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With the rapid growth of renewable energy sources (RES) in the power generation mix in accordance with the German energy transition policy (‘Energiewende’), fewer baseload coal power plants will be required. Future power generation will be supplied through decentralized power utilities such as off-shore wind parks and also through high operational flexibility of existing conventional coal power units. High operational flexibility means conventional power plants have to increase cyclic operations to cope with feed-ins from variable-RES such as wind and solar.
Unlike medium and peak load power plants that can react quickly to load changes and power ramps, baseload power plants are not suited for such operations. Important technical requirements for flexible operation include among others; frequent start-ups and shut-downs, a minimum downtime, shorter startup time and short operational periods. Baseload coal power plants however do not meet these requirements.
This increased cyclic mode of operation can have severe impacts on vital power plant components such as superheater and reheater tubes resulting in high temperature cyclic oxidation/corrosion especially because these plants were not designed for frequent cyclic operations. To optimize plant operations, minimize material damage and reduce operational and maintenance cost, it is therefore important to understand the oxidation and corrosion risk to plants materials associated with this flexible mode of operation.
In this context, thermochemical modeling in FactSage 6.4ᵀᴹ as well as experimental investigations were carried out. For the experimental investigations, five commercial coal boiler superheater and reheater materials, namely T91, VM12-SHC, TP347-HFG, DMV304 HCu and DMV310 N were exposed for 1000 hours under discontinuous isothermal oxidation conditions and 1000 hours thermo–cyclic oxidation conditions at a metal surface temperature of 650 °C. The synthetic corrosive flue gas consisted of a mixture of CO₂, O₂, SO₂, N₂ and H₂O. The test material samples were partly covered in fly ash to investigate the effect ash deposits on the corrosion and oxidation behavior of the test materials. After exposure metallographic analysis by means of light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (LOM and SEM–EDS) were carried out to study the oxide morphology and micro–structural properties of the materials. The oxidation kinetics (weight change) results showed significant oxide growth rates (weight gain) under cyclic oxidation conditions especially in the martensitic alloys – T91, VM12-SHC.
Furthermore, metallographic analysis revealed severe oxide spallation in the ash covered sections of these alloys. The austenitic materials (TP374-HFG, DMV310 N) with the exception of DMV304 HCu showed good oxidation behavior with minimal oxide growth both under isothermal and thermal cyclic conditions. However, severe grain boundary attack and internal sulphidation were found in these alloys. DMV310 N showed the best corrosion and oxidation performance. The thermochemical modeling calculations supported the experimental results.
In arid countries, reclaimed water in irrigation is a widespread practice. Therefore, robust treatment designs are prerequisite to obtain effluent quality that conforms to the legal requirements for reuse and health standards. Vertical flow constructed wetlands (VFCWs) are attractive decentralized treatment plants in many countries and communities. VFCWs are capable of providing adequate treatment for organic and solids removal, even though there are limitations on nutrient and pathogen removal. Within this study, various VFCW systems were investigated, in Germany and Jordan, to optimize nitrogen removal using sustainable and low cost options to guarantee the safe reuse in Jordan.
In Germany at Langenreichenbach research facility, two-stage VFCWs planted (Phragmites australis) and unplanted were evaluated and modified to compare the role of plants over two years. Generally, there was no significant role of plants on the treatment performance. Both systems showed high removal efficiency for TOC, BOD5, and TSS over the study period. During the first year of the study, effluent TN concentrations ranged from 60 - 61 mg/L in both systems as a result of high effluent NO3--N concentrations (50 - 52 mg/L). In the second year, the systems were modified, adopting a saturated layer in the 1st stage to enhance denitrification. Average effluent TN concentrations were reduced to 45 mg/L in both systems. In addition, during modifications, the E.coli removal was enhanced in both systems achieving 4 log reduction instead of 2 log reduction during the first year of the study.
In Jordan at the Fuhais research facility, two VFCW systems were studied considering category-A (TN: 45 mg/L and NO3-N: 30 mg/L) in the Jordanian Standards for reuse in irrigation (JS 893/2006). Recirculating (ECO-1) and Multi-stage (ECO-2) VFCW designs have shown high removal efficiency of COD, TSS, and BOD5 over three years of monitoring. ECO-1 system combines simultaneous nitrification and denitrification by recycling portion of nitrified effluent into the recirculation tank. However, effluent TN and NO3--N concentrations were 55 and 44 mg/L, respectively, that the system conformed to the JS category-B (TN: 70 mg/L and NO3-N: 45 mg/L) during monitoring phase. Therefore, ECO-1 was modified by installing plastic media in the recirculation tank that attached growth increases the abundance and activity of microorganisms. TN concentration was reduced effectively of 40 mg/L, conforming to the JS category-A, whereas, NO3--N concentration was reduced to 37 mg/L, conforming to the JS category-B. However, over the study period, E.coli concentrations were conformed to the JS category-C (more than 1000 MPN/100 mL).
ECO-2 consists of two unsaturated VFCWs in series; single-pass unplanted filter followed by planted filter (Phragmites australis). E.coli removal was relatively high before modification that the effluent conformed to the JS (category-B: 1000 MPN/100 mL), achieving 4.4 log reduction. The effluent TN and NO3--N concentrations did not conform to the JS of 77 and 76 mg/L, respectively, due to insufficiency of carbon source to promote denitrification (high BOD5 removal) during monitoring phase of the study. Thus, ECO-2 was modified adopting raw wastewater step-feeding strategy that a specific volume of raw wastewater was mixed with 1st stage effluent in the mixing tank. TN and NO3--N concentrations were reduced to 52 and 50 mg/L, respectively; conforming to the JS category-B. Whereas, E.coli removal was influenced by E.coli ingress from raw step-feeding, achieving 3.5 log reduction, conforming to the JS category-C.
The short-term impact of irrigation with different water quality and quantity was investigated at the Fuhais site. Soil physicochemical and biological properties in three parallel experimental reuse plots were investigated. The plots were cultivated with lemon trees and were irrigated via a subsurface irrigation system. Moreover, each plot was divided into two subparts (A and B) whereby one part received 11 mm/day of irrigation water and the other received 6 mm/day. Using treated effluent and tap water showed the same trend of increased soli salinity (ECs). Significant difference in ECs, SAR, Mg+2, Ca+2, and Na+ were observed at 0-20 cm as a result of high evaporation and capillary rise that increased salts accumulation in the topsoil. However, using more water reduced the salts accumulation in sub soil layers due to continuous leaching. Whereas, results showed no significant variation in soil texture, structure, moisture, and infiltration rate among reuse plots and subparts. Additionally, results revealed an absence of total coliform, fecal coliform, and E.coli in the irrigated soils, indicating the effectiveness of using subsurface irrigation as a disinfection step for reuse.
Scientific data and results have to be accurate, precise and reliable and are subject to ever increasing scrutiny by regulators in industry, the environment and medicine, in validation and also in research and development. Given our numerous environmental problems, the need for accurate, precise and reliable results can not be overemphasized in environmental pollution control. In the light of this analytical environmentalists believe that there is need for a hierarchical scheme of methods to be used in environmental assessment studies. In this research the state and role of analytical instruments in environmental pollution control in Nigeria were studied with a focus on the state of the Nigerian environmental pollution control laboratories. A theoretical background of this work gives an overview of the state of the art of the environment globally and that of Nigeria. This work has established that, because mankind have put thousands of chemical substances to use in this century, there are many chemicals that have found their way into the natural environment in large quantities. Because of the nature of the environmental problems mankind is facing now, many researchers and manufacturers are dedicated to using and providing quality new and reliable instrumentation methods to ensure a healthy environment in our world. A brief study of Nigeria as the country of research is made to establish the background of possible problems. From the facts gathered in the literature Nigeria has the economic tools that it needs to put a good environmental management scheme in place, which includes good standards, laws, regulations and good analytical laboratories for compliance and monitoring. However the research has established that these economic tools are not effectively used in the management of environmental pollution control, especially monitoring of environmental pollutants. The research was undertaken by visiting four analytical laboratories involved in environmental pollution control in Nigeria, and three organizations that are the main environmental regulatory bodies in Nigeria. The analytical laboratories visited are those of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Kaduna, Ashaka cement factory, regional laboratory of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources Gombe, and the National Reference laboratory Lagos. In these laboratories and the organizations, results were collected in the laboratories, interviews were carried out and analytical instruments available were documented. It was discovered that, in these laboratories many standard analytical instruments needed for quality environmental pollution control and monitoring are lacking. Comparison of results generated in these laboratories with some from developed countries, revealed that many parameters measured in laboratories in developed countries are not measured in the research laboratories. The results obtained in these laboratories met Nigeria’ maximum limits in some cases, but exceeded it in many cases. It is the position of this work that the gap between the environmental analytical instruments found in literature and developed countries, and that found in Nigeria is very large and calls for concern. The environmental regulatory bodies in Nigeria have many laws, rules, regulations and standards for environmental pollution control. These regulations, standards, laws and rules were compared with what is obtained in other countries of the world, especially developed countries and found to be lacking in many areas. The way and manner the analytical methods are stated in the Nigerian regulations and standards are way below the developed countries standard. This research concludes that the regulations and standards have big influence on the kind of environmental analytical instruments found in the environmental analytical laboratories in Nigeria. The final conclusion this study has reached is that analytical methods, equipments, and standards on ground in Nigeria are not sufficient for the purpose of good environmental pollution control and monitoring. The situations as regards analytical instruments, analytical methods, standards and guidelines used in environmental pollution control in Nigeria do not favourably compare to international situations. It is therefore recommended that the need for validity and reliability in data collection, analysis, guidelines, standards and use of data in environmental pollution control needs to be addressed by the Nigerian Government if monitoring of the Millennium Development Goals and environmental pollution control in general is to be effective.
Niemand flieht freiwillig, dass heißt, wenn sich Menschen zur Flucht entscheiden, so geschieht dies immer unter dem Druck einer Situation, die als aussichtslos und unerträglich empfunden wird. Jahr für Jahr verlassen mehrere Millionen Menschen ihre Heimat in der Hoffnung auf ein besseres Leben in einem anderen Land. Die Globalisierung von Wirtschaft und Technologien sowie politische oder militärische Krisen zwingen sie dazu. Krieg, politische Repressionen oder Mangel an Lebensperspektiven im Herkunftsland machen eine Rückkehr unmöglich. So sind die weltweit zunehmenden Migrationsströme ein untrügliches Zeichen für soziale Ungleichheit und Benachteilung in der Welt. Umweltflüchtlinge sind nicht nur eine Folge der Umweltzerstörung durch natürliche oder vom Menschen und seiner Industrie entstandene Umweltkatastrophen, sondern auch eine Folge des Bevölkerungswachstums. Dadurch kommt es zu einer dramatischen Überbeanspruchung landwirtschaftlicher Flächen, die letztlich ebenfalls zu deren Zerstörung führt. Obwohl das Stichwort der Bevölkerungsexplosion in aller Munde ist, scheint bisher weithin unerkannt zu bleiben, wie dramatisch diese Entwicklung in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten verlaufen ist. Und den Entwicklungsländern fehlen jegliche Kapazitäten, dieser Entwicklung ökonomisch und ökologisch entgegenzuwirken. Die in der letzten Zeit erarbeiteten alternativen Strategien zu einer Lösung des Palästinakonfliktes sind vor folgendem Hintergrund zu sehen: Bis Anfang der 90er Jahre wurden seit 1967 besetzte Gebiete von Israel beansprucht. Unter dem geänderten Bewusstsein der Weltöffentlichkeit werden die palästinensischen Territorien aber nun als von Israel strukturell eigenständige Einheit betrachtet. Nach dem langjährigen Konflikt zwischen Palästinensern und Israelis rückte durch den Friedensprozess die Frage nach der Zukunft der im Jahr 1967 besetzten Gebiete wieder ins Bewusstsein der Weltöffentlichkeit. Seither haben Bombardierungen und Abriegelungen vor allem des Gaza-Streifens jedoch zu einer weiteren Verschärfung der Krise geführt. Eine Lösung des Konfliktes muss dringend gefunden werden, weil nur dadurch auch eine Verbesserung des Lebensstandards der Menschen im Westjordanland und im Gaza-Streifen erreicht werden kann. Als Ergebnis des Oslo-Abkommens von 1994 entstand die palästinensische Selbstverwaltung (PNA), zu deren vorrangigen Zielen es gehört, die Lebensbedingungen in den Autonomiegebieten zu verbessern und die angeschlagene Wirtschaft zu fördern. Nach Erläuterung dieser politischen Prozesse in der Region konzentriert sich die Arbeit auf eine Diskussion über die dringend benötigte Entwicklung in der Region Gaza-Streifen, die als Teilgebiet eines zukünftigen palästinensischen Staates bisher umfangreiche Probleme und eine wahrhaftig deutliche Unterentwicklung erfahren hat. Die Sicherung der ökologischen Zukunft des Menschen ist eine zentrale Aufgabe für dienächsten Jahre. Zu unserem Wohl und vor allem auch zum Wohl der nachfolgenden Generationen darf sich Umweltpolitik nicht darauf beschränken, bereits eingetretene Umweltschäden zu beseitigen. Vielmehr müssen die Aspekte Natur und Ökosysteme zukünftig ganz selbstverständlich in alle Planungen und Maßnahmen des Menschen einbezogen werden. Umweltschutz ist Daseinsvorsorge. Folglich darf sie nicht nur als Schadensbeseitigung angesehen werden, sondern muss offensiv auf die Verhinderung umweltbelastender Entwicklungen abzielen. In diesem Zuge ist auch die Abfallbeseitigung zu einem zentralen Anliegen des Umweltschutzes geworden. Ein verantwortungsbewusster Umgang mit der Natur und den Ressourcen ist prinzipiell nur möglich, wenn Abfallstoffe, soweit sie nicht vermieden werden können, durch eine sinnvolle Verwertung möglichst weitgehend in den natürlichen Stoffkreislauf zurückgeführt werden. Der wesentliche Bestandteil einer geordneten Entsorgungswirtschaft ist die Absicherung ökonomisch und ökologisch vertretbarer Entsorgungswege. Eine hohe Entsorgungssicherheit bei vertretbaren Kosten ist einer der Faktoren, die die Qualität eines Wirtschaftsstandortes verbessern. Für eine vernünftige Abfallwirtschaftsplanung sind die zukünftig zu erwartenden Abfallmengen abzuschätzen, die durch das Wirtschaftswachstum sowie die Bevölkerungsentwicklung bestimmt werden. Die gesetzlichen Rahmenbedingungen bestimmen die Zusammensetzung der Abfälle und über die Regelungen der Überlassungspflicht letztendlich die zu beseitigenden Abfallmengen.
