Social History: On the Way to Becoming a Historical Culture Science

The reception of concepts and notions as perceived by those involved in sociology of knowledge, cultural anthropology and modern sociology, has triggered the critical responses of the first generation of social historians in the 1980s. The labels such as “history of everyday life”, “history of knowledge” and “historical anthropology” which had been by then put into force, were scrutinized. On the other hand the label “social history” surfaced as all-embracing Passepartout. Instead of inventing all over again new fashionable labels that cause more confusion than clarity, the author proposes to stick to social history and to broaden it to cultural history or historical cultural science. Instead of laying stress on structures we should finally emphasize “meaning” or sense, which accompanies the activity of historical actors. This approach mainly anticipates the use of the relevant methods of textual analysis within the methodological repertoire of “historical social science”.The reception of concepts and notions as perceived by those involved in sociology of knowledge, cultural anthropology and modern sociology, has triggered the critical responses of the first generation of social historians in the 1980s. The labels such as “history of everyday life”, “history of knowledge” and “historical anthropology” which had been by then put into force, were scrutinized. On the other hand the label “social history” surfaced as all-embracing Passepartout. Instead of inventing all over again new fashionable labels that cause more confusion than clarity, the author proposes to stick to social history and to broaden it to cultural history or historical cultural science. Instead of laying stress on structures we should finally emphasize “meaning” or sense, which accompanies the activity of historical actors. This approach mainly anticipates the use of the relevant methods of textual analysis within the methodological repertoire of “historical social science”

An investment proposal for Atoss software Ag - focus area: return analysis

This paper aims to analyze ATOSS Software AG commercially and financially as a potential target for a private equity transaction. In the course of the analysis, it becomes apparent that ATOSS Software AG is an attractive target for a leveraged buyout as strategic and financial prospects appear to be promising. This part further focuses on the return analysis of ATOSS Software. The return analysis of the investment opportunity was conducted for both institutional investors and ATOSS management, and the MoMs are 4.4x and 19.1x, respectively

Probabilistic Models for the Tensile Properties of Split Boards and Their Application for the Prediction of Bending Properties of Engineered Timber Products Made of Norway Spruce

The main strength and elastic properties of structural timber products, such as glued laminated timber (glulam; GLT) and cross-laminated timber (CLT), are usually described via load-bearing models, which use the tensile properties parallel to the grain of the base material boards and finger joints as input parameters. These load-bearing models assume that the strength-graded boards will retain their full dimensions in the final product. In some applications or use cases, however, the structural timber products are split lengthwise, e.g., split/resawn glulam, or comprise a random share of in width randomly lengthwise split lamellas. As a result of splitting, the material properties assigned to these boards during the grading process in their full cross-sections are no longer valid. Examples of such structural timber products are the novel flex_GLT-beams which are cut out from large dimensional multi-laminated timber panels. In the following paper, the bending properties and system effects of resawn glulam and flex_GLT-beams are described by means of a 3D stochastic-numerical beam model that uses probabilistic models to create the input values for unsplit and split boards as well as finger joints. The models are successfully validated by our own tests and tests from literature and applied in numerous parameter studies

Six-Steps Process of Structural Assessment of Heritage Timber Structures: Definition Based on the State of the Art

Each construction material deals with specific mechanical properties, their distribution, damage mechanisms, and degradation processes. Therefore, each material requires a particular assessment approach in order to derive a reliable description of the residual performance of the structure, correctly remove the cause of damage, and proceed with the correct design of interventions. The aims of this paper are, first, the definition of a process of assessment and retrofitting of existing timber structures, both for engineered and heritage/traditional timber structures, and second, a comparison between the defined assessment process and its contents, and the content of existing guidelines, codes, and standards. In order to gain a definition of the process of assessment and retrofitting of existing timber structures, the content of scientific papers and articles was analyzed, and on this basis, an assessment process with six main steps and three milestones was developed. The content of the guidelines, codes and standards was afterwards analyzed basing on this six-steps assessment process. From a comparison among the current literature, guidelines, codes, and standards, interesting results emerged that gave us a picture of the European knowledge and interests on the assessment of existing timber structures. Not only agreement, but also discrepancies, variances, and incongruities were identified as possible topics for future researc

