Hochschulbibliothekszentrum des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen
Publication Server of Koblenz UniversityNot a member yet
1752 research outputs found
Sort by
Dataset of the de novo assembly and annotation of the marbled crayfish and the noble crayfish hepatopancreas transcriptomes
No full textObjectives: Crayfish plague disease, caused by the oomycete pathogen Aphanomyces astaci represents one of the greatest risks for the biodiversity of the freshwater crayfish. This data article covers the de novo transcriptome assembly and annotation data of the noble crayfish and the marbled crayfish challenged with Ap. astaci. Following the controlled infection experiment (Francesconi et al. in Front Ecol Evol, 2021, https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.647037), we conducted a differential gene expression analysis described in (Boštjančić et al. in BMC Genom, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-022-08571-z) Data description: In total, 25 noble crayfish and 30 marbled crayfish were selected. Hepatopancreas tissue was isolated, followed by RNA sequencing using the Illumina NovaSeq 6000 platform. Raw data was checked for quality with FastQC, adapter and quality trimming were conducted using Trimmomatic followed by de novo assembly with Trinity. Assembly quality was assessed with BUSCO, at 93.30% and 93.98% completeness for the noble crayfish and the marbled crayfish, respectively. Transcripts were annotated using the Dammit! pipeline and assigned to KEGG pathways. Respective transcriptome and raw datasets may be reused as the reference transcriptome assemblies for future expression studies
Understanding the relationship between perceived stress, academic motivation, and physical activity in college students during the coronavirus pandemic
Get PDFThe Coronavirus Pandemic has influenced the lives of many people. We analyzed the effects of physical activity and stress on students’ motivation during the Pandemic. Participants were 254 university students who reported their academic motivation, physical activity, general stress, the Coronavirus Pandemic strain, and their Coronavirus stress. Women reported higher levels of Coronavirus stress, general stress, and motivation. The Coronavirus stress was predicted by the strain of the Coronavirus Pandemic but not by physical activity. General stress and gender predicted mastery goals, and performance goals were predicted by general stress. Physical activity was not related to students’ motivation during the Pandemic. Higher levels of general stress were associated with higher academic motivation. Negative emotions like stress could have enhanced students’ motivation during uncertain times of the Pandemic. Moreover, a moderate stress level could be favorable for academic dedication and achievement
Promoting socio-ecological transformation: Exploring sufficiency orientation and its psychological correlates to encourage reduced consumption
No full textThis dissertation is dedicated to a new concept for capturing renunciation-oriented attitudes and beliefs — sufficiency orientation. Sufficiency originates in the interdisciplinary sustain-ability debate. In contrast to efficiency and consistency, sufficiency considers human behaviour as the cause of socio-ecological crises and strives for a reduction in consumption respecting the planetary boundaries. The present work places sufficiency in a psychological research context and explores it qualitatively and quantitatively. On the basis of five manuscripts, the overarching question pursued is to what extent sufficiency orientation contributes to socio-ecological transformation. Based on one qualitative study and five further quantitative studies, sufficiency orientation is investigated in different behavioural contexts that are of particular importance with regard to CO2 emissions. In addition, sufficiency orientation is linked to a wider range of psychologically relevant theories that help gain an overview of correlates and possible causes for the development of a sufficiency orientation.
Manuscript 1 uses expert interviews (N = 21) to develop a heuristic framework on a transformation towards societal sufficiency orientation including barriers and enablers, as well as ambiguities on such a change. The derived elements are interpreted in the light of the leverage points approach. This framework can serve as a heuristic for future research and to develop measures concerning sufficiency orientation.
As part of an online study (N = 648), Manuscript 2 examines the extent to which sufficiency orientation can be embedded in classic models for explaining pro-environmental intentions and behaviour (Theory of Planned Behaviour, Norm Activation Model), and showed a significant contribution to the explanation of intentions and behaviour in the field of plastic consumption.
Manuscript 3 reports two framing experiments (Study 1, N = 123, Study 2, N = 330) to investigate how pro-social justice sensitivity contributes to making sufficiency orientation more salient and promoting it. While sufficiency orientation and pro-social facets of justice sensitivity were positively related to each other, there was no effect of the framing intervention in the hypothesised direction. The results indicate that justice-related information at least in the presented manner is more likely to generate reactance.
