Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
PROGRAMME
& ABSTRACTS
TECHNOLOGY in
TIMES of TRANSITION
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Contacts during the symposium
The Local Organising Committee
Elena Helerea mobile: +40‐(0)744 624 682
E‐mail: helerea@unitbv.ro
Daniel Calin mobile: + 40‐(0)726 194 856
E‐mail: marius.calin@unitbv.ro
Editors: Sławomir Łotysz, Elena Helerea
Co‐editors: Marina Cionca, Bíborka Bartha
Cover: Antónia Czika, Bíborka Bartha
Maps: Bíborka Bartha
Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
Brasov 2014
Acreditat CNCSIS cod 201
©2014
ISBN 978‐973‐131‐282‐8
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CONTENTS
WELCOME……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 5
ORGANISERS……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 7
SYMPOSIUM INFORMATION:………………………………………………………………………………………. 13
ICOHTEC AND ITS OBJECTIVES……………………………………………………………………………………. 14
THEME OF THE SYMPOSIUM……………………………………………………………………………………… 14
THE VENUE………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 15
REGISTRATION AND INFORMATION DESK…………………………………………………………………. 17
SYMPOSIUM LANGUAGE………………………………………………………………………………………….. 17
INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRESENTERS…………………………………………………………………………….… 17
INTERNET…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 17
LUNCH AND COFFEE…………………………………………………………………………………………………… 17
MOBILE PHONES………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 17
POSTER PRESENTATIONS…………………………………………………………………………………………… 18
EXHIBITION………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 18
SYMPOSIUM HOTELS…………………………………………………………………………………………………. 19
MAPS……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 21
PROGRAMME AT A GLANCE…………………………………………………………………………………………. 23
SOCIAL PROGRAMME. EXCURSIONS, TOURS. ACCOMPANYING PERSONS……………………… 27
SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMME……………………………………………………………………………………………… 35
KRANZBERG LECTURE…………………………………………………………………………………………………… 57
ABSTRACTS………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 61
TRANSILVANIA UNIVERSITY OF BRASOV………………………………………………………………………. 229
THE CITY OF BRASOV……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 235
INDEX OF AUTHORS……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 241
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WELCOME TO TRANSILVANIA UNIVERSITY OF
BRASOV
Transilvania University, located at the foot of Mount Tampa in the
city that has ensured the liaison between culture and civilisation on
both sides of the Carpathians, enjoys significant prestige in both
education and research.
Transilvania University is a state institution of higher education looking
back on a tradition of more than half a century. Its mission is to ensure
and develop the resources and instruments for quality education and
research in order to support competitiveness within the European
Higher Education Area (EHEA) and the European Research Area (ERA).
Each year Transilvania University of Braşov becomes the chosen destination for hundreds of
students and teachers from all EU countries, involved in academic exchange programmes,
perhaps attracted also by its slogan “Confidence and Excellence” and certainly by its
reputation. On its turn, the university participates by its teachers and students in research
and education at the more than 200 universities from Europe and beyond, with whom
bilateral agreements of cooperation were closed.
The role and place of Transilvania University in the international area of education and
research is illustrated not only by its cooperation with more than 150 universities and
research institutes worldwide, but also by its scientific research projects, educational
projects and the mobility of teaching staff and students financed by the European
Community, be the CEEPUS programmes and other bilateral schemes.
Our academic community is actively present in our region not only by promoting European
and universal educational values, but also by its involvement in economic and socio‐cultural
activities, thus rendering the university one of Brasov’s emblematic institutions.
It is within this context that the 41st Symposium of the International Committee for the
History of Technology ICOHTEC held in Brasov between July 29th and August 2nd 2014 as part
of the Division of History of Science and Technology of the International Union of History
and Philosophy of Science IUHPS/DHST represents a recognition of the constant involvement
of our university’s academia the field of history of science and technology. I wish to thank all
organisers, supporting entities and sponsors for their substantial contribution to the success
of this academic meeting of prestigious tradition.
By making our university the host of this symposium, a university that honours the history of
both technology and science, we trust to facilitate an event designed to arouse the interest
of history of technology researchers in a country that gave the world personalities like
Hermann Oberth, Ștefan Odobleja, Anghel Saligny and Henri Coanda.
Let me finally wish you a successful symposium and extend an invitation to be our honoured
guests again on the occasion of many other events organised by our university.
Professor Ioan Vasile Abrudan
Rector
Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
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ORGANISERS
ICOHTEC President Timo MYLLYNTAUS
Transilvania University of Brasov Rector
Prof.dr.eng.
Ioan Vasile ABRUDAN
Brasov County Council President
Aristotel CANCESCU
Brasov City Hall Mayor
Gheorghe SCRIPCARU
ICPE‐CA Bucuresti Director
Prof.dr. Wilhelm KAPPEL
SUPPORTING ENTITIES
Academia Romana
CRIFST‐Filiala Brasov Valentin VLAD, Academician
Academia de Stinte Tehnice‐ Dr.ing. Mihai MIHAITA
Filiala Brasov
Asociatia Generala a Inginerilor Dr.ing. Mihai MIHAITA
din Romania
Camera de Comert si Industrie Adriana ISPAS, Director General
Brasov
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SPONSORS
Mihnea Cosmin COSTOIU,
Ministerul Educatiei Nationale Ministru Delegat,
Tudor PRISECARU, Secretar de
Stat
Lucia MOISE, Director
Agence Universitaire de la Abderrahmane RIDA, Director
Francophonie regional pentru Europa Centrala
si orientala,
Stanislas PIERRET
S.N.G.N. ROMGAZ S.A. Medias Virgil Marius METEA, Director
General
SC CRIOMEC SA Galaţi Prof.dr.ing. Alexandru STEFAN,
Director
SC Domeniul Coroanei SEGARCEA Ing. Mihai ANGHEL, Director
SRL
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SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
Maria Elvira CALLAPEZ, Professor, Inter University Centre of History of Science and
Technology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon, Portugal
Slawomir LOTYSZ (Chair), Professor, University of Zielona Gora, Poland
Alexandre HERLEA, Professor emeritus, Technical University Belfort Montbéliard,
France
Timo MYLLYNTAUS, Professor, University of Turku, Finland
Christopher NEUMAIER, Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam, Germany
LOCAL ORGANISING COMMITTEE
President:
Elena HELEREA, Professor, Transilvania University of Brasov
Secretary:
Daniel CALIN, Lecturer, PhD, Transilvania University of Brasov
Financial Advisor:
Gabriela PLOPEANU, International Projects Expert, Project Management Office, Transilvania
University of Brasov
Members:
Liliana ROGOZEA, Professor, Transilvania University of Brasov, Vice‐Rector
Cecilia DOICIU, Brasov City Hall, Department of International Relations, Culture and
Events
Claudiu COMAN, Assist. Professor, Transilvania University of Brasov, Director of the
Social and Communication Sciences Department, President of the Culture Board of
the Brasov County Council
Alexandru HERLEA, Professor, Doctor Honoris Causa of Transilvania University of
Brasov
Marina CIONCA, Professor, Transilvania University of Brasov
Livia SANGEORZAN, Assist. Professor, Transilvania University of Brasov
Alin OLARESCU, Lecturer, PhD, Transilvania University of Brasov
Mircea IVANOIU, Teaching Assistant, Transilvania University of Brasov
Biborka BARTHA, Architect, PhD student, Transilvania University of Brasov
Marius BENTA, Engineer, PhD student, Transilvania University of Brasov
Laura LELUTIU, Lecturer, PhD, Transilvania University of Brasov
Catalin MIHAI, Engineer, PhD, SC FDEE Electrica Distributie Transilvania Sud SA
Dan BALAN, Historian, Brasov
Monica COTFAS, Teacher, Mircea Cristea Highschool, Brasov
Georgeta ALECU, Engineer, PhD, ICPE‐CA, Bucharest
Translation
Viviana MOLDOVAN, Highschool Codlea
Melania COTFAS, Mircea Cristea Highschool Brasov
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Luminita HUSAC, Ioan Senchea Highschool Fagaras
Virgil BORCAN, Lecturer PhD, Transilvania University of Brasov
Collaborators:
Adriana ISPAS, Director, Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Brasov
Sorin ABAGIU, S.C FDEE Electrica Distribuţie Transilvania Sud S.A
Puiu CHISALITA, Societatea Nationala de Gaze Naturale Romgaz SA Medias
Ovidiu SAVU, Casa Muresenilor Museum, Brasov
Florentin OLTEANU, Negru‐Voda Cultural Foundation, Fagaras, Brasov County
Elena BEJENARU, Valer Literat Museum of Fagaras
Registration Desk:
Ioana FIRESTRAU, Lecturer, PhD, Transilvania University of Brasov
Corneliu URSACHI, PhD, Transilvania University of Brasov
Andra TUDOR, Student
Flavius BEJAN, Student
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ICOHTEC and its Objectives
www.icohtec.org
The International Committee for the History of Technology ICOHTEC was founded in Paris
1968 when bitterness divided the nations in the Eastern and Western worlds. The intent was
to provide a forum of scholars for the history of technology from both sides of the "iron
curtain" It was constituted as a Scientific Section within the Division of the History of Science
and Technology of the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science
IUHPS/DHST.
The objectives of ICOHTEC are:
• To establish close working relationships among specialists of different disciplines in order
to foster international cooperation for the study and development of the history of
technology;
• To promote the study of appropriate historical subjects by establishing and extending the
scholarly bases of the history of technology as well as by contributing to the resolution of
certain contemporary national and international problems;
• To facilitate research and documentation for scholars in all countries in the history of
technology by exchange of information and the creation of the material means necessary for
this objective.
Theme of the Symposium
The theme chosen for the 41st ICOHTEC Symposium 2014 is very topical and is of interest for
historians, but also for economists, political scientists or sociologists. It covers a large range
of subjects and is therefore in line with ICOHTEC traditions in choosing symposia themes.
The notion of “period of transition” relates as well to the periods of rapid change in
technology stretching from Prehistory to our days, as to the periods of radical change
experienced in the fields of sciences, economy, society, politics, beliefs and mentalities.
Because of the interdependence and the mutual influences between technology, science,
economy and social‐political aspects, as well as beliefs, traditions and mentalities, periods of
transitions are, in many cases, characterized by important changes in most or in all of these
fields.
The ICOHTEC Symposium 2014 more or less restricts itself to analyzing the transition period
in the field of techniques and technology in the Western World in the 20th Century. This took
place after the technological changes in the Middle‐Ages, the Renaissance and the Industrial
Revolution of the 18th and early 19th Centuries. The beginning of the techno‐sciences at the
end of the 19th Century, mass production and rationalization, the information revolution and
the biotechnological revolution extending to the present day have exerted a profound
influence on the present period.
But apart from these periods of “positive” transitions, characterized by intensive processes
of innovation, there are periods of transition characterized by stagnation and crisis. In
Europe, in the Western World and in the former Soviet Union and its satellites, there were
several periods of stagnation and crisis, such as the great crisis of 1929 and the following
years, the crisis of the Soviet system before the fall of the Berlin Wall, or the present day
environmental crisis.
The studies on “Technology in Times of Transition” deal with this issue also from another
point of view. They concentrate particularly on political and socio‐economic ruptures. In this
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context, the analysis of technology policy, concepts and applications, is of particular interest.
Here, the evolution of technological systems in the former socialist countries after the fall of
the Berlin Wall deserves consideration. This is a vast topic of present interest. The fact that
the ICOHTEC symposium takes place in Romania is particularly significant here.
But our world which finds itself in a process of accelerating globalisation, faces a serious
crisis which does not only extend to the economy and finances or the environment but is
also a systemic one. It is a crisis of civilization in which technological change is a vital
element. Therefore scholarly investigations analysing aspects of this difficult situation are
needed. To carry this through, historians, and especially historians of technology, are called
upon to make their contributions.
The Venue
The ICOHTEC Symposium takes place in the Aula of Transilvania University of Brasov, a
modern building from the nineties. The Aula hosts the University Library, the Aula Magna,
for various events, such as national and international meetings and conferences, artistic
events and various ceremonies. The ground floor has special spaces for exhibitions, the Aula
Magna is on the first floor, which also provides four other spacious rooms with various
destinations: UI2, UI3, UI6, UI7. On the third floor you find Room UII3, where the
participants can check and prepare for their presentation (Speakers’ Room), with the help of
a technician.
The ICOHTEC Symposium Registration is on the first floor. The exhibition is organized on the
ground floor.
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Registration and Information Desk
Registration and information desk will be open as follows:
Aula of the Transilvania University of Brasov, address: Blvd. Iuliu Maniu no. 41 A
•Tuesday, July 29: from 8:30 to 17:00
• Wednesday, July 30: from 8:30 to 17:00
• Thursday, July 31: from 8:30 to 17:00
• Friday, August 1: from 8:30 to 17:00
• Saturday, August 2: from 8:30 to 17:00
Conference Language
The official language of the conference is English. Given the collaboration with the Agence
Universitaire de France (AUF), some of the communications will be presented in French.
Instructions for Presenters
Presentations are to be delivered for uploading to the speakers' room on a USB stick
preferably one day prior or at least two hours prior to your session. The accepted formats
are PDF or PowerPoint and the file must be named with your last name, first name and the
code of your session (please, check the code from the programme), e.g. Smith_John_W1
A.ppt. A symposium assistant will be available to assist you in uploading your presentation.
Personal laptops are not permitted for presentations.
The time allocated for each presentation is 30 minutes (20 minutes presentation and 10
minutes discussion).
Internet
The Aula of the Transilvania University of Brasov has a wireless internet connection. Access
codes are available at the information desk.
Lunch and Coffee
Lunch and coffee are included in your delegate fee. Lunch will be served at the Aula of the
Transilvania University of Brasov on the 1st floor, on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and
Saturday at 12.30‐14.00 in the Aula Magna area. Coffee will be served in the lobby on the
1st floor, in the Aula Magna area, in the scheduled breaks.
Please, wear your badge in order to enjoy the catering included in the delegate fee.
Mobile Phones
Mobile phones must be switched off in the lecture halls since they can interfere with the
audio system and disturb the attendants.
Name badges
Upon registration you have received a name badge which should be worn at all meeting
events, including the social functions.
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Poster Presentations
Posters will be on display during the entire conference, the presentations will take place at
the Aula of the University in the lobby on the ground floor. The Poster session is planned on
Thursday 14.00‐15.30, on the Ground floor at the exhibition space. Posters are to be
mounted preferably by 17:00 on Tuesday, July 29, so that the participants can familiarize
themselves with them during the University reception. Mounting must be done by 12:00 on
Wednesday, July 30, the latest. Adhesive tape will be provided by the organisers. Each
presenter is responsible for dismounting his/her poster by 13:00 on Saturday, August 2.
Speakers' Room
A speakers' room, where presenters can check their presentations and deliver their
presentations will be room UII3 on the second floor of the Aula and it is open as follows:
• Tuesday, July 29 at 12:30‐18:00 • Wednesday, July 30 at 8:00‐15:00 • Thursday, July 31 at
8:00‐14:00 • Friday, August 1 at 8:00‐13:00 • Saturday, August 2 at 8:00‐10:00
Exhibition
In the vast lobby of the ground floor of the Aula an exhibition of projects and photos was
organized, in order to give a specific visual relevance to the general theme of the ICOHTEC
Symposium 2014, TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION.
The exhibition is structured as follows:
I. TURNING POINTS IN THE TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT IN ROMANIA FROM MID‐19TH
CENTURY TO NOWADAYS.
a. INDUSTRY AND ARCHITECTURE
The Mitropoly Grape Wine Museum, Wolff Industrial Site, Bucharest, a project of
industrial reconversion, author PhD student arch. Biborka Bartha.
Railway Stations in Romania before World War I. Architectural Classification in a
Cultural Perspective, Author PhD student arch Toader Popescu
b. BRASOV INDUSTRY
Present and Past of ROMAN Plants
Present and Past of TRACTORUL Plants.
Projects and architectural presentation, author PhD student arch. Biborka Bartha
The Memorable City/ Orasul memorabil, a substantial collection of photographs
representing the industrial past of the city of Brasov from the 19th to the 21st century.
The photographs were taken by Brasov citizens during the last 120 years and
illustrate the dramatic changes in the industrial evolution of the city. The exhibition
presents also old cameras, weighing devices, old industrial artifacts.
II. TECHNICAL BOOKS EXHIBITION
An exhibition of technical books is presented by the General Association of Romanian
Engineers (AGIR).
In this area a Welcoming Centre for the books donated by Symposium participants is
also installed.
III. EPM STAND (EPM ‐ European Pupil Magazine) .
Highschool students present the EP Magazine issue dedicated to the History of
Technology. The EP Magazine is targeted at highschool and university students and
teachers.
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Symposium Hotels
Aro Palace Hotel 1
Eroilor Blvd., no. 27, Brasov, Romania
http://www.aro‐palace.ro/hotel‐brasov‐aro‐palace‐en.html
Capitol Hotel 2
Eroilor Blvd., no. 19, Brasov, Romania
http://www.aro‐palace.ro/hotel‐brasov‐capitol‐en.html
Coroana Hotel 3
Republicii Str., no. 62, Brasov, Romania
http://www.aro‐palace.ro/hotel‐brasov‐coroana‐en.html
Ambient Hotel 4
Iuliu Maniu Str., no. 27, Brasov, Romania
http://www.hotelambient.ro/en/
Pensiune Ambient 5
Iuliu Maniu Str., no. 62, Brasov, Romania
http://www.pensiuneambient.ro/
Residence Ambient 6
Castanilor Str., no. 3, Brasov, Romania
http://www.residenceambient.ro/
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City map ‐ Accommodation
City map ‐ Events
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Programme at a Glance
Monday 28 July Tuesday 29 July Wednesday 30 July
9:00 9:00‐10:30
9:30
Parallel paper sessions
10:00
Aula
10:30 10:30‐11:00 Coffee break
11:00 10:00‐12:00 11:00‐12:30
11:30
12.00‐14.00 Parallel paper sessions
12:00
Pre‐Symposium Brasov City Aula
12:30 Tour 12:30‐14:00
13:00
Lunch
13:30
Aula
14:00 Arrival of participants 14:00‐16:00 14:00‐15:30
14:30
10:00 ‐ 21:00 Parallel paper sessions
Meeting of ICOHTEC
15:00 Executive Committee
Shuttle busses leave from Aula
the Bucharest airport to
15:30 Room UII3 15:30‐16:00 Coffee break
Brasov.
16:00
Registration desk will be 16:30
open from 8:30 to 17:00 16:00‐17:30
16:30 throughout the week. Opening Ceremony
Parallel paper sessions
Aula Aula Magna
17:00‐18:30 Aula
17:00
Kranzberg lecture
17:30
Aula Magna
18:00
18:30 Exhibition opening
18:30
Aula Ground Floor
19:00‐21:00 19:00‐21:30
19:00 Welcome Reception Reception
Aula Brasov City Hall
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Thursday 31 Friday Saturday Sunday
August 1 August 2 August 3 August
9:00 9:00‐10:30 9:00‐10:30 9:00‐10:30
9:30 Parallel paper Parallel paper Parallel paper
9:00‐15:00
sessions sessions sessions
10:00 Aula Aula Aula Post‐Symposium Tour
options:
10:30‐11:00 10:30‐11:00 10:30‐11:00
10:30 a. Fagaras (Old Citadel
Coffee break Coffee break Coffee break
and Museum) ‐ Lisa
11:00 11:00‐12:30 11:00‐12:30 11:00‐12:30 (Traditional Mills) ‐
11:30 Sambata (Monastery
Parallel paper Parallel paper Parallel paper and Old Books Library)
sessions sessions sessions Lunch at Dejani Fishery
ICOHTEC Book And
12:00 Aula Article Prizes Round Aula
c. Bran/Dracula Castle,
Table
Rasnov Fortified
Aula
Village, Poiana Brasov
12:30 12:30‐14:00 12:30‐14:00 12:30‐14:00
13:00 Lunch Lunch Lunch Lunch Restaurant
13:30 Aula Aula Aula Capra Neagra, Poiana
14:00 14:00‐15:30 14:00‐18:00 14:00‐16:00 Brasov
14:30
Parallel paper Afternoon Symposium General Assembly
sessions Excursion options: Aula Magna
Poster Session a. Brasov City Tour
15:00 Round Table b. Prejmer ‐ Rasnov
Citadels
Aula c. Bran/Dracula Castle
d. IAR Company and R&D
15:30‐16:00 Coffee Institute of TUBv
15:30
break
16:00 16:00‐17:30
16:30 5:00 ‐ 17:00
Parallel paper
sessions
Departures of shuttle
17:00
buses to the Bucharest
Aula airport
17:30
18:00
18:30
19:00 19:00‐21:30 19:00‐21:30 19:00‐22:00
19:30
Romanian Music Jazz Night Festive Dinner
20:00
Event Coliba Haiducilor
20:30 Cerbul Carpatin Beraria Ciucas
21:00
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Social Programme
Tuesday, July 29
Pre‐Symposium Guided Brasov City Tour
at 10.00‐12.00 and
at 12.00‐14.00
Departure at 10.00 and at 12.00 from the Aula.
A few highlights of Brasov, the green city, are going to be spotted. The participants are
touring the city in an open‐deck bus. The tour includes: The Long Street ‐ Church of St.
Bartholomew ‐ the Belvedere on the road to Poiana Brasov ‐ Union Square ‐ Church of St.
Nicholas ‐ Mureşenilor Street ‐ Tampa alley.
Welcome Reception at the Aula of Transilvania University of Brasov , address: Blvd. Iuliu
Maniu no. 41A, at 19.00‐21.00
Incl. in the delegate and accompanying person fee.
Wednesday, July 30
Reception, Brasov City Hall, address: Bd. Eroilor no. 8, at 19.00‐21.30
Departure at 18.45 from the Aula.
Thursday, July 31
Romanian Music Event, at the Restaurant Cerbul Carpatin, Piata Sfatului no. 12‐14, at 19.00‐
21.30
Price: 20 EUR both for delegates and accompanying persons.
Meeting at 19.00 in Piata Sfatului (old city center), in front of the restaurant.
Friday, August 1
Jazz Night, at Beraria Ciucas, Politehnicii Str. no.1 (near Hotel Coroana), at 19.00‐21.30
Attending the Jazz Night is free of charge.
Saturday, August 2
Festive Dinner, at the Restaurant Coliba Haiducilor, Poiana Brasov, at 18.00‐21.30
Price: 25 EUR both for delegates and accompanying persons.
Meeting and departure at 17.30 from the Aula.
Tours and Excursions
Friday, August 1
Afternoon Symposium Excursion Options
a. Brasov City Tour – Walking Trip
Meeting at 14.00 in the lobby of Hotel Coroana
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Key‐points of the walk: Ethnographic Museum/Central Park, Army House, Muresenilor
Street, Old City Center (Piata Sfatului), Old City Hall, Muresenilor Memorial Museum, Black
Church,Ecaterina Gate, Schei Gate, Rope Street, Tampa Alley, Bastions.
MURESENILOR MEMORIAL MUSEUM. This small and attractive museum hosts documents,
photos, furniture, decorative art, and the important Mureşanu family correspondence. Both
Jacob and Aurel Mureşanu have contributed to the emergence and development, in
complicated historic times, of the first Romanian language newspaper, the famous Gazeta de
Transylvania. It is also seen as the Museum of the National Anthem, due to the fact that the
lyrics were written by Andrei Muresanu, a member of the Muresenilor family.
THE CITY HALL MUSEUM. It was built in the fifteenth century. The tower, 58 meters high,
dates from 1528. Initially it was the City Hall of Brasov. It was destroyed in the Great Fire of
1689 and rebuilt in the eighteenth century. Currently, the building houses the Department of
History of the County Museum.
Back at the Aula at 18.00.
b. Prejmer and Rasnov Citadels
Departure at 14.00 from the Aula.
THE FORTIFIED VILLAGE CHURCH IN PREJMER. Prejmer, known also by its Saxon name of
Tartlau is the major Saxon citadel in Southern Transylvania. It was built starting from the 15th
century, around a church dating from the 13th century. In the 15th century, the Romanesque
church was adapted to the Gothic style, the style shift being visible in the architectural
details. The church has a small organ, and there is a regular summer program of musical
activities. The citadel has a relatively circular shape. The walls are approx. 3m thick, at a
height of 10‐12m. The walls are surrounded by a deep and wide moat. The local population,
in medieval times took refuge in the citadel, in case of an invasion. The fortified church was
built by the Teutonic knights but two centuries later it started to be used by the Saxon
community of Prejmer/Tartlau.
