This book addresses the highly differentiated spatial, social, cultural and demographic structure(s) of Germany, with a particular focus on the reciprocal relations between different levels of spatial development. The historical development of Germany serves as a background in order to provide context for the development of spatially relevant ideas and ideals (whether in relation to politics, landscape, or culture). In this regard, questions of divergence and convergence become highly salient. The book makes the complexity of spatial and social developments in Germany comprehensible. The neopragmatic approach adopted here allows bringing together different theoretical strands while providing a basis for independent regional geographic research at the same time. Beginning with an overview of the physical structures of Germany which provides the material point of departure for the societal development of Germany, key aspects of the German history are discussed. Particular attention is paid to the reciprocal influence between material substrate and notions of landscape. Here, specific ‘German’ trajectories of aesthetic and normative conceptions of landscape become clear. A common theme throughout the book are questions of divergence and of efforts towards convergence, which become evident when considering past and present economic, political, and demographic developments. Efforts to tackle current challenges, such as adapting to climate change and mitigating it, or securing raw materials, also become apparent. The complexity of spatial processes in Germany is illustrated in case study regions dealing with the challenges of structural change in traditional industrial regions (such as the Ruhr area), or e.g. efforts of Berlin to position and find itself as the capital of a unified Germany. Overall, the book shows how theory-driven regional geographic research can make spatiotemporal complexities tangible and comprehensible.
Digitization is transforming our world economically, culturally, and psychologically. The influx of new forms of communication, networking, and business opportunities, as well as new types of distraction, self-observation, and control into our societies represents an epochal challenge. Following Bernard Stiegler's concept of pharmacology, Felix Heidenreich and Florian Weber-Stein propose to view these new forms as digital pharmaka. Properly dosed, they can enable new self-relationships and forms of sociality; in the case of overdose, however, there is a risk of intoxication. In this essay, Felix Heidenreich, Florian Weber-Stein, and, in a detailed interview, Bernard Stiegler analyze this complex change in our world and develop new skills to use digital pharmaka.
Scientific Study from the year 2014 in the subject Economy - Transport Economics, grade: 2, University of Duisburg-Essen, language: English, abstract: The Braess paradox, introduced by D. Braess in 1968, describes the situation in which the total time spent in a system for at least two vehicles travelling from one node to another within a network of several nodes may increase if an additional path is added. This effect is due to non-cooperative behavior of the subjects involved and the fact that time consumption on the paths depends on their respective congestion. In this Game Theoretical paradox, full information is given to all vehicles about the theoretically shortest path for one vehicle, measured in time units, disregarding any congestion, which leads to a routing decision of individual rationality. This paper analyzes the Braess paradox if several shipping units have to be transported by multiple vehicles and load weight influences traffic congestion. A mixed integer linear programming formulation is used to model the problem. We introduce the model in detail, give numerical examples and analyze the results. A brief literature review on previous publications dealing with the Braess paradox is given as well.
Angels of Efficiency traces the invention of film and the parallel rise of management consulting, telling the story of how these together brought about new forms of information visualization and visual management. The period from 1880 to 1930, author Florian Hoof argues, saw the genesis of a form of visual knowledge that provided a novel means to intervene in management processes. Visual management largely superseded oral and written forms of communication and decision-making, instituting a strategy for overcoming the mid-nineteenth-century crisis of control and resulting in a media-based form of rationality. Focusing largely on early corporate consulting in America by tracing the careers of Frank Gilbreth and his wife and business partner, Lillian Gilbreth, Hoof examines the rise and lasting effects of corporate consulting as a visual form. Framing consulting as a cultural technique that is characterized by media processes in which the boundaries of economic logic and legitimacy emerge, Angels of Efficiency forges a new approach to the history of consulting. In addition to pioneering a new field of film and media studies, Hoof contributes original research to American cultural and economic history, such as archival findings concerning Gilbreth's consulting efforts for the German Army during WWI. With this distinct and innovative interdisciplinary approach, Hoof has marshalled cinema and media studies, business history, and science and technology studies to make sense of the rise of consulting practices and their remarkable stability to this day.