The Banyang-Mbo Wildlife Sanctuary is a multiple-use lowland tropical rainforest in South West of Cameroon. This area was designated by the government of Cameroon with a focus of protecting 11 species including the most endangered primates in Central and West Africa, the Drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus) and Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Local communities maintain user-rights of the forest and its natural resources as long as the conservation goals of the protected areas are not compromised. With many villages in and around the sanctuary and an ever-increasing population, most villagers rely on bushmeat to meet both dietary requirements and as a source of income. The purpose of the six-month study was to assess the current impact of hunting pressure on wildlife biodiversity loss with hope to recommend managed sustainable hunting system to the Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife. Carcasses of animals brought in daily by the eighty-four hunters who participated in the study were weighed, sexed and aged and socio-economic data collected by recording weapon type, use, price of each animal killed and its destination by 14 research assistants in 14 study villages. Hunters were interviewed in an attempt to understand hunters' perception of hunted game and their capacity to implement a managed hunting system. Study results indicated that 44 animal species were harvested with a total of 3,176 individual animals killed, giving an estimated total biomass of 22,397 kg in both the Banyang and Mbo areas. The Banyang ethnic group registered more harvest in terms of both off-take 1,888 animals and biomass 13,476 kg (13.5 tons) while the Mbo ethnic group extracted 1,288 animals with a biomass of 8,921.02 kg (9.00 tons) over the six-month study period. When placed into taxonomic groups, duikers constituting (34%), rodents (22%), other protected species (15%) and monkeys (11%) of the total animals extracted were most affected by hunting within the whole of BMWS. Larger-bodied animals like primates and duikers were most vulnerable to gun hunting while smaller carnivores and rodents were more vulnerable to wire snaring and trapping. Poisoned baits were used in some villages to trap Cane rats and Monkeys. Hunting peaks were attained during the raining season especially during the months of July and August. However, some small peaks occurred during the dry season especially in the months of November and January. More males (47%) were killed than females (43%) for all species over the six-month study period. Unknown sex constituted (10%) of the total extracted animals registered. Adults comprised (69%) of the total catch for all species registered, juveniles and infants constituted (23%) and (8%) respectively. Generally the Banyang ethnic group either consumed or sold locally (83%) of their total harvested bushmeat and sold only (11%) to outside traders. The Mbo ethnic group consumed or sold locally (47%) of the total bushmeat killed and sold (39%) to outside bushmeat dealers. Economic gains in terms of financial income from sale of bushmeat at the Banyang-Mbo Wildlife Sanctuary do not seem to be profitable as one hunter earned on average 22.629F CFA (US $47) per month over the study period compared to 125.000F CFA (US $258) earned by an average civil servant in Cameroon. One kilogramme of the most expensive bushmeat such as Pangolin (Manis gigantea) and Brush-tailed porcupine (Atherurus africanus) was on the average about 4.7 times less expensive than the price of one kg of domesticated animals such as fresh cow beef or goat meat. The Drill (Mandrillus leucophaeus) and the Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) are at high risk of local extinction in this area. Meanwhile species like the Leopard (Panthera pardus), Buffalo (Syncerus nanus), the African Elephant (Loxodonta africana) and the Giant pangolin (Manis gigantea) were not recorded killed in any of the 14 study villages and are feared to be locally extinct. There was a steady decline in off-take and biomass of large-bodied species like duikers and primates in the total harvest of both ethnic groups over time during the study period. This suggests that hunting of larger-bodied animals may not be sustainable within the Banyang-Mbo Wildlife Sanctuary. The future of Blue duikers seems bleak if hunting continues unchecked. Poverty, population increase, unemployment and the weak enforcement of existing wildlife laws are the driving forces behind the unsustainable harvest of wildlife resources at the Banyang-Mbo wildlife Sanctuary.
Ghana is far from attaining energy security status. The energy mix in Ghana comprises; traditional biomass (66.7%), crude oil/petroleum products (26.2%), and electricity (7.1%) mainly from large hydro plants. The existing energy insecurity dilemma, where demand for energy services is desperately needed for sustainable development leaves Ghana with no other option than to exploit its renewable energy resources. The study seeks to address three main research questions namely: (a) Are Renewable Energy Technologies (RETs) technically and economically viable in Ghana?; (b) Can RE projects be self sustained in Ghana without continual external support?; (c) Can RETs be used as an engine for local development? Both qualitative and quantitative methods were employed in analyzing the issues raised. The four main RE resources identified in Ghana are biomass, solar, small hydro and wind energy. Detailed case study analysis for each resource was done for identification of technically and economically viable options. The study concludes with a strategy on the where, what, why and how to implement viable RE projects in Ghana and a ‘best policy’ recommendation for successful market diffusion of RETs. It proposes that RETs must be provided in forms that match the basic and economic self-reliance needs of the people and generated electricity should be tied directly to viable end-use activities.
Rural electrification has been one of the challenges faced by the government of Ghana due to extremely high cost of electricity extension to the rural areas. In order to meet up this challenge, the government of Ghana has been keen with the introduction of renewable energy programs as a solution for rural electrification. However, most of programs are also faced with the problem of being sustainable. After government and sponsors hand-over completed project to local users, they usually last only few years of their life span and are abandoned. This challenge has inspired this study to identify the potential barriers to the sustainability of rural electrification programs through technical and socio-economic evaluation of a solar PV rural electrification project in Ghana.
The approach of this study selected an on-going solar PV project (community solar system-CSS), that has been introduced on a pilot base across the whole of Ghana, which is to be adopted as a standard system for electrification solutions in rural areas in Ghana. This project was subjected to both technical and socio-economic evaluations covering 13 rural communities across the southern part of the country. Stakeholder interviews and review of literature were additional methodologies employed to gather information pertinent to the theme of the study.
The results of the study show that technically, the CSS project has simple design and operational technologies, which gives it high integration potential. However, the project faces the problem of technology misuse by the rural users and frequent failure of its components. The socio-economic barriers identified are: (1) ineffective management of the project due to a long chain of bureaucratic administrative management system, inadequate monitoring and supervision, and inconsistency in standardizing the cash flow of the project, and (2) low electricity capacity of the CSS project and other similar small scale renewable projects to meet the electricity requirements of the rural populates. These problems lead to gradual decline of users’ interest for such small scale renewable energy projects and subsequently result in project abandonment. It was concluded that small scale renewable energy programs lack the capacity to fully meet the energy requirement of rural populates; however, they are crucial as intervening solutions and play key role in rural development.
In order to integrate necessary interdisciplinary complexity, sustainability, defined targets and endpoints for reclamation progress, the objective of this research is to advance reclamation knowledge on (i) international scale and (ii) national scale, taking Nigeria as an example. On the international scale (i), a systematic reclamation threshold scale for assessing, evaluating, documenting, and monitoring reclamation progress was developed. The threshold stages begin from the initial state I0 down to degraded state D0 (depending on the type of mining). Reclamation starts with soil reconstruction R-2 up to revegetation R-1 (red zones) to reach minimum threshold R0 (amber zone). Beyond R0 are the green zones R1, R2, and R3 representing soil/abiotic condition, biological and improved threshold respectively. Adaptation of the threshold model to degraded ecosystems in national and international laws is recommended. On the national scale with Nigeria (ii), endowed with over 34 solid minerals and abundant crude oil, findings show that almost all mine sites are below the minimum threshold scale R0. The sites are adversely affected by Artisanal and Small Scale Mining (ASM), whereby, contamination and soil lithology disturbances are the state-of-the-art discussions. However, bioremediation (phytoremediation) is the most feasible remediation technique. Therefore, for the crude oil contaminated sites, this study highlights typical cogitation for large in-situ implementation and potential species for remediation. For the mineral resources, gold mining was the typical example. As a practical approach, experimental areas on an abandoned mining site (Site 1), an active mining site (Site 2) and an undisturbed vegetation site (Control) in southwestern Nigeria were mapped out to represent its mining and farming activities. On the sites, (a) the impacts of the ASM activities on the floristic association were assessed. (b) the potential of 2D Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) was explored to characterize the horizontal and vertical landscape homogeneity of the mine sites, and lastly, (c) the study identified native high-accumulating plants growing on the sites that can be employed for phytoremediation. Thus, the results show that (a) the floristic association of the mine sites have been stressed and disturbed. (b) the resistivity structure of the sites shows that ASM has greatly impaired the lithological status of the sites. (c) out of the 9 considered species, Crinum jagus has the highest accumulation factor of 8.71, 37.47, 1.08 and 29.38 for Pb, Cd, Fe and Cu respectively. It is a recommendable novel plant in the tropics. However, future studies must verify its hyperaccumulator potentials, identify other high accumulating species and develop effective approaches and policies to curb ASM activities and enhance remediation in Nigeria.
Being one of Ukraine’s major sources of economic revenue, the country’s agro-industrial sector proved, at the same time, to be perhaps the most vulnerable branch of economy in the times of political and social turbulence. While the state is searching for the ways of strengthening its positions at the global market, its agricultural potential to a considerable extent remains both under- and misused. Based on comprehensive historic analysis, this research establishes the origins of the current situation and assesses the possibilities of positive change. Utilizing the experience of other European countries’ with regards to making agriculture more sustainable and competitive in the modern world, the author describes the ways of applying these practices against the background of Ukrainian socio-political system. Drawing knowledge from the experience of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) worldwide, this research aims at harmonizing their methods with evaluation demands in Ukrainian agriculture. It discusses and criticizes the existing assessment approach and suggests measures necessary for making it more comprehensive. The author offers profound analysis of Ukrainian agricultural policies to date, reviews national regulating directives and outlines country-specific challenges as to improving agricultural sustainability. In order to provide Ukrainian decision-makers with a clear and all-round tool for assessing the advances and failures of the acting state policies in the AIS, a set of reliable indices for evaluating agricultural performance has been developed by the author, which is largely based on the widely-acknowledged Driving Force – State – Response framework offered by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Human Development Index (HDI) from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) methodology. At the same time, the newly developed set takes into consideration the peculiarities of Ukrainian socio-political setting. Three major categories of indicators were chosen as a backbone for further elaboration, namely economic, social and political. Therefrom results a list of twelve relevant indices. At the concluding stage of the research, they were processed and transformed to three top-level indices: Economic Development Index, Environmental Situation Index and Social Development Index. These three indices are intended for clear and illustrative presentation of the current situation for high level decision-makers and governmental bodies. Methodology utilized for the purposes of this research with necessary adaptation and fine tuning can also be used with other set of initial data, indicators and indices. Application field can also be downscaled from the highest (national) to the lowest (regional) level by adapting the indicator-indices system to the initial input data. This will considerably simplify the compilation and presentation of regional reports and will provide transparency for interregional comparison within the country.