The citadel has a delightful little museum at the entrance.
THE VILLAGE CITADEL IN RÂSNOV. This rather large citadel of Rasnov (Rosenau) was built
during several stages, between the 14th and the 16th centuries, on a calcareous height. It has
several enclosures with towers, a polygonal bastion in the east and the ruined chapel dates
from the 17th century. Inside the citadel the foundations of an Orthodox church from the
12th century were discovered.
Between 1211 and 1225, the Tara Barsei plateau was ruled by the Order of the Holy Virgin
Mary of the Germans –the Teutonic Order. It is supposed that the first Saxon colonists of
Rasnov came from the Rhein riverside, from a village called Rosenau. They gave this name to
their new settlement from Transylvania.
Back at the Aula at 18.00.
c. Bran/Dracula Castle
Departure at 14.00 from the Aula.
BRAN CASTLE. It was built between 1377‐1378 by the citizens of Brasov to control the way
through the narrow valley of the creek Turcu. It was used as a customs point. For a while it
was owned by the Romanian rulers of Walachia like Mircea the Old and Mihail. After 1498 it
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was re‐ceded to the Braşov community, and between 1622‐1625 it was endowed by two
new defense towers.
In 1920 it was donated by the municipality of Brasov to Queen Maria of Romania, as a
reward for her and her daughters’ dedication in nursing the wounded soldiers in the Balkan
Wars and in WW1. The Queen remodeled the interior, together with the royal architect
Karel Liman, with elements of the Art Nouveau so dear to her.
The legend of Dracula, which became a myth in the 19th and 20th century, was born due to
the original historic figure of Vlad Tepes, who ruled Walachia between1456 and 1462. Vlad
Tepes, the Impaler, was famous for his unleashed cruelty. Impaling, one of the most horrible
ways to die, was his favorite method of execution. The British novelist Bram Stoker brought
his novel “Dracula” to the attention of the world readers of the 19th and 20th century and
became one of the founders of the modern vampire mythology.
Back at the Aula at 18.00.
d. IAR Company and the R&D Institute of Transilvania University
Departure at 14.00 from the Aula
The trip includes the visit at IAR Company –the oldest Romanian aerospace manufacturer,
founded in 1925, which today carries out revisions and overhauls on helicopters and light
aircrafts.
The new Research and Development Institute of Transilvania University with its already well‐
known renewable energy systems, is also included in the visit.
Sunday, August 3
9.00‐15.00
Post‐Symposium Excursions
Price 50 EUR
Options
a. Fagaras‐Lisa‐Sambata
Departure at 8.30, meeting in the lobby of Hotel Coroana.
FAGARAS CITADEL. Built before 1310, when it was mentioned in historic documents, on the
foundation of a palisaded clay building from the 10th century. Fagaras became then a
voivodal residence, due to the Voivode Ştefan Mailat (1528‐1541), as well as an important
military center, supported by a domain of more than 60 villages. The ruler of Wallachia,
Mihai the Brave, owner of Fagaras between 1599 and 1600, looked at this town as at his
own residence. Later on, in the 17th century, the Transylvanian princes Gabriel Bethlen and
Gyorgy Rakoczi extend and define the final shape of the citadel.
During the reign of the prince Mihaly Apafi I, Fagaras becomes the political centre of
Transylvania and effective residence of the prince. The citadel was rebuilt in the style of
Transylvanian Renaissance. Together with the Deva citadel it is known as one of the strogest
fortifications of Transylvania. In the 18th century it was surrounded by a Vauban fortification.
THE CASTLE OF COUNT SAMUEL VON BRUCKENTHAL. The castle from Sambata de Sus was
built by Josef Bruckenthal in 1770. It is a Baroque building. In 1850 the building was
remodelled. The castle with its annexes cover a surface of 36 hectares. In this area the
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famous horses, the Lipizzaner horses, are kept, the most important breed of Romania.
THE CASTLE OF CONSTANTIN BRANCOVEANU. With a splendid location, close to the huge
Fagaras Mountain Ranges, there is a castle built by the famous Wallachian ruler Constantin
Brancoveanu between 1653– 1678. The castle was restored after 1906 and used between
the World Wars as a guesthouse for artists and writers. After WWII, it was used for apple
storage for the local cooperative. After 1990, an ample restoration project was initiated, due
to its advanced degradation.
THE ORTHODOX MONASTERY AT SAMBATA DE SUS. The monastery was built between
1700‐1701 by the Wallachian ruler Constantin Brancoveanu. The church shows beautiful
elements of the Brancovan style, and there are fresco paintings from 1766‐1787. The church
was bombed by the Austrian army in 1785 and rebuilt in 1926‐1936. A relevant collection of
icons painted on glass can be seen at the monastery, as well a library with old books and
manuscripts.
THE LISA TRADITIONAL RURAL MILLS. In Lisa village a unique ensemble of traditional
installations was conserved and restored. The installations are powered by waterfalls. They
are are of various kinds, for the processing of wool fabrics. The processing phases are on
display, the entire installation works correctly, according to the traditional ways, used for
many centuries. Water is directed through wood channels, left to fall from high altitude
upon the woolen fabrics, thus improving their density and surface quality.
Lunch at the Dejani Fishery incl. in the price.
b. Bran/Dracula Castle‐Rasnov‐Poiana Brasov
Departure at 8.30, meeting in the lobby of Hotel Coroana.
BRAN CASTLE. It was built in the 14th century by the citizens of Brasov to control the way
through the narrow valley of the creek Turcu. It was used as a customs point. For a while it
was owned by the Romanian rulers of Walachia. In 1920 it was donated by the municipality
of Brasov to Queen Maria of Romania, as a reward for her and her daughters’ dedication in
nursing the wounded soldiers in the Balkan Wars and in WW1. The Queen remodeled the
interior, together with the royal architect Karel Liman, with medieval and Art Nouveau
elements. The legend of Dracula was born due to the original historic figure of Vlad Tepes,
who ruled Walachia in the second part of the 15th century. Vlad Tepes the Impaler was
famous for his unleashed cruelty in pursuing justice. The British novelist Bram Stoker
brought his novel “Dracula” to the attention of the world readers of the 19th and 20th
century and became one of the founders of the modern vampire mythology.
THE VILLAGE CITADEL IN RÂSNOV. This rather large citadel of Rasnov (Rosenau) was built
during several stages, between the 14th and the 16th centuries, on a calcareous height. It has
several enclosures with towers, a polygonal bastion in the east and the ruined chapel dates
from the 17th century. Inside the citadel the foundations of an Orthodox church from the
12th century were discovered.
Between 1211 and 1225, the Tara Barsei plateau was ruled by the Order of the Holy Virgin
Mary of the Germans –the Teutonic Order. It is supposed that the first Saxon colonists of
Rasnov came from the Rhein riverside, from a village called Rosenau. They gave this name to
their new settlement from Transylvania.
Back at the Aula at 18.00.
POIANA BRAŞOV is the most popular Romanian ski resort and an important tourist centre
The ski area is of 80 hectares and the slopes length 23.9 km.
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It is located at about 1,020 meters (3,379 feet) above sea level at 12 km from the city of
Braşov and it is easily accessible by road. Poiana Braşov is surrounded by four mountains:
Postăvaru 1799 m), Piatra Craiului 2238 m, Bucegi 2505 m and Piatra Mare 1,848 m.
The mountain landscape with forests and meadows is worth the travel. There are two cable
cars that climb up the Postavaru peak, where the view is spectacular.
Lunch at Restaurant Capra Neagra in Poiana Brasov, incl. in the price.
Accompanying Persons
Wednesday, July 30
9.00‐13.00
Tampa Mountain Walking Trip
Departure at 9.00, meeting in the lobby of Hotel Coroana.
Key points of the trip: Star Shopping Mall, Tampa Alley, Cable car station, Walk on the top
and city view, return by foot or cable car.
The Tampa is the mountain surrounded by the city of Brasov, to which it is giving personality
and confidence. It is part of the Eastern Carpathians, with an elevation of 960m, almost
400m above the city. The hill is also accessible by cable car, but the walking tour means to
follow the path leading to the top. The fittest pedestrians need less than one hour to reach
the top. The view from the top is worth the (lovely) walk.
Tourists who don’t like longer walks or want to reach the top quickly and have a coffee at
the Panoramic Restaurant can take the cable car which connects Cabana Padurarului
Restaurant at the base of mountain and Panoramic Restaurant located on the ridge of the
mountain in less than three minutes.
Tampa is a protected nature reserve, with interesting animals and more than 450 species of
plants that are to be found in the forest.
Back at the Aula at 12.30‐13.00.
Thursday, July 31
9.00‐12.00
Visit of the First Romanian School and the Black Church
Departure at 9.00, meeting in the lobby of Hotel Coroana.
The First Romanian School
FIRST ROMANIAN SCHOOL MUSEUM. The first Romanian School in Brasov was documented
in the sixteenth century. The museum building was rebuilt during 1760‐1761 and is located
in the churchyard of St. Nicholas of Schei quarter.
The museum has one classroom downstairs and one upstairs, and in the lobby there are
displayed several lithographs by the Brasov artist Misu Popp (1827—1892). In the two
classrooms several rare old books printed by Deacon Coresi in the 2nd half of the 16th century
are shown, as well as an old printing press.
THE BLACK CHURCH. It is the largest Gothic church in Romania. It was built between 1383
and 1477 (and dedicated to St. Mary), on the foundations of an older building. In 1689 a
great fire damaged it and blackened its walls, hence the name of Black Church. It is is a
three‐ nave Gothic basilica, 89m long and 38m wide. The church is known for its adorning
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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sculptures and late Renaissance and Baroque furniture and woodwork. The Black Church has
a six ton bell, the biggest in Romania, a huge 4,000 pipe organ built in 1839 by Carl August
Buchholz (1796–1884) which is played during weekly concerts, as well as a rich collection of
Anatolian prayer carpets donated from the 15th to 17th centuries by Transylvanian Saxon
merchants.
Back at the Aula at 12.30‐13.00.
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Tuesday, 29 July 29
Aula of Transilvania University of Brasov
10:00‐14:00 Pre‐Symposium City Tour
14.00‐16.00 Meeting of ICOHTEC Executive Committee
16:30 Opening Ceremony
17:00‐18:30 Kranzberg lecture: Alexandre Herlea, Professor Emeritus at the Université de
Technologie Belfort‐Montbéliard, France
18:30 Exhibition opening
19:00‐21:00 Welcome Reception
Session codes
The sessions are coded by the day of the presentation (W = Wednesday, T= Thursday, F=
Friday, S = Saturday), the number 1‐3 indicates the time slot of the session (sessions one in
the morning at 8:30‐10:00, sessions two before lunch at 10:30‐12:00 and sessions three
after lunch 13:30‐17:00). The parallel sessions are coded with letters A‐F. For instance,
session W3G is held on Wednesday at 15:00‐17:00 and session S2F is held on Saturday at
10:30‐12:00
Wednesday, 30 July
Parallel Sessions
09:00—10:30
W1A Technology of Health and Healthcare in Romania
Location: UI2
Organiser: PC
Chair: Amelia Bonea
1. Contributions of Romanian Researchers for Obtaining Drugs from Natural Resources
Lecturer Adriana ‐Elena Taerel
Dr. Emilia Stancu
Professor Ana Carata
Researcher Constanta Rizescu
Ph.D. candidate Mihai Stanescu
2. Changes in e‐documentation of the History of Medicine in the post‐Communist Romania
Professor Liliana Rogozea
Ph.D. candidate Florin Leasu
Ph.D. candidate Oana Andreescu
Lecturer Mihaela Badea
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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Professor Dan Dumitrascu
Professor Angela Repanovici
3. The Infringement of Iron Curtain by the School of Medical Radiology in Iasi, Explained by
Socio‐Physics Models
Professor Radu Chisleag
W1B Technologies of Surveillance and Vision Before, During, and After World
War II
Location: UI3
Organiser: Nick Hall
Chair: Nick Hall
1. Closed Circuit Television for the UK Military in the late 1930s
Mr. Norman Green
2. Closer to the Action: Frank G. Back and the Zoomar Lens
Dr. Nick Hall
3. Watching the City: The Emergence of CCTV in Postwar British Policing
Ph.D. candidate Ben Taylor
W1C East West Transfer of Technology during the Cold War: 1. Channels and
Policies
Location: UI6
Organiser: Timo Myllyntaus
Chair: Hans‐Joachim Braun
1. Designed and Engineered by Politicians? The Iron Curtain as a Filter of Technology
Transfer
Professor Timo Myllyntaus
2. The Soviet Forestry in 1953 ‐ 1964: Transfer and Implementation of Western
Technologies
Ph.D. candidate Elena Kochetkova
3. Trading with the Ideological Enemies
Dr. Elitsa Stoilova
W1D Teaching Engineering in Different Times and Cultures
Location: UI7
Organiser: PC
Chair: Darwin Stapleton
1. Engineering Professors as Entrepreneurs: The Case of Franz Reuleaux (1829‐1905) and
Alois Riedler (1850‐1936)
Professor Wolfgang Koenig
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2. Women Transport Engineers in Hungary ‐ Women Teachers and Students at the Faculty
of Transport Engineers of the Technical University of the Building Industry and of the
Faculty of Transport Engineering of the Budapest Technical University
Professor Eva Vamos
3. Four Science Academies Makes a Lot
Dr. Panu Nykänen
4. A tribute to Maurice Daumas Founding Father of the History of Technology and of the
ICOHTEC
Professor Pierre Lamard
Professor Robert Belot
11:00—12:30
W2A Turning Points in Technological Development in Romania from the Mid
19th Century to Nowadays: 1. Opening & Miscellanies
Location: UI2
Organiser: Alexandre Herlea
Chair: Mircea Ivanoiu
1. Gheorghe Asachi (1788‐1869) in the Romanian Culture and Engineering
Professor Eufrosina Otlacan
2. Henri Poincaré at Resita, between Science and Technology
Dr. Magdalena Stavinschi
Professor Andrei Vasilescu
3. The De‐Industrialization of the Republic of Moldova after the Fall of Communism (1991)
Dr. Dorin Dusciac
4. The Romanian Agriculture and Viticulture after the Fall of Communism. The Example of
the Domain of the Crown in Segarcea
Mr. Mihai Anghel
W2B IXth Annual Symposium on the Social History of Military Technology: 1
Location: UI3
Organiser: Barton Hacker
Chair: Ciro Paoletti
1. Between Religion, Weapons and Power: Armed Priests in Latin America 1800‐ 1850.
Graduate student Juan Adriano Chumpitaz Fernandez
2. “Hybrid Warfare:’ the Progression of Technological Supplantation of European War
Horses in the Development of Total War, 1850‐1950”
Graduate student Chelsea Medlock
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W2C East West Transfer of Technology during the Cold War: 2. Organisations
and Hardware
Location: UI6
Organiser: Timo Myllyntaus
Chair: Timo Myllyntaus
1. Technological Development of Finnish Shipbuilding: From a Contractor to Russia to a
Constructor for the Soviet, 1900‐1960
Ph.D. candidate Aaro Sahari
2. The Business of Foreign Affairs Unrealized Visions of Joint Business, Technology and
Politics in Finnish‐Soviet Shipbuilding at the End of the Cold War
Ph.D. candidate Saara Matala
3. Missed Transfer Chance. Early Outsourcing of Truck Transport in Russia and East
Germany in the 1950s Had no Followers in the West
Professor Richard Vahrenkamp
4. International Truck Transport during the Cold War
Lecturer Emiliya Karaboeva
W2D Daily Life and Symbols of Technological Progress
Location: UI7
Organiser: Artemis Yagou
Chair: Patryk Wasiak
1. Playful Technology in a Box: Construction Sets and their Packaging as Symbols of
Technological Transition
Dr. Artemis Yagou
2. The All‐Electric Kitchen as Symbol of Modern Housekeeping and Technological Progress
in Germany (1930‐2006)
Dr. Sonja Petersen
3. Hot Commodity: Making Clothing Irons in post‐War Poland
Dr. Sławomir Łotysz
14:00—15:30
W3A Turning Points in Technological Development in Romania from the Mid
19th Century to Nowadays: 2. Materials Science & Industry
Location: UI2
Organiser: Alexandre Herlea
Chair: Tudor Ionescu
1. Romanian Contribution to the Materials Science
Professor Horia Colan
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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2. Evolution of Nanomaterials Development in Romania: from First Ideas to First
Technology Transfers
Lecturer Gabriela Adriana Plaiasu
Researcher Radu Robert Piticescu
Researcher Vasile Rizea
Professor Marioara Abrudeanu
3. Priorities in Romanian Oil and Gas Industry: Resource; Personalities; Inventions;
Technologies; Corporate Developments; Social and Historical Connections in situs, in
tempus and Their Historical Evolution. (In French)
Professor Cotorobai Victoria
4. The Beginnings of Explosive‐Material Manufacturing in Romania (1921‐1942)
Professor Elena Helerea
Mr. Florentin Olteanu
W3B IXth Annual Symposium on the Social History of Military Technology: 2
Location: UI3
Organiser: Barton Hacker
Chair: Ciro Paoletti
1. Union and Confederate Views on Guncotton
Dr. Yoel Bergman
2. ‘They say that it excited laughter rather than terror, among their men’: The British
Professional Military Debate on Mitrailleurs, 1869‐1875
Ph.D. candidate Ryan Patterson
3. The Bullet‐Proof Vest and the Archduke: 19th Century Innovation Versus 20th Century
Firepower.
Researcher Lisa Traynor
W3C East West Transfer of Technology during the Cold War: 3. Commerce or
Security
Location: UI6
Organiser: Timo Myllyntaus
Chair: Elena Kochetkova
1. Needs of Industrialization and the Vice of Economic Depression as Incentives for the
Technology Transfer: the 1935 Agreement between the RCA and the Soviet People’s
Commissariat in Radio and Electronics.
Professor Vasily Borisov
2. Transnational Reactions to the Soviet Oil Offensive: NATO Debates on Oil Exports and
Pipeline Technology (1960‐1962)
Ph.D. candidate Roberto Cantoni
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3. The Evolution of Science Cities as Centers for Technological Transitions in Russia
Researcher Galina Gorokhova
Professor Vitaly Gorokhov
4. Intelligence‐Interchange in the Area of Science and Technology between Poland and the
Soviet Union, 1986‐1990
Dr. Mirosław Sikora
W3D Redefining Architecture
Location: UI7
Organiser: PC
Chair: Markku Norvasuo
1. Prefab‐Reinterpretation
Dr. Agnes Borsos
2. Architecture and Politics. New Construction Solutions in Polish Fair Venues.
Professor Piotr Marciniak
3. Experiences on the Timeline of Architecture ‐ Parallel Contemporary Design by the
Manifesto of the Modernism
Dr. Gabriella Medvegy
16:00—17:30
W4A Turning Points in Technological Development in Romania from the Mid
19th Century to Nowadays: 3. Civil Engineering & Architecture
Location: UI2
Organiser: Alexandre Herlea
Chair: Pierre Lamard
1. Turning Points of Eames Design: WWII and Postwar Developments
Professor Marina Cionca
Lecturer Ioan Muscu
Ph.D. candidate Biborka Bartha
2. Railway Stations in Romania before World War I
Lecturer Toader Popescu
3. Civil Engineering in Romania at the end of 19th Century through Two Buildings: the
National Bank and the Romanian Athenaeum
Professor Nicolae Noica
W4B IXth Annual Symposium on the Social History of Military Technology: 3
Location: UI3
Organiser: Barton Hacker
Chair: Ciro Paoletti
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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1. War and Railways in Italy 1915–1918.
Dr. Ciro Paoletti
2. Ottoman Military Governorate in Romania in World War I
Professor Esat Arslan
3. Staying in Shape for War: Sport Promotion by Paramilitary Organization in Poland,
1927‒1939
Ph.D. candidate Anna Turza
W4C Chemistry for a Better World
Location: UI6
Organiser: PC
Chair: Sami Louekari
1. A. I. Virtanen's AIV Method ‐ a Technological System That Thrived in Bad times but
Struggled in Good
Dr. Jarmo Pulkkinen
2. Polyurethane: the Fame and Decay
Ph.D. candidate Susana França de Sá
Professor Maria Elvira Callapez
Researcher Joana Lia Ferreira
Professor Rita Macedo
Professor Ana Maria Ramos
3. Chemical Products in the Collection of the k. k. Consular‐Academy Vienna
Dr. Susanne Gruber
W4D From Rural to Urban in the Industrial Era
Location: UI7
Organiser: PC
Chair: Piotr Marciniak
1. The Evolution of Vernacular Construction Typologies in Times of Transition – Villages
from Valcea County, Southern Romania
Ph.D. candidate Biborka Bartha
2. Rapid Industrial Change and Urban Expansion: the Pansio‐Perno Shipyards in Turku,
Finland.