It is easy to imagine that a future populated with an ever-increasing number of mobile and pervasive devices that record our minute goings and doings will significantly expand the amount of information that will be collected, stored, processed, and shared about us by both corporations and governments. The vast majority of this data is likely to benefit us greatly—making our lives more convenient, efficient, and safer through custom-tailored and context-aware services that anticipate what we need, where we need it, and when we need it. But beneath all this convenience, efficiency, and safety lurks the risk of losing control and awareness of what is known about us in the many different contexts of our lives. Eventually, we may find ourselves in a situation where something we said or did will be misinterpreted and held against us, even if the activities were perfectly innocuous at the time. Even more concerning, privacy implications rarely manifest as an explicit, tangible harm. Instead, most privacy harms manifest as an absence of opportunity, which may go unnoticed even though it may substantially impact our lives. In this Synthesis Lecture, we dissect and discuss the privacy implications of mobile and pervasive computing technology. For this purpose, we not only look at how mobile and pervasive computing technology affects our expectations of—and ability to enjoy—privacy, but also look at what constitutes ""privacy"" in the first place, and why we should care about maintaining it. We describe key characteristics of mobile and pervasive computing technology and how those characteristics lead to privacy implications. We discuss seven approaches that can help support end-user privacy in the design of mobile and pervasive computing technologies, and set forward six challenges that will need to be addressed by future research. The prime target audience of this lecture are researchers and practitioners working in mobile and pervasive computing who want to better understand and account for the nuanced privacy implications of the technologies they are creating. Those new to either mobile and pervasive computing or privacy may also benefit from reading this book to gain an overview and deeper understanding of this highly interdisciplinary and dynamic field.
Facade apertures represent the realm of the exterior wall or facade, which establishes the connection between inside and out and makes it possible to illuminate and ventilate the spaces behind it. This volume deals with the various forms of openings, such as doors, windows, ventilation elements, and fixed glass panes, and their materialization, which also varies according to function; special attention is given to the subject of edges. Themes: Types and positions of openings Technical requirements Construction types Connections/edges
This paper offers remarkable insights into the German food market and its consumers. A solid theoretical foundation is laid by classical as well as modern authors. The works of these authors form the basis for the theoretical analysis on a social determination of taste. In the following, the field of sociology of consumption is taken into account and analysed. In the practical part, consumers are researched using lifeworlds as a tool of categorization of German households. In the market research economy, lifeworlds are widely perceived as an appropriate tool for researching present and future market developments. The analysed empirical data on purchasing behaviour was provided by the market research study Typology of Desires 2010. Results in the direction of a social determination of taste offer valuable perceptions for theorists and practitioners alike.
Makes a strong contribution to the field, illuminating many issues and significant concerns."-Mary Carlson, Special Education TeacherPark Hill K-8 School, Denver, CO"A unique, timeless collection that raises interesting questions about disability classification internationally."-Wendy Dallman, Special Education TeacherNew London High School, WIPromote equal educational opportunity through improved classification practices!The identification of children for special educational services has long been a topic of debate. Are students classified accurately? Do current classification systems produce adequate education services? Have systems designed to ensure equity instead resulted in discrimination?Disability Classification in Education offers a comprehensive analysis of current classification systems and categorical labels in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other countries. Covering specific national policies from historical, sociological, and legal perspectives, this collection of articles from a group of esteemed educational researchers identifies the disparities between different classification systems and suggests changes based on recent requirements, challenges, and trends. Aligned with NCLB and the reauthorization of IDEA 2004, this edited volume examines:The evolution of special education classification policies The relevance of existing disability classification systemsDilemmas educators face in using current classification proceduresAlternatives for serving learners with special needs Approaches to developing a standardized or universal classification policyIntended to stimulate discussion and spark change, this guide helps school or district administrators and university faculty improve the professional practice of those entrusted with the development and well-being of children with disabilities.
