@misc{OPUS4-1964, title = {Universit{\"a}tsbibliothek Passau: Jahresbericht 2024}, address = {Passau}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-19641}, pages = {35 Seiten}, year = {2025}, abstract = {Jahresbericht der Universit{\"a}tsbibliothek Passau f{\"u}r das Jahr 2024.}, language = {de} } @misc{OPUS4-1508, title = {Universit{\"a}tsbibliothek Passau: Jahresbericht 2023}, address = {Passau}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-15083}, pages = {31 Seiten}, year = {2024}, abstract = {Jahresbericht der Universit{\"a}tsbibliothek Passau f{\"u}r das Jahr 2023.}, language = {de} } @incollection{UngruheAgergaard2020, author = {Ungruhe, Christian and Agergaard, Sine}, title = {Postcareer precarity : occupational challenges among former West African footballers in Northern Europe}, series = {Sports in Africa : past and present (Ohio University Press Open Access Books. 42; https://ohioopen.library.ohio.edu/oupress/42/)}, booktitle = {Sports in Africa : past and present (Ohio University Press Open Access Books. 42; https://ohioopen.library.ohio.edu/oupress/42/)}, publisher = {Ohio University Press}, address = {Athens}, isbn = {978-0-8214-4696-6}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-14897}, publisher = {Universit{\"a}t Passau}, pages = {190 -- 203}, year = {2020}, abstract = {When Beno{\^i}t Assou-Ekotto's former coach Harry Redknapp announced that the Cameroonian international had decided to end his professional football career and become an adult movie actor, the story generated astonishment and amusement in social media networks and received widespread attention from the mass media. Although the French-born footballer denied the story's validity shortly afterward, claiming Redknapp was joking, it entertained football fans and the wider public during the spring of 2017. However, while this was one of the very few occasions on which an African footballer's postcareer trajectory was a matter of public debate, it also revealed that former African professional footballers' whereabouts, occupations, and living conditions are widely unknown and remain an underresearched topic.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Hagen2025, author = {Hagen, Pamina}, title = {The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games as a City and Nation Branding Tool: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Image of International Opinion Leaders}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-19052}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Passau}, pages = {339 Seiten}, year = {2025}, abstract = {This dissertation examines the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games as a tool of city and nation branding, analyzing their role within China's broader soft power strategy and their impact on international perceptions of Beijing and China. Drawing from urban geography, political geography, international relations, and marketing theory, the study explores how mega-events contribute to the construction of national identity and global image. Using a mixed-methods approach, the research combines qualitative interviews with 16 international diplomats in Beijing and an online survey of 40 foreign journalists who lived and worked in China during the Olympiad. The analysis focuses on two dimensions of image: the city of Beijing and the nation of China. The findings indicate that the 2008 Summer Olympic Games did not fundamentally alter China's international image. While the event successfully projected an image of modernization, efficiency, and confidence, pre-existing concerns about political control and human rights persisted. For Beijing, the Olympics enhanced its visibility as a global city but also highlighted tensions between its traditional identity and its modern aspirations. The media's framing played a decisive role in shaping these perceptions. Overall, the study concludes that the Beijing Olympics functioned as a significant yet limited instrument of soft power. They reinforced China's global presence and urban development goals but fell short of transforming its international reputation. The research contributes to understanding how mega-events operate as strategic tools of geopolitical communication and branding in the context of globalization.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Danner2025, author = {Danner, Julian}, title = {SAT Solving Using XOR-OR-AND Normal Forms and Cryptographic Fault Attacks}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-19171}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Passau}, pages = {vi, 237 Seiten}, year = {2025}, abstract = {The Boolean satisfiability problem (SAT) lies at the core of computational logic and has found many applications in verification, cryptography, and artificial intelligence. While conflict-driven SAT solvers (CDCL) excel on large industrial instances, they struggle with XOR-rich instances arising frequently in cryptanalysis, due to the inefficiency of CNF encodings of linear constraints. Conversely, algebraic approaches can work with linear XOR constraints naturally but fail to scale to relevant sizes. Bridging these complementary paradigms with a focus on cryptographic problems is at the heart of this thesis. On one hand, this dissertation advances SAT solving by introducing the XOR-OR-AND normal form (XNF) as a generalization of the conjunctive normal form (CNF), where literals are replaced by XOR chains of literals. This allows for a native representation of XOR constraints. We generalize the CDCL architecture to the richer language of XNFs. The underlying reasoning based on the proof system SRES which is shown to be exponentially stronger than classical resolution. An implementation demonstrates competitive performance and often surpasses state-of-the-art algebraic and logic solvers on random and cryptographic benchmarks. Furthermore, we prove that every XNF formula can be converted in polynomial time to a formula in 2-XNF, enabling a graph-based approach similar to 2-SAT. Building on this, we propose advanced in- and pre-processing techniques, and construct a simple DPLL-based solving framework. Our implementation, 2-Xornado, outperforms modern algebraic and logic solving approaches on many random and some structured cryptographic problems. On the other hand, we apply combined algebraic and logical techniques to cryptanalysis of stream ciphers. We introduce a formal guess-and-determine (GD) framework using a logical abstraction of the information flow in the internal state. From an algebraic point of view, we can then find optimal GD attacks utilizing a Gr{\"o}bner basis. As a case study, we apply this method to aid in the construction of novel fault attacks on the ciphers KCipher-2 and Enocoro-128v2. Using ad hoc methods combining algebraic and logical approaches, we show that both ciphers are vulnerable to active side-channel attacks under rather weak fault models.