Owing to its unique strategic position on the northern coast of the Black Sea, Crimea has, since Antiquity, been a highly diverse, multi-ethnic, multi-religious location. Throughout history, the peninsula’s landscapes were shaped and transformed under the influence of its ever-changing populations. In this process, religion played a crucial role. Nowadays, Crimea abounds in sacred sites in the same way as it abounds in culturally and religiously diverse inhabitants.
Rebirth in the 1990s of the religious and cultural life that had been repressed for over seventy years of the Soviet rule gave a powerful impetus to the revival of Crimea’s sacred landscapes and enabled the different ethno-religious groups residing in the peninsula to re-establish the bond with the home of their ancestors. The notion of landscape as a memoryscape became central in this context, since it is the landscape that records, as well as reflects, the events in history. The sites communally regarded as sacred unite the people as much as common memories transmitted from one generation to the other do.
The objectives of the theoretical part of this thesis are twofold. On the one hand, it aims to grasp the connection between religion, landscape and memory, whereby sacred sites are seen as landscapes of memory and anchors of people’s cultural and religious identity. On the other hand, it seeks to explore the specific issues pertinent to the Crimean socio-cultural context, such as the peninsula’s history and the evolving ethno-religious relationships among the diverse local population, which have impacted the development and protection of Crimea’s sacred sites overtime. Method employed is the comparative literature review, whereby for each chapter a selection of authors was made, whose contributions towards the discussion of the aforementioned issues have been particularly relevant.
Based on the theoretical background described above, the empirical section of the research targets two main groups of actors: the state on the one side, and the organizations representing local religious groups on the other. In relation to the state, the objective is to explore how the religious revival of the post-Soviet period correlates with Ukraine’s current policies towards the safeguarding of Crimea’s sacred landscapes, namely, to what extent they are being protected under the existing legislation, and which of the aspects are given most attention in the process. In relation to the organizations representing local religious groups, the task is to investigate to what degree the sacred sites under study remain relevant for various groups, and to establish how the knowledge about the local sacred places and their importance is being disseminated both within these groups and beyond.
In order to fulfill these tasks, the set of indicators has been developed, which takes into consideration the specific Crimean socio-cultural context, and a selection of case studies has been made, which in their totality reflect the viewpoints of Crimea’s prominent religious groups. The case studies are: (1) the Assumption Monastery, (2) the cave town of Chufut Kale with Balta Tiymez Karaite cemetery, and (3) the old town of Bakhchisaray with Salachiq historic district and Gazy Mansur cemetery. All of the three case studies are located on the territory of Bakhchisaray Historical and Cultural Preserve (BHCP).
The evaluation of the Ukrainian state’s policies with regards to safeguarding of the selected sacred sites revealed that while many of their elements are recognized as cultural heritage of high significance, protection activities are impeded by substantial obstacles of administrative nature, as well as by the lack general planning. Moreover, conservation and day-to-day management is carried out with little consideration for the opinions of the local people and with the insufficient involvement of the latter.
The indicator-based assessment of relevance of the selected sacred locations for various local religious groups and the ways, in which the knowledge about these sites is being spread exposed a number of clear tendencies, as well as highlighted the existing challenges and deficiencies which need to be urgently addressed, so as to ensure the safeguarding of the studied sites for the future generations.
A computational tool and a methodology for steady state heat exchanger simulations of recuperated gas turbines and aero-engines have been developed. As an example a compact tube bundle heat exchanger with oval shaped tubes was chosen. The simulation tool proved to work for different layouts of the heat exchanger and for different geometrical configurations of the gas turbine engine exhaust ducts. The resistance tensors were tuned against both CFD-data and experimental data and the computational model was to some extent validated against experimental results. For the validation isothermal experimental data from the Laboratory of Fluid Mechanics and Turbomachinery at the Technical University of Thessaloniki was used together with hot gas channel data from MTU. The calculated and measured velocity profiles showed an acceptable agreement that in some of the cases was even very good. The calculated pressure drop deviated less than 10% for the compared cases, which must be considered to be acceptable. The calculared results for the hot gas cases showed an exaggerated heat transfer rate, most likely due to the use of a cold side heat transfer correlation for fully turbulent flow, although the Reynolds numbersindicated transitional flow.
Städte bilden Schnittpunkte in translokalen Güterflüssen und Versorgungssystemen. Insbesondere die Versorgung der Stadtbevölkerung mit Lebensmitteln ist – wie die Wasser- oder Energieversorgung – eine Grundvoraussetzung für das Funktionieren städtischer Lebensweisen. Sie prägt die Beziehungen von Städten zu ihrem Hinterland. In der Geschichte bildete die ständige Expansion der Landwirtschaft und der Mittel des Warentransports eine wesentliche Bedingung für städtisches Wachstum, und heute hat die Lebensmittelversorgung längst eine planetarische Dimension angenommen. Ihre Formen und Abläufe, wie auch die Rituale des Essens, haben sich seit Jahrhunderten in die Architektur der Städte eingeschrieben. Dennoch bleiben die Strukturen der Lebensmittelversorgung meist unter dem Radar der Stadtforschung und -planung.
Im Seminar „Feeding the City“ haben wir uns mit den Lieferketten konventioneller Lebensmittel befasst, wie wir sie im Supermarkt oder Discounter in großer Zahl und zu niedrigen Preisen kaufen können: abgepacktes Fabrikbrot, H-Milch, Hähnchenbrust, Bananen oder Fruchtgummis. Wo kommen sie her, welchen Weg nehmen sie und wie formen sie die Räume, durch die sie zirkulieren? Welche Akteur*innen und Regularien bestimmen diese Vorgänge und Zusammenhänge? Studierende der Stadtplanung und Architektur der BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg haben zehn alltägliche Lebensmittel verfolgt: Vom Ort ihres Anbaus oder der Tierhaltung über die Stationen der Lebensmittelindustrie und Distribution bis hin zum Einzelhandel, dem privaten Kühlschrank oder Esstisch und zur Entsorgung der Überbleibsel. Anhand von Kartierungen und Netzwerkdiagrammen haben sie die räumliche Reichweite und die Komplexität der Lieferketten betrachtet, sie haben die gebauten Räume einzelner Stationen und ihre städtischen Kontexte analysiert und schließlich nach der aktuellen oder historischen Präsenz des jeweiligen Produkts in der Stadt Cottbus gefragt.
Due to the unique electronic band structure, graphene has opened the great potential to extend the functionality of a large variety of graphene-based devices in health and environment, energy storage, or various microelectronic applications, to mention a few. At this point, the implementation of graphene into Silicon (Si) semiconductor technology is strongly dependent on several key challenges. Among them, high-quality and wafer-scale graphene synthesis on CMOS compatible substrates is of the highest importance. Though large-area graphene can be achieved on substrates like copper, platinum, silicon carbide, or single-crystal Ni, however, high growth temperatures, unavailability of large scale, or contamination issues are the main drawbacks of their usage. In this PhD work, 8-inch scale graphene synthesis is attempted on alternative substrates such as epitaxial Germanium on Si and polycrystalline Nickel on Si. To achieve the growth of the highest quality of graphene, this work focuses on the investigations of various nucleation and growth mechanisms, substrate–graphene interfaces, effects of different substrate orientations, and detailed microscopic and macroscopic characterization of the grown films. Finally, it should also be stressed that the experiments in this work were carried out in a standard BiCMOS pilot-line, making this study unique, as its results might directly pave the way to further graphene integration and graphene-based device prototyping in mainstream Si technologies.
Yemen is one of the most water-stressed countries in the world. The water deficit has been aggravated by the rapidly increasing demands for both surface and groundwater resources that are being unsustainably exploited. To address the country’s severe water scarcity, the government has adopted long-term intervention policies as stated in ‘Yemen's Strategic Vision 2025’. These policies are aimed at restoring the balance between water demand and availability, and at reducing the existing water deficit. Although 11 years have passed since this vision was adopted, the water deficit is still on the rise. The present situation raises questions about the efficiency of the intervention policies adopted by ‘Yemen's Strategic Vision 2025’ and about the effectiveness of implementing these policies. Another fundamental question pertains to the availability of a strategic assessment tool in the water resources sector that can be used to assess strategically future and current policies, strategies and plans, in order to ensure their efficiency in supporting water resources and in producing the positive impacts for which these strategic initiatives were developed in the first place. Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is an assessment tool designed to function at a strategic level and help to bring aspects of environmental sustainability into the decisionmaking process. This research aims to demonstrate the potential of SEA in enhancing environmental sustainability in water policies for achieving sustainability of water resources in Yemen. In order to show the potential of SEA in the Yemeni water resources sector, this research has applied SEA methodologies and adopted a scenario-building approach for assessing the intervention policies adopted by ‘Yemen's Strategic Vision 2025’ to support augmentation of water resources. Qualitative and quantitative approaches have been used in this research. Quantitative historical data on water availability, water demand and water savings by interventions have been collected from the databases of national institutions and international organizations concerned. Statistical analyses have been used to project future trends until 2025. Qualitative analyses of relevant studies and reports covering the environmental, administrative, sociocultural and political-economic aspects of water resources management in Yemen have been implemented as well. In addition, 13 semi-structured key informant interviews have been conducted with decision-makers, managers and leading experts in the water and irrigation sectors. The research produced three future scenarios for the total water balance that may play out until 2025 in Yemen. These scenarios provide impact assessment and alternatives’ comparison of the existing intervention policies. The resulting scenarios are as follows: the ‘Business as Usual’ scenario, which forms an assessment of currently applied interventions and provides an image for the future, if current interventions are maintained at the same pace; the ‘Do-nothing’ scenario representing the situation if no interventions are implemented; and the ‘Sustainability’ scenario, which represents the potential future of the total water balance if existing interventions are to be scaled up and out. The findings confirm the significant potential of currently adopted intervention policies to support water resources. They also reveal that the current level of implementing the intervention policies has hindered the potential of these intervention policies in achieving the expected positive impact on the water balance by 2025. In order to achieve a significant decrease in the water deficit, the strategic quantitative targets that need to be implemented were identified. The methodology followed in implementing the research and achieving the findings demonstrates the potential of SEA in enhancing environmental sustainability in water policies for achieving integrated and sustainable water resources management in Yemen. The recommendations of the research covered improving the existing water balance as well as improving the assessment and planning context in the water resources sector. In order to improve the water balance situation, the research recommends implementing quantitative targets for water savings and augmentations, such as those developed by this research. These targets have been identified based on the capacities of sectors implementing these interventions. The research also recommends further decentralization of planning and management of water resources and the establishment of Water User Associations (WUAs) as the main vehicles for ensuring sustainable planning and management of water resources, including the scale out of interventions, subject to assessment in this research. In order to improve assessment and planning of water resources, the research recommends the adoption of SEA, the updating of water resources data and conducting regular assessments of policies, plans and programmes as part of monitoring their impact and providing a chance for amending these policies and strategies, if required, to achieve sustainability of water resources.
The old city core experienced a long series of modernization process that affected the old urban fabric and the coherence among urban elements. This dissertation tried to explore the intervention methods and the variety of impacts that have been occurred inside the old core . New streets that were added to the city changed the urban space hierarchy in each time. Starting from analyzing the spatial form via exploring the morphology of the city up to analyze the city skyline is the main methodology of this work. The spatial form of the city of Baghdad shows the impacts of multi planning approaches belong to variant master plans which were proposed and achieved to manage the city growth and development. Those impacts were varied and explained in this dissertation based on the change in the city network, city expansion and land use distribution. The old city of Baghdad was analyzed and explained in details in term of investigating the morphological layers for different periods showing the development of Baghdad urban structure by new comparative plans that explain the change between two following morphological periods. The understanding of the transformation in each morphological period was based on the following criteria’s (urban growth, urban space development, urban components and innovations) to provide a comprehensive investigation about the behavior of the urban components. The investigation of the main old and new streets was well assessed showing their structure, building typologies and the role of the urban space typologies along the segments of those streets. The transect analysis method was used by having nine sections through the old city in different areas to understand the transformation in the city of Baghdad and the impacts of the unregulated development process accompanied within the lack of clear urban management method. The development of the city skyline provided a clear interpretation about the impacts of inserting new urban space and building typologies inside the old core. It was so clear that the hypothesis of this dissertation was proved in showing the role of the street hierarchy change (for both pedestrian and car street in different segments) in exploring the mechanism of the conflict among urban components that bring more destruction to the city. The conclusion showed what to avoid in any prospective rehabilitation process and gave the impacts of the previous interventions that shoud not be repeated in the future.