This major expression of one of the leaders of the Chicago School, one of the most important schools of thought in contemporary American sociology, includes his recognized masterpieces of sociological research and writing. Hughes pioneered studies in a variety of sociological subjects: social institutions, racial interaction, work and occupations, and research methodology. Cumulatively, these essays show the obvious magnitude and scope of thought of one of the century's most distinguished scholars.In their introduction to this edition, Riesman and Becker provide a biographical background to Hughes' writing, describing his pervading influence on the field of sociology and on younger sociologists through his teaching, fieldwork, work in professional associations, and personality. The essays are grouped into four sections: the relationship of social institutions to changes in their surroundings and to the personalities and careers of persons; problems of multi-ethnic societies; the development of occupations, the monopoly license of professions, the determination of public policy about a line of work, and the relations between work and social role; and social observation and analysis.
International Bestseller: This “absolute gem of a book” offers a month-by-month account of the year before World War I—one of the most exciting times in the 20th century (The Observer). “A sexy, comic and occasionally heartbreaking soap opera” for history buffs interested in 20th-century art, music, and literature (Washington Post). It was the year Henry Ford first put a conveyer belt in his car factory, and the year Louis Armstrong first picked up a trumpet. It was the year Charlie Chaplin signed his first movie contract, and Coco Chanel and Prada opened their first dress shops. It was the year Proust began his opus, Stravinsky wrote The Rite of Spring, and the first Armory Show in New York introduced the world to Picasso and the world of abstract art. It was the year the recreational drug now known as ecstasy was invented. It was 1913, the year before the world plunged into the catastrophic darkness of World War I. In a witty yet moving narrative that progresses month by month through the year, and is interspersed with numerous photos and documentary artifacts (such as Kafka’s love letters), Florian Illies ignores the conventions of the stodgy tome so common in “one year” histories. Forefronting cultural matters as much as politics, he delivers a charming and riveting tale of a world full of hope and unlimited possibility, peopled with amazing characters and radical politics, bristling with new art and new technology—even as ominous storm clouds began to gather.
DIVAusterity is at the center of political debates today. Its defenders praise it as a panacea that will prepare the ground for future growth and stability. Critics insist it will precipitate a vicious cycle of economic decline, possibly leading to political collapse. But the notion that abstinence from consumption brings benefits to states, societies, or individuals is hardly new. This book puts the debates of our own day in perspective by exploring the long history of austerity—a popular idea that lives on despite a track record of dismal failure. Florian Schui shows that arguments in favor of austerity were—and are today—mainly based on moral and political considerations, rather than on economic analysis. Unexpectedly, it is the critics of austerity who have framed their arguments in the language of economics. Schui finds that austerity has failed intellectually and in economic terms every time it has been attempted. He examines thinkers who have influenced our ideas about abstinence from Aristotle through such modern economic thinkers as Smith, Marx, Veblen, Weber, Hayek, and Keynes, as well as the motives behind specific twentieth-century austerity efforts. The persistence of the concept cannot be explained from an economic perspective, Schui concludes, but only from the persuasive appeal of the moral and political ideas linked to it./div
The functionalization of surfaces on the nanoscale is one of the most fascinating and at the same time challenging topics in science. It is the key to tailoring catalysts, sensors, or devices for solar energy conversion, whose functional principle is based on the interaction of an active solid surface with another (liquid or gaseous) phase. As an example, planar transition metal complexes adsorbed on solid supports are promising candidates for novel heterogeneous catalysts. An important feature of these catalysts, compared to supported metal clusters, is the fact that the active sites, i. e. , the coordinated metal centers with their vacant axial coordination sites, are well de?ned and uniform. Metalloporphyrinoids are particularly suitable in this respect because they combine a structure forming element—the rigid molecular frame, which often induces long range order—with an active site, the coordinated metal ion. Its planar coordination environment leaves two axial coordination sites available for additional ligands. If adsorbed on a surface, one of these axial sites is occupied by the underlying substrate. The resulting electronic interaction with the surface can be used to tailor the electronic structure and thereby the reactivity of the metal center. The remaining site is free for the attachment of molecules (sensor functionality) and/or operates as a reaction center (single-site catalysis). Prototype examples are omnipresent in nature, where in particular metallo-tetrapyrrols play a decisive role in important biological processes, with the most prominent examples being iron porphyrins in heme, magnesium porphyrins in chlorophyll, and cobalt corrin in vitamin B12.