Manuscript 4 presents an online study (N = 317) and targets the importance of sufficiency orientation for predicting actual greenhouse gas emissions in relation to flight behav-iour and policy support for the decarbonisation of mobility. In addition, the connection between sufficiency orientation and global identity is examined. It turns out that sufficiency orientation is superior to global identity in predicting actual emissions and decarbonisation policies. Contrary to expectations, sufficiency orientation and the form of global identity operationalised in the presented study shows a positive correlation and are compatible.
Manuscript 5 reports a reflective diary intervention (N = 252) that should lead to a short- and long-term increase in sufficiency orientation by satisfying basic psychological needs through induced self-reflection. For both groups with or without the intervention, sufficiency orientation increased slightly but significantly. Although no specific effect of the manipulation was found, basic psychological need satisfaction turns out to be the largest predictor for sufficiency orientation. Subjective well-being is positively associated with sufficiency orientation, while time affluence shows no clear associations in the study.
Overall, the results highlight the relevance of sufficiency orientation in relation to socio-ecological transformation and actual behavioural change. Sufficiency orientation is related to low-emission behaviour and support for political measures to decarbonize infrastructures. These results contribute to the discussion on the intention-behaviour gap in regard to impact-relevant behaviour, i.e. behaviour producing high emissions. The present findings suggest, that sufficiency orientation could be related to a strong intention-behavioural consistency. However, further research is needed to validate these results and improve the measurement of sufficiency orientation. Furthermore, the studies provided insights on correlates of sufficiency orientation: justice sensitivity, global identity, subjective well-being and left-wing liberal political ideologies are all found to be positively related to sufficiency orien-tation. Moreover, basic psychological need satisfaction was identified as a potential mechanism that can support the emergence of sufficiency orientation, however, causality remains unclear. From these findings, the work derives practical implications how to possibly strengthen sufficiency orientation on the micro, meso and macro levels of society.
Taken together, the dissertation provides important insights into a new and still developing concept, and shows its connectivity to psychological theories. However, future research is required in order to grasp more precisely the complexity of sufficiency orientation and to understand origins and predictors of sufficiency orientation. This work contributes to the interdisciplinary debate on socio-ecological transformation and points out that sufficiency orientation can serve to a future worth living as being related to reduced consumption
Fate of nutrients in a subtropical reservoir according to hydrodynamic processes and its effects on phytoplankton dynamics
Get PDFManmade dams have been constructed from centuries for multiple purposes, and in the past decades they have been constructed in a fast pace, with the hotspot in tropical and subtropical regions. However, studies that explore hydrodynamics in these areas are scarce and biased to the rich literature available for temperate regions. Lakes and reservoirs have the same controlling mechanisms for physical processes and primary production, hence, analyses that were initially conceptualized for lakes are frequently applied for reservoirs. Nevertheless, longitudinal gradients in reservoirs challenges the application of these approaches.
Degradation of water quality in reservoirs is a major concern, and it is expected to be aggravated with climate change. Therefore, studies that explore mechanisms controlling water quality are essential for the maintenance of these systems, especially in tropical and subtropical regions. The aim of this thesis is to comprehend the role of hydrodynamic processes in the fate of nutrients in reservoirs and its implications on water quality, in a subtropical region. With focus on the relevance of different density current patterns. For that, analyses combining field measurements and numerical simulations were performed in a medium to small size subtropical drinking water reservoir for a complete seasonal cycle. Measurements were conducted combining several approaches: traditional sampling, sensors in high temporal and spatial resolution, and remote sensing. Besides, hydrodynamic models were set up and calibrated to reproduce observations, and to simulate scenarios that assisted on the analysis.
