explaining why unemployment is less menace for women than for their male counterparts.
Finally, relying on the idea of different gender regimes, we extended these arguments to comparison across contexts. For example, in contexts where being a caregiver is assumed to be women's traditional and primary roles and the primary breadwinner role is reserved to men, unemployment is less stigmatized, and taking up alternative roles is more socially accepted for women than for men (Hp.1). Accordingly, social (self)selection should be stronger for women than for men in traditional contexts, where, in the case of ill-health, the separation from work is eased by the availability of alternative roles (Hp.2).
By focusing on contexts that are representative of different gender regimes, we implement a multiple-step comparative approach. Firstly, by using EU-SILC longitudinal data (2004-2015), our analysis tests gender roles and selection mechanisms for Sweden and Italy, representing radically different gender regimes, thus providing institutional and cultural variation. Then, we limit institutional heterogeneity by focusing on Germany and comparing East- and West-Germany and older and younger cohorts—for West-Germany (SOEP data 1995-2017). Next, to assess the differential impact of unemployment for men and women, we compared (unemployed and employed) men with (unemployed and employed) women. To do so, we calculate predicted probabilities and average marginal effect from two distinct random-effects probit models. Our first step is estimating random-effects models that assess the association between unemployment and self-perceived health, controlling for observable characteristics. In the second step, our fully adjusted model controls for both direct and indirect selection. We do this using dynamic correlated random-effects (CRE) models. Further, based on the fully adjusted model, we test our hypotheses on alternative roles (Hp.1) by comparing several contexts – models are estimated separately for each context. For this hypothesis, we pool men and women and include an interaction term between unemployment and gender, which has the advantage to allow for directly testing whether gender differences in the effect of unemployment exist and are statistically significant. Finally, we test the role of selection mechanisms (Hp.2), using the KHB method to compare coefficients across nested nonlinear models. Specifically, we test the role of selection for the relationship between unemployment and health by comparing the partially-adjusted and fully-adjusted models. To allow selection mechanisms to operate differently between genders, we estimate separate models for men and women.
We found support to our first hypotheses—the context where people are embedded structures the relationship between unemployment, health, and gender. We found no gendered effect of unemployment on health in the egalitarian context of Sweden. Conversely, in the traditional context of Italy, we observed substantive and statistically significant gender differences in the effect of unemployment on bad health, with women suffering less than men. We found the same pattern for comparing East and West Germany and younger and older cohorts in West Germany.
On the contrary, our results did not support our theoretical argument on social selection. We found that in Sweden, women are more selected out of employment than men. In contrast, in Italy, health selection does not seem to be the primary mechanism behind the gender differential—Italian men and women seem to be selected out of employment to the same extent. Namely, we do not find any evidence that health selection is stronger for women in more traditional countries (Hp2), despite the fact that the institutional and the cultural context would offer them a more comprehensive range of 'alternative roles' relative to men. Moreover, our second hypothesis is also rejected in the second and third comparisons, where the cross-country heterogeneity is reduced to maximize cultural differences within the same institutional context. Further research that addresses selection into inactivity is needed to evaluate the interplay between selection and social roles across gender regimes.
While the health consequences of unemployment have been on the research agenda for a pretty long time, the interest in precarious employment—defined as the linking of the vulnerable worker to work that is characterized by uncertainty and insecurity concerning pay, the stability of the work arrangement, limited access to social benefits, and statutory protections—has emerged only later. Since the 80s, scholars from different disciplines have raised concerns about the social consequences of de-standardization of employment relationships. However, while work has become undoubtedly more precarious, very little is known about its causal effect on individual health and the role of gender as a moderator. These questions are at the core of my third paper : 'Bad job, bad health? A longitudinal analysis of the interaction between precariousness, gender and self-perceived health in Germany'. Herein, I investigate the multidimensional nature of precarious employment and its causal effect on health, particularly focusing on gender differences.