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Kling2025, author = {Kling, Julia}, title = {Social Networking Sites as Intermediaries of Authoritarian State Propaganda: How Facebook and VK Disseminated Predominantly Kremlin-Friendly Political Content Before and During Russia's Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-19601}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Passau}, pages = {48 Seiten, 160 verschieden gez{\"a}hlte Seiten}, year = {2025}, abstract = {Previous research on Russia's use of social networking sites to influence foreign audiences has primarily focused on US-based platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, the activities of Russia's "troll farms", as well as Russia's foreign broadcasters, RT and Sputnik, and their audiences. By contrast, little research has examined the global reach of Russia's state-aligned domestic news content, specifically on US- and Russia-based social networking sites that significantly differ in the level of the Kremlin's control over information flows, and how the activities of novel Russian disinformation production organizations support this reach. In my dissertation, I addressed these gaps in the extant research literature in the fields of political communication, social media, and Russia studies in four distinct research papers focusing on the reach of and engagement with Russian-speaking political content, including Russia's domestic news content, and the activities of ANO Dialog, Russia's novel disinformation production organization with close links to the Russian government, on US-based Facebook and Russia-based VK. To do so, I used innovative qualitative, quantitative, and computational research methods to create knowledge on Russia's informational influence on the two platforms before and after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The findings highlight that, despite differing levels of Kremlin control, both of the social networking sites studied functioned as conduits for the dissemination of Russian-speaking, predominantly Kremlin-friendly political content, including state-aligned domestic news. This content reached audiences both within Russia and abroad in the lead-up to and during the full-scale war in Ukraine. While VK primarily served Russia's users, Facebook disseminated Russia's state-aligned news mostly to audiences outside Russia, particularly in former Soviet countries, in the lead-up to the invasion. During the war, Facebook continued to host critical perspectives on Russia's war crimes, in contrast to VK, where such content was blocked. However, Facebook was banned in Russia in March 2022, limiting domestic access to dissenting views. With the war ongoing as of May 2025 and organizations such as ANO Dialog intensifying their efforts to influence both domestic and foreign audiences on platforms such as VK and Facebook, it is likely that Russia will further strengthen its information control.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Prummer2025, author = {Prummer, Michael}, title = {Asset Tokenization and Authentication in the Industrial Metaverse}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-19566}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Passau}, pages = {xviii, 196 Seiten}, year = {2025}, abstract = {The Industrial Revolution is a crucial development step in human history that started three centuries ago and is still ongoing. It continually influences and shapes the globalized world. Today, industries account for 20\% of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide and require more than a third of global energy consumption. Current problems, such as climate change, increasing waste, and pollution, require simultaneous optimization across all industrial domains, infrastructure, and systems as they depend on each other. The global industry faces the immense challenges of providing for a surging world population expected to peak in the mid-2080s with 10.4 billion people, as reported by the United Nations. Hence, industries are expected to become less resource-intensive, sustainable, and more resilient to disrupted supply chains while producing for a growing population for the next decades. The Fourth Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0 (I4.0), started around 2010 and is still an ongoing transformation of industrial processes towards digitalization, creating smart factories referring to the digital data integration of the entire manufacturing cycle. I4.0 is incredibly information-intensive and requires immense data to simulate and predict essential operations based on a digital shadow of the factory, a so-called digital twin. The Metaverse is considered a digitalization megatrend merging digital and physical worlds, creating immersive experiences and new opportunities for interaction and innovation across various sectors and industries. The vision of the Metaverse promotes interconnected and interoperable real-time 3D virtual worlds that can be frictionlessly traversed while sustaining ownership of one's assets under a self-sovereign identity in a decentralized environment without platform lock-ins to a specific ecosystem. Therefore, the Metaverse creates an immersive parallel reality with collective virtually shared spaces for entertainment, social interactions, education, and a new working environment. The Industrial Metaverse synthesizes Metaverse concepts with current industrial automation, such as I4.0, to deepen the digital-physical convergence by interconnecting internal and external systems to enable decision-making and predictions based on significantly broader knowledge. An Industrial Metaverse factory is entirely mirrored to integrate digital twins of all types of equipment, assets, and other entities that can communicate vertically and horizontally, as well as the knowledge about relevant external systems and industrial core sectors. Through the comprehensive data integration of the Industrial Metaverse, AI-driven applications can predict future events, reducing system and hardware failures. Furthermore, the interconnected virtual environments create a meta-ecosystem for global collaboration, providing spaces for solving complex problems such as engineering and product design tasks, simulation of product twins, and reduced development time and costs. The connected industrial ecosystems create a token-based digital economy for exchanging data, assets, and services cross-metaverse connecting isolated data silos. Sharing digital twin resources and services with other systems enables new innovative applications and growing ecosystems. The theoretical part of this thesis defines the essential characteristics and key technologies of the Industrial Metaverse to derive a reference architecture for a decentralized system of systems, outlining the fundamental