Interpretation and presentation of Nabataeans innovative technologies: case study Petra/Jordan
(2011)
The Nabataeans were people of innovation and technology. Many clear evidences were left behind them that prove this fact. Unfortunately for a site like Petra, visited by crowds of visitors and tourists every day, many major elements need to be strengthened in terms of interpretation and presentation techniques in order to reflect the unique and genuine aspects of the place. The major elements that need to be changed include: un-authorized tour guides, insufficient interpretation site information in terms of quality and display. In spite of Jordan‘s numerous archaeological sites (especially Petra) within the international standards, legislations and conventions that discuss intensively interpretation and presentation guidelines for archaeological site in a country like Jordan, it is not easy to implement these standards in Petra at present for several reasons which include: presence of different stakeholders, lack of funding, local community. Moreover, many interpretation and development plans were previously made for Petra, which makes it harder to determine the starting point. Within the work I did, I proposed two ideas for developing interpretation technique in Petra. First was using the theme technique, which creates a story from the site or from innovations done by the inhabitants, and to be presented to visitors in a modern approach. The purpose of this story is to link the visitor to the site emotionally, by providing them with the sense and feel of the site‘s real events by that time together with a good amount of information that gives the visitor the chance to live and feel an unforgettable experience of the place. The second idea was how to tailor a useful interpretation plan that could be implemented on all other archaeological sites in Jordan right after "evaluating the results of its implementation in Petra". The aim of this thesis is to develop interpretation criteria for "local governments and nongovernmental organizations", as well as an interpretation plan in a Jordanian context and apply them on all other archaeological sites in Jordan. Tourists would benefit from the quality of interpretation services offered by the interpreters and the techniques of presentation available on the site, in addition to tour guides who have received training programs derivate from this study, which would guarantee in return a more sustainable tourism movement to the site of Petra in the future.
Due to the use of fossil fuel resources, many environmental problems have been increasingly growing. Thus, the recent research focuses on the use of environment friendly materials from sustainable feedstocks for future fuels, chemicals, fibers and polymers. Lignocellulosic biomass has become the raw material of choice for these new materials. Recently, the research has focused on using lignin as a substitute material in many industrial applications. The antiradical and antimicrobial activity of lignin and lignin-based films are both of great interest for applications such as food packaging additives. DPPH assay was used to determine the antioxidant activity of Kraft lignin compared to Organosolv lignins from different biomasses. The purification procedure of Kraft lignin showed that double-fold selective extraction is the most efficient confirmed by UV-Vis, FTIR, HSQC, 31PNMR, SEC, and XRD. The antioxidant capacity was discussed regarding the biomass source, pulping process, and degree of purification. Lignin obtained from industrial black liquor are compared with beech wood samples: Biomass source influences the DPPH inhibition (softwood > grass) and the TPC (softwood < grass). DPPH inhibition affected by the polarity of the extraction solvent. Following the trend: ethanol > diethylether > acetone. Reduced polydispersity has positive influence on the DPPH inhibition. Storage decreased the DPPH inhibition but increased the TPC values. The DPPH assay was also used to discuss the antiradical activity of HPMC/lignin and HPMC/lignin/chitosan films. In both binary (HPMC/lignin) and ternary (HPMC/lignin/chitosan) systems the 5% addition showed the highest activity and the highest addition had the lowest. Both scavenging activity and antimicrobial activity are dependent on the biomass source; Organosolv of softwood > Kraft of softwood > Organosolv of grass. Lignins and lignin-containing films showed high antimicrobial activities against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria at 35 °C and at low temperatures (0-7 °C). Purification of Kraft lignin has a negative effect on the antimicrobial activity while storage has positive effect. The lignin leaching in the produced films affected the activity positively and the chitosan addition enhances the activity for both Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. Testing the films against food spoilage bacteria that grow at low temperatures revealed the activity of the 30% addition on HPMC/L1 film against both B. thermosphacta and P. fluorescens while L5 was active only against B. thermosphacta. In HPMC/lignin/chitosan films, the 5% addition exhibited activity against both food spoilage bacteria.
Die Inwertsetzung von kulturellem Erbe ist in den letzten Jahren zu einem wichtigen Faktor für eine ökonomische, materielle, ökologische, aber auch infrastrukturelle Entwicklung von strukturschwachen Regionen geworden. Für eine Inwertsetzung eignet sich insbesondere das immaterielle Erbe der Menschen in solchen Regionen.
Immaterielles Erbe ist ein Erbe, das auch von der UNESCO anerkannt worden ist und als Intangible Heritage seit 2003 sogar durch eine UNESCO-Konvention geschützt wird. Der vorliegende Leitfaden beruht darauf, das Potential zur Inwertsetzung von immateriellem Erbe in der Lausitz zu erschließen und es für eine Regionalentwicklung im weitesten Sinne aufzubereiten. Regionale Akteure sollen dazu motiviert werden, ihr immaterielles Kulturerbe zu entdecken und für individuelle und institutionelle Entwicklungsprozesse zu nutzen.
In the last years, energy prices for German households have been increasing constantly. Some reasons for that include: the dependency of Germany on external fossil fuels to supply its energy demand, the decision to invest in renewable energy generation and to shut down all its nuclear power plants. Nowadays households are already able to generate energy on-site, however the generation potential depends on climatic conditions as well as the specific location and the type of the building. The aim of this work is to evaluate whether a community of new efficient single-family houses can generate enough energy on-site to supply its electricity and heating demand over the year based on renewable energy sources and with the support of energy storage systems, including electric vehicles. The theoretical community is situated in the city of Cottbus, Germany. For this community, an electricity load profile was designed based on the use of common devices and separated in controllable and uncontrollable loads. Electricity is generated on-site through photovoltaic panels and small wind turbines, and the electricity generation potential is evaluated based on the community’s available space, which is rather limited, and the actual regulations in the State of Brandenburg. A comparison of the available technologies to supply the heating demand as well as to store energy in the household sector is presented and discussed. It is assumed that each household has an electric vehicle that can be charged and also discharged in the community as an extra energy storage system. A software simulation system was designed with which an energy balance analysis is carried out based on hourly values of supply and demand. Under the assumptions taken for this study, the results of the simulation show that the community is able to generate more energy than consumed throughout a year, however in a few occasions there is not enough energy available to supply the community’s energy demand. Water can be heated up to 70°C at least once a week preventing the bacterium Legionella to grow. The community is able to supply 99% of the uncontrollable load group demand and 97% of the controllable load group demand. There is enough energy available to heat space during the cold months, if heat pumps with a coefficient of performance greater than two are used. The electric vehicles can be charged using the energy generated in the community via grid or extra battery banks. If energy prices continue to increase, German households will try to find solutions to reduce their energy bills. The integration of several households forming a community network is a solution that optimizes the energy use and space (especially taking wind turbines in consideration), and reduces investments. However, the implementation of such a community still depends on the availability of space, improvement and price reduction of energy storage systems, regulations for energy exchange as well as willingness of the people living in such a community to adapt their daily routine according to the availability of energy.
Human life depends on water of good quality. Freshwater ecosystems are being degraded as a result of anthropogenic activities. Managing freshwater resources require a good understanding of the dynamics of the processes affecting water quality and the interrelationship existing between them. Signal analysis methods are used to extract information from water quality time series. The information obtained from such analysis is required for developing dynamic models as an aid in investigating the outcome of different management scenarios. They are equally useful in determining the appropriate sampling frequency required for monitoring ecological indicators. Modern methods developed in other field such as mathematical statistics need to be investigated in the fields of water quality management so as to enhance the knowledge of the functioning and the structure of water bodies. Classical methods consisting of time domain and frequency domain methods in combination with a modern method, wavelet analysis, were used to extract information from water quality indicators from the River Havel in the State of Brandenburg in Germany. The indicators were dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll-a and water temperature which are respectively chemical, biological and physical indicators. The time domain methods revealed the behavior of the signal across time as well as the relationship between them. The frequency domain methods proved quite inadequate because the signals from water quality are non-stationary with changing variance across time. The wavelet methods were quite good in unraveling the behavior of these signals at different time-scales. This analysis revealed that the high frequency changes have no significant effect on the long term dynamics of water quality signals. Given that only the low frequency components influence the long term behavior of these signals, it was found that it makes more sense to sample most of the signals at a weekly or two weekly intervals so as to avoid noisy or redundant information. In addition, the time-scale decomposition allows for noisy or redundant information that blurs the long term dynamics thereby negatively affecting the quality of models to be detected and kicked out. Moreover, it was also found that the use of a time delay in a dynamic model should be based on the delay from the time-scale that influence the long term dynamics the most in the freshwater body by the help of the wavelet cross-correlation rather than the classical cross-correlation. Finally, the same indicator from different water bodies of the same watershed portrayed different time and frequency dependent behavior implying that each freshwater body needs to be uniquely investigated. Applying the same management techniques to different water bodies without prior investigation will not be sound. Freshwater ecosystems are more and more threatened by phenomena such as global warming, pharmaceuticals in water bodies, invasive species requiring more investigation on the applicability of tools developed in other fields of science in the field of water resource management. Enhanced knowledge will improve the existing knowledge on the structure and functioning of freshwater bodies, the quality of models developed as management decision aid and the quality of the data used for decision making.
This dissertation closely examines industrial pollution along the Atlantic coast of Cameroon. In recent years, there has been the formulation of both governmental initiatives and corporate voluntary practices with the view of curbing industrial pollution along the coast of Cameroon. However, a majority of studies have failed to ascertain the extent to which these initiates and practices have been successful in addressing industrial pollution, which is undoubtedly fundamental to policy makers in the decision making process. Therefore, this thesis attempts to bridge this major gap by examining both governmental and voluntary corporate practices vis-à-vis industrial pollution along the polluted coast of Cameroon. The thesis analysis efforts formulated by the government of Cameroon to mitigate industrial pollution. It identifies constraints to Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) practice in Cameroon. Environmental management system (EMS) initiatives adopted by industries along the coast of Cameroon that has been hitherto ignored is unveiled as well in this thesis. Furthermore, a more compelling case is made by addressing the drivers, benefits and barriers stemming from EMS implementation by these industries. A robust reflexive methodological research strategy is developed and utilized both qualitative and quantitative data collected from unstructured interviews, questionnaire based surveys, personal observations, relevant literature, consultancy reports and documentation form governmental departments. Analysis of these data facilitates detailed discussion of both governmental initiatives and corporate environmental management systems.The thesis contends that there is an urgent need to complement governmental policy and regulations with corporate voluntary environmental management systems. It purports that efforts made by the government of Cameroon to address industrial pollution have had minimal impacts on industrial pollution along the coast of Cameroon and submits that the EMS process in these industries is still at its infancy. Moreover, it is argued that a plethora of barriers still prevail that deter a rigorous implementation of EMS in these industries. On the basis of this, the thesis advances a comprehensive strategy for the effective and efficient management of industrial pollution along the coast of Cameroon and emphasizes that a holistic or concerted approach from all stakeholders is absolutely mandatory for the successful implementation of the recommended strategies.
The contribution of community involvement in heritage management : a cultural mapping project
(2023)
Heritage has been lately the matter of debate regarding its definition, conservation and management approaches. In the last few years, there has been an increasing demand for the involvement of the local community in heritage management. Too often, the involvement perspectives of key stakeholders in general and the community members, in particular, are entirely different. While the theoretical ground of community involvement is somehow well set, heritage management has been slow in applying the involvement approach. Practically, it is not easy to find the balance to achieve all the goals of key stakeholders in any involvement project. Subsequently, there are a few numbers of empirical works on the practical implications of understanding heritage management effective tools and limited indication to convince recent ‘power-holders’ such as governmental organizations to distribute their power with local community members.
This doctoral research project explores community involvement in heritage management as an effective solution to building a strong management system. The study aims to examine the level and the quality of involvement in the management of heritage sites in general through a cultural mapping-based approach. This is applied to a case study which is the Religious Complex in Historic Cairo World Heritage Site. The research outcomes indicate the importance of involving the local community in heritage management and planning processes. Ultimately, the study provides critical empirical evidence and draws valuable theoretical and practical assumptions that spread knowledge of cultural mapping in critical issues, such as the drivers of involvement and cooperative decision-making.