With this paper, I aim at overcoming three major shortcomings of earlier studies: The first one regards the cross-sectional nature of data that prevents the authors from ruling out unobserved heterogeneity as a mechanism for the association between precarious employment and health. Indeed, several unmeasured individual characteristics—such as cognitive abilities—may confound the relationship between precarious work and health, leading to biased results. Secondly, only a few studies have directly addressed the role of gender in shaping the relationship. Moreover, available results on the gender differential are mixed and inconsistent: some found precarious employment being more detrimental for women's health, while others found no gender differences or stronger negative association for men. Finally, previous attempts to an empirical translation of the employment precariousness (EP) concept have not always been coherent with their theoretical framework. EP is usually assumed to be a multidimensional and continuous phenomenon; it is characterized by different dimensions of insecurity that may overlap in the same job and lead to different "degrees of precariousness." However, researchers have predominantly focused on one-dimensional indicators—e.g., temporary employment, subjective job insecurity—to measure EP and study the association with health. Besides the fact that this approach partially grasps the phenomenon's complexity, the major problem is the inconsistency of evidence that it has produced. Indeed, this line of inquiry generally reveals an ambiguous picture, with some studies finding substantial adverse effects of temporary over permanent employment, while others report only minor differences.
To measure the (causal) effect of precarious work on self-rated health and its variation by gender, I focus on Germany and use four waves from SOEP data (2003, 2007, 2011, and 2015). Germany is a suitable context for my study. Indeed, since the 1980s, the labor market and welfare system have been restructured in many ways to increase the German economy's competitiveness in the global market. As a result, the (standard) employment relationship has been de-standardized: non-standard and atypical employment arrangements—i.e., part-time work, fixed-term contracts, mini-jobs, and work agencies—have increased over time while wages have lowered, even among workers with standard work. In addition, the power of unions has also fallen over the last three decades, leaving a large share of workers without collective protection. Because of this process of de-standardization, the link between wage employment and strong social rights has eroded, making workers more powerless and more vulnerable to labor market risks than in the past. EP refers to this uneven distribution of power in the employment relationship, which can be detrimental to workers' health. Indeed, by affecting individuals' access to power and other resources, EP puts precarious workers at risk of experiencing health shocks and influences their ability to gain and accumulate health advantages (Hp.1).
Further, the focus on Germany allows me to investigate my second research question on the gender differential. Germany is usually regarded as a traditionalist gender regime: a context characterized by a configuration of roles. Here, being a caregiver is assumed to be women's primary role, whereas the primary breadwinner role is reserved for men. Although many signs of progress have been made over the last decades towards a greater equalization of opportunities and more egalitarianism, the breadwinner model has barely changed towards a modified version. Thus, women usually take on the double role of workers (the so-called secondary earner) and caregivers, and men still devote most of their time to paid work activities. Moreover, the overall upward trend towards more egalitarian gender ideologies has leveled off over the last decades, moving notably towards more traditional gender ideologies.
In this setting, two alternative hypotheses are possible. Firstly, I assume that the negative relationship between EP and health is stronger for women than for men. This is because women are systematically more disadvantaged than men in the public and private spheres of life, having less access to formal and informal sources of power. These gender-related power asymmetries may interact with EP-related power asymmetries resulting in a stronger effect of EP on women's health than on men's health (Hp.2).
An alternative way of looking at the gender differential is to consider the interaction that precariousness might have with men's and women's gender identities. According to this view, the negative relationship between EP and health is weaker for women than for men (Hp.2a). In a society with a gendered division of labor and a strong link between masculine identities and stable and well-rewarded job—i.e., a job that confers the role of primary family provider—a male worker with precarious employment might violate the traditional male gender role. Men in precarious jobs may perceive themselves (and by others) as possessing a socially undesirable characteristic, which conflicts with the stereotypical idea of themselves as the male breadwinner. Engaging in behaviors that contradict stereotypical gender identity may decrease self-esteem and foster feelings of inferiority, helplessness, and jealousy, leading to poor health.
I develop a new indicator of EP that empirically translates a definition of EP as a multidimensional and continuous phenomenon. I assume that EP is a latent construct composed of seven dimensions of insecurity chosen according to the theory and previous empirical research: Income insecurity, social insecurity, legal insecurity, employment insecurity, working-time insecurity, representation insecurity, worker's vulnerability. The seven dimensions are proxied by eight indicators available in the four waves of the SOEP dataset. The EP composite indicator is obtained by performing a multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) on the eight indicators. This approach aims to construct a summary scale in which all dimensions contribute jointly to the measured experience of precariousness and its health impact.
