Who is the average user? How people with visual impairments experience digital services

This thesis investigates the connections between the process of designing digital services on the one hand and the personal accounts of five people with visual impairment who use digital services on the other. Design plays a significant role in causing or mitigating disability in society through the shape and function of products, services, and the built environment. To better understand how products and services cause disability, I analyse disability as a multifactorial phenomenon which emerges through the interplay of personal, social, and environmental factors. I first review three models of disability from the field of disability studies, and, secondly, the design process through the review of inclusive design frameworks. Based on this analysis, I discuss how inclusive design frameworks fail to address the individual needs of people with impairments by generalising their challenges; and how the official interpretation of disability has developed into defining disability as a basic human experience. This research follows a grounded theory approach which utilises the accounts of five people with visual impairment to discuss their ability to access digital content, and, the role of design and technology in mitigating disability. Based on their accounts, I argue that design can mitigate disability and, thus, increase the independence of people with impairments. Furthermore, concrete examples of their interaction with digital services will help to organise factors that cause a positive or negative user experience for people with visual impairment. This thesis concludes with the suggestion of a new approach for designing inclusive products and services. This approach aims to consider the factors constituting the personal experience of accessibility, such as the use of assistive technology, the effects of physical impairments, and the availability of technology. Through this approach, designers can distinguish vulnerable user groups on a case-specific basis and, consequently, mitigate exclusion during the design process. In addition to improving the design process, this thesis argues that interacting with people with impairments, e.g., in the work environment, serves as an indispensable educative function to understand the requirements for building accessible products and services, and, thereby, develops an inclusive and diverse society

Ovarian Cancer: Diagnosis and Treatment

I have made it my task with this paper to outline principles for the treatment of ovarian carcinoma. Emphasis has been laid on pathology and on anatomical extent of the growth. The extension of the tumor should be outlined in detail at clinical examination and at laparotomy. Excision of the carcinoma should be performed to the greatest possible extent. Every effort should be made to keep the capsule intact. In cases of serous and endometrioid carcinoma fixed to surrounding tissue by firm adhesions, it may be appropriate to restrict the operation to an explorative laparatomy and to operate on the patient again 10 to 14 days after completion of radiation

Storm damage in the Black Forest caused by the winter storm "Lothar" - Part 1: Airborne damage assessment

An airborne survey of the Black Forest as affected by the winter storm "Lothar" in 1999 is performed by means of a color line scanner (CLS) with a CCD sensor, whose data in a visible and a near-infrared channel provide the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) as a measure of the damage in previously intact forest areas. The camera data, height data from a digital evelation model (DEM), land use information, and soil data are georeferenced and processed in a geographic information system (GIS) to derive relationship of the damage pattern to the characteristics of the local orography and soil types. The data cover an area of 4900 km$^2$, 2767 km$^2$ of which were forested. The 363 detected storm damage areas with a minimum detection size of 1.5 ha amount to 0.8% of the total forest area. Visual inspections at certain sites prove that none of the larger damage areas are missed, but areas smaller than 1.5 ha cause the total damage area to be up to twice our result, i.e. ≈1.6% of the forest area. More than 50% of the detected damaged areas are smaller than 5 ha and most of them have a size ranging from 1.5 to 3.5 ha. Forests on slopes with an inclination angle between 10 and 15 degrees show the highest fraction of damaged forest, doubling those on plains and below 5 degrees inclination angle. Forests on northwestern slopes are more affected than those on southwestern and western slopes, which faced the wind during highest wind speed occurrence. In contrast to other studies, this paper shows, that in steep areas, lee slopes are more damaged than the luv slopes. As expected, wet to moist soils represent an unstable location for the trees. But also medium-dry to dry locations that were considered to be relatively stable exhibited a highly damaged forest fraction. This can be attributed to mostly saturated soil from previous rain

Climate and Constructions : International Conference 24 and 25 October 2011, Karlsruhe, Germany / Competence Area "Earth and Environment" (KIT Scientific Reports ; 7618)

The two-day international conference "Climate and Constructions" covered the topics "Building Science", "Construction Chemistry", "Urban Climate" and "Materials Technology and Construction Techniques". Beside invited lectures and a workshop part about the interactions between climate and the construction sector, there was an open call to submit abstracts. The abstracts were assessed by an international advisory board

