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    <title>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de</title>
    <description>OPUS documents</description>
    <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/index/index/</link>
    <pubDate>Thu, 18 Jun 2026 11:51:50 +0200</pubDate>
    <lastBuildDate>Thu, 18 Jun 2026 11:51:50 +0200</lastBuildDate>
    <item>
      <title>Exact methods for discrete Γ-robust interdiction problems with an application to the bilevel knapsack problem</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2929</link>
      <description>Developing solution methods for discrete bilevel problems is known to be a challenging task—even if all parameters of the problem are exactly known. Many real-world applications of bilevel optimization, however, involve data uncertainty. We study discrete min-max problems with a follower who faces uncertainties regarding the parameters of the lower-level problem. Adopting a Γ-robust approach, we present an extended formulation and a multi-follower formulation to model this type of problem. For both settings, we provide a generic branch-and-cut framework. Specifically, we investigate interdiction problems with a monotone Γ-robust follower and we derive problem-tailored cuts, which extend existing techniques that have been proposed for the deterministic case. For the Γ-robust knapsack interdiction problem, we computationally evaluate and compare the performance of the proposed algorithms for both modeling approaches.</description>
      <author>Yasmine Beck; Ivana Ljubić; Martin Schmidt</author>
      <category>article</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2929</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 18 Jun 2026 11:51:50 +0200</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>On a Computationally Ill-Behaved Bilevel Problem with a Continuous and Nonconvex Lower Level</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2928</link>
      <description>It is well known that bilevel optimization problems are hard to solve both in theory and practice. In this paper, we highlight a further computational difficulty when it comes to solving bilevel problems with continuous but nonconvex lower levels. Even if the lower-level problem is solved to -feasibility regarding its nonlinear constraints for an arbitrarily small but positive , the obtained bilevel solution as well as its objective value may be arbitrarily far away from the actual bilevel solution and its actual objective value. This result even holds for bilevel problems for which the nonconvex lower level is uniquely solvable, for which the strict complementarity condition holds, for which the feasible set is convex, and for which Slater’s constraint qualification is satisfied for all feasible upper-level decisions. Since the consideration of -feasibility cannot be avoided when solving nonconvex problems to global optimality, our result shows that computational bilevel optimization with continuous and nonconvex lower levels needs to be done with great care. Finally, we illustrate that the nonlinearities in the lower level are the key reason for the observed bad behavior by showing that linear bilevel problems behave much better at least on the level of feasible solutions.</description>
      <author>Yasmine Beck; Daniel Bienstock; Martin Schmidt; Johannes Thürauf</author>
      <category>article</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2928</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 18 Jun 2026 11:20:10 +0200</pubDate>
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      <title>Imperfect collusion in monitored markets with free entry</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2927</link>
      <description>Surveys of antitrust cases reveal that colluding firms usually (1) attempt to minimise the risk of prosecution, (2) achieve merely imperfect levels of collusion, (3) compete against some independently acting firms, and (4) adjust to market entries and exits. In contrast, existing oligopoly models neglect some of the four listed stylised facts and, thus, overlook important interdependencies between them. Therefore, the present paper develops a general quantity leadership model that simultaneously accommodates all four stylised facts. The model is a three-stage game in which each firm must make three consecutive decisions: market entry or not, collusion or not, and output quantity. The framework is augmented by an antitrust authority that ensures free market access. In addition, the antitrust authority may directly obstruct collusion and it may threaten prosecution. The results of this study indicate that the latter two instruments are rather ineffective.</description>
      <author>Ludwig von Auer; Tu Anh Pham</author>
      <category>article</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2927</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 18 Jun 2026 11:03:32 +0200</pubDate>
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      <title>Tensile Strength Simulation-based Nonwoven Material Design by Surrogate Model Optimization</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2829</link>
      <description>This thesis serves as proof of concept for the tensile strength simulation-based nonwoven material design. Objective is the adjustment of the parameters of an underlying production process with regard to a desired tensile strength behavior (optimization). As an example, we focus on the nonwoven airlay production and consider a thermobonding procedure for the consolidation of the nonwoven fabrics.&#13;
&#13;
