Cult sites in northern Sweden

The pagan cult in northern Sweden, i.e, Norrland, has for some decades been a neglected chapter in our history, a situation which unfortunately applies to Sweden as a whole, at least where onomastics are concerned. The aim is thus to deliver an overview of the evidence that we have of pre-Christian religious activities in these northern parts — in this aspect, onomastic material is nearly almost all we have got — and some general remarks about the conversion to the new Christian religion. The area of investigation is what in the (Swedish) medieval period was known as Norrland. In other words, the part of Sweden considered here is modern Central Norrland. With our state of knowledge of today it is not so easy to pick out the place-names that have denoted some kind of pagan cult activity. The place-name material can be divided into: 1. Theoforic place-names 2. place-names denoting the site of a pagan cult, which do not however contain theoforic elements 3. place-names with a possible pagan cultic element

Die Geschichte des Beschäftigtendatenschutzes - von der Unfähigkeit zum Kompromiss

In der Folge der großen Datenschutzskandale seit dem Jahre 2006, darunter die illegalen Daten-Screenings bei der Bahn AG, oder auch der "Lidl-Skandal", bei dem Arbeitnehmer und Arbeitnehmerinnen bis in die Intimsphäre heimlich überwacht worden sind, ist das Thema Datenschutz stark in den Fokus der Öffentlichkeit gerückt. Schon seit den 80er Jahren liegt ein Gesetzentwurf zum Datenschutz für Arbeitnehmer in den ministerialen Schubladen, aber auch der letzte Anlauf zur gesetzlichen Sicherung der informationellen Selbstbestimmung der Beschäftigten scheiterte im Frühjahr des Jahres 2013. Das große Bedürfnis einer gesetzlichen Ausgestaltung dieser Materie besteht nach wie vor. Dies kann jedoch nur gelingen, wenn es endlich zu einem gesellschaftlichen Konsens, vor allem auch international, über das Gewicht gegenläufiger Werte wie wirtschaftlicher Effizienz, dem Schutz des Arbeitgebers vor Schädigung durch den Arbeitnehmer, sowie dem staatlichen Verfolgungsinteresse kommt. Vor allem aber bedarf es auch einer erhöhten Sensibilität für datenschutzrechtliche Probleme, sowohl in der Bevölkerung, als auch bei Verwaltung und Justiz

Steigende Fallzahlen in der Sozialhilfe und Einschränkungen im Kindesschutz : wie Sozialdienste in der Deutschschweiz von der Corona-Krise betroffen sind

Auswirkungen der Corona-KriseDie hier vorgestellte Befragungsstudie beleuchtet, in welchem Ausmass Sozialdienste in der deutschsprachigen Schweiz sowie die von ihnen unterstützten Menschen durch die Corona-Krise betroffen sind. Auch wird thematisiert, wie die Dienste auf diese Herausforderungen reagieren. Betrachtet werden die wirtschaftliche und persönliche Sozialhilfe sowie der Kindesschutz. Methodisch beruht die Studie auf einer geschichteten Zufallsstichprobe von 169 Fachpersonen, die ihren Dienst mehrheitlich in leitender oder fallführender Funktion vertreten. Vertreten sind alle fünf deutschsprachigen Grossregionen der Schweiz

Private management of public networks? Unpacking the relationship between network management strategies in infrastructure implementation

With the aim to successfully implement infrastructure, implementation arrangements increasingly assign responsibilities for network management to private actors. In the literature, two types of network management strategies are distinguished: process design and institutional design. To date, research has focused on either of these strategies. Moreover, while private actors aim to use the institutional capital built in the network before the private actor was introduced, the role of institutional capital in network management is often overlooked. Taking these research gaps together, we aim to explore the relationship between the two network management strategies and the intermediating role of institutional capital. We compare three cases of infrastructure implementation from the Netherlands. We find that institutional design strategies, through setting the network rules in the implementation arrangement, can ignite a virtuous or a vicious circle, respectively, hindering or enhancing opportunities for network management through process design

Social assistance and child protection during the COVID-19 pandemic in Switzerland : a survey of social services

An earlier German version of this paper was published in April 2020 here: https://doi.org/10.21256/zhaw-2386The present study examines how social services have been affected by the coronavirus crisis during the first four weeks of a pandemic-related “lockdown” in Switzerland, from mid-March to mid-April 2020. It also addresses how social services have responded to these challenges. The study focuses on economic and personal social assistance as well as child protection. It is based on a stratified random sample of 169 pro-fessionals. The social services come from the Swiss cantons of Aargau (n=22 professionals), Bern (n=42), Lucerne (n=32), Thurgau (n=18) and Zurich (n=55). Municipal and regional services with catchment areas of varying size are considered. All five German-speaking major regions of Switzerland are represented, but not the Lake Geneva region and Ticino

Effective policy instrument mixes for implementing integrated flood risk management:An analysis of the ‘Room for the River’ program

Central to integrated flood risk management is the integration of water management with spatial planning. Existing studies often focus on analyzing the policy instruments in the initiation and planning phases of integrated flood risk management. Little is known, however, about the policy instrument mixes that enable implementation of integrated flood risk management. Therefore, in this article we analyze the Dutch Room for the River program to identify what mixes of policy instruments enable successful integrated flood risk management in the implementation phase. We collected archival and survey data and analyzed 19 implemented projects in the Room for the River program applying Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). We conclude that no single policy instrument is necessary or sufficient for successful implementation. We found three policy instrument mixes: an integrated contract mix, a project management mix, and an outside-government mix

Polymeric Frameworks as Organic Semiconductors with Controlled Electronic Properties

The rational assembly of monomers, in principle, enables the design of a specific periodicity of polymeric frameworks, leading to a tailored set of electronic structure properties in these solid-state materials. The further development of these emerging systems requires a combination of both experimental and theoretical studies. Here, we investigated the electronic structures of two-dimensional polymeric frameworks based on triazine and benzene rings, by means of electrochemical techniques. The experimental density of states was obtained from quasi-open-circuit voltage measurements through galvanostatic intermittent titration technique, which we show to be in excellent agreement with first principles calculations performed for two and three-dimensional structures of these polymeric frameworks. These findings suggest that the electronic properties do not only depend on the number of stacked layers but also on the ratio of the different aromatic rings