The present thesis addresses the validity of Binge Eating Disorder (BED) as well as underlying mechanisms of BED from three different angles. Three studies provide data discriminating obesity with BED from obesity without BED. Study 1 demonstrates differences between obese individuals with and without BED regarding eating in the natural environment, psychiatric comorbidity, negative affect as well as self reported tendencies in eating behavior. Evidence for possible psychological mechanisms explaining increased intake of BED individuals in the natural environment was given by analyzing associations of negative affect, emotional eating, restrained eating and caloric intake in obese BED compared to NBED controls. Study 2 demonstrated stress-induced changes in the eating behavior of obese individuals with BED. The impact of a psychosocial stressor, the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST, Kirschbaum, Pirke, & Hellhammer, 1993), on behavioral patterns of eating behavior in laboratory was investigated. Special attention was given to stress-induced changes in variables that reflect mechanisms of appetite regulation in obese BED individuals compared to controls. To further explore by which mechanisms stress might trigger binge eating, study 3 investigated differences in stress-induced cortisol secretion after a socially evaluated cold pressure test (SECPT, Schwabe, Haddad, & Schachinger, 2008) in obese BED as compared to obese NBED individuals.

Based on her field studies between 1999 and 2003 in the South Indian State Kerala, the author critically reflects about Habermas's concept of the (bourgeois) public sphere, and also about later critiques of Habermas (eg. Eley). Schulze adds the new dimensions of human emotionality and humane ethics to the discussion of today's public (spheres) and civil societies which are part of globalising modernisations. It is poor and marginalized women's strongly felt compassion and love practised in their daily lives, which Schulze focusses on: these Marginalized ethics of the 'Good life' do sharply contrast the dominant societies' value systems; these latters consequently don't provide to the Marginaliezed a 'model'. However, Kerala, which is widely refered to as a development model - particularly with respect to the situation/ education of its women - is thus analysed by the author as a historically and culturally specific kind of 'modernity', which follows are rather violent and aggressive path of development in consonance with the general ruling anti-human/ nature philosophy of 'globalization'. Schulze's tool in her field work is 'participatory action research' and also her 'empathic camera' (camcoder). She mixed with local women who had organized themselves in women's groups with the urge to truly represent themSelves and their own ethics and goals in life - without the usual intervention of men/ of nationalist politics ruling Kerala's public sphere(s). In the course of Schulze and the local women groups becoming acquainted with each other, the scholar and the Marginalized felt the desire to support each other in their respective struggles for empowerment and for being respected as a human being. The author finally understood the fallacy and cynicism which lies in applying as a scholar the term 'women in Kerala' as if there wasn't the day to day particular violence which women of dalit ('untouchable'), or of adivasi (indigenous) background experience. Women's lives are moulded by networks of violence which are inherent to Kerala's castes, classes, and ethnicities, parallel to the basic oppression which women face because they are women. A group of dalit women in Kerala became particularly close companions in Schulze's quest for unravelling seemingly contradictory facts: Kerala's official claim to provide to women and other persons who were generally discriminated against in the larger Indian context, a supportive social and educational environment, on the one hand, and on the other hand the comparatively high number of suicides among Keralite women (and men), and the absence of women in what appears as Kerala's public sphere and 'civil society'. In several analytical steps which always centre around the experiences and feelings of the many poor and marginalized women, their life-worlds, their daily life philosophies, their views, voices, their ethics, dreams, Schulze unfolds these Marginalized visions, and tries to interpret them on their own terms. In this manner not only the mainstream society's propaganda about the 'Kerala development model' is demystified, but also to the reader insights become possible into a totally different set of ethics held by these women. They transgress notions of competition, of the 'necessary' monetarisation of all spheres of human life and of nature, of caste, religious, or gender conflicts. By means of 13 small video films the women together with Schulze showed and reflected upon their philosophy of an empowered 'Good life'.

Partial differential equations are not always suited to model all physical phenomena, especially, if long-range interactions are involved or if the actual solution might not satisfy the regularity requirements associated with the partial differential equation. One remedy to this problem are nonlocal operators, which typically consist of integrals that incorporate interactions between two separated points in space and the corresponding solutions to nonlocal equations have to satisfy less regularity conditions. In PDE-constrained shape optimization the goal is to minimize or maximize an objective functional that is dependent on the shape of a certain domain and on the solution to a partial differential equation, which is usually also influenced by the shape of this domain. Moreover, parameters associated with the nonlocal model are oftentimes domain dependent and thus it is a natural next step to now consider shape optimization problems that are governed by nonlocal equations. Therefore, an interface identification problem constrained by nonlocal equations is thoroughly investigated in this thesis. Here, we focus on rigorously developing the first and second shape derivative of the associated reduced functional. In addition, we study first- and second-order shape optimization algorithms in multiple numerical experiments. Moreover, we also propose Schwarz methods for nonlocal Dirichlet problems as well as regularized nonlocal Neumann problems. Particularly, we investigate the convergence of the multiplicative Schwarz approach and we conduct a number of numerical experiments, which illustrate various aspects of the Schwarz method applied to nonlocal equations. Since applying the finite element method to solve nonlocal problems numerically can be quite costly, Local-to-Nonlocal couplings emerged, which combine the accuracy of nonlocal models on one part of the domain with the fast computation of partial differential equations on the remaining area. Therefore, we also examine the interface identification problem governed by an energy-based Local-to-Nonlocal coupling, which can be numerically computed by making use of the Schwarz method. Here, we again present a formula for the shape derivative of the associated reduced functional and investigate a gradient based shape optimization method.

Objective: Attunement is a novel measure of nonverbal synchrony reflecting the duration of the present moment shared by two interaction partners. This study examined its association with early change in outpatient psychotherapy. Methods: Automated video analysis based on motion energy analysis (MEA) and cross-correlation of the movement time-series of patient and therapist was conducted to calculate movement synchrony for N = 161 outpatients. Movement-based attunement was defined as the range of connected time lags with significant synchrony. Latent change classes in the HSCL-11 were identified with growth mixture modeling (GMM) and predicted by pre-treatment covariates and attunement using multilevel multinomial regression. Results: GMM identified four latent classes: high impairment, no change (Class 1); high impairment, early response (Class 2); moderate impairment (Class 3); and low impairment (Class 4). Class 2 showed the strongest attunement, the largest early response, and the best outcome. Stronger attunement was associated with a higher likelihood of membership in Class 2 (b = 0.313, p = .007), Class 3 (b = 0.251, p = .033), and Class 4 (b = 0.275, p = .043) compared to Class 1. For highly impaired patients, the probability of no early change (Class 1) decreased and the probability of early response (Class 2) increased as a function of attunement. Conclusions: Among patients with high impairment, stronger patient-therapist attunement was associated with early response, which predicted a better treatment outcome. Video-based assessment of attunement might provide new information for therapists not available from self-report questionnaires and support therapists in their clinical decision-making.

In addition to the well-recognised effects of both, genes and adult environment, it is now broadly accepted that adverse conditions during pregnancy contribute to the development of mental and somatic disorders in the offspring, such as cardiovascular disorders, endocrinological disorders, metabolic disorders, schizophrenia, anxious and depressive behaviour and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Early life events may have long lasting impact on tissue structure and function and these effects appear to underlie the developmental origins of vulnerability to chronic diseases. The assumption that prenatal adversity, such as maternal emotional states during pregnancy, may have adverse effects on the developing infant is not new. Accordant references can be found in an ancient Indian text (ca. 1050 before Christ), in biblical texts and in documents originating during the Middle Ages. Even Hippocrates stated possible effects of maternal emotional states on the developing fetus. Since the mid-1950s, research examining the effects of maternal psychosocial stress during pregnancy appeared in the literature. Extensive research in this field has been conducted since the early 1990s. Thus, the relationship between early life events and long-term health outcomes was already postulated over 20 years ago. David Barker and colleagues demonstrated that children of lower birth weight - which represents a crude marker of an adverse intrauterine environment - were at increased risk of high blood pressure, cardiovascular disorders, and type-2 diabetes later in life. These provocative findings led to a large amount of subsequent research, initially focussing on the role of undernutrition in determining fetal outcomes. The phenomenon of prenatal influences that determine in part the risk of suffering from chronic disease later in life has been named the "fetal origins of health and disease" paradigm. The concept of "prenatal programming" has now been extended to many other domains, such as the effects of prenatal maternal stress, prenatal tobacco exposure, alcohol intake, medication, toxins, as well as maternal infection and diseases. During the process of prenatal programming, environmental agents are transmitted across the placenta and act on specific fetal tissues during sensitive periods of development. Thus, developmental trajectories are changed and the organisation and function of tissue structure and organ system is altered. The biological purpose of those "early life programming" may consist in evolutionary advantages. The offspring adapts its development to the expected extrauterine environment which is forecast by the clues available during fetal life. If the fetus receives signals of a challenging environment, e.g. due to maternal stress hormones or maternal undernutrition, its survival may be promoted due to developmental adaptation processes. However, if the expected environment does not match with the real environment, maladapation and later disease risk may result. For example, a possible indicator of a "response ready" trait, such as hyperactivity/inattention may have been advantageous in an adverse ancient environment. However, it is of disadvantage when the postnatal environment demands oppositional skills, such as attention and concentration " e.g. in the classroom, at school, to achieve academic success. Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a prevalent psychiatric disorder, characterized by impulsivity, affective instability, dysfunctional interpersonal relationships and identity disturbance. Although many studies report different risk factors, the exact etiologic mechanisms are not yet understood. In addition to the well-recognised effects of genetic components and adverse childhood experiences, BPD may potentially be co-determined by further environmental influences, acting very early in life: during pre- and perinatal period. There are several hints that may suggest possible prenatal programming processes in BPD. For example, patients with BPD are characterized by elevated stress sensitivity and reactivity and dysfunctions of the neuroendocrine stress system, such as the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis. Furthermore, patients with BPD show a broad range of somatic comorbidities " especially those disorders for which prenatal programming processes have been described. During infancy and childhood, BPD patients already show behavioural and emotional abnormalities as well as pronounced temperamental traits, such as impulsivity, emotional dysregulation and inattention that may potentially be co-determined by prenatal programming processes. Such temperamental traits - similar to those, seen in patients with ADHD - have been described to be associated with low birthweight which indicates a suboptimal intrauterine environment. Moreover, the functional and structural alterations in the central nervous system (CNS) in patients with BPD might also be mediated in part by prenatal agents, such as prenatal tobacco exposure. Prenatal adversity may thus constitute a further, additional component in the multifactorial genesis of BPD. The association between BPD and prenatal risk factors has not yet been studied in such detail. We are not aware of any further study that assessed pre- and perinatal risk factors, such as maternal psychoscocial stress, smoking, alcohol intake, obstetric complications and lack of breastfeeding in patients with BPD.

