This thesis seeks to demonstrate that the Maya snake emblem glyph is associated with religious specialists, instead of geographic locations, as emblem glyphs are typically understood to be. The inscriptions and the media on which the snake emblem glyph occurs will be analyzed to determine the role or function of the "Lord of the Snake." Temporal and spatial data has also been collected to aid in understanding the enigmatic glyph. The snake emblem glyph has recently been identified as originating from a broad area containing the sites of El Peru and La Corona in Guatemala, and Dzibanche, Mexico, a departure from the longstanding choice of Calakmul, Mexico. Unprovenanced snake emblem glyph texts have been cataloged under a "Site Q" designation ('Q' for the Spanish word Que, meaning "which") by Peter Mathews. Site Q is thus not securely identified geographically, which confounds efforts to designate a particular site as the snake emblem glyph site. Other problems with the snake emblem glyph, such as its geographically wide dispersal, hint that it is not a title of a particular city or region. Yet another problem is "a proper fit" between the individuals listed on unprovenanced material and individuals named at sites associated with the snake emblem glyph. It is argued that the interpretation of the snake emblem glyph differs from how emblem glyphs are presently understood. Rather than representing a physical location, the snake emblem glyph represents a mythological place or "state," containing members who legitimize their lineage (association) through ritual events such as communication with supernaturals via the vision serpent. The specialists perform rituals, scatterings, are ballplayers, and witness events. They are rarely associated with accession, which by current interpretation is implicitly tied to emblem glyphs.

Die „Corona-Krise“ – die Ausbreitung des Virus‘ sowie die daraufhin ergriffenen politischen Maßnahmen und Auswirkungen auf Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft, Alltag – stellt die Antidiskriminierungsarbeit vor neue Herausforderungen. Wir sehen mit Sorge, wie die Diskriminierung bestimmter Gruppen rapide ansteigt – z.B. die Diskriminierung aufgrund des Lebensalters oder einer chronischen Erkrankung, wie auch rassistische Diskriminierung von asiatische Deutschen bzw. Menschen, die asiatisch gelesen werden. Wir beobachten auch, wie die „Corona-Krise“ die Situation von ohnehin marginalisierten und strukturell benachteiligten Personen in Deutschland und Europa weiter verschärft. Im politischen Krisenmanagement der vergangenen Monate wird einmal mehr sichtbar, an welche Personengruppen nicht oder nur nachrangig gedacht wird. Und dazwischen blitzen Chancen auf: neue Möglichkeitsräume, Gesellschaft anders zu gestalten. Diese Entwicklung festigte den Impuls in uns, als Antidiskriminierungsbüro Sachsen, unsere Beobachtungen und Erfahrungen in einer Bestandsaufnahme der letzten Monate (Januar – Juli 2020) zu verschriftlichen – mit Blick auf diejenigen Menschen, die uns in unseren Antidiskriminierungsberatungsstellen (nicht erst seit der „Corona- Krise“) aufsuchen. Redaktionsschluss: Dezember 2020

An investigation of ion flow control was performed to determine the effect of a positive, DC corona discharge on the boundary layer profile along a flat plate and to examine its ability to prevent separated flow in a low-speed compressor cascade. Flat plate tests were performed for two electrode configurations at free-stream velocity magnitudes of 2.5, 5, 7.5, and 10 m/s. Boundary layer velocity profile data was taken to measure the performance of the electrode pairs. Ion flow control was also tested in the compressor cascade for a stagger angle of 25° at angles of attack equal to 6° and 12°. The cascade tests were performed at free-stream velocities of 5 and 10 m/s. Static tap data was used to characterize separated flow behavior and the effect of ion flow control on flow reattachment. A computational model was developed using the commercial CFD software Fluent. This model simulates ion flow control as a body force applied to the flow through user-defined functions. The study showed that the corona discharge has the ability to increase near-wall velocities and reduce the thickness of the boundary layer for flow over a flat plate. Ion flow control successfully prevented trailing edge separation in a compressor cascade for angles of attack of 6° and 12°; however, the flow control scheme was not able to prevent leading edge separation for angle of attack equal to 12°. The ion flow control CFD model accurately predicted flow behavior for both the flat plate and cascade experiments. The numerical model was able to simulate the boundary layer velocity profiles for flat plate tests with good accuracy, and was also able to predict the flow behavior over a compressor blade. The model was able to show the trends of separated and reattached flow over the blade surface. / Master of Science

No description available.