Dr. Markku Norvasuo
Researcher Mikko Mälkki
3. An Overview Concerning the Transition Period Reflected in the Rural Vernacular
Architecture in Southern Romania
Lecturer Alin M. Olarescu
Ph.D. candidate Biborka Bartha
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Thursday, 31 July
09:00—10:30
T1A Playing with Technology: Questions of Infrastructure
Location: UI2
Organiser: Stefan Poser
Chair: Peter Koval
1. The Impact of Technology on the Development of Tourism in South Croatia in the
Beginning of the 20th century
Dr. Marija Benić Penava
Dr. Marija Gjurašić
2. The View from the Pits: Fraternal Culture at America’s Speedways
Ph.D. candidate Alison Kreitzer
3. Infrastructures of Play and their Impact on the Environment since the 1980s
Dr. Stefan Poser
T1B The Uranium Utopia in Mexico: A Case of Restricted Technology Transfer
Location: UI3
Organiser: Federico Lazarin
Chair: Martha Ortega
1. Exploration and Mapping of Uranium Deposits in Mexico
Researcher Hugo Pichardo
2. Creation of Institutes for the Reception of Nuclear Energy
Dr. Federico Lazarin
3. Uranium Extraction: Utopian Progress for Rural Communities
Ph.D. candidate Martha Ortega
Graduate student Tadeo Liceaga
T1C Evolution and Diffusion of Technology
Location: UI6
Organiser: PC
Chair: Wilhelm Kappel
1. Oil and Gas Equipment and Technology, Two‐Way Scientific Bridges between East and
West
Professor Marian Rizea
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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2. From the Western Front to Texas: Early Development of Seismic Exploration for Oil
(1914‐1926)
Researcher Francesco Gerali
3. 60 Years of Technology Transfer
Dr. Georgeta Alecu
Ph.D. candidate Iulian Iordache
Dr. Elena Enescu
Professor Wilhelm Kappel
4. The Influence of IT&C and Biotechnology on the Evolution of Society.
Dr. Cristina ‐ Maria Dabu
11:00—12:30
T2A Turning Points in Technological Development in Romania from the mid 19th
century to nowadays: 4. Brasov Industry
Location: UI2
Organiser: Alexandre Herlea
Chair: Alexandre Herlea
1. The 20th Century Political Impact on Brasov Industry, Romania. Employees Testimonies.
Lecturer Mircea Ivanoiu
2. The Transformation of the Largest Aircraft Factories of Romania in Tractors Factory as
Result of the Soviet Occupation
Lecturer Horia Salca
3. On the History of I.A.R (Romanian Aircraft Industry) ‐ Brasov
Mr. Traian Tomescu
Mr. Neculai Banea
T2B IXth Annual Symposium on the Social History of Military Technology: 4
Location: UI3
Organiser: Barton Hacker
Chair: Ciro Paoletti
1. The Norwegian Army Air Force and the Fighter Question 1920‐1934
Researcher Frode Lindgjerdet
2. Man‐Machine Relationships: British and German Fighter Aces in World War II
Professor Hans‐Joachim Braun
3. The Military‐Technological Revolution of 1944
Professor David Zimmerman
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T2C “The Dark Side of Technology”: Technology and Illness since the Nineteenth
Century: 1. Technological Hazards
Location: UI6
Organiser: Amelia Bonea
Chair: Amelia Bonea
1. “The Arm Troubles of Telegraphers”: Historical Perspectives on Technologies of
Communication and Repetitive Strain Injuries
Dr. Amelia Bonea
2. What the Great Majority of Patients Require is Letting Alone: The Uses of Technology in
the Asylum
Dr. Jennifer Wallis
3. Sunlight at the Flick of a Switch: The Risky Consumption of Ultraviolet Lamps, c.1900‐
1940
Dr. Tania Woloshyn
4. One of Those Electric Outfits Put on the Market by Quacks: Overbeck’s Rejuvenator and
the British Medical Association, 1924‐1937
Dr. James Stark
T2D Modern Versus Traditional? Core and Peripheries in the Transport and
Communication Infrastructural Process: 1. National peripheries
Location: UI7
Organiser: Simone Fari
Chair: Simone Fari
1. Semi‐Periphery in Transition: The Typology of the Greek State's Identification in Relation
with Automobility from the 1930s to the 2000s
Dr. Alexia ‐ Sofia Papazafeiropoulou
2. High Speed Trains in a Peripheral Country: the Italian Railway System between
Revitalization, Modernization, and Polarization
Professor Andrea Giuntini
3. A Railway “Flowers bridge”. Iasi‐Ungheni‐Chisinau Railway (1876‐2011)
Mr. Andrei Berinde
14:00—15:30
T3A Turning Points in Technological Development in Romania from the mid 19th
century to nowadays: 5. Railway & Navy
Location: UI2
Organiser: Alexandre Herlea
Chair: Toader Popescu
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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1. The Romanian Railways During Two Transition Periods: 1945‐1960 et 1989‐2014
Mr. Radu Robert Bellu
2. Aspects of Romanian Navy Evolution, of its Harbours and Industry from 1860 to
Nowadays
Dr. Carmen Atanasiu
3. The Electrification of Railways in Romania
Lecturer Marius Daniel Calin
Mr. Dan Constantin Balan
Mr. Gheorghe Zaharie
T3B IXth Annual Symposium on the Social History of Military Technology: 5
Location: UI3
Organiser: Barton Hacker
Chair: Ciro Paoletti
1. The Study of Information Technology Use in the Collection, Transmission and Processing
of Radiolocation Information
Dr. Ioan Gheorghe Ratiu
2. Postwar Medical Use of Infrared Technology in the USSR
Dr. Vasily P. Borisov
Dr. Igor Y. Kudryavtsev
Dr. Igor V. Ovcharov
Dr. Anatoly N. Panibratets
3. How Sweden Learned to Worry about the Bomb and Stopped Loving It
Ph.D. candidate Petter Wulff
T3C The Dark Side of Technology: Technology and Illness since the Nineteenth
Century: 2. Impact of Mentality on Wellbeing
Location: UI6
Organiser: Amelia Bonea
Chair: Amelia Bonea
1. Technological Delusions as a Reflection of the Atmosphere of War: Narratives of Gas,
Radio and Magnetism in German and Israeli Psychiatry during the 20th Century
Ph.D. candidate Maria Christina Müller
Dr. Dana Tzur Bitan
Dr. Lars Hornuf
2. Oh God Make Me Slim, Make Me Beautiful: The Side‐Effects of Slimming Capsules in
India ‐ A Case Study
Dr. Tinni Goswami Bhattacharya
3. Transitioning to Targets: Demography and Population Policy in India, 1951‐1975
Ph.D. candidate Kathryn Johnston
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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T3D Modern Versus Traditional? Core and Peripheries in the Transport and
Communication Infrastructural Process: 2. Colonial peripheries
Location: UI7
Organiser: Simone Fari
Chair: Alexia ‐ Sofia Papazafeiropoulou
1. Colonial Roads in Angola and Mozambique. Experts between Peripheries and Centres
Dr. Luísa Sousa
2. Travelling or Communicating? The False Dilemma of Mobility. Questions about a
Marginalized Issue
Professor Gabriele Balbi
Researcher Massimo Moraglio
3. Railway at the Core and Telegraph at the Periphery
Dr. Simone Fari
4. Psycho‐Historical Review on Korean Visual Representation of New Transportations in
1890‐1920: From Tradition toward a Modern Culture under Foreign Colonial Occupation
Professor Jung Sook Bae
T3E Poster Session
Location: Ground floor, Exhibition space
Organiser: PC
Chair: Livia Sangeorzan
1. Making a Functional Replica of a 1924 Dr. TITUS Radio Set
Dr. Ionita Daescu, Researcher Francisc Visky, Romania
2. Technological Trends in Estonian Industry during and after World War I and II
Ph.D. candidate Vahur Mägi, Estonia
3. Organizing Scientific and Technical Information during Communism: a Public Library
Perspective
Ph.D. candidate Claudia Serbanuta, USA, Ms. Raluca Nutiu, Romania
4. Source of Light and Color, Natural and Artificial, in the Perception of a Work of Art.
Ph.D. candidate Andrei Hrib, Romania
5. Back to the Workers' Wonderland: Documenting the Industrial Culture in Eastern Europe,
1945‐1989.
Dr. Slawomir Lotysz, Poland
6. ‘The End of Assassination?’
Researcher Lisa Traynor, USA
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T3E Round Table. Trends in Technological Education in Eastern Europe Countries
Location: Ground floor, Exhibition space
Organiser: PC
Chair: Alin M. Olarescu
1. Ştefan Bălan ‐Remarkable Pathfinder of History of Science and Technics in Romania, a
Century since his Birth
Professor Mihai Alexandrescu, Dr. Ştefan Florin Bălan, Adelin Bălan, Romania
2. V. Utkin as a Scientist and Designer in the Field of Space Rocket Engineering (1971‐1990)
Dr. Alla S. Lytvynko, Ukraine
3. Paradigm Changes in Technical Education Construction in Romania. History, needs and
building utopia
Professor Victoria Cotorobai, Professor Liviu ‐ Alexandru Sofonea, Lecturer Cristina Vladoiu,
Professor Theodor Mateescu, Romania
4. Intelligence‐Interchange in the Area of Science and Technology between Poland and the
Soviet Union, 1986‐1990
Dr. Mirosław Sikora, Poland
5. Contemporary Trends in the Development of Technological Education in Brasov
Dr. ing. Melania Filip, Prof. Monica Cotfas, Ing. Csaba Molnar
16:00—17:30
T4A Turning Points in Technological Development in Romania from the mid 19th
century to nowadays: 6. Car & Medical Instruments Industries
Location: UI2
Organiser: Alexandre Herlea
Chair: Alexandre Herlea
1. Birth and Evolution of the Medical Instruments Factories in Romania since the
Independence War (1877) to Nowadays
Professor Pompiliu Manea
2. Renault, from Romania to the Logan
Professor Jean Louis Loubet
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3. Engines for Vehicles in Romania – a European Evolution through Research and
Innovation
Dr. Ruxandra Cristina Stanescu
Professor Cornel Stan
Professor Anghel Chiru
T4B IXth Annual Symposium on the Social History of Military Technology: 6
Location: UI3
Organiser: Barton Hacker
Chair: Ciro Paoletti
1. Polish Torpedo Boats’ Constructions between 1965 ‐ 1986
Professor Antoni Komorowski
Dr. Tomasz Neubauer
2. Chasing Wonder Weapons
Dr. Hermione Giffard
3. Military Technologies and Scientific Development from Galileo until Nanotechnoscience
Dr. Vitaly Gorokhov
T4C Environmental Utopias and Engineering Reality
Location: UI6
Organiser: PC
Chair: Timo Myllyntaus
1. Is the Debate Over: James Hansen's Contributions to the Changing Atmosphere‐
Changing Climate Theory
Dr. Anthony N. Stranges
2. Utilizing the Environment in Sweden‐Finland in the 18th Century – Technology, Realism
and Utopias.
Dr. Sami Louekari
3. Unintended yet Unignorable Change, Technological Interventions into the River Eider
(1886‐1973)
Dr. Eike‐Christian Heine
T4D Computers and the ‘Second Industrial Revolution’ 1945 1970
Location: UI7
Organiser: Dick van Lente
Chair: Dick van Lente
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1. Exploring Comics as a Source for Computer History
Ph.D. candidate Rik Sanders
Dr. Gerard Alberts
2. Evolution of computers
Lecturer Carmen Lungoci
Professor Livia Sangeorzan
Friday, 1 August
09:00—10:30
F1A Romanians Pathbreakers of Technology
Location: UI2
Organiser: PC
Chair: Octavian Baltag
1. Automatic Focusing ‐ a Romanian invention
Professor Octavian Baltag
2. Magnetic Measures and Countermeasures in Romania of the Cold War
Professor Octavian Baltag
Ph.D. candidate Georgiana Marin
3. Brasov, Romania, Academic Contributions to Systematization, Diversification, and
Optimization of Robotic Mechanisms
Professor Ionel Staretu
4. The Romanian Titus Konteschweller – Global Pioneer of the Radiophony
Dr. Ionita Daescu
Researcher Francisc Visky
F1B New Uses of Old Technologies in Times of Transition: 1. Theory and Practice
of Industrial and Cultural Heritage Management
Location: UI3
Organiser: Daqing Yang
Chair: Daqing Yang
1. Relocating Marine Engine Shops in Scotland
Mr. Mark Watson
2. Citizen Participation in Management, Promotion and Dissemination of Industrial
Heritage: Ancient Brass Factory in Spain
Dr. Marta Vera Prieto
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3. Hard Places as Tourist Landscapes in North America's Mountain West
Professor Todd Shallat
F1C Electric Power and Societal Development: 1. Hydro and Nuclear Power
Location: UI6
Organiser: PC
Chair: Edmund Todd
1. Some Notes on the History of the German Nuclear Science Community, 1986‐2011
Dr. Tudor B. Ionescu
2. Quebec's Aborted Transition Towards Nuclear Power, 1963‐1983
Ph.D. candidate Mahdi Khelfaoui
3. Monitoring and Control Chart of a Complex Hydropower Development ”Lotru”
Dr. Mihai Sporiș
Mr. Ștefan Ioan Neacșu
Mr. Alexandru Duțu
Mr. Mihai Marian Sporiș
F1D Designing a Product or Making a Customer? Policy and Perception
Location: UI7
Organiser: PC
Chair: Artemis Yagou
1. Deindustrialization, Multinationals and “Polish Electronics.” Public Debate Towards the
Role of Consumer Electronics Industry After the System Transition of 1989
Dr. Patryk Wasiak
2. The Perception of Commodities Reflecting Scientific Technology
Dr. Eva Waginger
11:00—12:30
F2 ICOHTEC Book and Article Prizes Round Table
Location: Aula, Ground Floor, Exhibition Area
Organiser: Dick van Lente
Chair: Hermione Giffard
The article prize was won by Dr. Donna J. Drucker for her article, “Keying Desire: Alfred
Kinsey’s Use of Punched Card Machines for Sex Research” that appeared in Journal of the
History of Sexuality 22/1 (January 2013). The article will be discussed by Dr. Gerard Alberts,
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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computer historian of the University of Amsterdam, and professor Amy Dix, historian of
gender and technology of Iowa State University under the chairmanship of Hermione Giffard
of the University of Utrecht.
The book prize was won by Dr. Dora Vargha for her dissertation Iron Curtain, Iron Lungs:
governing polio in Cold War Hungary, 1952‐1963, defended at Rutgers University, 2013.
Discussants will be professor Liliana Rogozea, Transylvanian University of Brasov, and Dr.
James Stark, University of Leeds. Both are historians of medicine. The session will be chaired
by Dr. Dick van Lente of Erasmus University
F2A Turning Points in Technological Development in Romania from the mid 19th
century to nowadays: 7. Information Technologies – IT
Location: UI2
Organiser: Alexandre Herlea
Chair: Alexandre Herlea
1. Development of the Information Revolution in Romania
Professor Stefan Iancu
2. A Discourse Analysis of European Technobuzz and its Perception in Romania
Researcher Tudor Ionescu
3. Romanian IT Seen by an Insider
Dr. Vlad Tepelea
F2B New Uses of Old Technologies in Times of Transition: 2. Theory and Practice
of Industrial and Cultural Heritage Management
Location: UI3
Organiser: Daqing Yang
Chair: Mark Watson
1. Identity, History and Profit? Comparison of Three Industrial Heritage Cases in Pori,
Finland
Lecturer Anna Sivula
2. Heritage Plants of The Ural Region (Russia) in post‐Industrial Period
Ph.D. candidate Nadezhda Solonina
3. Late Industrialization and the Invention of Heritaging in Japan and Beyond
Professor Daqing Yang
F2C Electric Power and Societal Development: 2. Era of Electrification
Location: UI6
Organiser: PC
Chair: Jochen Mayer
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1. German Electrification in War and Revolution, 1913‐1921
Dr. Edmund N Todd
2. The Impact of Electrification in the Spanish Most Progressive Decade, 1958‐1975
Dr. Maria Teresa Sanchis
3. Electric Machines between Industrial Revolution and Information Era
Professor Ion Voncila
F2D Rocketry and Spaceflight in the Cold War and After
Location: UI7
Organiser: PC
Chair: Michael J. Neufeld
1. Cold War, Space Research in Greenland, and the Politics of Rockets
Dr. Henrik Knudsen
2. U.S. Planetary Exploration in the Post‐Cold‐War World
Dr. Michael J. Neufeld
Saturday, 2 August
09:00—10:30
S1A Economic and Social Consequences of Automatisation
Location: UI2
Organiser: PC
Chair: Gerard Alberts
1. Office Spaces in Existing Structures for More Innovation and Space Efficiency
Dr. Erzsébet Szeréna Zoltán
2. Wealth for Whoever Owns the Robots: Technological Unemployment Concerns in
Twentieth and Twenty‐First‐Century Economic Crises
Dr. Amy Bix
3. From File Card to Magnetic Tape: The Networks of Technologies and Institutions behind
West German Labour Statistics, c.1945‐1973
Dr. Jochen F. Mayer
S1B Reinventing Industrial Culture
Location: UI3
Organiser: PC
Chair: Sławomir Łotysz
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1. Industrial Heritage as a Resource ‐ the Case of Romania
Lecturer Ioana Irina Iamandescu
2. New Industrial Culture
Dr. Lars Scharnholz
Researcher Heidi Pinkepank
S1C Artisans, Savants and Engineers
Location: UI6
Organiser: PC
Chair: Antoni Roca‐Rosell
1. Progressive Dies. History and Evolution. (In Spanish)
Dr. Fernando Fadon
Dr. Enrique Ceron
2. The Birth of the Science of Machines and the Roles of the Fathers‐Founders
Dr. Irina Gouzevitch
Dr. Dmitri Gouzevitch
S1D Technology of Research: Digitalization, Dissemination and Popularization of
Technical Knowledge
Location: UI7
Organiser: PC
Chair: Francesco Gerali
1. The Technical Public Library: Popularizing Science vs. Offering Specialized Services
Ph.D. candidate Claudia Serbanuta
Ms. Raluca Nutiu
2. Digitization of Documentary Cultural Heritage in Romania
Ph.D. candidate Marius Stoianovici
Ph.D. candidate Ionela Barsan
Professor Angela Repanovici
Ph.D. candidate Nadine Roman
Professor Liliana Rogozea
3. Archives in Wonderland: The Promise and Perils of Transitions into the Digital Era
Professor Darwin Stapleton
11:00—12:30
S2A Telecommunication in Transition
Location: UI2
Organiser: PC
Chair: Maria Elvira Callapez
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1. The Period of Transitions: from Landlines to Wireless Telegraphy in Brazil
Dr. Mauro Costa da Silva
2. The Emergence of Optical Telegraphy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic
Wars: a Case Study of Ireland, 1797‐1805.
Ph.D. candidate Adrian James Kirwan
3. The Evolution of Telecommunications in Romania
Professor Mariana Jurian
Professor Ioan Lita
Lecturer Daniel Visan
S2B From Wagons to Luxury Cars and Beyond
Location: UI3
Organiser: PC
Chair: Biborka Bartha
1. How Dutch Wagonmakers Became Body Makers. Knowledge Transfer by Trade
Association and a Government Agency, 1900‐1940
Ph.D. candidate Sue‐Yen Tjong Tjin Tai
2. Automobile Coachbuilders on the Early 20th Century in Portugal: Craftsmen Skills and
Customs Policy as Factors to Softening Peripheral Status
Dr. José Barros Rodrigues
3. The Appearance of Techniques Derived from Automobile Coachwork in Jean Prouvés
Industrial Architecture
Dr. Andreas Buss
S2C Technical Infrastructure and Technology on Peripheries
Location: UI6
Organiser: PC
Chair: Antoni Roca‐Rosell
1. The Modern Technique of Tapping the Pine in Spain, or The learning Process of Forest
Engineers and Resin Tappers (1865‐1900)
Ph.D. candidate Juan Luis Delgado
2. Solar Desalting Plants in Atacama (1872, 1907)
Ph.D. candidate Nelson Arellano
3. The Lighting Systems on Lighthouses of the Polish Coast Changes
Professor Antoni Komorowski
Dr. Iwona Pietkiewicz
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S2D Imagining Technological and Scientific Progress
Location: UI7
Organiser: PC
Chair: Gerard Alberts
1. April Fool’s Day Hoaxes and the Understanding of Technology
Dr. Olle Hagman
2. I killed Einstein, Gentlemen. The Technology of Reality in Czechoslovak Science‐Fiction
Films 1945‐1989
Researcher Peter Koval
3. The Image of Bio‐Technology in Contemporary Art and Media
Professor Urszula Jarecka
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Professor Alexandre Herlea
KRANZBERG Melvin Kranzberg Lecture is annually delivered in
the ICOHTEC‐meetings by a distinguished historian
LECTURE of technology. This year the lecture will be given by
professor Alexandre Herlea. He is Professor
TUESDAY Emeritus at the Université de Technologie Belfort‐
AULA MAGNA Montbéliard, France.
17.00‐18.30 Born in 1942 in Brasov, Romania, A. Herlea
obtained his mechanical engineering diploma from
“Institutul Politehnic” of Brasov in 1965. Resident in France since 1972, he was a research
assistant at the “Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers” (CNAM), Paris, and obtained his
Ph.D. degree in History of science and technology, in 1977. His Ph.D. thesis was directed by
Professor Maurice Daumas whose collaborator he became. After post‐doctoral studies in the
United States (Princeton, Pennsylvania, Smithsonian Institution), he continued his university
career at the CNAM (maître de conferences) until 1995, when he became full professor of
history of technology at the “Université de Technologie Belfort‐Montbéliard” (UTBM).
During this time, at Paris XI–Sorbonne he earned the “Habilitation à diriger les recherches en
sciences” diploma and was also associate professor at the “Ecole Centrale des Arts et
Manufactures” and advisor for technical museology at the “Cité des Sciences et de
l’Industrie”, Paris. In 1990, he was visiting professor at the “Michigan Technological
University”, USA. Until 2011, when he retired and became emeritus professor at UTBM,
continuing to lead Ph.D. theses, he was a member of the university board, department
director and director of international relations.
A. Herlea is author, co‐author, and editor of ten books, notably the reference treatise
Histoire Générale des Techniques (Paris: PUF, 1978). He has published a large number of
scientific articles, and contributed to the realization of more than twenty‐five exhibitions. He
is an elected member of several academic societies, including the: “International Academy of
History of Science” (IAHS), “Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques” (CTHS),
“International Committee for the History of Technology” (ICOHTEC), “Société Française
d’Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques” (SFHST), “Society for the History of Technology”
(SHOT) and “Comitetul Roman pentru Istoria si Filozofia Stiintei” (CRIFS), with leadership
responsibilities in some of them, such as the presidency of ICOHTEC.
He also had significant political and administrative responsibilities. He was Minister of
European Integration in the Romanian government (1996–99), ambassador, chief of the
Romanian Mission to the EU and vice‐president of the “Christian Democrat International”
(CDI).
A. Herlea’s distinctions include: in France, the silver medal of the “Société d’Encouragement
au Progrès”, “Les Palmes Académiques” and “La Légion d’Honneur” (commandeur); and in
Romania, “Serviciul credincios” (high officer) and Doctor Honoris Causa of “Universitatea
Transilvania Brasov”.
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The History of Technology and the European Unity KRANZBERG
LECTURE
This conference about the History of Technology and the European unity
opens the ICOHTEC symposium, whose general theme is: “Technology in
Times of Transition”. It sets into parallel lines the birth and the TUESDAY
evolution, in Europe, of a discipline—the History of Technology—and AULA MAGNA
that of an idea which leads to the construction of the European Union. 17.00‐18.30
This presentation is chronologically divided in five parts: the Middle Age; the Renaissance
period; the 18th century and the first half of the 19th century; from the middle of the 19th
century to the Second World War; after the Second World War until the Treaty for the EU in
1992. It shows the dependence of the History of Technology and of the idea of European
unity on human thought, on cultural and spiritual contexts. At the same time highlights a
wide range of chronological similarities, of a similar rhythm of evolution, maturation, and
implementation.
In the Middles Ages, Europe was united by the Christian faith and monasteries played an
important role in the preservation of technological memory. During the Renaissance period,
the first projects dealing with the European political unification appear at the same time as
the first technical publications: the “Theatrum Machinarum”. In the second half of the
nineteenth century, a debate emerges on the legal form of a united Europe and the
evolution of technology ceases to be solely regarded as a genealogy of technology and is
integrated in economic, social, historical analyses. Between the two world wars, Aristide
Briand’s project for a federal Europe, in which the syntagma “European Union” is used for
the first time, and Lucien Febvre’s manifesto for the creation of a new branch of history, the
History of Technology, were both launched. After the Second World War, the idea of
European unity came to be implemented, the European Union to be established, and the
History of Technology to reach maturity and to be fully recognized as an academic discipline.
Today the EU is integrating into its plans (see the Lisbon and Europe 2000 strategies) the
evolution of techno‐science, and History of Technology is expected to play its role at the
technological assessment and technological forecasting levels. In a rapid changing world
burdened by crises, morality must dominate efficiency.
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Technology of Health and Healthcare in Romania Wednesday
Session W1A
Chair: Amelia Bonea, University of Oxford, United Kingdom Room UI2
9:00‐10:30
The use of indigenous raw materials for new drugs has been a priority in pharmaceutical
research inRomaniain the second half of the twentieth century.
The attention of researchers was pointed first toward traditional medicine (teas, infusions,
decoctions etc.) and the base of existing materials. Afterwards, there have been studied
some plants existing in the spontaneous flora.
For standardize and enrich their active principles, some plants had to be introduced into
directed cultures (supervised). The results obtained of mixed teams of Romanian researchers
(pharmacists, chemists, physicians, biologists, agronomists) determined the establishment in
Romaniaof a joint center ONUDI, initially aiming to a postgraduate specialization of some
scholars ( Romanian and foreign) pharmacists, doctors, chemists etc., some who were their
professors became experts ONUDI.
Another important aspect about the researchers were concerned was the use and the
capitalization of waste resulting from the processing of that plants.
InRomania, between 1960‐1997, waste plants were transformed by special technological
methods in support for animal feed additives and nutrients. These wastes have set up an
energy biomass.
The paper presents the technological schemes used throughout the circuit manufacturing
process, from obtaining of raw materiel and drug to completion of nutrients or feed
additives. The processing of raw materiels must be effectuated as close to the place of
collection of these, use a discontinuous equipment.
Such methods form the object of several invention patents and communications at
specialized congresses in the country and abroad (FIP, Balkan Medical Week etc.).
Generally, the technology for obtaining a drug has considered the capitalization of natural
pools that represent a national and universal patrimony ensuring the biodiversity and a
natural ecological environement.
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Wednesday
Session W1A
Room UI2
9:00‐10:30
If the history of science and technology has gone much faster in virtual, medical history
remained a long time in traditional access to information. Since the establishment of the
Institute of History of Medicine in Cluj before the establishment of a virtual museum of
medicine in Romania, the step should occur naturally and can be done in last half a century.
However, unlike other countries, Romania has not succeeded to have such a virtual
museum.
The paper aims to realize an analysis of the type and quality of information for the history of
medicine in Romania presented on the web sites of different medical institutions, in the
international context of the development of other virtual museum of the history of medicine
projects.
In a context of the existence of museums of the history of medicine and pharmacy, which
are far too little known by the general public, in the post‐communist era the attractiveness
for visiting museums decreasing even more, the development of projects including the
creation of virtual museums of history science and technology in Romania, with an
important section relating to the development of medicine in our country is more than
useful to educate the younger generation.
We will present a few examples of such web sites as a model to be followed both by
members of the Romanian Society of Medical History and universities in Romania, many of
them featuring information capital that deserve to be brought to the public, including the
initial appearance of online catalogues and digitization of documents that may otherwise be
lost forever.