Every action we perform, no matter how simple or complex, has a cognitive representation. It is commonly assumed that these are organized hierarchically. Thus, the representation of a complex action consists of multiple simpler actions. The representation of a simple action, in turn, consists of stimulus, response, and effect features. These are integrated into one representation upon the execution of an action and can be retrieved if a feature is repeated. Depending on whether retrieved features match or only partially match the current action episode, this might benefit or impair the execution of a subsequent action. This pattern of costs and benefits results in binding effects that indicate the strength of common representation between features. Binding effects occur also in more complex actions: Multiple simple actions seem to form representations on a higher level through the integration and retrieval of sequentially given responses, resulting in so-called response-response binding effects. This dissertation aimed to investigate what factors determine whether simple actions form more complex representations. The first line of research (Articles 1-3) focused on dissecting the internal structure of simple actions. Specifically, I investigated whether the spatial relation of stimuli, responses, or effects, that are part of two different simple actions, influenced whether these simple actions are represented as one more complex action. The second line of research (Articles 2, 4, and 5) investigated the role of context on the formation and strength of more complex action representations. Results suggest that spatial separation of responses as well as context might affect the strength of more complex action representations. In sum, findings help to specify assumptions on the structure of complex action representations. However, it may be important to distinguish factors that influence the strength and structure of action representations from factors that terminate action representations.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has had a significant impact on China in political, economic, and cultural terms. This study focuses on the cultural domain, especially on scholarship students from the countries that signed bilateral cooperation agreements with China under the BRI. Using an integrated approach combining the difference-in-differences method and the gravity model, we explore the correlation between the BRI and the increasing number of international scholarship students funded by the Chinese government, as well as the determinants of students' decision to study in China. The panel data from 2010 to 2018 show that the launch of BRI has had a positive impact on the number of scholarship students from BRI countries. The number of scholarship recipients from non-BRI countries also increased, but at a much slower rate than those from BRI countries. The sole exception is the United States, which has trended downward for both state-funded and self-funded students.

This thesis focuses on the issues in price measurement and consists of three chapters. Due to outdated weighting information, a Laspeyres-based consumer price index (CPI) is prone to accumulating upward bias. Therefore, chapter 1 introduces and examines simple and transparent revision approaches that retrospectively address the source of the bias. They provide a consistent long-run time series of the CPI and require no additional information. Furthermore, a coherent decomposition of the bias into the contributions of individual product groups is developed. In a case study, the approaches are applied to a Laspeyres-based CPI. The empirical results confirm the theoretical predictions. The proposed revision approaches are adoptable not only to most national CPIs but also to other price-level measures such as the producer price index or the import and export price indices. Chapter 2 is dedicated to the measurement of import and export price indices. Such indices are complicated by the impact of exchange rates. These indices are usually also compiled by some Laspeyres type index. Therefore, substitution bias is an issue. The terms of trade (ratio of export and import price index) are therefore also likely to be distorted. The underlying substitution bias accumulates over time. The present article applies a simple and transparent retroactive correction approach that addresses the source of the substitution bias and produces meaningful long-run time series of import and export price levels and, therefore, of the terms of trade. Furthermore, an empirical case study is conducted that demonstrates the efficacy and versatility of the correction approach. Chapter 3 leaves the field of index revision and studies another issue in price measurement, namely, the economic evaluation of digital products in monetary terms that have zero market prices. This chapter explores different methods of economic valuation and pricing of free digital products and proposes an alternative way to calculate the economic value and a shadow price of free digital products: the Usage Cost Model (UCM). The goal of the chapter is, first of all, to formulate a theoretical framework and incorporate an alternative measure of the value of free digital products. However, an empirical application is also made to show the work of the theoretical model. Some conclusions on applicability are drawn at the end of the chapter.

The subject of this thesis is a homological approach to the splitting theory of PLS-spaces, i.e. to the question for which topologically exact short sequences 0->X->Y->Z->0 of PLS-spaces X,Y,Z the right-hand map admits a right inverse. We show that the category (PLS) of PLS-spaces and continuous linear maps is an additive category in which every morphism admits a kernel and a cokernel, i.e. it is pre-abelian. However, we also show that it is neither quasi-abelian nor semi-abelian. As a foundation for our homological constructions we show the more general result that every pre-abelian category admits a largest exact structure in the sense of Quillen. In the pre-abelian category (PLS) this exact structure consists precisely of the topologically exact short sequences of PLS-spaces. Using a construction of Ext-functors due to Yoneda, we show that one can define for each PLS-space A and every natural number k the k-th abelian-group valued covariant and contravariant Ext-functors acting on the category (PLS) of PLS-spaces, which induce for every topologically exact short sequence of PLS-spaces a long exact sequence of abelian groups and group morphisms. These functors are studied in detail and we establish a connection between the Ext-functors of PLS-spaces and the Ext-functors for LS-spaces. Through this connection we arrive at an analogue of a result for Fréchet spaces which connects the first derived functor of the projective limit with the first Ext-functor and also gives sufficient conditions for the vanishing of the higher Ext-functors. Finally, we show that Ext^k(E,F) = 0 for a k greater or equal than 1, whenever E is a closed subspace and F is a Hausdorff-quotient of the space of distributions, which generalizes a result of Wengenroth that is itself a generalization of results due to Domanski and Vogt.

Our goal is to approximate energy forms on suitable fractals by discrete graph energies and certain metric measure spaces, using the notion of quasi-unitary equivalence. Quasi-unitary equivalence generalises the two concepts of unitary equivalence and norm resolvent convergence to the case of operators and energy forms defined in varying Hilbert spaces. More precisely, we prove that the canonical sequence of discrete graph energies (associated with the fractal energy form) converges to the energy form (induced by a resistance form) on a finitely ramified fractal in the sense of quasi-unitary equivalence. Moreover, we allow a perturbation by magnetic potentials and we specify the corresponding errors. This aforementioned approach is an approximation of the fractal from within (by an increasing sequence of finitely many points). The natural step that follows this realisation is the question whether one can also approximate fractals from outside, i.e., by a suitable sequence of shrinking supersets. We partly answer this question by restricting ourselves to a very specific structure of the approximating sets, namely so-called graph-like manifolds that respect the structure of the fractals resp. the underlying discrete graphs. Again, we show that the canonical (properly rescaled) energy forms on such a sequence of graph-like manifolds converge to the fractal energy form (in the sense of quasi-unitary equivalence). From the quasi-unitary equivalence of energy forms, we conclude the convergence of the associated linear operators, convergence of the spectra and convergence of functions of the operators – thus essentially the same as in the case of the usual norm resolvent convergence.

At any given moment, our senses are assaulted with a flood of information from the environment around us. We need to pick our way through all this information in order to be able to effectively respond to that what is relevant to us. In most cases we are usually able to select information relevant to our intentions from what is not relevant. However, what happens to the information that is not relevant to us? Is this irrelevant information completely ignored so that it does not affect our actions? The literature suggests that even though we mayrnignore an irrelevant stimulus, it may still interfere with our actions. One of the ways in which irrelevant stimuli can affect actions is by retrieving a response with which it was associated. An irrelevant stimulus that is presented in close temporal contiguity with a relevant stimulus can be associated with the response made to the relevant stimulus " an observation termed distractor-response binding (Rothermund, Wentura, & De Houwer, 2005). The studies presented in this work take a closer look at such distractor-response bindings, and therncircumstances in which they occur. Specifically, the study reported in chapter 6 examined whether only an exact repetition of the distractor can retrieve the response with which it was associated, or whether even similar distractors may cause retrieval. The results suggested that even repeating a similar distractor caused retrieval, albeit less than an exact repetition. In chapter 7, the existence of bindings between a distractor and a response were tested beyond arnperceptual level, to see whether they exist at an (abstract) conceptual level. Similar to perceptual repetition, distractor-based retrieval of the response was observed for the repetition of concepts. The study reported in chapter 8 of this work examined the influence of attention on the feature-response binding of irrelevant features. The results pointed towards a stronger binding effects when attention was directed towards the irrelevant feature compared to whenrnit was not. The study in chapter 9 presented here looked at the processes underlying distractor-based retrieval and distractor inhibition. The data suggest that motor processes underlie distractor-based retrieval and cognitive process underlie distractor inhibition. Finally, the findings of all four studies are also discussed in the context of learning.

The World's second oldest system of judicial review of national legislation emerged through court practice from the very first years after the adoption of the Constitution of Norway in 1814. The review is exercised by the ordinary courts at all levels with the single Supreme Court as the last instance. No specialized constitutional court has been established. The independence of the judiciary is generally recognized as high. But what degree of legitimacy should judges appointed in order to ensure ordinary judicial business enjoy when exercising a basically political function like reviewing and possibly setting aside acts of Parliament?

