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To avoid harm to humans, environment, and capital goods, hazardous or explosive gases that are possibly escaping from industrial and infrastructure facilities of the gas and oil processing industry have to be detected and located quickly and reliably. Project RoboGasInspector aims at the development and evaluation of a human-robot system that applies autonomous robots equipped with remote gas detection devices to detect and locate gas leaks. This article aims to focus on the usability of telemanipulation in this context.

This paper presents four user studies concerning human-robot interfaces for teleoperation in industrial inspection tasks. Their purpose is to resolve contradictory scientific findings regarding aspects of teleoperation and to verify functionality, usability, and technology acceptance of the designed solution in the actual context of use. Therefore, aspects concerning teleoperation that were separately examined before are evaluated in an integrated way. Considered aspects are influence of media technology on telepresence, simulator sickness and head slaved camera control, usability of different input devices for telemanipulation, and identification of intuitive gestures for teleoperation of mobile robots.

In general, the implemented interaction concepts perform better compared to conventional ones used in contemporary, actually applied robot systems. Otherwise, reasons are analyzed and approaches for further improvements are discussed. Exemplary results are given for each study.

The solution combines several technical approaches that are so far separately examined. Each approach is transferred to the innovative domain of industrial inspections and its applicability in this context is verified. New findings give design recommendations for remote workplaces of robot operators.

The paper aims at proposing a uniform and demonstrative description of two well‐known and widely used approximations of slowly time‐varying electromagnetic fields, i.e. the electro‐quasistatic and the magneto‐quasistationary approximation to Maxwell's equations.

Under both approximations, the orders of magnitude of the relative errors of the dominant fields are analyzed by using three characteristic time constants. These time constants are determined by considering the material properties, the characteristic length scale and the characteristic time scale.

Limiting curves which show the domains of applicability of the two approximations are retrieved from the estimation of their relative errors. The relation between the domains of validity of the electro‐quasistatic and magneto‐quasistationary approximations was found and depicted in a combined diagram.

The study is restricted to slowly time‐varying electromagnetic fields. Heuristic and local estimates based on local material properties were used for the analysis. Rigorous estimations of the errors (e.g. also considering the field problem's topology) of the magneto‐quasistationary approximation are already known in the literature. A rigorous estimation of the error of the electro‐quasistatic approximation is, therefore, suggested for future research.

The combined diagram showing the domains of validity of both approximations considered here in a uniform way is novel. It gives rise to an intuitive and easily accessible understanding of their applicability.

Aging wiring in cars, aircraft, trains and other transportation means is identified as a critical security area. The purpose of this paper is to develop a new methodology for wire diagnosis allowing the detection, localization and characterization of the fault in wiring network.

The direct problem (propagation along the cables) is modelled by RLCG circuit parameters and the finite difference time domain method. This model provides a simple and accurate method to simulate time domain reflectometry (TDR) responses. Genetic algorithms are combined with this wire propagation model to solve the inverse problem and to deduce physical information's about defects from the reflectometry response.

The results show the applicability of an inverse procedure dedicated to TDR for the localization and characterization of defects in simple wires and faulty wiring networks. With experimental results, the paper demonstrates the accuracy which can be provided for wire diagnosis.

The work provides an efficient tool for the diagnosis of embedded wire networks.

In this paper, a new method is developed and applied to detect, characterize and localize the defects in wiring networks: an inverse procedure is introduced for wire diagnosis. The presented methodology is applied for complex network structures and with measurement data.

Rising public scrutiny has? brought new demands for science communication. Especially, incidents of falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism have recently come to question academic integrity and legitimacy in Germany. Focussing on a prominent plagiarism case that revolved around the former Minister of Science and Education’s dissertation, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the communication strategies of the Düsseldorf University as it navigated the complex challenges of the crisis situation.

The analysis is based on a rhetorical analysis of the public discourse of the University Düsseldorf in the context of the plagiarism crisis.

The study finds that the university responded to the crisis by focussing on legitimating the legal and administrative process by which it evaluated Schavan’s dissertation and revoked the degree. In turn, this focus neglected restoring the threatened reputation of graduate education and of scholarship itself. Ultimately, the crisis communication of the university worked to undermine the premises and goals of science communication.

Future research should focus on case studies of crisis communication by academic and research organizations as well as on investigating the effects of crisis rhetoric on public trust in and on understanding of academic research. The study suggests that it is worthwhile for crisis and science communication scholars to work to develop distinct frameworks for science communication in crisis and crisis communication in science that account for the unique tensions and duality of needs in this arena.

The study contributes to the understanding of the intersections between crisis communication and science communication. Especially, it underlines the importance of developing distinct frameworks for science communication in crisis and crisis communication in science that account for the unique tensions and duality of needs in this arena.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the distribution and the contextual conditions of statutory and non‐statutory forms of employee representation in Germany (works councils and non‐statutory employee representation (NSRs) respectively). It aims to contribute to the debate by proposing a theoretical model which improves our understanding of why works councils and NSRs exist in companies and by presenting an empirical analysis of the explanatory factors based on representative data.

Based on a representative survey of 3,254 German private‐sector companies, descriptive statistics and regression models are calculated in order to identify the contextual conditions which promote or prevent the establishment of the different forms of employee representation.

The data show that the distribution of works councils and NSRs differs considerably between industries. Works councils are more likely to be found in large and relatively old traditional‐sector companies with a high union density, while NSRs have a stronghold in (new) service sectors and smaller companies. NSRs are also more likely to be found in companies where management has a positive attitude towards employee involvement.

Although case studies indicate that there is a huge variety of NSRs, this study could only use a relatively broad category. Future survey research should analyse the various types of NSRs and works councils.

Works councils are still the main form of employee representation and the German model of industrial relations appears to be stable in terms of firm‐level employee representation. However, with new service sectors becoming increasingly important (due to socio‐economic development), this model may be in jeopardy.

This paper extends previous research on the distribution and contextual conditions of works councils by providing a comprehensive analysis of works councils and NSRs, based on a representative survey that includes a variety of variables which have strong effects, but have not previously been examined in other studies.