This book offers an introduction to the many facets of multilingualism in a changing world. It begins with an overview of the multiplicity of human languages and their geographic distribution, before moving on to the key question of what multilingualism actually is and what is understood by terms such as 'mother tongue', 'native speaker', and 'speech community'. In the chapters that follow, Florian Coulmas systematically explores multilingualism with respect to the individual, institutions, cities, nations, and cyberspace. In each of these domains, the dynamics of language choice are undergoing changes as a result of economic, political, and cultural forces. Against this background, two chapters discuss the effects of linguistic diversity on the integration and separation of language and society, before a final chapter describes and assesses research methods for investigating multilingualism. Each chapter concludes with problems and questions for discussion, which place the topic in a real-world context. The book explores where, when, and why multilingualism came to be regarded as a problem, and why it presents a serious challenge for linguistic theory today. It provides the basic tools to analyse different kinds of multilingualism at both the individual and society level, and will be of interest to students of linguistics, sociology, education, and communication studies.
In August 2021, Taliban fighters entered the presidential palace in Kabul, ending twenty years of international efforts to build a democratic state in Afghanistan. Did the Taliban’s success rest on coercion and violence alone, or did they win the battle for public support through ideology and better services? Or did most people in the country not believe in the idea of the state at all, trusting only local elders and traditional councils? What is the source of legitimacy during armed conflict? In Waiting for Dignity, Florian Weigand investigates legitimacy and its absence in Afghanistan. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, he examines the perspectives of ordinary people in Afghanistan as well as those of rival claimants to authority: insurgents, warlords, members of parliament, security forces, and community leaders. By exploring how different types of authority attempted to legitimize their rule, Waiting for Dignity challenges common assumptions about how to build legitimacy, such as by delivering services, holding elections, or adopting traditional institutions. Weigand shows that what matters in conflict zones is what he terms interactive dignity: Citizens judge authorities on the basis of their day-to-day experiences with them. People want to be treated with dignity. The extent to which people perceive interactions to be fair, inclusive, and respectful is vital to the construction of lasting order. Combining theoretical originality with in-depth and compelling empirical detail, this book offers timely new insights into recent developments in Afghanistan and the challenges facing conflict-torn areas more widely.
Florian Mueller empirically investigates how retail, private, and corporate banking institutions need to set up their sales management control strategy in accordance to their specific environment, business strategy, and organizational characteristics in order to increase performance.
This book offers a compelling and persuasive framework for understanding the German constitutional system. It argues that it can only be fully understood as a dual structure combining two layers with little in common. The first layer is the basic administrative institutional structure, comprised of federal institutions. The second layer is that of parliamentary democracy. It is the interplay between the two, as mediated by the chancellery, the major political parties and the Federal Constitutional Court, which lies at the heart of the German constitutional arrangement. This innovative hybrid perspective allows for a better understanding of the current challenges of parliamentary government and its potential long-term development. An updated translation of its impactful German edition, this provides one of the most brilliant introductions to governmental systems of one of the world's most influential states.
