Association of self-efficacy, risk attitudes, and time preferences with health-related quality of life and functioning after total hip or knee replacement: results of the MobilE-TRA 2 cohort

Background: While total hip and knee replacement (THR/TKR) surgery are effective measures to restore functioning and reduce pain in patients with severe osteoarthritis (OA), long-term treatment effects vary among patients. Following behavioral economic theory, these differences may be partially attributed to the impact of personality traits on individual strategies to approach post-surgical challenges. This study explored the associations between self-efficacy, willingness to take risk regarding health (H-WTTR), and future orientation, and the 3-month course of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and OA-specific health status. Methods: As part of the prospective and observational MobilE-TRA 2 cohort study, 147 patients aged 60 years and older were assessed by self-administered questionnaires before and three months after THR/TKR at a single German hospital. As indicators for the surgical outcome, HRQoL was assessed by the EuroQol Five-Dimensional Five-Level Questionnaire (EQ-5D-5L), including the visual analogue scale (EQ-VAS), and functioning was assessed by the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) using the global score, function score, and pain score. All WOMAC scores were transformed into scales with 0 = worst health and 100 = best health. Self-efficacy was measured using the General Self-Efficacy Short Scale. H-WTTR and future orientation were assessed by single-item questions on 11-point Likert scales. The associations between these personality traits and the 3-month change in the outcome scores were analyzed using linear regression models for THR and TKR respectively. Results:In THR patients a one-point-increase in self-efficacy was associated with improvements in EQ-5D-5L (β=0.0704; p=0.0099), WOMAC global (β=6.6337; p=0.0139), WOMAC function (β=8.2557; p=0.0046), and WOMAC pain (β=5.9994; p=0.0232). For TKR, only the association of self-efficacy with the EQ-VAS change-score was significant (β=5.8252; p=0.0482). Self-efficacy demonstrated weak positive, but not significant associations with all WOMAC scores and a negative association close to zero with the EQ-Index. H-WTTR and future orientation showed no significant associations to changes of the outcome scores. Conclusions: Self-efficacy appears to be a prognostic factor for better THR/TKR outcomes after three months. If these findings can be confirmed in further research, strategies to improve self-efficacy should be considered in prehabilitation programs

Benthic Geopolitics off the Bangka and Belitung Islands, Indonesia: Go Offshore, Go Deeper

With growing global metal demand for green energy transformation, the seafloor has become the last extractive frontier. This doctoral study seeks to contest this capital assumption of the seabed. It does so by conducting ethnography in seabed tin mining operations, undersea cables and coral reef restorations off the Bangka and Belitung islands in Indonesia. This dissertation indicates how multiple human and non-human relations exist in this oceanic space. Such material relations disrupt the hegemonic notion of the seafloor as mere mineral extraction sites devoid of humans. This study empirically contributes to making visible environmental violence often obscured by the dominant geopolitics of the seafloor. Meanwhile, this scholarship has also theoretically conceptualised benthic phenomena to highlight diverse seafloor meaning-making. This theory expands the benthic concept beyond marine science (i.e., benthic ecology) toward social science (i.e., human geography)

Combinatorial studies of Fano varieties via toric embeddings

This thesis contributes to the development of combinatorial methods for the study of geometrical invariants of Fano varieties. In the first part, we provide a combinatorial criterion for a non-degenerate toric complete intersection to be normal and irreducible. This is done by studying the structure of complete and simplicial fans corresponding to toric varieties of Picard number two. Secondly, we prove that the Gorenstein index of Fano general arrangement varieties can be read off the anticanonical complex (a polyhedral complex that generalizes the toric Fano polytope for broader classes of varieties) in full analogy to the Fano polytope. As an application, we classify certain threefolds with Gorenstein index at most three. Lastly, we contribute to the classification of Fano threefolds with torus action of complexity one. For this purpose, we take advantage of the properties of the anticanonical complex. We extend previous classification results by allowing combinatorially non-minimal varieties

Neural Bug Detection

Software bugs cost developers and companies significant time and money. To help developers find bugs early in the development process, neural bug detectors have been proposed. Neural bug detectors learn from millions of examples to find novel bugs in code. Although effective for simple bugs, they still have many limitations that make them difficult to use in practice. This thesis addresses two key challenges. First, prior work often relied on artificial mutants for training, which do not reflect real bugs. We propose a contextual mutator and mine public repositories for real bug fixes to create more realistic training data. Our evaluation shows that training with this data improves detection of real bugs. Second, current detectors often lack sufficient context, leading to false alarms. We propose an LLM-based validator that leverages extra context to reduce false alarms. Together, these contributions result in a neural bug detector that is significantly more accurate and practical for real-world use

Differenzierter Barriereabbau für einen inklusiven Informatikunterricht durch eine Erweiterung des IT2School Moduls „Finde die KI“