Further, the relationship between EP and 'general self-perceived health' is estimated by applying ordered probit random-effects estimators and calculating average marginal effect (further AME). Then, to control for unobserved heterogeneity, I implement correlated random-effects models that add to the model the within-individual means of the time-varying independent variables. To test the significance of the gender differential, I add an interaction term between EP and gender in the fully adjusted model in the pooled sample.
My correlated random-effects models showed EP's negative and substantial 'effect' on self-perceived health for both men and women. Although nonsignificant, the evidence seems in line with previous cross-sectional literature. It supports the hypothesis that employment precariousness could be detrimental to workers' health. Further, my results showed the crucial role of unobserved heterogeneity in shaping the health consequences of precarious employment. This is particularly important as evidence accumulates, yet it is still mostly descriptive.
Moreover, my results revealed a substantial difference among men and women in the relationship between EP and health: when EP increases, the risk of experiencing poor health increases much more for men than for women. This evidence falsifies previous theory according to whom the gender differential is contingent on the structurally disadvantaged position of women in western societies. In contrast, they seem to confirm the idea that men in precarious work could experience role conflict to a larger extent than women, as their self-standard is supposed to be the stereotypical breadwinner worker with a good and well-rewarded job. Finally, results from the multiple correspondence analysis contribute to the methodological debate on precariousness, showing that a multidimensional and continuous indicator can express a latent variable of EP.
All in all, complementarities are revealed in the results of unemployment and employment precariousness, which have two implications: Policy-makers need to be aware that the total costs of unemployment and precariousness go far beyond the economic and material realm penetrating other fundamental life domains such as individual health. Moreover, they need to balance the trade-off between protecting adequately unemployed people and fostering high-quality employment in reaction to the highlighted market pressures. In this sense, the further development of a (universalistic) welfare state certainly helps mitigate the adverse health effects of unemployment and, therefore, the future costs of both individuals' health and welfare spending. In addition, the presence of a working partner is crucial for reducing the health consequences of employment instability. Therefore, policies aiming to increase female labor market participation should be promoted, especially in those contexts where the welfare state is less developed.
Moreover, my results support the significance of taking account of a gender perspective in health research. The findings of the three articles show that job loss, unemployment, and precarious employment, in general, have adverse effects on men's health but less or absent consequences for women's health. Indeed, this suggests the importance of labor and health policies that consider and further distinguish the specific needs of the male and female labor force in Europe. Nevertheless, a further implication emerges: the health consequences of employment instability and de-standardization need to be investigated in light of the gender arrangements and the transforming gender relationships in specific cultural and institutional contexts. My results indeed seem to suggest that women's health advantage may be a transitory phenomenon, contingent on the predominant gendered institutional and cultural context. As the structural difference between men's and women's position in society is eroded, egalitarianism becomes the dominant normative status, so will probably be the gender difference in the health consequences of job loss and precariousness. Therefore, while gender equality in opportunities and roles is a desirable aspect for contemporary societies and a political goal that cannot be postponed further, this thesis raises a further and maybe more crucial question: What kind of equality should be pursued to provide men and women with both good life quality and equal chances in the public and private spheres? In this sense, I believe that social and labor policies aiming to reduce gender inequality in society should focus on improving women's integration into the labor market, implementing policies targeting men, and facilitating their involvement in the private sphere of life. Equal redistribution of social roles could activate a crucial transformation of gender roles and the cultural models that sustain and still legitimate gender inequality in Western societies.
Nowadays, graph data models are employed, when relationships between entities have to be stored and are in the scope of queries. For each entity, this graph data model locally stores relationships to adjacent entities. Users employ graph queries to query and modify these entities and relationships. These graph queries employ graph patterns to lookup all subgraphs in the graph data that satisfy certain graph structures. These subgraphs are called graph pattern matches. However, this graph pattern matching is NP-complete for subgraph isomorphism. Thus, graph queries can suffer a long response time, when the number of entities and relationships in the graph data or the graph patterns increases.