Results showed that different flow paths of density currents did not influence on phytoplankton dynamics. At the regions where the main nutrient supply was the river inflow (upstream), the density currents did not vary, the euphotic zone usually covered the entire depth, and vertical mixing was observed on a daily basis, turning the flow path of the density currents irrelevant. At downstream regions, the remobilization of nutrients in the sediment was the main source for primary production. Even though density currents had a seasonal pattern in the downstream region, thermal stratification conditions were the driver for variations in chlorophyll-a concentrations, with peaks after vertical mixing. This mechanism had in its favor the frequent anoxic conditions in the hypolimnion that enhanced the dissolution of reactive phosphorus from the sediment. Anoxic conditions were easily reached because the sediment in the downstream area was rich in organic matter. Phytoplankton produced in the upstream area was transported by the density currents, and for this reason, large concentrations of chl-a was observed below the euphotic zone. Further, the extensive measurements of temperature, and flow velocities, together with the hydrodynamic models, provided insights about the hydrodynamics of reservoirs. For instance, that the relevant processes occurred along the longitudinal, and mixing conditions varied along it. The relevance of inflow conditions regarding the presence of structures such as forebays and pre-dams, and the degree of stream shading in the catchment was assessed. And turbulence and internal waves had different features than the documented for high latitudes. Those findings can assist on the management of reservoirs, based on the comprehension of the physical processes
Junges Forschen der Universität in Koblenz
No full textIn dieser wiederkehrenden Zeitschriftenreihe wollen wir die Arbeit junger Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler an der Universität Koblenz kommunizieren und Studierenden Austausch- und Publikationsmöglichkeiten für den wissenschaftlichen Werdegang eröffnen.
In dieser Ausgabe:
Lukas Fock: Third-Person Effect & Conspiracy Theories - It's always the others!
Leoni Krawczyk: Das Déja-vu-Erlebnis als ein Resultat von impliziter Vertrautheit und oberflächlicher Reizverarbeitung
Frederik Alexander Wilczek: Employer Branding in der Katholischen Kirche - Eine Untersuchung der Employer Branding-Strategien kirchlicher Arbeitgeber
Alexander Bleffert: Modellierungsaufgaben als Beitrag zur Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung - Ein Beispiel für die Modellierungstage am Campus Koblenz
Alina Strunk, Fabian Kind,
Marina Gertner: Ist unser Wald noch zu retten? - Auswirkungen unterschiedlicher Waldbewirtschaftungsformen auf die natürliche Sukzession und die Bodenfeuchte - am Beispiel dreier Testflächen im Forstrevier Oberheimbach
Nils Lenard Grosch: Parameterstudie zur Synthese von Aluminium-Nonametaphosphaten
Stefanie Kröber: Sexuelle Gewalt gegen Kinder - Diskurs und Analyse therapeutischer Angebote für potenzielle Täter*inne
Emotion and Sentiment Detection in Unstructured Social Data
Get PDFSocial media provides a powerful way for people to share opinions and sentiments about a specific topic, allowing others to benefit from these thoughts and feelings. This procedure generates a huge amount of unstructured data, such as texts, images, and references that are constantly increasing through daily comments to related discussions. However, the vast amount of unstructured data presents risks to the information-extraction process, and so decision making becomes highly challenging. This is because data overload may cause the loss of useful data due to its inappropriate presentation and its accumulation. To this extent, this thesis contributed to the field of analyzing and detecting feelings in images and texts. And that by extracting the feelings and opinions hidden in a huge collection of image data and texts on social networks After that, these feelings are classified into positive, negative, or neutral, according to the features of the classified data. The process of extracting these feelings greatly helps in decision-making processes on various topics as will be explained in the first chapter of the thesis. A system has been built that can classify the feelings inherent in the images and texts on social media sites, such as people’s opinions about products and companies, personal posts, and general messages. This thesis begins by introducing a new method of reducing the dimension of text data based on data-mining approaches and then examines the sentiment based on neural and deep neural network