https://ediss.sub.uni-hamburg.de:443/handle/ediss/2 Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:02:09 GMT 2026-06-30T00:02:09Z https://ediss.sub.uni-hamburg.de:443/handle/ediss/12469 Title: Behavioral Economic Essays on Image Concerns and Social Norms in Moral Decision-Making and Negotiations Authors: Litsios, Christos Mon, 29 Jun 2026 12:09:21 GMT https://ediss.sub.uni-hamburg.de:443/handle/ediss/12469 2026-06-29T12:09:21Z https://ediss.sub.uni-hamburg.de:443/handle/ediss/12458 Title: Validität einer neuartigen Testbatterie zur Vorhersage von Wiederverletzungen nach Rehabilitation von Kreuzbandverletzungen Authors: Häußer, Jonathan Abstract: Hintergrund: Die Ruptur des vorderen Kreuzbandes (VKB) ist eine häufige Verletzung im Sport und die vordere Kreuzbandplastik ist in der Regel mit einer langwierigen Rehabilitation verbunden. Die Wiederverletzungsrate kann je nach Kollektiv zwischen 3% und 49% liegen. Bei der Entscheidungsfindung für den richtigen Zeitpunkt zum Return to Sports (RTS) werden zunehmend Funktionstests herangezogen. Die optimale Zusammensetzung der Testbatterien ist allerdings noch unklar. Ziel dieser prospektiven Kohortenstudie war es daher, die Validität einer neuartigen Testbatterie für den RTS anhand der Wiederverletzungsrate zwei Jahre nach einer vordere Kreuzbandplastik zu bestimmen. Material und Methoden: Patienten, die eine vordere Kreuzbandplastik mit der Semitendinosus-Sehne erhielten, absolvierten eine standardisierte Rehabilitation und durchliefen 6 und 12 Monate nach der Operation eine neu entwickelte Testbatterie. Die Testbatterie umfasste Tests für das Gleichgewicht und die Biomechanik der unteren Extremitäten sowie Sprung- und isometrische Krafttests sowohl im Ruhezustand als auch nach Ermüdung. Ergebnisse: Von den 68 eingeschlossenen Personen kehrten 31 zum Sport zurück. Die durchschnittliche Zeit bis zum RTS betrug 14,1 Monate. Nach 12 Monaten bestanden 11 Männer die RTS-Testbatterie, jedoch keine Frau. Das entspricht einer Bestehensquote von 23,4%. Nach 2 Jahren erlitten 20,7% der Patienten eine erneute Verletzung. Es bestand kein signifikanter Zusammenhang zwischen dem Bestehen der RTS-Testbatterie und der Wiederverletzungsrate, obwohl das Bestehen die Wahrscheinlichkeit einer Wiederverletzung tendenziell verringerte (Odd Ratio 0,46). Von den Patienten mit einem Tegner-Score ≥ 7 erlitt keiner der vier, die die RTS-Testbatterie bestanden, eine erneute Verletzung. Bei Frauen war die Wahrscheinlichkeit einer erneuten Verletzung tendenziell geringer (OR 0,57). Schlussfolgerung: Aufgrund noch bestehender funktioneller Defizite waren nur wenige Sportler in dieser Studie ein Jahr nach OP bereit für die Rückkehr in den Sport. Tendenziell zeigten sich aber weniger Wiederverletzungen nach Bestehen der Testbatterie.; Background: Rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) is a prevalent condition in sports and ACL reconstruction (ACLR) typically involves a lengthy recovery. Reinjury rates can range from 3% to 49%, with a reported overall rate of 15% for both ipsilateral and contralateral injuries. Functional test batteries are increasingly used to guide return to sport (RTS) decisions. However, the lack of consensus on RTS test components raises concerns about premature returns, as 45.5% of reinjuries occur within two months post-RTS. Therefore, the goal of the present study was to measure the predictive validity of a novel return to sports test battery based on the reinjury rate two years after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. Material and Methods: Patients who received ACL reconstruction with the semitendinosus tendon completed a standardized rehabilitation protocol and a test battery 6 and 12 months after surgery. The test battery included measures of balance and lower extremity biomechanics, as well as jump and isometric strength tests both in a rested and fatigued state. The primary outcome was the odds ratio of reinjury at two years as a depending on passing or failing the test battery. Secondary measures included odds ratios for reinjury for each test. Results: Of the included 68 subjects 31 returned to sports. The average time to RTS was 14.1 months. At 12 months, no women passed the RTS test battery, while 11 men did, resulting in a pass rate of 23.4%. After 2 years 20.7% of patients reported reinjuries. There was no significant association between passing the RTS test and reinjury rates, although passing tended to reduce odds of reinjury (Odd ratio 0.46). Among those with a Tegner score ≥ 7, none of the four who passed the RTS test experienced reinjury. Women had a tendency towards lower odds of reinjury (Odds ratio 0.57). Conclusion: Due to persisting functional deficits, only few athletes in this study were ready to return to sports one year after surgery. However, athletes who passed the test battery tended to experience fewer reinjuries. Mon, 29 Jun 2026 11:28:06 GMT https://ediss.sub.uni-hamburg.de:443/handle/ediss/12458 2026-06-29T11:28:06Z https://ediss.sub.uni-hamburg.de:443/handle/ediss/12471 Title: Molecular Cloning and Characterization of Varicella Zoster Virus Genomes Derived from Clinical Isolates Authors: Huang, Dongdong Abstract: Varicella-zoster virus (VZV) is a human alphaherpesvirus that causes varicella during primary infection