Few data are available on the quality of Red river water that is used for multi-purposes, including for domestic water demand in some rural areas. This paper presents the observation results of the Red River water quality in two years 2012 and 2013. The monitoring results showed that the average concentrations of nutrients (N, P) were still far lower than the allowed value of the Vietnamese standard limits for surface water quality (QCVN 08:2008/BTNMT, column A2). Due to the impoundment of two big dams in the Da tributary, the suspended solids contents in river water decreased remarkably. The dissolved heavy metal (DHM) concentrations varied in a high range: Cu: 10 – 80 μg.l-1; Zn: 2 – 88 μg.l-1; Cr: 0.2 – 5.1 μg.l-1; Pb: 2 - 107 μg.l-1; Cd: 2 – 12 μg.l-1; Mn: 2 - 35 μg.l-1; and Fe: 160 – 2370 μg.l-1. Most of the mean values of DHM were lower than the allowed values of the QCVN 08:2008/BTNMT, but at several points of time, several DHM (e.g. Fe, Cd, Pb) contents exceeded the allowed values. The Total Coliform (TC) and Fecal Coliform (FC) densities varied in a high range: TC: 23 to 13,000MPN.100ml-1 and FC: 0 to 1,600MPN.100ml-1 and they exceeded the allowed values QCVN 08:2008/BTNMT at several points observed. The dissolved organic carbon (DOC) contents were in low level and the particulate organic carbon (POC) content mainly derived from soil organic leaching and erosion in the basin. The results underlined the need for regularly monitoring the river water quality, and there should be some effective solutions to manage and treat the waste sources in order to provide safe water for different actual purposes use in the Red River basin. / Rất ít số liệu sẵn có về chất lượng nước sông Hồng, dòng sông được sử dụng cho nhiều mục đích, bao gồm cả cung cấp nước sinh hoạt ở một số vùng nông thôn. Bài báo trình bày các kết quả quan trắc chất lượng nước sông Hồng trong hai năm 2012 và 2013. Kết quả quan trắc cho thấy chất dinh dưỡng (N, P) thấp xa so với giới hạn cho phép của tiêu chuẩn Việt Nam về chất lượng nước mặt (QCVN 08: 2008/BTNMT cột A2). Do có hai hồ chứa trên sông Đà, hàm lượng chất rắn lơ lửng trong nước sông giảm đáng kể. Các kim loại nặng hòa tan (DHM) có hàm lượng dao động trong khoảng rộng: Cu: 10-80 μg.l-1; Zn: 2-88 μg.l-1; Cr: 0,2-5,1 μg.l-1; Pb: 2-107 μg.l-1; Cd: 2-12 μg.l-1; Mn: 2-35 μg.l-1; và Fe: 160 - 2370 μg.l-1. Hầu hết các giá trị trung bình của DHM thấp hơn giá trị cho phép của quy chuẩn QCVN 08: 2008/BTNMT, tuy nhiên, tại một số thời điểm, một số DHM (ví dụ Fe, Cd, Pb) có hàm lượng vượt quá giới hạn cho phép. Mật độ tổng coliform (TC) và coliform phân (FC) dao động trong khoảng rộng: TC: 23 đến 13,000MPN.100ml-1 và FC: 0 đến 1,600MPN.100ml-1 và tại một số thời điểm mật độ TC và FC vượt giá trị cho phép của Quy chuẩn QCVN 08:2008/BTNMT. Hàm lượng cabon hữu cơ hòa tan (DOC) ở mức thấp, và hàm lượng cacbon hữu cơ dạng không tan (POC) chủ yếu có nguồn gốc từ đất rửa trôi và xói mòn trong lưu vực. Kết quả quan trắc nhấn mạnh nhu cầu giám sát thường xuyên chất lượng nước sông, và nên có các giải pháp hiệu quả để quản lý và xử lý các nguồn gây ô nhiễm trong lưu vực nhằm cung cấp nước sạch cho các mục đích sử dụng nước sông Hồng như hiện nay.

