Fakultät Kommunikation und Umwelt
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Purpose: The present study aims to investigate the acute effects of mental practice on novices’ basketball free throw performance and their motor self-efficacy. Moreover, it is examined whether internal visual imagery combined with kinesthetic elements enhances performance more than external visual imagery.
Methods: In order to test the research questions, a sample of 61 participants who are currently not participating in any type of basketball program were assigned to one of the following three conditions with the help of the matched sample method: The internal visual imagery group with kinesthetic elements, the external visual imagery group, and the control group. The experimental interventions with a duration of 15 minutes (mental imagery internal or external or mathematic exercises) followed by physical practice were repeated three times in a row. Consequently, the basketball free throw enhancement was measured via the shot accuracy. The results were compared by using an ANOVA with repeated measurements. Changes in the participants’ motor self-efficacy were assessed via a pre- and a post-test of the MOSI (Wilhelm and Büsch, 2006).
Results: Results showed no significant differences between the groups, neither in the performance increase nor in the self-efficacy.
Conclusion: The current study can serve as a reference point to avoid overestimating the effectiveness of mental practice. Findings are discussed in terms of possible explanations and hints for future research are given.
The urgent need for plasma and its components is increasing rapidly all over the world. This is due to demographic changes, which bring about an imbalance between eligible donors and possible future recipients. Hence, these changes pose a great challenge in meeting the demand for plasma and plasma-derived products in the future. As plasma cannot be synthesized, recipients depend on voluntary plasma donors. In order to ensure a sufficient supply of plasma considering the ongoing process of aging population, it is crucial to understand why people engage in donation behavior and which factors influence their decision to maintain the donor career.
The current study investigates the determinants of plasma donation intention using an extended version of the theory of planned behavior. As the study is conducted in cooperation with Octapharma Plasma GmbH, a subsidiary of one of the largest worldwide operating providers for plasma preparations, the analysis is based on the company’s donors only. By using an online questionnaire, data of N = 1153 plasma donors is surveyed in order to examine the hypotheses. Multiple hierarchical regressions reveal significant predictors for plasma donation intention for all donors combined and also for both first-time and repeat plasma donors. Across all donor stages, self-efficacy turns out to be the predominant predictor for future donation intention. Moreover, the satisfaction with the last donation influences all groups of plasma donors in their decision of career maintenance. Therefore, organizations should pay attention to these components, developing strategies to enhance both donors’ self-efficacy and donation satisfaction.
The development of technologies that created FinTechs have brought new possibilities for customers into life that provide a quick and convenient handling of operations by covering various segments of the financial industry. However, the innovations also implicate drawbacks: Traditional banks may be threatened due to a loss of customers. This thesis evaluates to which extent this case can be measured by executing quantitative research methods as well as qualitative research methods for the purpose of gaining information from a bank’s perspective as well as opinions from customers. The result of this empirical study is that there is a certain correlation between the development of FinTechs and a threat caused by FinTechs although the latter is rather weak. Furthermore, this thesis indicates the knowledge of customers regarding FinTechs and their willingness to face said innovations.
The thesis contributes to the research field of change management by conducting empirical research and by analyzing how the changes in the financial service sector can be managed regarding the example of Bank X. Following questions are researched: Why is there a demand for change in the financial service sector and how can financial service providers shape the future and cope with changes? According to the methodological approach the thesis firstly draws on a literature review in order to evaluate the demand for change management. Then the thesis, in the empirical part, applies the method LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® with regard to the case of Bank X for deriving possible ideas how a financial service provider can cope with change. In the findings five categories are outlined, which can be seen as fields of actions, describing how financial service providers can cope with change.
The German logistics company Schenker AG categorizes its customers into so-called vertical markets. For instance; category “Automotive” is assigned to car manufacturer BMW AG. The classification allows the company to evaluate its revenue and profits on different customer segments which, in turn, has an impact on Schenker’s strategic planning.
Until now the assignment is carried out manually which means that someone from sales department should perform some research on a customer’s public profile whenever a new customer is registered in the database. With the rapid growth of global trade in recent years and Schenker’s expansion to the Asian market with thousands of new customers the manual approach is no longer sustainable in a global market.
This thesis provides an alternative solution based on scraping customer data available in the web and classification of the extracted content. We deal with three significant difficulties: find web data related to a given customer name (we do have a company name but no homepage URL in Schenker database), extract a predictive portion of the data without introducing too much noise and, finally, set up a classification algorithm. Most importantly, the whole process needs to be implemented automatically.
For the classification task, we have identified two tree-based classification algorithms random forest and extreme gradient boosting (xgboost). Random forest performs better by using package ranger with an overall 52% accuracy and 87.8% multiclass area under the curve. On the other hand, xgboost takes less time to compute, but the accuracy is poor as compared to random forest.