Industrial Metaverse building blocks. Interoperable data exchange, access management, and system communication are critical challenges. Especially interoperability of assets such as 3D files that come in different formats and identities must be ensured to move between virtual environments. The unique fusion of technologies leverages interconnected digital twins in the context of immersion, interaction, and collaboration for secure, autonomous-governed, decentralized industrial applications. Hence, the Industrial Metaverse requires the possibility of exchanging assets, products, and services across all systems in a secure manner. Distributed ledger technology enables tamper-proof transactions of assets and value in a decentralized token economy. Therefore, we investigate the feasibility of current tokenization methods for industrial assets, in particular, Printed Circuit Board (PCB) designs and 3D models. We contribute methods to create unique fingerprints of PCB designs to enable their exchange in the token economy. We investigate how to bind files in different formats and quality representations to the same token. A robust multi-file binding based on the copper layers of a PCB design was achieved by calculating an adaptive perceptual hash of all files. The adaptive perceptual hash was evaluated against numerous tamperings of the routing layout of a PCB, showing decent resistance to layout changes. The resulting adaptive perceptual hash can be used as an additional identification attribute in a tokenized asset. Furthermore, assets must be authenticatable and verifiable by marketplaces, manufacturers, and other participants to create trust in a decentralized environment. While assets can be tampered with to manipulate, for example, cryptographic hashes that link the file to the token, perceptual hashes can compute a perceived or functional similarity of two objects instead of the plain file integrity. Without the possibility of verifying and protecting intellectual property, mass adoption of the Metaverse and Industrial Metaverse is unlikely. Therefore, we contribute to detecting tampering attacks on 3D models by introducing a 3D perceptual hash that is robust to a set of mesh manipulations, enabling the trusted exchange and authentication of 3D data in the Metaverse.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Ellinger2025, author = {Ellinger, Simon}, title = {On optimal error rates for strong approximation of stochastic differential equations with irregular drift coefficients}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-19634}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Passau}, pages = {179 Seiten in verschiedenen Seitenz{\"a}hlungen}, year = {2025}, abstract = {In this dissertation we study strong approximation of stochastic differential equations (SDEs) with irregular drift coefficients at the final time point or globally in time by methods that use only finitely many evaluations of the driving Brownian motion. We show the optimality of well-known methods, such as the Euler-Maruyama scheme or a transformed Milstein scheme, for classes of piecewise Lipschitz continuous, H{\"o}lder continuous and Sobolev regular drift coefficients. To do this, we derive the optimal error rates for the different classes of irregular drift coefficients. Furthermore, we show that the solution of an SDE with piecewise H{\"o}lder continuous drift coefficient has a regular local density, which is used in the proofs of the lower bounds.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Henle2025, author = {Henle, Mona}, title = {Multi-Leader Congestion Games with an Adversary}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-19683}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Passau}, pages = {112 Seiten}, year = {2025}, abstract = {In this thesis, we introduced a congestion game with multiple leaders and a single follower (adversary) which is motivated by security applications with congestion effects. Our objective was to understand the result and the impact of selfish acting individuals in these games. In this regard, we analyzed the existence, the computation and the quality of (approximate) pure Nash equilibria. First, we observed that an exact pure Nash equilibrium always exists in the resulting strategic game among the leaders if the resource cost coefficients are identical and the underlying congestion game is a matroid congestion game. If one of these two conditions is not fulfilled, the existence of PNE is not ensured anymore in general. Consequently, we focused on approximate equilibria. For the case of symmetric singleton strategies, one of our main result established that K ≈ 1.1974, the unique solution of a cubic polynomial equation, is the smallest possible factor such that the existence of a K-approximate equilibrium is guaranteed for all instances of the game. To this end, we presented an efficient algorithm which computes a K-approximate PNE. Furthermore, we showed that the factor K is tight by providing an instance where no α-approximate PNE with α < K exists. However, for a specific symmetric singleton instance there might be a better α-approximate PNE, i.e., with α < K. A given instance could even admit an exact PNE. We provided therefore a polynomial time procedure that computes a best approximate PNE of a given instance. In particular, this procedure can verify the existence of an exact PNE in a given instance efficiently and, if it exists, can also determine the corresponding load vector. Finally, for symmetric singleton instances with two resources, we compared the total cost of a best (cheapest) and worst (most expensive) PNE to the total cost of an optimal outcome, termed by the price of stability and the price of anarchy, respectively. In particular, we verified that the PoS and the PoA are 4/3.}, subject = {Spieltheorie}, language = {en} } @misc{OPUS4-1983, title = {Befunde und Erfahrungen zum Einsatz der Passauer Standards f{\"u}r Lehrkr{\"a}ftebildung in der Praxis}, volume = {2025}, number = {13}, editor = {M{\"a}gdefrau, Jutta and Kufner, Sabrina and Birnkammerer, Hannes}, doi = {10.15475/paradigma.2025.1}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-19839}, pages = {59 Seiten}, year = {2025}, abstract = {Inhalt Gestufte Lehrkr{\"a}ftebildungsstandards in der Praxis der Hochschullehre: Befunde aus Projekten zur Weiterentwicklung der Lehre | 5 Sabrina Kufner \& Jutta M{\"a}gdefrau Kompetenzentwicklung in der Lehrkr{\"a}ftebildung im Rahmen des studienbegleitenden fachdidaktischen Praktikums im Fach Mathematik | 11 Jakob Heller \& Matthias Brandl Was bewirkt die Arbeit mit Standards? Ein Forschungsbericht aus dem Fachpraktikum Katholischer Religionsunterricht | 18 Hans Mendl, Rudolf Sitzberger, Julia Gs{\"o}dl \& Rebecca Schmid Der Einsatz der Lehrkr{\"a}ftebildungsstandards in der Lehr:werkstatt - eine Erhebung zur Identifikation