Mobile devices such as smartphones and smart watches are ubiquitous companions of humans’ daily life. Since 2014, there are more mobile devices on Earth than humans. Mobile applications utilize sensors and actuators of these devices to support individuals in their daily life. In particular, 24% of the Android applications leverage users’ mobility data. For instance, this data allows applications to understand which places an individual typically visits. This allows providing her with transportation information, location-based advertisements, or to enable smart home heating systems. These and similar scenarios require the possibility to access the Internet from everywhere and at any time. To realize these scenarios 83% of the applications available in the Android Play Store require the Internet to operate properly and therefore access it from everywhere and at any time. Mobile applications such as Google Now or Apple Siri utilize human mobility data to anticipate where a user will go next or which information she is likely to access en route to her destination. However, predicting human mobility is a challenging task. Existing mobility prediction solutions are typically optimized a priori for a particular application scenario and mobility prediction task. There is no approach that allows for automatically composing a mobility prediction solution depending on the underlying prediction task and other parameters. This approach is required to allow mobile devices to support a plethora of mobile applications running on them, while each of the applications support its users by leveraging mobility predictions in a distinct application scenario. Mobile applications rely strongly on the availability of the Internet to work properly. However, mobile cellular network providers are struggling to provide necessary cellular resources. Mobile applications generate a monthly average mobile traffic volume that ranged between 1 GB in Asia and 3.7 GB in North America in 2015. The Ericsson Mobility Report Q1 2016 predicts that by the end of 2021 this mobile traffic volume will experience a 12-fold increase. The consequences are higher costs for both providers and consumers and a reduced quality of service due to congested mobile cellular networks. Several countermeasures can be applied to cope with these problems. For instance, mobile applications apply caching strategies to prefetch application content by predicting which applications will be used next. However, existing solutions suffer from two major shortcomings. They either (1) do not incorporate traffic volume information into their prefetching decisions and thus generate a substantial amount of cellular traffic or (2) require a modification of mobile application code. In this thesis, we present novel human mobility and application usage prediction algorithms for mobile devices. These two major contributions address the aforementioned problems of (1) selecting a human mobility prediction model and (2) prefetching of mobile application content to reduce cellular traffic. First, we address the selection of human mobility prediction models. We report on an extensive analysis of the influence of temporal, spatial, and phone context data on the performance of mobility prediction algorithms. Building upon our analysis results, we present (1) SELECTOR – a novel algorithm for selecting individual human mobility prediction models and (2) MAJOR – an ensemble learning approach for human mobility prediction. Furthermore, we introduce population mobility models and demonstrate their practical applicability. In particular, we analyze techniques that focus on detection of wrong human mobility predictions. Among these techniques, an ensemble learning algorithm, called LOTUS, is designed and evaluated. Second, we present EBC – a novel algorithm for prefetching mobile application content. EBC’s goal is to reduce cellular traffic consumption to improve application content freshness. With respect to existing solutions, EBC presents novel techniques (1) to incorporate different strategies for prefetching mobile applications depending on the available network type and (2) to incorporate application traffic volume predictions into the prefetching decisions. EBC also achieves a reduction in application launch time to the cost of a negligible increase in energy consumption. Developing human mobility and application usage prediction algorithms requires access to human mobility and application usage data. To this end, we leverage in this thesis three publicly available data set. Furthermore, we address the shortcomings of these data sets, namely, (1) the lack of ground-truth mobility data and (2) the lack of human mobility data at short-term events like conferences. We contribute with JK2013 and UbiComp Data Collection Campaign (UbiDCC) two human mobility data sets that address these shortcomings. We also develop and make publicly available a mobile application called LOCATOR, which was used to collect our data sets. In summary, the contributions of this thesis provide a step further towards supporting mobile applications and their users. With SELECTOR, we contribute an algorithm that allows optimizing the quality of human mobility predictions by appropriately selecting parameters. To reduce the cellular traffic footprint of mobile applications, we contribute with EBC a novel approach for prefetching of mobile application content by leveraging application usage predictions. Furthermore, we provide insights about how and to what extent wrong and uncertain human mobility predictions can be detected. Lastly, with our mobile application LOCATOR and two human mobility data sets, we contribute practical tools for researchers in the human mobility prediction domain.