To be able to map production parameters to the associated tensile strength behavior, we present a model-simulation framework composed of a model for the nonwoven fiber structure generation and a model for the nonwovens’ mechanical behavior under vertical load. The model for the fiber structure generation replicates the stochastic fiber lay-down of the airlay production and results in a random three-dimensional fiber web. This web is consolidated using a virtual bonding procedure that mimics the thermobonding of the nonwoven material. The topology of the resulting adhered fiber structure can be described by a graph, which serves as basis for the subsequent tensile strength simulation. The model used for this purpose describes the mechanical behavior of the material at fiber network level. Therefore, the considered fiber structure sample is interpreted as truss and the fiber connections are equipped with a nonlinear material law, which allows to describe the elastic phase of the nonwovens’ tensile strength behavior. The existence and uniqueness of a solution to the model as well as its numerical treatment are discussed. Moreover, we present data reduction strategies that enable more efficient simulations by removing fiber structure parts that do not contribute to the tensile strength behavior.&#13;
&#13;
As it becomes evident from the numerical experiments, a single tensile strength simulation for a production-like virtual sample is already computational demanding. Costs accumulate further, since Monte-Carlo simulations are required to account for the randomness in the fiber structure generation. Thus, direct simulations provide an infeasible basis for the nonwoven material design. This motivates the use of a predictive surrogate for optimization. Therefore, we consider regression-based approaches at different levels of information within the simulation framework. It turns out that the coupling of a polynomial model, for the fiber structure feature inference, with a linear one, for the stress-strain curve inference, yields accurate predictions. Once trained, the regression models allow for efficient evaluations and thus represent a suitable surrogate for the nonwoven material design. In this context, we discuss two exemplary problems of interest for the application: First, a tracking-type problem that aims to find the production parameters that result in a desired tensile strength behavior, expressed in terms of stress-strain curves. Second, an in-corridor maximization problem, which aims to identify the production parameters that maximize the probability of ending up in a specified stress-strain corridor.</description>
      <author>Marc Harmening</author>
      <category>doctoralthesis</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2829</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 19 Feb 2026 08:14:07 +0100</pubDate>
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      <title>Plamen Dojnovs „Ball der Tyrannen“. Paradoxien des Politischen in der zeitgenössischen bulgarischen Lyrik</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2737</link>
      <description/>
      <author>Henrike Schmidt</author>
      <category>article</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2737</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:43:19 +0100</pubDate>
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      <title>Die Leere des Politischen: Null-Texte zwischen Performance und Demonstration</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2736</link>
      <description/>
      <author>Mikhail Pavlovets</author>
      <category>article</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2736</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:42:41 +0100</pubDate>
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      <title>Russischer Kulturimperialismus und seine Subversion: Ivan Volkovs „Mazepa“ und Aleksandr Puškins „Poltava“</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2735</link>
      <description/>
      <author>Henrieke Stahl</author>
      <category>article</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2735</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:41:52 +0100</pubDate>
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      <title>What Makes a Poem Aggressive? A Comparison of Joseph Brodsky’s and Aleksandr Byvshev’s Versions of «На независимость Украины» [On the Independence of Ukraine]</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2734</link>
      <description>Shortly after Ukraine had declared its independence in December 1991, Joseph Brodsky, Nobel Prize Winner in Literature 1987, wrote the poem «На независимость Украины» [On the Independence of Ukraine], which sarcastically mourns the separation of Russia and Ukraine. In 2015, responding to the armed conflict in Ukraine, teacher and poet Aleksandr Byvshev issued a reply to this poem under the same title, taking the side of Ukraine. Both poems have been perceived as aggressive, insulting, and anti-Ukrainian or anti-Russian, respectively. This paper asks the question of whether – and in what sense – the two poems are aggressive by drawing on the linguistic features of the two texts. The investigation of the linguistic characteristics of the poems is supplemented by an analysis inspired by argumentation theory, since, as will be shown, both texts are essentially argumentative.</description>
      <author>Katrin Schlund</author>
      <category>article</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2734</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:41:20 +0100</pubDate>
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      <title>Relocating “China” in Contemporary American Poetry: The Case of Timothy Yu</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2733</link>
      <description>This article examines “China” in contemporary American poetry using the example of Timothy Yu’s poems, titled “Chinese Silence,” which rewrite and / or parody texts from the American literary canon as well as public communication. It proposes a hall-of-mirrors reading of these poems in order to show how Yu’s poems refer to, reflect on, and relocate other authors’ writing of “China.” It argues that Yu’s poems, instead of making claims for an authentic “China,” attempt to bring Chinese Americans’ lived experience into the American literary tradition.</description>