Die hier vorgelegte Studie über die Akzeptanz einer modernisierten Variante der ehemaligen „DDR-Gemeindeschwester“ im Land Brandenburg – eben jener Community (Health) Nurse, wie sie international längst etabliert ist – nutzt methodisch eine Diskursanalyse, die interessante Ergebnisse zur Diskussion stellt. Die Befunde lassen sich plausibel in einer Art „Mentalitätsraum“ abbilden. Im Achsenkreuz einer „Strategieachse“ (mit den Kontrastpolen „strategisch-ökonomisch“ vs. „kulturell-kommunikativ“) und einer „Modernisierungsachse“ (mit den Gegensatzpaaren „traditionell-sozial“ vs. „modern-funktional“) kann die Studie vier Diskursvarianten positionieren, die der Einrichtung einer gegenüber dem Prinzip der caring community verpflichteten Pflege mehr oder weniger aufgeschlossen sind: die Argumentationsfiguren „Reformdiskurs“, „Reformpraxis“, „lokale Verankerung“ und „professionelle Enge“. Das zunächst positive Resultat, dass der Kern der Argumentationen in einer „Meinungswolke“ liegt, die vom linken unteren Quadranten bis zum rechten oberen Quadranten des Mentalitätsraums reicht und ihren Schwerpunkt zwischen den Polen „kulturell-kommunikativ“ und „modern-funktional“ (also im linken oberen Quadranten) hat, wird durch zwei Beobachtungen relativiert: (a) verweisen nicht alle der auf den ersten Blick „fortschrittlichen“ Argumentationsfiguren auf praktische Veränderungen; (b) bleibt die Argumentationsfigur „professionelle Enge“, die sich vor allem auf den pflegepolitisch so wichtigen Bereich der ambulanten Pflegedienste bezieht, im Datenmaterial unterrepräsentiert und muss für die zukünftige Entwicklung besonders ernst genommen werden. Auf diese Fragen weist die Studie jedoch mit besonderem Nachdruck hin und verbindet ihre Ergebnisse mit sinnvollen pragmatischen Forschungsdesideraten für die Zukunft der Gesundheitspolitik im Land Brandenburg.
The role of AJB35136 and fdtA genes in biofilm formation by avian pathogenic Escherichia coli
(2023)
Background Infections caused by avian pathogenic Escherichia coli (APEC) result in significant economic losses in poultry industry. APEC strains are known to form biofilms in various conditions allowing them to thrive even under harsh and nutrient-deficient conditions on different surfaces, and this ability enables them to evade chemical and biological eradication methods. Despite knowing the whole genome sequences of various APEC isolates, little has been reported regarding their biofilm-associated genes. A random transposon mutant library of the wild-type APEC IMT 5155 comprising 1,300 mutants was analyzed for biofilm formation under nutrient deprived conditions using Videoscan technology coupled with fluorescence microscopy. Seven transposon mutants were found to have reproducibly and significantly altered biofilm formation and their mutated genes were identified by arbitrary PCR and DNA sequencing. The intact genes were acquired from the wild-type strain, cloned in pACYC177 plasmid and transformed into the respective altered biofilm forming transposon mutants, and the biofilm formation was checked in comparison to the wild type and mutant strains under the same conditions.
Results In this study, we report seven genes i.e., nhaA, fdeC, yjhB, lysU, ecpR, AJB35136 and fdtA of APEC with significant contribution to biofilm formation. Reintroduction of AJB35136 and fdtA, reversed the altered phenotype proving that a significant role being played by these two O-antigen related genes in APEC biofilm formation. Presence of these seven genes across nonpathogenic E. coli and APEC genomes was also analyzed showing that they are more prevalent in the latter.
Additive technologies are now widely used for the production of complex precise parts and have high potential for the production of forming dies. In this work, hot-forming dies optimized for additive manufacturing were developed and produced with wire arc direct energy deposition (WA-DED) and laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) technologies. The concept of lightweight hot-forming dies with a 2D-lattice structure was developed, which reduced the weight of each die by 56%, from 14.2 kg to 6.1 kg, in production using L-PBF. Maraging/precipitation-hardened steel 17-4PH was used as an alternative to traditional hot-working steels with slightly lower mechanical properties and a much higher processability in the additive manufacturing process. The workability of the manufactured dies was confirmed by forging tests on an industrial screw press.
Das Ergebnis der vorliegenden Arbeit sind grafische Bemessungshilfen in Form von Interaktionsdiagrammen für Stahlbetondruckglieder mit zweiachsiger Biegung. Bei der Anwendung der Diagramme wird die bisherige Einschränkung auf den ebenen Fall aufgehoben. Es stellt sich somit der ebene Fall lediglich als Sonderfall des räumlichen Zustandes dar. Grundlage für das verwendete Rechenverfahren nach Theorie II. Ordnung ist eine von der Ebene auf den Raum erweiterte Modellstütze. Diese virtuelle Kragstütze mit gleichen oder unterschiedlichen Ersatzlängen in den beiden Achsrichtungen dient als statisches System, an welchem alle Berechnungen durchgeführt werden. Es zeigte sich, dass die Verwendung der Betonarbeitslinie die ursprünglich nur für die Querschnittsbemessung vorgesehen ist, auch bei Anwendung in der Traglastberechnung zu einer guten Übereinstimmung zwischen rechnerischen und experimentellen Ergebnissen führt. Die Mitwirkung des Betons auf Zug zwischen den Rissen ("Tension-stiffening"-Effekt) sollte beim Tragfähigkeitsnachweis nicht angesetzt werden, da dadurch die Traglasten teilweise erheblich überschätzt werden.
Mathematically, cryptographic approaches are secure. This means that the time an attacker needs for finding the secret by brute forcing these approaches is about the time of the existence of our world. Practically, an algorithm implemented in hardware is a device that generates a lot of additional data during the calculation process. Its power consumption, electromagnetic radiation, etc. can be measured, saved and analysed for key extraction. Such attacks are called side channel analysis attacks and are significant threats when applying cryptographic algorithms. By considering these attacks when implementing a cryptographic algorithm, it is possible to design an implementation that is more resistant against them.
The goal of this thesis was to design a methodology to securely implement the Montgomery kP-operation using an IHP implementation as a starting point. In addition, the area and energy consumption of the secure Montgomery kP-multiplier should still be highly efficient. The resistance against power analysis attacks of two different IHP ECC implementations was analysed in this thesis. A horizontal power analysis attack using the difference-of-means test was performed with the goal of finding potential leakage sources exploited in side channel analysis attacks, i.e. finding the reasons of a correct extraction of the cryptographic key. For both analysed ECC designs, four key candidates were extracted with a correctness of 90% or more. Through analysis of the implemented Montgomery kP-algorithm’s functionality and its power consumption, it was established that the algorithm’s operation execution flow was the main cause of the implementations’ vulnerability. Thus, a design methodology consisting in changing the Montgomery kP-algorithm operation flow was developed. As a result, the re-designed implementations do not deliver any correctly extracted key candidates whenever the difference-of-means test is performed on them. These re-designs implied an increase on the chip area by about 5% for each implementation. The execution time needed for performing a complete kP-operation was reduced for both designs. Thereby one implementation’s execution time was reduced by 12% in comparison to its original version and even though its power consumption was increased by 9%, its energy consumption per kP-operation was reduced by 4.5%.
Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) are pivotal in Critical Infrastructures (CIs) and Industrial Control Systems (ICSs), governing processes in nuclear power plants, petrochemical factories, and water treatment systems. Despite their importance, PLCs are vulnerable to security threats, notably control logic injection attacks, aiming to sabotage physical processes. This thesis delves into PLC security, analyzing vulnerabilities in non-cryptographically and cryptographically protected PLCs, particularly Siemens S7-300 and S7-1500 models.
Siemens, an automation market leader, utilizes S7-300 PLCs in millions of applications, reflecting the broader ICS security landscape. The S7-1500 line claims resistance to cyberattacks, including control logic injections. The thesis evaluates authentication in non-cryptographically protected PLCs, introducing a stealthy control logic injection attack scenario using an S7-300 PLC and S7Comm protocol.
The second part explores integrity checks in cryptographically protected S7-1500 PLCs. Findings, encompassing disclosed vulnerabilities, lead to a severe control logic injection attack with a malicious interrupt block, conducted in an industrial setting using the S7-1500 and S7CommPlus protocol.
The final segment focuses on Profinet protocol security and an injection attack scenario. The study demonstrates adversaries manipulating critical data without prior knowledge, causing harm to physical processes. A real-world attack on a Profinet-based system with two S7-300 PLCs is executed.
The thesis concludes by proposing mitigation solutions, enhancing PLC and communication protocol security. This contribution elevates the security posture of millions of operating devices globally, advancing PLC security research.
In dieser Arbeit werden Ansätze zur Softwareentwicklung auf Objektorientierter Basis im Bereich der Kosten in Hochbauprojekten beschrieben. Die Konzepte der Objektorientierten Technologie zur Softwareentwicklung werden in dieser Arbeit umfassend eingesetzt. Zur Modellierung des Systems wird die Unified Modeling Language (UML) eingesetzt. Die bedeutenden Gesichtspunkte dieser Modellierung sind die Entwicklung des Objektmodells in der Analysephase und deren Verfeinerung in der Entwurfsphase. Dieses Objektmodell bildet die Basis bei der Softwareentwicklung im bereich der Kosten in Hochbauprojekten. Im Rahmen dieser Modellierung werden auch die Aspekte der Soft- und Hardwareverteilung spezifiziert. Ferner werden Konzepte zur Implementierung der Ergebnisse der Modellierung erläutert. Hier wird das Objektmodell des Systems in die Programmiersprache Java übersetzt.
A cellular approach to optimize the integration of renewable generation into distribution networks
(2022)
The steady growth of the renewable-based technologies in the last twenty years has changed the character of the power systems significantly. Until today, there are more than 112 GW installed photovoltaic and wind parks in Germany and around 90% of the installed renewable generators are integrated into distribution networks. As a result, distribution networks are often facing congestion problems and more investments are needed for the required network development plans.
The political decisions in Germany for increasing the share of renewables in electricity consumption up to 65% until 2030 and the nuclear phase out until 2022 and further shutdowns of the coal power plants raised serious concerns about the reliability of power supply and feasibility of the transition plan.
The present dissertation has a look over the recent developments and offers a methodology for reduction of the resulted costs from further integration of renewable generators into the distribution networks. The suggested methodology is based on a cellular approach and helps also to postpone the unnecessary costly network expansions. Furthermore, it helps to integrate the renewable generators in an optimized way which has an added value to move towards the defined sustainability goals.
The proposed methodology has two steps. The first step is made up of the cellular approach and grey wolf optimization in MATLAB environment. In this step, the optimal combination of technologies for fulfillment of the defined goals are found out. The second step consists of the quasi dynamic simulations in PowerFactory environment. In this step, the suggested results from MATLAB optimization are investigated in semi-real situations. With the quasidynamic simulations, it is checked whether the results are tolerable from the point of view of network operation and whether it is possible to facilitate the network operation with certain strategies.
The main idea of this paper is to evaluate the performance of the fine resolution CLM model in the state of Brandenburg Germany, create a bias correction method and reanalyze the climate signals of the corrected simulations on projections of the 21st century. The bias correction method is a distribution oriented method and the analysis is mainly focused on the extreme events such as 95 and 5 percentile daily temperatures and 95 percentile daily precipitations in a period of 30 years, but also includes seasonal temperature, daily temperature difference and monthly precipitation to demonstrate the effectiveness of the correction method. The results showed that the correction method was very effective on different variables. After correction, the extreme daily temperature bias was reduced from a cold bias of 1-2K to less than 0.1K. The corrected projection simulations suggested that the extreme temperatures were about to increase both in intensity and in frequency. The extreme precipitation after correction was meant to become more severe and frequent as well.