In this article, I analyze the most recent Russian video poetry as an amplification and semantic enrichment of the classic literature paradigm. My thesis is that new visual poetry produces a subtle, polysemous – but at the same time striking – political message within a synthetic artistic framework. I show how recent Russian social (also to be called political) poetry is developing what I call the aesthetics of environmental non-division. I focus on the art collective “The Group of Esfir’ Shub,” which was founded in 2017 by the artist and designer Polina Zaslavskaia. The group’s synthetic method of working with poems generates a “tropic connection between the text and the video,” which correlates or even confronts direct and figurative sign meanings of different media with each other. “Esfir’ Shub” emphasizes one of the essential features of new social poetry ‒ the problematization of corporeality as a phenomenon belonging to organic, living material, which affects the very character of subjectivity. The project “Esfir’ Shub” is situated on the border between visual eco-art and social poetry. What is more important, it represents new trends in Russian engaged aesthetics, which I call biopoetics ‒ a notion which has been intensely discussed in the last two decades.

The economic growth theory analyses which factors affect economic growth and tries to analyze how it can last. A popular neoclassical growth model is the Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans model, which aims to determine how much of its income a nation or an economy should save in order to maximize its welfare. In this thesis, we present and analyze an extended capital accumulation equation of a spatial version of the Ramsey model, balancing diffusive and agglomerative effects. We model the capital mobility in space via a nonlocal diffusion operator which allows for jumps of the capital stock from one location to an other. Moreover, this operator smooths out heterogeneities in the factor distributions slower, which generated a more realistic behavior of capital flows. In addition to that, we introduce an endogenous productivity-production operator which depends on time and on the capital distribution in space. This operator models the technological progress of the economy. The resulting mathematical model is an optimal control problem under a semilinear parabolic integro-differential equation with initial and volume constraints, which are a nonlocal analog to local boundary conditions, and box-constraints on the state and the control variables. In this thesis, we consider this problem on a bounded and unbounded spatial domain, in both cases with a finite time horizon. We derive existence results of weak solutions for the capital accumulation equations in both settings and we proof the existence of a Ramsey equilibrium in the unbounded case. Moreover, we solve the optimal control problem numerically and discuss the results in the economic context.

Background: We evaluated depression and social isolation assessed at time of waitlisting as predictors of survival in heart transplant (HTx) recipients. Methods and Results: Between 2005 and 2006, 318 adult HTx candidates were enrolled in the Waiting for a New Heart Study, and 164 received transplantation. Patients were followed until February 2013. Psychosocial characteristics were assessed by questionnaires. Eurotransplant provided medical data at waitlisting, transplantation dates, and donor characteristics; hospitals reported medical data at HTx and date of death after HTx. During a median follow‐up of 70 months (<1"93 months post‐HTx), 56 (38%) of 148 transplanted patients with complete data died. Depression scores were unrelated to social isolation, and neither correlated with disease severity. Higher depression scores increased the risk of dying (hazard ratio=1.07, 95% confidence interval, 1.01, 1.15, P=0.032), which was moderated by social isolation scores (significant interaction term; hazard ratio = 0.985, 95% confidence interval, 0.973, 0.998; P=0.022). These findings were maintained in multivariate models controlling for covariates (P values 0.020"0.039). Actuarial 1‐year/5‐year survival was best for patients with low depression who were not socially isolated at waitlisting (86% after 1 year, 79% after 5 years). Survival of those who were either depressed, or socially isolated or both, was lower, especially 5 years posttransplant (56%, 60%, and 62%, respectively). Conclusions: Low depression in conjunction with social integration at time of waitlisting is related to enhanced chances for survival after HTx. Both factors should be considered for inclusion in standardized assessments and interventions for HTx candidates. We evaluated depression and social isolation assessed at time of waitlisting as predictors of survival in heart transplant (HTx) recipients.\r\n\r\nMethods and Results: Between 2005 and 2006, 318 adult HTx candidates were enrolled in the Waiting for a New Heart Study, and 164 received transplantation. Patients were followed until February 2013. Psychosocial characteristics were assessed by questionnaires. Eurotransplant provided medical data at waitlisting, transplantation dates, and donor characteristics; hospitals reported medical data at HTx and date of death after HTx. During a median follow‐up of 70 months (<1"93 months post‐HTx), 56 (38%) of 148 transplanted patients with complete data died. Depression scores were unrelated to social isolation, and neither correlated with disease severity. Higher depression scores increased the risk of dying (hazard ratio=1.07, 95% confidence interval, 1.01, 1.15, P=0.032), which was moderated by social isolation scores (significant interaction term; hazard ratio = 0.985, 95% confidence interval, 0.973, 0.998; P=0.022). These findings were maintained in multivariate models controlling for covariates (P values 0.020"0.039). Actuarial 1‐year/5‐year survival was best for patients with low depression who were not socially isolated at waitlisting (86% after 1 year, 79% after 5 years). Survival of those who were either depressed, or socially isolated or both, was lower, especially 5 years posttransplant (56%, 60%, and 62%, respectively).

This meta-scientific dissertation comprises three research articles that investigated the reproducibility of psychological research. Specifically, they focused on the reproducibility of eye-tracking research on the one hand, and studying preregistration (i.e., the practice of publishing a study protocol before data collection or analysis) as one method to increase reproducibility on the other hand. In Article I, it was demonstrated that eye-tracking data quality is influenced by both the utilized eye-tracker and the specific task it is measuring. That is, distinct strengths and weaknesses were identified in three devices (Tobii Pro X3-120, GP3 HD, EyeLink 1000+) in an extensive test battery. Consequently, both the device and specific task should be considered when designing new studies. Meanwhile, Article II focused on the current perception of preregistration in the psychological research community and future directions for improving this practice. The survey showed that many researchers intended to preregister their research in the future and had overall positive attitudes toward preregistration. However, various obstacles were identified currently hindering preregistration, which should be addressed to increase its adoption. These findings were supplemented by Article III, which took a closer look at one preregistration-specific tool: the PRP-QUANT Template. In a simulation trial and a survey, the template demonstrated high usability and emerged as a valuable resource to support researchers in using preregistration. Future revisions of the template could help to further facilitate this open science practice. In this dissertation, the findings of the three articles are summarized and discussed regarding their implications and potential future steps that could be implemented to improve the reproducibility of psychological research.

A new genre has emerged in contemporary literature: the ‘novel in poems.’ This genre hybridizes the novel and poetry in order to construct characters and a plot through relatively autonomous poems in series. The ‘novel in poems’ appears in different subtypes, which can be categorized according to the following criteria: (1) the presence of one speaker versus several speakers, (2) the presence of a speaker as lyric protagonist and/or narrator, and (3) the presence of a blend of distinct modes of lyric, narrative, and dramatic representation in various forms of combination. Specific characteristics of the ‘novel in poems’ are: 1) variation of constituent poetic forms with different degrees of semantic autonomy and brevity; 2) hyper-structuring through symmetries, holism, and equivalences; 3) a tendency to differentiate mediating instances within the text; 4) the reduction or elimination of the narrator or of narrative principles and the use of an omnipresent textual subject; 5) the presence of metapoetic reflections on topics such as poetry and creativity; 6) an emphasis on voice, person, and subjectivity; 7) episodic plot construction through montage techniques and a tendency toward chronological order; 8) the predominance of present speech and action; 9) contradictions between the speaker as subject and addresser, via the lyric fiction of performativity, and the function of narration; 10) a necessity imposed upon the reader to reconstruct the plot and characters. This essay establishes three subtypes within the proposed genre: a lyric ‘novel in poems’ with one speaker (Irina Ermakova), a polyphonically narrative ‘novel in poems’ that combines third-person narration with several alterior speakers (Lana Hechtman Ayers), and, finally, a dramatic ‘novel in poems’ with shifting primary speakers (Glyn Maxwell).

Today, usage of complex circuit designs in computers, in multimedia applications and communication devices is widespread and still increasing. At the same time, due to Moore's Law we do not expect to see an end in the growth of the complexity of digital circuits. The decreasing ability of common validation techniques -- like simulation -- to assure correctness of a circuit design enlarges the need for formal verification techniques. Formal verification delivers a mathematical proof that a given implementation of a design fulfills its specification. One of the basic and during the last years widely used data structure in formal verification are the so called Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams (OBDDs) introduced by R. Bryant in 1986. The topic of this thesis is integration of structural high-level information in the OBDD-based formal verification of sequential systems. This work consist of three major parts, covering different layers of formal verification applications: At the application layer, an assertion checking methodology, integrated in the verification flow of the high-level design and verification tool Protocol Compiler is presented. At the algorithmic layer, new approaches for partitioning of transition relations of complex finite state machines, that significantly improve the performance of OBDD-based sequential verification are introduced. Finally, at the data structure level, dynamic variable reordering techniques that drastically reduce the time required for reordering without a trade-off in OBDD-size are described. Overall, this work demonstrates how a tighter integration of applications by using structural information can significantly improve the efficiency of formal verification applications in an industrial setting.