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Wednesday
Session W1A
Room UI2
9:00‐10:30
The History of Medical Radiology in Iasi, started with hand radiographs (1896, Dragomir
Hurmuzescu), using a setup he mounted. The 3rd Congress of the Society of Radiology of
Romania (SRR) was organized (Iasi, 1939) by its president, Prof Emil Radu (1887‐ 1950),
helped by Dr Gheorghe CHISLEAG (1914‐1988), who later developed the Clinic of Radiology,
bearing today his name and organized national congresses (1970 IASI; 1973, Bucharest), as
president of SRR (1967‐73).
After WWII, Radiology developed steadily in Iasi, by infringing Iron Curtain (IC). To explain
this infringement, the author applies Socio‐Physics models, considering IC be a quantum
barrier of potential, which, to be penetrated, has to relatively become thinner and less
higher as possible, relatively to the potential levels at entry and exit.
Newton’s 2nd law application and increase of the potential level of Radiology were ensured
by: continous increase of professional and scientific levels of radiologists in initial or
advanced training, based upon daily courses, followed by open hours dedicated to
interpreting the radiological images got by local and visiting radiologists and to stimulating
their research activities; bringing high tech (private, Siemens,1943) and new equipment
(1958).
Law of action and reaction explains the continuation of progress when lecturer Chisleag, was
politically dismissed (1952) from his Chair of Radiology at IMF Iasi, but the National Institute
for Training of Medical Specialists reacted, he forming in Iasi, half of the Romanian
radiologists.The Principle of action of independent forces may explain the relative increase
of the potential level by: improving the correct radio‐diagnose rate; publishing: Courses:
(Roentgendiagnostic, Chisleag, 8 volumes, 1950), handbooks (radiologic specialities), treatise
(Chisleag, Radiologie Medicala, 1986), 400 scientifific papers; sending to study abroad at top
clinics, gifted young radiologists; offering positions to physicists aso; introducing new
technologies: radioactive isotopes, tomography, interventional radiology, new imaging
techniques and agents, computer drawing of isodose curves (X, Ra, Co); generating other 7
new academic specialized clinics, including Oncology.
Width of the IC potential barrier was reduced by: offering high quality prompt services
(population, political leaders), being elected in international committees, observing the
approved schedule of the visits abroad.
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Technologies of Surveillance and Vision Before, Wednesday
Session W1B
During, and After World War II Room UI3
Organiser & Chair: Nick Hall, Royal Holloway University of London, 9:00‐10:30
United Kingdom
This session explores three case studies of emerging technologies of surveillance and vision,
each of which were developed within the context of wartime, postwar, or Cold War national
priorities. The first paper explores the British military’s development, in collaboration with
EMI, of closed circuit television intended for applications as diverse as unmanned aerial
vehicles and naval video conferencing systems. This research, based on newly discovered
papers from the corporate archives of EMI and from the UK National Archives, demonstrates
that although the closed circuit television technology was not innovated by the military, it
played a significant role in post‐war British television receiver design. The second paper
uncovers the history of the television zoom lens, showing that the postwar innovation of this
important device was one of the many results of an energetic programme of research and
development supported by the United States Signal Corps and Navy Department. Frank
Back’s “Zoomar” lens provides a revealing case study of the way in which independent
innovators adapted wartime inventions for postwar commercial uses. The paper is based on
new research within the corporate archives of NBC and at the National Archives and Records
Administration in Washington, DC. The third paper sheds new light on the use of closed
circuit television (CCTV) for the purposes of mass surveillance. Attention has been often
been paid to the use of CCTV since the 1980s, but this paper breaks new ground by focusing
on the technology’s early development during the 1960s and 1970s. Based on archival
research carried out at the UK National Archive, the paper documents the shift from the
initial conception of CCTV as a means to facilitate better communication between the public
and the authorities, towards more coercive applications from the late 1970s onwards.
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Wednesday
Session W1B
Room UI3
9:00‐10:30
Closed Circuit Television for the UK Military in the late 1930s
Mr. Norman Green, Waldegrave Associates, United Kingdom
In April 1936, when Electric and Musical Industries (EMI) were preparing their 405 line
television system for installation at Alexandra Palace in North London in order for the BBC to
commence programme transmissions in the following November, the EMI Director of
Research, Isaac Shoenberg, suggested to the UK War Office that a television system in a
aeroplane could be useful for surveillance purposes and for use in a pilot‐less bomber.
Prototype television equipment was put into a plane based at the Royal Aircraft
Establishment in Farnborough and trials proved promising. Subsequently a system was
engineered and available for testing by late 1936 but because the War Office was unable to
supply a plane the system was not evaluated until September 1939. The transmitter in the
aircraft had a range of approximately 40 miles and the resultant pictures could be received
in a mobile vehicle and in the battleship HMS Iron Duke. However, the French army
purchased a set of equipment in 1937 and Russia and Greece wished to buy similar systems
but the British Foreign Office prevented the sales.
A second closed circuit system was developed to enable an Admiral to brief the
Commanders of his fleet by transmitting pictures and sound to their ships. The pictures were
of the Admirals map table where he would describe his strategy without the Commanders
having to go aboard the Admirals battleship; this was particularly useful in bad weather. The
final system that was developed was a surveillance system to observe the movements of
troops etc. on a battlefield. This system had a reception range of approximately 15 miles.
Illustrated by recently‐discovered drawings and photographs from the EMI and UK National
Archives, this paper explores the breakthroughs in circuit design, pick‐up tubes, valves and
aerial design involved in the design of these systems, which were to influence television
design in the 1940s and 1950s.
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Wednesday
Session W1B
Room UI3
9:00‐10:30
Closer to the Action: Frank G. Back and the Zoomar Lens
Dr. Nick Hall, Royal Holloway University of London, United Kingdom
In October 1946, an optical engineer named Frank Back presented a new type of zoom lens
to a convention of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers in Hollywood, California. Back
told the meeting that the ‘Zoomar’ lens had the potential to revolutionise filmmaking,
whether in the fields of documentary or education, sports or news, advertisements or
medical films. Over the following years, Back’s Zoomar lens indeed exerted a substantial
impact upon the American moving image entertainment industry. But it was in television,
rather than film, that its effect was most keenly felt. The utility of the zoom lens lay in its
ability to magnify or diminish the size of television images without the need to reposition the
camera – an invaluable quality for broadcasters as they sought to cover the action at
sporting events, parades, and political conventions. By 1957 hundreds of television stations
in the United States had purchased Zoomar lenses.
Drawing on substantial archival research, this paper discusses the invention of the Zoomar
lens, explaining how it resulted from the consolidation and conversion of wartime
innovations commissioned by the United States Signal Corps and Navy Department. During
the prototyping and early marketing of the Zoomar lens, Back and his fellow investors
adopted a range of innovation strategies in order to foster mutually beneficial, hands‐on
relationships with corporate bodies such as NBC and Paramount. In addition to accounting
for an under‐researched development in television history, this paper therefore also
illuminates the relationship between wartime reconnaissance technology and post‐war
entertainment industries.
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Wednesday
Session W1B
Room UI3
9:00‐10:30
Watching the City: The Emergence of CCTV in Postwar British Policing
Ph.D. candidate Ben Taylor, King’s College London, United Kingdom
CCTV has become ubiquitous in modern British cities. It has a long, though largely
unexplored, history: CCTV and associated technologies of mass surveillance have had a
presence in Britain’s cities since the 1960s. This paper will address and challenge many
existing narratives surrounding the emergence of CCTV and associated technologies as a
means of crime prevention in the 1980s and 1990s, and instead argue that we must look to
the broader attempts by police and the state to reform urban communication, emergency
response and the behaviour of citizens during the postwar decades.
The paper will focus primarily on London in this period, charting the shift from the more
symmetrical use of CCTV as a technology of communication in the 1960s and early 1970s,
through to its more coercive uses in the late 1970s and 1980s – the period commonly taken
as a starting point for studies of CCTV. The earliest uses of CCTV in London conceived of it as
a way of facilitating better communication between the public and authorities in a wide
range of situations, ranging from traffic control and subway station management through to
education and teleconferencing applications. However, this paper will argue that this also
paved the way for more coercive applications of the technology from the late 1970s, as a
growing emphasis on efficiency and automation in urban infrastructure demanded greater
discipline and predictability from urban populations. This paper will explore themes of
symmetry and asymmetry in the history of CCTV, and the development of pedagogical and
coercive approaches to mass surveillance in modern societies.
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East ‐ West Transfer of Technology during the Cold Wednesday
Session W1C
War: 1. Channels and Policies Room UI6
Organiser: Timo Myllyntaus, University of Turku, Finland 9:00‐10:30
Chair: Hans‐Joachim Braun, Helmut‐Schmidt Universität, Hamburg,
Germany
The history of transferring knowledge and technology between East and West, socialist and
capitalist, big and small states has attracted many researchers. Current historiography
proposes new sources and approaches studying various forms of transfer on different levels,
emphasizing not only conventional trade flows from West to East, but vice versa as well as
other more or less unofficial forms of technology mobility. They include communication
between scientists, attending exhibitions and conferences as well as copying patented
innovations and industrial espionage among other channels of transfer, which demonstrate
the permeability of geographical, state, cultural, political, social, and institutional borders.
This permeability was also attested during the Cold War, results of which demonstrate the
significance of East and West transfers and as Karen Freeze puts it in her article on
Czechoslovak theater technologies and their move westward: “we may conclude that the
Iron Curtain was more permeable than previously thought”. Consequently, technology
transfer opens a wide and challenging field of research. Apart explaining movement and
exchange of technologies, transfers explicate social, political and cultural transformations
they entail and serve for. They also help explain communication of different actors on
governmental, institutional, company and individual levels.
Following this wide meaning of technology transfers between East and West our session
proposal contains empirically based and conceptually solid contributions to the ICOHTEC
symposium Technology in Times of Transition. Although much good research on the topic
has already been done, there are still many grey areas in this large field. Historiography on
transfers still requires more case studies, in particular on small Eastern and Central European
countries, involving more areas and focuses in order to develop better comprehension of
how soft and hard technologies cross borders, how they influence those who were engaged
in transfer, what role did the transfer play in social change and other transformations.
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Wednesday
Session W1C
Room UI6
9:00‐10:30
Designed and Engineered by Politicians? The Iron Curtain as a Filter of
Technology Transfer
Professor Timo Myllyntaus, University of Turku, Finland
There are forms and channels of technology transfer which can be considered uncontrolled.
Nevertheless, a great deal of technology transfer has always been and still is controlled but
part of the control tends to fail. Naturally, companies supplying technology are most
interested to control the transfer of their technology. In addition, many other stakeholders
participate in the control of transfer. Recipient firms want to influence what kinds of
technology are used in their premises as well as their economic environment. Furthermore,
governments of the countries of both suppliers and recipients and even those of
neighbouring countries sometimes attempt to use their power in selecting the transfer of
technology.
Because the transfer of technology tends to be under the surveillance of many stakeholders
even in normal peacetime situations, this phenomenon was under a tight control in the
exceptional circumstances of the Cold War. This paper focuses to study how the Iron Curtain
operated as a filter of technology transfer. The applicability of the theoretical model is
demonstrated and tested by examining some historical case studies of technology transfer
between Finland and the Soviet Union. The paper argues that the USSR did always not want
to import the best available western technology but preferred products which had primarily
manufactured from Finnish raw materials and components. This policy forced Finland to
invest in the production of some raw materials and components which were not of the best
quality or price competitive in the western markets. As the result, the trade with the Soviet
Union on one hand diversified the composition of the Finnish industrial production. On the
other hand it made the structure of the industrial production more fixed.
However, not all choices by the Soviet Union were politically motivated. Especially in the
consumer sector some Finnish products fit Russian taste better than other.
The paper ends up to a conclusion that the transfer of technology in the Cold War period
was a very complex issue. The choice of transferred technology did not depend only on
political and economic factors; cultural and national preferences had also impact on
deliveries.
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Wednesday
Session W1C
Room UI6
9:00‐10:30
The Soviet Forestry in 1953‐1964: Transfer and Implementation of Western
Technologies
Ph.D. candidate Elena Kochetkova, National Research University Higher School of
Economics, Saint‐Petersburg, Russia
In my paper I investigate how the Soviet Union, aimed to “catch up and surpass with the
West”, transferred and implemented Western technologies in such an important but
outdated sector as the forestry industry. My starting point lies in that Soviet economic and
technological improvement was possible only due to outside help, and the forestry
depended a lot on technologies brought from Finland which was the Soviet border neighbor
and capitalist “friend” after the Soviet‐Finnish war of 1941 – 1944.
Soviet history after the Second World War included both technological achievements in
physics, space sciences and apparently outdated industries like forestry, consumer goods
manufacturing etc. Technological backwardness in some fields was recognized by N.S.
Khrushchev who initiated technological improvement which was proclaimed to be of
immense importance. Special attention was paid to forestry as one of the main industries in
a country which possessed huge forest resources but suffered from outdated machines and
facilities as well as a lack of specialists. The Soviet leadership claimed that the state should
take the best of whatever the West could give, although in practical terms the number of
Western countries “open” for the Soviets was not large. For the Soviet state, Finland was a
source of Finnish homegrown technology and know‐how as well as a channel for technology
transfer from Western Europe and North America.
I examine the issue focusing on the micro level, in particular on activities of Soviet engineers
and industrial scientists in their effort to transfer and implement Finnish and Western‐
through‐Finland knowledge, techniques and expertise. I put the issue into a large context of
cooperation between East and West.
Through these lenses, I analyze how “capitalist” knowledge correlated with the “socialist”
ground and planned economy. How did Soviet transfer agents encounter Western local
actors, or engineers and scientists? How did transfer occur practically and what forms did it
take? And in general, what were economic, social, and cultural consequences of transfer
activities for the Soviet Union?
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Wednesday
Session W1C
Room UI6
9:00‐10:30
Trading with the Ideological Enemies
Dr. Elitsa Stoilova, Plovdiv University, Bulgaria
Notwithstanding the limitations of the Cold War in terms of travel and trade, socialist
Bulgaria accomplished the export of technical know‐how and products to various countries
beyond the Iron Curtain. The paper examines the promoting abroad of Bulgarian scientific
and technical achievements in industrial yoghurt manufacturing in the1970s. Bulgarian
yoghurt was successfully promoted abroad in part because the Western yoghurt market was
already well developed. Science not only helped construct and launch the notion of
Bulgarian yoghurt’s superiority but also gave credence to the national myth of Bulgaria being
the home of yoghurt. When Bulgarian producers exported yoghurt or its technology, they
were also exporting stereotypes, myths, and symbols. For their part, West European dairy
companies further reinforced the image. When yoghurt started “travelling,” any
expectations or preliminary plans had to be checked against the outcome. By appropriating
yoghurt, considered a traditional Bulgarian product, the European market changed the
context of yoghurt consumption and adapted it to the specificity of the local markets.
Therefore the export of yoghurt that initially conveyed national pride did transform
European taste.
I would argue, that despite restrictions at various levels, exchange and cooperation between
East and West existed, rendering the Iron Curtain, metaphorically speaking, permeable. In
the 1960s and 1970s, the industrial need for Western innovations, machinery, and thus
currency pushed the liberalization of trade policies with the rest of the European countries
considered as capitalist ‐ in opposition to the communist ideological and economic order.
Bulgarians attempted to develop trade relations with non‐communist countries, even
though establishing contact with “ideological enemies” officially went against Cold War
animosity and the government’s restrictions of free movement of people and goods.
Bulgaria’s export and import policies, however, show that the state was less of a monolithic
actor and operated on many levels. Civil servants working in the foreign trade area were
entwined with Bulgarian embassies and state security agencies.
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Teaching Engineering in Different Times and Cultures Wednesday
Session W1D
Chair: Darwin Stapleton, University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA Room UI7
9:00‐10:30
Engineering Professors as Entrepreneurs: The Case of Franz Reuleaux
(1829‐1905) and Alois Riedler (1850‐1936)
Professor Wolfgang Koenig, Technische Universität Berlin, Germany
In late 19th century, Franz Reuleaux and Alois Riedler were probably the most well‐known
mechanical engineering professors in Germany. The two professors worked in an era when
Germany became one of the world’s leading industrial countries and when the Institutes of
Technology (‘Technische Hochschulen’) started to appoint engineers who possessed
industrial experience to the chairs. It was near at hand that professors tried to contribute to
the industrial development by obtaining patents, founding own companies, investing in
existing and new firms and working as consultants. By doing that, Reuleaux lost nearly all his
capital whereas Riedler became millionaire.
I shall use the two cases for discussing systematic questions on academic entrepreuneurship.
Were there differences between the engineering disciplines in establishing commercial
activities? What kind of activities did the engineering professors perform? What were the
conflicts between the professors and state bureaucracy on the one hand and with industry
on the other hand? What were the reasons for success and failure?
The case studies on Reuleaux and Riedler are based on all printed and archival sources which
are available. The general reflections on academic entrepreneurship are a first attempt of
systematizing that research field.
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Wednesday
Session W1D
Room UI7
9:00‐10:30
Women Transport Engineers in Hungary – Women Teachers and Students at
the Faculty of Transport Engineers of the Technical University of the Building
Industry and of the Faculty of Transport Engineering of the Budapest
Technical University
Professor Eva Vamos, Hungarian Museum for Science ,Technology and Transport, Budapest,
Hungary
After WW II the socialist cultural government strived to open specialized universities all over
the country. The University of Transport Engineering was founded in Szeged( South‐East
Hungary) in 1951 and transferred to Szolnok in 1952. It merged with the Technical
Universityof the Building Industry and Engineering as third Faculty in 1955. (The
Departments of Building Engineering had been detached from Budapest Technical University
in 1949 to form a separate institution..) This new university was independent for 12 years
only then joined Budapest Technical University. According to the aspirations of the epoch
women were invited to enroll for the Faculty of Transport Engineering. However, during the
20th century their number never exceeded 10% of total students. The paper describes in
detail the careers of 4 outstanding women transport engineers. All of them graduated from
the Faculty of Transport Engineering of Budapest Technical University. Two of them became
regular professors and were awarded the Széchenyi prize the highest distinction scientists
could obtain. One of them became the first female dean of Budapest Technical University.
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Wednesday
Session W1D
Room UI7
9:00‐10:30
Four Science Academies Makes a Lot
Dr. Panu Nykänen, Finnish Academy for Technical Sciences, Finland
In Finland there are two academies of technological sciences, The Swedish Academy of
Engineering Sciences in Finland (f. 1921) and The Finnish Academy of Technical Sciences (f.
1957). There are also two general science academies. In addition there is also the
Technology Academy Finland TAF and the Finnish Academy, the latter being merely a
governmental financing organization. There is also the Federation of Finnish Learned
Societies, working near the science academies.
For a small country the number of academies is quite high. For the reasons of international
co‐operation of the science academies the Council of Finnish Academies was founded in
1975. For the same reasons the technical science academies formed a co‐operative
organization Finnish Academies of Technology FACTE in 1988. FACTE was 2002 one of the
founders of Millennium‐foundation, now the Technology Academy Finland. The co‐operative
organisations have not been able to fade the basic differences in between the four
academies.
There are several reasons for the founding of the science academies. The university is an
organisation in eternal transition, a changing picture of the society it supports. Sometimes
the contact between a society and the university is injured. This has happened in Finland for
economic or political reasons e.g. in 1830’s, and during the years of the both World Wars.
During the years, when university for some reason has not been able to discuss with the
society, the science academies have offered an alternative scientific body for different needs
of the society. The four Finnish science academies have a language based division and there
is also a division between the technical and general sciences.
In this paper the history of four Finnish science academies is discussed in the context of
political and economic history of the nation. The role of the science academies seem to be
changing rapidly in the 2010’s, when the scientific advising has became an important topic in
the EU and in the world.
The sources for this study are the archives of the Council of Finnish Academies and the
technical academies of Finland.
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Wednesday
Session W1D
Room UI7
9:00‐10:30
A tribute to Maurice Daumas Founding Father of the History of Technology
and of the ICOHTEC
Professor Pierre Lamard, Technical University Belfort Montbéliard, France
Professor Robert Belot, Technical University Belfort Montbéliard, France
We commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of Maurice Daumas death. Student of Gaston
Bachelard, editor of a History of Science and together with René Taton of a General History
of Technical and General History of Science, he was however much more than a great
historian of technology. He also helped the dissemination of knowledge through his
initiatives to create institutional structures such as the ICOHTEC and one of his latest
projects materialized by the emergence of industrial archeology as a new field of research.
Our contribution would like to trace on the one hand his intellectual career in order to give
the keys to understand the epistemological construction of the field of history of technology
and to do justice on the other hand to an engaged historian who heightened public
awareness of the importance of technology, popularized history of technology but also
cleaved the field debating with Bertrand Gille. Finally, this research on the consistency of
Maurice Daumas intellectual journey and on the territories he has build, leads to the
question of his legacy, both in terms of concepts and methods. Are they still relevant and do
they fit the frame of our modernity?
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Turning points in technological development in Wednesday
Session W2A
Romania from the mid‐19th century to nowadays: Room UI2
1. Opening & Miscellanies 11:00‐12:30
Organiser: Alexandre Herlea, Technical University Belfort Montbéliard,
France
Chair: Mircea Ivanoiu, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
Gheorghe Asachi (1788‐1869) in the Romanian Culture and Engineering
Professor Eufrosina Otlacan, Romanian Committee for the History and Philosophy of
Science, Romania
A history of Technology is first of all a history of people who created and who put in function
the instruments that were created. By “transition” here we understand a certain kind of
transition that manifested at the beginning of the XIXth century in the Romanian
Principalities. The paper presents a page of the history of this transition represented by one
of the most important personalities of those times, Gheorghe Asachi. The Romanian scholar
was born in Herta (today in Ukraine) at 01.09.1788 and died in Iasi (Romania) at 12.11.1869.
About Gheorghe Asachi, the great Romanian historic Nicolae Iorga wrote: “In those times a
Romanian to know so many things as he, did not exist”. The importance of Asachi’s
contribution to the development of the cultural, scientific, educational and technical level in
Moldavia is pointed by many authors whose books and articles tell about the life and works
of this learned patriot. Among the sources we enumerate some books written between 1890
and 1992, some authors being V. Atanasiu, E. Lovinescu, D. Caracostea, C. Simionescu. One
important source of information consists in the works written by Asachi himself, textbooks,
social analysis, literary composition, poetry, his Curriculum Vitae.
The transition in Moldavia in those times needed persons with general and technical
education. Asachi had the competence to respond to the needs of his country, obtained
through deeper levels of study. In 1804 he finished his studies in Lvov, being graduating with
a PhD. in Philosophy and also obtained a diploma as engineer and architect. Since 1805,
Asachi traveled to Vienna, took courses of mathematics and painting, then to Rome, where
he studied archeology and Italian language. Some important facts for the Moldavian life due
to Gheorghe Asachi are: the class of surveyors and civil engineers, where he taught
mathematics with practical applications for geodesy and lessons of architecture; a
gymnasium at Iasi; the Philharmonic and Dramatic Conservatorium; a vocational school.
Asachi set up the first printing house with Latin characters and edited books, calendars,
almanacs and the publication “Institute of Romanian Honey” in Romanian.
Asachi is recognized as the founder of the engineering education in Romania and that is why
we have the “Gheorghe Asachi” Technical University of Iasi.
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Wednesday
Session W2A
Room UI2
11:00‐12:30
Henri Poincaré at Resita, between Science and Technology (in French)
Researcher Magdalena Stavinschi, Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy,
Romania
Professor Andrei Vasilescu, Technical University of Civil Engineering, Bucharest, Romania
«Son érudition scientifique était si vaste et profonde et son pouvoir de compréhension si
grand qu'il choisissait les sujets de recherche à sa volonté et il imprimait partout, avec la
même puissance, les signes de son génie ». C’est ainsi qu’Henri Poincaré a été caractérisé
par l'un de ses principaux collaborateurs, le savant roumain Spiru Haret. En effet, Poincaré a
donné des résultats impressionnants dans l'analyse, la mécanique céleste, la physique
mathématique et la philosophie scientifique. Peu de gens savent qu’à la base de tous ces
résultats se trouvait une formation technique.
En juillet 1877, à la fin de la seconde année des études à l'École des Mines de Paris, Poincaré
fera le voyage d’étude obligatoire de trois mois qui a inclus aussi la région industrielle de
Reşiţa, conclut avec un «Mémoire sur la fabrication de l'acier dans le Banat». Ce mémoire
nous révèle l’importance de l’industrie métallurgique, pour l’Europe, fin du 19ème siècle.
