Wilhelm Reich über den 15. Juli 1927

The psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957), in those days a Marxist, has been an eyewitness of the events of July 15, 1927—the burning down of the Justizpalast and the shooting down of a spontaneous mass-demonstration in the center of Vienna. In 1937 Reich wrote a report about this experience that gave him the impulse to elaborate his own Mass-psychology of Fascism in 1933.     

Elicitation of Quantitative Data from a Heterogeneous Expert Panel: Formal Process and Application in Animal Health

This paper presents a protocol for a formal expert judgment process using a heterogeneous expert panel aimed at the quantification of continuous variables. The emphasis is on the process's requirements related to the nature of expertise within the panel, in particular the heterogeneity of both substantive and normative expertise. The process provides the opportunity for interaction among the experts so that they fully understand and agree upon the problem at hand, including qualitative aspects relevant to the variables of interest, prior to the actual quantification task. Individual experts' assessments on the variables of interest, cast in the form of subjective probability density functions, are elicited with a minimal demand for normative expertise. The individual experts' assessments are aggregated into a single probability density function per variable, thereby weighting the experts according to their expertise. Elicitation techniques proposed include the Delphi technique for the qualitative assessment task and the ELI method for the actual quantitative assessment task. Appropriately, the Classical model was used to weight the experts' assessments in order to construct a single distribution per variable. Applying this model, the experts' quality typically was based on their performance on seed variables. An application of the proposed protocol in the broad and multidisciplinary field of animal health is presented. Results of this expert judgment process showed that the proposed protocol in combination with the proposed elicitation and analysis techniques resulted in valid data on the (continuous) variables of interest. In conclusion, the proposed protocol for a formal expert judgment process aimed at the elicitation of quantitative data from a heterogeneous expert panel provided satisfactory results. Hence, this protocol might be useful for expert judgment studies in other broad and/or multidisciplinary fields of interest.     

Die Heider-Simmel-Studie (1944) in neueren Replikationen

More than sixty years ago Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel conducted an experimental study, which can be seen as the starting point of attribution theory research. Moving symbols were shown during a short animated cartoon which Ss unanimously described as living objects (mostly people). This quite often quoted study has been replicated several times in Germany in the last few years. These replications show that (1) stories produced by Ss are formed by personal motivations of Ss, and that (2) content of stories can in part be attributed to the research settings and finally (3) it is shown in recent replications that Ss are surprisingly far less inclined to describe the symbols in terms of acting persons or animals than in the original study. Possible reasons for these results are discussed.     

Die Krisis des Wissens

From a sociological theoretical perspective the crisis of knowledge appears to be characteristic of a knowledge society in which the importance of knowledge has increased but the importance of the traditional university system has decreased. In contrast to Husserl, I do not start with the “last” questions, but with the first question: namely, how is knowledge possible? To answer this, I define learning as a communicative practice that produces knowledge. This emphasizes the distinction between knowledge and intelligence. “Intelligence” denotes problem-solving mechanisms which can be embedded in various ways: organically in genomes; technologically in instruments; and socially in the rule systems of institutions (II–III). On this basis, the form of knowledge for the knowledge society contrasts knowledge/non-knowledge and is set against competing forms which contrast knowledge/belief or knowledge/power. The knowledge society thus stands in great need of knowledge about how to deal with ignorance or non-knowledge, particularly in order to cope with systemic risks. The use of risk models by banks serves as one example of how organizations in the knowledge society turn their dependence on knowledge and ignorance into strategies for coping with uncertainty (IV–V). Ignorance is always the corollary of knowledge. Thus, in conclusion irony and power are introduced as exemplary ways of dealing with this form of knowledge (VI–VII).     

Prediction of sports injuries in football: a recurrent time-to-event approach using regularized Cox models

AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis - Data-based methods and statistical models are given special attention to the study of sports injuries to gain in-depth understanding of its risk factors and...