@article{BaaderBoxbergChenetal.2023, author = {Baader, Fabian and Boxberg, Marc S. and Chen, Qian and F{\"o}rstner, Roger and Kowalski, Julia and Dachwald, Bernd}, title = {Field-test performance of an ice-melting probe in a terrestrial analogue environment}, series = {Icarus}, journal = {Icarus}, number = {409}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, doi = {10.1016/j.icarus.2023.115852}, pages = {Artikel 115852}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Melting probes are a proven tool for the exploration of thick ice layers and clean sampling of subglacial water on Earth. Their compact size and ease of operation also make them a key technology for the future exploration of icy moons in our Solar System, most prominently Europa and Enceladus. For both mission planning and hardware engineering, metrics such as efficiency and expected performance in terms of achievable speed, power requirements, and necessary heating power have to be known. Theoretical studies aim at describing thermal losses on the one hand, while laboratory experiments and field tests allow an empirical investigation of the true performance on the other hand. To investigate the practical value of a performance model for the operational performance in extraterrestrial environments, we first contrast measured data from terrestrial field tests on temperate and polythermal glaciers with results from basic heat loss models and a melt trajectory model. For this purpose, we propose conventions for the determination of two different efficiencies that can be applied to both measured data and models. One definition of efficiency is related to the melting head only, while the other definition considers the melting probe as a whole. We also present methods to combine several sources of heat loss for probes with a circular cross-section, and to translate the geometry of probes with a non-circular cross-section to analyse them in the same way. The models were selected in a way that minimizes the need to make assumptions about unknown parameters of the probe or the ice environment. The results indicate that currently used models do not yet reliably reproduce the performance of a probe under realistic conditions. Melting velocities and efficiencies are constantly overestimated by 15 to 50 \% in the models, but qualitatively agree with the field test data. Hence, losses are observed, that are not yet covered and quantified by the available loss models. We find that the deviation increases with decreasing ice temperature. We suspect that this mismatch is mainly due to the too restrictive idealization of the probe model and the fact that the probe was not operated in an efficiency-optimized manner during the field tests. With respect to space mission engineering, we find that performance and efficiency models must be used with caution in unknown ice environments, as various ice parameters have a significant effect on the melting process. Some of these are difficult to estimate from afar.}, language = {en} } @article{ElBerguiAbouabdillahBouriougetal.2023, author = {El Bergui, Omnia and Abouabdillah, Aziz and Bourioug, Mohamed and Schmitz, Dominik and Biel, Markus and Aboudrare, Abdellah and Krauss, Manuel and Jomaa, Ahlem and Romuli, Sebastian and M{\"u}ller, Joachim and Fagroud, Mustapha and Bouabid, Rachid}, title = {Innovative solutions for drought: Evaluating hydrogel application on onion cultivation (Allium cepa) in Morocco}, series = {Water}, volume = {15}, journal = {Water}, number = {11}, publisher = {MDPI}, address = {Basel}, doi = {10.3390/w15111972}, pages = {Artikel 1972}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Throughout the last decade, and particularly in 2022, water scarcity has become a critical concern in Morocco and other Mediterranean countries. The lack of rainfall during spring was worsened by a succession of heat waves during the summer. To address this drought, innovative solutions, including the use of new technologies such as hydrogels, will be essential to transform agriculture. This paper presents the findings of a study that evaluated the impact of hydrogel application on onion (Allium cepa) cultivation in Meknes, Morocco. The treatments investigated in this study comprised two different types of hydrogel-based soil additives (Arbovit® polyacrylate and Huminsorb® polyacrylate), applied at two rates (30 and 20 kg/ha), and irrigated at two levels of water supply (100\% and 50\% of daily crop evapotranspiration; ETc). Two control treatments were included, without hydrogel application and with both water amounts. The experiment was conducted in an open field using a completely randomized design. The results indicated a significant impact of both hydrogel-type dose and water dose on onion plant growth, as evidenced by various vegetation parameters. Among the hydrogels tested, Huminsorb® Polyacrylate produced the most favorable outcomes, with treatment T9 (100\%, HP, 30 kg/ha) yielding 70.55 t/ha; this represented an increase of 11 t/ha as compared to the 100\% ETc treatment without hydrogel application. Moreover, the combination of hydrogel application with 50\% ETc water stress showed promising results, with treatment T4 (HP, 30 kg, 50\%) producing almost the same yield as the 100\% ETc treatment without hydrogel while saving 208 mm of water.