classification algorithms. Subsequently, in contrast to sentiment analysis research in text datasets, we examine sentiment expression and polarity classification within and across image datasets by building deep neural networks based on the attention mechanism.Soziale Medien bieten eine leistungsstarke Möglichkeit für Menschen, Meinungen und Gefühle zu einem bestimmten Thema auszutauschen, sodass andere von diesen Gedanken und Gefühlen profitieren können. Dieses Verfahren erzeugt eine riesige Menge an unstrukturierten Daten, wie Texte, Bilder und Verweise, die durch täglich anwachsende Kommentare zu verwandten Diskussionen ständig zunimmt. Die riesige Menge an unstrukturierten Daten stellt jedoch ein Risiko für den Prozess der Informationsextraktion dar, sodass die Entscheidungsfindung zu einer großen Herausforderung wird. Dies liegt daran, dass die Datenflut zu einem Verlust von nützlichen Daten aufgrund ihrer unangemessenen Darstellung und ihrer Anhäufung führen kann. Insofern leistet diese Arbeit einen Beitrag zum Gebiet der Sentimentanalyse und des Opinion Mining, das darauf abzielt, Emotionen und Meinungen aus riesigen Text- und Bilddatensätzen zu extrahieren. Das ultimative Ziel ist es, jeden Text oder jedes Bild als Ausdruck einer positiven, negativen oder neutralen Emotion zu klassifizieren, um bei der Entscheidungsfindung zu helfen. Sentiment- und Meinungsklassifikatoren wurden für Text- und Bilddatensätze aus sozialen Medien entwickelt, z. B. für Firmen- oder Produktbewertungen, Blogbeiträge und sogar Twitter-Nachrichten. In dieser Arbeit wird zunächst eine neue Methode zur Reduktion der Dimension von Textdaten auf Basis von Data-Mining-Ansätzen vorgestellt und anschließend das Sentiment auf Basis von neuronalen und Deep Neural Network-Klassifikationsalgorithmen untersucht. Anschließend untersuchen wir im Gegensatz zur Sentiment-Analyseforschung in Textdatensätzen die Sentiment Ausdrucks- und Polaritätsklassifikation innerhalb und über Bilddatensätze hinweg, indem wir tiefe neuronale Netze auf Basis des Aufmerksamkeitsmechanismus aufbauen
Die Logik der Erfahrung. Grundlagen einer pragmatistischen Wissenschaftsphilosophie
Get PDFDie Arbeit stellt eine Systematisierung der wissenschaftsphilosophischen Gedanken der klassischen Pragmatisten (Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey) dar.
Deren Erfahrungstheorie sowie die Bestimmung des Verhältnisses von Theorie und Praxis bilden die Grundlage einer holistischen Wissenschaftsphilosophie.
Die exemplarische Anwendung auf klassische wissenschaftstheoretische Fragestellungen zeigt die Aktualität des Ansatzes
Kommunikation via Fotos – Selbstdarstellung und Vermarktung von professionellen Fußballprofis auf Instagram am Beispiel des FC Bayern München
No full textSocial Media is a world-wide phenomenon which has drastically changed the way humans communicate, the availability of information, as well as a crucial tool for various businesses. This has also heavily influenced the sporting community which presents the focus of this study. The work aims to examine the self-presentation, on the media platform Instagram, of footballers from FC Bayern Munich, to gain an understanding of how athletes use this medium as a communication and marketing tool to build their brand. Instagram was chosen due to it being a platform on which users post visual images as their primary communication mechanism. There are many social media uses for professional athletes. From the sharing of personal lives, professional highlights, and opinion, to product placement and endorsements, athletes are closer to fans and consumers than ever before. Social media also puts the athlete in charge of the message, image, and content regarding their careers and their lives Ten footballers were selected against specified criteria and examined against Goffman’s theory of self-presentation (1959) to formulate the research question: “Which forms of presentation of football players of FC Bayern Munich ́s Instagram posts achieve the highest user engagement?”
Empirical research analysed the effect of different visual and contextual forms on user engagement rates.
Through the works literature review, individual hypotheses were derived and tested in a quantitative standardized media content analysis. The first 50 Instagram posts of each of the ten FC Bayern Munich football players with the most followers were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics software. From the visual aspect seven photo categories were developed which were examined in relation to their engagement rate with the posts. Within the contextual framework, the importance and effect of the number of tags and hashtags used were analyzed.