Compound extremes in a changing climate - a Markov chain approach

Studies using climate models and observed trends indicate that extreme weather has changed and may continue to change in the future. The potential impact of extreme events such as heat waves or droughts depends not only on their number of occurrences but also on "how these extremes occur", i.e., the interplay and succession of the events. These quantities are quite unexplored, for past changes as well as for future changes and call for sophisticated methods of analysis. To address this issue, we use Markov chains for the analysis of the dynamics and succession of multivariate or compound extreme events. We apply the method to observational data (1951–2010) and an ensemble of regional climate simulations for central Europe (1971–2000, 2021–2050) for two types of compound extremes, heavy precipitation and cold in winter and hot and dry days in summer. We identify three regions in Europe, which turned out to be likely susceptible to a future change in the succession of heavy precipitation and cold in winter, including a region in southwestern France, northern Germany and in Russia around Moscow. A change in the succession of hot and dry days in summer can be expected for regions in Spain and Bulgaria. The susceptibility to a dynamic change of hot and dry extremes in the Russian region will probably decrease

Regional scale effects of the aerosol cloud interaction simulated with an online coupled comprehensive chemistry model

We have extended the coupled mesoscale atmosphere and chemistry model COSMO-ART to account for the transformation of aerosol particles into cloud condensation nuclei and to quantify their interaction with warm cloud microphysics on the regional scale. The new model system aims to fill the gap between cloud resolving models and global scale models. It represents the very complex microscale aerosol and cloud physics as detailed as possible, whereas the continental domain size and efficient codes will allow for both studying weather and regional climate. The model system is applied in a first extended case study for Europe for a cloudy five day period in August 2005. <br><br> The model results show that the mean cloud droplet number concentration of clouds is correlated with the structure of the terrain, and we present a terrain slope parameter TS to classify this dependency. We propose to use this relationship to parameterize the probability density function, PDF, of subgrid-scale cloud updraft velocity in the activation parameterizations of climate models. <br><br> The simulations show that the presence of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and clouds are closely related spatially. We find high aerosol and CCN number concentrations in the vicinity of clouds at high altitudes. The nucleation of secondary particles is enhanced above the clouds. This is caused by an efficient formation of gaseous aerosol precursors above the cloud due to more available radiation, transport of gases in clean air above the cloud, and humid conditions. Therefore the treatment of complex photochemistry is crucial in atmospheric models to simulate the distribution of CCN. <br><br> The mean cloud droplet number concentration and droplet diameter showed a close link to the change in the aerosol. To quantify the net impact of an aerosol change on the precipitation we calculated the precipitation susceptibility <i>β</i> for the whole model domain over a period of two days with an hourly resolution. The distribution function of <i>β</i> is slightly skewed to positive values and has a mean of 0.23. Clouds with a liquid water path LWP of approximately 0.85 kg m<sup>−2</sup> are on average most susceptible to aerosol changes in our simulations with an absolute value of <i>β</i> of 1. The average <i>β</i> for LWP between 0.5 kg m<sup>−2</sup> and 1 kg m<sup>−2</sup> is approximately 0.4

Winter storm risk of residential structures ? model development and application to the German state of Baden-Württemberg

International audienceThe derivation of probabilities of high wind speeds and the establishment of risk curves for storm damage is of prime importance in natural hazard risk analysis. Risk curves allow the assessment of damage being exceeded at a given level of probability. In this paper, a method for the assessment of winter storm damage risk is described in detail and applied to the German state of Baden-Württemberg. Based on meteorological observations of the years 1971?2000 and on damage information of 4 severe storm events, storm hazard and damage risk of residential buildings is calculated on the level of communities. For this purpose, highly resolved simulations of storm wind fields with the Karlsruher Atmospheric Mesoscale Model (KAMM) are performed and a storm damage model is developed. Risk curves including the quantification of the uncertainties are calculated for every community. Local differences of hazard and risk are presented in state-wide maps. An average annual winter storm damage to residential buildings of minimum 15 million Euro (reference year 2000) for Baden-Württemberg is expected

Soil moisture impacts on convective indices and precipitation over complex terrain

The impact of soil moisture on convective precipitation, convective indices, surface energy balance components, and near-surface meteorological variables is analysed for seven intensive observation periods of the Convective and Orographically induced Precipitation Study (COPS) conducted in summer 2007 using a non-hydrostatic limited-area atmospheric prediction model. The control runs are compared to sensitivity experiments under dry (-25 %) and wet (+25 %) initial soil moisture conditions. In the wet experiment, surface fluxes produce moister and cooler boundary layers with increased equivalent potential temperatures. Furthermore, the lifting condensation level and the level of free convection are lowered for all analysed regions, even under different synoptic controls. The comparison of boundary-layer and mid-tropospheric forcing regimes reveal that the impact of soil moisture on the atmosphere is not systematically higher for boundary-layer forcing. Whereas the Bowen ratio exhibits a clear dependence on soil moisture conditions, the impact on precipitation is complex and strongly depends on convective inhibition. A considerable, but non-systematic dependence of convective precipitation on soil moisture exists in the analysed complex orography. The results demonstrate the high sensitivity of numerical weather prediction to initial soil moisture fields