Après avoir évoqué brièvement l’histoire des usines de Resita de 1771, date de leurs
créations et jusqu’à l’époque de la visite d’Henri Poincaré, la communication s’arrête plus en
détails sur ces usines à l’époque de la visite d’Henri Poincaré. On met ainsi en évidence
qu’en 1868 à Reşiţa, a été introduit le processus Bessemer pour la production d'acier,
seulement six ans après son utilisation dans l'entreprise Krupp. En 1874, à Reşiţa avait
commencé la production, pour les chemins de fer européens, de plusieurs pièces et sous‐
ensembles importants et même de la première locomotive pour le transport interne des
usines.
Il y avait donc suffisamment de raisons pour que les étudiants de l'École des Mines de Paris
(1875‐1878) aillent à Reşiţa pour leurs études.
Bien que Reşiţa se trouvât à l’époque dans l'Empire austro‐hongrois, le voyage d’Henri
Poincaré dans ce centre de l’acier sera son premier contact avec les Roumains. De retour en
France, il travaille avec de nombreuses personnalités de premier rang de la Roumanie,
devenant lui‐même membre honoraire de l'Académie Roumaine. Plusieurs détails sur ces
aspects seront présentés.
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Wednesday
Session W2A
Room UI2
11:00‐12:30
The De‐Industrialization of the Republic of Moldova after the Fall of
Communism (1991) (in French)
Researcher Dorin Dusciac, Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, Saclay, France
Durant la période soviétique (de 1944 à 1991), la République Soviétique Socialiste Moldave
(RSSM)a été le théâtre d’une industrialisation forcée et le plus souvent mal dirigée, qui a
défiguré toutes les branches de l’activité économique. Fruit d’une volonté politique dictée
par le Kremlin, l’industrialisation du pays n’était pas repartie de manière équitable sur tout
le territoire de la RSSM. Ainsi, les deux tiers du potentiel industriel de la république ont été
concentrés en Transnistrie, où habitaient environ 20% de la population.
En 1991, suite à l’implosion de l’URSS, la RSSM déclare son indépendance et devient
l’actuelle République de Moldavie. S’en suit une longue période de transition vers
l’économie de marché, qui s’accompagne d’une profonde crise économique et sociale.
Durant les deux décennies qui s’en suivent, le pays subit un processus de dé‐industrialisation
qui est favorisé par la conjonction de plusieurs facteurs.
La plupart des grands sites industriels construits pendant l’époque soviétique dépendaient
dans leur fonctionnement sur une chaine de fournisseurs et sur des consommateurs finaux
qui en 1991 se sont retrouvés dans des pays différents (les anciennes républiques de l’URSS),
tous en proie à une profonde crise économique. L’hyperinflation, le manque de liquidités et
la privatisation chaotique des géants industriels a déstabilisé les processus industriels et
rompu les liens commerciaux. La désagrégation du complexe industriel militaire soviétique a
vidé le carnet de commandes de nombreuses entreprises sous‐traitantes moldaves, laissant
sans emploi bon nombre d’ouvriers qualifiés, de techniciens et d’ingénieurs.
Le conflit militaire qui a éclaté en 1992 entre les autorités centrales de Chisinau et les forces
séparatistes de Transnistrie a mené à la division du pays et par conséquence à l’amputation
de la plus grande partie du potentiel industriel du pays.
La dé‐industrialisation de la Moldavie s’accompagne d’une très importante vague
d’émigration, qui mène à la diminution considérable du potentiel humain du pays.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
79
Wednesday
Session W2A
Room UI2
11:00‐12:30
The Romanian Agriculture and Viticulture after the fall of Communism. The
Example of the Domain of the Crown in Segarcea (in French)
Mr. Mihai Anghel
L’agriculture de la Roumanie, pays agricole, a été profondément touchée par les
changements politiques et socio‐économiques radicaux que le pays a subis depuis la
deuxième moitié du XIX‐ème siècle à nos jours.
Après un court passage en revue des principales étapes traversées par l’agriculture roumaine
depuis 150 ans (les grandes propriétés, la réforme agraire après la Grande Guerre, la
collectivisation de l’agriculture pendant le régime communiste, la privatisation de
l’agriculture après la chute du communisme), l’exposé porte sur une partie des Domaines de
la Couronne de Segarcea, comme exemple illustrateur de ces étapes. Elles sont brièvement
évoquées, à l’exception de la dernière, celle d’après ’89, plus précisément depuis l'année
2000 jusqu'à présent.
Le Domaine Segarcea, l’un des 12 Domaines de la Couronne (180.000 ha) créé en 1884, est
utilisé pour la culture des céréales et de la vigne. Les technologies, les machines et les
installations les plus modernes (caves, silos, etc.) sont achetées et employées. Après la
Deuxième Guerre Mondiale, les Domaines de la Couronne sont devenus des fermes agricoles
d’Etat ou collectives, sans efficacité.
Après la chute du communisme, l’agriculture rentre dans une période de crise profonde due
au ralentissement de la restitution des propriétés confisquées, l’inexistence et la
manipulation des crédits bancaires, etc.
Mon exposé portera principalement sur l’évolution d’une partie des Domaines de la
Couronne de Segarcea après leurs privatisation, c’est à dire après avoir été rachetée à l’Etat
roumain par la famille Anghel. C’est un passage en revue de la renaissance d’une partie des
anciens Domaines de la Couronne de Segarcea, suite à la mise en oeuvre d’une stratégie
similaire à celle du début du XX‐ème siècle. On insistera surtout sur les vignes (300ha), tout
en mettant en évidence leur refonte et consolidation conformément aux technologies et
standards des années 2000, avec la préservation des bâtiments historiques et plus
généralement de l’identité de la terre et de ses traditions.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
80
IXth Annual Symposium on the Social History of Wednesday
Session W2B
Military Technology: 1 Room UI3
Organiser: Barton Hacker, National Museum of American History, 11:00‐12:30
Washington, USA
Chair: Ciro Paoletti, Italian Commission of Military History (CISM), Rome,
Italy
The history of military technology usually centers on weaponry, warships, fortifications, or
other physical manifestations of warfare, emphasizing how they were made or how they
worked. Historians have also tended to assume a strictly utilitarian and rational basis for
military technological invention and innovation. However necessary they may be, such
approaches largely ignore some very important questions. What are the contexts of social
values, attitudes, and interests, non‐military as well as military, that shape and support (or
oppose) these technologies? What are the consequences of gender, race, class, and other
aspects of the social order for the nature and use of military technology? Or, more generally:
How do social and cultural environments within the military itself or in the larger society
affect military technological change? And the indispensable corollary: How does changing
military technology affect other aspects of society and culture? In brief, this symposium will
address military technology as both agent and object of social change, taking a very broad
view that encompasses not only the production, distribution, use, and replacement of
weapons and weapon systems, but also communications, logistics, medicine, and other
technologies of military relevance as well as sciences of military interest.
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Wednesday
Session W2B
Room UI3
11:00‐12:30
Between Religion, Weapons and Power: Armed Priests in Latin America,
1800‐1850
Graduate student Juan Adriano Chumpitaz Fernandez, Universidad Nacional Federico
Villarreal, Maranga‐San Miguel, Peru
In this essay we intend to analyze the similarities and differences between the activities of
the priests and the militia, its religious significance and policy and its participation in the
independence process through the use of the weapons and the appropriation of technology
and the military organization, as symbols of power and authority in Latin America, especially
in Peru, Argentina and Mexico, between 1800 and 1850
In the organizational structure of the main religious orders that were established in Latin
America, it is possible to find some similarities between the organization of military units
and those of the religious orders.
Marchena (1992), the organization of the fighting forces in America, their weapons and
tactics employed, allow us to consider that the American wars are, essentially, a
prolongation of the wars that are taking place in Europe between 1792 and 1815. The
religious orders were not alien to the social conflicts, political and economic at the end of
the XVIII century, are evident and harden at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
The consolidation of the independence process and the organization of the new states,
inaugurates a convulsive period of anarchy, chaos and social disorder, political and
economic, caused by the vacuum of power and the power struggles.
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Wednesday
Session W2B
Room UI3
11:00‐12:30
“Hybrid Warfare”: the Progression of Technological Supplantation of
European War Horses in the Development of Total War, 1850‐1950
Graduate student Chelsea Medlock, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, USA
The First World War was the apex of nineteenth century scientific and ideological trends and
can be viewed as a “hybrid” conflict, which involved the merging of pre‐industrialized modes
of warfare (animals) and modern modes of warfare (mechanization) to produce the first
total and industrialized war of modernity. The Industrial Revolutions of the nineteenth
century led to societal pressure to modernize and mechanize in all areas of European society.
The most significant aspect of this push for industrialization was the supplantation of horses
on the battlefield; in this movement, Great Britain led the way for much of the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. The technological supplantation of European war horses began
during the Crimean War with the introduction of the railroad to European warfare. It
continued steadily in the European cities from 1860 to 1880 with the advent of automobiles
and other technological innovations; however, the pace of removal sped up significantly
after the 1890s with the introduction of mass production and the industrialization of warfare.
The skirmishes and technological developments of the Interwar period hammered the final
nail in the coffin of equine warfare for the British, unlike its allies and rivals in Western
society such as Nazi Germany, the USSR, and even the United States. These countries
continued to use horse‐power during the Second World War, with disastrous consequences.
The British, on the other hand, had been fully mechanized by 1939 (not including the
prestigious Horse Guards). Thus, Europe experienced an important transitional period in
modern warfare regarding the conversion from animal transportation to mechanical
transportation. This paper explores the transnational progression of equine supplantation in
Western military from the Crimean War to the Second World War. It follows the numerous
industrial and technological revolutions that affected the role of the horse on the battlefield
and on the home front to produce modern and industrialized concepts of total war.
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East ‐ West Transfer of Technology during the Cold Wednesday
Session W2C
War: 2. Organisations and Hardware Room UI6
Organiser & Chair: Timo Myllyntaus, University of Turku, Finland 11:00‐12:30
Technological Development of Finnish Shipbuilding: From a Contractor to
Russia to a Constructor for the Soviet, 1900‐1960
Ph.D. candidate Aaro Sahari, University of Helsinki, Finland
This paper examines the development of Finnish shipbuilding in the context of Russian and
Soviet maritime needs. During the first half of the 20th century Finnish shipyards went from
being fully dependent on Russian commissions to relying on limited domestic markets,
before an unprecedented expansion buoyed by war reparations and subsequent demand
from the Soviet Union. The industry largely procured materials and technology from the
west and sold products to the east. Throughout this period Finland was in a peculiar place
between the cold war lines. With this paper I will explore the scope and nature of Finnish
ship exports into the Soviet Union.
Understanding Russian needs, and how Finnish shipyards met them, allows us to examine
this east‐west link. By focusing on this period we can compare both political changes and
technological development. Up to 1917 Finland was part of the Russian empire and to an
extent its domestic markets. Still before the Second World War Finnish shipbuilding was
underdeveloped and very limited in scope. By 1960 major shipyards were able to offer Soviet
and other buyers competitive products. As global shipping had moved from steam to
combustion, the change in Finnish shipbuilding was not only quantitative but also
qualitative.
My research is based on Finnish shipbuilding companies’ records including technical ship’s
cards. With these construction records it is possible to use quantitative methodology to
recognize trends and transitions in the development of shipbuilding. I will also use the
Finnish war reparation bureau archives and other government records to establish the
diplomatically controlled setting, under which most of Finnish‐Soviet trade took place.
This paper will develop the central themes of my ongoing doctoral dissertation work on
government control and guidance policies in Finnish shipbuilding.
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Wednesday
Session W2C
Room UI6
11:00‐12:30
The Business of Foreign Affairs Unrealized Visions of Joint Business,
Technology and Politics in Finnish‐Soviet Shipbuilding at the End of the Cold
War
Ph.D. candidate Saara Matala, Aalto University, Finland
Technology transfer between the West and East has played a remarkable, though
ambiguous, role in Finnish ‐ Soviet trade during the Cold War. Throughout this period Finland
and Soviet Union had a bilateral trade relationship which has been presented as a political
necessity but economical profitable for Finland, and as a mean to ensure Finland`s
dependability and to channel western technology for the USSR. The technological
collaboration as a part of this was based on state`s level agreements, but from Finland`s
point of view it was primarily the business of private Finnish enterprises.
This paper explores this intermingling of technology transfer, foreign affairs and private
business in the failed efforts to increase collaboration between Finnish and Soviet shipyards
towards the end of the Cold War. It does it through a case study of the shipbuilding
company, Wärtsilä Marine and it`s initiative to launch a joint Finnish‐Soviet enterprise 1987‐
89. The motives of private Finnish industry were mainly economical: to maintain market
position, to increase sales, to decrease costs of production and to bypass the regulations of
the bilateral trade arrangements. However, also the political dimension was strongly
involved in the rhetoric and the channels of influence used to promote the initiative as well
as implicitly in shaping what projects were contemplated.
The study contributes to the discussion about the relationship between the political visions
and the economic interest in the Finnish‐Soviet technological collaboration. It increases
understanding about the role of private companies as being allies in forging technopolitical
visions of technology transfer and trade. However, the efforts appeared to be useless as
neither of the partners, Soviet Union or Wärtsilä Marine, existed anymore more than a
couple of years. From this angle, the study increases also knowledge about the phase of
turmoil and transition in the end of the Cold War.
The primary previously unexplored sources consists of Finnish archival material both from
the public and private side (Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Central Archives for
Finnish Business Records) and interviews to explore the economic and political motives and
technopolitical visions behind this initiative.
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Wednesday
Session W2C
Room UI6
11:00‐12:30
Missed Transfer Chance. Early Outsourcing of Truck Transport in Russia and
East Germany in the 1950s Had No Followers in the West
Professor Richard Vahrenkamp, Logistic Consulting Berlin, Germany
In the 1950s the Soviet‐Union and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) introduced an
innovative concept of cargo transport by trucks: They pulled out the truck fleets that were
operated by the enterprises of industry, construction and commerce and concentrated them
into service companies (forwarders) that operated at the request of the enterprises. By
bundling orders of different clients the capacity utilization of the loading space of the trucks
could be increased and a macroeconomic utility were generated. I made some research to
explore this innovation. For the case of Soviet‐Union I relied on papers published in German
in the GDR. The Western management did not pick up this concept but invented it a second
time 30 years later in the 1980s under the name “outsourcing”. This concept was imported
from the Japanese car industry (Toyota production system).[1] The Western management
made no reference to the Eastern innovation as research in the archives of trade journals
revealed. The Western management literature points out to outsource only those business
processes that are not closely tied to core processes of the enterprise. This experience made
also the Soviet‐Union and the GDR. The outsourcing in the construction industry and in the
wholesale enterprises, where transport was closely tied to core processes, was not
successful. This paper could be a starting point for an international comparative research
project. Scholars in the states of the former Eastern Bloc could evaluate the outsourcing
policy in the 1950s and 1960s in their country.
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Wednesday
Session W2C
Room UI6
11:00‐12:30
International Truck Transport During the Cold War
Lecturer Emiliya Karaboeva, Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands/Plovdiv
University, Bulgaria
The project deals with the international truck transport in the framework of the Cold War
regime of separation. The case study is the Bulgarian state cargo company SO MAT (Business
Association of International Automobile Transport) and the group of the Bulgarian
international truck drivers.
The main idea behind the project is that the global transnational truck transport and also the
TIR system allowed extensive transfer of goods, technologies, but also images, ideas and
values across the Iron Curtain. These transfers and flows can be seen on at least three
different levels: 1. the official network of cargo transfers covering the whole Europe and the
Middle East. 2. the state contraband transfers of illicit goods and technologies between
Bulgaria and the Middle East. 3. the transnational parallel truck drivers’ infrastructure for
unofficial distribution of smuggled goods across the Iron Curtain, covering the socialist
countries, Western Europe and the Middle East.
The main thesis is that despite the Cold War separation and the ideological warfare, namely
the international transport system, presented here by the truck transport, allows for more
holistic analysis of the seemingly contradictory essence of the actual and rather extensive
contacts and transfers between the two blocs. This approach considers not only the
intergovernmental trade and exchange, but also the way the flows of goods, images and
ideas crossed the Curtain and reached the ordinary people mainly via the smuggling system
of the truckers, who transferred technological gadgets, clothes, magazines, and other
consumer goods. The general conclusion is that these flows and exchange also should be
seen as one of the most important tools for hidden unification of the tastes, values and
attitudes of people from the both sides of the Wall. This unification of tastes and values
proved further to be one of the key reasons for the smoother transition from socialist to
market economy system after 1989.
The research is based on various data provided by different kinds of sources, including
archival documents, interviews, and officially published state documents.
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Daily Life and Symbols of Technological Progress Wednesday
Session W2D
Organisers: Artemis Yagou, Macromedia University for Media Room UI7
and Communication, Munich, Germany 11:00‐12:30
Slawomir Lotysz, University of Zielona Gora, Poland
Chair: Patryk Wasiak, University of Wroclaw, Poland
The proposed panel adresses issues of technology usage in daily life, with emphasis on the
formation of symbols of technological progress. The four papers of the panel deal with
technological objects from the domain of the everyday: modest and mundane, but also
ubiquitous and essential, such objects influence our perception of technological change and
reveal a lot about the related ideologies of the societies in which they belong. More
specifically: Artemis Yagou examines construction toys and their packaging (1920s‐1950s) as
representations of technological change and of evolving public perceptions of technology.
Sonja Petersen traces the role of the electric kitchen in the German household (1930‐2006),
by using a cookbook first published in 1936 as a case study to disscuss how the fading of
traditional skills and the emergence of novel ones were negotiated by electric kitchen users.
Sławomir Łotysz employs the example of the electric iron in postwar Poland to illustrate the
complex processes of introducing and using new technology within a state‐controlled
economy that was resistant and even hostile to change. Constantin Canavas uses the
example of the public access defibrillator to discuss how such technology is perceived as a
symbol of efficiency, safety and technological progress in contemporary societies. As a
whole, the panel aims to foreground international and interdisciplinary examples of
technologies of everyday life, to generate a creative dialogue between them and to illustrate
the processes of interaction between technology and changing socioeconomic conditions.
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Wednesday
Session W2D
Room UI7
11:00‐12:30
Playful Technology in a Box: Construction Sets and Their Packaging as
Symbols of Technological Transition
Dr. Artemis Yagou, Macromedia University for Media and Communication, Munich,
Germany
This paper deals with representations of technology and the ways in which they influence
daily life. The specific focus is on so‐called technical or construction toys, such a sets of
building blocks; these originate from the world of building and machinery and are inspired
by the architectural and technological environment.
The boxes of such toys are mundane and perishable objects which however constitute a rich
source on behaviors and beliefs in relation to technology. Boxes for technical toys are not
mere containers to protect and carry the toy, they are indispensable and crucial components
of the product; they support the significance of the playthings they contain and contribute to
their functions and symbolism in multifarious ways. These boxes are thus central in the
generation and dissemination of relevant technological knowledge and its applications: what
the toy is and how it functions; who is supposed to use it, when, where, and how; what kinds
of behavior by children and parents it encourages; what types of professional orientation it
promotes; how it affects the development and diffusion of specific attitudes towards science
and technology; how it is related to the unfolding of wider social or political agendas.
The paper will present examples of toys and their boxes from technological and toy museum
collections in Germany and discuss these and similar questions, with the aim of contributing
to the symposium's subject of transitional aspects of technology.
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Wednesday
Session W2D
Room UI7
11:00‐12:30
The All‐Electric Kitchen as Symbol of Modern Housekeeping and
Technological Progress in Germany (1930‐2006)
Dr. Sonja Petersen, University of Stuttgart, Germany
Our eating, conservation, food preparation and cooking habits changed significantly due to
the implantation of electric household appliances. Cookbooks are a rarely used source in the
history of technology and consumption. Especially energy supply companies, like the Berliner
Kraft‐ und Licht (BEWAG) ‐ Aktiengesellschaft, tried to educate users to buy electric
appliances for example by special cook books. These books create new needs, even before
the appliances became part of standard household equipment. My thesis is that the all‐
electric kitchen becomes a symbol of modern housekeeping and technological progress in
Germany and that on the one hand, knowledge about manual skills and traditional cooking
procedures get lost in the process but, on the other hand, new knowledge concerning the
handling of electric household appliances for preparation and cooking needed to be gained
by the users. This process is illustrated in a case study of the cookbook “Das elektrische
Kochen”, first published in 1936. The cookbook has now been in print for 75 years, from its
first publication to the present, in no less than 54 editions. Over the decades, this cookbook
has accompanied the technological progress of the all‐electric kitchen in Germany. It shows
how the ideas of technological progress changed over 70 years from the perspective of
energy supply companies.
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Wednesday
Session W2D
Room UI7
11:00‐12:30
Hot Commodity: Making Clothing Irons in Post‐War Poland
Dr. Slawomir Lotysz, University of Zielona Gora, Poland
The clothing iron is one of the most basic and probably the most common household
appliance in the world. The first electric irons appeared in Poland in the 1920s but until the
World War Two broke they remained rather a scarce commodity mainly due to general
underdevelopment of power grid and relatively high prices of energy. During the Nazi
occupation, the charcoal, and box & slug irons were again in vogue, and the market for
electric units recovered only in the early 1950s. At first the market of electric iron was left
aside by state owned factories, and as such small private enterprises and cooperatives
picked up the slack. The irons that they produced were very simple and robust, but sufficient
to fill the want.
As the market has been saturated to some extent in 1960s and later, the customers started
to complain about low quality and functionality of domestic irons. The matter was taken in
hands by testers from the Office of Quality Mark. Also, the designers associated with the
Institute of Industrial Design took the electric irons on their drawing boards. However, most
of those steps did not bring any tangible effects. A significant exception was improving
working humidity conditions of irons produced at Nowa Deba plant in southern Poland. In
this case the re‐designing process was initiated by the African buyers of Polish irons, and was
carried out under the supervision of central governmental institutions and the socialist party
leaders of the highest ranks. Significanly, the mentioned irron, denominated as model C28, is
still being produced in Poland since then, which beats all records of longevity of industrial
design in the country.
The paper analyzes how the quality, functionality and the esthetics of electric irons was
negotiated in the realm of state controlled economy. The paper concludes, that the
communication between designers, producers and customers of electric irons, and other
household appliances, in post‐war Poland was highly ineffective, and as such the case of a
robust model C28, which retained its main features and shape unchanged for the next half a
century, is not an exception, but an exemplification of this claim.
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Turning Points in Technological Development in Wednesday
Session W3A
Romania from the mid‐19th century to nowadays: Room UI2
2. Materials Science & Industry 14:00‐15:30
Organiser: Alexandre Herlea, Technical University Belfort Montbéliard,
France
Chair: Tudor Ionescu, University of Vienna, Austria
Romanian Contribution to the Materials Science (in French)
Professor Horia Colan, Polytehnic Institute of Cluj‐Napoca, Romania
La fin du XIXe siècle a marqué, du point de vue de la relation science‐industrie, le début d
une nouvelle époque : celle de la recherche scien fique dirigée vers l industrie qui con nue
d ̀exister jusqu‘à nos jours, quand le progrès industriel et celui scientifique sont étroitement
liés. Un exemple dans ce sens est la création, il y a un siècle, de la science des matériaux, en
majorité métalliques, dont l′ application a révolutionné l'industrie et a eu de grandes
conséquences sur le développement de la civilisation.
Les étapes de l'histoire de la science des matériaux résultent des grands événements qui ont
exercé une influence décisive sur sa formation et son développement. A mon avis, ceux‐ci
sont les suivants : l'introduction de l'expérimentation en métallurgie et la découverte de
nouveaux matériaux (Réaumur, 1722) ; la découverte des constituants et des
transformations des phases dans les alliages, c'‐est‐à dire la création de la théorie des
alliages et des traitements thermiques grâce à deux méthodes d'investigation : la
métallographie et l'analyse thermique (Osmond, Le Chatelier, Roberts‐Austen, Martens,
1887‐1895) ; la découverte de la diffraction des rayons X et leur application en
cristallographie (Bungeţianu, 1896 ; von Laue, 1912 ; Bragg, 1913) ; l'idée des défauts
cristallins (dislocations) et leur découverte expérimentale ultérieure (Taylor, Orowan,
Burgers, Frank etc, 1934‐1939).