What are the grand dynamics that drive the history of economies? The laws of supply & demand, most economists would argue. For the history of European banking, this book offers an alternative explanation: Rather than market forces, the coincidence and coalitions of charismatic ideas and powerful interests is what shaped banking in Europe! In “Ideas, Interests and the Development of the European Banking Systems”, Florian Brugger traced decisive moments in the history of the European Banking Sector: from the time of the Italian City-States to the post World War I period, he shows how coalitions of ideas and interests built the tracks along which the European Banking Sector developed. Inspired by Max Weber he argues that economic organizations and institutions, like the Banking Sector, are embedded into three fundamental orders: the economic, the cultural and the political order. Enforced and institutionalized by vested interests, ideas of the cultural order legitimate and empower interests of the economic and political order. What is more, decisive moments were frequently characterized by coalitions of ideas and interests between parties that in normal times had nothing in common or were even confronting each other in a hostile way.
Florian Frensch investigates which individual characteristics of employees and which dyadic factors of relationship partners affect the cooperation between employees of previously separated firms. The author develops an innovative approach for gathering network data with the help of a dynamic computer-based questionnaire which allows him to conduct a full network analysis of a group of approximately 400 employees on the lower operative level of the firms.
Florian Wolff analyses how executives perceive their stock options and how their personal expectations and risk preferences affect the value they assign to them. He shows that stock options may be worth their money because people behave irrationally.
The highland region of the republic of Georgia, one of the former Soviet Socialist Republics, has long been legendary for its beauty. It is often assumed that the state has only made partial inroads into this region, and is mostly perceived as alien. Taking a fresh look at the Georgian highlands allows the author to consider perennial questions of citizenship, belonging, and mobility in a context that has otherwise been known only for its folkloric dimensions. Scrutinizing forms of identification with the state at its margins, as well as local encounters with the erratic Soviet and post-Soviet state, the author argues that citizenship is both a sought-after means of entitlement and a way of guarding against the state. This book not only challenges theories in the study of citizenship but also the axioms of integration in Western social sciences in general.
Foreword Ten years is a long time. In 2009 a bunch of friends gathered in Portugal for a conference that was to precede TAKE. In 2011 we repeated. Then, after a strange sequence of events, we finally organized TAKE for the first time in 2015 in Aveiro, followed by Zagreb, Poznan and now Vienna. Florian Kragulj was in the first TAKE in Aveiro and from the start showed the highest level of enthusiasm and professionalism in the event. These characteristics were kept alive during all the 15 or so months during which we organized TAKE 2019. That this edition of TAKE involves several entities linked with academia, i.e. WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, the Austrian Economic Chamber and the Institute for Applied Research on Skilled Crafts and Trades (IAGF). This in itself a big success and a sign of the Conference improvement. Also, we may see, by analysing the papers and in particular the streams, that TAKE has been following the economic times, and this year we have several papers on the Gig Economy. Only good conferences adjust, the others get stuck in time. And success in Conferences is about teams. And in TAKE that team, is indeed, a very large group of people including the co-chairs, the local organizing team, the material organizers (Book of Abstracts and Proceedings), the stream leaders, and the paper reviewers – without all these persons nothing could have been done. And finally we had to depend on the authors, and their willingness to work with us. Without the work of these large dozens of devoted and skilled people TAKE 2019 would not have existed. May I also mention that this time and with Florian’s impulse and skill the organization of TAKE was improved in technological terms – in short we became techno – we used a website to deliver the mail list, a website to receive the scientific material and another website to receive the fees. All these were investments that eventually paid of, and that will guarantee a more stable organization for TAKE in the future. And we owe it to Florian. However, as the Human Resource Development part of TAKE (and more than anyone Gary Mc Lean) would remind us – “We are humans, Eduardo”, and technology helps, but in the end, is attention to detail, capacity to deal with the bizarre and to accommodate the weirdness making sometimes the impossible possible that differentiates a good conference, made doing things right, from an excellent conference, based in doing the right things. And on this last matter, believe me, we in TAKE are among the best in the world, because apart from being outstanding scholars, and good colleagues, we are an amazing group of friends, and friendship is the best way to turn good conferences into outstanding ones. Many thanks, from the heart and enjoy the Conference. Eduardo Tomé Conference Chair, Universidad Europeia Lisbon, July 2019, Lisbon, Portugal
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