von Innovationspotentialen in der Begleitung von Schulpraktika | 27 Sabrina Kufner Kompetenzentwicklung von Lehramtsstudierenden in der Konstruktion selbstregulationsf{\"o}rderlicher Arbeitsauftr{\"a}ge | 35 Jutta M{\"a}gdefrau Standardbezogene Selbsteinsch{\"a}tzungen von Lehramtsstudierenden zur Klassenf{\"u}hrung im Fach Musik | 46 Gabriele Schellberg \& Christina Fehrenbach Autorensteckbriefe | 59}, language = {de} } @phdthesis{Fischer2025, author = {Fischer, Liliann}, title = {An exploration of professional self concepts in science communication}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-19817}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Passau}, pages = {iv, 146 Seiten}, year = {2025}, abstract = {The dissertation explores emerging professional self concepts in the field of science communication. It integrates theories and concepts from a diverse range of disciplines from the sociology of professions to science and technology studies. It also considers organisational contexts and country specifics as major influencing factors and includes these in comparative frameworks. By triangulating data from different sources the dissertation offers broad insights not only into science communication but professionalisation more widely.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Schiermeier2025, author = {Schiermeier, Kathrin}, title = {Multidimensional Wavelets and Neural Networks}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-19742}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Passau}, pages = {xx, 168 Seiten}, year = {2025}, abstract = {The construction of scaling functions and wavelets in multiple dimensions and for arbitrary scaling matrices is a challenging task entailing some complexities. Existing approaches mainly focus on the two-dimensional case using dyadic or quincunx sampling. This thesis aims to develop a method to construct multidimensional scaling and wavelet filters yielding orthogonal scaling functions and wavelets under the usage of convolutional neural networks. We start by recalling substantial fundamentals of ideals, modules, Fourier analysis, filterbanks and multiresolution analyses, where the mentioned concepts are already considered in an arbitrary dimensional setting to prepare the proof of the main result. There, we show the connection between multivariate scaling functions and multidimensional filters possessing certain properties. This enables us to construct scaling functions and corresponding wavelets by discrete filter design. Exploiting the link between the discrete wavelet decomposition, filterbanks and neural networks, we utilize the latter to do so. Being the main difficulty of this process, we especially focus on the Cohen criterion, which concerns the zeros of the Fourier transform of the scaling filter in modulus representing a multivariate trigonometric polynomial. After transferring the Bernstein inequality for univariate trigonomic polynomials to multiple dimensions, we present a method to derive a finite set of inequality constraints implying that the Cohen criterion holds true for a given multivariate cosine sum. Afterwards, we introduce neural networks and TensorFlow as the main tools to execute the described approach, formulate the described objective as an optimization problem and present some smaller numerical experiments and their results. A second objective of this thesis is the construction of filters possessing a unimodular modulation vector and therefore the ability to be completed to a perfect reconstruction filterbank. Both - the construction and the filterbank completion - can also be considered in a neural network framework as we will detail in the last section of this thesis alongside with the presentation of corresponding numerical experiments. In the context of filterbank completion, a further observation which allows to complete any given interpolatory filter to a perfect reconstruction filterbank in a very intuitive and simple way is presented. Furthermore, we explain that any given unimodular filter can be rendered interpolatory through prefiltering.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Wendlinger2026, author = {Wendlinger, Lorenz}, title = {Structure-aware Deep Learning}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-19892}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Passau}, pages = {XX, 176 Seiten}, year = {2026}, abstract = {Graph structures permeate the digital landscape in explicit and implicit forms. They connect or construct artifacts by combining semantic and structural information. We also observe them in the systems designed to process this data, in their learning algorithms and the very nature of the tasks they solve. At the same time, machine learning methods are extremely data-hungry, requiring petabytes of data for training. Due to their complexity, graphs remain an under-utilized resource in this regard. Many approaches cannot incorporate them due to being fully structurally unaware or not suited to the specific flavour of graphs encountered in some domains. This disconnect is sub-optimal from an effectiveness and efficiency perspective. We present methods that extend the scope of structure-aware deep learning through structural knowledge integration and enrichment, structural performance prediction, and synergistic transfer learning. Knowledge graphs organize information and make it directly available for querying. They provide a structured inference interface for manual and automated inspection, though they can suffer from data quality issues and require careful schema design. We rephrase the reconciliation of knowledge in knowledge graphs as a link prediction task, making it tractable with adapted graph neural networks, while also benefiting conventional link prediction tasks. We further combine textual semantics and structural expression for legal reference prediction via adapted heterogeneous graph neural networks operating on complex meta-information enriched graphs. Additionally, we explore methods for the integration of intermediary expressions in strongly typed heterogeneous graphs, improving prediction via meta-path-based processing. We also develop methods for automated machine learning workflow analysis and performance prediction. This includes the learning of salient representations for management as well as improvement of workflows through automatic suggestion and refinement of components. These are then extended to the prediction of Neural Architecture Search performance prediction, including adaptation to operation-on-edge spaces. Finally, we investigate the transfer capability of pre-trained attention structures for text-based prediction tasks and find it to be both inferior to directly optimized attention masks as well as highly dependent on inherent domain knowledge. We also show that the exploitation of hierarchical task formulation can improve prediction performance through joint learning in diverse learning domains, including link prediction, performance prediction, and specialized and general argumentation mining. The dissertation contains previously published or submitted texts: Wendlinger, L., H{\"u}bscher, G., Ekelhart, A., Granitzer, M. (2022). Reconciliation of Mental Concepts with Graph Neural Networks. In: Strauss, C., Cuzzocrea, A., Kotsis, G., Tjoa, A.M., Khalil, I. (eds): Database and Expert Systems Applications. DEXA 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13427, p 133-146. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12426-6_11; Wendlinger, L., Granitzer M. (2024). Informed Heterogeneous Attention Networks for Metapath Based Learning. In: SAC '24: Proceedings of the 39th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing, p 458-465, ACM, New York. https://doi.org/10.1145/3605098.3635890; Wendlinger, L., Nonn, S.A., Al Zubaer, A., Granitzer, M. (2026). The Missing Link: Joint Legal Citation Prediction Using Heterogeneous Graph Enrichment. In: Wrembel, R., Kotsis, G., Tjoa, A.M., Khalil, I. (eds) Database and Expert Systems Applications. DEXA 2025. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 16047, p 197-211. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-02088-8_14; Wendlinger, L., Stier, J., Granitzer, M. (2021). Evofficient: Reproducing a Cartesian Genetic Programming Method. In: Hu, T., Louren{\c{c}}o, N., Medvet, E. (eds) Genetic Programming. EuroGP 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 12691, p 162-178. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72812-0_11; Wendlinger, L., Berndl, E., Granitzer, M. (2021). Methods for Automatic Machine-Learning Workflow Analysis. In: Dong, Y., Kourtellis, N., Hammer, B., Lozano, J.A. (eds) Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases. Applied Data Science Track. ECML PKDD 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 12979, p 52-67. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86517-7_4; Wendlinger, L., Granitzer, M., Fellicious, C. (2023). Pooling Graph Convolutional Networks for Structural Performance Prediction. In: Nicosia, G., et al. (eds) Machine Learning, Optimization, and Data Science. LOD 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13811, p 1-16. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-25891-6_1; Wendlinger, L., Braun, C., Zubaer, A., Nonn, S., Großkopf, S., Fellicious, C., Granitzer, M.: On the Suitability of pre-trained foundational LLMs for Analysis in German Legal Education, submitted to the proceedings of the International Conference on Machine Learning, Optimization, and Data Science 2025, preprint published: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2412.15902; Wendlinger, L., Kuhn, R., Mitrovic, J., Granitzer, M. (2025). Joint Learning for Efficient German Argument Mining. In: 2025 IEEE 37th International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence (ICTAI), Athens, Greece, 2025, p 770-777. IEEE, Los Alamitos. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICTAI66417.2025.00111.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Neuwirth2026, author = {Neuwirth, Daniel}, title = {Einbettung und Charakterisierung von aligned bar 1-visibility Graphen und outer fan free Graphen}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-19930}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Passau}, pages = {VII, 247 Seiten}, year = {2026}, abstract = {In dieser Arbeit werden drei verschiedene Klassen von Graphen untersucht. Die Klassen sind die bar (1;1)-visibilty Graphen, die aligned bar 1-visibility Graphen und die outer fan free Graphen. Die Klassen werden durch ihre m{\"o}glichen Einbettungen charakterisiert. Die Repr{\"a}sentation der bar (1; j)-visibility Graphen ist, dass jeder Knoten als horizontaler Strich und jede Kante als vertikaler Strich gezeichnet wird. Eine Kante kann einen Knoten genau einmal schneiden und ein Knoten kann j-mal geschnitten werden. Wir erweitern die Ergebnisse von Dean et. al. und geben Beispiele mit einer maximalen Dichte an f{\"u}r bar (1; 2)-visibility, bar (1; 3)-visibility und bar (1; 4)-visibility Graphen und geben einen maximal d{\"u}nnen Graphen f{\"u}r die Klasse der bar (1;1) visibility Graphen an. Wir zeigen, dass die Klassen der bar (1; j)-visibility Graphen f{\"u}r 1 < j < 1eine unendliche Hierarchie bilden. Abschließend beweisen wir, dass das Erkennungsproblem ob ein Graph eine bar (1;1)-visibility Repr{\"a}sentation hat, NP-vollst{\"a}ndig ist. Die Klasse der aligned bar 1-visibility Graphen (AB1V ) erh{\"a}lt man, indem man die bar (1;1)-visibility Repr{\"a}sentation um 90 Grad dreht und alle Knoten verl{\"a}ngert, so dass diese alle mit der y-Koordinate 0 starten. Die relative Position bzgl. der x-Koordinate wird mit der t-Ordnung beschrieben und mit der r-Ordnung die relative Position bzgl. der y-Koordinate. Wir erweitern die Erkenntnisse von Felsner und Massow f{\"u}r die Klasse der AB1V Graphen bzgl. ihrer maximalen Dichte, der minimale Grad eines Knotens. Wir f{\"u}hren die Methode Pfadaddition ein, um anhand deren Abschlusseigenschaften zu unterscheiden, ob ein Graph in einer Klasse liegt oder nicht. Diese Methode nutzen wir, um die Beziehung der Klasse der AB1V Graphen mit anderen Klassen zu untersuchen. F{\"u}r die Klasse der maximalen Graphen geben wir einen d{\"u}nnen Graphen und eine untere Schranke bzgl. der Dichte an. Wir geben einen Algorithmus an, welcher eine Bucheinbettung aus einer AB1V Einbettung berechnet. F{\"u}r die Klassen der optimalen AB1V Graphen geben wir einen Einbettungsalgorithmus an. Wir verbessern den Erkennungsalgorithmus von Felsner und Massow, ob ein Graph mit einer gegebenen t-Ordnung eine AB1V Einbettung besitzt. F{\"u}r die Klasse der distinkt strong AB1V Graphen, Graphen in der jeder Knoten ein unterschiedliche r-Ordnung hat und maximal f{\"u}r die r-Ordnung ist, geben wir einen Algorithmus an, der in O(n6) eine m{\"o}gliche Einbettung berechnet. Zum Schluss zeigen wir f{\"u}r diese Klasse, dass es exponentiell viele verschiedene Einbettungen gibt. Ein Graph hat eine outer fan free Einbettung, wenn alle Knoten inzident zu einer Fl{\"a}che sind und keine Kante von zwei Kanten geschnitten wird, die adjazent zu einem Knoten sind. Wir untersuchen diese Klasse zuerst auf die Dichte. Weiter erforschen wir die Beziehung zwischen den Klassen der AB1V , RAC und k-planaren Graphen. Abschließend geben wir eine Reduktion von NAE-3-SAT auf das Erkennungsproblem von outer fan free Graphen an.