Band zum Gedenken an den Technikphilosophen Rudolf Rochhausen (1919-2012), der lange Jahre an der Leipziger Universität wirkte, dort u.a. seit 1975 für die Konzeption der Marxistischen Abendschule in Rohrbach (Thüringen) verantwortlich zeichnete und nach der Wende mit dem \"Rohrbacher Kreis\" einen Diskursort initiierte, an dem sich Natur- und Geisteswissenschaftler auf Augenhöhe begegnen konnten.

In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden die elektronischen Diensten und Beständen der SLUB auf informationstechnologische Barrieren untersucht. Das Gesamtkonzept der Diplomarbeit ist auf die Entwicklung von praxisnahen Lösungen ausgerichtet. Neben ausführlichen Analysen steht die Erarbeitung von Empfehlungen im Mittelpunkt, damit die SLUB sehr zeitnah zu brauchbaren Ergebnissen bei der Beseitigung von Barrieren kommt. Zudem sollen die Anregungen für weiterführende Maßnahmen einen Prozess angestoßen werden, der sich auf kurz oder lang auf alle Dienste und Bestände der SLUB auswirkt.

This thesis addresses the question of how to teach dynamic motor skills to synthetic humanoids. A general approach based on imitation learning is presented and evaluated on a number of synthetic humanoids, as well as a number of different motor skills. The approach allows for intuitive and natural specification of motor skills without the need for expert knowledge. Using this approach we show that various important problems in robotics and computer animation can be tackled, including the synthesis of natural grasping, the synthesis of locomotion behavior or the physical interaction between humans and robots.

No description available.

Objective: To assess the safety and effectiveness of bis-chloroethylnitrosourea (BCNU) wafers in elderly patients with recurrent glioblastoma (GBM). Methods: Patients with recurrent GBM operated on between 2007 and 2014 were divided into 3 groups: >65 years with BCNU wafer implantation, >65 years without BCNU wafer implantation, and ≤ 65 years with BCNU wafer implantation. We compared survival and complications. Results: A total of 79 patients were identified: 24 in the older BCNU group (median age 68.2 years, 33.3% with a methylated MGMT promoter), 16 in the older non-BCNU group (median age 68.6 years, 31.3% with a methylated MGMT promoter), and 39 in the younger BCNU group (median age 56.8 years). Survival after progression was 9.2 months in the elderly BCNU group and 7.6 months in the elderly non-BCNU group ( p = 0.34); overall survival was 17.2 and 15.9 months, respectively ( p = 0.35). We found a tendency toward a higher rate of seizures and pneumonia in the older BCNU group. Conclusion: BCNU wafer implantation after resection of recurrent GBM is a reasonably safe treatment in patients aged >65 years. Seizures and systemic infections may occur more frequently, but the trade-off is still favorable as survival may be influenced positively. Higher age should not be regarded as a contraindication for BCNU wafers.

Although human biomedical and physiological information is readily available, such information for great apes is limited. We analyzed clinical chemical biomarkers in serum samples from 277 wild- and captive-born great apes and from 312 healthy human volunteers as well as from 20 rhesus macaques. For each individual, we determined a maximum of 33 markers of heart, liver, kidney, thyroid and pancreas function, hemoglobin and lipid metabolism and one marker of inflammation. We identified biomarkers that show differences between humans and the great apes in their average level or activity. Using the rhesus macaques as an outgroup, we identified human-specific differences in the levels of bilirubin, cholinesterase and lactate dehydrogenase, and bonobo-specific differences in the level of apolipoprotein A-I. For the remaining twenty-nine biomarkers there was no evidence for lineage-specific differences. In fact, we find that many biomarkers show differences between individuals of the same species in different environments. Of the four lineagespecific biomarkers, only bilirubin showed no differences between wild- and captive-born great apes. We show that the major factor explaining the human-specific difference in bilirubin levels may be genetic. There are human-specific changes in the sequence of the promoter and the protein-coding sequence of uridine diphosphoglucuronosyltransferase 1 (UGT1A1), the enzyme that transforms bilirubin and toxic plant compounds into water-soluble, excretable metabolites. Experimental evidence that UGT1A1 is down-regulated in the human liver suggests that changes in the promoter may be responsible for the human-specific increase in bilirubin. We speculate that since cooking reduces toxic plant compounds, consumption of cooked foods, which is specific to humans, may have resulted in relaxed constraint on UGT1A1 which has in turn led to higher serum levels of bilirubin in humans.

