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Journal of Historical Network Research, Vol. 8 (2023): Regular Issue

The Skouries deposit in NE Greece is a platinum-group element enriched (⌀=149 ppb Pd, ⌀=30 ppb Pt) Au-Cu porphyry system hosted by monzonite-syenite intrusions. The porphyry stockwork consists of quartz-rich A- and B-type veins associated with potassic alteration, followed by massive sulfide-bearing veins related to chlorite-sericite alteration, and D-type veins associated with sericitic alteration. The mineralization is dominated by chalcopyrite, pyrite, bornite, and magnetite associated with native gold and Bi-Pd-rich telluride inclusions. The mineral chemistry (EPMA and LA-ICP-MS) of chalcopyrite, pyrite, magnetite, and hydrothermal quartz was used to track the physiochemical fluid evolution, and to define mechanisms enhancing metal enrichment at Skouries. Textural differences of hydrothermal quartz generations, as reflected by distinct CL-SEM intensities, were linked to Ti-in-quartz-thermometry and quartz trace element ratios, such as Ge/Ti, Sb/Ti and Al/Ti. These ratios record temperatures around 600°C for the A-type veins, suggest a reopening of veins by a second, hotter fluid pulse (>600°C), which was followed by a decrease in temperature below 600°C for the later B-type veins. Furthermore, the sulfide mineralization is characterized by systematic variations in trace element concentrations (e.g., As, Ag, Au) and ratios (e.g., Au/Cu, Co/TI, Se/Te, As/Sb) fingerprinting physiochemical changes in the hydrothermal fluid system. Therefore, sulfide and quartz micro-analysis can help decipher small-scale processes within the porphyry system and allow to establish mechanisms controlling the metal endowment of porphyry deposits on a larger scale.

Off-grid applications based on intermittent solar power benefit greatly from hybrid energy storage systems consisting of a battery short-term and a hydrogen long-term storage path. An intelligent energy management is required to balance short-, intermediate- and long-term fluctuations in electricity demand and supply, while maximizing system efficiency and minimizing component stress. An energy management was developed that combines the benefits of an expert-knowledge based fuzzy logic approach with a metaheuristic particle swarm optimization. Unlike in most existing work, interpretability of the optimized fuzzy logic controller is maintained, allowing the expert to evaluate and adjust it if deemed necessary. The energy management was tested with 65 1-year household load datasets. It was shown that the expert tuned controller is more robust to changes in load pattern then the optimized controller. However, simple readjustments restore robustness, while largely retaining the benefits achieved through optimization. Nevertheless, it was demonstrated that there is no one-size-fits-all tuning. Especially, large power peaks on the demand-side require overly conservative tunings. This is not desirable in situations where such peaks can be avoided through other means.

This doctoral research project explores letters of recommendation in the social networks of German-speaking Jews from their emancipation through national socialism. Professional recommendations are a phenomenon known since the pre-modern period and has remained resilient and societally effective in the modern era. In the period under examination, the practice of recommendation references both the arena of family relationships and friendships and the professional sphere, influencing individuals’ learning and career trajectories. The broad spectrum of letters of recommenddation and their potential to transform situations and lives manifest with particularly emphatic force in German Jewish history. At the outset of the twentieth century, written recommendations served Jewish people in Germany in their aspirations to climb the social ladder and aided the recruitment of staff and cooperation partners for institutions whose radius of action was increasingly extending beyond national borders. During the National Socialist era, recommendations potentially even saved lives. The project explores the extent to which individuals used personal recommendations as cultural and social capital, the ways in which recommendations helped shape social relationships in business and societal spheres, and the effect of historical conditions and settings on their form, content and style. The project is informed by a theoretical framework including the works of Pierre Bourdieu, Georg Simmel and Mark Granovetter. With the attempt to show changes in the use of language and addressed topics as well as changes in the composition of the networks, those letters were circulated in, the methodological approach is a combination of historical discourse analyses and historical network analyses.