Anghel Saligny (1854‐1925) a élaboré le projet et a construit le plus long pont d'Europe
(1895). Son" Mémoire sur le projet du pont sur le Danube à Cernavodă" (1888) est un
exceptionnel ouvrage sur les propriétés mécaniques et technologiques des aciers. À Reşiţa il
y avait dès 1880 le laboratoire d'essais physiques (mécaniques), enrichi ensuite avec des
sections comme la métallographie, l'analyse dilatométrique, etc. À Bucarest, le premier
laboratoire complètement outillé a été fondé en 1886 à l'Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées par
l 'éminent chimiste Alfonse Saligny. En 1924 est créé le laboratoire de métallurgie à l'Ecole
Polytechnique, qui en 1927 est complétée par une nouvelle section de métallographie et
traitements thermique et en 1930 par des appareils de rayon X, spectroscopie, etc. grâce au
professeur Traian Negrescu.
Au début du XXe siècle apparaissent en Roumanie les premières recherches
métallographiques et d'analyse thermique de niveau international. Elles sont dues à Cristea
Nicolescu‐Otin (1879‐1954) et sont publiées à l'Académie Roumaine (1910‐1913).
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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Wednesday
Session W3A
Room UI2
14:00‐15:30
Evolution of Nanomaterials Development in Romania: from First Ideas to
First Technology Transfers
Lecturer Gabriela Adriana Plaiasu, University of Pitesti, Romania
Researcher Radu Robert Piticescu, Institute of Non‐ferrous and Rare Metals, Romania
Researcher Vasile Rizea,
Professor Marioara Abrudeanu, University of Pitesti, Romania
The history of nanomaterials in Romania started around year 1987 when the Joint
Economical Aid Council (CAER) of former communist countries started the first research
program aiming to develop the so‐called adiabatic motor, requiring nanostructured ceramics
materials. There were practically no relevant experimental developments and the program
was closed in 1991. After the Romanian revolution of December 1989, the access to
international scientific and education community has opened a large gate to new ideas, new
markets and new opportunities.
Collaboration with partners from France (e.g. CNRS/PROMES Franc) started around 1995 in
the frame of different bilateral programs. NATO Science for Peace and European Programs
(SOLFACE, SFERA) was one of the first success stories enabling the joint development of new
structural and functional ceramic nanomaterials by original physical and chemical
procedures. In 1997 the first attempts to develop the first National Program for
Nanomaterials started under the leadership of Prof. Teodor Segarceanu from IMNR,
nominated by the National Agency for Scientific Research. This work was continued and
finished by the Romanian Association of Materials. In the same time Acad. Prof. Dan Dascalu
from the Institute for Microtechnologies proposed a first national program for micro and
nanotechnologies. After year 2001 the two programs were joined in the first National
Programs for Materials, Micro and Nanotechnologies – MATNANTECH, financing an
important number of applied projects in cooperation between academic and industrial
partners. New modern experimental facilities were developed in all major Academic Centers
from Bucharest, Cluj, Iassy, Timisoara, Constanta, Pitesti, Galatzi and even more. The
growing importance of the National entities is reflected in the study and electronic resources
database NANOPROSPECT, a study of the possible strategy for development of
nanomaetrials and nanotechnologies in Romania for the next period. In the main text of this
communication examples of relevant achievements of Romanian research in nanomaterials
will be given.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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Wednesday
Session W3A
Room UI2
14:00‐15:30
Priorities in Romanian Oil and Gas Industry: Resource; Personalities;
Inventions; Technologies; Corporate Developments; Social and Historical
Connections in situs, in tempus and Their Historical Evolution (In French)
Professor Cotorobai Victoria, Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iași, Romania
The Ponto ‐ Carpatho‐ Danubian area was born, grew up, was formed and was fulfilled, along
history, by people who have contributed to the progress of humanity. Others just were born,
raised and formed here but fulfillment came for them in other societies more open to
innovation and, certainly more potent for adequate funding of research and practical
applications, and a more pragmatic approach to the subject. Some of them acted as true
„explosions of intellectual achievement" that, far away in space or future, exered their
influence for a long period of human development. Two of these intellectuals, who were
born and died in Romania, whose intellectual potential exploded in the epoch but whose
innovations were ahead of their time are: the Romanian engineer Gogu Constantinescu,
whose contributions in introducing the theory of Sonics and his preoccupations about its
possible applications were highlighted by important patents, and also the Romanian
engineer Ion Basgan, whose patent "Method for improving the efficiency of advanced rotary
drilling, by rotation percussion and the depreciation of hydro mechanic pressure" has
revolutionized the drilling technology.
This paper presents a comprehensive analysis on multiple levels, inventions / innovations of
several Romanian engineers and technological priorities of the Romanian oil and gas
technology and the interrelations between the areas of human creativity. Analysis criteria
adopted are: a) oil and gas in Romania: short history; b) personalities involved in oil and gas:
their professional training and their inventions; interconnection between formative
professional institutions, research and technological implementation, western and eastern
Romanians; c) the role of Romanian oil in European history; d) oil‐gas history and social
aspects; e) the possible continuity of the oil and gas industry in Romania: bioengineering,
new technologies.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
94
Wednesday
Session W3A
Room UI2
14:00‐15:30
The Beginnings of Explosive‐Material Manufacturing in Romania (1921‐1942)
(In French)
Professor Elena Helerea, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
Mr. Florentin Olteanu, Presedinte al Fundatiei Culturale “Negru Voda”, Fagaras, Romania
La communication concerne la première usine d’explosifs de Roumanie: sa mise en place et
son développement, ainsi que les implications socio‐économiques au niveau local et
national. Après la Premiere Guerre Mondiale et la création de l’Etat unitaire roumain, le
développement économique s’accélère. Parmi les priorités, à part l’agriculture :
l’exploitation et l’utilisation des matières premières et de l’énergie. Immédiatement après la
guerre, l’industrie minière doit répondre aux besoins d’explosifs nécessaires dans le
processus d’exploitation minière. Il était ainsi urgent et impératif de fonder en Roumanie
une usine pour leur fabrication.
Le siège de l’usine a été établi aux alentours de la ville de Fagaras, région située au centre du
Pays, au pieds des montagnes, bénéficiant ainsi d’un degré de sécurité élevée.
La première société roumaine d’explosifs, une société commerciale anonyme, est fondée le
10 février 1921, jour de son enregistrement par l’Administration de Brasov, Le capital est à
60% roumain (10% l’Etat et 50% capital privé) et 40% étranger: le groupe des Sociétés Nobel
Industries Ltd. et Dynamit Nobel A. G de Bratislava. Ces derniers apportent des installations,
machines et assurent le support technique. La nouvelle société obtient un monopole de 30
ans.
En 1924, l’usine d’explosifs de Fagaras devient opérationnelle avec trois branches: celle de la
production d’acide nitrique, celle d’explosifs de sécurité et celle de dynamite. Le personnel
technique, de spécialité et d’encadrement est formé par des roumains et des étrangers. La
matière première utilisée provient de Roumanie, Allemagne, France, Amérique du Sud,
Tchécoslovaquie, Autriche.
La mise en place de cette usine à Fagaras eut un fort impact sur la région: la construction des
logements et des écoles, un déplacement de la population rurale vers la ville de Fagaras et
ses alentours; un centre de recherche est mis en place et des chercheurs s’y installent.
L’article examine les conditions dans lesquelles la diversification de la production et la
capacité de fabrication d’explosifs jusqu’aux années 1939‐1942, lorsque la production
militaire prend le pas sur la production civile.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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IXth Annual Symposium on the Social History Wednesday
Session W3B
of Military Technology: 2 Room UI3
Organiser: Barton Hacker, National Museum of American History, 14:00‐15:30
Washington, USA
Chair: Ciro Paoletti, Italian Commission of Military History (CISM), Rome,
Italy
Union and Confederate Views on Guncotton
Dr. Yoel Bergman, Tel‐Aviv University, Israel
Yet few years before in the Confederacy, guncotton was employed in electric torpedoes and
in other weapons. The "electric torpedo" was a static mine laid under water and detonated
from a remote operator position, by sending an electric current through insulated wires.
Such a device was invented before the War but was improved by the South with the
contributions of Charles Wheatstone with his portable electric generator and Frederick
Abel's fuses for denotation. Abel's improvement in the guncotton process during 1862‐1865
may have helped him to devise the needed fuse and assist the South in employing
guncotton.
Several sources indicate that guncotton use was not a sporadic incident. Civil War General
Gabriel Rains wrote that guncotton was the more effective explosive in Southern torpedoes
and also in shells, and the Scientific American after the War writes about guncotton use in
the Confederacy. One indication follows May 6, 1864. On that day for the first time in
history, an electrically detonated torpedo sunk a warship, the Union Commodore Jones in
the James River, Virginia. Following the incident Union advance toward Richmond was
halted, prompting the South to equip with more electric torpedoes. This seems to have
reflected on guncotton procurement. On June 20, 1864 the Confederate Navy Secretary
Mallory wrote to his agent in England: "We require as soon as we can get it the 25 miles of
insulated wires and 1000 pounds of guncotton ordered in my letter of 11th of April" and "If
you can send us 5000 pounds of guncotton such as is prepared by the last improved process
(the new Frederick Abel process‐Y.B) you will please do so. This is required specially for
torpedo services, which is destined to become an important element of the defensive war".
Procurement was made abroad since both sides in the War were unsuccessful in their
attempts to manufacture guncotton. The South had the cotton but not the essential
ingredient nitric acid, while the Union had nitric acid but not cotton.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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Wednesday
Session W3B
Room UI3
14:00‐15:30
‘They say that it excited laughter rather than terror, among their men’: The
British Professional Military Debate on Mitrailleurs, 1869‐1875
Ph.D. candidate Ryan Patterson, University of Exeter, United Kingdom
Amateur enthusiasm and official scepticism; these two threads ran through the debate
among British officers on the question of mitrailleurs (early machine guns) before their
incorporation into the army. In my paper, I explore these arguments as a window into the
culture of military, its images of itself, and its images of empire during a pivotal period in the
formation of British imperialism.
My study takes a comparative look at the records of the War Office 1870 and 1871 Special
Committees on Mitrailleurs and those of the Director of Artillery. I then show the highly
cultural components of this technical and tactical debate with an examination of the
proceedings of the Royal United Services Institution and a number of publications, articles,
and pamphlets released by officers with an interest in the topic.
I employ David Edgerton’s use‐based approach to the history of invention, which resists the
tendency to characterise novel technologies as ‘revolutionary’ or inevitable. To become
accepted a technology must only be perceived as superior to alternatives in those specific
categories that are believed to be important. Thus, the perspectives of testing committees at
the War Office, theorists at the Royal United Services Institution, and proponents of
expansion in the colonies, reveal what those commentators felt was needed in a new
weapon or, indeed, why and where new weapons were needed. To many officers, the
mitrailleur appeared to be an ideal solution to the challenges of African and Indian ‘small
wars’, as they then conceived them.
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97
Wednesday
Session W3B
Room UI3
14:00‐15:30
The Bullet‐proof Vest and the Archduke: 19th Century Innovation Versus
20th Century Firepower.
Researcher Lisa Traynor, Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds, United Kingdom
Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated on the 28th June 1914 in Sarajevo. The assassin,
Gavrilo Princip’s lucky shot, struck him in the neck, resulting in the Archduke bleeding to
death. Historical rumours claim that the Archduke owned a piece of silk bullet‐proof body
armour, which he failed to wear that day. Originally the brainchild of priest‐turned‐inventor
Casimir Zeglen, this armour was composed of a combination of organic layers, most notably
silk, which had bullet stopping capabilities. By the early 1900?s these armours were being
sold globally, and were marketed to heads of state and royalty.
The focus of this paper is to report the on‐going research at the Royal Armouries of the
capabilities of Zeglen type replica armours against the FN Browning Model 1910, in .380 ACP
(M1910). This was the same model of self‐loading pistol used to assassinate Archduke Franz
Ferdinand. So far the Royal Armouries has tested early Zeglen patents successfully against
various black‐powder calibres of the 19th century. The tests on Zeglen’s early patents
against modern .380 ACP have not been as successful, however they have provided
promising indicators for what later Zeglen patents might be able to withstand.
Princip’s shot heard around the world is something which as a researcher of arms and
armour within this epoch fascinates me. The idea of Ferdinand’s survival has led many to
wonder about the outbreak of War in 1914. Had he lived, could this global conflict have been
delayed or even prevented?
Through ballistic testing, with firearms and replica type silk vests, the Royal Armouries will
eventually be able to show which Zeglen patent, if any, would have withstood the bullet
from Princip’s pistol.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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East ‐ West Transfer of Technology during the Cold Wednesday
Session W3C
War: 3. Commerce or Security Room UI6
Organiser: Timo Myllyntaus, University of Turku, Finland 14:00‐15:30
Chair: Elena Kochetkova, National Research University Higher School of
Economics, Saint‐Petersburg, Russia
Needs of Industrialization and the Vice of Economic Depression as Incentives
for the Technology Transfer: the 1935 Agreement between the RCA and the
Soviet People’s Commissariat in Radio and Electronics.
Professor Vasily Borisov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
In December 1935 some American newspapers reported that Amtorg, the Soviet trading
corporation, had ordered $2,000,000 worth of radio equipment and machinery for shipment
to the Soviet Union[1]. The news was remarkable, as the United States did not recognize the
Soviet Republic for a very long time and had made that only in 1933. So in previous years the
USSR contacted mainly with the West European companies when stocking up with electronic
equipment. One more curious fact was that the purchase had been approved by the U.S.
army and navy and the State Department. The equipment was to be made in the Radio
Corporation of America plants in Camden and Harrison, New Jersey.
The RCA manufactured a complete television system, including the transmitter, control
rooms, cameras, and receivers. The RCA transmitting system was installed at the Moscow TV
center for completely electronic translation of television programs. Besides the RCA plants
delivered three technologic lines for radio valves production. The technologic lines were
installed at plants in Leningrad and in the suburb of Moscow.[2]
Business got over political discrepancies: the USSR needed facilities of the well‐known
corporation for the aims of industrialization, while in conditions of the recession the RCA
needed solvent customers for their production.
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Wednesday
Session W3C
Room UI6
14:00‐15:30
Transnational Reactions to the Soviet Oil Offensive: NATO Debates on Oil
Exports and Pipeline Technology (1960‐1962)
Ph.D. candidate Roberto Cantoni, University of Manchester, United Kingdom
By the late‐1950s, the Soviet Union had reacquired a strong position as a world oil exporter,
thanks to a number of discoveries in the Ural‐Volga area. In order to transport their oil to
strategic locations within the Soviet Union and to Europe, the Soviets devised a project of a
colossal pipeline system that would connect oilfields to Eastern Europe, as well as to the
Black and the Baltic Seas. Works to the system started in 1960. Anxieties for the pipeline
coupled with those arising from a spectacular oil export strategy directed to some major
West European countries.
The Soviet 'oil invasion of Europe' was seen by countries with established positions in the
international oil market as part of a larger economic offensive, aimed at generating
dependence of European markets from cheap Soviet oil, and at destabilising the
international market's price structure. The completion of the pipeline’s European branch,
Druzhba, would thus help the Soviets accomplishing their putative mission. Both exports and
pipelines were at the core of bitter and lengthy discussions staged between 1960 and 1962
within transnational organisations, where a difficult harmonisation of conflicting positions
was attempted.
In my paper, I decided to focus on NATO. I first show that the debate on oil imports
eventuated in very limited concrete results, due to the opposition of Italy and to its
temporising tactics. I then move to the Druzhba question, and analyse how the US‐
formulated proposal of an embargo on pipes and pipeline technology met with firm British
hostility. While the Americans tried to persuade their allies into accepting their proposal by
advancing military security reasons, the British responded by stressing the economic
inconvenience of a blockade. The NATO confrontation, which included the intervention of
high‐rank military and intelligence figures, also centered on a more technical aspect, namely
the definition of ‘strategic equipment’. The latter, I argue, was co‐produced through a
negotiation among the parties involved, and eventually steered the issue to a conclusion.
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Wednesday
Session W3C
Room UI6
14:00‐15:30
The Evolution of Science Cities as Centers for Technological Transitions in
Russia
Researcher Galina Gorokhova, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Professor Vitaly Gorokhov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Throughout the postwar period, the USSR military‐industrial complex was the chief
consumer and customer as far as science was concerned. Secrecy that dominated that
period predetermined the location and organizational structure of science cities: they were
academic and military settlements closed to outsiders. But in this time were many scientists
and engineers from Germany in these institutions together with Russian scientists and
engineers (Sharashka was an informal name for these secret research and development
laboratories). But it was also West‐East Transfer of Technology. Under Khrushchev, political
factors cameto the fore. Under Brezhnev, party and ideological interests gained supremacy,
often to the detriment of the economy. The main factors constituting science cities are
political, economic, legal, and social. Initially, domestic science cities were created as
artificial settlements; in the Soviet era, they began to develop as a natural system ‐ urban
agglomerations witha uniquely democratic social environment. These entities were
interdisciplinary and multinational. Similarly, gathered in a science city were scientists from
different regions of the USSR and from different areas of science, where they created a new
interdisciplinary research community under the auspices of the city. But for example in the
city Dubna in Joint Institute for Nuclear research were scientists and engineers from
different European Countries. It was East‐West Transfer of Technology under the epithet
“peaceful co‐existence”. The involvement of the scientific community in military‐industrial
projects ensures its relative independence from ideological and financial pressure.
Generation of favorable and creative conditions for dealing with scientific and engineering
problems is a salient feature and, in fact, the foundation of a science city. The evolution of
science cities proceeds today to free cities of science, which, in addition to raising scientific
technologies, are assuming certain defensive functions in our increasingly bureaucratized
society. Modern societies and states require early commercial and technological results from
modern science. But we need forthe development of new areas of social science, such as the
risk studies, the study of the effects of management and economic decisions, social
evaluation of technologies, and applied ethics. (This report is prepared for the project
„Social‐philosophical and methodological problems of the technological risks in the modern
society“ (12‐06‐00092) of the Russian Foundation of Basic Research).
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Wednesday
Session W3C
Room UI6
14:00‐15:30
Intelligence‐Interchange in the Area of Science and Technology Between
Poland and the Soviet Union, 1986‐1990
Dr. Mirosław Sikora, Instytut Pamieci Narodowej, Katowice, Poland
Technological gap in development between both sides of iron curtain became obvious
already during the 1950s. Along with the détente‐era communists countries managed to
import some vital technological solutions by purchasing production‐lines or signing license‐
agreements with France, West Germany or Great Britain. However real high‐tech, especially
in such branches as automatic control or power engineering, was either protected by private
companies interested in maintaining its monopoly and export, or embargoed by western
governments inspired by the USA.
My paper claims that, in order to evade various legal restrictions in international trade, the
Soviet Union encouraged satellites‐states to launch massive clandestine undertakings.
Furthermore Moscow’s intelligence service instructed and trained their colleagues from
Warsaw, Prague or East Berlin in the area of scientific and technical espionage. KGB also
organized this multilateral intelligence‐relationships, by designing a complex system of
information‐exchange. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, in most former communistic
countries, documents of the intelligence service had been declassified and made available
for historians. In Poland these files are stored and accessible in the Institute of National
Remembrance. Files of the scientific‐technical intelligence covering years 1986‐1990 are
exceptionally well preserved and they allow detailed reconstruction of the Polish‐Russian
cooperation in the area of industrial espionage during the last five‐years plan curried out by
the countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. Analysis involved tasks‐
descriptions passed from KGB to Polish intelligence as well as Polish reports on debriefings
with the representatives of the Russian partner. Insight in those files enables to estimate the
profile and the quantity of smuggled and exchanged material as construction‐
documentation, chemical samples, components, entire devices etc. Moreover we can point
out targeted countries, state’s organizations or private companies. Both sides exchanged
experience in recruiting, handling and paying agents, which will be also discussed in the
paper. The emphasis is put on the Russian partner, because the activity of the scientific‐
technical arm within KGB in the late 1980s – comparing to the previous period – is still not
enough examined by historians.
Basic conclusions are as follows: the amount of the information being shared was growing
systematically during the second half of the eighties. The spectrum of Soviet interest in the
area of science and technology was rather evenly distributed between the civil and military
applications. Electronic and IT, biotechnology and chemistry dominated information‐stream,
making heavy industry and energetic a secondary field of activity.
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Redefining Architecture Wednesday
Session W3D
Chair: Markku Norvasuo, Aalto University, Finland Room UI7
14:00‐15:30
Prefab‐Reinterpretation
Dr. Agnes Borsos, University of Pécs, Hungary
In Central and Eastern Europe, prefabricated panel buildings make up a significant part of
the housing stock. These ’prefabs’ define the cityscape of Hungary’s main cities in a great
deal, and a high percentage of the population live, or have lived in such buildings. Hungary is
standing right before the ’Prefab 3’ program, indicating that a part of these blocks has gone
under some kind of renovation already. These rehabilitations could only partially remedy the
obsolescence and the related prejudices. One of the relevant problems is mostly caused by
these building’s lack of individuality, the deficiency caused by the module system which
prevents the flexible formation of the interior spaces . These spatial structures, the ’prefabs’
were to be considered too small and too tight even shortly after their construction. The
prefab’s conveniences, such as bathroom, elevator, etc., lost their value shortly, for these
conveniences could not meet, nor complement the needs of the family living space. This
’escape’ had of course many reasons and components. Finding a full, or a partial solution to
these components and problems may provide an opportunity to reverse, or at least slow
down the obsolescence. One part of the deficiencies, and the emerging prejudices is figuring
the questions of remote heating and engineering, while the other part is dealing with
practical everyday use. A complex interior‐design response, which pays attention to
conveniences and details resulting from the use, may be the solution.
The precise consideration of these details and use, assuming that the solution is adjusted to
the owner’s lifestyle, is the most important, letting the missed‐from‐the‐beginning
individuality be found. The task and the goal is the demonstration of these solutions, the
presentation of the countless variations inherent in the one same prefab apartment. Using
all the resources and tools of interior design, the living spaces should be constructed so that
they can fulfill the physiological needs of a home. With the precise consideration of the
particular interior spaces, the detailed design of the main household objects: the built‐in,
and not built‐in furniture, is one of the groundbreaking cornerstones of ergonomic use.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
103
Wednesday
Session W3D
Room UI7
14:00‐15:30
Architecture and Politics. New Construction Solutions in Polish Fair Venues
Professor Piotr Marciniak, Poznan University of Technology, Poland
Apart from playing a typical marketing role, international exhibitions and fairs were, for
many years, a field of specific propaganda‐based competition between Western and Eastern
Europe. Consequently, of major significance was the architecture of the fair venues, which
provided the necessary exhibition space and, also, presented the effects of architectural
explorations in the particular countries. Architects from various milieus in Poland proposed
construction solutions that were bold, albeit to a lesser extent pioneering in architectural
terms. Opportunities to fully demonstrate the designers’ potential were, actually, limited to
exhibitions abroad, especially the World’s Fairs, where the particular countries availed of the
vast grounds to showcase their achievements, for example at Expo 58 in Brussels, Expo 67 in
Montreal or Expo 70 in Osaka. The authorities of the People’s Republic of Poland were very
willing to be involved in international exhibitions which featured new Polish pavilions. Their
architecture was to bear testimony to the country’s advancement. It was at such exhibitions
that some very modern concepts from Poland were shown to the great approval of the
western world, for instance the Polish pavilion featuring light hanging roof structures,
designed by Zofia and Oskar Hansen for the exhibitions in São Paulo and in İzmir, or the
Polish pavilion with an openwork roof structure for Expo 58 in Brussels, based on a design by
J.Sołtan, Z.Ihnatowicz and W.Zalewski.
In Poland, the Poznań International Fair was also a major venue where the East competed
with the West in presenting its technological developments. Polish architects where
fascinated with new construction solutions and this corresponded with the creative
explorations of the times. However, due to various technological setbacks, their
expectations regarding the forms of the new pavilions had to be curbed. Nonetheless, a
great example of their work were the new exhibition halls featuring some unique tension
structures and hanging roofs.
In the presentation I wish to show how Polish architects sought to find new forms and
technological solutions, in addition to the actual technologies used in their construction. The
source materials include Polish and Western literature as well as some unique photographic
and archive materials.
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Wednesday
Session W3D
Room UI7
14:00‐15:30
The work with built architecture can provide a possibility of design experiences. The
examination of the architectural concept helps to understand unwritten rules the local
situation, urban situation, landscape quality, owner, etc. The design can be harmoniously
based on the monitoring of the place. Sometime happens more.