Vor nicht einmal vier Jahren schien der weltweite Konjunktureinbruch auch die Automobilindustrie in eine tiefe Krise zu stürzen. Die Zahl der verkauften Fahrzeuge ging v.a. in Europa und Nordamerika dramatisch zurück und eine Botschaft war in unterschiedlichen Variationen in der Presse und in Fachdiskussionen zu vernehmen: Junge Menschen verlieren die Lust am privaten Pkw. Gestern noch Status- und Freiheitssymbol, wird das Auto morgen nur noch reines Funktionsgut sein, so die oft formulierte These. Vor allem in Großstädten sei der junge Mensch heute pragmatischer unterwegs und sehe das Auto insgesamt differenzierter. Anekdotische Beweise und Gegenbeweise für diese These waren seitdem vielfach zu vernehmen. Eine tiefergehende wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit diesen Trends fehlt jedoch bisher. Dies verwundert, könnte doch gerade dieser Bewusstseinswandel in einer jungen Zielgruppe einen wichtigen Impuls für die Gestaltung eines nachhaltigeren Mobilitätssystems darstellen. Dieser Text liefert die Grundlage für eine notwendige wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit dem o.g. Trend zur pragmatischen Verkehrsmittelnutzung bei jungen Menschen. Ziel ist es, auf wichtige unbearbeitete Fragestellungen hinzuweisen und ein Überdenken bisheriger Kommunikationsstrategien anzuregen. Zunächst stehen zwei Fragen im Mittelpunkt. Zum einen, welchen Einfluss haben überhaupt Einstellungen und Werte auf das Mobilitätsverhalten junger Menschen? Die Bedeutung des Automobils mag schwinden, doch sind es nicht vielmehr strukturelle Zwänge, die eine Nutzung des Pkw begründen? Und zum anderen: Inwiefern wird das Mobilitätsverhalten in Kindheit und Jugend geprägt? Ist tatsächlich von einer „Erziehung zur Automobilität“ auszugehen oder spielt die Sozialisation im Mobilitätsbereich nur eine untergeordnete Rolle? An die Aufbereitung des Forschungsstandes schließt sich eine Zusammenstellung empirischer Hinweise für geänderte Mobilitätsmuster junger Menschen an. Auf Basis nationaler und internationaler Studien können mehrere Trends identifiziert werden: ein leichter Rückgang des Führerscheinbesitzes, eine Abnahme der Pkw-Verfügbarkeit, ein Rückgang der Pkw-Nutzung und ein Trend zur Multimodalität. Sie sind v.a. bei jungen Männern nachzuweisen. Die betrachteten Studien stützen sich überwiegend auf nationale Verkehrserhebungen, die nur wenige Indikatoren zur Verfügung stellen, mit denen Ursache-Wirkungs-Beziehungen analysiert werden können. Deshalb wurden auf Basis einer Literaturrecherche mögliche Ursachen veränderter Mobilitätsmuster junger Menschen bestimmt und in fünf Thesen zusammengefasst. Es wird beschrieben, dass sich Biographien in jungen Alterskohorten verändern. Weiterhin wird auf das Zusammenspiel von Mediennutzung und Mobilität eingegangen. Es werden Aspekte eines möglichen Wandels von Wertorientierungen dargestellt und auf stärker ökonomisch-strukturelle Ursachen eingegangen. Zu diesen Ursachen zählen Budgetumschichtungen und Änderungen im Verkehrssystem selbst, die eine multimodale Verkehrsmittelnutzung fördern. Trends und Ursachen werden in einer Bewertungsmatrix gegenübergestellt und hinsichtlich ihrer Wirkung beurteilt. / Not even four years ago, the global economic crisis seemed to toss also the automotive industry into a deep struggle. The number of distributed vehicles decreased especially in Europe and North America dramatically and the variously phrased message in media and scientific discussions was that young people lose interest in a privately owned vehicle. A status symbol and metaphor for freedom yesterday, tomorrow just a mean to an end is the often repeated assumption. Primarily in agglomerations, young people tend to be more and more pragmatic in their travel behaviour or might even show a reserved attitude towards cars. Anecdotal examples and contrary evidence for the assumption could be registered many times ever since. However, a deeper scientific debate regarding this