The main research question of this thesis was to set up a framework to allow for the identification of land use changes in drylands and reveal their underlying drivers. The concept of describing land cover change processes in a framework of global change syndrome was introduced by Schellnhuber et al. (1997). In a first step the syndrome approach was implemented for semi-natural areas of the Iberian Peninsula based on time series analysis of the MEDOKADS archive. In the subsequent study the approach was expanded and adapted to other land cover strata. Furthermore, results of an analysis of the relationship of annual NDVI and rainfall data were incorporated to designate areas that show a significant relationship indicating that at least a part of the variability found in NDVI time series was caused by precipitation. Additionally, a first step was taken towards the integration of socio-economic data into the analysis; population density changes between 1961 and 2008 were utilized to support the identification of processes related to land abandonment accompanied by cessation of agricultural practices on the one hand and urbanization on the other. The main findings of the studies comprise three major land cover change processes caused by human interaction: (i) shrub and woody vegetation encroachment in the wake of land abandonment of marginal areas, (ii) intensification of non-irrigated and irrigated, intensively used fertile regions and (iii) urbanization trends along the coastline caused by migration and the increase of mass tourism. Land abandonment of cultivated fields and the give-up of grazing areas in marginal mountainous areas often lead to the encroachment of shrubs and woody vegetation in the course of succession or reforestation. Whereas this cover change has positive effects concerning soil stabilization and carbon sequestration the increase of biomass involves also negative consequences for ecosystem goods and services; these include decreased water yield as a result of increased evapotranspiration, increasing fire risk, decreasing biodiversity due to landscape homogenization and loss of aesthetic value. Arable land in intensively used fertile zones of Spain was further intensified including the expansion of irrigated arable land. The intensification of agriculture has also generated land abandonment in these areas because less people are needed in the agricultural labour sector due to mechanization. Urbanization effects due to migration and the growth of the tourism sector were mapped along the eastern Mediterranean coast. Urban sprawl was only partly detectable by means of the MEDOKADS archive as the changes of urbanization are often too subtle to be detected by data with a spatial resolution of 1 km-². This is in line with a comparison of a Landsat TM time series and the NOAA AVHRR archive for a study area in the Greece that showed that small scale changes cannot be detected based on this approach, even though they might be of high relevance for local management of resources. This underlines the fact that land degradation processes are multi-scale problems and that data of several spatial and temporal scales are mandatory to build a comprehensive dryland observation system. Further land cover processes related to a decrease of greenness did not play an important role in the observation period. Thus, only few patches were identified, suggesting that no large-scale land degradation processes are taking place in the sense of decline of primary productivity after disturbances. Nevertheless, the land cover processes detected impact ecosystem functioning and using the example of shrub encroachment, bear risks for the provision of goods and services which can be valued as land degradation in the sense of a decline of important ecosystem goods and services. This risk is not only confined to the affected ecosystem itself but can also impact adjacent ecosystems due to inter-linkages. In drylands water availability is of major importance and the management of water resources is an important political issue. In view of climate change this topic will become even more important because aridity in Spain did increase within the last decades and is likely to further do so. In addition, the land cover changes detected by the syndrome approach could even augment water scarcity problems. Whereas the water yield of marginal areas, which often serve as headwaters of rivers, decreases with increasing biomass, water demand of agriculture and tourism is not expected to decline. In this context it will be of major importance to evaluate the trade-offs between different land uses and to take decisions that maintain the future functioning of the ecosystems for human well-being.

　

Design and structural optimization has become a very important field in industrial applications over the last years. Due to economical and ecological reasons, the efficient use of material is of highly industrial interest. Therefore, computational tools based on optimization theory have been developed and studied in the last decades. In this work, different structural optimization methods are considered. Special attention lies on the applicability to three-dimensional, large-scale, multiphysic problems, which arise from different areas of the industry. Based on the theory of PDE-constraint optimization, descent methods in structural optimization require knowledge of the (partial) derivatives with respect to shape or topology variations. Therefore, shape and topology sensitivity analysis is introduced and the connection between both sensitivities is given by the Topological-Shape Sensitivity Method. This method leads to a systematic procedure to compute the topological derivative by terms of the shape sensitivity. Due to the framework of moving boundaries in structural optimization, different interface tracking techniques are presented. If the topology of the domain is preserved during the optimization process, explicit interface tracking techniques, combined with mesh-deformation, are used to capture the interface. This techniques fit very well the requirements in classical shape optimization. Otherwise, an implicit representation of the interface is of advantage if the optimal topology is unknown. In this case, the level set method is combined with the concept of the topological derivative to deal with topological perturbation. The resulting methods are applied to different industrial problems. On the one hand, interface shape optimization for solid bodies subject to a transient heat-up phase governed by both linear elasticity and thermal stresses is considered. Therefore, the shape calculus is applied to coupled heat and elasticity problems and a generalized compliance objective function is studied. The resulting thermo-elastic shape optimization scheme is used for compliance reduction of realistic hotplates. On the other hand, structural optimization based on the topological derivative for three-dimensional elasticity problems is observed. In order to comply typical volume constraints, a one-shot augmented Lagrangian method is proposed. Additionally, a multiphase optimization approach based on mesh-refinement is used to reduce the computational costs and the method is illustrated by classical minimum compliance problems. Finally, the topology optimization algorithm is applied to aero-elastic problems and numerical results are presented.

Measuring the economic activity of a country requires high-quality data of businesses. In the case of Germany, this is not only required at national level, but also at federal state level and for different economic sectors. Important sources for high-quality business data are the business register and, among others, also 14 business surveys which are conducted by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany. However, the quality requirements of the Federal Statistical Office are in contrast to the interests of the businesses themselves. For them, answering to a survey's questionnaire is an additional cost factor, also known as response burden. A high response burden should be avoided, since it can have a negative impact on the quality of the businesses' responses to the surveys. Therefore, sample coordination can be used as a method to control the distribution of response burden while securing high-quality data. When applying already existing business survey coordination systems, developed by different statistical institutes, legal and administrative standards of German official statistics have to be taken into account. These standards consider different sampling fractions, rotation fractions, periodicity, and stratification of the aforementioned 14 business surveys. Therefore, the aim of this doctoral thesis is to check the existing business survey coordination systems for their applicability in the context of German official statistics and, if necessary, to modify them accordingly. These modifications include the introduction of individual burden indicators which aim to take the individual perception of response burden into account. For this purpose, several synthetic data sets have been created to test the application of the modified versions of the different business survey coordination systems through Monte Carlo simulation studies. These data sets include a large panel data set, reflecting the landscape of businesses in Rhineland-Palatinate and three smaller, synthetic data sets. The latter have been created with the help of the R package BuSuCo which has been developed within the scope of this thesis. The above mentioned simulation studies are evaluated based on different measures for estimation quality as well as for the concentration and distribution of response burden.

This thesis contributes to the economic literature on India and specifically focuses on investment project (IP) location choice. I study three topics that naturally arise in sequence: geographic concentration of investment projects, the determinants of the location choices, and the impact these choices have on project success. In Chapter 2, I provide the analysis of geographic concentration of IPs. I find that investments were concentrated over the period of observation (1996–2015), although the degree of concentration was decreasing. Additionally, I analyze different subsamples of the data set by ownership (Indian private, Indian public and foreign) and project status (completed or dropped). Foreign projects in all industries are more concentrated than private and public, while for the latter categories I identify only minor differences in concentration levels. Additionally, I find that the location patterns of completed and dropped investments are similar to that of the overall distribution and the distributions of their respective industries with completed IPs being somewhat more concentrated. In Chapter 3, I study the determinants of project location choices with the focus on an important highway upgrade, the Golden Quadrilateral (GQ). In line with the existing literature, the GQ construction is connected to higher levels of investment in the affected non-nodal GQ districts in 2002–2016. I also provide suggestive evidence on changes in firm behavior after the GQ construction: Firms located in the non-nodal GQ districts became less likely to invest in their neighbor districts after the GQ completion compared to firms located in districts unaffected by the GQ construction. Finally, in Chapter 4, I investigate the characteristics of IPs that may contribute to discontinuation of their implementation by comparing completed investments to dropped ones, defined as abandoned, shelved, and stalled investments as identified on the date of the data download. Controlling for local and business cycle conditions, as well as various investor and project characteristics, I show that projects located in close proximity to the investor offices (i.e., in the same district) are more likely to achieve the completion stage than more remote projects.

Salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) influences the perception of taste and texture, features both relevant in acquiring food liking and, with time, food preference. However, no studies have yet investigated the relationship between basal activity levels of sAA and food preference. We collected saliva from 57 volunteers (63% women) who we assessed in terms of their preference for different food items. These items were grouped into four categories according to their nutritional properties: high in starch, high in sugar, high glycaemic index, and high glycaemic load. Anthropometric markers of cardiovascular risk were also calculated. Our findings suggest that sAA influences food preference and body composition in women. Regression analysis showed that basal sAA activity is inversely associated with subjective but not self-reported behavioural preference for foods high in sugar. Additionally, sAA and subjective preference are associated with anthropometric markers of cardiovascular risk. We believe that this pilot study points to this enzyme as an interesting candidate to consider among the physiological factors that modulate eating behaviour.

This socio-pragmatic study investigates organisational conflict talk between superiors and subordinates in three medical dramas from China, Germany and the United States. It explores what types of sociolinguistic realities the medical dramas construct by ascribing linguistic behaviour to different status groups. The study adopts an enhanced analytical framework based on John Gumperz’ discourse strategies and Spencer-Oatey’s rapport management theory. This framework detaches directness from politeness, defines directness based on preference and polarity and explains the use of direct and indirect opposition strategies in context. The findings reveal that the three hospital series draw on 21 opposition strategies which can be categorised into mitigating, intermediate and intensifying strategies. While the status identity of superiors is commonly characterised by a higher frequency of direct strategies than that of subordinates, both status groups manage conflict in a primarily direct manner across all three hospital shows. The high percentage of direct conflict management is related to the medical context, which is characterised by a focus on transactional goals, complex role obligations and potentially severe consequences of medical mistakes and delays. While the results reveal unexpected similarities between the three series with regard to the linguistic directness level, cross-cultural differences between the Chinese and the two Western series are obvious from particular sociopragmatic conventions. These conventions particularly include the use of humour, imperatives, vulgar language and incorporated verbal and para-verbal/multimodal opposition. Noteworthy differences also appear in the underlying patterns of strategy use. They show that the Chinese series promotes a greater tolerance of hierarchical structures and a partially closer social distance in asymmetrical professional relationships. These disparities are related to different perceptions of power distance, role relationships, face and harmony. The findings challenge existing stereotypes of Chinese, US American and German conflict management styles and emphasise the context-specific nature of verbal conflict management in every culture. Although cinematic aspects affect the conflict management in the fictional data, the results largely comply with recent research on conflict talk in real-life workplaces. As such, the study contributes to intercultural trainings in medical contexts and provides an enhanced analytical framework for further cross-cultural studies on linguistic strategies.