Inklusion im Informatikunterricht ist ein Menschenrecht, das aktuell unzureichend erfüllt und erforscht ist und mit der Einführung des Pflichtfachs Informatik zunehmend an Bedeutung gewinnt. Diese Arbeit leistet einen systematischen Beitrag zum Abbau von Barrieren im Informatikunterricht durch eine differenzierte Analyse verschiedener Barrieretypen und deren Abbaumöglichkeiten. Es werden sieben potenzielle Barrieren im Informatikunterricht identifiziert und differenzierte Abbaumöglichkeiten auf der Grundlage von Literatur und Ergänzungen durch Informatiklehrkräfte und Informatiklehramtsstudierende entwickelt. Die theoretischen Erkenntnisse werden exemplarisch durch die inklusive Erweiterung des IT2School Moduls KI-B1 „Finde die KI“ praktisch umgesetzt. Dabei entstehen zusätzliche Ablaufpläne, Hinweise zur Durchführung und barrierespezifische Erweiterungsmaterialien wie EPUB3-Dokumente für Screenreader, mehrsprachige Arbeitsblätter, auditive Versionen, sprachsensible Materialien und Arbeitsblätter in Leichter Sprache. Besonders hat sich der Ansatz der Sensorischen Parallelisierung bewährt, bei dem derselbe Unterrichtsinhalt in verschiedenen sensorischen Formen angeboten wird. Die Erweiterungen orientieren sich außerdem am Universal Design for Learning für den Informatikunterricht. Die Arbeit zeigt auf, dass inklusiver Informatikunterricht durch gezielte methodische und materielle Erweiterungen realisierbar ist, ohne grundlegend neue Didaktiken entwickeln zu müssen. Die entwickelten Materialien sorgen so für einen barrierefreieren Zugang zum Informatikunterricht, von dem alle Schüler*innen profitieren

Biodiversity, scale, and spatial differences: Conceptual entanglements, management objectives, and emerging relations in the governance of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction.

Biodiversity is a complex, contested concept shaped by scientific, social, political, economic, legal, and technological factors. This thesis examines how biodiversity is defined, by whom, and for whom, focusing on the 2023 Agreement on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ). The treaty seeks to conserve marine biodiversity in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (ABNJ) through tools like Marine Genetic Resources (MGRs), Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS), and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Using interdisciplinary methods—including legal and archival analyses, participant observations, interviews, and ethnographic research—the thesis uncovers power dynamics shaping biodiversity governance. It critiques static regulations and introduces the “landlocked ocean” to describe governance shaped by terrestrial philosophies. Ultimately, this thesis provides a critical framework for understanding the implications of biodiversity governance, equity, and environmental protection

Die komplexe und ambivalente Rolle des Scrum Masters im agilen Management. Eine Analyse der (erfolgs-)kritischen Kompetenzanforderungen

Die Dissertation untersucht Charakteristika und Herausforderungen der Rolle des Scrum Masters, die sich im Ergebnis als komplex und ambivalent herausstellt. Die Rolle ist mit einem umfangreichen und heterogenen Aufgaben- und Tätigkeitsspektrum verbunden. Rollenkonflikte und -stress entstehen dadurch, dass Scrum Master das Team lateral führen sollen, ohne hierarchische Macht zu besitzen, und dabei den Spagat schaffen müssen zwischen der klaren Anleitung und Strukturierung des Prozesses und des Teams sowie der dienenden Förderung und Unterstützung der Teammitglieder. Die Rolle ist daher mit umfangreichen und hohen Kompetenzanforderungen verbunden. Diese wurden auf Basis einer Interviewstudie mittels Critical Incident Technique und ergänzend anhand einer Stellenanzeigenanalyse erhoben. Im Ergebnis ließen sich kritische Kompetenzanforderungen in Form von konkreten Teilkompetenzen und damit verbundenen Verhaltensankern festlegen, die vorwiegend aus dem sozial-kommunikativen Bereich stammen

Individual differences in musical scene analysis abilities across normal-hearing and hearing-impaired individuals

In this dissertation, individual differences in Musical Scene Analysis (MSA)—the ability to perceptually organise concurrent sound sources within polyphonic musical mixtures—were investigated across four empirical studies. The first study surveyed hearing health among professional and amateur musicians, revealing high rates of hearing-related difficulties. The second study developed and validated an adaptive MSA test using realistic musical mixtures, demonstrating good reliability and sensitivity to hearing thresholds. The third showed that musical training enhances MSA abilities, while ageing and hearing loss reduce performance; working memory capacities showed only weak, non-robust effects. The fourth applied the MSA test to hearing aid users, revealing that dynamic range compression differentially affects MSA performance and sound quality. Together, the findings establish MSA as a construct shaped by auditory, cognitive, and experiential factors

Development and evaluation of a hybrid PV energy forecasting model

Time-series and machine learning techniques have demonstrated significant efficacy in forecasting photovoltaic (PV) energy for intra-day and intra-hour horizons. By integrating radiation measurement with cloud and satellite imagery, accurate predictions can be made for up to six hours. However, for day-ahead (DA) forecasts, numerical weather prediction (NWP) models are necessary as the atmospheric processes driving changes are not sufficiently related to current conditions to be captured using statistical methods alone. This thesis proposes a hybrid ensemble model that integrates satellite imagery with NWP data for intra-day forecasts. Additionally, it explores the full potential of NWP models for DA forecasting by applying model output statistics techniques. This research offers a comprehensive analysis of both deterministic and probabilistic PV power forecasts with uncertainty associated with these predictions, contributing valuable insights to the field of solar energy forecasting