open_access
Refine
Year
Publication Type
- Article (99)
- Report (30)
- Conference Proceeding (17)
- Book (8)
- Contribution to a Periodical (5)
- Other (5)
- Bachelor Thesis (3)
- Part of a Book (3)
- Part of Periodical (2)
- Review (2)
Keywords
- PIV (4)
- renewable energy (4)
- wind turbine (4)
- Lüftungstechnik (3)
- instationäre Lüftung (3)
- Nachhaltigkeit (2)
- Spreadsheet Energy System Model Generator (2)
- Third culture kids (2)
- energy system modeling (2)
- expert interviews (2)
Faculty
The annual wastewater flow that is treated by public
wastewater treatment plants in Germany amounts
to approx. 10 ∗ 10^9 m3/a and forms an ”artificial” hydropower
potential that can be used for energy generation
or recovery. In the context of this paper, energy
recovery in the outlet of wastewater treatment plants
is examined using the specific example of the water
wheel at the Warendorf central wastewater treatment
plant. The ”artificial” hydropower potential can be
roughly estimated at up to 20 to 105 GWh/a , whereby
this is largely dependent on the hydraulic gradient.
The strong variance results, among other things, from
the findings of the water wheel operation in Warendorf.
The decisive aspect here is the differential factor,
which describes the deviation between the theoretical
and actual energy yield of the water wheel. The
factor includes maintenance work, downtimes and insufficient
inflows, which are associated with a loss of
output. In the case study, the annual energy recovery
amounts to approx. 2 % of the annual electricity consumption
of the wastewater treatment plant and can
be estimated to 23,500 kWh (2022). In the context
of the economic analysis, it can be seen that despite
the ”low” yield, economic operation is possible if the
system is viewed as a long-term investment - payback
period of the example is approx. 14,5 years. The
27-year operation (1996 - 2023) of the water wheel
at the Warendorf central wastewater treatment plant
confirms this and important findings on successful
practical operation can be shown in the context of
this paper.
Background
Degenerative musculoskeletal disorders are among the most frequent diseases occurring in adulthood, often impairing patients' functional mobility and physical activity. The aim of the present study was to investigate and compare the impact of three frequent degenerative musculoskeletal disorders -- knee osteoarthritis (knee OA), hip osteoarthritis (hip OA) and lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) -- on patients' walking ability.
Methods
The study included 120 participants, with 30 in each patient group and 30 healthy control individuals. A uniaxial accelerometer, the StepWatch™ Activity Monitor (Orthocare Innovations, Seattle, Washington, USA), was used to determine the volume (number of gait cycles per day) and intensity (gait cycles per minute) of walking ability. Non-parametric testing was used for all statistical analyses.
Results
Both the volume and the intensity of walking ability were significantly lower among the patients in comparison with the healthy control individuals (p < 0.001). Patients with LSS spent 0.4 (IQR 2.8) min/day doing moderately intense walking (>50 gait cycles/min), which was significantly lower in comparison with patients with knee and hip OA at 2.5 (IQR 4.4) and 3.4 (IQR 16.1) min/day, respectively (p < 0.001). No correlations between demographic or anthropometric data and walking ability were found. No technical problems or measuring errors occurred with any of the measurements.
Conclusions
Patients with degenerative musculoskeletal disorders suffer limitations in their walking ability. Objective assessment of walking ability appeared to be an easy and feasible tool for measuring such limitations as it provides baseline data and objective information that are more precise than the patients' own subjective estimates. In everyday practice, objective activity assessment can provide feedback for clinicians regarding patients' performance during everyday life and the extent to which this confirms the results of clinical investigations. The method can also be used as a way of encouraging patients to develop a more active lifestyle.