      <author>Rui Kunze</author>
      <category>article</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2733</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:40:36 +0100</pubDate>
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      <title>Zwischen Forensik und Philologie: Przemysław Dakowicz und die nationalistische Lyrik im heutigen Polen</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2732</link>
      <description/>
      <author>Jens Herlth</author>
      <category>article</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2732</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:40:07 +0100</pubDate>
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      <title>„Singstimmen, erhebt euch!“: Überlegungen zur Vertonung japanischer Protestlyrik seit 1945</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2731</link>
      <description/>
      <author>Hiroko Masumoto</author>
      <category>article</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2731</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:39:29 +0100</pubDate>
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      <title>Contemporary Japanese Poetry and Politics: An Overview</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2730</link>
      <description>This study will examine two different types of poetry that can be broadly classified as “political” in an attempt to reach an understanding of the interaction between politics and poetry in modern Japan. The first sampling of poetry will be taken from the Internet and will be amateur verse belonging to such traditional genres of poetry as haiku / senryū and tanka that can be classified as agitprop poetry. The second more substantive sampling will be taken from “professional” poets and will mainly fall into the shi (free verse) category. I will also discuss various literary critics and also thinkers on aesthetics from both Japan and the West to further elucidate the relationship between poetry and politics, to elaborate a broad definition of the political domain appropriate to Japanese verse, and also to investigate the issue of how to read and evaluate poetry as literary art. The study will be divided into five parts: first, the introduction outlining and probing the issues under discussion, next, an examination of Japanese agitprop poetry drawn from the Internet, then a brief interregnum on (literary) theory focusing on two theoreticians, Yoshimoto Takaaki (1924–2012) from Japan and Jonathan Culler (b. 1944) from the West, followed by an investigation of contemporary free verse political poetry, specifically the verse of Minashita Kiryū (b. 1970), Misumi Mizuki (b. 1981), Yotsumoto Yasuhiro (b. 1959), and Arai Takako (b. 1996).</description>
      <author>Leith Morton</author>
      <category>article</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2730</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:38:54 +0100</pubDate>
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      <title>Tactile Communism: Keti Chukhrov’s Post-Soviet Dramatic Works and the Legacy of Soviet Defectology</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2729</link>
      <description>In this article, I analyze the character of hyper-naturalism and exaggerated tactility in dramatic poems by contemporary Russian-Georgian philosopher and writer Keti Chukhrov. I argue that, while descriptions of violence, physiological functions, and abject poverty are common for post-Soviet art, in Chukhrov’s work these elements perform radically different task than in the pessimistic and de-ideologized chernukha, or the style of grim realism. Her approach to matter is also distinct from the historic Russian avant-garde tradition, which relished intensified sensations but did not offer constructive ways of inscribing their immediacy into coherent cultural continuity. Instead, her dramatic poems bear pedagogical, even rehabilitative stakes for recuperating the individual sensations of alienated people into meaningful and shared cultural experiences. In this article, I discuss her approach to drama as mobilizing the tradition of Soviet Marxist defectology, a special educational method of socializing disabled, cognitively impaired, or otherwise disadvantaged people. Pioneered in the Soviet Union in the 1920s by Lev Vygotsky and suppressed in the 1930s, defectology found further application in the 1960s and 1970s in the work of the Zagorsk boarding school for the deafblind, led by Vygotsky’s student Alexander Mescheriakov and Evald Ilyenkov, a Marxist-Hegelian philosopher who is a central figure for Chukhrov’s philosophical research. One of the key tasks of Meshcheriakov and Ilyenkov was to help their deafblind students to overcome isolation through learning to translate their purely tactile sensations into deliberate communicative acts. While Zagorsk offered Ilyenkov an opportunity to test and apply his theory of the collectivist formation of personality, for Chukhrov it is theater that has become the sphere for experimental, practical extension of her scholarly research into Soviet Marxist thought and socialist culture of the 1960s and 1970s. Her dramatic texts offer models of alternative subjectivization for post-Soviet people to allow themselves once again to recognize the presence of universal values and greater cultural commons behind individual, alienated sensations and experiences.</description>
      <author>Anastasiya Osipova</author>
      <category>article</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2729</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:35:59 +0100</pubDate>