One possibility to improve the graph query performance is to employ graph views that keep ready graph pattern matches for complex graph queries for later retrieval. However, these graph views must be maintained by means of an incremental graph pattern matching to keep them consistent with the graph data from which they are derived, when the graph data changes. This maintenance adds subgraphs that satisfy a graph pattern to the graph views and removes subgraphs that do not satisfy a graph pattern anymore from the graph views.
Current approaches for incremental graph pattern matching employ Rete networks. Rete networks are discrimination networks that enumerate and maintain all graph pattern matches of certain graph queries by employing a network of condition tests, which implement partial graph patterns that together constitute the overall graph query. Each condition test stores all subgraphs that satisfy the partial graph pattern. Thus, Rete networks suffer high memory consumptions, because they store a large number of partial graph pattern matches. But, especially these partial graph pattern matches enable Rete networks to update the stored graph pattern matches efficiently, because the network maintenance exploits the already stored partial graph pattern matches to find new graph pattern matches. However, other kinds of discrimination networks exist that can perform better in time and space than Rete networks. Currently, these other kinds of networks are not used for incremental graph pattern matching.
This thesis employs generalized discrimination networks for incremental graph pattern matching. These discrimination networks permit a generalized network structure of condition tests to enable users to steer the trade-off between memory consumption and execution time for the incremental graph pattern matching. For that purpose, this thesis contributes a modeling language for the effective definition of generalized discrimination networks. Furthermore, this thesis contributes an efficient and scalable incremental maintenance algorithm, which updates the (partial) graph pattern matches that are stored by each condition test. Moreover, this thesis provides a modeling evaluation, which shows that the proposed modeling language enables the effective modeling of generalized discrimination networks. Furthermore, this thesis provides a performance evaluation, which shows that a) the incremental maintenance algorithm scales, when the graph data becomes large, and b) the generalized discrimination network structures can outperform Rete network structures in time and space at the same time for incremental graph pattern matching.
Indonesien zählt zu den weltweit führenden Ländern bei der Nutzung von geothermischer Energie. Die geothermischen Energiequellen sind im Wesentlichen an den aktiven Vulkanismus gebunden, der durch die Prozesse an der indonesischen Subduktionszone verursacht wird. Darüber hinaus sind geotektonische Strukturen wie beispielsweise die Sumatra-Störung als verstärkende Faktoren für das geothermische Potenzial von Bedeutung. Bei der geophysikalischen Erkundung der indonesischen Geothermie-Ressourcen konzentrierte man sich bisher vor allem auf die Magnetotellurik. Passive Seismologie wurde dahingegen ausschließlich für die Überwachung von im Betrieb befindlichen Geothermie-Anlagen verwendet. Jüngste Untersuchungungen z.B. in Island und in den USA haben jedoch gezeigt, dass seismologische Verfahren bereits in der Erkundungsphase wichtige Informationen zu den physikalischen Eigenschaften, zum Spannungsfeld und zu möglichen Fluid- und Wärmetransportwegen liefern können. In der vorgelegten Doktorarbeit werden verschiedene moderne Methoden der passiven Seismologie verwendet, um beispielhaft ein neues, von der indonesischen Regierung für zukünftige geothermische Energiegewinnung ausgewiesenes Gebiet im nördlichen Teil Sumatras (Indonesien) zu erkunden. Die konkreten Ziele der Untersuchungen umfassten (1) die Ableitung von 3D Strukturmodellen der P- und S-Wellen Geschwindigkeiten (Parameter Vp und Vs), (2) die Bestimmung der Absorptionseigenschaften (Parameter Qp), und (3) die Kartierung und Charakterisierung von Störungssystemen auf der Grundlage der Seismizitätsverteilung und der Herdflächenlösungen. Für diese Zwecke habe ich zusammen mit Kollegen ein seismologisches Netzwerk in Tarutung (Sumatra) aufgebaut und über einen Zeitraum von 10 Monaten (Mai 2011 – Februar 2012) betrieben. Insgesamt wurden hierbei 42 Stationen (jeweils ausgestattet mit EDL-Datenlogger, 3-Komponenten, 1 Hz Seismometer) über eine Fläche von etwa 35 x 35 km verteilt. Mit dem Netzwerk wurden im gesamten Zeitraum 2568 lokale Erdbeben registriert. Die integrierte Betrachtung der Ergebnisse aus den verschiedenen Teilstudien (Tomographie, Erdbebenverteilung) erlaubt neue Einblicke in die generelle geologische Stukturierung sowie eine Eingrenzung von Bereichen mit einem erhöhten geothermischen Potenzial. Das tomographische Vp-Modell ermöglicht eine Bestimmung der Geometrie von Sedimentbecken entlang der Sumatra-Störung. Für die Geothermie besonders interessant ist der Bereich nordwestlich des Tarutung-Beckens. Die dort abgebildeten Anomalien (erhöhtes Vp/Vs, geringes Qp) habe ich als mögliche Aufstiegswege von warmen Fluiden interpretiert. Die scheinbar asymetrische Verteilung der Anomalien wird hierbei im Zusammenhang mit der Seismizitätsverteilung, der Geometrie der Beben-Bruchflächen, sowie struktur-geologischen Modellvorstellungen diskutiert. Damit werden wesentliche Informationen für die Planung einer zukünftigen geothermischen Anlage bereitgestellt.
