Results on the verification of satellite data based on a comparison with radiosonde data

Results of the verification of satellite wind data are represented by comparing them with radiosonde data for the geostationary satellites METEOSAT, GOES and GMS. The quality of METEOSAT pictures improved, reaching the quality of GOES and GMT wind data

Mirror neuron activity is no proof for action understanding

We focus on the thesis that action understanding is a function of the mirror neuron system. According to our opinion, understanding is a process that runs through hermeneutic circles from the “Vorverständnis” (“previous understanding”) to steps of deeper understanding. Our critique relates to the narrow neuroscientific definition of action understanding as the capacity to recognize several movements as belonging to one action. After a reconstruction of the model's developments, we will challenge the claims of the model by Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia (2010). By analyzing the relation between the experimental results and its interpretation, we will conclude that there is no proof that mirror neuron activity leads to action understanding

Die Analyse der Rationalität im Verhalten von Stakeholdern des Agribusiness anhand eines Experiments

Ziel des Beitrags ist es, die Rationalität von Stakeholdern des Agribusiness mit einem Entscheidungsexperiment zu analysieren. Dazu wurden Landwirte und Agrarhändler3 gebeten, Lotterielose zu bewerten. So konnte die Konsistenz im Risikoverhalten und die Präzision im Umgang mit Information über Wahrscheinlichkeiten beurteilt werden. Das Experiment verdeutlicht zum einen, dass bei einer Einteilung in risikoaverses, risikoneutrales und risikofreudiges Verhalten keine generellen Unterschiede in der Risikoeinstellung von Landwirten und Agrarhändlern festzustellen sind. Zum anderen zeigt sich, was die Konsistenz im Risikoverhalten angeht, dass nur ein Teil der befragten Landwirte und Agrarhändler im Experiment eine Risikoeinstellung beibehalten und entsprechend konsistente Antworten geben. Viele Probanden gaben fortwährend inkonsistente Antworten und sind deshalb als irrationale Entscheider einzustufen. Einige Probanden sind im Umgang mit quasi sicheren Ereignissen als begrenzt rationale Akteure zu identifizieren. Die begrenzt rationalen Akteure wählten dabei eine Antwort, die zwar zu ihrer bis dahin gezeigten Risikoeinstellung konsistent war, doch sie erkannten nicht, dass das Ergebnis einer Lotterie quasi sicher nicht in dem von ihnen gewählten Bereich liegt. Nur etwa die Hälfte der befragten Landwirte und Agrarhändler lässt durch ihr Verhalten vermuten, dass sie Risikoveränderungen sowohl in ihrer Tendenz als auch präzise abzuschätzen wissen. Dabei sind diese Probanden in der Lage, konsistente Risikoentscheidungen zu treffen. Darüber hinaus zeigt die Analyse, dass zwischen Landwirten und Agrarhändlern keine wesentlichen Unterschiede in der Rationalität bestehen.begrenzte Rationalität, Risikowahrnehmung, wiederholte Spiele, Gesetz der großen Zahlen, Agribusiness,

Referenzmodellierung von Internetauftritten am Beispiel von Handelsverbundgruppen

Ein wichtiges Instrument für das Partner Relationship Management stellt der Internetauftritt der Verbundgruppenzentrale dar. Forschungsfrage des vorliegenden Beitrags ist es, die Common Practice der Gestaltung von Verbundgruppen-Internetauftritten zu ermitteln. Dabei wird auch der Frage nachgegangen, ob die von Nohr et al. ausgemachte Fokussierung auf das Partner Relationship Management von den Internetauftritten der Verbundgruppen bestätigt wird. Als Forschungsmethode wurde die Entwicklung eines Referenzmodells gewählt. Zunächst wird die zur Modellierung des Referenzmodells gewählte Modellierungsmethode vorgestellt (Abschnitt 2). Im Anschluss werden die Konstruktion des Referenzmodells und das Ergebnis dieses Prozesses ausführlich beschrieben (Abschnitt 3). Danach wird das Referenzmodell in die Modellierungssprache MohIS transformiert (Abschnitt 4). Ein Ausblick zu weiterführenden Forschungsarbeiten schließt den Beitrag ab (Abschnitt 5)

The impact of mixing across the polar vortex edge on Match ozone loss estimates

The Match method for quantification of polar chemical ozone loss is investigated mainly with respect to the impact of mixing across the vortex edge onto this estimate. We show for the winter 2002/03 that significant mixing across the vortex edge occurred and was accurately modeled by the Chemical Lagrangian Model of the Stratosphere. Observations of inert tracers and ozone in-situ from HAGAR on the Geophysica aircraft and sondes and also remote from MIPAS on ENVISAT were reproduced well. The model even reproduced a small vortex remnant that was isolated until June 2003 and was observed in-situ by a balloon-borne whole air sampler. We use this CLaMS simulation to quantify the impact of cross vortex edge mixing on the results of the Match method. It is shown that a time integration of the determined vortex average ozone loss rates as performed in Match results in larger ozone loss than the polar vortex average ozone loss in CLaMS. Also, the determination of the Match ozone loss rates can be influenced by mixing. This is especially important below 430 K, where ozone outside the vortex is lower than inside and the vortex boundary is not a strong transport barrier. This effect and further sampling effects cause an offset between vortex average ozone loss rates derived from Match and deduced from CLaMS with an even sampling for the entire vortex. Both, the time-integration of ozone loss and the determination of ozone loss rates for Match are evaluated using the winter 2002/03 CLaMS simulation. These impacts can explain the differences between CLaMS and Match column ozone loss. While the investigated effects somewhat reduce the apparent discrepancy in January ozone loss rates, a discrepancy between simulations and Match remains. However, its contribution to the accumulated ozone loss over the winter is not large