The paper investigates how cultural and social capital were passed down to the next generations via letters of recommendation. Focusing on fathers recommending their sons to German Jewish banker Gerson (von) Bleichröder, the paper asks how father-son relations were described and which role equivalent backgrounds, especially in terms of Jewishness and social standing, played in this process. Mainly discussed are four different patriarchs approaching Bleichröder on behalf of their sons to further their careers. Making use of methods such as historical network analysis and semantic analysis the paper introduces the letters of recommendation as a complex yet promising practice in order to maintain, strengthen and even further the family’s (social) capital over generational changes. The paper finds trust and tradition to be crucial for successful recommendations. Situated at a liminal point of economic and personal spheres, recommendations shed new light on crucial questions of 19th-century Jewish history, such as acculturation and distinctiveness as well as on intra-familial dynamics in the face of profound social transformation.

PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung für Jüdische Studien e.V.; 26

The Jewish family has been the subject of much admiration and analysis, criticism and myth-making, not just but especially in modern times. As a field of inquiry, its place is at the intersection – or in the shadow – of the great topics in Jewish Studies and its contributing disciplines. Among them are the modernization and privatization of Judaism and Jewish life; integration and distinctiveness of Jews as individuals and as a group; gender roles and education. These and related questions have been the focus of modern Jewish family research, which took shape as a discipline in the 1910s. This issue of PaRDeS traces the origins of academic Jewish family research and takes stock of its development over a century, with its ruptures that have added to the importance of familial roots and continuities. A special section retrieves the founder of the field, Arthur Czellitzer (1871–1943), his biography and work from oblivion and places him in the context of early 20th-century science and Jewish life. The articles on current questions of Jewish family history reflect the topic’s potential for shedding new light on key questions in Jewish Studies past and present. Their thematic range – from 13th-century Yiddish Arthurian romances via family-based business practices in 19th-century Hungary and Germany, to concepts of Jewish parenthood in Imperial Russia – illustrates the broad interest in Jewish family research as a paradigm for early modern and modern Jewish Studies., PaRDeS : Zeitschrift der Vereinigung für Jüdische Studien e.V., 26

In Empfehlungsschreiben verbindet sich die persönliche Mikroebene mit der Makroebene gesellschaftlicher Gepflogenheiten und Umstände in einer bestimmten Zeit. Dies wird auch in diesem zweiseitigen Schreiben vom 5.3.1936 für den Soziologen Siegfried Landshut deutlich, welches sein früherer Vorgesetzter Eduard Heimann aus seinem New Yorker Exil an [Hans] Kohn sandte, um Landshut eine Stelle an der Hebräischen Universität zu vermitteln. Das Schreiben beginnt nach einer kurzen Einleitung mit dem Lebenslauf Siegfried Landshuts. Der 1897 in Straßburg im Elsass geborene Landshut nahm seine Studien nach seinem Kriegsfreiwilligen Dienst im Ersten Weltkrieg auf. Nach diesem knappen Lebens- und Studienverlauf geht Heimann, zu dem Teil des Empfehlungsschreibens über, in dem er darlegt, wie er mit Landshut bekannt ist. Landshut war seit 1927 wissenschaftlicher Assistent Eduard Heimanns am Soziologischen Seminar der Universität Hamburg. Aus dem Schreiben geht weiterhin hervor, wie Landshut seine Anstellung an der Hamburger Universität verlor und sich hiernach samt seiner Familie auf eine internationale Odyssee begab, die laut Heimann in Kairo und in katastrophalen Zuständen endeten. Im Fall Siegfried Landshuts führte nicht zuletzt das hier vorliegende Schreiben zu einer befristeten Anstellung an der Hebräischen Universität. Es zeigt in besonders eindringlicher und eindrücklicher Form wie der Nationalsozialismus an deutschen Universitäten Karrieren und Lebenswege unterbrach, innerhalb welcher Netzwerke Empfehlungsschreiben verfasst wurden, welche Migrationswege Jüdinnen und Juden zurücklegten, wie das Jüdischsein in professionellen Kontexten thematisiert wurde und welchen argumentativen Raum Freundschaft und Verantwortungsgefühl in solchen Schreiben einnehmen.