I integrate the 5 points of Le Corbusier to a contemporary design project. His individually
planning method came not from the environment, it’s his own way, depends on Corbuser’s
genius. This points manifested in the ages of the heroic modernism ‐ pilots, roof gardens on
the top of the building, the free deigning of the ground plan, the free design of the façade
without connection with the structure and the horizontal windows of the façade. The nicer
example of this planning method is the Villa Savoy in France from1931, became a built
monument as an architectural basic in Corbu’s life.
These 5 points could be an interaction between old and new, modern and contemporary.
The specific expressive style generates a contemporary residential building as a “study case
house” of nowadays – with focus of the changes of the functions, but stay by the historical
targets for form.
(This research was supported by the European Union and the State of Hungary, co‐financed
by the European Social Fund in the framework of TÁMOP 4.2.4. A/2‐11‐1‐2012‐0001
‘National Excellence Program’.)
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Turning Points in Technological Development in Wednesday
Session W4A
Romania from the Mid‐19th Century to Nowadays: Room UI2
3. Civil Engineering & Architecture 16:00‐17:30
Organiser: Alexandre Herlea, Technical University Belfort Montbéliard,
France
Chair: Pierre Lamard, Technical University Belfort Montbéliard, France
Turning Points of Eames Design: WWII and Postwar Developments
Professor Marina Cionca, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
Lecturer Ioan Muscu, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
Ph.D. candidate Biborka Bartha, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
The research aimed to highlight a crucial period in the career development of Charles Eames
as reflected in his particular approach of the design process. The innovative steps Eames
(1907‐1978) and two of his Cranbrook Academy fellow designers, Eero Saarinen and Harry
Bertoia, took for innovating furniture forms, materials and their subsequent technology are
a worldwide example of the true mission of industrial design even today, after decades of
successful experiments in this field. The highly experimental approach of form, ergonomics,
materials and the contribution of Charles Eames at the evolution of crucial technological
stages in view of the industrial production during WWII and the post‐war decade are still
building an exemplary work paradigm. It was hence possible to identify the dynamics of the
creative process, based first on several biographical and historical facts, secondly on the
evolution of the erratic and rather turbulent relationship between design and its industrial
counterpart, as it was dictated by war, then by the transition to normality and by certain
human needs as marketed by the American way of life. A few significant chairs, created
between 1940 and 1958, representing highlights of the history of twentieth century design
as expressed by the “modern classics” syntagm were selected and compared in order to
illustrate vital elements of the design process, followed by short discussions regarding the
materials which were used (molded plywood, plastic, wire mesh), the technical solutions
devised for the structural assembling as well as the specific technology that evolved from
improvised devices to full industrial production. Unfolding the illustrated synoptic features
of the creative process is expected to be a beneficial method for the good understanding of
innovative industrial design and a useful instrument for designers, design critics and
historians.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
106
Wednesday
Session W4A
Room UI2
16:00‐17:30
Railway Stations in Romania before World War I
Dr. Toader Popescu, Universitatea de Arhitectură și Urbanism Ion Mincu, Bucharest,
Romania
This paper investigates the specific expression of Romanian railway architecture. We argue
that the image of railway stations shifts from the practice of mechanical and non‐critical
imitation or adaptation of Western models (often, ad litteram quotations of foreign
examples) to “locally‐amended” initiatives, then passes through the two manifestations of
autochthonous modern originality (the “C.F.R. style” and the national style) and culminates
with the elaboration of the so‐called “showcase projects”.
This fits the synchronistic model of modernization as it was first stated by Eugen Lovinescu.
This perspective emphasizes the initially purely imitational and formal character of
modernity in “backward” civilizations, which generates a form / substance contrast. This
phase is considered normal, as fitting in a “revolutionary” logic of modernization (specific to
those backward civilizations) rather than in an “evolutionary” one. Subsequently, these
copied forms were critically assimilated, being “filled up” with a local and specific content,
culminating in original manifestations.
The paper focuses on the most intense development phase of the national railway network,
between 1869 (the inauguration of the first line) and 1916 (the beginning of World War I for
Romania). The approach is typo‐morphological, identifying the various types and families of
railway stations and presenting them within a broader cultural framework. Our sources are
mainly primary ones (archival and iconographical), and our conclusions are an original
contribution to the study of railway architecture, as they dispute the, so far, canonical
perspective, which is fragmentary and mostly informed by technical arguments.
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107
Wednesday
Session W4A
Room UI2
16:00‐17:30
Civil Engineering in Romania at the End of 19th Century through two
Buildings: the National Bank and the Romanian Athenaeum (in French)
Professor Nicolae Noica, Technical University of Civil Engineering, Bucharest, Romania
Le règne du roi Carol I (1866‐1914) a marqué pour la Roumanie le début de sa modernisation
dans tous les domaines, parmi lesquels la construction des bâtiments publics a occupé une
place de premier plan. Les travaux publics réalisés pendant les 48 ans de ce règne sont
représentatifs du climat politique, de l’état de l’administration roumaine et des moyens
techniques de l’époque, existant en Roumanie.
Parmi les premiers édifices publics construits à Bucarest à la fin du 19ème siècle se trouvent
la Banque Nationale et l’Athénée Roumain.
Le 23 avril 1880 a été créée la Banque Nationale Roumaine et la première préoccupation de
son CA a été de lui trouver un siège correspondant. La décision de la construction d’un
nouveau bâtiment a été prise, le projet étant confié à deux architectes français : Cassieu
Bernard et Albert Galleron qui ont remis leur projet en 1883. Le 18 juillet 1884, commence la
construction qui dure jusqu’en 1890, réalisée par la Société Roumaine des Bâtiments.
L’édifice réalisé avec des matériaux de grande qualité impressionne encore aujourd’hui par
sa monumentalité et élégance.
Dans la même période a été construit l’Athénée Roumain conçu comme un temple de la
culture. L’initiative a été prise par un groupe de roumains enthousiastes qui ont fait appel à
la générosité du public ; le financement étant assuré par des donations. Le projet sera réalisé
par la collaboration de l’architecte français Albert Galleron avec une commission
d’architectes et ingénieurs roumains (Alexandru Orascu, Ion Mincu, Grigore Cerkez et
Nicolae Cucu Starostescu), la construction étant réalisée entre 1886 et 1888 par l’entreprise
roumaine de Dobre Nicolau.
Cette communication mettra en évidence le rôle que les architectes français ont joué en
Roumanie et leur étroite collaboration avec les roumains. Elle présentera les éléments
techniques concernant l’architecture, la stabilité et la résistance utilisés à l’époque dans un
pays soumis à de forts tremblements de terre.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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IXth Annual Symposium on the Social History of Wednesday
Session W4B
Military Technology: 3 Room UI3
Organiser: Barton Hacker, National Museum of American History, 16:00‐17:30
Washington, USA
Chair: Ciro Paoletti, Italian Commission of Military History (CISM), Rome,
Italy
War and Railways in Italy, 1915–1918
Dr. Ciro Paoletti, Italian Commission of Military History (CISM), Rome, Italy
Italy entered World War I in 1915 and had to fight a war of attrition on its northeastern
border. Its local railway net had not been expanded as much as necessary in previous years,
in order not to irritate Austria, which on its own side hardly worked on expanding its own
net.
When the Great War began in 1914 it was a risk to expand railways in that area, because
Austria could realize its was the preparation for a war against her, and again nothing was
made. When in May 1915 Italy entered the war, its national net covered roughly 7,000 miles
and was served by roughly 3,000 steam and electric locomotives.
The limits of the net in northeast affected mobilisation, reinforcements and supplies. Due to
the relatively small capacity of the railways, mobilisation was made in a peculiar way,
because it occurred after the Army had been moved to border. Later, reinforcements and
supplies could not be sent so easily to the front, and the Army was forced to invent an
intermodal railway‐tire system. The lack of lines and the rough terrain forced to install a
great amount of décauville railways, and to build new railways, and a wide net of cableways,
especially on the mountains. Last, in order to afford war duties, a certain amount of stream
engines was purchased in the US and Canada, whilst the lack of coal pushed the Country
toward a huge development of hydroelectric plants, providing energy to move the trains.
As a result, in 1917 railways played a major role in supporting all the offensives as well as in
avoiding the collapse of the Army after the defeat in Caporetto, and again they played a
major role in 1918 supporting both the defensive victory against the last Austrian offensive
in June and the Italian final offensive in October.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
109
Wednesday
Session W4B
Room UI3
16:00‐17:30
Ottoman Military Governorate in Romania in World War I
Professor Esat Arslan, Cag University, Mersin, Turkey
Army‐Nation solidarity in Turkish state tradition is an auto‐formed positive movement not a
forcing necessity. This phenomenon has caused us to perceive it as organizational systematic
especially during the First World War in the Turkish Military History.
As for having looked at the military literature, these kinds of affairs have been discussed in
the context of “Civilian Affairs & Military Government”.
In this paper, as the example of army‐nation solidarity and the activities of Ottoman Military
Governorate in Romania during the First World War will be presented as the case study of
the civilian affairs and military government. In the mean time, the 40 pictures concerning
Ottoman Military Governorate in Romania in my private archives will be presented in my
exposition.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
110
Wednesday
Session W4B
Room UI3
16:00‐17:30
Staying in Shape for War: Sport Promotion by Paramilitary Organization in
Poland, 1927‐1939
Ph.D. candidate Anna Turza, University of Rzeszow, Poland
Before Poland regained independence in 1918, there were sport organizations, which were
aiming at popularizing physical education. This goal had a double meaning especially since
those organizations were of paramilitary character. Firstly, physical education helped the
individuals to stay in shape and promoted social integration, also in a sense of national
identity. Secondly, it was the strengthening tool defense capability of the nation, which
aspired to independence by all necessary means. Also through military confrontation. In fact
those organizations greatly contributed to the process of regaining independence, by giving
a rise to the first military formations of independent Poland.
After 1918 the main goal of those organizations was to strengthen the defense potential of
the country. Physical education was the main axis of Defense Training as a military doctrine.
In the interwar period (1918‐1939) the task was also ceded to paramilitary organizations.
The most important element was preparation whole groups of employees of such National
institutions as railways, post offices, and operators of other the communication networks to
which an eventual war seemed to be essential. Later the program covered also the firemen,
chemists, foresters, electricians, telegraphists etc.
This program included the preparation for the performance of professional duties during the
war, civic education, general military and physical training. The largest organization of this
kind were Military Railway Preparation (KPW), founded in 1927, and Military Post
Preparation (PPW), founded in1934.
In late 1930s, in a view of worsening political situation in Europe, the Ministry of Military
Affairs predicted mass public participation in the paramilitary training. Therefore, the
activities of KPW were coordinated by the State Office of Physical Education and Military
Preparation (PUWFiPW), which was like a Ministry of Sport and Tourism at the present
moment.
Although, the paramilitary organizations in interwar Poland, had different goals, they
popularized the idea of the commonness of sport. Their main aim was to create the Social
Information Network, engaged (deeply) in social changes, as backup for the army during the
war.
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Chemistry for a Better World Wednesday
Session W4C
Chair: Sami Louekari, University of Turku, Finland Room UI6
16:00‐17:30
A. I. Virtanen's AIV Method – a Technological System that Thrived in Bad
Times but Struggled in Good
Dr. Jarmo Pulkkinen, University of Oulu, Finland
Invented in 1928 by Finnish biochemist Artturi Ilmari Virtanen (1895‐1973), the AIV method
was the first reliable method to produce good quality silage. In 1945, it brought Virtanen the
Nobel Prize in chemistry. Being based on an artificial acidification of fresh fodder below pH
4, the AIV method was taken into use in Finnish agriculture in 1929. Its adoption required
the creation of a large supportive infrastructure. For example, the AIV solution, i.e. a mixture
of sulfuric and hydrochloric acid, was sold to farmers in large glass jars. In a few years, the
number of jars in circulation increased to tens of thousands. However, the AIV method also
suffered from technical drawbacks which made it cumbersome and labor intensive.
The main goal of the AIV method was to render possible high milk production without the
use of expensive concentrates. In this respect, the introduction of the AIV method took place
at the right moment, i.e. it coincided with the beginning of the Great Depression. The
collapse of prices of dairy products required created an incentive to maximize self‐
sufficiency in cattle feeding. In the 1930s, the rights of the AIV method were sold to over ten
countries. The most successful period of the AIV method began with the Second World War
and continued until the early 1950s. In this period, self‐sufficiency in agricultural production
in general was emphasized throughout Europe. However, the success came to an end as
cheap concentrates became available again in the 1950s.
The paper is mainly based on Virtanen’s large scientific archive, preserved at the National
Archives of Finland. In addition, I have used newspapers, popular agricultural journals, and
scientific publications.
Major conclusions: In my paper I shall show how the success of the AIV method was
dependent on the general economic conditions, on the one hand, and on its properties as a
technological system, on the other.
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Wednesday
Session W4C
Room UI6
16:00‐17:30
Polyurethane: the Fame and Decay
Ph.D. candidate Susana França de Sá, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
Professor Maria Elvira Callapez, CIUHCT, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
Researcher Joana Lia Ferreira, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
Professor Rita Macedo, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
Professor Ana Maria Ramos, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
Polyurethane (PU) was invented in 1937 by Otto‐Bayer (Germany) and it is known as one of
the most versatile polymer families. The possible variety of its chemical structure can give
place to many different material forms which have been attractive to artists and designers.
In the design field, mostly since the sixties polyurethane has come into every living room and
household in the form of comfortable, stylish and luxury furniture design.
Taking the polyurethane collection from MUDE as a case‐study (the new design and fashion
museum from Lisbon), we aim at establishing a bridge between the industry and the design
world from the sixties and seventies on one hand. On the other hand, we intend to study the
introduction of polyurethane‐based materials in this field, identify the main reasons that led
designers and industrials to use this material, the advantages and disadvantages as well as
the relationship between designers and the industry.
In our research, we have identified some partnerships between Portuguese and
International industrial design factories and learned how polyurethane‐based materials are
used in these two contexts.
Based on a multi and interdisciplinary approach, we have been assessing historical
documentation from libraries and archives of the Portuguese plastics industry, visiting the
industries of polyurethane foams and artificial leathers as well as carrying out interviews to
workers, designers and industrial design factories. Although polyurethane‐based materials
face severe conservation problems it is our objective, not only to develop the national
history polyurethane´s triumph but also to preserve its heritage.
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Wednesday
Session W4C
Room UI6
16:00‐17:30
Chemical Products in the Collection of the k. k. Consular‐Academy Vienna
Dr. Susanne Gruber, Association for Research in Commodity Sciences, Obersdorf, Austria
More than a third of the objects of the Merchandise and Product Museum at the k. k.
Consular‐Academy Vienna are Chemical Products. At present the inventory of this collection
is reviewed to identify existing objects in the Technical Museum Vienna. Many of the objects
in the Product Collection do have labels of the k. k. Consular‐Academy, but most of the
Chemical Objects are not branded with such labels, so that is difficult to identify them
exactly as a part of this collection. The review of the inventory will help to solve this
question.
The former Oriental Academy was founded in 1754 on the basis of an Imperial Order by
empress Maria Theresia. The Academy's initial purpose was to enhance Austria's position in
the Balkans and the Near East by improving the nation's trade and cultural relations. The
curriculum emphasized oriental languages, political sciences and general sciences in order to
educate diplomats and merchants. The Merchandise and Product Museum at the Consular
Academy comprised hundreds of chemical products and more than thousand of synthetic
dyes, donated by companies from Europe, namely Wagenmann, Seybel & Co, Vienna;
Rademacher & Co, Prague; Meister Lucius & Brüning, Höchst; Boryslaw AG; or Brüder
Janoušek, Prague. Many of these products are preserved in the original customary packing,
as a result of this the companies’ economic development can be reproduced. Redundant to
the dyes there are colour charts for textiles and papers in the collection. Some of whom
include instructions in detail for the process of coloration.
The results of our research are supported by funds of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank
(Anniversary Fund, project number: 15587).
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From Rural to Urban in the Industrial Era Wednesday
Session W4D
Chair: Piotr Marciniak, Poznan University of Technology, Poland Room UI7
16:00‐17:30
The evolution of Vernacular Construction Typologies in Times of Transition –
Villages from Valcea County, Southern Romania
Ph.D. candidate Biborka Bartha, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
The purpose of this study is to embrace regionalism and the evolution of vernacular
construction typologies in times of transition with the aim of creating a vital connection
between vernacular concepts and new interior design. In this time of technological
advancement, rapid urbanization which is not taking in consideration the traditional rural
structure, local identity, cultural value, where the handicraft is under the constant pressure
of mass production, there is still much to be learned from the knowledge of vernacular
architecture. It can be seen very clear that the architectural, functional, house position and
veranda evolution regarding vernacular housing in the Romanian rural context has been
directly influenced by the two world wars making these constructions more enclosed,
reflecting the need of people for protection; after the Second World War the porch with
railing or turret being replaced almost completely by the enclosed veranda.
The methods used in the study process are based on field trips, visiting villages from Valcea
County, connecting with the community and determining the degree of presence of
traditional wood structures and housing, thetransition of vernacular construction typologies
in the contemporary context. The most difficult part of this project consists mainly of raising
the awareness of local authorities and the community of local identity, traditions, vernacular
construction as a viable way of seeing contemporary design. The aim of the project is to
create furniture with value and meaning as a symbolic, direct, clear reflection of the context
which increases with time and through the use of local communities. The traditional
Romanian vernacular characteristics can still be easily identified due to the limited
acceptance of advanced technologies in villager’s way of living.
The differences between the “vernacular” and “modern” design processes are very clear: in
the case of vernacular, the production would be singular, crafted and local, whereas the
contemporary modern production would be characterized by a serial, industrial, dislocated
approach. In order to achieve the wanted result, we need to utilize and rely on the
advantages of modern production, but should not forget that the design should reflect the
profoundness of a local vernacular concept.
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Wednesday
Session W4D
Room UI7
16:00‐17:30
Rapid Industrial Change and Urban Expansion: the Pansio‐Perno Shipyards in
Turku, Finland
Dr. Markku Norvasuo, Aalto University, Finland
Researcher Mikko Mälkki, Aalto University, Finland
The paper discusses the close connection between rapid post‐war industrial change and
urban expansion in Finland. The Pansio‐Perno area of Turku provides an outstanding
example of historical development and its effects on current city.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, Finland was bound to pay reparations to the
USSR. Among them were hundreds of vessels, in which situation the shipbuilding industry
had to be expanded. Two of the new shipyards were established at Pansio area of Turku
during years 1945–46. The need of labour led to the gradual construction of several housing
areas. One of them, designed by architect Erik Bryggman, pioneered in the use of industrially
prefabricated units, and has been classified as national heritage.
The formerly rural area thus gradually developed to a new socially diverse industrial
community. Later construction has further added to the industrial and urban layers of Pansio
and its neighbouring area Perno, but the decline of shipbuilding industry has impaired
current development. Currently the area is one of the suburban revitalization targets of
Turku.
A key issue of the paper is how to understand the former industrial history and culture in
current situation. The timeline of development focusses on three key periods: the birth of
the post‐war industrial community, the industrially produced neighbourhoods of the 1970s,
and the latest structural changes starting from the 1990s.
The study is based on primary archival sources, former studies, and an empirical analysis of
the layered historical development of the area. The paper demonstrates the complexity of
industrial and urban development, and discusses the potential of industrial culture in urban
revitalization.
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Wednesday
Session W4D
Room UI7
16:00‐17:30
An Overview Concerning the Transition Period Reflected in the Rural
Vernacular Architecture in Southern Romania
Lecturer Alin M. Olarescu, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
Ph.D. candidate Biborka Bartha, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
Rural vernacular architecture represents an important social‐cultural and identity indicator
mainly due: to its lack of an architect; its realisation according to the owner’s aesthetic
feel/individuality; its reflection of the social status of the inhabitant; its protean nature,
being able to adapt rapidly to the social context and mainly to the cultural development but
also to the needs of the owner, sometimes, becoming the creative source concerning
parallel functional systems.
The study embraces the evolution of the rural homestead starting from the 30s in the 19th
century (the first modern systematisation of Romanian villages) being followed by the 1880‐
1890 decade, when based on a holistic research on site, the elaboration of the first urban
regulations concerning rural areas was possible, leading to the structural reorganisation of
the rural household until the Second World War. In the same time it highlights the
architectural characteristics, but also the dependent functional systems of the household,
representative for the communist and post‐communist era, when important mutations
appear caused especially by the dynamic of movement concerning the population (rural ‐
urban; urban ‐ rural; rural, urban – abroad ‐ rural). These are significantly reflected in the
rural vernacular architecture of Southern Romania, offering a large variety of data regarding
the constructive capacity and tendencies.
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Playing with Technology: Questions of Infrastructure Thursday
Session T1A
Organiser: Stefan Poser, Helmut‐Schmidt Universität, Hamburg, Room UI2
Germany 9:00‐10:30
Chair: Peter Koval, Humboldt‐Universität zu Berlin, Germany
Research in the field ‘Playing with Technology’ ought to contribute to the development of
theory in the history of technology: both technology and play have crucial functions in
human life. They have strongly influenced the development of societies. Thus research in
this field might open new perspectives on the question how and why people use technology.
Playing with technology is on the one hand dealing with the (i) fascination of speed and
acceleration, (ii) with different ways to reach delirious happiness, described as the play of
‘ilinx’ by the philosopher and sociologist Roger Caillois, (iii) with the role play ‘mimicry’ based
on technology, (iv) with appropriating technology and (v) with persons, who trust in
technology aiming to make new experiences. On the other hand playing with technology is a
story about the increasing commercialization of society, of lost knowledge on do‐it‐yourself
and tinkering, on a shift from independent acting to consuming. The session in Brasov will
focus on infrastructures of play: in which way is the environment shaped by playing? In
which way were locations and regions (mainly relicts of industry) adapted for playful
purposes? Panelists present case studies on competitions of racing cars as hobby culture and
the infrastructure behind these games; they will discuss the increasing infrastructure of play
and leisure. Contributions on other issues of the field ‘Playing with Technology’ can be
included, too.
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Thursday
Session T1A
Room UI2
9:00‐10:30
The Impact of Technology on the Development of Tourism in South Croatia in
the Beginning of the 20th Century (in German)
Dr. Marija Benić Penava, University in Dubrovnik, Croatia
Dr. Marija Gjurašić, University in Dubrovnik, Croatia
This paper analyses, using archive records and relevant literature, the application of
technological advances in transport and tourism in South Croatia in the period that preceded
mass air transport, as well as the usage of computers reservation systems and credit cards
that are used in tourism industry nowadays. Technology was intensively involved in the
tourism industry in the past. The impacts of technology could be seen on the connectivity by
railway as well as sea, land and air traffic. In addition to the mentioned factors of
communicative tourism, its receptive factors – hotel industry, catering, marketing, cultural
institutions, public services etc became more dependent on technologies in the interwar
period. The connection between the advances in technology and the new growing service
sector of tourism in the Croatian south was a prerequisite of the coming development of
mass tourism. Therefore, the human need for rest, recreation and adventure while
abandoning their permanent residence achieved its purpose ‐ enjoyment and relaxation.
Peripheral parts of the Croatian south outgrew into world tourist destinations due to the
progress of both transport and communication technology in the first half of the 20th
century.
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Thursday
Session T1A
Room UI2
9:00‐10:30
The View from the Pits: Fraternal Culture at America’s Speedways
Ph.D. candidate Alison Kreitzer, University of Delaware, USA
“Each car owner is responsible for the conduct of the driver and pit men attached to his car
at each meet including himself [emphasis added]” explained the Ohio Stock Car Racing
Association in their 1949 rulebook. Many members of the dirt track racing fraternity agreed
that the “pit area,” a space designated for the preparation of racecars before and during a
speed contest, was a male domain. While racecar designs, participant demographics, and
promotional organizations for oval track racing evolved throughout the twentieth century,
the gender and racial compositions of grassroots American motorsports remained relatively
static. White men consistently acted as the gatekeepers of the sport. Promoters and officials
created physical barriers on the landscape of their speedways to limit access to the pit area.
Additionally, white racecar drivers and mechanics devised complicated sets of rules and
secret racecar set‐ups in the pit area to keep minority men and women from gaining the
technical knowledge needed to excel in the sport. My paper will explore how promoters and
participants reinforced cultural ideas about technological skill, whiteness, and masculinity
through the exclusionary infrastructure at America’s speedways.