Findings revealed differences to previous research on an athlete ́s use of written social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter, as the majority of visual images posted by athletes were in sporty settings, thus reflecting frontpage-performance strategies according to the self-presentation theory. Further results showed that a greater utilization of hashtags and tags do not correlate with a higher impact on the engagement rates. Personal brand management implications for athletes are examined in greater detail in the discussion
Breeding tree selection of the rook: spatial distribution in the Vorder- and Südpfalz and influence of temperature, artificial light and noise in urban areas
No full textThe growing numbers of breeding rooks (Corvus frugilegus) in the city of Landau (Rhineland- Palatinate, Germany) increase the potential for conflict between rooks and humans, which is mainly associated with noise and faeces. Therefore, the aim of this work is a better understanding of the breeding tree selection of the rook in order to develop options for action and management in the future.
Part I of this thesis provides general background information on the rook and includes mapping of the rookeries in the Anterior Palatinate and South Palatinate including Landau in the year 2020. That mapping revealed that the number of rural colonies has decreased, while the number of urban colonies has increased in the study area in the last few years. In line with current literature, tree species and tree size were important criteria for breeding tree selection. However, the mapping showed that additional factors must be important as well.
Therefore, as rooks seem to often breed along traffic axes, Part II of this thesis examines how temperature, artificial light and noise, which are all linked to traffic axes, affect the breeding tree selection of the rook in the city of Landau. The following three hypotheses are developed: (1) manually selected breeding trees (Bm) have a warmer microclimate than manually selected non-breeding trees (Nm) or randomly selected non-breeding trees (Nr), (2) Bm are exposed to a higher light level than Nm or Nr and (3) Bm are exposed to a higher noise level than Nm or Nr. To test these hypotheses, 15 Bm, 13 Nm and 16 Nr are investigated.
The results show that Bm were exposed to more noise than both types of non-breeding trees (μBm, noise = 36.52481 dB, μNm, noise = 31.27229 dB, μNr, noise = 29.17417 dB) where the difference between Bm and Nr was significant. In addition, there was a tendency for Bm to be exposed to less light (μBm, light = 0.356 lx) than Nm (μNm, light = 0.4107692 lx) and significantly less light than Nr (μNr, light = 1.995 lx), while temperature did not differ between the groups (μBm, temp = 16.90549 °C, μNm, temp = 16.93118 °C, μNr, temp = 17.28639 °C).
This study shows for the first time that rooks prefer trees which are exposed to low light levels and high noise levels, i.e. more intense traffic noise, for breeding. It can only be speculated that the cause of this is lower enemy pressure at such sites. The fact that temperature does not seem to have any influence on breeding tree selection may be due to only small temperature differences at nest height, which might be compensated by breeding behaviour. Consequently, in the long term one management approach could be to divert traffic from inner-city areas, especially schools and hospitals, to bypasses. If tree genera suitable for rooks, such as plane trees, are planted along the bypasses, those sites could provide suitable alternative habitats to inner-city breeding locations, which become less attractive for breeding due to noise reduction. In the short term in addition to locally implemented repellent measures the most effective approach is to strengthen rook acceptance among the population. However, further research is needed to verify the results of this thesis and to gain further insights into rook breeding site selection in order to develop effective management measures
Writing, responding, and relationships: Factors influencing German university students' perceptions of the educational alliance and the resulting impact on feedback effectiveness in english language writing
No full textInstructor feedback on written assignments is one of the most important elements in the writing process, especially for students writing in English as a foreign language. However, students are often critical of both the amount and quality of the feedback they receive. In order to better understand what makes feedback effective, this study explored the nature of students’ assessments of the educational alliance, and how their receptivity to, perceptions of, and decisions about using their instructors’ feedback differed depending on how strong they believed the educational alliance to be. This exploratory case study found that students not only assessed the quality of the educational alliance based on goal compatibility, task relevance, and teacher effectiveness, but that there was also a reciprocal relationship between these elements. Furthermore, students’ perceptions of the educational alliance directly influenced how they perceived the feedback, which made the instructor’s choice of feedback method largely irrelevant. Stronger educational alliances resulted in higher instances of critical engagement, intrinsic motivation, and feelings of self-efficacy. The multidirectional influence of goal, task, and bond mean that instructors who want to maximize their feedback efforts need to attend to all three