Implementation and evaluation of a mobile iOS application for auditory stimulation of chronic tinnitus patients

Mobile devices take in more and more space in our lifes and as tinnitus becomes a much more widespread disease, science started to develop treatment strategies. One of those treatment strategies is ’auditory training’ and with this strategy in mind a game concept with spatial audio was developed to provide an easily available ambulant help for chronic tinnitus patients. In the course of this thesis a seperate game only using spatial audio is developed on mobile iOS devices and in a study it is evaluated how good spatial audio can work on different mobile platforms. At the end of thesis the work is summarized and improvements in the game are displayed for further use in the above mentioned game scenario

Black Holes and (0,4) SCFTs from Type IIB on K3

We study the central charges and levels of 2d $\mathcal{N}=(0,4)$ superconformal field theories that are dual to four- and five-dimensional BPS black holes in compactifications of type IIB string theory on a K3 surface. They arise from wrapping a D3-brane on a curve $C$ inside K3 and have transverse space either an ALE or ALF space. These D3-branes have an AdS$_3 \times \mathrm{S}^3/ \Gamma$ near horizon geometry where $\Gamma$ is a discrete subgroup of $SU(2)$. We compute the central charges and levels of the 2d SCFTs both in the microscopic picture and from six-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=(2,0)$ supergravity. These quantities determine the black hole entropy via Cardy's formula. We find agreement between the microscopic and macroscopic computations. The contributions from one-loop quantum corrections to the macroscopic result are crucial for this matching.Comment: 36 pages; v2: published version, footnotes added, minor typos correcte

Professional exposure to fungal pathogens: an update to exposure conditions and exposure measurement

In many occupational settings an exposure to fungi occurs. Fungal exposure may occur for instance in the form of dermatocytes, yeasts or mold. Associated to the fungi themselves an exposure to cell wall components like ß(1 ? 3)-D-glucans, to mycotoxins or to microbial volatile compounds can occur. Health hazards may differ across species because fungi may produce different allergens and mycotoxins, and some species can infect humans. Occupational settings are often characterized by special exposure conditions with respect to duration, frequency and especially to the level of exposure resulting at least sometimes to high or very high fungal exposure. Because of these special conditions occupational settings are suitable for epidemiologic studies. However, the knowledge about occupational exposure to fungi and associated compounds like mycotoxins is still fragmentary and not well disseminated. An indication for a high fungal exposure is for instance the handling of dry natural products like grain, hay or herbal plants with a high specific surface and the tendency to release dust during handling. The fungal components often form the determinative part of such dusts and might be a vehicle to respiratory airways. The authors will present results of exposure measurements of occupational settings and exposure conditions which are only rarely investigated

Simplified Bid Languages – A Remedy to Efficiency Losses in Large Spectrum Auctions

Combinatorial auctions have been suggested as a mean to raise efficiency in multi-item negotiations with complementarities among goods as they can be found in procurement, energy markets, transportation, and the sale of spectrum auctions. Since 2008 the Combinatorial Clock Auction (CCA), a two-stage auction format has been used in many countries. [8] tested CCA in the lab and found out that the efficiency of CCA was relatively low, since bidders tended to submit too few bids. To reduce bidders’ complexity concerning evaluating lots of bundles, we simplified the bidding language without losing efficiency. Hereby, we used the knowledge of super-additivity and the fixed descending complementarity type of our value model. In lab experiments, we tested the two phases of the CCA auction, namely the Combinatorial Clock + (CC+) auction and a sealed bid version, with the simplification separately. Both formats yielded in higher efficiency and revenue than the CCA

Weighted voting on the IMF Managing Director

Executive Directors of the International Monetary Fund elect the Fund’s Managing Director from a shortlist of three candidates; financial quotas of IMF members define the respective numbers of votes. The implied a priori distribution of success (preference satisfaction) is compared across different electoral procedures. The USA’s Executive Director can expect to come closer to its top preference under plurality rule than for pairwise majority comparisons or plurality with a runoff; opposite applies to everybody else. Differences of US success between voting rules dominate the within-rule differences between most other Directors, and much of the latest reform of quotas

Weighted Committee Games

Many binary collective choice situations can be described as weighted simple voting games. We introduce weighted committee games to model decisions on an arbitrary number of alternatives in analogous fashion. We compare the effect of different voting weights (share-holdings, party seats, etc.) under plurality, Borda, Copeland, and antiplurality rule. The number and geometry of weight equivalence classes differ widely across the rules. Decisions can be much more sensitive to weights in Borda committees than (anti-)plurality or Copeland ones.Comment: 26 pages, 9 tables, 4 figure

Weighted Committee Games

Many binary collective choice situations can be described as weighted simple voting games. We introduce weighted committee games to model decisions on an arbitrary number of alternatives in analogous fashion. We compare the effect of different voting weights (share-holdings, party seats, etc.) under plurality, Borda, Copeland, and antiplurality rule. The number and geometry of weight equivalence classes differ widely across the rules. Decisions can be much more sensitive to weights in Borda committees than (anti-)plurality or Copeland ones.Comment: 26 pages, 9 tables, 4 figure