As the fuel demands are increasing and oil reserves are depleting, the need for alternative fuels is becoming increasingly necessary. Fast pyrolysis has received considerable attention in the conversion of biomass into bio-oils which can be used for transportation fuel production. However, bio-oil produced from conventional fast pyrolysis has poor quality mainly due to its high amount of oxygenated compounds and requires upgrading before it can be used as transportation fuel. Catalytic upgrading is a prospective process in which oxygen can be removed from the bio-oil using a catalyst, which was studied in this paper. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the catalytic effects of six applied catalysts on the quality of the bio-oil derived from wheat/barley straw biomass. Fast pyrolysis of the biomass feedstock was performed in an ablative reactor at 550 ℃, and the pyrolysis vapors were led through a catalytic layer (at 400 ℃) in a second reactor for upgrading. Different properties were analyzed for evaluating the quality of the upgraded bio-oils, including water content (for calculating organic content), total acid number (TAN), higher heating value (HHV), elemental composition, and chemical composition.
It was found that all catalysts, especially activated carbons (SC40 and SC44), reduced the tarry phase yield with increasing aqueous yield, resulting in the upgraded bio-oils with lower carbon and higher oxygen contents due to their catalytic activities. Moreover, the use of catalysts significantly reduced the sulfur content,making the final bio-oils more attractive due to the environmental concerns. SC40 was the best catalyst in increasing phenols yield and decreasing acids and ketones yields. The zeolite catalysts showed good selectivity to phenols production; the increasing load of nickel ions (Ni) on HZSM-5 slightly enhanced the formation of phenols and eliminated the formation of acids and ketones compared to unmodified HZSM-5. The upgraded bio-oil is still not qualified to be used as transportation fuels. However, it can be used as feedstock for producing specific chemicals in the modern refineries.
In the current era of globalization and internationalization, markets spread across borders and companies need to line up internationally. The question is how to manage the employees in this global context. This study looks at the use of international assignments as a solution of transferring employees internationally. Especially, this paper focuses on the reintegration of internally assigned employees. Corresponding to the literature, the reintegration proves to be the most difficult stage in an international assignment, as most companies still underestimate the impact and do not invest sufficient in this phase. Therefore, the thesis aims to identify how the reintegration is handled in organizations and which aspects can be considered as critical in this process. Consequently, on the basis of analysis, the author comes up with improvement options. In order, to receive detailed insights in the experiences and opinions of dispatched employees and human resource managers of multinational companies, the author used a qualitative research method (expert interviews). Results show that there is not a great need for cultural reintegration measures, as expatriates assume coming home to be easy and human resource managers do not see the willingness and demand for such arrangements. Anyhow, interviewees described problems in the new work environment and mentioned the request for some enhancements. Therefore, this thesis discusses improvement options for the re-entry, including a reintegration plan set in agreement with the employee and the company before the assignment.
While the regulation of non-standardized, voluntarily disclosed earnings figures – so- called Alternative Performance Measures (APMs) – has been part of the standard setting for over a decade now in the USA, the first extensive legally binding regulations for the EU and Germany have been coming into action in 2016 with the ESMA Guidelines on Alternative Performance Measures. In order to evaluate the impact of the guidelines on the APM reporting behavior of German large stock-listed companies, the annual reports of an adjusted sample of DAX30 and MDAX corporations are examined for the financial years 2014, 2015, and 2016. The empirical results show a slight decrease in the dissemination of APMs when comparing the results for 2015 and 2016. Moreover, the portion of companies reconciling the adjustments made in the calculation of APMs has increased significantly in the post-ESMA Guidelines period while the number of annual reports without any reconciliation has declined simultaneously. Furthermore, the results indicate a significant decrease in the amount of adjustments between normal and modified earnings figures that are published by the same company when comparing the periods prior and subsequent to the issuance of the ESMA Guidelines. A comparison to the developments in the USA following Regulation G shows a much smaller impact of the ESMA Guidelines on the countries’ companies. Nonetheless, this may be due to the differences in structure and competencies between the securities authorities in the US and the EU. However, it can be concluded that by reversing the trend of an increasing use of APMs, the ESMA has achieved some of its goals.
The European Commission has identified water reuse "as a possible other way of mitigating the impacts of severe drought" (European Union: European Commission, 2007) and is thus stepping up efforts to encourage water reuse in the Union (European Union: European Commission, 2012a). In order to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks associated with this practise, and ensure compliance with the laws, the clear identification and sound knowledge of existing or developing limit values of water quality is of crucial importance, when planning and creating water reuse schemes.
In this study, the water quality requirements in terms of limit values of treated waste water for agricultural irrigation set in the legislation of different countries and regions (i.e. European Union, Germany, North Rhine-Westphalia, Italy and Spain) were investigated. In the eventuality of a regulatory gap, the requirements set in other pieces of legislation regulating the quality of water for agricultural irrigation or other uses were provided. The purpose of this work is to support the decision making of a subject planning to reuse water for agricultural irrigation, but is not aware of the legal framework regulating this activity.