}, language = {en} } @article{BergPostweilerSteuerDankertLeichtScholten2023, author = {Berg-Postweiler, Julia and Steuer-Dankert, Linda and Leicht-Scholten, Carmen}, title = {One size does not fit all: Applying antibias trainings in academia}, series = {The International Journal of Organizational Diversity}, volume = {24}, journal = {The International Journal of Organizational Diversity}, number = {1}, publisher = {Common Ground Research Networks}, issn = {2328-6261 (Print)}, doi = {10.18848/2328-6261/CGP/v24i01/1-23}, pages = {1 -- 23}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Antibias training is increasingly demanded and practiced in academia and industry to increase employees' sensitivity to discrimination, racism, and diversity. Under the heading of "Diversity Management," antibias trainings are mainly offered as one-off workshops intending to raise awareness of unconscious biases, create a diversity-affirming corporate culture, promote awareness of the potential of diversity, and ultimately enable the reflection of diversity in development processes. However, coming from childhood education, research and scientific articles on the sustainable effectiveness of antibias in adulthood, especially in academia, are very scarce. In order to fill this research gap, the article aims to explore how sustainable the effects of individual antibias trainings on participants' behavior are. In order to investigate this, participant observation in a qualitative pre-post setting was conducted, analyzing antibias training in an academic context. Two observers actively participated in the training sessions and documented the activities and reflection processes of the participants. Overall, the results question the effectiveness of single antibias trainings and show that a target-group adaptive approach is mandatory owing to the background of the approach in early childhood education. Therefore, antibias work needs to be adapted to the target group's needs and realities of life. Furthermore, the study reveals that single antibias trainings must be embedded in a holistic diversity management approach to stimulate sustainable reflection processes among the target group. This article is one of the first to scientifically evaluate antibias training effectiveness, especially in engineering sciences and the university context.}, language = {en} } @article{HaegerProbstJaegeretal.2023, author = {Haeger, Gerrit and Probst, Johanna and Jaeger, Karl-Erich and Bongaerts, Johannes and Siegert, Petra}, title = {Novel aminoacylases from Streptomyces griseus DSM 40236 and their recombinant production in Streptomyces lividans}, series = {FEBS Open Bio}, volume = {13}, journal = {FEBS Open Bio}, number = {12}, publisher = {Wiley}, address = {Hoboken, NJ}, issn = {2211-5463}, doi = {10.1002/2211-5463.13723}, pages = {2224 -- 2238}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Amino acid-based surfactants are valuable compounds for cosmetic formulations. The chemical synthesis of acyl-amino acids is conventionally performed by the Schotten-Baumann reaction using fatty acyl chlorides, but aminoacylases have also been investigated for use in biocatalytic synthesis with free fatty acids. Aminoacylases and their properties are diverse; they belong to different peptidase families and show differences in substrate specificity and biocatalytic potential. Bacterial aminoacylases capable of synthesis have been isolated from Burkholderia, Mycolicibacterium, and Streptomyces. Although several proteases and peptidases from S. griseus have been described, no aminoacylases from this species have been identified yet. In this study, we investigated two novel enzymes produced by S. griseus DSM 40236ᵀ . We identified and cloned the respective genes and recombinantly expressed an α-aminoacylase (EC 3.5.1.14), designated SgAA, and an ε-lysine acylase (EC 3.5.1.17), designated SgELA, in S. lividans TK23. The purified aminoacylase SgAA was biochemically characterized, focusing on its hydrolytic activity to determine temperature- and pH optima and stabilities. The aminoacylase could hydrolyze various acetyl-amino acids at the Nα -position with a broad specificity regarding the sidechain. Substrates with longer acyl chains, like lauroyl-amino acids, were hydrolyzed to a lesser extent. Purified aminoacylase SgELA specific for the hydrolysis of Nε -acetyl-L-lysine was unstable and lost its enzymatic activity upon storage for a longer period but could initially be characterized. The pH optimum of SgELA was pH 8.0. While synthesis of acyl-amino acids was not observed with SgELA, SgAA catalyzed the synthesis of lauroyl-methionine.}, language = {en} } @article{MoehrenBergmannJanseretal.2023, author = {M{\"o}hren, Felix and Bergmann, Ole and Janser, Frank and Braun, Carsten}, title = {On the influence of elasticity on propeller performance: a parametric study}, series = {CEAS Aeronautical Journal}, volume = {14}, journal = {CEAS Aeronautical Journal}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, address = {Berlin}, issn = {1869-5590 (Online)}, doi = {10.1007/s13272-023-00649-y}, pages = {311 -- 323}, year = {2023}, abstract = {The aerodynamic performance of propellers strongly depends on their geometry and, consequently, on aeroelastic deformations. Knowledge of the extent of the impact is crucial for overall aircraft performance. An integrated simulation environment for steady aeroelastic propeller simulations is presented. The simulation environment is applied to determine the impact of elastic deformations on the aerodynamic propeller performance. The aerodynamic module includes a blade element momentum approach to calculate aerodynamic loads. The structural module is based on finite beam elements, according to Timoshenko theory, including moderate deflections. Several fixed-pitch propellers with thin-walled cross sections made of both isotropic and non-isotropic materials are investigated. The essential parameters are varied: diameter, disc loading, sweep, material, rotational, and flight velocity. The relative change of thrust between rigid and elastic blades quantifies the impact of propeller elasticity. Swept propellers of large diameters or low disc loadings can decrease the thrust significantly. High flight velocities and low material stiffness amplify this tendency. Performance calculations without consideration of propeller elasticity can lead to decreased efficiency. To avoid cost- and time-intense redesigns, propeller elasticity should be considered for swept planforms and low disc loadings.