}, language = {de} } @phdthesis{Gruener2026, author = {Gr{\"u}ner, Alina}, title = {Stranger Danger? Three Essays on Consumer Trust and Data Disclosure in Multi-Actor Environments}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-19957}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Passau}, pages = {XVI, 201 Seiten}, year = {2026}, abstract = {Technological advancements and digitalization in recent decades have led an increasing number of firms to recognize the value of multi-actor business models. Integrating third parties into business processes provides firms with several benefits, including access to additional resources, skills, and information. However, from the consumer's perspective, the involvement of third parties, often unknown to the consumer, is frequently associated with uncertainty, privacy concerns, and, thus, a reluctance to engage with multi-actor business models. Such concerns are not unfounded: In many multi-actor environments, privacy-related misbehavior is common, whether caused by third-party firms, network users, or other actors. Incidents range from unauthorized data sharing to illegal surveillance, identity theft, and financial fraud. Consumers' skepticism poses challenges for firms, requiring strategic measures that not only foster consumer engagement with the network but also help build trust in the presence of third-party involvement and manage the consequences of trust erosion following negative third-party experiences. While privacy research recognizes consumer concerns in multi-actor environments, the literature does not offer specific business strategies to encourage data disclosure in the context of third-party involvement. Instead, research on multi-actor business models has largely focused on the benefits of shared value creation, while the broader impact of negative third-party privacy-related incidents on the overall actor-network remains underexplored. This dissertation addresses this research gap through three independent essays, aiming to identify business strategies that enhance consumer trust and willingness to disclose data in multi-actor environments and counteract the negative effects of (potential) third-party misbehavior on the actor-network. It focuses on preventive measures that address consumers' concerns before interacting with the actor-network, as well as reactive strategies that are designed to maintain consumers' engagement with an actor-network after a negative experience with one of the actors. As a first step toward identifying effective business strategies in multi-actor environments, Essay 1 examines two mechanisms: transparency and control, commonly used to foster consumers' willingness to disclose data. While not explicitly framed as a multi-actor study, Essay 1 investigates how firms' implementation of transparency and control features regarding data practices influences consumers' willingness to disclose data. Two online scenario experiments compare a proactive approach, where consumers receive all relevant information and control options upfront, with an upon-request approach, where they access details by clicking for more information. The results show that the proactive approach increases cognitive effort and reduces data disclosure, while perceptions of procedural fairness do not significantly differ between the approaches. This pattern also holds in high-sensitivity conditions involving third-party data sharing, suggesting that the upon-request approach is effective across both single-actor and multi-actor environments. Building on these findings, Essay 2 analyzes how the representation of actor-networks influences consumers' willingness to disclose data. Drawing on social psychology research on perceived entitativity, three online scenario experiments show that consumers trust firm networks more when they perceive them as highly entitative - as cohesive and integrated entities - rather than as low entitative, meaning a loose collection of independent firms. This greater trust, in turn, enhances their willingness to disclose personal data. Moreover, the analyses reveal that consumers process information about highly entitative firm networks more fluently and experience lower uncertainty than when engaging with low-entitativity networks. This essay also holds substantial practical significance by identifying concrete design recommendations to enhance perceived entitativity. In Essay 3, a platform is conceptualized as a multi-actor environment that enables peer-to-peer interactions. This essay investigates how consumers' negative experiences with other users in multi-actor environments affect trust in the platform as a whole. Two studies were conducted in the home-sharing context, where consumers grant deep access to their privacy by allowing others into their homes or by sharing images of their private living spaces, addresses, and payment details. This openness entails inherent risks when interacting with other users and may facilitate misbehavior. The findings reveal a negative bottom-up trust transfer, whereby a negative experience with another user leads to diminished trust in the misbehaving user and, subsequently, in the platform. Although the platform does not directly control user behavior, consumers attribute part of the responsibility for negative incidents to the platform, which in turn reduces loyalty. This effect is stronger for negative outcome-related incidents, which pertain to the core service itself, than for negative process-related incidents, which relate to the service delivery process. To effectively mitigate this erosion of loyalty, Essay 3 identifies high prior relationship satisfaction between the consumer and the platform as a key buffering mechanism in which firms should actively invest. The insights from my dissertation extend privacy research by examining multi-actor environments and analyzing how firms can encourage consumers to disclose personal data, which psychological mechanisms guide their decision-making, and how trust is established and transferred within the network. Furthermore, this dissertation raises corporate awareness of the risks associated with the involvement of third parties in multi-actor settings. It provides practical strategies to mitigate these risks, fostering consumer acceptance and ensuring the long-term success of such business models.}, subject = {Verbraucherverhalten}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Hackl2026, author = {Hackl, Veronika}, title = {The Literate Human in the Loop: AI Feedback in Higher Education}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-19982}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Passau}, pages = {iii, 22, 8, 11 Seiten}, year = {2026}, abstract = {This cumulative dissertation, titled "The Literate Human in the Loop: AI Feedback in Higher Education," investigates the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) feedback systems within academic settings and the critical role of user competence.