Have historians killed the human subject and betrayed history? Remarks on Jacques Rancière’s „Die Namen der Geschichte“

Rancière tells the story of the French École des Annales as a new historical school suddenly emerging in the early 1920s. However, this story has to be checked. Since the 18th century, modern European historical studies have always been manifold. In particular, at least two paradigms have competed for acceptance: on the one hand, ‘truly’ telling a story about heroes and outstanding events, and on the other hand, explaining and narrating ‘universal’ comparative histories of countries, economies, empires and regions, of communications, and of the people. Some examples of the latter are outlined, such as the eighteenth-century ‘Göttingen School’, the nineteenth-century ‘Leipzig School’ and the ‘Bielefeld School’ from the mid-1970s onwards, all of which show strong similarities to the École des Annales. Each group was ground-breaking in its own way and exercised a strong ifluence on other historians. Hence, the École des Annales was not a unique event, but just one of various western ‘hot-spots’ in a long-lasting epistemological process. Furthermore, the assumption that the longue durée (Braudel) expelled the single event and the human being from history is also put into question. Since then, Rancière argues, historians have become social scientists, unable to grasp history, the uniqueness of the event, and the unforeseeable potential of human passion. ey tend to overestimate historical processes and the determination of an event by its surrounding circumstances. The article counters these arguments. First, the uniqueness of the event was never denied. Rather, since Michelet in France or Max Weber in Germany historians have tried to abstract constitutive elements from the unique event or case in order to explain it. A special type of explanation this in with all historical studies: the narrative explanation. Second, the notions of durée and longue durée do not place in jeopardy the single event. Neither do they devalue human action, belief, passion, or confession; all of them remain constitutive components of the historical past. Braudel’s layered ‘historical times’ (durées) were a brilliant attempt to place time and space in mutual interaction. Third, human beings have never been expelled from history. Since the 1970s, the subject has been re-constructed more carefully as a de-centered, imperfect actor, but also as the co-creator of its own life-world (Lebenswelt) in the sense of social constructivism. This co-creator, however, is unable to view and understand fully material, cultural, religious, political powers which create the limits and restraints of his life-world. What biographical knowledge and experience tell us is not su cient for writing history, but there is no historical writing without analysing properly everyday knowledge and human experience. e histo- rical social and cultural sciences – which Rancière criticized so much – are needed to go beyond pure ‘structures’ and beyond what human beings are able to tell about their daily lives.Rancière tells the story of the French École des Annales as a new historical school suddenly emerging in the early 1920s. However, this story has to be checked. Since the 18th century, modern European historical studies have always been manifold. In particular, at least two paradigms have competed for acceptance: on the one hand, ‘truly’ telling a story about heroes and outstanding events, and on the other hand, explaining and narrating ‘universal’ comparative histories of countries, economies, empires and regions, of communications, and of the people. Some examples of the latter are outlined, such as the eighteenth-century ‘Göttingen School’, the nineteenth-century ‘Leipzig School’ and the ‘Bielefeld School’ from the mid-1970s onwards, all of which show strong similarities to the École des Annales. Each group was ground-breaking in its own way and exercised a strong ifluence on other historians. Hence, the École des Annales was not a unique event, but just one of various western ‘hot-spots’ in a long-lasting epistemological process. Furthermore, the assumption that the longue durée (Braudel) expelled the single event and the human being from history is also put into question. Since then, Rancière argues, historians have become social scientists, unable to grasp history, the uniqueness of the event, and the unforeseeable potential of human passion. ey tend to overestimate historical processes and the determination of an event by its surrounding circumstances. The article counters these arguments. First, the uniqueness of the event was never denied. Rather, since Michelet in France or Max Weber in Germany historians have tried to abstract constitutive elements from the unique event or case in order to explain it. A special type of explanation this in with all historical studies: the narrative explanation. Second, the notions of durée and longue durée do not place in jeopardy the single event. Neither do they devalue human action, belief, passion, or confession; all of them remain constitutive components of the historical past. Braudel’s layered ‘historical times’ (durées) were a brilliant attempt to place time and space in mutual interaction. Third, human beings have never been expelled from history. Since the 1970s, the subject has been re-constructed more carefully as a de-centered, imperfect actor, but also as the co-creator of its own life-world (Lebenswelt) in the sense of social constructivism. This co-creator, however, is unable to view and understand fully material, cultural, religious, political powers which create the limits and restraints of his life-world. What biographical knowledge and experience tell us is not su cient for writing history, but there is no historical writing without analysing properly everyday knowledge and human experience. e histo- rical social and cultural sciences – which Rancière criticized so much – are needed to go beyond pure ‘structures’ and beyond what human beings are able to tell about their daily lives