　

Mindfulness is a popular technique that helps people to get closer to their self. However, recent findings indicate that mindfulness may not benefit everybody. In the present research, we hypothesized that mindfulness promotes alienation from the self among individuals with low abilities to self-regulate affect (state-oriented individuals) but not among individuals with high abilities to self-regulate affect (action-oriented individuals). In two studies with participants who were mostly naïve to mindfulness practices (70% indicated no experience; N1 = 126, 42 men, 84 women, 0 diverse, aged 17–86 years, Mage = 31.87; N2 = 108, 30 men, 75 women, 3 diverse, aged 17–69 years, Mage = 28.00), we tested a mindfulness group (five-minute mindfulness exercise) against a control group (five-minute text reading). We operationalized alienation as lower consistency in repeated preference judgments and a lower tendency to adopt intrinsic over extrinsic goal recommendations. Results showed that, among state-oriented participants, mindfulness led to significantly lower consistency of preference judgments (Study 1) and lower adoption of intrinsic over extrinsic goals (Study 2) compared to text reading. The alienating effect was absent among action-oriented participants. Thus, mindfulness practice may alienate psychologically vulnerable people from their self and hamper access to preferences and intrinsic goals. We discuss our findings within Personality-Systems-Interactions (PSI) theory.

Diese Dissertation beschäftigt sich mit der Fragestellung, ob und wie Intersektionalität als analytische Perspektive für literarische Texte eine nützliche Ergänzung für ethnisch geordnete Literaturfelder darstellt. Diese Fragestellung wird anhand der Analyse dreier zeitgenössischer chinesisch-kanadischer Romane untersucht. In der Einleitung wird die Relevanz der Themenbereiche Intersektionalität und asiatisch-kanadische Literatur erörtert. Das darauffolgende Kapitel bietet einen historischen Überblick über die chinesisch-kanadische Einwanderung und geht detailliert auf die literarischen Produktionen ein. Es wird aufgezeigt, dass, obwohl kulturelle Güter auch zur Artikulation von Ungleichheitsverhältnissen aufgrund von zugeschriebener ethnischer Zugehörigkeit entstehen, ein Diversifizierungsbestreben innerhalb der literarischen Gemeinschaft von chinesisch-kanadischen Autor:innen identifiziert werden kann. Das dritte Kapitel widmet sich dem Begriff „Intersektionalität“ und stellt, nach einer historischen Einordnung des Konzeptes mit seinen Ursprüngen im Black Feminism, Intersektionalität als bindendes Element zwischen Postkolonialismus, Diversität und Empowerment dar – Konzepte, die für die Analyse (kanadischer) Literatur in dieser Dissertation von besonderer Relevanz sind. Anschließend wird die Rolle von Intersektionalität in der Literaturwissenschaft aufgegriffen. Die darauffolgenden exemplarischen Analysen von Kim Fus For Today I Am a Boy, Wayson Choys The Jade Peony und Yan Lis Lily in the Snow veranschaulichen die vorangegangen methodischen Überlegungen. Allen drei Romanen vorangestellt ist die Kontextualisierung des jeweiligen Werkes als chinesisch-kanadisch, aber auch bisher vorgenommene Überlegungen, die diese Einordnung infrage stellen. Nach einer Zusammenfassung des Inhalts folgt eine intersektionale Analyse auf der inhaltlichen Ebene, die in den familiären und weiteren sozialen Bereich unterteilt ist, da sich die Hierarchiemechanismen innerhalb dieser Bereiche unterscheiden oder gegenseitig verstärken, wie aus den Analysen hervorgeht. Anschließend wird die formale Analyse mit einem intersektionalen Schwerpunkt in einem separaten Unterkapitel näher beleuchtet. Ein drittes Unterkapitel widmet sich einem dem jeweiligen Roman spezifischen Aspekt, der im Zusammenhang mit einer intersektionalen Analyse von besonderer Relevanz ist. Die Arbeit schließt mit einem übergreifenden Fazit, welches die wichtigsten Ergebnisse aus der Analyse zusammenfasst und mit weiteren Überlegungen zu den Implikationen dieser Dissertation, vor allem im Hinblick auf sogenannte kanadische „master narratives“, die eine weitreichende, kontextuelle Relevanz für das Arbeiten mit literarischen Texten aufweisen und durch einen intersektionalen literarischen Ansatz in Zukunft gegebenenfalls gewinnbringend ergänzt werden können.

Background: Suicide represents a critical public health concern, and machine learning (ML) models offer the potential for identifying at-risk individuals. Recent studies using benchmark datasets and real-world social media data have demonstrated the capability of pretrained large language models in predicting suicidal ideation and behaviors (SIB) in speech and text. Objective: This study aimed to (1) develop and implement ML methods for predicting SIBs in a real-world crisis helpline dataset, using transformer-based pretrained models as a foundation; (2) evaluate, cross-validate, and benchmark the model against traditional text classification approaches; and (3) train an explainable model to highlight relevant risk-associated features. Methods: We analyzed chat protocols from adolescents and young adults (aged 14-25 years) seeking assistance from a German crisis helpline. An ML model was developed using a transformer-based language model architecture with pretrained weights and long short-term memory layers. The model predicted suicidal ideation (SI) and advanced suicidal engagement (ASE), as indicated by composite Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale scores. We compared model performance against a classical word-vector-based ML model. We subsequently computed discrimination, calibration, clinical utility, and explainability information using a Shapley Additive Explanations value-based post hoc estimation model. Results: The dataset comprised 1348 help-seeking encounters (1011 for training and 337 for testing). The transformer-based classifier achieved a macroaveraged area under the curve (AUC) receiver operating characteristic (ROC) of 0.89 (95% CI 0.81-0.91) and an overall accuracy of 0.79 (95% CI 0.73-0.99). This performance surpassed the word-vector-based baseline model (AUC-ROC=0.77, 95% CI 0.64-0.90; accuracy=0.61, 95% CI 0.61-0.80). The transformer model demonstrated excellent prediction for nonsuicidal sessions (AUC-ROC=0.96, 95% CI 0.96-0.99) and good prediction for SI and ASE, with AUC-ROCs of 0.85 (95% CI 0.97-0.86) and 0.87 (95% CI 0.81-0.88), respectively. The Brier Skill Score indicated a 44% improvement in classification performance over the baseline model. The Shapley Additive Explanations model identified language features predictive of SIBs, including self-reference, negation, expressions of low self-esteem, and absolutist language. Conclusions: Neural networks using large language model–based transfer learning can accurately identify SI and ASE. The post hoc explainer model revealed language features associated with SI and ASE. Such models may potentially support clinical decision-making in suicide prevention services. Future research should explore multimodal input features and temporal aspects of suicide risk.

The skin is continuously challenged by environmental antigens that may penetrate and elicit a skin sensitization, which can develop into allergic contact dermatitis. Medical treatment for allergic contact dermatitis is limited - in fact only acute symptoms can be cured and for secondary prevention of the disease a lifelong avoidance of the allergen(s) is necessary. Therefore, the screening of the sensitization potential of substance used in commercially available products is indispensable to prevent such diseases. Hence, risk assessment is deduced from data obtained by murine local lymph node assay predominantly, but there exists a need to develop methods capable of providing the same information that do not require the use of animals in view of legislative initiatives such as REACH (registration, evaluation, authorization of chemicals) as well as the 7th Amendment to the Cosmetics Directive (2003/15/EC). Therefore, a number of promising in silico and in vitro approaches are being developed to address this need. In vitro test systems using the response of dendritic cells, which are the key player in the elicitation process of contact dermatitis, are established, but, although these novel methods for hazard identification might find application in the context of screening, it is not clear whether these approaches are useful for the purposes of risk assessment and risk management to predict allergic potency. Therefore, it was investigated whether on the one hand in vitro generated dendritic cells from primary blood monocytes (MoDC) and on the other hand a continuous monocytic cell line, the THP-1 cells, suggested as dendritic cell surrogate, react to a presumably weak allergen. Ascaridol, predicted as one of the possible causes for tea tree oil contact dermatitis, was studied and its effects in these two in vitro skin sensitization models were explored. Thus, the surface expression of CD86, HLADR, CD54, and CD40, which are known as activation markers in both in vitro models, were measured via flow cytometry. For MoDC, an augmented CD86 and HLADR surface expression in comparison to untreated cells were determined after 24 h exposure with ascaridol. An increased CD54 and CD40 surface expression were found only in some donors. After long term incubation of 96 h, ascaridol-treated MoDC still up-regulated CD86 and additionally an augmented CD40 expression was measured in all studied donors. An enhanced CD54 expression was determined for 50 percentage of all investigated donors. Furthermore, CD80, CD83 and CD209 protein expression were up-regulated in MoDC after 96 h of ascaridol incubation. In addition, it was determined that after 24 h ascaridol-treated MoDC showed an increased capacity to uptake antigens, whereas after 96 h this capacity got lost and antigen-capturing devices were reduced in comparison to non-treated MoDC. Moreover, the cytokine release of ascaridol-treated MoDC were measured after 24 h. Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)alpha, interleukin (IL)-1beta and IL 6 secretion were determined in some donors. Furthermore, IL-8 release was clearly increased after 24 h ascaridol treatment. By the same token, THP-1 cells were analyzed after ascaridol treatment for several activation markers. We found a similar response pattern as measured in MoDC. Ascaridol induced CD86 expression as well as CD54 after 24 h incubation. Additionally, the impact of ascaridol on phosphorylation of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase, which had been shown to be involved in increased expression of activation markers like CD86 by others, were studied via Western blot analysis. A phosphorylation of p38 was determined after 15 min of ascaridol stimulation. Moreover, an augmented CD40 and HLADR surface expression were measured in a dose-response manner after 24 h ascaridol treatment. Also similar to MoDC an enhanced IL-8 secretion after ascaridol stimulation was observed in THP-1 cells. Hence, for the first time it was shown that ascaridol has immuno-modulating effects. The obtained data from both in vitro systems, MoDC and THP-1 cells, identified ascaridol as a sensitizer. Although for both systems there remain significant challenges to overcome for potency assessment, ascaridol is presumed to be a weak sensitizer probably. Interestingly, ascaridol treatment of THP-1 cells resulted also in an increased augmentation of CD184 and CCR2, two chemokine receptors expressed on monocyte. Therefore, these data encouraged the exploration of chemokine receptors as tools in skin sensitization prediction. Consequently, the combination of chemical assays with in vitro techniques may provide a useful surrogate to animal testing for skin sensitization. Due to the continuously changing environmental conditions, it is necessary to regularly monitor and update the spectrum of sensitizers that elicit contact dermatitis. Therefore, both debated in vitro test systems will become indispensable tools.