This work analyzes the saving and consumption behavior of agents faced with the possibility of unemployment in a dynamic and stochastic life cycle model. The intertemporal optimization is based on Dynamic Programming with a backward recursion algorithm. The implemented uncertainty is not based on income shocks as it is done in traditional life cycle models but uses Markov probabilities where the probability for the next employment status of the agent depends on the current status. The utility function used is a CRRA function (constant relative risk aversion), combined with a CES function (constant elasticity of substitution) and has several consumption goods, a subsistence level, money and a bequest function.
In the context of cosmological structure formation sheets, filaments and eventually halos form due to gravitational instabilities. It is noteworthy, that at all times, the majority of the baryons in the universe does not reside in the dense halos but in the filaments and the sheets of the intergalactic medium. While at higher redshifts of z > 2, these baryons can be detected via the absorption of light (originating from more distant sources) by neutral hydrogen at temperatures of T ~ 10^4 K (the Lyman-alpha forest), at lower redshifts only about 20 % can be found in this state. The remain (about 50 to 70 % of the total baryons mass) is unaccounted for by observational means. Numerical simulations predict that these missing baryons could reside in the filaments and sheets of the cosmic web at high temperatures of T = 10^4.5 - 10^7 K, but only at low to intermediate densities, and constitutes the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM). The high temperatures of the WHIM are caused by the formation of shocks and the subsequent shock-heating of the gas. This results in a high degree of ionization and renders the reliable detection of the WHIM a challenging task. Recent high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations indicate that, at redshifts of z ~ 2, filaments are able to provide very massive galaxies with a significant amount of cool gas at temperatures of T ~ 10^4 K. This could have an important impact on the star-formation in those galaxies. It is therefore of principle importance to investigate the particular hydro- and thermodynamical conditions of these large filament structures. Density and temperature profiles, and velocity fields, are expected to leave their special imprint on spectroscopic observations. A potential multiphase structure may act as tracer in observational studies of the WHIM. In the context of cold streams, it is important to explore the processes, which regulate the amount of gas transported by the streams. This includes the time evolution of filaments, as well as possible quenching mechanisms. In this context, the halo mass range in which cold stream accretion occurs is of particular interest. In order to address these questions, we perform particular hydrodynamical simulations of very high resolution, and investigate the formation and evolution of prototype structures representing the typical filaments and sheets of the WHIM. We start with a comprehensive study of the one-dimensional collapse of a sinusoidal density perturbation (pancake formation) and examine the influence of radiative cooling, heating due to an UV background, thermal conduction, and the effect of small-scale perturbations given by the cosmological power spectrum. We use a set of simulations, parametrized by the wave length of the initial perturbation L. For L ~ 2 Mpc/h the collapse leads to shock-confined structures. As a result of radiative cooling and of heating due to an UV background, a relatively cold and dense core forms. With increasing L the core becomes denser and more concentrated. Thermal conduction enhances this trend and may lead to an evaporation of the core at very large L ~ 30 Mpc/h. When extending our simulations into three dimensions, instead of a pancake structure, we obtain a configuration consisting of well-defined sheets, filaments, and a gaseous halo. For L > 4 Mpc/h filaments form, which are fully confined by an accretion shock. As with the one-dimensional pancakes, they exhibit an isothermal core. Thus, our results confirm a multiphase structure, which may generate particular spectral tracers. We find that, after its formation, the core becomes shielded against further infall of gas onto the filament, and its mass content decreases with time. In the vicinity of the halo, the filament's core can be attributed to the cold streams found in other studies. We show, that the basic structure of these cold streams exists from the very beginning of the collapse process. Further on, the cross section of the streams is constricted by the outwards moving accretion shock of the halo. Thermal conduction leads to a complete evaporation of the cold stream for L > 6 Mpc/h. This corresponds to halos with a total mass higher than M_halo = 10^13 M_sun, and predicts that in more massive halos star-formation can not be sustained by cold streams. Far away from the gaseous halo, the temperature gradients in the filament are not sufficiently strong for thermal conduction to be effective.