}, language = {en} } @article{UlmerBraunChengetal.2023, author = {Ulmer, Jessica and Braun, Carsten and Cheng, Chi-Tsun and Dowey, Steve and Wollert, J{\"o}rg}, title = {A human factors-aware assistance system in manufacturing based on gamification and hardware modularisation}, series = {International Journal of Production Research}, journal = {International Journal of Production Research}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, issn = {0020-7543 (Print)}, doi = {10.1080/00207543.2023.2166140}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Assistance systems have been widely adopted in the manufacturing sector to facilitate various processes and tasks in production environments. However, existing systems are mostly equipped with rigid functional logic and do not provide individual user experiences or adapt to their capabilities. This work integrates human factors in assistance systems by adjusting the hardware and instruction presented to the workers' cognitive and physical demands. A modular system architecture is designed accordingly, which allows a flexible component exchange according to the user and the work task. Gamification, the use of game elements in non-gaming contexts, has been further adopted in this work to provide level-based instructions and personalised feedback. The developed framework is validated by applying it to a manual workstation for industrial assembly routines.}, language = {en} } @article{BoehnischBraunMuscarelloetal.2023, author = {B{\"o}hnisch, Nils and Braun, Carsten and Muscarello, Vincenzo and Marzocca, Pier}, title = {A sensitivity study on aeroelastic instabilities of slender wings with a large propeller}, series = {AIAA SCITECH 2023 Forum}, journal = {AIAA SCITECH 2023 Forum}, publisher = {AIAA}, doi = {10.2514/6.2023-1893}, pages = {1 -- 14}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Next-generation aircraft designs often incorporate multiple large propellers attached along the wingspan. These highly flexible dynamic systems can exhibit uncommon aeroelastic instabilities, which should be carefully investigated to ensure safe operation. The interaction between the propeller and the wing is of particular importance. It is known that whirl flutter is stabilized by wing motion and wing aerodynamics. This paper investigates the effect of a propeller onto wing flutter as a function of span position and mounting stiffness between the propeller and wing. The analysis of a comparison between a tractor and pusher configuration has shown that the coupled system is more stable than the standalone wing for propeller positions near the wing tip for both configurations. The wing fluttermechanism is mostly affected by the mass of the propeller and the resulting change in eigenfrequencies of the wing. For very weak mounting stiffnesses, whirl flutter occurs, which was shown to be stabilized compared to a standalone propeller due to wing motion. On the other hand, the pusher configuration is, as to be expected, the more critical configuration due to the attached mass behind the elastic axis.}, language = {de} } @article{StiemerThomaBraun2023, author = {Stiemer, Luc Nicolas and Thoma, Andreas and Braun, Carsten}, title = {MBT3D: Deep learning based multi-object tracker for bumblebee 3D flight path estimation}, series = {PLoS ONE}, volume = {18}, journal = {PLoS ONE}, number = {9}, publisher = {PLOS}, address = {San Fancisco}, issn = {1932-6203}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0291415}, pages = {e0291415}, year = {2023}, abstract = {This work presents the Multi-Bees-Tracker (MBT3D) algorithm, a Python framework implementing a deep association tracker for Tracking-By-Detection, to address the challenging task of tracking flight paths of bumblebees in a social group. While tracking algorithms for bumblebees exist, they often come with intensive restrictions, such as the need for sufficient lighting, high contrast between the animal and background, absence of occlusion, significant user input, etc. Tracking flight paths of bumblebees in a social group is challenging. They suddenly adjust movements and change their appearance during different wing beat states while exhibiting significant similarities in their individual appearance. The MBT3D tracker, developed in this research, is an adaptation of an existing ant tracking algorithm for bumblebee tracking. It incorporates an offline trained appearance descriptor along with a Kalman Filter for appearance and motion matching. Different detector architectures for upstream detections (You Only Look Once (YOLOv5), Faster Region Proposal Convolutional Neural Network (Faster R-CNN), and RetinaNet) are investigated in a comparative study to optimize performance. The detection models were trained on a dataset containing 11359 labeled bumblebee images. YOLOv5 reaches an Average Precision of AP = 53, 8\%, Faster R-CNN achieves AP = 45, 3\% and RetinaNet AP = 38, 4\% on the bumblebee validation dataset, which consists of 1323 labeled bumblebee images. The tracker's appearance model is trained on 144 samples. The tracker (with Faster R-CNN detections) reaches a Multiple Object Tracking Accuracy MOTA = 93, 5\% and a Multiple Object Tracking Precision MOTP = 75, 6\% on a validation dataset containing 2000 images, competing with state-of-the-art computer vision methods. The framework allows reliable tracking of different bumblebees in the same video stream with rarely occurring identity switches (IDS). MBT3D has much lower IDS than other commonly used algorithms, with one of the lowest false positive rates, competing with state-of-the-art animal tracking algorithms. The developed framework reconstructs the 3-dimensional (3D) flight paths of the bumblebees by triangulation. It also handles and compares two alternative stereo camera pairs if desired.}, language = {en} }