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Kochendoerfer2026, author = {Kochend{\"o}rfer, Laura}, title = {Rethinking systems use in information systems research - theories on individuals' use of multiple information systems}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-20164}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Passau}, pages = {vi, 99 Seiten}, year = {2026}, abstract = {While individuals use multiple information systems (IS) every day, research on IS use predominantly investigates use with respect to only one information system at a time. In light of this "single-IS paradigm" (Gerlach \& Cenfetelli, 2022), theoretical and empirical insights into the nature and behavioral manifestations of multiple IS use remain limited. To advance the discipline's understanding of the multiple IS use reality, this dissertation theorizes mechanisms that are idiosyncratic to the context of individuals' multiple IS use. Based on grounded theory methodology and interview data from individuals using multiple IS, this dissertation contributes two theories on multiple IS use in two essays. The first essay introduces an analytical theory of eight different interdependencies-in-use as core mechanisms that emerge as users engage with multiple IS. The second essay builds on these interdependencies-in-use and examines how one type of interdependency manifests in behavior. The resulting process theory explains a behavioral phenomenon resulting from multiple IS use: users transferring usage behaviors from one IS to another. This dissertation contributes a theoretical framework for conceptualizing multiple IS use with its underlying mechanisms that enable future research to systematically investigate multiple IS use and related phenomena. It further enriches insights on usage behavior by a multiple IS perspective, indicating that multiple IS use contexts give rise to unique behavioral dynamics. With that, the current conversation in IS use research that focuses on single IS use is extended with new theoretical insights on the use of multiple IS. The dissertation offers additional recommendations for practitioners to consider the interdependent way individuals use multiple IS.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Frank2026, author = {Frank, Florian}, title = {Integrating physical unclonable functions from novel nanomaterials, circuit elements, and memory technologies into future hardware architectures}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-20104}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Passau}, pages = {XVI, 190 Seiten}, year = {2026}, abstract = {Cryptographic keys are fundamental components for ensuring security in digital systems. To ensure reliable key generation and management, various technical concepts have been developed, primarily based on dedicated hardware components such as Trusted Platform Modules (TPMs). However, many modern systems, especially small resource-constrained devices, typically lack hardware support for secure key generation and management. To address these limitations, Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) have proven to be an effective solution for key generation, device authentication, and identification tasks. PUFs leverage inherent variations in hardware components to produce unique, device-specific keys. For a well-designed PUF, these keys can be reproduced reliably on the same device but are practically impossible to clone. Various types of PUFs exist, including those that exploit slight delay differences in circuits with symmetric paths. Others rely on physical characteristics of components already present in the computing system, such as SRAM or DRAM. However, many of these constructions rely on technologies that could be replaced by emerging ones in the future. Such a replacement may involve a transition from traditional memory technologies, such as SRAM, DRAM, and flash memory, to emerging Non-Volatile Memories (NVMs), including Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM), Magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM), and Resistive RAM (ReRAM). These new technologies, in turn, necessitate innovative hardware security solutions for generating intrinsic hardware fingerprints, ensuring security for next-generation embedded devices. Furthermore, the integration of nanomaterials, such as carbon nanotubes, into processor architectures and the adoption of reconfigurable hardware platforms like Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) require the development of specifically tailored cybersecurity solutions. This dissertation aims to develop hardware-based security mechanisms for these types of devices by designing new PUF constructions and demonstrating their practical applications. One focus lies on PUFs extracted from nanomaterials and emerging circuit elements, particularly memristive devices and Carbon NanoTube Field-Effect Transistors (CNT-FETs). For memristive devices, which form the basis of ReRAM memory, this work analyzes methods ranging from simple binary quantization to advanced techniques exploiting device-specific response patterns. In the case of CNT-FETs, custom-fabricated wafers are developed to construct PUFs with optimal properties, such as high robustness, uniformity, and entropy, even under varying environmental conditions. These conditions include fluctuations in ambient temperature. Based on an analysis of fundamental system components, this work evaluates the feasibility of deriving PUFs from fully integrated circuits. A specific focus is placed on emerging non-volatile memory technologies, assessing their potential for PUF applications. To achieve PUF behavior in these memory devices, techniques such as intentional timing manipulation, induced bit flips through row hammering, and variations in supply voltage are examined. These resulting bit flips can be exploited as PUF responses. Additionally, transforming raw PUF responses into cryptographically usable keys and integrating specific PUFs into practical applications are core components of this work. The demonstrated practical applications include an innovative architecture for encrypting and binding data to non-volatile memory modules, implemented on Multiprocessor System-on-Chips (MPSoCs) incorporating FPGAs. This architecture enables the storage of confidential data on non-volatile memory while simultaneously using the same module as a PUF, without requiring separate memory partitions solely for the PUF functionality. Finally, practical applications of hardware fingerprints in the automotive sector are demonstrated, including an FPGA-based implementation to maintain security while preserving the temporal determinism of time-critical messages. These goals are met through the use of hardware-implemented cryptographic algorithms coupled with an FPGA-based ring oscillator PUF. To summarize, this work presents new types of PUF implementations, starting with nanomaterials and emerging circuit elements, extending to PUFs derived from integrated circuits, and demonstrates innovative solutions for their integration into MPSoC-based architectures.