With the emergence of the Internet of things (IoT), plenty of battery-powered and energy-harvesting devices are being deployed to fulfill sensing and actuation tasks in a variety of application areas, such as smart homes, precision agriculture, smart cities, and industrial automation. In this context, a critical issue is that of denial-of-sleep attacks. Such attacks temporarily or permanently deprive battery-powered, energy-harvesting, or otherwise energy-constrained devices of entering energy-saving sleep modes, thereby draining their charge. At the very least, a successful denial-of-sleep attack causes a long outage of the victim device. Moreover, to put battery-powered devices back into operation, their batteries have to be replaced. This is tedious and may even be infeasible, e.g., if a battery-powered device is deployed at an inaccessible location. While the research community came up with numerous defenses against denial-of-sleep attacks, most present-day IoT protocols include no denial-of-sleep defenses at all, presumably due to a lack of awareness and unsolved integration problems. After all, despite there are many denial-of-sleep defenses, effective defenses against certain kinds of denial-of-sleep attacks are yet to be found.
The overall contribution of this dissertation is to propose a denial-of-sleep-resilient medium access control (MAC) layer for IoT devices that communicate over IEEE 802.15.4 links. Internally, our MAC layer comprises two main components. The first main component is a denial-of-sleep-resilient protocol for establishing session keys among neighboring IEEE 802.15.4 nodes. The established session keys serve the dual purpose of implementing (i) basic wireless security and (ii) complementary denial-of-sleep defenses that belong to the second main component. The second main component is a denial-of-sleep-resilient MAC protocol. Notably, this MAC protocol not only incorporates novel denial-of-sleep defenses, but also state-of-the-art mechanisms for achieving low energy consumption, high throughput, and high delivery ratios. Altogether, our MAC layer resists, or at least greatly mitigates, all denial-of-sleep attacks against it we are aware of. Furthermore, our MAC layer is self-contained and thus can act as a drop-in replacement for IEEE 802.15.4-compliant MAC layers. In fact, we implemented our MAC layer in the Contiki-NG operating system, where it seamlessly integrates into an existing protocol stack.
Dark matter, DM, has not yet been directly observed, but it has a very solid theoretical basis. There are observations that provide indirect evidence, like galactic rotation curves that show that the galaxies are rotating too fast to keep their constituent parts, and galaxy clusters that bends the light coming from behind-lying galaxies more than expected with respect to the mass that can be calculated from what can be visibly seen. These observations, among many others, can be explained with theories that include DM. The missing piece is to detect something that can exclusively be explained by DM. Direct observation in a particle accelerator is one way and indirect detection using telescopes is another. This thesis is focused on the latter method.
The Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System, V ERITAS, is a telescope array that detects Cherenkov radiation. Theory predicts that DM particles annihilate into, e.g., a γγ pair and create a distinctive energy spectrum when detected by such telescopes, e.i., a monoenergetic line at the same energy as the particle mass. This so called ”smoking-gun” signature is sought with a sliding window line search within the sub-range ∼ 0.3 − 10 TeV of the VERITAS energy range, ∼ 0.01 − 30 TeV.