Energieeffizientes Nährstoffsplitting von flüssigen Wirtschaftsdüngern mittels Membranfiltration
(2017)
Die definierte Selektivität der Membranfiltration kann dazu genutzt werden, einzelne spezifische Gülle-Separationsprobleme in übergeordneten Aufbereitungsklassen zusammenzufassen. Mit dem Ansatz einer gesteuerten Nährstofftrennung bzw. Teilzusammenführung von modifizierten Strömen, und der Zuordnung von spezifischen Aufgaben an die Mischprodukte, werden die Nachteile des Ausgangsrohstoffs reduziert und der Wertstoff Gülle rückstandsfrei nutzbar gemacht. Mit einem Anlagenmodell, bestehend aus einer Hydrotankpresse als Vorfiltration und einer Ultrafiltration als Kernkomponenten, ist es über empirisch ermittelte Betriebsparameter möglich, einen energetisch optimierten und kontinuierlichen Produktionsbetrieb durchzuführen. Als Produkte der dezentralen Aufbereitungsanlage werden ein emissionsreduzierender Flüssigdünger, eine als Brennstoff und als Gärsubstrat geeignete Feststoffphase, sowie das Retentat als aktivierendes Material zur Biogasertragssteigerung gewonnen. Das untersuchte Anlagenmodell ist auf den innerbetrieblichen Einsatz in Milchviehhaltungsbetrieben abgestimmt. Mit der Erarbeitung von stabilen und energetisch günstigen Anlagenbetriebspunkten wird das Anlagenverhalten hydraulisch steuerbar. Durch die Zuordnung von Anlagenzuständen zu differenziertem Spülverhalten, wird die direkte Einflussnahme der Temperatur auf den Permeat-Flux erkennbar. Der Einsatz eines Tauchkühlers, mit voreingestellten Grenztemperaturen, stabilisiert signifikant das Anlagenverhalten im Vergleich zu konventionellen Anlagenkonfigurationen. Die Anwendung einer Hydropresse gestattet höhere TDS-Belastungen im UF-Kreislauf, bietet aber kein Potenzial zur Steigerung der Nährstoffdurchsätze. Dies gilt auch für den Einsatz einer 300 kDa-Variante, im Vergleich zur priorisierten 150 kDa-UF-Membran. Mit der Hydropresse kann eine höhere Feststoffabscheidung wie mit Verstopfungs- bzw. Siebfiltrationen erreicht werden, die TDS-Belastungen sind im Retentat auf 5.000 - 7.000 ppm limitiert, oder müssen durch Verdünnung auf diese Werte eingegrenzt werden. Mit der zusätzlichen Anwendung einer Gasspülung in der Anströmung der UF-Module, können TDS-Belastungen über 10.000 ppm erstmals dauerhaft bewältigt werden. Über die so erweiterte Verfahrenstechnik sind Standzeiten von mehreren Wochen, ohne betrieblich bedingte Unterbrechungen, möglich. Die durch Fluoreszenzmikroskopie nachweisbare Anreicherung von Methanbildnern im Retentat, bestätigt eine mögliche Anwendung des Retentats als Biogassubstratergänzung. Der Biogasertrag wird durch Zusatz von Retentat zu den bisher verfügbaren Substraten generell erhöht. Eine Mischung aus Retentat und dem Feststoff aus der Hydropresse unterstützen die biochemische Stabilisierung in Fermentern. In Kombination mit Anteilen an Feststoff ist das Permeat bei der Bewertung von pflanzenbaulichen Erträgen, als konkurrenzfähig zu Rohgülle und Mineralstoffdünger einzustufen. Das auf landwirtschaftliche Flächen ausgebrachte Permeat ist geruchslos.
Brain-computer interfacing (BCI) is a relatively new field of study that involves engineering, neuroscience, psychology, and physiology. A BCI is a system that allows direct communication between the brain and the environment, using signals from electroencephalography (EEG) to identify a user's intentions and mental states. This can be used for human-machine interaction (HMI) to adapt software or control a device. Particularly passive BCIs are the most promising for the general population, as they can detect and interpret a user's mental state without requiring their attention. This can enable neuroadaptive technology (NAT), which allows a machine to learn over time how the user perceives and interprets the world. However, there are still obstacles to be overcome before BCI technology can be applied in real-world situations for NAT.
In this work I firstly address the issue of subject dependence in training data collection for classifier calibration, which can be time-consuming and impractical. I investigated the training of a subject-independent predictive model that is trained on a group of other users' data and applied to online-testing data of a new person. This was done in the context of training an automatic classifier for error detection and correction. Results showed that a classifier model can be trained without user-specific calibration and with high accuracy. The number of electrodes used in training the model was also reduced. Further it was validated that the trained classifier models were based on cortical sources and not other modalities.
In a second study I address the issue of task-dependence. To that end I tested the application of a potentially task-independent calibration paradigm for mental workload assessment in a new task. This new task was a speed reading context, where subjects read texts of varying difficulty and speed. The study found that the mental workload prediction model was accurate in classifying mental workload in different reading tasks, indicating that it can be used as a task-independent classifier for mental workload.
In a third study I examine if it is possible to measure neural correlates of human moral assessment using a passive BCI on a single-trial basis. A calibration paradigm was developed using pictures that were ranked as morally unacceptable and morally neutral. However, the results showed low classification accuracies and it was not possible to reliably distinguish between a user's subjective moral evaluations on a single-trial basis using current classification approaches.
The results presented in this thesis provide solutions towards real-world applicability of NAT enabled by passive BCIs, as examples of a subject-independent and a task-independent classifier are demonstrated and discussed. Further, approaches for increased versatility of passive BCI technology are presented, that could make passive BCIs more feasible for use in future real-world human-machine interaction settings.
Untersuchung und Optimierung robuster und hochlinearer rauscharmer Verstärker in GaN-Technologie
(2018)
Die nächste Generation von integrierten Sende- und Empfangsystemen erfordert sowohl robuste rauscharme Verstärker als auch Leistungsverstärker auf einem einzelnen Chip. Die GaN-HEMT-Technologie hat bisher gezeigt, dass sie durch ihre hohen Durchbruchspannungen, die hohe Elektronenbeweglichkeit und die niedrige Rauschzahl ein guter Kandidat für die Realisierung solcher Systeme ist.
Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit hochlinearen und robusten rauscharmen Verstärkern, welche in Sender-Empfänger-Systeme integriert werden können. Zuerst wird der GaN HEMT charakterisiert. Die Eigenschaften von Transistoren werden während des Burn-in Prozesses und gepulster Anregung mit hoher Überlast am Eingang analysiert. Damit werden die Grundlagen für das Verständnis des Verhaltens eines Verstärkers während und nach der Übersteuerung am Eingang gelegt.
Der Hauptteil dieser Arbeit zeigt die Entwicklung und die Charakterisierung von robusten rauscharmen Verstärkern. Darüber hinaus wird ein neues Konzept für die Steigerung der Robustheit entwickelt, gemessen und charakterisiert.
Das Konzept verwendet eine neuartige Zusammenschaltung zweier
Transistoren am Verstärkereingang, wodurch die Spannungsfestigkeit gegenüber hohen Leistungspegeln gesteigert wird. Damit konnten Höchstwerte von +44dBm mit CW-Anregung und +47dBm mit gepulster Anregung am Verstärkereingang ohne Beschädigung demonstriert werden.
The representation of Brazil in American mainstream cinema disseminates stereotypes that have their roots in narratives produced by European explorers during the colonial era. Films and other media from Brazil portray the country’s cultural and ethnic diversity more accurately, but due to media concentration and the global supremacy of the US-based film and television industry, only a few manage to reach international audiences and challenge widespread stereotypes. A critical examination of writings of Portuguese explorers produced in the centuries following the arrival of Pedro Álvares Cabral in Brazil provides the basis for the analysis of contemporary representations of Brazil in American cinema and reveals how early descriptions of Brazil have influenced these representations. In order to identify the main Brazilian stereotypes disseminated by feature films produced in the United States, a number of films released between 1984 and 2011 are analyzed. The results of the analysis allow for the identification of an ethnocentric regime of representation that is often employed by the world’s leading film and television industry to portray Otherness, reinforcing stereotypical ideas about racial difference and the culture and people of developing countries. The analysis is followed by a discussion of cultural imperialism, media concentration and its impact on cultural diversity and media pluralism. The investigation of the concentrated ownership of media, which raises concerns regarding cultural homogenization, the advancement of corporate interests over the public interest and loss of cultural diversity, indicates how media concentration contributes to the perpetuation of cultural, ethnic and national stereotypes that reinforce colonialist and reductionist ideas about developing countries. The results of the film analysis, combined with issues related to the increasing concentration of media ownership, confirm the proposition to revive the debate about a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO), which emerged within UNESCO in the 1970s as a reaction of Third World nations to colonialism and the economic and cultural influence of Western nations. Finally, it is argued that, despite the failure of NWICO in the past, the concept has not lost relevance and it would be reasonable to bring it back to the international agenda.
Primary and secondary data were collected during the period of January – May 2005 and questionnaires were issued between August – December 2004 to know the Status of Wildlife and its Utilisation in Faro and Benoué National Parks North Cameroon: Case study of the Derby Eland (Taurotragus derbianus gigas Gray, 1947) and the African Wild Dog (Lycaon pictus Temminck, 1840). The line transect method was used to assess wildlife population. Geographical Information System (GIS) maps of Faro and Benoué National Parks were drawn to show their distribution. Eleven different wildlife species were studied in Faro and Benoué National park. The density of Kobus kob in Faro was 0.39 animals/km² and 0.28 animals/km² in Benoué and that for Acelaphus buselaphus was 0.4 animals/km² in Benoué National park. The encounter rate was calculated for all other species and it was weak in Faro ranging from 0.009 – 0.01 while in Benoué it was higher ranging from 0.03 – 0.87. The highest encounter rate was from Benoué National Park for Loxodonta africanna. The total biomass for wildlife was 13,224.4 kg/km² with the higest percentage contribution of which 60.49% coming from Taurotragus derbianus gigas in Faro National Park.The total biomass in Benoué National Park was 37, 1839 kg/km² with the biomass for Taurotragus derbianus gigas as 20 kg/km² and percentage contribution of 9.68%. The higest percentage contribution to the total biomass in Benoué National Park was 85.52% coming from Loxodonta Africana. No observations or trace of the Lycaon pictus was seen in the two parks (Faro and Benoué) within the study period. Removal and replacement rates of Taurotragus derbianus gigas showed a polynomial shaped curve with periods of population increase and decrease with regards to yearly behaviour while the previewed Lycaon pictus for hunting showed a polynomial shaped curve while its actual removal dwindled on a straight line. Removal and replacement is not influenced by sport hunting activities alone but prey availability, absence and presence of predators, disease, car accidents and other human influences. However, the critical value for the exploitation (sport hunting) of wildlife over a period of 20 years in Faro and Benoué National Parks was necessary to be determined though it was a difficult attempt. Income generated from park activities had doubled from 42.8 million F CFA to 92.5 million F CFA in 2001. Categories of hunters coming to the parks for hunting activities were 90% non-residents, 6% residents and 4% nationals hunting by permit. The estimated annual revenue from wildlife was 91,185.00 Euros and 773,685.00 Euros in Faro and Benoué National Parks respectively. Taurotragus derbianus gigas had the highest value of 19,400 Euros in Faro National Park and 87,000 Euros in Benoué National Park. Both parks contribute 0.58% of the total revenue generated by wildlife in Faro and Benoué. There was a high level of awareness about conservation of the Taurotragus derbianus gigas and the Lycaon pictus. Also was a general willingness to pay for the conservation of resources though it was an issue of a social dilemma of choosing between self interest and collective gains. However, the population was willing to pay 500 F CFA to generate a conservation fund to sustain identified conservation projects. Assessing the management policy of the government, 40% of the population wish to be compensated for giving away their resource while 28% opt for exchange, 9% expropriation, 16% continuation and 1% had indicated no option (neutral).
Im Rahmen dieser Arbeit wurden die Zündungseigenschaften einer neuartigen Brennkammer untersucht, wobei auch das Magerverlöschverhalten mit in Betracht gezogen wurde. Die Untersuchungen der Zündbarkeit basieren auf den Ergebnissen numerischer Simulationen und anschließenden Auswertungen in einer Zündsubroutine. Die Ergebnisse der Strömungssimulationen sind mit PIV-Messungen experimentell validiert worden, wobei die simulierten Sprayformen durch die ermittelten Mie-Aufnahmen bestätigt wurden. Hochgeschwindigkeitskamera - Aufnahmen wurden zur Validierung der berechneten minimalen Zündenergien verwendet. Die vorgenommenen Korrelationen zwischen den kalkulierten Werten der minimalen Zündenergie sowie den gemessenen AFR-Zündungsdaten eröffnen einen Weg zur Bestimmung der zu erwartenden zündbaren Gemischkonzentrationen in realen Brennkammern aufgrund der simulierten minimalen Zündenergie. Im Rahmen der Arbeit wurde weiterhin eine Parametergewichtung durchgeführt, welche als Grundlage bei der Optimierung ähnlicher Brennkammern dienen kann.
