Ostasienwissenschaften Meyer-Struckmann-Preis 2016: Florian Coulmas

Mit dem Meyer-Struckmann-Preis für geistes- und sozialwissenschaftliche Forschung, 2016 ausgeschrieben für Ostasienwissenschaften, wurde Professor Dr. Florian Coulmas ausgezeichnet. Florian Coulmas ist Senior-Professor für Sprache und Kultur des modernen Japan am Institut für Ostasiatische Studien der Universität Duisburg-Essen. Die Jury würdigt mit Coulmas einen Wissenschaftler, der als Direktor des Deutschen Instituts für Japanstudien in Tokio wegweisend die internationale Forschung zum demographischen Wandel einer nicht-westlichen Industrienation bereichert hat. Nach Einschätzung der Jury besitzt der Linguist, Soziologe und Japanologe sowohl durch seine fachliche Expertise im Bereich der sozialwissenschaftlichen Japanforschung als auch als Soziolinguist ein internationales Renommee. Im deutschsprachigen Raum machte sich Coulmas darüber hinaus als populärer Sachbuch-Autor zu aktuelle Japanthemen einen Namen

Eating disorders in weight-related therapy (EDIT): protocol for a systematic review with individual participant data meta-analysis of eating disorder risk in behavioural weight management

The Eating Disorders In weight-related Therapy (EDIT) Collaboration brings together data from randomised controlled trials of behavioural weight management interventions to identify individual participant risk factors and intervention strategies that contribute to eating disorder risk. We present a protocol for a systematic review and individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis which aims to identify participants at risk of developing eating disorders, or related symptoms, during or after weight management interventions conducted in adolescents or adults with overweight or obesity. We systematically searched four databases up to March 2022 and clinical trials registries to May 2022 to identify randomised controlled trials of weight management interventions conducted in adolescents or adults with overweight or obesity that measured eating disorder risk at pre- and post-intervention or follow-up. Authors from eligible trials have been invited to share their deidentified IPD. Two IPD meta-analyses will be conducted. The first IPD meta-analysis aims to examine participant level factors associated with a change in eating disorder scores during and following a weight management intervention. To do this we will examine baseline variables that predict change in eating disorder risk within intervention arms. The second IPD meta-analysis aims to assess whether there are participant level factors that predict whether participation in an intervention is more or less likely than no intervention to lead to a change in eating disorder risk. To do this, we will examine if there are differences in predictors of eating disorder risk between intervention and no-treatment control arms. The primary outcome will be a standardised mean difference in global eating disorder score from baseline to immediately post-intervention and at 6- and 12- months follow-up. Identifying participant level risk factors predicting eating disorder risk will inform screening and monitoring protocols to allow early identification and intervention for those at risk

Calibration of a Stationary Multichannel GPR Monitoring System Using Internal Reflection Measurements

Advanced and extensive processing of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) data, for example, needed for full-waveform inversion approaches, requires a reliable temporal calibration of the system. Usually, the calibration of GPR systems is performed with a known medium between the transmitting and receiving antennas. Thereby, the observed time difference between the expected and measured signal arrival times, termed as time-zero, can be accounted for as a system-specific time delay. For measurement configurations where the antennas are permanently positioned around an object for monitoring purposes, time-consuming additional measurements where parts of the system need to be deinstalled would be required. This is not feasible for the proposed system. Therefore, novel calibration methods for such stationary monitoring systems are required to capture the temporal drift of time-zero. In this article, we present a novel calibration approach that uses internal signal reflections in the measurement system to derive the system-specific time delay without the necessity of knowing the medium between the antennas. We demonstrate that parasitic reflection and coupling signals can be used for accurate in situ calibrations. The presented approach is capable of identifying and correcting for the differences in hardware fabrication, while also correcting the temporal changes in time-zero during experiments. The presented approach is able to reduce the error in time-zero to below 25 ps, enabling high-resolution soil research. The presented approach is characterized by requiring no additional calibration setups or measurements since all the necessary data can be acquired during the original soil measurement

In situ time-zero correction for a ground penetrating radar monitoring system with 3000 antennas

The time-zero correction is an essential step in the data pre-processing of ground penetrating radar (GPR) measurements to obtain an accurate signal propagation time between transmitting and receiving antennas. For a novel custom GPR monitoring system with about 3000 antennas and corresponding transceiver structures placed around a soil sample (lysimeter), an in situ approach for the time-zero correction is required. In particular, unknown material properties between any pair of transmitting and receiving antennas prevent a conventional time-zero correction. We present and compare two calibration approaches, namely a pairwise and a mesh calibration, both utilizing the ability of the monitoring system to conduct reciprocal measurements between any pair of antennas. The pairwise calibration enables an individual calibration for any antenna pair, whereas the mesh calibration reduces the influence of the soil between antenna pairs compared to the pairwise calibration. The developed approach is verified by utilizing a mathematical model. Experimental results from a simplified setup show that the lysimeter filling has a negligible impact onto the calibration approach based on adjacent measurements for the mesh calibration. In addition, it is shown that a state of the art time-zero calibration can be used to measure the signal delays within the analog circuit of the measurement system with an accuracy of ±4 ps. The simulation results indicate that by using the developed concept, no prior air calibration between every possible antenna combination is necessary. Thus, this work provides a crucial contribution towards an automated in situ time-zero correction for 3D GPR monitoring systems with many antennas