Standard analysis within the VERITAS collaboration uses Hillas analysis and look-up tables, acquired by analysing particle simulations, to calculate the energy of the particle causing the Cherenkov shower. In this thesis, an improved analysis method has been used. Modelling each shower as a 3Dgaussian should increase the energy recreation quality. Five dwarf spheroidal galaxies were chosen as targets with a total of ∼ 224 hours of data. The targets were analysed individually and stacked. Particle simulations were based on two simulation packages, CARE and GrISU.
Improvements have been made to the energy resolution and bias correction, up to a few percent each, in comparison to standard analysis. Nevertheless, no line with a relevant significance has been detected. The most promising line is at an energy of ∼ 422 GeV with an upper limit cross section of 8.10 · 10^−24 cm^3 s^−1 and a significance of ∼ 2.73 σ, before trials correction and ∼ 1.56 σ after. Upper limit cross sections have also been calculated for the γγ annihilation process and four other outcomes. The limits are in line with current limits using other methods, from ∼ 8.56 · 10^−26 − 6.61 · 10^−23 cm^3s^−1. Future larger telescope arrays, like the upcoming Cherenkov Telescope Array, CTA, will provide better results with the help of this analysis method.
The aim of this dissertation was to conduct a larger-scale cross-linguistic empirical investigation of similarity-based interference effects in sentence comprehension.
Interference studies can offer valuable insights into the mechanisms that are involved in long-distance dependency completion.
Many studies have investigated similarity-based interference effects, showing that syntactic and semantic information are employed during long-distance dependency formation (e.g., Arnett & Wagers, 2017; Cunnings & Sturt, 2018; Van Dyke, 2007, Van Dyke & Lewis, 2003; Van Dyke & McElree, 2011). Nevertheless, there are some important open questions in the interference literature that are critical to our understanding of the constraints involved in dependency resolution.
The first research question concerns the relative timing of syntactic and semantic interference in online sentence comprehension. Only few interference studies have investigated this question, and, to date, there is not enough data to draw conclusions with regard to their time course (Van Dyke, 2007; Van Dyke & McElree, 2011).
Our first cross-linguistic study explores the relative timing of syntactic and semantic interference in two eye-tracking reading experiments that implement the study design used in Van Dyke (2007). The first experiment tests English sentences. The second, larger-sample experiment investigates the two interference types in German.
Overall, the data suggest that syntactic and semantic interference can arise simultaneously during retrieval.
The second research question concerns a special case of semantic interference: We investigate whether cue-based retrieval interference can be caused by semantically similar items which are not embedded in a syntactic structure.
This second interference study builds on a landmark study by Van Dyke & McElree (2006). The study design used in their study is unique in that it is able to pin down the source of interference as a consequence of cue overload during retrieval, when semantic retrieval cues do not uniquely match the retrieval target. Unlike most other interference studies, this design is able to rule out encoding interference as an alternative explanation. Encoding accounts postulate that it is not cue overload at the retrieval site but the erroneous encoding of similar linguistic items in memory that leads to interference (Lewandowsky et al., 2008; Oberauer & Kliegl, 2006). While Van Dyke & McElree (2006) reported cue-based retrieval interference from sentence-external distractors, the evidence for this effect was weak. A subsequent study did not show interference of this type (Van Dyke et al., 2014). Given these inconclusive findings, further research is necessary to investigate semantic cue-based retrieval interference.
The second study in this dissertation provides a larger-scale cross-linguistic investigation of cue-based retrieval interference from sentence-external items. Three larger-sample eye-tracking studies in English, German, and Russian tested cue-based interference in the online processing of filler-gap dependencies. This study further extends the previous research by investigating interference in each language under varying task demands (Logačev & Vasishth, 2016; Swets et al., 2008).
Overall, we see some very modest support for proactive cue-based retrieval interference in English. Unexpectedly, this was observed only under a low task demand. In German and Russian, there is some evidence against the interference effect. It is possible that interference is attenuated in languages with richer case marking.
In sum, the cross-linguistic experiments on the time course of syntactic and semantic interference from sentence-internal distractors support existing evidence of syntactic and semantic interference during sentence comprehension. Our data further show that both types of interference effects can arise simultaneously. Our cross-linguistic experiments investigating semantic cue-based retrieval interference from sentence-external distractors suggest that this type of interference may arise only in specific linguistic contexts.