Learning digital competencies can be successful if the information is also tried out immediately using interactive elements. However, interactive teaching poses a particular challenge, especially in large group formats. Various strategies are used to promote interaction, but there is little known about the results. This article shows different strategies and evaluates their influence on the interaction rate in a large group course over two terms that teaches digital medicine. Log files and participation in surveys as well as participation in chat were quantitatively evaluated. In addition, the chat messages themselves were evaluated qualitatively. For the evaluation, relation to the total number of participants was particularly relevant in order to be able to determine an interaction rate in the individual course sessions. A maximum average interaction rate of 90.97% could be determined over the entire term while the participants wrote an average of 3.96 comments during a session in the chat. In summary, this research could show that interactive elements should be well planned and used at regular intervals in order to reap the benefits.
BACKGROUND Interest in digital technologies in the health care sector is growing and can be a way to reduce the burden on professional caregivers while helping people to become more independent. Social robots are regarded as a special form of technology that can be usefully applied in professional caregiving with the potential to focus on interpersonal contact. While implementation is progressing slowly, a debate on the concepts and applications of social robots in future care is necessary. OBJECTIVE In addition to existing studies with a focus on societal attitudes toward social robots, there is a need to understand the views of professional caregivers and patients. This study used desired future scenarios to collate the perspectives of experts and analyze the significance for developing the place of social robots in care. METHODS In February 2020, an expert workshop was held with 88 participants (health professionals and educators; [PhD] students of medicine, health care, professional care, and technology; patient advocates; software developers; government representatives; and research fellows) from Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Using the scenario methodology, the possibilities of analog professional care (Analog Care), fully robotic professional care (Robotic Care), teams of robots and professional caregivers (Deep Care), and professional caregivers supported by robots (Smart Care) were discussed. The scenarios were used as a stimulus for the development of ideas about future professional caregiving. The discussion was evaluated using qualitative content analysis. RESULTS The majority of the experts were in favor of care in which people are supported by technology (Deep Care) and developed similar scenarios with a focus on dignity-centeredness. The discussions then focused on the steps necessary for its implementation, highlighting a strong need for the development of eHealth competence in society, a change in the training of professional caregivers, and cross-sectoral concepts. The experts also saw user acceptance as crucial to the use of robotics. This involves the acceptance of both professional caregivers and care recipients. CONCLUSIONS The literature review and subsequent workshop revealed how decision-making about the value of social robots depends on personal characteristics related to experience and values. There is therefore a strong need to recognize individual perspectives of care before social robots become an integrated part of care in the future.
Verockerung wasserbaulicher Filteranlagen: Stand der Wissenschaft und notwendige Untersuchungen
(2022)
In den letzten Jahrzehnten kam es in Einzelfällen zu schweren Schäden an wasserbaulichen geotextilen Filteranlagen infolge der Verstopfung durch ausgeflockte ockerhaltige Produkte. Durch eine starke Verminderung der Durchlässigkeit der Geokunststoffe in Kombination mit einem hohen hydrostatischen Druck wurden unter anderem die Deckschichten verschiedener Deckwerke in den tidebeeinflussten Wasserstraßen Ems und Weser angehoben und beschädigt. Bisher wurden die Milieubedingungen, d.h. Grundwasser- und Oberflächenwasserbeschaffenheit sowie Aquifer- und Deckwerksmaterial, unter denen die Ockerbildung in geotextilen und mineralischen Filteranlagen auftritt, noch nicht systematisch untersucht. Im Rahmen des vorliegenden Beitrags werden im ersten Schritt aus theoretischen Untersuchungen und Datenanalysen von Grundwasser- und Oberflächenwasseruntersuchungen Kriterien zur Bewertung der Verockerungsneigung abgeleitet. Diese Kriterien bzw. DOCP (decisive ochre clogging parameters) zeigen in den Ästuaren Ems, Weser und Elbe Beträge an, die Verockerungserscheinungen begünstigen bzw. ermöglichen. Auf Basis dieser Untersuchungen werden im zweiten Schritt Randbedingungen für zukünftige systematische in-situ Untersuchungen an wasserbaulichen Filteranlagen sowie im experimentellen Modell abgeleitet.