Human influence on the biosphere has transformed natural land cover (LC) into modified LC. Shifting focus from individual species study to large-scale assessment is therefore needed to restore the damaged ecosystem. The hypotheses were: (a) the post-mining landscapes are getting more diverse over time (b) GIS, remote sensing and patch analyst can generate LC information and landscape characterization statistics for assessing habitat diversity and monitoring land cover change (LCC) in a disturbance-dominated area (c) relationship exist between habitat diversity and field based species richness/LCC and environmental conditions/LCC and biodiversity losses. The general aims of this research were (a) to assess the impact of disturbance on LCC and habitat diversity (b) to identify how accurately patterns of habitat diversity, complexity, fragmentation, primary production and LCC can be assessed or predicted with GIS and remotely sensed data. LC maps of 1988, 1991, 1995, 1998, 2000 and 2003 were produced from LANDSAT TM images of Schlabendorf Nord and Schlabendorf Süd. These images were used to survey the changing landscape. After classifying the images based on dominant land cover types, the area and perimeter of all patches were defined. Landscape characterization metrics were generated using patch analyst. LCC statistics were estimated for each LC map year. Change detection extension was used to identify changes among vegetation or land cover types into “negative change”, “no change” and “positive change”. DCA ordination technique (CANOCO) was used to study similarity among the distribution of land cover types. Other relevant analysis made include soil pH analysis and climate data evaluation. The outcome of the research shows that the process of LCC takes place at the interface between environmental and human systems. Land cover transformations in most cases in Schlabendorf were as a result of progressive and reversed plant succession. Overall changes in both landscapes showed increased area of pine afforestation, deciduous trees afforestation, lake and mixed grassland with trees. The LCC s were predominantly caused by harvesting of afforested pine, restoration related construction activities or other land cover management practices, reverse succession, low soil pH especially along the path of the mine strip, loss of soil fertility, human decisions and policies. There was increase in habitat richness, heterogeneity, fragmentation, and shape complexity due to decrease in habitat size, increased land use intensity etc. Lower habitat diversity in Schlabendorf Süd was due to the comparatively large landscape area, high patch number and higher habitat richness in most cases which confirms the claim that relationship between habitat diversity and habitat heterogeneity varies according to scale (Tews et al., 2004). Increase in biomass accumulation particularly in Schlabendorf Süd contributed to the exchanges for greenhouse gases between the forest cover, soil and the atmosphere, hence changing the climatic condition on terrestrial ecosystems, biodiversity and LCC. Unlike Schlabendorf Nord, Schlabendorf Süd still undergoes more active reclamation activities resulting in less similarity between the two post-mining landscapes over time. Within a given ecosystem, any change in habitat diversity can change the number of species in the resulting habitats types, in other words habitat diversity can be used to predict the species richness in a given ecosystem. The approach to this work provides a beneficial trade off between expensive ground vegetation or LCC survey and low-priced image processing analysis. It requires less manpower and less time but greatly reliable for assessing LCC, habitat diversity/richness and heterogeneity in large inaccessible areas such as dunes in post-mining landscape.
Wastewater treatment systems abound as a result of technological improvements in treatment processes. Therefore in the selection of a wastewater treatment system for a particular wastewater treatment situation there are many alternatives to choose from. Despite this development municipal wastewater treatment in communities in developing countries are not always sustainable due to the application of inappropriate treatment systems. The question is how can an appropriate treatment system be identified for a certain location? The answer to this question is of importance to developing countries where wastewater treatment is usually not sustainable.
In this study a framework for assessing wastewater treatment systems was developed. First, a comprehensive set of indicators representing parameters of treatment systems and properties of the study area that impacts on wastewater treatment were identified. Secondly, assessment of these indicators were carried out through expert and community survey to identify a final set of indicators whose composition consist of efficiency, reliability and simplicity of treatment systems and resource constraint, resource recovery and environmental concerns of the study area. Thirdly, four wastewater treatment systems, namely: Waste Stabilization Ponds, Trickling Filter, reed bed and free water surface Constructed Wetlands considered to be feasible for the study area were evaluated by the application of the identified indicators. Finally, a decision matrix produced was processed by multi-attribute decision making methods using two indicator weights to identify the most appropriate treatment system among the four alternatives.
Results of the study show that in a scenario where equal indicator weights are assumed, reed bed is identified as the most appropriate with stabilization ponds being ranked as the least appropriate. In a more practical scenario where the weights of the indicators are allocated to reflect conditions of the study area, free water surface is ranked as the most appropriate. This outcome is at variance with stabilization pond technologies currently installed at communities in the study area. The performance of constructed wetlands is at the midpoint as far as most of the high to medium weighted assessment indicators are concern. It therefore represents a compromising solution between waste stabilization pond and trickling filter. The study also shows a change in variants of constructed wetland with a change in indicator weights. An indication that the decision situation determines the appropriateness of a treatment system and not the treatment system itself.
The selection framework employed in this study can be said to be reliable and capable of identifying a treatment system that can be appropriate for a particular location. This is because the choice of a constructed wetland for the study area fits the definition of appropriate treatment system defined by the final indicators identified in this study.
The design of high Q oscillators, using Crystals at lower frequencies, (and dielectric resonators at much higher frequencies), has long been considered a black art. This may be due to the fact that a systematic approach with optimized design guideline for crystal oscillators could not be found after extensive literature search.
In this dissertation, after analyzing the first crystal oscillator by W.G. Cady (1921), other high performance crystal oscillators will be discussed, analyzed and calculated.
A single transistor crystal oscillator design as used by HP (Hewlett Packard) in one of their designs, the HP10811A is considered in this thesis for mathematical analysis and CAD (Computer aided Design) simulation. This was also measured on state-of-the-art signal source analyzer. After validation, this design is scaled to 100MHz, the frequency of interest for this dissertation.
Though most designers use a single transistor based oscillator circuit, it is not an optimized design because of limited control over key design parameters such as loop gain, dc current etc.
This dissertation is an attempt to overcome the limitation due to the single transistor circuit and to give a step by step procedure, explaining the significance of a two transistor design with thorough analysis and design simulation results. This two stage transistor circuit is also not yet a best solution in terms of phase noise performance and output power, and some add-on circuitry will be needed for an optimized performance.
An important contribution of this work is to show that since the voltage gain is the ratio of the collector resistor and the emitter resistor, the performance is practically independent of the VHF transistor and gives better control over various parameters of the oscillator, in order to optimize the design.
A grounded-base amplifier is then introduced and added for improving the isolation and the output power. Unlike most oscillators, that take the output from the collector, a novel concept introduced by Rohde [14], is incorporated here, where the crystal is used as a filter that is then connected to the grounded base amplifier, a technique which many companies have been using. This dissertation will show that this technique increases the output power without significantly affecting the phase noise. Such a validation is needed for better understanding and as per my knowledge, has not been done so far.
For the oscillator, the tuning diode sensitivity and flicker noise contribution are also taken into consideration, by calibrating the mathematics and its validation is shown.
Crystal resonators of the type AT and stress-compensated (SC) cut devices will be considered as they give the best performance. The one port Colpitts type oscillator is considered first and the two port two transistor design later. Both will need a post amplifier/buffer stage.
A complete step by step design procedure for an optimized 100MHz crystal oscillator is then presented.
For completeness, CAD Simulation and Experimental results are provided for 10 MHz, 128 MHz and 155 MHz VCO circuits.
This thesis addresses the electro-optical properties of silicon, containing dislocations. The interest in those properties is driven mainly by two practical reasons. One is the optical characterisation of multicrystalline silicon for solar cells, and the other is the design of light emitting diodes based on silicon by enhancement of silicon radiative properties via introduction of dislocations. The work demonstrates that dislocation specific radiation may provide a means for optical diagnostics of solar cell grade silicon. It provides insight into the mechanisms governing the dislocation recombination activity, their radiation, and how are they influenced by other defects present in silicon. We demonstrate that photoluminescence mapping is useful for monitoring the recombination activity in solar cell grade silicon and can be applied for identification of contaminants, based on their photoluminescence signatures. It is shown that the recombination at dislocations is strongly influenced by the presence of metals at the dislocation sites. The dislocation radiation activity correlates with their electrical activity. Thus, photoluminescence mapping at room temperature may provide a means for revealing and characterising of dislocation-rich regions in multicrystalline silicon. It is shown that the dislocation and band-to-band luminescence are essentially anti-correlated. The band-to-band intensity being related to the diffusion length of minority carriers can be used for measurements of diffusion length, as long as the surface recombination rate is controlled. Moreover, photoluminescence mapping can be used for the detection of optically active defects in solar grade materials. Thus, betaFeSi2 precipitates, with a luminescence at 0.8 eV, were detected within the grains of block cast materials. They exhibit a characteristic feature of quantum dots, namely blinking. The second aspect of the thesis concerns the topic of silicon based light emitters for on-chip optical interconnects. The goal is an enhancement of sub-band-gap or band-to-band radiation by controlled formation of dislocation-rich areas in microelectronics-grade silicon as well as understanding of the processes governing such enhancement. For light emitters based on band-to-band emission it is shown, that internal quantum efficiency of nearly 2 % can be achieved, but the emission is essentially generated in the bulk of the wafer. On the other hand, light emitters utilizing the emission from dislocation-rich areas of a well localized wafer depth were explored. Three different methods for reproducible formation of a dislocation-rich region beneath the wafer surface were investigated and evaluated in view of their room temperature sub-band-gap radiation: (1) silicon implantation and annealing, (2) epitaxially grown SiGe buffer, and (3) direct wafer bonding. The most promising dislocation-based emitter appears the utilization of a dislocation network produced by wafer bonding. It is shown, that monochromatic D1 radiation (wavelength 1.5 µm) can be generated in a well localised depth of the wafer. The radiation is not absorbed in silicon and such localized emitter can, potentially, be coupled with silicon waveguides and Ge-based detectors for optical interconnects.
Groundwater is an important resource in Sub-Saharan Africa to supply water for domestic, industrial, mining and irrigation for agricultural purposes. In Ghana, groundwater supply program is mostly pragmatic to give people drinking water, however to ensure sustainability a long term groundwater management system is essential. One such approach is the use source protection (well protection) with the declaration and installation of protection zones. To achieve the goal of this research three hypothetical questions were asked which relates to the Availability and Vulnerability of groundwater, and the use of an analytical model to estimate source protection zones (SPZ). The regions of Adansi, Lawra, Sunyani and Sekyere West were chosen as study areas to test the hypothesis of this research with detailed investigation concentrating on Adansi area. The overall aim from the study areas was to estimate SPZ for Granite, Phyllite, Schist, Sandstone and weathered materials and give recommendations as to which activity should be permitted or otherwise within each of these zones. The available groundwater for a particular well or location was determined based on its hydraulic conductivity and specific capacity of a well. Regionalization of the available groundwater was achieved by comparing the results of the hydraulic conductivity and specific capacity with the regional structural map. To determine the vulnerability of the available groundwater, the radius of influence (ROI) for the different boreholes was determined using Sichard and Dupuits formula whilst for Source protection zones, Darcy and the volumetric equation was used. Results of hydraulic conductivity estimated from pumping test data for the five major rock types showed a trimodal distribution (E-5, E-6 and E-7 m/s). There was a general trend of decreasing hydraulic conductivity to decreasing transmissivity. Results of plots of specific capacity verses hydraulic conductivity shows that only rock types with hydraulic conductivity greater than E-5 m/s yields sustainable groundwater supply. Three aquifer types were encountered in the study areas which were pore aquifers in shallow or alluvial, regolith and fracture aquifers in bedrocks. High hydraulic conductivity from the different rock types corresponds to higher ROI. The results of hydraulic conductivity, specific capacity, ROI and SPZ are used as input parameters for the estimation of the suitability of a groundwater source. A ranking matrix was developed for easy interpretation of hydrogeological data by combining the results of the input parameters into a single score. Results from the ranking matrix were used to determine specific regulations for the various aquifers in the study areas. Within the fractured crystalline rocks with k ≥E-5m/s siting of wells should target fracture zones whilst pumping during abstraction phase can exceed 15m3/s/m. The intermediate source protection zone should be at least 150m. Conclusions from the study could be applied in other areas of Ghana and be implemented during the initial development, abstraction and groundwater policy phases of other groundwater projects.
In 2012 a group of researchers proposed a basic research initiative to the German Research Foundation (DFG) as a special priority project (SPP) with the name: Wireless 100 Gbps and beyond. The main goal of this initiative was the investigation of architectures, technologies and methods to go well beyond the state of the art. The target of 100 Gbps was set far away from the (at that time) achievable 1 Gbps such that it was not possible to achieve promising results just by tuning some parameters. We wanted to find breakthrough solutions. When we started the work on the proposal we discussed the challenges to be addressed in order to advancing the wireless communication speed significantly. Having the fundamental Shannon boundary in mind we discussed how to achieve the 100 Gbps speed.