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      <title>„Die Antwort auf eine Frage ist in der Kritik der Frage selbst enthalten“. Karl Marx im transitiv poetisch-politischen Werk von Dmitrij Prigov</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2728</link>
      <description/>
      <author>Rainer Grübel</author>
      <category>article</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2728</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:35:28 +0100</pubDate>
    </item>
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      <title>„Die eiserne Maske der Freiheit“: Hans Magnus Enzensberger und Karl Marx</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2727</link>
      <description/>
      <author>Dieter Lamping</author>
      <category>article</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2727</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:34:57 +0100</pubDate>
    </item>
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      <title>Der junge Marx in der DDR-Lyrik</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2726</link>
      <description/>
      <author>Peter Geist</author>
      <category>article</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2726</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:34:21 +0100</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Vorbemerkung</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2725</link>
      <description>Dieser Band versammelt Beiträge zum Thema Politik in der Gegenwartslyrik verschiedener Sprachen und Länder. Den Aufsätzen liegen Vorträge zugrunde, die im Rahmen von Workshops und Konferenzen der DFG-Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe „Russischsprachige Lyrik in Transition: Poetische Formen des Umgangs mit Grenzen der Gattung, Sprache, Kultur und Gesellschaft zwischen Europa, Asien und Amerika“ (2017-2023) gehalten wurden. Die Veranstaltungen fanden in den Jahren 2018-2019 statt – in einer Zeit, als weder die Corona-Pandemie noch der schreckliche Invasionskrieg Russlands in der Ukraine oder der Krieg im Gaza-Streifen absehbar waren.</description>
      <author>Henrieke Stahl</author>
      <category>article</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2725</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:33:47 +0100</pubDate>
    </item>
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      <title>Internationale Zeitschrift für Kulturkomparatistik Bd. 10 (2023): Contemporary Poetry and Politics</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2724</link>
      <description/>
      <author/>
      <category>periodicalpart</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2724</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 26 Jan 2026 15:02:32 +0100</pubDate>
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    <item>
      <title>Speech Enhancement Patterns in Human-Robot Interaction</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2066</link>
      <description>This paper presents the results of the human-robot interaction (HRI) study with German native speakers addressing the robot in their L1 and in L2 English. The aim of the experiment is to test the strategies of providing clarifications when talking to the voice assistant in a task involving teaching complex vocabulary. The analyses is based on spectral (F1, F2, and mean F0) and temporal (vowel length) features excerpted from the target words. With reference to a theoretical framework of hyperarticulation and hypoarticulation, these acoustic measures were compared across the iterations of the target words (first vs. second iteration). Results showed that participants, when asked for clarification by an inanimate interlocutor, do not hyperarticulate, but try to preserve the surface representation of target words across the iterations. These findings suggest that acoustic characteristics of clarifications directed to voice assistants differ from the ones directed to human interlocutors.</description>
      <author>Jacek Kudera; Katharina Zahner-Ritter; Jakob Engel; Nathalie Elsässer; Philipp Hutmacher; Carolin Worstbrock</author>
      <category>conferenceobject</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2066</guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 03 Apr 2025 13:41:00 +0200</pubDate>
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      <title>Im Spannungsfeld zwischen der chinesischen Kultur und dem Christentum: Die Entwicklung der Katholischen Fu-Jen-Universität in Peking (1925-1951)</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2336</link>
      <description>Die chinesische und westliche Forschung, die sich mit der Beziehung zwischen chinesischer Kultur und katholischer Kirche befasst, konzentriert sich in der Regel auf die katholische Kirche in China vor dem Verbot des Christentums. Die einzigartige Perspektive dieser Arbeit besteht darin, die Veränderungen in der Beziehung zwischen den beiden vom Ende der Ming-Dynastie bis zur ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts zu untersuchen. Vor dem Verbot nährten die katholischen Missionare den konfuzianischen Gelehrten und verbanden die katholische Lehre mit dem Konfuzianismus, um ihren Einfluss in der Oberschicht der chinesischen Gesellschaft auszuüben. Nach dem Verbot achteten die katholischen Missionare nicht so sehr auf ihre Beziehung zur chinesischen Kultur wie ihre Vorgänger im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. Einige Missionare sowie chinesische Katholiken wollten die Situation ändern und förderten gemeinsam die Gründung der Fu-Jen-Universität, die großen Wert auf die chinesische Kultur legte und die Beziehung zwischen der Katholischen Kirche und der chinesischen Kultur Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts widerspiegeln konnte. Die Professoren der Abteilung Chinesisch und Geschichte leisteten den größten Beitrag zur Forschung der chinesischen Kultur an der Universität. Im Vergleich zu anderen wichtigen Universitäten in Peking, wo die chinesische Literatur im Fachbereich Chinesisch eine zentrale Stellung einnahm, legte die Fu-Jen-Universität mehr Wert auf die chinesische Sprache und Schriftzeichen. Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts erlangten Frauen unter dem Einfluss der globalen feministischen Bewegung das Recht auf Hochschulbildung. Bis 1920 waren jedoch die katholischen Universitäten in Bezug auf die Hochschulbildung von Frauen Jahrzehnte hinter den protestantischen und nichtkirchlichen Universitäten zurückgefallen. Die Fu-Jen-Universität verbesserte diese Situation, indem sie nicht nur eine große Anzahl von Studentinnen annahm, sondern ihnen eine Vielzahl von Fächern einschließlich Chinesisch und Geschichte anbot. Im Allgemeinen konnte die Universität als Verbindung zwischen dem Katholizismus und der chinesischen Kultur in der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts angesehen werden. Sie spielte eine wichtige Rolle nicht nur bei der Erforschung und Verbreitung der chinesischen Kultur, sondern auch bei der Ausweitung des Einflusses der katholischen Kirche zu dieser Zeit.</description>
      <author>Fengju Tao</author>
      <category>doctoralthesis</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2336</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 05 Jul 2024 10:53:16 +0200</pubDate>
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    <item>
      <title>Improving Predictive Modeling With Machine Learning Techniques</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2123</link>
      <description>There is no longer any doubt about the general effectiveness of psychotherapy. However, up to 40% of patients do not respond to treatment. Despite efforts to develop new treatments, overall effectiveness has not improved. Consequently, practice-oriented research has emerged to make research results more relevant to practitioners. Within this context, patient-focused research (PFR) focuses on the question of whether a particular treatment works for a specific patient. Finally, PFR gave rise to the precision mental health research movement that is trying to tailor treatments to individual patients by making data-driven and algorithm-based predictions. These predictions are intended to support therapists in their clinical decisions, such as the selection of treatment strategies and adaptation of treatment. The present work summarizes three studies that aim to generate different prediction models for treatment personalization that can be applied to practice. The goal of Study I was to develop a model for dropout prediction using data assessed prior to the first session (N = 2543). The usefulness of various machine learning (ML) algorithms and ensembles was assessed. The best model was an ensemble utilizing random forest and nearest neighbor modeling. It significantly outperformed generalized linear modeling, correctly identifying 63.4% of all cases and uncovering seven key predictors. The findings illustrated the potential of ML to enhance dropout predictions, but also highlighted that not all ML algorithms are equally suitable for this purpose. Study II utilized Study I’s findings to enhance the prediction of dropout rates. Data from the initial two sessions and observer ratings of therapist interventions and skills were employed to develop a model using an elastic net (EN) algorithm. The findings demonstrated that the model was significantly more effective at predicting dropout when using observer ratings with a Cohen’s d of up to .65 and more effective than the model in Study I, despite the smaller sample (N = 259). These results indicated that generating models could be improved by employing various data sources, which provide better foundations for model development. Finally, Study III generated a model to predict therapy outcome after a sudden gain (SG) in order to identify crucial predictors of the upward spiral. EN was used to generate the model using data from 794 cases that experienced a SG. A control group of the same size was also used to quantify and relativize the identified predictors by their general influence on therapy outcomes. The results indicated that there are seven key predictors that have varying effect sizes on therapy outcome, with Cohen's d ranging from 1.08 to 12.48. The findings suggested that a directive approach is more likely to lead to better outcomes after an SG, and that alliance ruptures can be effectively compensated for. However, these effects  &#13;
were reversed in the control group. The results of the three studies are discussed regarding their usefulness to support clinical decision-making and their implications for the implementation of precision mental health.</description>
      <author>Björn Bennemann</author>
      <category>doctoralthesis</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2123</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Jan 2024 17:55:15 +0100</pubDate>
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      <title>An Integer Optimization Approach to k-Anonymity on Nominal Data</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2153</link>
      <description>The publication of statistical databases is subject to legal regulations, e.g. national statistical offices are only allowed to publish data if the data cannot be attributed to individuals. Achieving this privacy standard requires anonymizing the data prior to publication. However, data anonymization inevitably leads to a loss of information, which should be kept minimal. In this thesis, we analyze the anonymization method SAFE used in the German census in 2011 and we propose a novel integer programming-based anonymization method for nominal data. &#13;
&#13;