With increasing global population comes an increase in the need to safe and clean drinking water. Contaminants can arise in drinking water either naturally, or by the interaction of disinfection chemicals with naturally occurring materials, or simply due to by-products of the disinfection mechanism itself. Due to the oxidative nature of our disinfection treatments, these species are in highly oxidized states, and in some cases require chemical reduction to become less harmful. The present work demonstrates the capabilities of aqueous phase corona plasma in reductive treatment of oxidized contaminants found in drinking water. This study focuses on the treatment of the nitrate ion, bromate ion, chlorate ion and monobromoacetic acid, all of which can be found in typical drinking water systems. The second and third chapters within this thesis establish the optimal water matrix conditions for the treatment of bromate, chlorate and nitrate. These experiments investigate the influence of pH, temperature, presence and types of oxidative scavengers, dissolved gases and by-products that are made by this treatment process with these compounds. The main conclusion of these works is that aqueous phase corona discharge is capable of producing chemical compounds with sufficient energy to chemically reduce the nitrate, bromate and chlorate anions. Acidic conditions, under low dissolved oxygen scenarios facilitated the highest amount of reduction of the target contaminants, as well as having the presence of oxidative species scavengers. It was also observed that the anoxic environment could be obtained by introducing alcohols into the contaminated solution which generated sufficient cavitation and bubbling to strip the oxygen from solution. Through a comparison of various carbonaceous compounds as oxidative species scavengers, it was determined that the volatile alcohols provided a better performance than other soluble carbon sources, due to the decrease in dissolved oxygen. The fourth chapter considers different methods of introducing argon, oxygen and nitrogen into the test solution for the effect they would have on the treatment of solutions containing the bromate anion or monobromoacetic acid. The optimal pH for the treatment of monobromoacetic acid was also established, where again the acidic conditions prevailed. Tests were conducted to consider the effect of having the solution pre-saturated with the test gas, continually sparged, or with the gas passing through a hollow discharge electrode. The tests in which gas was blown through the discharge electrode greatly surpassed all other treatment regimes, where nitrogen provided the best removal for both contaminants under acidic conditions for bromate and under acidic and basic conditions for monobromoacetic acid. The fifth chapter provides conclusions for the overall thesis and recommendations for future work. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Im März 2020 wurde Lehren und Lernen in allen Bildungsbereichen aufgrund der Covid-19-Pandemie in den digitalen Raum verlagert. Auch in der betrachteten Bildungseinrichtung, welche dem tertiären Bildungssektor zugeordnet ist, wurde die Lehre während des Pandemiegeschehens zwischen März 2020 und dem März 2022 – mit einigen Präsenzunterbrechungen im Sommer 2020 und im Sommer 2021 – per Online-Durchführung aufrechterhalten. Charakteristisch für diese Umstellung war eine Unsicherheit, welche sich beispielhaft in der Frage äußerte, wie lange die Lehre in Distanz umgesetzt werden müsste. Da der allgemeine Wunsch bestand, in den Regelbetrieb zurückzukehren, wurde jedes der vier Semester neu geplant, wobei die Bildungseinrichtungen ihre Umsetzung der Lehre teilweise innerhalb eines Semesters an die Situation anpassen mussten. Es mussten für die Gestaltung der Lehre ad hoc Lösungswege gefunden, sowie Szenarien entwickelt und erprobt werden. Oftmals wurden sowohl Lehrende als auch Studierende davon völlig unvorbereitet überrascht. Somit mangelte es insbesondere anfangs an Erfahrungen, Ausstattung und Kompetenzen. Nach der Rückkehr in den Regelbetrieb, stellten sich zwei Fragen: 1. Wie kann man künftig mit den Herausforderungen der Online-Lehre umgehen? 2. Welche Potentiale haben digitale Medien für die Lehre an der tertiären Bildungseinrichtung? Daraus leitet sich folgende Forschungsfrage ab, die wir im folgenden Beitrag beantworten: Welche Anregungen lassen sich aus der pandemiebedingten Online-Lehre zwischen März 2020 und März 2022 für die künftige Präsenzlehre an der tertiären Bildungseinrichtung ableiten? Um diese Frage zu beantworten, wurden die Erfahrungen mit der Online-Lehre und die Wünsche bezüglich digitaler Medien in der Lehre erhoben. Dabei wurden sowohl die Lehrenden- als auch die Studierendenperspektive in entsprechenden Erhebungen berücksichtigt. Dieser Beitrag fokussiert die Perspektive der Studierenden.:1. Einführung 1 2. Datenerhebung und Stichprobe 2 2.1 Erhebungsmethode und -instrument 2 2.2 Vorbereitung 2 2.3 Durchführung 3 2.3.1 Evaluationsparcours 3 2.3.2 Studierendendiskussion in Lehrveranstaltungen 3 2.3.3 Gruppeninterview 4 2.4 Stichprobe und Durchführungen 4 2.5 Analyse der Erhebungen 4 3. Darstellung und Interpretation der Ergebnisse 6 3.1 Flexibilität des Lernens 7 3.2 Didaktische Möglichkeiten und Herausforderungen 7 3.3 Organisation 8 3.4 Kommunikation 9 3.5 Soziale Interaktion 9 3.6 Technische Herausforderungen 10 3.7 Wünsche der Studierenden 10 3.8 Digitale Kompetenzen der Studierenden 12 4. Limitationen 13 Literaturverzeichnis 15