This survey study investigates surgical patients’ use and perception of digital health technologies in Germany in the pre–COVID-19 era. The objective of this study was to relate surgical patients’ characteristics to the use and perception of several digital health technologies. In this single-center, cross-sectional survey study in the outpatient department of a university hospital in Germany, 406 patients completed a questionnaire with the following three domains: general information and use of the internet, smartphones, and general digital health aspects. Analyses were stratified by age group and highest education level achieved. We found significant age-based differences in most of the evaluated aspects. Younger patients were more open to using new technologies in private and medical settings but had more security concerns. Although searching for information on illnesses on the web was common, the overall acceptance of and trust in web-based consultations were rather low, with <50% of patients in each age group reporting acceptance and trust. More people with academic qualifications than without academic qualifications searched for information on the web before visiting physicians (73/121, 60.3% and 100/240, 41.7%, respectively). Patients with academic degrees were also more engaged in health-related information and communication technology use. These results support the need for eHealth literacy, health literacy, and available digital devices and internet access to support the active, meaningful use of information and communication technologies in health care. Uncertainties and a lack of knowledge exist, especially regarding telemedicine and the use of medical and health apps. This is especially pronounced among older patients and patients with a low education status.
Mechanical ventilation of buildings is generally based on steadily operating systems. This field is well known and established. But, an approach based on time-varied supply flow rates might improve indoor air quality, comfort, and energy consumption. Typical time-scales of the variation are in the order of seconds or minutes. Until now, the effects of unsteady ventilation scenarios are not fully described and so, reliable dimensioning rules are missing. Hence, with a better understanding of the flow in unsteady ventilation, systems can be calculated and optimised. To understand the effective mechanisms and derive functional relations between the flow field and variation parameters, full-field optical flow measurements are executed with a particle image velocimetry (PIV) system. Experiments are conducted under isothermal conditions in water in a small-scale room model (1.00 m × 0.67 m × 0.46 m) with two swirl ceiling diffusers, Reynolds-scaling assures similarity. In a series of experiments, the effects of different unsteady ventilation strategies on the flow fields are investigated and compared to steady conditions with the same mean exchange rate. Mean exchange rates, signal types, periods, and amplitudes are varied. Time-averaged normalised velocity fields already indicate notable differences between steady and unsteady cases especially for lower exchange rates: the distribution is more homogeneous in unsteady scenarios compared to steady conditions, and low-velocity areas are reduced while the mean velocity of the room increases. So, unsteady ventilation might be beneficial in terms of improved ventilation and energy savings in partial-load operation. Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT) analyses of the mean velocity for each field over the whole series detect the main frequency of the volume flow variation. By dividing the velocity field into smaller areas, this main frequency is still detected especially in the upper part of the room, but side frequencies play a role in the room as well.
Das vorliegende Handbuch ist im Rahmen des EU-Projektes "Energyducation" (Förderkennzeichen KA2 2018-1-ES01-KA202-050327) entstanden und von Berufspädagogen, überwiegend praktizierenden Berufsschullehrerinnen und -lehrern, aus Deutschland (Institut für Berufliche Lehrerbildung an der FH Münster), den Niederlanden (Alfa-college in Groningen), Norwegen (NTI-MMM AS in Oslo) und Spanien (CIFP USURBIL LHII in Usurbil) verfasst worden. Vorlage war eine englische Fassung die umfangreich überarbeitet und im Hinblick auf die im deutschen Sprachraum vorherrschenden Begrifflichkeiten und Konzepte hin geschärft wurde.
Es dokumentiert die mit dem projektbasierten Lernen gesammelten Erfahrungen aus der Sicht von Praktikern. Die Besonderheit ist, dass die Erfahrungen untereinander abgeglichen wurden und damit länderübergreifende Erkenntnisse zusammengeführt wurden. Das vorliegende Handbuch versteht sich dabei nicht als wissenschaftliches Werk, greift aber Erkenntnisse aus der Lehreraus- und -fortbildung auf und stellt diese vor dem Hintergrund der gesammelten Erfahrungen dar.