In bubbling fluidized beds, bubble characteristics such as size, shape and velocity have a vital influence on the hydrodynamics of the bed and hence on its performance as a chemical reactor and/or a heat exchange unit. In many industrial applications such as lignite dryer heat transfer tubes are usually inserted to enhance the rate of heat and mass transfer and chemical conversion. However, their presence strongly influences the bubbling behavior of the beds. Therefore, reliable design and scale-up of these systems come only after fundamental understanding of the bubbling behavior is achieved. Therefore, in this research work the influences of tube bank geometries and particle size on bubble characteristics were thoroughly investigated. In this research work, both numerical and experimental studies were employed. For the experimental measurements, a new nonintrusive digital image analysis technique was developed. The technique allowed for the simultaneous measurements of bed expansion and various bubble properties. An in-house software was developed to fully automate the image acquisition and data processing procedure. For the numerical studies, the Eulerian-Eulerian two-fluid model based on the kinetic theory of granular flow was used. Though, this CFD model has been considered as a fundamental tool for modeling gas-solid fluidized beds, its quantitative validation remains insufficient for a wide range of reactor geometries and operating conditions. Therefore, in this work validation of the model using experimental measurements of bed expansion and bubble properties obtained from a pseudo-two-dimensional fluidized bed was performed. The influence of two-dimensional simulations and different modeling parameters such as the friction packing limit, drag model and solid-wall boundary conditions were investigated. The two-fluid model generally showed reasonable agreement with the experimental measurements of pressure drop, bed expansion and bubble properties in bubbling regime. However, as the gas superficial velocity is increased and the bed moved towards slugging and turbulent regimes a big deviation arose and the two-fluid model failed to predict reasonably the fluidized bed hydrodynamics for the freely bubbling bed. The mean bubble properties predicted by two-dimensional simulations were in reasonable agreement with experiments at lower superficial velocities. They deviated at higher bed height and this was more pronounced at higher gas superficial velocities. The results from three-dimensional simulations were in better agreement with the experimental measurements; however, the computational effort need was very high making them impractical for parametric studies and sensitivity analyses. It was also showed that the choice of friction packing limits, drag laws and specularity coefficients have little influence on the bubble properties. For a bubbling bed, both experimental measurements and numerical simulations showed that inserting horizontal tube banks had either no or marginal influence on the static bed pressure drop and bed expansion. On the other hand, bubble hydrodynamics were strongly influenced and controlled by the geometry of the immersed tubes. In freely bubbling fluidized beds bubble size as well as rise velocity increased with bed height and superficial velocity. In beds with immersed tubes, such general trends were completely disturbed. Tubes appeared to restrict rapidly growing bubbles. As a result the mean bubble diameter and rise velocity were lower in the vicinity of the tube banks than in the freely bubbling bed. Results from different particle sizes showed that in a freely bubbling bed increasing the mean particle size increased the bubble diameter and rise velocity as well as bed expansion. In fluidized beds with dense horizontal tubes on the other hand, the mean bubble properties were almost independent of the particle sizes.
As the issue of pollutant emissions from aviation propulsion escalates, research into alternative powertrains is gaining momentum. Two promising technologies are the Hybrid Electric Propulsion System (HEPS) and Pressure Gain Combustion (PGC). HEPS is expected to reduce pollutant emissions by decreasing fuel consumption, whereas PGC uses detonation in the combustor to increase the thermal efficiency of engines by elevating the total pressure during combustion. This study extensively explores the integration of these two emerging technologies, thoroughly assessing the advantages that arise from their combination. First, the renowned turboprop engine PW127 is benchmarked and modeled using Gasturb software. The model is integrated into Simulink using the T-MATS tool, with HEPS and pressure gain components added to analyze the thermodynamics of various configurations under different pressure gain values and HEPS parameters. The analysis, conducted up to the cruise phase of the baseline aircraft, reveals that applying pressure gain combustion through Rotating Detonation Combustion (RDC) results in a more significant increase in efficiency and decrease in fuel consumption compared to HEPS with conventional gas turbines. However, HEPS helps maintain a more uniform combustor inlet condition and reduces the Turbine Inlet Temperature (TIT) at the takeoff phase, where the highest TIT otherwise occurs. The results suggest that integrating HEPS with PGC can be beneficial in maintaining optimal combustor conditions and mitigating turbine efficiency degradation.
Recycling and material recovery are gaining more grounds in applicability as viable options to sustainable solid waste management especially in Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM) schemes. In this dissertation a critical analyzes is made of the MSWM problem in Cameroon and an assessment of the role Small- and Medium-Size Enterprises have been playing in the area of recycling and material recovery. The main research methods applied in this research include: fieldwork, administration of questionnaires, interview and literature review. Using two case study localities (Limbe and Buea municipalities), the various practices in MSWM are elaborated, the constraints and challenges faced by management discussed and proposals for either expanding/upgrading existing schemes to be more sustainable as well as strategies to initiate new systems presented. Innovations within collection systems such as the introduction of household bins and specialized collection of specific waste could be quite beneficial to existing schemes. Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) which constitute one of the fastest growing waste streams presents greater management challenges. Two case study localities (Buea and Kumba) are used to analyze the problem of WEEE in Cameroon. An overview of the handling of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (EEE) at end-of-life (EoL) in Cameroon is made with special focus on households and repair units. At household level, WEEE is disposed of alongside other waste arisings in the available disposal facilities for given household. Repair units represent a very vital connection between dysfunctional EEE and EoL forms as all users of EEE tend to bring these devices to these units for repairs. An inventory of the various EEE at repair units for these two localities shows that above 40% percent of such equipments are totally out of use. In Kumba, Classes 1 and 4 EEE (according to EU WEEE directive classification) dominate while class 3 is almost absent. In Buea, Class 3 and 4 are dominant. These results show that socio-cultural, economic and even climatic factors influence the choice of EEE that people in this area acquire. The intense level of repair activities and recovery of useful parts by repair units show that there exist adaptable options to handle WEEE in especially economically and environmentally beneficial ways. The recycling of aluminum for production of household utensils represents a very basic and adaptive industrial set-up, which can easily be operated and run at very cheap cost and with a little manpower. While this venture seems apparently successful in economic terms as an option to poverty alleviation through income generation, it is plagued by some problems which, if given due consideration will render it a prospective option for poverty alleviation (through small enterprise business development) and environmental sustainability (as an option to sustainable MSWM). In this dissertation, a model is thus presented, which can be utilized by stakeholders to improve on the sector. An assessment of efforts and constraints to implementing comprehensive recycling and recovery schemes in Cameroon was also carried out. Results show that there are existing practices on which comprehensive recycling and recovery can be built upon that would be beneficial to both councils and engaged schemes – mostly SMEs and NGOs. The challenges faced and likely to be faced and the way forward to implementing any broad scale recovery and recycling are presented. If municipal councils choose to operate existing MSWM schemes without significant changes, then collective collaboration will be highly required. Such collaboration will present benefits to both waste collection and disposal. On the other hand, if they wish to expand schemes or create new schemes, adaptive innovation would be highly recommended. Such adaptive innovation would have to incorporate local practices and approaches of MSWM as well as socio-economic considerations so as to ensure new or expanded schemes survive within local socio-economic context. A greater challenge in enhancing recycling and material recovery in particular and MSWM in general, in Cameroon is on the role the government takes on designing appropriate policies and legislative frameworks to cover such activities in economically and ecological beneficial ways. In the absence of these, SMEs, councils and NGOs (working in partnership with other specialized groups) concerned with activities related to recycling and material recovery may be left with the option of regulating activities within their sectors as such activities stand to alleviate poverty and also present ecological benefits.
Over the last twenty years, Petri nets have been increasingly adopted for modelling and simulating biological systems, as they offer an intuitive and graphical approach for this purpose. Their usability convenience comes from the fact that they offer many types of elements to describe systems in a qualitative and quantitative way. Coloured Petri nets are particularly useful to model systems with repeated components in a compact fashion. Our tool Snoopy for modelling and simulating Petri nets is one of the most well-known tools supporting a family of related Petri net classes comprising stochastic, continuous and hybrid Petri nets, and covering uncoloured and coloured Petri nets alike. However, kinetic information of a biological system, i.e. kinetic parameters may be uncertain, due to many reasons, e.g. environmental factors. Besides, coloured Petri nets as they were previously supported in Snoopy suffered from some inconsistencies. Due to these inconsistencies, exploring the model behaviour using different sizes (scaleability) was not feasible. Both challenges call for a new and more powerful approach integrating the modelling of uncertainties together with modelling features supporting repeated structures in a compact and scalable way.
This thesis comprises two major contributions: Firstly, we introduce the definition and present the simulation algorithm for both uncoloured and coloured fuzzy Petri nets, by extending the existing quantitative uncoloured and coloured Petri nets in Snoopy. This includes discretising the uncertain kinetic parameters to crisp values by using sampling strategies. Secondly, we harmonise coloured Petri nets in Snoopy with their uncoloured counterparts and we extend the Snoopy’s coloured Petri nets by all the features, which are supported by the coloured abstract net description language - an exchange format of coloured Petri nets in our PetriNuts tool family.
By performing fuzzy simulation, one can obtain two kinds of output: fuzzy bands of each output variable and their corresponding timed-membership functions. Each fuzzy band describes the uncertainties associated with the input, whereas membership functions give more accurate information about the associated uncertainties. The most important features that we obtain by harmonising coloured Petri nets are to develop scaleable models, by defining scaling factors as constants and unifying the usage of coloured Petri nets with the other tools in our PetriNuts tool family.
We deal with a very complex and hard scheduling problem. Several types of products are processed by a heterogeneous resource set, where resources have different operating capabilities and setup times are considered. The processing of the products follows different workflows, allowing also assembly lines. The goal is to process all products in minimum time, i.e., the makespan is to be minimized. Because of the complexity of the problem an exact solver would require too much running time. We propose a compound method where a heuristic is combined with an exact solver. Our proposed heuristic is composed of several phases applying different smart strategies. In order to reduce the computational complexity of the exact approach, we exploit the makespan determined by the heuristic as an upper bound for the time horizon, which has a direct in uence on the instance size used in the exact approach. We demonstrate the efficiency of our combined method on multiple problem classes. With the help of the heuristic the exact solver is able to obtain an optimal solution in a much shorter amount of time.
In dieser Arbeit wird ein neues Konzept für den Entwurf fehlertoleranter digitaler Schaltungen vorgestellt. Die als spezifische Fehlertoleranz bezeichnete Entwurfsmethode erweitert den Stand der Technik um die Möglichkeit, Fehlertoleranz gezielt für gewünschte Ein- und Ausgabezuweisungen einer Schaltung bereitzustellen. Die generell sehr aufwändigen Maßnahmen zur Realisierung von Fehlertoleranz lassen sich so an die tatsächlich vorhandenen Zuverlässigkeitsanforderungen einer gegebenen Anwendung anpassen, was im Vergleich zu herkömmlichen Verfahren zu erheblichen Kosteneinsparungen im Hinblick auf Hardware und Stromverbrauch führt. Die Eingaben einer Schaltung werden dazu mit ihren zugehörigen Ausgaben in kritische und unkritische Signale unterteilt. Für kritische Signale wird das gleiche Maß an Fehlertoleranz bereitgestellt, wie es auch durch das Verfahren der dreifach modularen Redundanz garantiert wird. Unkritische Signale werden nicht fehlertolerant ausgelegt, da das für solche Signale nicht gefordert werden muss. Im Bezug auf kombinatorische Schaltungen wird dieses Grundprinzip auf eine beliebig wählbare Teilmenge aller möglichen Eingaben mit ihren zugehörigen Ausgaben angewendet. Die nicht zu schützenden, unkritischen Signale werden zu Optimierungszwecken genutzt. Genau diese Freiheit im Entwurfsprozess ermöglicht beim Entwurf fehlertoleranter Schaltungen signifikante Kosteneinsparungen, die bislang durch andere Verfahren nicht berücksichtigt wurden. Bei sequentiellen Schaltungen wird das Konzept auf Eingabefolgen und ihre entsprechend zugehörigen Ausgabefolgen abgebildet. Ab einem bestimmten Zustand werden in Schaltungen, die nach diesem Prinzip entworfen wurden, alle als kritisch eingestuften Eingabefolgen fehlertolerant verarbeitet, woraufhin die sequentielle Schaltung entsprechend fehlertolerante Ausgabefolgen liefert. Die Länge der kritischen Eingabefolgen und die Anzahl der Zustände, von denen aus eine fehlertolerante Verarbeitung der Eingaben gefordert wird, ist beliebig wählbar. Neben der Beschreibung des Grundkonzeptes der spezifischen Fehlertoleranz für kombinatorische und sequentielle Schaltungen beinhaltet die Arbeit Erweiterungen, mit denen sich die durch das Verfahren bereitgestellte Fehlertoleranz erhöhen lässt. Es wird zudem erläutert, wie die spezifische Fehlertoleranz ohne besonderen Aufwand mit Hilfe gängiger Werkzeuge im Schaltungsentwurf umgesetzt werden kann. Vom Entwerfer werden dazu keine speziellen Kenntnisse über das eigentliche Verfahren vorausgesetzt. Anhand experimenteller Ergebnisse wird auch gezeigt, welche Einsparungen sich durch die spezifische Fehlertoleranz im Vergleich zu herkömmlichen Verfahren aus diesem Bereich ergeben. Dazu wurden verschiedene Benchmark-Schaltungen mit der spezifischen Fehlertoleranz implementiert und ihre Gesamtflächen den Flächen entsprechender Schaltungen, die nach dem Prinzip der dreifach modularen Redundanz entworfen wurden, gegenübergestellt.