Cortisol exhibits typical ultradian and circadian rhythm and disturbances in its secretory pattern have been described in stress-related pathology. The aim of this thesis was to dissect the underlying structure of cortisol pulsatility and to develop tools to investigate the effects of this pulsatility on immune cell trafficking and the responsiveness of the neuroendocrine system and GR target genes to stress. Deconvolution modeling was set up as a tool for investigation of the pulsatile secretion underlying the ultradian cortisol rhythm. This further allowed us to investigate the role of the single cortisol pulses on the immune cell trafficking and the role of induced cortisol pulses on the kinetics of expression of GR target genes. The development of these three tools, would allow to induce and investigate in future the significance of single cortisol pulses for health and disease.

The rate and range of ongoing changes in social and ecological systems and particularly the global environmental degradation illustrates the need of holistic and sustainable approaches for the governance of natural resources to ensure their well-functioning for future generations (Rockström et al. 2009). The narrative of common pool resources system such as SES of small-scale fisheries, reports world-wide of stock collapse, environmental degradation and overexploitation (Cinner et al. 2013). In order to understand the complexity of system interactions in those resource systems, the consideration of local scale specific phenomena is of great relevance (Ostrom 2007b). The focus of this thesis consequently is the social-ecological system of a small scale fishery in a heavily urbanised coastal wetland on the fringes of Ghana ́s capital Accra. With the theoretical foundation of the social-ecological system (SES) theory (Folke et al. 2004; Berkes et al. 2003; G. S. Cumming 2011) and the social-ecological system framework (SESF) by Ostrom (2007a) and McGinnis & Ostrom (2014) as analytical tool, the study ex- amines the role of the fishers as focal actor group and the governance system based on traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) (Berkes et al. 2003). While the common narrative of system collapse is partly confirmed for the focal system, also contradicting findings about the diversity of the actor group, their sustainable and responsible exploitation of the deltas resources have been found, that rather illustrate the fishers as potential cooperation partners for the development of sustainable governance strategies (see Hollup 2000) than simply as bur- den to the system. However, the results also show that in order to achieve sustainable outcomes in the focal SES, so far unsuccessful top-down governance efforts have to work cooperatively with the fishers to challenge the multiple threats to the system from external perturbation and internal changes, in the long run.

For decades, academics and practitioners aim to understand whether and how (economic) events affect firm value. Optimally, these events occur exogenously, i.e. suddenly and unexpectedly, so that an accurate evaluation of the effects on firm value can be conducted. However, recent studies show that even the evaluation of exogenous events is often prone to many challenges that can lead to diverse interpretations, resulting in heated debates. Recently, there have been intense debates in particular on the impact of takeover defenses and of Covid-19 on firm value. The announcements of takeover defenses and the propagation of Covid-19 are exogenous events that occur worldwide and are economically important, but have been insufficiently examined. By answering open research questions, this dissertation aims to provide a greater understanding about the heterogeneous effects that exogenous events such as the announcements of takeover defenses and the propagation of Covid-19 have on firm value. In addition, this dissertation analyzes the influence of certain firm characteristics on the effects of these two exogenous events and identifies influencing factors that explain contradictory results in the existing literature and thus can reconcile different views.

Attention in social interactions is directed by social cues such as the face or eye region of an interaction partner. Several factors that influence these attentional biases have been identified in the past. However, most findings are based on paradigms with static stimuli and no interaction potential. Therefore, the current study investigated the influence of one of these factors, namely facial affect in natural social interactions using an evaluated eye-tracking setup. In a sample of 35 female participants, we examined how individuals’ gaze behavior responds to changes in the facial affect of an interaction partner trained in affect modulation. Our goal was to analyze the effects on attention to facial features and to investigate their temporal dynamics in a natural social interaction. The study results, obtained from both aggregated and dynamic analyses, indicate that facial affect has only subtle influences on gaze behavior during social interactions. In a sample with high measurement precision, these findings highlight the difficulties of capturing the subtleties of social attention in more naturalistic settings. The methodology used in this study serves as a foundation for future research on social attention differences in more ecologically valid scenarios.

Advances in eye tracking technology have enabled the development of interactive experimental setups to study social attention. Since these setups differ substantially from the eye tracker manufacturer’s test conditions, validation is essential with regard to the quality of gaze data and other factors potentially threatening the validity of this signal. In this study, we evaluated the impact of accuracy and areas of interest (AOIs) size on the classification of simulated gaze (fixation) data. We defined AOIs of different sizes using the Limited-Radius Voronoi-Tessellation (LRVT) method, and simulated gaze data for facial target points with varying accuracy. As hypothesized, we found that accuracy and AOI size had strong effects on gaze classification. In addition, these effects were not independent and differed in falsely classified gaze inside AOIs (Type I errors; false alarms) and falsely classified gaze outside the predefined AOIs (Type II errors; misses). Our results indicate that smaller AOIs generally minimize false classifications as long as accuracy is good enough. For studies with lower accuracy, Type II errors can still be compensated to some extent by using larger AOIs, but at the cost of more probable Type I errors. Proper estimation of accuracy is therefore essential for making informed decisions regarding the size of AOIs in eye tracking research.

Lycian salamanders (genus Lyciasalamandra) constitute an exceptional case of microendemism of an amphibian species on the Asian Minor mainland. These viviparous salamanders are confined to karstic limestone formations along the southern Anatolian coast and some islands. We here study the genetic differentiation within and among 118 populations of all seven Lyciasalamandra species across the entire genus’ distribution. Based on circa 900 base pairs of fragments of the mitochondrial 16SrDNA and ATPase genes, we analysed the spatial haplotype distribution as well as the genetic structure and demographic history of populations. We used 253 geo-referenced populations and CHELSA climate data to infer species distribution models which we projected on climatic conditions of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Within all but one species, distinct phyloclades were identified, which only in parts matched current taxonomy. Most haplotypes (78%) were private to single populations. Sometimes population genetic parameters showed contradicting results, although in several cases they indicated recent population expansion of phyloclades. Climatic suitability of localities currently inhabited by salamanders was significantly lower during the LGM compared to recent climate. All data indicated a strong degree of isolation among Lyciasalamandra populations, even within phyloclades. Given the sometimes high degree of haplotype differentiation between adjacent populations, they must have survived periods of deteriorated climates during the Quaternary on the spot. However, the alternative explanation of male biased dispersal combined with a pronounced female philopatry can only be excluded if independent nuclear data confirm this result.

In this thesis, in order to shed light on the biological function of the membrane-bound Glucocorticoid Receptor (mGR), proteomic changes induced by 15 min in vivo acute stress and by short in vitro activation of the mGR were analyzed in T-lymphocytes. The numerous overlaps between the two datasets suggest that the mGR mediates physiologically relevant actions and participates in the early stress response, triggering rapid early priming events that pave the way for the slower genomic GC activities. In addition, a new commercially available method with suitable sensitivity to detect the human mGR is reported and the transcriptional origin of this protein investigated. Our results indicates that specific GR-transcripts, containing exon 1C and 1D, are associated with the expression of this membrane isoform.

Although geographically it belongs to Europe, as far as the constitutionality control of the statutory provisions is concerned, Greece follows the American system. That means that there is no Constitutional Court and, on the contrary, every court (even those of first instance) are entitled, and indeed obliged, to control the constitutionality of the laws (Articles 87 par. 2 and 93 par. 4 of the Greek Constitution). The Greek Courts examine only the substantial and not the formal constitutionality of the statutory provisions. If a court comes to the result of the unconstitutionality, then the statutory provision is not annulled and removed from the legal order, but it is not applied by the court in the relevant court procedure. The only – rather rare – case where a statutory provision is erga omnes annulled is when this is ordered by a decision of the Highest Special Court (Article 100 of the Greek Constitution), following a disagreement between two of the three highest Courts, namely between Symvoulio tis Epikrateias (highest Administrative Court), Areios Pagos (Cassations Court in Civil and Criminal procedures) and Elegtiko Synedrio (Court of Audit). The presentation is going to examine the origins of the Greek system of the constitutionality control. It will also focus on the advantages and disadvantages of the Greek system and on the scientific and political discussion. Last but not least, the presentation will examine the role of the Council of State, which, although formally not a Constitutional Court, in practice issues the vast majority of the court decisions which accept the unconstitutionality of statutory provisions.