The impact of transport across the polar vortex edge on Match ozone loss estimates

The Match method for the quantification of polar chemical ozone loss is investigated mainly with respect to the impact of the transport of air masses across the vortex edge. For the winter 2002/03, we show that significant transport across the vortex edge occurred and was simulated by the Chemical Lagrangian Model of the Stratosphere. In-situ observations of inert tracers and ozone from HAGAR on the Geophysica aircraft and balloon-borne sondes, and remote observations from MIPAS on the ENVISAT satellite were reproduced well by CLaMS. The model even reproduced a small vortex remnant that remained a distinct feature until June 2003 and was also observed in-situ by a balloon-borne whole air sampler. We use this CLaMS simulation to quantify the impact of transport across the vortex edge on ozone loss estimates from the Match method. We show that a time integration of the determined vortex average ozone loss rates, as performed in Match, results in a larger ozone loss than the polar vortex average ozone loss in CLaMS. The determination of the Match ozone loss rates is also influenced by the transport of air across the vortex edge. We use the model to investigate how the sampling of the ozone sondes on which Match is based represents the vortex average ozone loss rate. Both the time integration of ozone loss and the determination of ozone loss rates for Match are evaluated using the winter 2002/2003 CLaMS simulation. These impacts can explain the majority of the differences between CLaMS and Match column ozone loss. While the investigated effects somewhat reduce the apparent discrepancy in January ozone loss rates reported earlier, a distinct discrepancy between simulations and Match remains. However, its contribution to the accumulated ozone loss over the winter is not large

On battery recovery effect in wireless sensor nodes

With the perennial demand for longer runtime of battery-powered Wireless Sensor Nodes (WSNs), several techniques have been proposed to increase the battery runtime. One such class of techniques exploiting the battery recovery effect phenomenon claims that performing an intermittent discharge instead of a continuous discharge will increase the usable battery capacity. Several works in the areas of embedded systems and wireless sensor networks have assumed the existence of this recovery effect and proposed different power management techniques in the form of power supply architectures (multiple battery setup) and communication protocols (burst mode transmission) in order to exploit it. However, until now, a systematic experimental evaluation of the recovery effect has not been performed with real battery cells, using high accuracy battery testers to confirm the existence of this recovery phenomenon. In this paper, a systematic evaluation procedure is developed to verify the existence of this battery recovery effect. Using our evaluation procedure we investigated Alkaline, Nickel-Metal Hydride (NiMH) and Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) battery chemistries, which are commonly used as power supplies for WSN applications. Our experimental results do not show any evidence of the aforementioned recovery effect in these battery chemistries. In particular, our results show a significant deviation from the stochastic battery models, which were used by many power management techniques. Therefore, the existing power management approaches that rely on this recovery effect do not hold in practice. Instead of a battery recovery effect, our experimental results show the existence of the rate capacity effect, which is the reduction of usable battery capacity with higher discharge power, to be the dominant electrochemical phenomenon that should be considered for maximizing the runtime of WSN applications. We outline power management techniques that minimize the rate capacity effect in order to obtain a higher energy output from the battery

VEGa : a high performance vehicular Ethernet gateway on hybrid FPGA

Modern vehicles employ a large amount of distributed computation and require the underlying communication scheme to provide high bandwidth and low latency. Existing communication protocols like Controller Area Network (CAN) and FlexRay do not provide the required bandwidth, paving the way for adoption of Ethernet as the next generation network backbone for in-vehicle systems. Ethernet would co-exist with safety-critical communication on legacy networks, providing a scalable platform for evolving vehicular systems. This requires a high-performance network gateway that can simultaneously handle high bandwidth, low latency, and isolation; features that are not achievable with traditional processor based gateway implementations. We present VEGa, a configurable vehicular Ethernet gateway architecture utilising a hybrid FPGA to closely couple software control on a processor with dedicated switching circuit on the reconfigurable fabric. The fabric implements isolated interface ports and an accelerated routing mechanism, which can be controlled and monitored from software. Further, reconfigurability enables the switching behaviour to be altered at run-time under software control, while the configurable architecture allows easy adaptation to different vehicular architectures using high-level parameter settings. We demonstrate the architecture on the Xilinx Zynq platform and evaluate the bandwidth, latency, and isolation using extensive tests in hardware