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Ryzhova2026, author = {Ryzhova, Anna}, title = {The Transnational News Diets of Russian Speakers in Germany: what news they use and trust}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-19867}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Passau}, pages = {187 Seiten}, year = {2026}, abstract = {The present cumulative dissertation consists of four articles, and is based on more than 70 semi-structured interviews with the Russian speakers in Germany. Forty two interviews were conducted before of the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the other twenty nine right after its beginning (out of which I used only twenty five for the final analysis, as I focused only on the Russian speakers, associated with agressor or neutral countries in Russia's war in Ukraine). The dissertation addresses a variety of issues, related to the media use of the Russian speakers in Germany, which was previously understudied both in general and from political communication perspective (Panagiotidis, 2023). In the strand of migrants and media research, scholars point the following gaps: the lack of political element in studies of how migrants use media (Leurs and Smets, 2018), the lack of studies how homeland and host society media are used simultaneously, not in isolation from each other, and the lack of studies on the influence of homeland media on migrants as such (Ramasubramanian et al., 2017), and finally, communication scholars not using migration studies frameworks in their research on migrants, which leads to fields existing in parallel (Leurs \& Smets 2018). This dissertation addresses all these gaps. Being the first study to apply the concepts of "news repertoires" and the latest theorization of "news literacy" for studying the migrant populations, as well as looking in-depth in the mechanisms of trust, I analyze the media diets of Russian speakers in Germany in their entirety, considering the contexts and roles, attributed to the German quality, Russian opposition, Russian state sponsored and other types of media, i.e. not analying them in isolation, and also looking at the motivations to use different media for different domains of their lives. Besides, for analysing the transformations of media diets of the Russian speakers in the aftermath of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I use the concept of "sense of belonging" to Russia to examine the deep, underlying reasons for why news repertoires of these audiences changed, or did not change in the light of Russia's war crimes. As for the contribution to the German-language and Germany-focused literature on the Russian speakers, this is the first comprehensive study to scrutinize the media diets of Russian speakers in-depth with a special emphasis on their motivations, political affiliations and differentiating between the media these audiences "use" and the media they "trust", as previous research on Russian speakers in Germany and their media use was largely focused on integration, largely ignoring the political aspect and Russia's repetitive attempts to influence Russian speakers abroad (e.g.Hepp et al., 2011) or lacked nuance in their results (e.g. Boris Nemtsov Foundation Survey, which posed questions about "Russian media" without defining what it is, i.e. is that opposition media, Kremlin-sponsored media, etc. Finally, this thesis provides a comprehensive case study of audiences from an authoritarian context (or a former authoritarian context, for those, who migrated from Ukraine, but were socialized in the Soviet Union) who migrated to democracy and their media use, and also sheds light on the spectrum of motivations of audiences abroad to continue consuming media from an authoritarian homeland (in our case, Kremlin-sponsored media), which can provide important foundation for future research on other migrant groups from authoritarian contexts in democracies, such as Chinese migrants in Europe. Among the results of the present dissertation is an article on three types of news repertoires that these audiences have, and how political beliefs underpin them; an article on how they view the "truth" in media and why it is a concept of crucial importance for their news trust patterns; an article on news literacy and how migrant audiences need transnational news literacy knowledge in order to navigate complex media landscapes, in which authoritarian states actively try to reach them with their narratives; and finally, how a major crisis event, such as war in Ukraine, changed (or did not change) the news repertoires of the Russian speaking audiences in Germany and why the "sense of belonging" is at the core of these changes.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{WallenbornWeiss2026, author = {Wallenborn-Weiß, Benjamin}, title = {Quo vadis Spruchverfahren? - Eine Evaluation der Reform durch das UmRUG sowie des verbleibenden Reformbedarfs des Spruchverfahrensgesetzes}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-20099}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Passau}, pages = {XIII, 400 Seiten}, year = {2026}, abstract = {Die Arbeit besch{\"a}ftigt sich mit einem Thema an der Schnittstelle zwischen dem Unternehmensrecht und dem Zivilverfahrensrecht, dem Spruchverfahrensgesetz (SpruchG). Hierbei wird der Status Quo de lege lata nach dem Gesetz zur Umsetzung der Umwandlungsrichtlinie und zur {\"A}nderung weiterer Gesetze (UmRUG) dargestellt. Anschließend nimmt der Autor eine Analyse der Ursachen f{\"u}r die lange Verfahrensdauer von Spruchverfahren vor, wobei er die Ergebnisse seiner eigens konzipierten Umfrage einfließen l{\"a}sst. Nach einem Rechtsvergleich nach {\"O}sterreich und die Schweiz werden Reformvorschl{\"a}ge und eigene Konzeptionierungen de lege lata und de lege ferenda diskutiert.}, language = {de} } @phdthesis{Min2026, author = {Min, Yufei}, title = {Informationelle Rechtspositionen von Unternehmenstr{\"a}gern in Deutschland und China - unter besonderer Ber{\"u}cksichtigung der registergest{\"u}tzten Informationsversorgung}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:739-opus4-20081}, school = {Universit{\"a}t Passau}, pages = {XVIII, 255 Seiten}, year = {2026}, abstract = {Im Zeitalter der Digitalisierung und der Leistungssteigerung von Registern zur weiteren Wertsch{\"o}pfung gewinnt die rechtliche Gestaltung der Informationslage {\"u}ber Unternehmenstr{\"a}ger eine wichtige Bedeutung. Die Arbeit konzentriert sich prim{\"a}r auf staatliche Register sowie auf rein private Auskunfteien. Dabei wird die Rechtslage in Bezug auf die informationellen Rechtspositionen von Unternehmen als Registersubjekten in Deutschland und China untersucht. Auf dieser Grundlage wird ein Rechtsvergleich vorgenommen und abschließend ein internationales Registerrecht skizziert.}, language = {de} }