and establishes lifelong latency in sensory ganglia. Although VZV is clinically important, only a limited number of clinical isolates have been converted into bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) clones, which restricts studies of viral diversity and gene function. The aim of this study was to generate BAC clones directly from clinical VZV isolates using Single-Step Transformation-Associated Recombination (STAR) cloning and to evaluate their genetic and biological properties. Nine clinical VZV isolates representing multiple phylogenetic clades were analyzed. Complete viral genomes were sequenced using Illumina sequencing, and BAC clones were generated through yeast-mediated homologous recombination. The resulting BAC constructs were validated by PCR, restriction enzyme analysis, and whole-genome sequencing. BAC clones were successfully generated from all nine clinical isolates. Whole-genome sequencing demonstrated that the BAC clones retained the overall genetic integrity of the parental viral genomes. Only a small number of single nucleotide polymorphisms were detected, and none resulted in amino acid changes. These findings indicate that STAR cloning preserves viral genomic fidelity with high accuracy. To assess biological functionality, BAC DNA was introduced into ARPE-19 cells for virus reconstitution. Infectious virus was successfully recovered from eight of the nine BAC clones. Comparative analyses showed that BAC-derived viruses displayed infectivity and cell-to-cell spread comparable to those of their parental clinical isolates, indicating that the cloning procedure did not measurably alter viral biological properties. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that STAR cloning is an efficient and reliable method for generating BAC clones directly from clinical VZV isolates. The resulting BAC collection includes genetically diverse VZV strains and provides a valuable platform for future studies of viral genetics, pathogenesis, neurotropism, latency, reactivation, and viral evolution. Mon, 29 Jun 2026 11:01:58 GMT https://ediss.sub.uni-hamburg.de:443/handle/ediss/12471 2026-06-29T11:01:58Z https://ediss.sub.uni-hamburg.de:443/handle/ediss/12466 Title: Bridging Vision, Language, and Gaze for Trustworthy Foundation Models Authors: Wang, Xintong Abstract: Foundation models have reshaped the development of artificial intelligence (AI) by introducing a paradigm in which a single pretrained system can generalize across a wide spectrum of language and multimodal tasks. Built upon large-scale data and representation learning, these models reduce the need for task-specific engineering and enable reusable semantic and perceptual knowledge. This shift from specialized models to general-purpose learning architectures has significantly expanded the scope and applicability of AI technologies. As foundation models transition from controlled benchmarks to real-world deployment, new demands arise that extend beyond raw capability. Systems are increasingly expected to behave in ways that are reliable, interpretable, and aligned with human expectations, particularly in settings involving multimodal reasoning and interaction. These requirements expose limitations that are not visible in traditional performance evaluations and motivate a shift in research focus from scaling performance to ensuring trustworthy behavior. In this dissertation, trustworthiness is analyzed as a property that emerges from the structural coupling of groundedness, alignment stability, faithfulness, and controllability. These dimensions correspond to interdependent stages of the trustworthiness pipeline, encompassing how multimodal signals anchor meaning, how pretrained representations are adapted, how generative processes reconcile internal knowledge with external evidence, and how model behavior can be guided in transparent ways. When these stages are treated in isolation, characteristic failure modes arise, including context-insensitive grounding, instability under adaptation, hallucinated outputs, and safety interventions that disrupt communicative intent. The dissertation therefore investigates trustworthiness through coordinated interventions at different interfaces of the modeling pipeline. It develops methods that strengthen context-sensitive multimodal grounding while preserving representational structure, examines inference-time mechanisms that regulate the interaction between prior knowledge and conditioning signals, and introduces cognitively informed analyses to identify interpretable loci for efficient behavioral steering. Rather than addressing isolated symptoms, these contributions target complementary sources of unreliability across data construction, representation maintenance, and generation dynamics. Overall, the findings indicate that trustworthy foundation modeling must be engineered as a lifecycle property rather than achieved through post hoc alignment alone. Reliability arises from the deliberate coordination of grounding, adaptation, inference, and control, suggesting a pathway toward foundation models whose general capabilities are matched by predictability, transparency, and human-centered usability. Mon, 29 Jun 2026 10:11:08 GMT https://ediss.sub.uni-hamburg.de:443/handle/ediss/12466 2026-06-29T10:11:08Z