In August 2001, students of East Asian Studies travelled for field research to Sichuan province in Southwest China. The excursion was organized and supervised by Prof. Dr. Thomas Heberer and Anja-Désirée Senz. In the rural districts of South Sichuan the group conducted qualitative and quantitative empirical research on village elections. These elections were introduced in China nationwide in 1998 and are international highly recognized, because of there potentially impact on political reforms in China. The objective of the research was to analyse the influence of village elections on the political consciousness of the rural population. Some of the results are being presented in the following article.

In the last years China has recognized the environment as an economically valuable good, thus promoting sustainable economic development. Among the young people, this principle is spread by creating awareness through Environmental Education (EE) in schools. Although high on the agenda, the implementation of EE is restricted by a lack of finance and know-how so that Chinese schools benefit from foreign assistance. The focus of this paper is to evaluate the situation of EE in Chinese schools and to test the adaptability of a German EE strategy in China. For this purpose, the need patterns of different categories of schools concerning the contents and the implementation of EE are analyzed. These need patterns are then contrasted with the contents and concept of the German EE strategy. The estrictions in adaptability as well as the necessary adaptations of the German strategy are concluded and laid down accordingly. Together with an outline of possible project partners, these findings are put together to form four different project proposals for EE projects in Chinese schools.

The present study is a contribution to the synthesis and extensive characterization of fundamental C, F, O containing compounds, which play an important role in the chemistry of the atmosphere due to their appearance in degradation processes of CFCs and their substitutes. The formation of the peroxy radicals CF3OO, FC(O)OO, CF3OC(O)OO, CF3C(O)OO, and CH3C(O)OO is achieved by low pressure thermolysis of suitable precursors, highly diluted in argon or neon and subsequent quenching of the reaction mixture as a matrix. In addition, the radicals CF3OCO, SF5, and CF3OOO are formed in matrix. All investigated radicals are characterized as matrix isolated species by IR- and UV-spectroscopy. The properties of the studied fluorocarbon peroxy radicals are comprehensively discussed. The first preparation of pure trifluoromethyl nitrate, CF3ONO2, is reported via different synthetic routes. The compound is completely characterized (IR, Raman, UV, NMR, melting and boiling point, vapour pressure, gas electron diffraction), a nd its chemistry is evaluated. It is demonstrated, that trifluoromethyl nitrate acts neither for CF3O radicals, nor for nitrogen dioxide as a reservoir species. With the synthesis of bistrifluoromethyl trioxydicarbonate, CF3OC(O)OO-OC(O)OCF3, a novel open-chain trioxide is obtained, which is thermally stable below -20°C. CF3OC(O)OOOC(O)OCF3 is characterized by IR, Raman, UV, NMR spectroscopy and is used in the generation of the previously unknown peroxy radical CF3OC(O)OO. For all investigated species quantum chemical calculations are performed. The consistent use of the density functional method B3LYP with the basis set 6-311G(d,p) allows a comprehensive theoretical study. In addition, band assignments of the spectra of the characterized compounds were supported by these calculations.

The PhD thesis deals with the topic of thermal radiation in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum in the field of automatic fire detection. The thesis shows that it is possible to detect fires by their thermal radiation in the microwave region and that the thermal radiation of different fire materials depend on the observed frequency, so that it is possible to distinguish the fire materials. The thesis contains the physical basics of thermal radiation, especially in the microwave region. It further describes the developed measuring device that is able to measure the power of the thermal radiation in the frequency range between 2 GHz and 40 GHz, the setup for the standardized test fires according to EN54 and the measuring results.

The following article reflects the implementation of microcredits as well as their influence on the socio-economic development of the indigenous Adivasi of the Gudalur area in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The case study traces about the individual experience of 10 self-help-groups. After a short introduction to the concept of microcredit in the International Year of Microcredit 2005 of the UN the author reflects the difficulties, challenges and advantages of his field research and discribes the outcome of the microcredit programme for the Adivasi in relation to community-building, emacipation/gender and income.

In order to develop and evaluate characteristics of ideal-typical patterns of private additional lessons in mathematics, I refer to investigations on mathematics school lessons of Hans Freudenthal, Hans Werner Heymann, Alan H. Schoenfeld, and Heinrich Winter. Their ideal-typical patterns are equally represented in the six fundamental dimensions independent work, subject orientation, process and problem oriented interactions, structural thinking, discovering education processes, and application orientation. For private additional lessons, the content of the six dimensions is determined by case studies, consisting of the execution and analysis of remedial teaching, and evaluated by synopsis to the characteristics of school teaching. As an outlook I present a concept of school-organized remedial teaching.

