Mapping a sustainable future: Community learning in dialogue at the science–society interface

In 2015, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) announced that the Science Year 2015 would focus on the “City of the Future”. It called for innovative projects from cities and communities in Germany dedicated to exploring future options and scenarios for sustainable development. Among the successful respondents was the city of Lüneburg, located in the north of Germany, which was awarded funding to establish a community learning project to envision a sustainable future (“City of the Future Lüneburg 2030+”). What made Lüneburg’s approach unique was that the city itself initiated the project and invited a broad range of stakeholders to participate in a community learning process for sustainable development. The authors of this article use the project as a blueprint for sustainable city development. Presenting a reflexive case study, they report on the process and outcomes of the project and investigate community learning processes amongst different stakeholders as an opportunity for transformative social learning. They discuss outputs and outcomes (intended as well as unintended) in relation to the specific starting points of the project to provide a context-sensitive yet rich narrative of the case and to overcome typical criticisms of case studies in the field.     

Seeking sustainability competence and capability in the ESD and HESD literature: an international philosophical hermeneutic analysis

Education for sustainable development (ESD) and higher education for sustainable development (HESD) are complex, multidisciplinary fields of enquiry, drawing on concepts and terms from different disciplines and languages. Although the fields are advancing in their acceptability within educational systems worldwide, they are currently struggling to achieve sought-after graduate and societal outcomes such as environmentally-responsible or sustainability-focussed-citizenship. The research described in this article explores the possibility that miscommunication or misunderstanding of basic concepts within these fields is contributing to slow progress towards their objectives. We used a philosophical hermeneutic analysis to explore how the terms ‘competence’ and ‘capability’ are used within selected ESD/HESD papers. We identify substantial internal contradictions and inconsistencies with respect to differences between learners’ abilities and their willingness to perform these abilities, and to the educational context in which these outcomes are sought. We emphasise the importance of linking educational objectives with pedagogical approaches to teaching and assessment.     

Global science: the eruption of Krakatau

The eruption of the volcano Krakatau in the Netherlands East Indies (Indonesia) in 1883 had worldwide impact. This was perceived in the three quite different types of global propagation that occurred after the eruption: a rapid pressure wave, noticeable only to measuring instruments, followed a few hours later by the spread of the news of the event, succeeded by a slowly expanding optical phenomenon that lasted for a couple of years. Krakatau was the first natural catastrophe of global magnitude that was almost immediately recognized as such throughout the world, largely thanks to the recently installed worldwide telegraphic network.     

Modellbasierte Entwicklung eingebetteter Fahrzeugsoftware bei DaimlerChrysler

Steigende Softwareumf?nge und die damit einhergehende Komplexit?tssteigerung erfordern neue Herangehensweisen an die Entwicklung eingebetteter Fahrzeugsoftware. Als Reaktion auf diese Herausforderungen vollzieht sich seit einigen Jahren ein Paradigmenwechsel von der klassischen Programmentwicklung hin zu modellbasierten Techniken. Der Beitrag gibt einen überblick über den Einsatz modellbasierter Entwicklungstechniken bei DaimlerChrysler und zeigt aktuelle Forschungsschwerpunkte auf. The growing amount of software and attendant rise in complexity demand new approaches to the development of embedded vehicle software. For some years now, a paradigm change from classical program development to model-based techniques has been taking place in reaction to these challenges. This paper provides an overview of the application of model-based development techniques at DaimlerChrysler and presents the main foci of current research.

CR Subject Classification D.2.1,D.2.2,D.2.3,D.2.5,D.2.10,I.6.4,I.6.5     

Perceptions of national identity and attitudes toward immigrants and immigration in Canada and Germany

In the current research, we examined whether promoting an inclusive national ingroup that includes both immigrants and nonimmigrants would improve attitudes toward immigrants and immigration among members of receiving societies. We also determined whether one's nation of citizenship and individual differences in social dominance orientation would moderate the effects. Participants were 126 Canadian students and 282 German students, who completed a measure of social dominance orientation and were then asked to respond to a series of questions designed to heighten the salience of national identity (national identity), promote a national ingroup that includes immigrants (common national ingroup), or irrelevant questions (control). The dependent measures included attitudes toward immigrants and immigration, and subtle prejudice toward immigrants. Results revealed that the manipulation of a common national ingroup successfully promoted more positive attitudes toward immigrants and immigration among higher social dominance oriented Canadian participants, but tended to have detrimental effects on the attitudes of higher social dominance oriented German participants. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of considering the context in which groups are situated, as well as implications for developing strategies to promote harmony between immigrants and members of receiving societies.     

Aspektorientierte Programmiertechniken im Unit-Testen

Der Artikel untersucht, wie Probleme, die speziell beim Unit-Testen objektorientierter Programme auftreten, mit Hilfe des Paradigmas aspektorientierte Programmierung gel?st werden k?nnen. Die Untersuchung stellt Schritt für Schritt die einzelnen Teilprobleme vor, f"uhrt konventionelle L?sungen auf, zeigt aspektorientierte Alternativen für die gestellten Probleme und erl"autert anhand von Code-Beispielen ihre Implementierung in der Sprache AspectJ.     

Determination of the centre of mass kinematics in alpine skiing using differential global navigation satellite systems

In the sport of alpine skiing, knowledge about the centre of mass (CoM) kinematics (i.e. position, velocity and acceleration) is essential to better understand both performance and injury. This study proposes a global navigation satellite system (GNSS)-based method to measure CoM kinematics without restriction of capture volume and with reasonable set-up and processing requirements. It combines the GNSS antenna position, terrain data and the accelerations acting on the skier in order to approximate the CoM location, velocity and acceleration. The validity of the method was assessed against a reference system (video-based 3D kinematics) over 12 turn cycles on a giant slalom skiing course. The mean (± s) position, velocity and acceleration differences between the CoM obtained from the GNSS and the reference system were 9 ± 12 cm, 0.08 ± 0.19 m · s^-1 and 0.22 ± 1.28 m · s^-2, respectively. The velocity and acceleration differences obtained were smaller than typical differences between the measures of several skiers on the same course observed in the literature, while the position differences were slightly larger than its discriminative meaningful change. The proposed method can therefore be interpreted to be technically valid and adequate for a variety of biomechanical research questions in the field of alpine skiing with certain limitations regarding position.