Soziologie - Schlüsselwissenschaft des 20. Jahrhunderts?

Der Verfasser setzt sich mit den Thesen zweier Soziologen auseinander, die als 'Kritiker der Soziologie' auftreten, Helmut Schelsky und Friedrich H. Tenbruck. Im Mittelpunkt sowohl von Schelskys 'Anti-Soziologie' wie auch von Tenbrucks 'unbewältigten Sozialwissenschaften' steht die Rolle der Soziologie als 'Schlüsselwissenschaft' im Sinne eines "Erkenntnismittels des Lebenssinns schlechthin" und der daraus von Sozialwissenschaftlern abgeleitete Herrschaftsanspruch. Der Verfasser bejaht die Legitimität der Kritik an Forschungs- und Anwendungspraxis der Soziologie, verweist jedoch andererseits auf deren 'kritisches Potential', das den kritisierten Entwicklungen durchaus zu begegnen vermöge. Mit Norbert Elias wird die 'Neigung zur Sektenbildung' in der sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung kritisiert. Die von Schelsky und Tenbruck kritisierten Entwicklungen werden in Anlehnung an Simmel als 'Warnung vor einer Überdehnung des Begriffs der Gesellschaft' verstanden. (WZ

Handlungstheoretisch-interaktionistisch-phänomenologisch orientierte Theorien

Der Autor kommentiert die komplexe Diskussionslage in jenem Bereich soziologischer Theoriebildung, der von Karl-Otto Hondrich als "handlungstheoretisch- interaktionistisch- phänomenologisch" bezeichnet wurde. Er geht dabei weniger auf die spezifischen Differenzen und Kontroversen zwischen den unterschiedlichen Ansätzen in diesem Bereich ein, sondern untersucht diese Theorien im Hinblick auf ihre Leistungsfähigkeit auf der Stufe II (Erklärung "des Sozialen") der drei von Hondrich unterschiedenen Stufen der Reichweite von Theorien am Beispiel des Themas 'Evolution' und "sozialer Wandel". In seinen weiteren Ausführungen skizziert er Vorschläge für Problemlösungen und thematisiert die Zielsetzungen und Erkenntnisleistungen des Theorievergleichs sowie die Strukturmerkmale und Verfahren der Datengewinnung. (ICI

Religion und Weltkultur

Es wird der Zugang und der Umgang der Soziologie mit Religion und Weltkultur thematisiert. Argumentiert wird, daß die Soziologie Religion begrifflich als "Phänomen Religion" verformt hat. Als vorbegrifflichtes "Phänomen Religion" ist es selber unmittelbarer Ausdruck einer Verformung soziologischen Denkens. Es sagt so selber mehr über das soziologische Denken aus als über die "Sachen", auf die es sich bezieht; wohl aber wird deren Wahrnehmung nun über die Optik dieses Konstrukts gebrochen. Die Ursache für dieses Vorgehen wird in der fehlenden kulturgeschichtlichen Aufklärung gesehen. Am Beispiel der Debatte um die "Säkularisierungsthese" wird der Umgang der westlichen Religionssoziologie mit Religion verdeutlicht. (GF

Two- and Three-Dimensional Benchmarks for Particle Detection from an Industrial Rotary Kiln Combustion Chamber Based on Light-Field-Camera Recording

This paper describes a benchmark dataset for the detection of fuel particles in 2D and 3D image data in a rotary kiln combustion chamber. The specific challenges of detecting the small particles under demanding environmental conditions allows for the performance of existing and new particle detection techniques to be evaluated. The data set includes a classification of burning and non-burning particles, which can be in the air but also on the rotary kiln wall. The light-field camera used for data generation offers the potential to develop and objectively evaluate new advanced particle detection methods due to the additional 3D information. Besides explanations of the data set and the contained ground truth, an evaluation procedure of the particle detection based on the ground truth and results for an own particle detection procedure for the data set are presented

3D Refuse-derived Fuel Particle Tracking-by-Detection Using a Plenoptic Camera System

Multiple particle tracking-by-detection is a widely investigated issue in image processing. The paper presents approaches to detecting and tracking various refuse-derived fuel particles in a industrial environment using a plenoptic camera system, which is able to yield 2D gray value information and 3D point clouds with noticeable fluctuations. The presented approaches, including an innovative combined detection method and a post-processing framework for multiple particle tracking, aim at making the most of the acquired 2D and 3D information to deal with the fluctuations of the measuring system. The proposed novel detection method fuses the captured 2D gray value information and 3D point clouds, which is superior to applying single information. Subsequently, the particles are tracked by the linear Kalman filter and 2.5D global nearest neighbor (GNN) and joint probabilistic data association (JPDA) approach, respectively. As a result of several inaccurate detection results caused by the measuring system, the initial tracking results contain faulty and incomplete tracklets that entail a post-processing process. The developed post-processing approach based merely on particle motion similarity benefits a precise tracking performance by eliminating faulty tracklets, deleting outliers, connecting tracklets, and fusing trajectories. The proposed approaches are quantitatively assessed with manuelly labeled ground truth datasets to prove their availability and adequacy as well. The presented combined detection method provides the highest F 1 -score, and the proposed post-processing framework enhances the tracking performance significantly with regard to several recommended evaluation indices

Entwicklung eines nationalen Allokationsplans im Rahmen des EU-Emissionshandels

The main objective of this project was to support the development of the National Allocation Plan for Germany for the first trading period 2005-07. For this purpose the allocation options had to be analysed and evaluated on the levels of the nation, the sectors, and the installations, considering the legal and political framework as well as the available data bases. In addition, the political process of negotiations in Germany and in Europe had to be accompanied scientifically. Emphasis was placed on the conceptual basics of the allocation planning, on issues of the necessary data bases, the alternatives for the calculation of the macro plan, the general and special allocation rules, and institutional questions. Furthermore, continuous work was required to give support und advice to the Federal Government for the concrete development of the allocation plan and to communicate with stakeholders, in particular with representatives of the German industry

A Novel Plenoptic Camera-Based Measurement System for the Investigation into Flight and Combustion Behavior of Refuse-Derived Fuel Particles

In the past several decades, refuse-derived fuels (RDFs) have been widely applied in industrial combustion processes, for instance, in cement production. Since RDF is composed of various waste fractions with complex shapes, its flight and combustion behaviors can be relatively complicated. In this paper, we present a novel plenoptic camera-based spatial measurement system that uses image processing approaches to determine the dwell time, the space-sliced velocity in the depth direction, and the ignition time of various applied RDF fractions based on the obtained images. The image processing approach follows the concept of tracking-by-detection and includes a novel combined detection method, a 2.5D multiple particle tracking algorithm, and a postprocessing framework to tackle the issues in the initial tracking results. The thereby obtained complete spatial fuel trajectories enable the analysis of the flight behaviors elaborated in the paper. The acquired particles’ properties (duration, velocity, and ignition time) reversely prove the availability and applicability of the developed measurement system. The adequacy and accuracy of the proposed novel measurement system are validated by the experiments of detecting and tracking burning and nonburning fuel particles in a rotary kiln. This new measurement system and the provided experimental results can benefit a better understanding of the RDF’s combustion for future research