In the first part of this thesis, we prove that a fundamental variant of the underlying SAFE optimization problem is NP-hard. This justifies the use of heuristic approaches for large data sets. In the second part, we propose a new anonymization method belonging to microaggregation methods, specifically designed for nominal data. This microaggregation method replaces rows in a microdata set with representative values to achieve k-anonymity, ensuring each data row is identical to at least k − 1 other rows. In addition to the overall dissimilarities of the data rows, the method accounts for errors in resulting frequency tables, which are of high interest for nominal data in practice. The method employs a typical two-step structure: initially partitioning the data set into clusters and subsequently replacing all cluster elements with representative values to achieve k-anonymity. For the partitioning step, we propose a column generation scheme followed by a heuristic to obtain an integer solution, which is based on the dual information. For the aggregation step, we present a mixed-integer problem formulation to find cluster representatives. To this end, we take errors in a subset of frequency tables into account. Furthermore, we show a reformulation of the problem to a minimum edge-weighted maximal clique problem in a multipartite graph, which allows for a different perspective on the problem. Moreover, we formulate a mixed-integer program, which combines the partitioning and the aggregation step and aims to minimize the sum of chi-squared errors in frequency tables.&#13;
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Finally, an experimental study comparing the methods covered or developed in this work shows particularly strong results for the proposed method with respect to relative criteria, while SAFE shows its strength with respect to the maximum absolute error in frequency tables. We conclude that the inclusion of integer programming in the context of data anonymization is a promising direction to reduce the inevitable information loss inherent in anonymization, particularly for nominal data.</description>
      <author>Vera Charlotte Cost</author>
      <category>doctoralthesis</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2153</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Jan 2024 15:17:47 +0100</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Building Fortress Europe  Economic realism, China, and Europe’s investment screening mechanisms</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2122</link>
      <description>This thesis deals with the construction of investment screening mechanisms across the major economic powers in Europe and at the supranational level during the post-2015 period. The core puzzle at the heart of this research is how, in a traditional bastion of economic liberalism such as Europe, could a protectionist tool such as investment screening be erected in such a rapid manner. Within a few years, Europe went from a position of being highly welcoming towards foreign investment to increasingly implementing controls on it, with the focus on China. How are we to understand this shift in Europe? I posit that Europe’s increasingly protectionist shift on inward investment can be fruitfully understood using an economic realist approach, where the introduction of investment screening can be seen as part of a process of ‘balancing’ China’s economic rise and reasserting European competitiveness. China has moved from being the ‘workshop of the world’ to becoming an innovation-driven economy at the global technological frontier. As China has become more competitive, Europe, still a global economic leader, broadly situated at the technological frontier, has begun to sense a threat to its position, especially in the context of the fourth industrial revolution. A ‘balancing’ process has been set in motion, in which Europe seeks to halt and even reverse the narrowing competitiveness gap between it and China. The introduction of investment screening measures is part of this process.</description>
      <author>Nicholas Flaherty</author>
      <category>doctoralthesis</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2122</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 08 Jan 2024 14:30:57 +0100</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Konflikte analysieren und verstehen lernen</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2130</link>
      <description>Der Praxisbeitrag stellt zentrale Analysemethoden vor, die in unterschiedlichen Unterrichtsfächern angewendet werden können, aber auch bei der Reflexion eigener Konflikte in der Familie, der Klasse oder Schulgemeinschaft unterstützen.</description>
      <author>Karl Schulz</author>
      <category>contributiontoperiodical</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2130</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 05 Jan 2024 10:19:48 +0100</pubDate>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Externe Konfliktberatung: Interview mit Lis De Pina, Leiterin des Service de la médiation scolaire in Luxemburg</title>
      <link>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2129</link>
      <description>In Luxemburg helfen externe Schulmediator*innen bei schulischen Konflikten. Die Anlaufstelle unterstützt bei drohenden Schulabbrüchen und Konflikten, die bei der Inklusion und Integration von Schüler*innen mit besonderem Förderbedarf oder mit Migrationshintergrund entstehen. Michèle Schilt sprach mit der Leiterin der Servicestelle, Lis De Pina, über die Arbeit der Schulmediation.</description>
      <author>Michèle Schilt</author>
      <category>contributiontoperiodical</category>
      <guid>https://ubt.opus.hbz-nrw.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/2129</guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 05 Jan 2024 10:19:06 +0100</pubDate>
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