Kommersiella fastigheter har länge setts som en realvärde säker tillgång för placeringar men det är också en bransch som har skakats om av flera finans- och fastighetskriser. Eftersom fastighetsbranschen är en kapitalintensiv bransch och upptar en stor del av bankernas omslutning påverkar sektorerna varandra i hög grad och en kris i den ena sektorn spiller lätt över på den andra. Under de två senaste åren har coronapandemin drabbat världen och människors rörelsemönster och sociala kontakter har begränsats. Pandemin har uppenbarligen haft negativa konsekvenser på människors liv och hälsa men även delvis på den ekonomiska utvecklingen. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka coronapandemins effekter på kommersiella fastighetsbolag samt utreda likheter och skillnader från finanskrisen 2008. För att möjliggöra detta undersöks vidare relationen mellan banker och fastighetsbolag och båda sektorernas perspektiv lyfts in för att svara på arbetets frågeställningar. Undersökningen baseras på intervjuer med 6 representanter från banker och 8 respondenter från kommersiella fastighetsbolag. Dessa intervjuer visar att coronapandemin inte har haft en större påverkan på de kommersiella fastighetsbolagen och således inte heller på bankerna. Pandemin har snarare accelererat vissa trender som fastighetsbranschen redan var på väg emot och pandemin kan inte ses som en finansiell kris. Vidare framkom inga direkta likheter med finanskrisen 2008, skillnader finns det däremot gott om, finanskrisen ledde till kapitalförluster för bankerna och fastighetsbolagen saknade likviditet. / Commercial properties have long been seen as a real value secure asset for investments, but it is also an industry that has been shaken by several financial- and real estate crises. As the real estate industry is a capital- intensive industry and takes up a large part of the banks' balance sheets, the sectors are highly interdependent and a crisis in one sector easily spills over to the other. Over the past two years, the corona pandemic has affected the world and peoples movement patterns and social contact have been restricted. The pandemic has clearly had a negative impact on human lives and health, but also partly on economic development. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the corona pandemic on commercial real estate companies and to investigate similarities and differences from the 2008 financial crisis. To enable this, the relationship between banks and real estate companies is further investigated and both sector’s perspectives are highlighted to answer the research question. The survey is based on interviews with 6 representatives from banks and 8 representatives från real estate companies. These interviews express that the corona pandemic has not had a major impact on commercial real estate and thus on banks. Rather, the pandemic has accelerated certain trends that the real estate industry was already facing and the pandemic can not be seen as a financial crisis. Furthermore, there were no direct similarities with the 2008 financial crisis, but there are plenty of differences: the financial crisis led to capital losses for the banks and a lack of liquidity for the real estate companies.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been an unprecedented public health crisis around the world and has created novel needs in the healthcare industry. Primary among these needs is a vast shortage in personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks and gloves. This is problematic due to the near constant of COVID-19 cases in hospitals around the United States. In an effort to meet the need for more PPE, new disinfection techniques must be found to "recycle" used PPE. UVC light has previously been used by healthcare facilities for years to disinfect surfaces such as stainless steel and are frequently used in operating room sterilization and dentist offices. UVC light's effectiveness on porous materials such as masks has not been substantially investigated prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. This work shows the effectiveness and efficiency of UVC disinfection on porous surfaces for the COVID-19 virus and other bacteria.

Background: Covid-19 is a serious infectious disease that was first discovered in China in 2019. The disease spread very quickly, infecting over 40 million globally and leading to more than a million deaths. The damage caused by the corona infection led to severe thromboembolic conditions that led to death. Therefore, anticoagulants were used in connection with corona to prevent the thromboembolic conditions. But has the use of anticoagulants in covid-19 patients really affected mortality?    Aim: To make a systematic review that explores whether anticoagulant use among COVID-19 patients affect mortality.    Methods: A systematic search was conducted September in 2022 of published studies on PubMed associated with mortality and use of anticoagulants in covid-19 patients. The articles reviewed were selected based on defined PICO and inclusion and exclusion criteria. Types of studies reviewed were cohort and case-control studies.    Results & conclusions:   A total of 20 different studies were studied and based on them it is concluded that anticoagulant treatment associated with lower mortality in severely ill covid-19 patients has been demonstrated. However, bleeding risk was observed in other covid-19 patients due to use of anticoagulants.

No description available.