Ohne Kupfer gegen Kraut- und Knollenfäule?

Im Rahmen der 6. Wissenschaftstagung zum Ökologischen Landbau beschäftigte sich eine Arbeitsgruppe mit dem Thema „Regulierung der Kraut- und Knollenfäule im ökologischen Landbau: Aktuelle Ansätze in der Forschung – Perspektiven und Probleme“. Ziel war es, die Zulassungsvoraussetzungen und Interessen an der Nutzung kupferhaltiger Präparate im ökologischen Landbau zu analysieren und Lösungsansätze für einen Ausstieg aus dem Kupfereinsatz im ökologischen Kartoffelbau zu diskutieren

Can I Make a Difference? The Role of General and Domain-specific Self-efficacy in Sustainable Consumption Decisions

We report a study which explored sustainable development self-efficacy (SDSE) beliefs, that is, domain-specific self-efficacy beliefs concerning one’s ability to foster sustainable development. We propose that the following aspects be considered when studying SDSE: Three dimensions of sustainable development (environmental preservation, social fairness, economic welfare) and direct as well as indirect behaviors influencing sustainable development. In an online survey among Norwegian consumers (N = 402), we measured SDSE, general selfefficacy (GSE; Schwarzer, 1993), and two indicators of sustainable consumption. A factor analysis yielded four separable facets of SDSE: The perceived ability (i) to encourage others to act sustainably, (ii) to promote environmental preservation by one’s own actions and consumption decisions, (iii) to promote social fairness and economic welfare through one’s consumption, and (iv) to promote social fairness and economic welfare through one’s actions in general. Self-efficacy concerning encouraging others turned out to be the strongest predictor of sustainable consumption behavior, stronger than self-efficacy concerning directly preserving the environment. The latter was a significant predictor only for choices of ecological produce. GSE did not contribute to predicting sustainable consumption. We discuss the structure of the SDSE concept, its role in shaping sustainable consumption decisions, and how it might be extended in future studies.publishedVersio

Can I Make a Difference? The Role of General and Domain-specific Self-efficacy in Sustainable Consumption Decisions

We report a study which explored sustainable development self-efficacy (SDSE) beliefs, that is, domain-specific self-efficacy beliefs concerning one’s ability to foster sustainable development. We propose that the following aspects be considered when studying SDSE: Three dimensions of sustainable development (environmental preservation, social fairness, economic welfare) and direct as well as indirect behaviors influencing sustainable development. In an online survey among Norwegian consumers (N = 402), we measured SDSE, general selfefficacy (GSE; Schwarzer, 1993), and two indicators of sustainable consumption. A factor analysis yielded four separable facets of SDSE: The perceived ability (i) to encourage others to act sustainably, (ii) to promote environmental preservation by one’s own actions and consumption decisions, (iii) to promote social fairness and economic welfare through one’s consumption, and (iv) to promote social fairness and economic welfare through one’s actions in general. Self-efficacy concerning encouraging others turned out to be the strongest predictor of sustainable consumption behavior, stronger than self-efficacy concerning directly preserving the environment. The latter was a significant predictor only for choices of ecological produce. GSE did not contribute to predicting sustainable consumption. We discuss the structure of the SDSE concept, its role in shaping sustainable consumption decisions, and how it might be extended in future studies

"Since you're so rich, you must be really smart": Talent and the finance wage premium

Relative pay in the financial sector has experienced an extraordinary increase over the last few decades. A proposed explanation for this pattern has been that the demand for skilled workers in finance has risen more than in other sectors. We use Swedish administrative data, which include detailed cognitive and non-cognitive test scores as well as performance in high-school and university, to examine the implications of this hypothesis for talent allocation and relative wages in the financial sector. We find no evidence that the selection of talent into finance increased or improved, neither on average nor at the top of the talent distribution. A changing composition of talent or their returns cannot account for the surge in the finance wage premium. These findings alleviate concerns about a "brain drain" into finance at the expense of other sectors, but they also suggest that rents in finance are high, increasing, and largely unexplained

A flexible architecture for privacy-aware trust management

In service-oriented systems a constellation of services cooperate, sharing potentially sensitive information and responsibilities. Cooperation is only possible if the different participants trust each other. As trust may depend on many different factors, in a flexible framework for Trust Management (TM) trust must be computed by combining different types of information. In this paper we describe the TAS3 TM framework which integrates independent TM systems into a single trust decision point. The TM framework supports intricate combinations whilst still remaining easily extensible. It also provides a unified trust evaluation interface to the (authorization framework of the) services. We demonstrate the flexibility of the approach by integrating three distinct TM paradigms: reputation-based TM, credential-based TM, and Key Performance Indicator TM. Finally, we discuss privacy concerns in TM systems and the directions to be taken for the definition of a privacy-friendly TM architecture.\u

A graph database for feature characterization of dislocation networks

Three-dimensional dislocation networks control the mechanical properties such as strain hardening of crystals. Due to the complexity of dislocation networks and their temporal evolution, analysis tools are needed that fully resolve the dynamic processes of the intrinsic dislocation graph structure. We propose the use of a graph database for the analysis of three-dimensional dislocation networks obtained from discrete dislocation dynamics simulations. This makes it possible to extract (sub-)graphs and their features with relative ease. That allows for a more holistic view of the evolution of dislocation networks and for the extraction of homogenized graph features to be incorporated into continuum formulation. As an illustration, we describe the static and dynamic analysis of spatio-temporal dislocation graphs as well as graph feature analysis

Measuring and visualizing cyber threat intelligence quality

The very raison d’être of cyber threat intelligence (CTI) is to provide meaningful knowledge about cyber security threats. The exchange and collaborative generation of CTI by the means of sharing platforms has proven to be an important aspect of practical application. It is evident to infer that inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated threat intelligence is a major problem as only high-quality CTI can be helpful to detect and defend against cyber attacks. Additionally, while the amount of available CTI is increasing it is not warranted that quality remains unaffected. In conjunction with the increasing number of available CTI, it is thus in the best interest of every stakeholder to be aware of the quality of a CTI artifact. This allows for informed decisions and permits detailed analyses. Our work makes a twofold contribution to the challenge of assessing threat intelligence quality. We first propose a series of relevant quality dimensions and configure metrics to assess the respective dimensions in the context of CTI. In a second step, we showcase the extension of an existing CTI analysis tool to make the quality assessment transparent to security analysts. Furthermore, analysts’ subjective perceptions are, where necessary, included in the quality assessment concept