Knowledge acquisition is the most important part in the development of expert system. It deals with extracting knowledge from sources of expertise and transferring it to a knowledge base. Knowledge acquisition is major research field in knowledge engineering and still the most difficult and error-prone task for knowledge engineer while building an expert system. This situation influences the performance of the knowledge due to the quality of information and the reduction of error possibility. It is not an easy task to acquire knowledge from human expert not trained in knowledge engineering. The performance of the knowledge is performed by interaction between experts and knowledge engineer or machine during acquisition process. In most rule-based expert system, building of rules can easily be done. Knowledge Engineer or expert does not have to do any work specifying rules and how they are linked to each other. Sometime the knowledge engineer or expert can reference rules or facts that have not yet been created. It seems to be a simple and an instant work. The problem due to the performance of the knowledge will not occur until the number of rules is getting higher. Some problem may appear in the form of inconsistent rules, unreachable rules, redundant rule and rotating chain of rules. In order to solve that problem and to achieve that mentioned performance, a rule-based knowledge acquisition system using Ternary Grid is developed. This system acquires knowledge from human expert using grid or matrix system. Ternary Grid represents a model of rule-based knowledge in a grid or matrix format.

This work at hand deals with two monosaccharides, beta-D-mannuronic acid (M) and alpha-L-guluronic acid (G), units of bacterial and algal alginates. Bacterial alginates are metabolic products of particular species of bacteria. They are thought to be the main structural components of biofilms, and play an important role in water technology. Water-soluble alginates chains build a 3-dimensional network with calcium ions. The goal of this work was to understand how the monomers of bacterial alginate interact with calcium ions to build this network. This was examined with theoretical models, i. e. forcefield calculations with molecular dynamics simulations

The objective of the dissertation "Planning of Human Resources" is the development of a functional design for a decision support system (DSS) for strategic manpower planning purposes. Utilizing the DSS manpower related goals and actions for decision processes in the context of strategic corporate management can be mapped computer based. This is aimed at the enhancement of a comprehensive and systematic consideration of quantitative and particularly of qualitative human resource related aspects in strategic corporate management processes. "What are the right human resources related goals and actions in order to achieve the best possible workforce structure in terms of business success?" This is the decision problem which to solve the DSS is aimed at. The concept for the DSS determines which variables have to be considered in order to solve the decision problem and how different planning alternatives can be simulated. Through the development of systematization schemes and the outlining of examples the concept demonstrates how both quantitative and qualitative manpower variables can be incorporated in the DSS. In addition, the concept illustrates approaches on how to link the manpower variables with superordinate, business success related variables such as profit or revenues. Last but not least the concept contains a design for the incorporation of costs and benefits of manpower related actions. Prior to the secluding evaluation of the concept and the identification of further development opportunities and possibilities a detailed concept for a prototype of the DSS is outlined. This outline contains on a detailed level the determination of the variables, operations, data input and output options, as well as a detailed description of a cost reduction case study. In the case study two alternative action bundles are opposed that could be seized as a reaction to a 20 percent reduction goal for personnel costs. The simulation of the two alternatives in the prototype indicates that in certain constellations it is economically advantageous not to strive for the achievement of the full cost reduction. In the case study the more advantageous action bundle over-compensates a failure in achieving the full cost reduction by a significant increase in revenues. This higher increase in revenues is traced back to a more adequate qualification structure than in the other action bundle which strives for the full cost reduction.

<br>A recently developed two-stage Atomizer of I. L. Grinshtein was studied. His advantages and disadvantages were discussed. An attempt of the generalization of rapid chromatographical and non chromatographical fractionation of trace elements and sample matrix was carried out for ETAAS successfully. An Electrothermal Flow Fractionation Interface (EFFI) was designed as a development of the ETAAS analysis in order to allow sample preparation and measurement within the ETV system in a carrier gas. All main qualities of the new concept were studied both in theory and practically and compared with results of the conventional techniques as well as with the results of the Grinshtein Atomizer by conventional operation. A new transversally heated graphite atomizer was developed under conditions, that: 1) the lacks of the Grinshtein Atomizer are completely eliminated. 2) his construction is completely compatible to the commercial usual ones and considerably easier than ones of the commercial transversally heated graphite atomizers. 3) all functions of the usual operations such as stages of sample pyrolysis, sample atomization and cleaning of the Atomizer are supported. 4) fractionation of trace elements and sample matrix only due to the atomization process exceed in quality the properties of the usual atomizer operation (see point 3 above). Other numerous improvements of the ETAAS analysis were achieved to. For the first time in the ETAAS history undiluted and concentrated urine was analyzed even without pyrolysis and application of chemical modifiers.