The ‘dispositiv’ of the City of Vienna’s coercive education

The invention of a modern body politic stimulated human sciences like paediatrics, psychiatry and therapeutic pedagogy, anthropology, psychology and others. Studying the socio-cultural and the naked life they defined the normal and the abnormal, the ‘educable’ and the ‘non-educable’ child, the ‘worthy’ and the ‘unworthy’. This produced serious effects on children and their parents in cooperation with judicial and police authorities and the modern youth welfare which was started by the city council of Vienna round 1910. Psychiatrists and therapeutic pedagogues agreed on “difficult children” being medically treated. Psychoanalytic concepts of a non-violent education where not used at large scale in the city of Freud. The archipelago of municipal, confessional and private care homes was run to full capacity until violence was officially discussed first time in 1971, when the critique at psychiatry begins too. Most of the care homes and the famous Children Admittance Center were closed around 2000 and became substituted by guided shared flats and Intervention Centers scattered all over the city. Main thesis: pedagogic and psychiatric violence against children and youth of deprivileged social classes was produced by the theories of psychiatry, the racial hygiene and eugenics, especially the psychiatric theory of degeneration and the concept of “psychopathic inferiority”, the concept of neglect, the milieu theory, the racist concept of the worthless child, and others. This was fostered by Christian myths of guilt and punishment and Nazi racial anthropology. The violence could take place in the darkness of the care homes shaped as ‘total institutions’ (Goffman), which were created and kept in order to perform illegal and excessive power over the naked body.The invention of a modern body politic stimulated human sciences like paediatrics, psychiatry and therapeutic pedagogy, anthropology, psychology and others. Studying the socio-cultural and the naked life they defined the normal and the abnormal, the ‘educable’ and the ‘non-educable’ child, the ‘worthy’ and the ‘unworthy’. This produced serious effects on children and their parents in cooperation with judicial and police authorities and the modern youth welfare which was started by the city council of Vienna round 1910. Psychiatrists and therapeutic pedagogues agreed on “difficult children” being medically treated. Psychoanalytic concepts of a non-violent education where not used at large scale in the city of Freud. The archipelago of municipal, confessional and private care homes was run to full capacity until violence was officially discussed first time in 1971, when the critique at psychiatry begins too. Most of the care homes and the famous Children Admittance Center were closed around 2000 and became substituted by guided shared flats and Intervention Centers scattered all over the city. Main thesis: pedagogic and psychiatric violence against children and youth of deprivileged social classes was produced by the theories of psychiatry, the racial hygiene and eugenics, especially the psychiatric theory of degeneration and the concept of “psychopathic inferiority”, the concept of neglect, the milieu theory, the racist concept of the worthless child, and others. This was fostered by Christian myths of guilt and punishment and Nazi racial anthropology. The violence could take place in the darkness of the care homes shaped as ‘total institutions’ (Goffman), which were created and kept in order to perform illegal and excessive power over the naked body