Nonlocal operators are used in a wide variety of models and applications due to many natural phenomena being driven by nonlocal dynamics. Nonlocal operators are integral operators allowing for interactions between two distinct points in space. The nonlocal models investigated in this thesis involve kernels that are assumed to have a finite range of nonlocal interactions. Kernels of this type are used in nonlocal elasticity and convection-diffusion models as well as finance and image analysis. Also within the mathematical theory they arouse great interest, as they are asymptotically related to fractional and classical differential equations. The results in this thesis can be grouped according to the following three aspects: modeling and analysis, discretization and optimization. Mathematical models demonstrate their true usefulness when put into numerical practice. For computational purposes, it is important that the support of the kernel is clearly determined. Therefore nonlocal interactions are typically assumed to occur within an Euclidean ball of finite radius. In this thesis we consider more general interaction sets including norm induced balls as special cases and extend established results about well-posedness and asymptotic limits. The discretization of integral equations is a challenging endeavor. Especially kernels which are truncated by Euclidean balls require carefully designed quadrature rules for the implementation of efficient finite element codes. In this thesis we investigate the computational benefits of polyhedral interaction sets as well as geometrically approximated interaction sets. In addition to that we outline the computational advantages of sufficiently structured problem settings. Shape optimization methods have been proven useful for identifying interfaces in models governed by partial differential equations. Here we consider a class of shape optimization problems constrained by nonlocal equations which involve interface-dependent kernels. We derive the shape derivative associated to the nonlocal system model and solve the problem by established numerical techniques.

Instead of presuming only local interaction, we assume nonlocal interactions. By doing so, mass at a point in space does not only interact with an arbitrarily small neighborhood surrounding it, but it can also interact with mass somewhere far, far away. Thus, mass jumping from one point to another is also a possibility we can consider in our models. So, if we consider a region in space, this region interacts in a local model at most with its closure. While in a nonlocal model this region may interact with the whole space. Therefore, in the formulation of nonlocal boundary value problems the enforcement of boundary conditions on the topological boundary may not suffice. Furthermore, choosing the complement as nonlocal boundary may work for Dirichlet boundary conditions, but in the case of Neumann boundary conditions this may lead to an overfitted model. In this thesis, we introduce a nonlocal boundary and study the well-posedness of a nonlocal Neu- mann problem. We present sufficient assumptions which guarantee the existence of a weak solution. As in a local model our weak formulation is derived from an integration by parts formula. However, we also study a different weak formulation where the nonlocal boundary conditions are incorporated into the nonlocal diffusion-convection operator. After studying the well-posedness of our nonlocal Neumann problem, we consider some applications of this problem. For example, we take a look at a system of coupled Neumann problems and analyze the difference between a local coupled Neumann problems and a nonlocal one. Furthermore, we let our Neumann problem be the state equation of an optimal control problem which we then study. We also add a time component to our Neumann problem and analyze this nonlocal parabolic evolution equation. As mentioned before, in a local model mass at a point in space only interacts with an arbitrarily small neighborhood surrounding it. We analyze what happens if we consider a family of nonlocal models where the interaction shrinks so that, in limit, mass at a point in space only interacts with an arbitrarily small neighborhood surrounding it.

This study investigated correlative, factorial, and structural relationships between scores for ability emotional intelligence in the workplace (measured with the Geneva Emotional Competence Test), as well as fluid and crystallized abilities (measured with the Intelligence Structure Battery), carried out by a 188-participant student sample. Confirming existing research, recognition, understanding, and management of emotions were related primarily to crystallized ability tests measuring general knowledge, verbal fluency, and knowledge of word meaning. Meanwhile, emotion regulation was the least correlated with any other cognitive or emotional ability. In line with research on the trainability of emotional intelligence, these results may support the notion that emotional abilities are subject to acquired knowledge, where situational (i.e., workplace-specific) emotional intelligence may depend on accumulating relevant experiences.

Roof and wall slates are fine-grained rocks with slaty cleavage, and it is often difficult to determine their mineral composition. A new norm mineral calculation called slatecalculation allows the determination of a virtual mineral composition based on full chemical analysis, including the amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon (C), and sulfur (S). Derived norm minerals include feldspars, carbonates, micas, hydro-micas, chlorites, ore-minerals, and quartz. The mineral components of the slate are assessed with superior accuracy compared to the petrographic analysis based on the European Standard EN 12326. The inevitable methodical inaccuracies in the calculations are limited and transparent. In the present paper, slates, shales, and phyllites from worldwide occurrences were examined. This also gives an overview of the rocks used for discontinuous roofing and external cladding.

A big challenge for agriculture in the 21st century is the provision of food safety to fast growing world- population, which not only demands the well utilisation of the available agricultural resources but also to develop new advancements in the mass production of food crops. Wheat is the third largest food crop of the world and Pakistan is the eighth largest wheat producing country globally. Rice is the second most important staple food of Pakistan after wheat, grown in all provinces of the country. Maize is the world- top ranking food crop followed by wheat and rice. The harvested produts have to be stored in different types of storage structures on small or large scale for food as well as seed purpose. In Pakistan, the harvested grains are stored for the whole year till the introduction of fresh produce in order to ensure the regular food supply throughout the year. However, it is this extended storage period making the commodity more vulnerable to insect attacks. Rhyzopertha dominica (Coleoptera: Bostrychidae), Cryptolestes ferrugineus (Coleoptera: Laemophloeidae), Tribolium castaneum (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) and Liposcelis spp. (Psocoptera: Liposcelididae) are the major and most damaging insect pests of stored products all around the world. Various management strategies have been adopted for stored grain insect pests mostly relying upon the use of a broad spectrum of insecticides, but the injudicious use of these chemicals raised various environmental and human health related issues, which necessitate the safe use of the prevailing control measures and evaluation of new and alternative control methods. The application of new chemical insecticides, microbial insecticides (particularly entomopathogenic fungi) and the use of inert dusts (diatomaceous earths) is believed amongst the potential alternatives to generally used insecticides in stored grain insect management system. In the current investigations, laboratory bioassays conducted to evaluate the effects of combining Imidacloprid (new chemistry insecticide) with and without Protect-It (diatomaceous earth formulation) against R. dominica, L. paeta, C. ferrugineus and T. castaneum, on three different grain commodities (i.e. wheat, maize and rice) revealed differences in adult mortality levels among grains and insect species tested. Individually, Imidacloprid was more effective as compared with Protect-It alone and the highest numbers of dead adults were recorded in wheat. The insecticidal efficacy of B. bassiana with Protect-It and DEBBM was also assessed against all test insect species under laboratory conditions. The findings of these studies revealed that the more extended exposure period and the higher combined application rate of B. bassiana and DEs provided the highest mortality of the test insect species. The progeny emergence of each insect species was also greatly suppressed where the highest dose rates of the combined treatments were applied. The residual efficacy of all three control measures Imidacloprid, B. bassiana and DEBBM formulation was also evaluated against all test insect species. The bioassays were carried out after grain treatments and monthly for 6 months. The results indicated that the adult mortality of each test insect species was decreased within the six month storage period, and the integarted application of the test grain protectants enhanced the mortality rates than their alone treatments. The maximum mortality was noted in the combined treatment of DEBBM with Imidacloprid. At the end, the effectiveness of B. bassiana, DEBBM and Imidacloprid applied alone as well as in combinations, against all above mentioned test insect species was also evaluated under field conditions in trials conducted in four districts of Punjab, Pakistan. For each district, a significant difference was observed between treatments, while the combined treatments gave better control of test species as compared with them alone. The least number of surviving adults and minimum percentage of grain damage was observed for the DEBBM and Imidacloprid combination, but DEBBM with B. bassiana provided the best long-term protection as compared with the remaining treatments.

The presented research aims at providing a first empirical investigation on lexical structure in Chinese with appropriate quantitative methods. The research objects contain individual properties of words (part of speech, polyfunctionality, polysemy, word length), the relationships between properties (part of speech and polyfunctionality, polyfunctionality and polysemy, polysemy and word length) and the lexical structure composed by those properties. Some extant hypotheses in QL, such as distributions of polysemy and the relationship between word length and polysemy, are tested on the data of Chinese, which enrich the applicability of the laws with a language not tested yet. Several original hypotheses such as the distribution of polyfunctionality and the relationship between polyfunctionality and polysemy are set up and inspected.

Legalisation cannot be fully explained by interest politics. If that were the case, the attitudes towards legalisation would be expected to be based on objective interests and actual policies in France and Germany would be expected to be more similar. Nor can it be explained by institutional agency, because there are no hints that states struggle with different normative traditions. Rather, political actors seek to make use of the structures that already exist to guar-antee legitimacy for their actions. If the main concern of governmental actors really is to accumulate legitimacy, as stated in the introduction, then politicians have a good starting position in the case of legalisation of illegal foreigners. Citizens" negative attitudes towards legalisation cannot be explained by imagined labour market competition; income effects play only a secondary role. The most important explanatory factor is the educational level of each individual. Objective interests do not trigger attitudes towards legalisation, but rather a basic men-tal predisposition for or against illegal immigrants who are eligible for legalisation. Politics concerning amnesties are thus not tied to an objectively given structure like the socio-economic composition of the electorate, but are open for political discretion. Attitudes on legalising illegal immigrants can be regarded as being mediated by beliefs and perceptions, which can be used by political agents or altered by political developments. However, politicians must adhere to a national frame of legitimating strategies that cannot be neglected without consequences. It was evident in the cross-country comparison of political debates that there are national systems of reference that provide patterns of interpretation. Legalisation is seen and incorporated into immigration policy in a very specific way that differs from one country to the next. In both countries investigated in this study, there are fundamental debates about which basic principles apply to legalisation and which of these should be held in higher esteem: a legal system able to work, humanitarian rights, practical considerations, etc. The results suggest that legalisation is "technicized" in France by describing it as an unusual but possible pragmatic instrument for the adjustment of the inefficient rule of law. In Germany, however, legalisation is discussed at a more normative level. Proponents of conservative immigration policies regard it as a substantial infringement on the rule of law, so that even defenders of a humanitarian solution for illegal immigrants are not able to challenge this view without significant political harm. But the arguments brought to bear in the debate on legalisation are not necessarily sound because they are not irrefutable facts, but instruments to generate legitimacy, and there are enough possibilities for arguing and persuading because socio-economic factors play a minor role. One of the most important arguments, the alleged pull effect of legalisation, has been subjected to an empirical investigation. In the political debate, it does not make any dif-ference whether this is true or not, insofar as it is not contested by incontrovertible findings. In reality, the results suggest that amnesties indeed exert a small attracting influence on illegal immigration, which has been contested by immigration friendly politicians in the French par-liament. The effect, however, is not large; therefore, some conservative politicians may put too much stress on this argument. Moreover, one can see legalisation as an instrument to restore legitimacy that has slipped away from immigration politics because of a high number of illegally residing foreigners. This aspect explains some of the peculiarities in the French debate on legalisation, e.g. the idea that the coherence of the law is secured by creating exceptional rules for legalising illegal immigrants. It has become clear that the politics of legalisation are susceptible to manipulation by introducing certain interpretations into the political debate, which become predominant and supersede other views. In this study, there are no signs of a systematic misuse of this constellation by any certain actor. However, the history of immigration policy is full of examples of symbolic politics in which a certain measure has been initiated while the actors are totally aware of its lack of effect. Legalisation has escaped this fate so far because it is a specific instrument that is the result of neglecting populist mechanisms rather than an ex-ample of a superficial measure. This result does not apply to policies concerning illegal immi-gration in general, both with regard to concealing a lack of control and flexing the state- muscles.