matter is still missing. An irritating state, since an attitude change within a young target group could deliver an important impulse for the creation of a sustainable mobility system. This paper delivers the basis for a sound scientific discussion on the observed trend regarding a more pragmatic travel behaviour within younger age groups. It is the aim to point out important unaddressed research questions and to stimulate a reassessment of the current marketing strategies. Current studies are evaluated and empirical clues for changed travel behaviour of younger people are collectively displayed. The state of research for two main assumptions is reviewed. On the one hand, which impact do attitudes and values have on mobility of younger people? Maybe the importance of the car is diminishing, but are not structural constraints rather the reasons for a possible change of usage? On the other hand, how far is the individual travel behaviour influenced by childhood and coming of age? Is a “breeding toward a car society” existent or is the socialization just a minor aspect regarding mobility? The preparation of the state of research is followed by a collection of empirical clues for changed travel behaviour of young people. Five trends can be identified on the basis of German and also international studies regarding the mobility of young people: a slight decline in the ownership of driver licences, a decreased car ownership as well as a decreased car usage and a trend towards multi-modal travel patterns. Finally, the four trends can be primarily observed for young males. The studies regarded are mainly based on national travel surveys, which usually only include a limited number of indicators necessary for an assessment of cause and effect relations. Hence, possible causes were identified based on the literature research and aggregated into five theses. It is described, that biographies of younger age groups are changing. The usage of new communication technologies and its influence on mobility is mentioned. Aspects of a possible change in the value orientation are responded, too. Finally, economic and structural causes are analysed. Budget shifts and changes in the transportation system itself are examples of such causes, which may lead to a more multi-modal usage. Trends and theses are systematically assessed regarding the strength of influence.

Today (2014), software is the key ingredient of most products and services. Software generates innovation and progress in many modern industries. Software is an indispensable element of evolution, of quality of life, and of our future. Software development is (slowly) evolving from a craft to an industrial discipline. Software – and the ability to efficiently produce and evolve high-quality software – is the single most important success factor for many highly competitive industries. Software technology, development methods and tools, and applications in more and more areas are rapidly evolving. The impact of software in 2025 in nearly all areas of life, work, relationships, culture, and society is expected to be massive. The question of the future of software is therefore important. However – like all predictions – quite difficult. Some market forces, industrial developments, social needs, and technology trends are visible today. How will they develop and influence the software we will have in 2025?:Impact of Heterogeneous Processor Architectures and Adaptation Technologies on the Software of 2025 (Kay Bierzynski) 9 Facing Future Software Engineering Challenges by Means of Software Product Lines (David Gollasch) 19 Capabilities of Digital Search and Impact on Work and Life in 2025 (Christina Korger) 27 Transparent Components for Software Systems (Paul Peschel) 37 Functionality, Threats and Influence of Ubiquitous Personal Assistants with Regard to the Society (Jonas Rausch) 47 Evolution-driven Changes of Non-Functional Requirements and Their Architecture (Hendrik Schön) 57