The overall objective of this thesis was to gain a deeper understanding of the antecedents, processes, and manifestations of uniqueness-driven consumer behavior. To achieve this goal, five studies have been conducted in Germany and Switzerland with a total of 1048 participants across different demographic and socio-economic backgrounds. Two concepts were employed in all studies: Consumer need for uniqueness (CNFU) and general uniqueness perception (GUP). CNFU (Tian, Bearden, &amp; Hunter, 2001), a mainly US"based consumer research concept, measures the individual need, and thus the motivation to acquire, use, and dispose consumer goods in order to develop a unique image. GUP, adapted from the two-component theory of individuality (Kampmeier, 2001), represents a global and direct measure of self-ascribed uniqueness. Study #1 looked at the interrelation of the uniqueness-driven concepts. Therefore, GUP and CNFU were employed in the study as potential psychological factors that influence and predict uniqueness-driven consumer behavior. Different behavioral measures were used: The newly developed possession of individualized products (POIP), the newly developed products for uniqueness display (PFUD), and the already established uniqueness-enhancing behaviors (UEB). Analyses showed that CNFU mediates the relationship between GUP and the behavioral measures in a German speaking setting. Thus, GUP (representing self-perception) was identified as the driver behind CNFU (representing motivation) and the actual consumer behavior. Study #2 examined further manifestations of uniqueness-driven consumer behavior. For this purpose, an extreme form of uniqueness-increasing behavior was researched: Tattooing. The influence of GUP and CNFU on tattooing behavior was investigated using a sample derived from a tattoo exhibition. To do so, a newly developed measure to determine the percentage of the body covered by tattoos was employed. It was revealed that individuals with higher GUP and CNFU levels indeed have a higher tattooing degree. Study #3 further explored the predictive possibilities and limitations of the GUP and CNFU concepts. On the one hand, study #3 specifically looked at the consumption of customized apparel products as mass customization is said to become the standard of the century (Piller &amp; Müller, 2004). It was shown that individuals with higher CNFU levels not only purchased more customized apparel products in the last six months, but also spend more money on them. On the other hand, uniqueness-enhancing activities (UEA), such as travel to exotic places or extreme sports, were investigated by using a newly developed 30-item scale. It was revealed that CNFU partly mediates the GUP and UEA relationship, proving that CNFU indeed predicts a broad range of consumer behaviors and that GUP is the driver behind the need and the behavior. Study #4, entered a new terrain. In contrast to the previous three studies, it explored the so termed "passive" side of uniqueness-seeking in the consumer context. Individuals might feel unique because business companies treat them in a special way. Such a unique customer treatment (UCT) involves activities like customer service or customer relationship management. Study #4 investigated if individuals differ in their need for such a treatment. Hence, with the need for unique customer treatment (NFUCT) a new uniqueness-driven consumer need was introduced and its impact on customer loyalty examined. Analyses, for example, revealed that individuals with high NFUCT levels receiving a high unique customer treatment (UCT) showed the highest customer loyalty, whereas the lowest customer loyalty was found among those individuals with high NFUCT levels receiving a low unique customer treatment (UCT). Study #5 mainly examined the processes behind uniqueness-driven consumer behavior. Here, not only the psychological influences, but also situational influences were examined. This study investigated the impact of a non-personal "indirect" uniqueness manipulation on the consumption of customized apparel products by simultaneously controlling for the influence of GUP and CNFU. Therefore, two equal experimental groups were created. Afterwards, these groups either received an e-mail with a "pro-individualism" campaign or a "pro-collectivism" campaign especially developed for study #5. The conducted experiment revealed that, individuals receiving a "pro-individualism" poster campaign telling the participants that uniqueness is socially appropriate and desired were willing to spend more money on customization options compared to individuals receiving a "pro-collectivism" poster campaign. Hence, not only psychological antecedents such as GUP and CNFU influence uniqueness-driven consumer behavior, but also situational factors.

Digitalization primarily takes place in and through organizations. Despite this prominent role, however, the importance of organizational structure-building processes in the digital transformation is still underexposed in discourse. The fact that ongoing digitalization is linked to an established phenomenon and its own logic, is regularly not addressed due to the attraction potential of the semantics of the digital revolution. Digital revolution and the reordering of societal relationships, though, manifest themselves primarily in processes of reorganization. Structural automation processes in the ongoing digital transformation are limiting the scope for action, necessitating forms of structural structurelessness in organizations that cultivate opportunities for chance. Since organizations realize their operations as a dual of structure and individual, and the principle of organization is therefore based on the complementarity of structural formality and unpredictable informality. The paper discusses the topicality of the classical form of modern organization in the digital age and reflects on approaches to a contemporary design of spaces of opportunity. The reflexive handling of future openness is the central task of management and leadership in order to enable variation and innovation in organizations.

Representation Learning techniques play a crucial role in a wide variety of Deep Learning applications. From Language Generation to Link Prediction on Graphs, learned numerical vector representations often build the foundation for numerous downstream tasks. In Natural Language Processing, word embeddings are contextualized and depend on their current context. This useful property reflects how words can have different meanings based on their neighboring words. In Knowledge Graph Embedding (KGE) approaches, static vector representations are still the dominant approach. While this is sufficient for applications where the underlying Knowledge Graph (KG) mainly stores static information, it becomes a disadvantage when dynamic entity behavior needs to be modelled. To address this issue, KGE approaches would need to model dynamic entities by incorporating situational and sequential context into the vector representations of entities. Analogous to contextualised word embeddings, this would allow entity embeddings to change depending on their history and current situational factors. Therefore, this thesis provides a description of how to transform static KGE approaches to contextualised dynamic approaches and how the specific characteristics of different dynamic scenarios are need to be taken into consideration. As a starting point, we conduct empirical studies that attempt to integrate sequential and situational context into static KG embeddings and investigate the limitations of the different approaches. In a second step, the identified limitations serve as guidance for developing a framework that enables KG embeddings to become truly dynamic, taking into account both the current situation and the past interactions of an entity. The two main contributions in this step are the introduction of the temporally contextualized Knowledge Graph formalism and the corresponding RETRA framework which realizes the contextualisation of entity embeddings. Finally, we demonstrate how situational contextualisation can be realized even in static environments, where all object entities are passive at all times. For this, we introduce a novel task that requires the combination of multiple context modalities and their integration with a KG based view on entity behavior.

In a first step, this paper analyses the emergence of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as new global development framework with regard to key actors, social learning cycles, innovation platforms, fundamental policy changes and transition dynamics towards sustainability. In a second step, it traces the convolution of social, political and environmental dimensions, social power relations and governance paradigms embedded in the drafting process and final framework of the water related SDG 6. This research concludes that the SDGs induced important paradigm and policy changes in addition to rearranging existing power relations.

In the context of accelerated global socio-environmental change, the Water-Energy-Food Nexus has received increasing attention within science and international politics by promoting integrated resource governance. This study explores the scientific nexus debates from a discourse analytical perspective to reveal knowledge and power relations as well as geographical settings of nexus research. We also investigate approaches to socio-nature relations that influence nexus research and subsequent political implications. Our findings suggest that the leading nexus discourse is dominated by natural scientific perspectives and a neo-Malthusian framing of environmental challenges. Accordingly, the promoted cross-sectoral nexus approach to resource governance emphasizes efficiency, security, future sustainability, and poverty reduction. Water, energy, and food are conceived as global trade goods that require close monitoring, management and control, to be achieved via quantitative assessments and technological interventions. Within the less visible discourse, social scientific perspectives engage with the social, political, and normative elements of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus. These perspectives criticize the dominant nexus representation for itsmanagerial, neoliberal, and utilitarian approach to resource governance. The managerial framing is critiqued for masking power relations and social inequalities, while alternative framings acknowledge the political nature of resource governance and socio-nature relations. The spatial dimensions of the nexus debate are also discussed. Notably, the nexus is largely shaped by western knowledge, yet applied mainly in specific regions of the Global South. In order for the nexus to achieve integrative solutions for sustainability, the debate needs to overcome its current discursive and spatial separations. To this end, we need to engage more closely with alternative nexus discourses, embrace epistemic pluralism and encourage multi-perspective debates about the socio-nature relations we actually intend to promote.