Automobile and landscape historians have largely ignored dirt track speedways as important
sites of America’s automobile culture. However, the built environment and regulations at
small quarter‐mile and half‐mile speedways illuminate the ways Americans conceptualized
their ideas about gender and race through their participation in technologically‐centered
hobbies. Blue prints and photographs of speedway facilities provide convincing visual
evidence of the ways that cultural hierarchies and values became part of the infrastructure
of these play palaces. Periodicals and rule books about racing mechanics and pit area
traditions provide further evidence of the gatekeeping practices of veteran male racers. My
paper will build on scholarly works, such as Robert Post’s High Performance and Ben
Shackleford’s essay, “Masculinity, the Auto Racing Fraternity, and the Technological Sublime:
The Pit Stop As Celebration of Social Roles,” to provide additional evidence of the gender‐
segregation and pit crew traditions of American motorsports.
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Thursday
Session T1A
Room UI2
9:00‐10:30
Infrastructures of Play and their Impact on the Environment since the 1980s
Dr. Stefan Poser, Helmut‐Schmidt Universität, Hamburg, Germany
Playing with technology depends on its infrastructures. This holds for activities as out‐door
sports as well as for playing with technical toys, especially those which represent technical
systems, and for fairground attractions, namely those of driving. Quite different activities
such as skiing, model railroading or driving in a bumper car have in common to be based on
infrastructures. Thinking about Roman amphitheaters (as an infrastructure) and the fashion
of ‘naval battles’ of small ships, the so‐called ‘naumachias’, it becomes clear, that
infrastructures of playing are dating far back in history. Due to the development of the
leisure society the number of infrastructures increased as well as their environmental
impact. Thus this paper will focus on the period since the 1980s.
On the one hand a strong negative impact can be observed in case of skiing and the system
of funiculars, ski lifts and slopes for example. On the other hand especially abandoned
industrial sites changed to locations of sports, playing, leisure and tourism. For example: (i)
old railway lines were transferred to hand car or bike routes, (ii) halls for industrial
production now host locations for sports and leisure as pools or indoor‐skiing; these sites are
thus preserved from being demolished. (iii) Some abandoned constructions for storage of
mass goods as sand and coal and old pools serve more or less illegal as walls for painting
graffiti and as half pipes for skating.
The infrastructure of playing is a new issue of the research in the field of playing with
technology. Until now there are only a few studies, which enlighten some parts of the field:
Wolfgang König has analysed mutual influences on the design of mountain transportation,
early mass tourism and skiing. Noyan Dinckal and Rachel Maines studied spaces of sports
and of tinkering culture. The aim of the paper is to investigate the development of
infrastructures of play and their influence on the environment. In doing so, I link the history
of technology of playing to the history of urban space and to environmental history.
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The Uranium Utopia in Mexico: A Case of Restricted Thursday
Session T1B
Technology Transfer Room UI3
Organiser: Federico Lazarin, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, 9:00‐10:30
Iztapalapa, Mexico
Chair: Martha Ortega, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Iztapalapa,
Mexico
This session will describe the nuclear energy development project from 1952 on, explaining
the measures deployed in order to encourage and build it up.
In 1955, the National Commission for Nuclear Energy (CNEN, Spanish acronym) was created
in Mexico. In 1972, it became the National Institute for Nuclear Energy (INEN, Spanish
acronym) and finally, in 1979, it turned into the National Institute for Nuclear Research
(ININ, Spanish acronym). In 1979 as well, the state enterprise Uranio Mexicano (URAMEX,
Spanish acronym) was founded so as to locate and transform uranium. This lecture aims to
show that the creation of these institutions sought to favor the reception of nuclear
technology in Mexico. Scientists were instructed and researches on nuclear energy were
carried out at these institutes. In addition, they were in charge of uranium exploration,
extraction and use at the nuclear plants to be built as a result of technology transfer.
Works at the National Commission for Nuclear Energy started in 1953. One of their main
objectives was to explore the location and the extraction likelihood of uranium deposits in
Mexico. The mapping created in the 1960s resulted from these activities.
It represented a strategic basis for the implementation of uranium extraction technology
and for the projection of uranium enrichment industry locations as enclave phenomena.
When the works for uranium extraction began, the Mexican government generated growth
and development expectations at the locations where this activity was to be carried out.
Thus, inhabitants assumed their taking part would improve their living conditions. However,
the government's promises did not come true —in the first place, because most inhabitants
were employed only as laborers. Secondly, and more importantly, because the uranium
enrichment project failed, leading to the canceling of extraction works throughout the
1970s.
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Thursday
Session T1B
Room UI3
9:00‐10:30
Exploration and Mapping of Uranium Deposits in Mexico
Researcher Hugo Pichardo, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Iztapalapa, Mexico
In 1917, when amidst a Revolution, Mexico replaced the old Liberal 1857 Constitution with
one showing more social sensitivity, it sought to engage the population in working with and
benefiting from natural resources, so as to promote a nationalistic feeling. Article 27 of the
new Constitution established that these resources were to be owned by the Nation,
clarifying that those discovered or found in the future and considered strategic had to be
incorporated as well. Therefore, the decades following World War II witnessed the creation
of governmental institutions to secure the exploration, extraction and exploitation of the
natural resources ‐ such as uranium ‐ required for the development of nuclear energy.
One of the main objectives of Mexico's National Commission of Nuclear Energy, which
started operating in 1955, was exploring the country's territory so as to locate uranium
deposits likely to be exploited. It also aimed, supported by the State's authority granted by
laws on that matter, at holding control of all information on this and other minerals
considered defining supplies for the desired nuclear industry.
These activities resulted in, among other products, the mapping elaborated on the basis of
the topographic surveys performed using the tools needed to explore detected regions,
namely Mexico's North and South East areas. Works in possible deposits by geographers,
topographic engineers, geologists, and other professionals, were undertaken throughout the
1960s and the early 1970s.
The resulting cartographic products are rather interesting, mainly for the analysis of "the
silence in maps", as the historian of cartography J.B. Harley would call it. The concept refers
to the questions aroused by a map and the answers it succeeds or fails to give, which must
be explained as historical issues. Consequently, it is not only about studying the intentional
modifications or distortions in the mapping process, but also about explaining the
technological procedures employed in the construction of a determined cartography ‐ that
of Mexico's uranium, in this case. Data on the mapping and the technology used to locate
uranium deposits allow understanding, in turn, how this process represented a strategic
basis for the implementation of uranium extraction technology and for the projects of
uranium enrichment industry locations as enclave phenomena.
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Thursday
Session T1B
Room UI3
9:00‐10:30
Creation of Institutes for the Reception of Nuclear Energy
Dr. Federico Lazarin, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Iztapalapa, Mexico
In 1942, when the United States launched the Manhattan project, the Nuclear Era began.
This Era brought about the emergence of a nuclear industry, which is considered to consist
of the following three stages: The first one includes exploration and extraction, the second
one uranium processing, and the third one uranium use for the generation of electrical
energy or atomic weapons. New technology had to be designed and produced for each of
these stages.
In 1955, Mexico became a member of the "international club" advocating for the peaceful
use of nuclear energy, when the National Commission for Nuclear Energy (CNEN, Spanish
acronym) was created. In 1972, it became the National Institute of Nuclear Energy (INEN,
Spanish acronym) and finally, in 1979, it turned into the National Institute of Nuclear
Research (ININ, Spanish acronym). In 1979 as well, the state enterprise Uranio Mexicano
(URAMEX, Spanish acronym) was founded so as to locate and transform uranium.
This lecture aims to show that these institutions were created in order to favor the reception
of nuclear technology in Mexico and the deployment of the three stages of the nuclear
industry. There, scientists were instructed and researches on nuclear energy were carried
out. In addition, these institutions were in charge of uranium exploration, extraction and use
at the nuclear plants planned to be built as a result of technology transfer.
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Thursday
Session T1B
Room UI3
9:00‐10:30
Uranium Extraction: Utopian Progress for Rural Communities
Ph.D. candidate Martha Ortega, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Iztapalapa, Mexico
Graduate student Tadeo Liceaga, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana, Iztapalapa, Mexico
This lecture will focus on the analysis of the relations created by a governmental project —
the extraction of energy resources— and the populations inhabiting the places where
uranium was extracted from. To us, it is important and necessary to reconstruct and
interpret, as thoroughly as possible, the history of the actual actions undertaken and the
impact they had on the lives of those who, whether they wanted to or not, got involved in
that process. In an attempt to branch out the array of energy generation possibilities, the
Mexican government encouraged a project aimed at electrical energy production by means
of nuclear reactors. The thought that it was possible to build this kind of facilities in Mexico
was based on the findings from the explorations carried out from the 1950s to 1975 seeking
uranium deposits. Expectations included using extracted Mexican uranium to fuel the
nuclear reactors the government planned to construct. All the data about that process we
have collected up to this date will be shown in this lecture. The work we have done so far
allows us to affirm that the uranium extraction project resulted in the creation of
unbalanced relationships between the agents sponsored by the government and the
inhabitants of the towns neighboring the uranium deposits. On the one hand, these
relationships proved to be harmful for the communities. On the other hand, the
governmental project turned out to be unsuccessful. Thus, we will present an initial
evaluation of the damages caused not only when the uranium deposits were exploited, but
also the residual effects of this governmental project.
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Evolution and Diffusion of Technology Thursday
Session T1C
Chair: Wilhelm Kappel, INCDIE ICPE‐CA, Bucharest, Romania Room UI6
9:00‐10:30
Oil and Gas Equipment and Technology, Two‐Way Scientific Bridges between
East and West
Professor Marian Rizea, Ecological University of Bucharest, Romania
The discovery of oil and gas one hundred and fifty years ago, in Romania, United States and
in further other states, has lead the way of human development towards a society based on
hydrocarbons whereas the technical and technological competition between companies and
states for the ultimate supremacy evolved and is still in progress.
In the past century, the two world wars and the most recent conflicts we were and are
contemporary with (Falkland Islands war, Iraq, Libya, Syria etc.) began with and for energy
resources which resulted in a fierce battle on the front of research and streamline of this
field. The technical and technology transfer in many areas, including the oil and gas one,
disregarded ideological barriers imposed by the “Cold War” so that, through legal methods
(imported licenses) and “reverse engineering” (intelligence), it carried through.
Since the emergence of the “drilling method with rotary table”, discovered by the Romanian
engineer Ioan Basgan which revolutionized the worldwide deep drilling technology and
whose patent is still disputed by Romania and the United States, up to offshore drilling
platforms, high pressure blowout preventers, drilling rigs for mining and transport for
extreme weather conditions and to the controversial method of extracting shale gas, the
transfer of science, engineering and technology knew and will know no boundaries.
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Thursday
Session T1C
Room UI6
9:00‐10:30
From the Western Front to Texas: Early Development of Seismic Exploration
for Oil (1914‐1926)
Researcher Francesco Gerali, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico
Geophysics – the study of the physics of the earth – has had a very slow and largely
academic development just during the 1800s. Despite of the numerous skills and talents of
the early geophysicists, the major advances in this field that would truly benefit mankind on
a large scale were not possible until after the invention of several artifacts (i.e.,
galvanometer, photographic film, vacuum tube amplifier) that made possible practical
applications. The most important advancement in the discipline has been the establishing
and the interpretation of earth physics data from observational network, overall the
measurement of the earth displacement though the seismometer in 1880. Since then, it
started a global interest on the study of the propagation of the various range waves
generated by earthquakes, and the localization of their epicenter.
When in October 1914 the Great War stabilized the Western Front, the heavy artillery got a
strategic offensive importance by both the sides. The experience gained in using early
seismic networks to locate the origin of distant earthquakes soon led to locating artillery
position of the enemy. French, British, German and US Military Stuff displaced in the
battlefield several “seismic troops” composed by scientists specialized in reading the speed
and the radius of propagation of the waves. Although none knew it at the time, by the
involvement of physicist in the artillery location it would arise the practice of the seismic
exploration for oil and natural gas.
This presentation aims to focus on the interplay between warfare and geophysics during the
WWI, and their apparently fortuitous relation with the oil industry. This combination of
times, places and men blossom into a totally new and high profitable profession, the
geophysicist specialized in oil exploration. By then, geophysical exploration is considered the
most reliable and efficient method to localize oil bearing formations in the subsoil.
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Thursday
Session T1C
Room UI6
9:00‐10:30
60 Years of Technology Transfer
Dr. Georgeta Alecu, INCDIE ICPE‐CA Bucharest, Romania
Ph.D. candidate Iulian Iordache, INCDIE ICPE‐CA, Bucharest, Romania
Dr. Elena Enescu, INCDIE ICPE‐CA, Bucharest, Romania
Professor Wilhelm Kappel, INCDIE ICPE‐CA, Bucharest, Romania
This paper describes the history of ICPE since its founding in 1950 until today in inorganic
materials research for electrical industry.
As important milestones in this evolution are presented creation and separation of ICPE of
some research and production groups, of some materials whose technology was previously
established in our laboratory, approved and with technology transfer in three major stages
after their maturation: in the first two decades 1950‐1970 after the establishment and then
transfer of products during 1970‐1990, and the last transfers made under conditions much
changed between 1990‐2010.
Therefore, are analyzed and presented the results of five major areas of R&D on metallic
pseudoalloys with imposed electrical properties, carbon materials (electrical brushes,
resistances, composites), structural and functional ceramic materials, magnetic and
superconducting materials.
The paper presents also the conditions for technology transfer and economic effects of last
transfers to Electromagnetica Bucharest, Elba Timisoara, Electroaparataj Bucharest, IPRS
Baneasa, Electroceramica Turda, trading companies from Odorheiu Secuiesc and not the last
part, the establishment of a new plant for carbon materials ‐ especially brushes for electric
cars ‐ to Ferite Urziceni, which after the transfer, became ROFEP.
A special chapter is dedicated to technology transfer of electrical contacts and permanent
magnets, sintered and bounded, to SINTEROM Cluj‐Napoca with the establishment here of
specialized production departments.
It must be mentioned that all these technologic transfers were performed outside ICPE and
those direct from the research team to pilot stations, are not considered in this paper.
Those who are going through this paper will be little surprised when will finds that
technology transfers which are presented, are not only for electrical engineering products,
but for all branches of economy, starting from agriculture and ended with the equipment for
aviation.
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Thursday
Session T1C
Room UI6
9:00‐10:30
The Influence of IT&C and Biotechnology on the Evolution of Society
Dr. Cristina‐Maria Dabu, Romanian Committee of History and Philosophy of Science and
Technology
The development of science and technology in the actual society is characterized by two
major trends: interdisciplinarity and computerization. These two evolution trends, largely
due to the unprecedented development of IT&C and biotechnology fields, are influencing
the scientific and industrial research results complexity and also the speed of implementing
the results of this research in all industry and social fields.
From the 1950’s until today, the role of IT&C in society has become more prominent in all
fields of industry and research: medicine, pharmacy, industry, finance and banking, public
administration, education, research, aerospace, national security. In the same time, the
development of biotechnology, from 1970’s until now opens new perspectives in medicine
and life sciences.
The advances in bioinformatics, programming technology and computer systems made
possible to store and analyze large amounts of biological data. These advances in
bioinformatics lead to models that are helpful in analysing, interpreting and even predicting
the genotype–phenotype relationship and lead to major results in medicine and pharmacy.
New approaches in intellectual property and patenting biotech industry inventions are
considering not only to speed up the patenting procedure in order to insert the new
technologies into the market and industry, it also seeks to avoid excessive patenting and
unjustified increase of costs for related scientific research.
In the same time, a series of research in the field of biotechnology and biosciences, raises a
variety of ethical and bioethical issues that should be analyzed in terms of legal doctrine so
that economic interests do not violate fundamental human rights.
The transfer of a considerable amount of daily activity in the IT&C environment inherently
required to an equivalent volume of data transferred in the same informational
environment, which led to the emergence and expansion of the criminal phenomenon in the
IT&C environment.
Technological evolution of contemporary society caused major changes in the ethical
principles, protecting them and protecting fundamental human rights represent serious
challenges for national and international legal systems and for the entire human society.
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Turning Points in Technological Development in Thursday
Session T2A
Romania from the Mid‐19th Century to Nowadays: Room UI2
4. Brasov Industry 11:00‐12:30
Organiser & Chair: Alexandre Herlea, Technical University Belfort
Montbéliard, France
The 20th Century Political Impact on Brasov Industry, Romania. Employees
Testimonies (in French)
Lecturer Mircea Ivanoiu, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
Le contenu de cette communication résulte d’une série de conversations avec d’anciens
employés industriels de la ville de Braşov. Les récits commencent pratiquement au moment
de la nationalisation et vont jusqu’au retour à un système de production capitaliste, après
1990.
Les personnes interrogées occupaient différentes positions dans la hiérarchie de l’entreprise
et cela explique les points de vue différents par rapport aux événements sociaux, à la
technologie et au management, par rapport à la politique des cadres et à la stratégie de
développement de l’industrie, etc. A présent, celles‐ci regardent leur propre trajet
professionnel, les événements d’après 1990, suite à un certain éloignement temporel, avec
moins d’implication affective, ce qui mène à une analyse (comparaison) plus objective de la
culture industrielle dans la société roumaine.
Une partie des interlocuteurs détient une bonne information sur les réalités contemporaines
dans le milieu industriel, même après leur retraite officielle.
Braşov et ses alentours (Râşnov, Zărneşti, Codlea, Săcele) forment une région qui depuis plus
de 150 ans représente la plus grande concentration industrielle de Roumanie, une région
avec une riche tradition de l’industrie (surtout les constructions de machines et industrie
lourde).
La collecte du matériel (les interviews) s’est déroulée d’après les règles les plus strictes de
l’histoire orale, le point de départ commun est représenté par un paquet de questions
d’intérêt pour le thème, mais, pour protéger le style coulant (la fluidité) du récit, on a laissé
à l’interlocuteur la liberté de développer ses idées préférées autour de la question. Les
questions centrales de la collection de récits portent sur la production et les produits de
l’entreprise, les clients et bénéficiaires les plus connus, le progrès technologique et la
dotation en équipements, les innovations, la qualité des produits, le management..., l’impact
des relations interpersonnelles et professionnelles dans le climat de l’entreprise.
De ces témoignages sont extraits et mis en évidence les éléments communs des histoires
vécues afin de les comparer et les interpréter par rapport à l’histoire officielle. Cela permet
d’apporter un nouvel éclairage sur l’évolution de Brasov et ses environs placés dans le
contexte national, voire européen.
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Thursday
Session T2A
Room UI2
11:00‐12:30
The Transformation of the Largest Aircraft Factories of Romania in Tractors
Factory as Result of the Soviet Occupation (in French)
Lecturer Horia Salca, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
Après avoir rappelé la création en 1925 et l’essor de „Industrie Aéronautique Roumaine”
(I.A.R.) la plus performante usine de Roumanie pendant la période de l’entre deux guerres la
communication analyse en détail deux périodes de profond bouleversement de celle‐ci. La
première dans le contexte de l’occupation de la Roumanie par les soviétiques et
l’instauration de la dictature communiste, voit la transformation de l’IAR en usines de
tracteurs. La deuxième, après décembre ’89 dans le processus de la sortie du communisme,
se caractérise par une longue agonie de l’usine qui se termine par sa liquidation.
Jusqu’à la fin de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale l’IAR produit plus de 1200 appareils dont plus
de la moitié de conception propre et l’autre sous licence : PZL (Pologne), Fleet (U.S.), Savoia
Marchetti and Nardi (Italie), Fiesler Storch and Messerschmitt (Allemagne).
La Convention de l’armistice avec les soviétiques était très sévère et n’était que le
commencement d’une suite de crimes (liquidation des élites) et d’abus. Parmi ces dernières
la confiscation à titre de dédommagements (suivi par la nationalisation) de certaines
entreprises industrielles, la suppression ou le changement d’affectation pour d’autres, etc.
Ce dernier cas est illustré à merveille par l’IAR. Dès 1946, elle a changé de spécialisation,
fabriquant désormais des tracteurs. Le premier a été l’IAR‐22, un hybride entre Hanomag et
Lanz Bulldog, suivi par des modèles sur chenilles soviétiques, KD et KDS. Au commencement
de 1960, apparaissent sur le marché les premiers tracteurs de conception intégralement
roumaine, ainsi que des modèles ayant des moteurs Fiat. L’usine s’est développée,
atteignant une capacité de production de 32 000 tracteurs par an, ayant 24 000 employés.
Après décembre 1989, la situation de l’usine s’est détériorée sans cesse et souvent, les
salariés de l’usine sont sortis dans la rue pour exprimer leur mécontentement. En 2002, la
compagnie produisait encore 4000 tracteurs. En 2004, elle a été proche de la privatisation,
l’acheteur étant l’italien Landini. Pour différents raisons qu’on évoquera la privatisation n’a
pas eu lieu. En 2007, l’usine a été fermée, entrant dans un processus de liquidation, et ses
actifs ont été achetés par Flavus Invest SRL de Bucarest, détenu par le fond britannique
d’investissement Centera Capital Partener.
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Thursday
Session T2A
Room UI2
11:00‐12:30
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IXth Annual Symposium on the Social History of Thursday
Session T2B
Military Technology: 4 Room UI3
Organiser: Barton Hacker, National Museum of American History, 11:00‐12:30
Washington, USA
Chair: Ciro Paoletti, Italian Commission of Military History (CISM), Rome,
Italy
The Norwegian Army Air Force and the Fighter Question, 1920‐1934
Researcher Frode Lindgjerdet, Norwegian University of Science and Technology,Trondheim,
Norway
A military review in the wake of WWI was to give the background for the build‐up of the
Norwegian Fighter weapon. Frequent change of government ensured that a political decision
was not reached until 1927. During 1929, the Army Air Force’s Construction Committee
decided that new fighter had to be all‐metal construction. The maneuverable single‐seat
concept was favored over the sturdy double‐seat fighter with additional, dirigible firepower
as the former was better tested and different types more available. A separate Fighter
Commission was commissioned to seek out a specific fighter model. As a minor power
without a much of a domestic aviation industry to consider, Norway could scanned the
international markets for the best models. However, in order to safeguard jobs and minimize
the monetary outflow resulting from the acquisitions, the Norwegian parliament decided
that any new fighters had to be fitted with an engine that the Naval Munitions Factory
happened to have a license to produce. Four Armstrong‐Withworth Schimitar was purchased
with license to manufacture additional aircraft domestically as it was the only model found
that could be fitted with the engine without increasing fuel consumption, impair upon the
balance of the construction or hamper its overall performance. However, the Scimitar had a
faulty undercarriage that was prone to collapse, especially if fitted with skis. In addition, the
collaboration with the Armstrong‐Withworth company went sour and the contract was
cancelled. The four aircraft acquired never got operational.
Outside the Norwegian context, this paper is first; another example of the negative
consequences of letting economic considerations trump operational ones. Second; it marks a
watershed when Norway as a minor power with limited industrial base could no longer rely
on domestic resources in R&D and production of military aircraft.
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Thursday
Session T2B
Room UI3
11:00‐12:30
Man‐Machine Relationships: British and German Fighter Aces in World War II
Professor Hans‐Joachim Braun, Helmut‐Schmidt Universität, Hamburg, Germany
“Fighter Aces” in the two World Wars have received much attention, not least in popular
literature and in the movies. Their bravery and sometimes chivalry was the subject of many,
often questionable, publications. But what about their tools, their aircraft? Here, too, the
literature is extensive, particularly in English. Regarding the relationship between pilots and
aircraft, however, we are less well served: Literature on this is distinctly thin and there are
no comparative studies on this issue.
My paper makes an attempt to tap into this field. It is to an extent based on interviews with
World War II pilots and their assessment of two prominent British and German aircraft, the
Supermarine Spitfire and the ME 109. Regarding pilots, two World War II “fighter aces” are
in the forefront, Douglas Bader and Hans‐Joachim Marseille. Based on the present state of
my research, my thesis is that the differences between British and German fighter pilots and
contemporary observers regarding man‐machine relationships were small. It seems,
however, that in Germany there was a bias towards emphasizing the spirit and character of
the pilot who, if needs be, would be able to make up for any deficiencies in the machine.
This idea was in line with and fuelled by Nazi propaganda. Interestingly enough that view
was and still is echoed in English language literature on German War Aces; it obviously sells.
Of course, Britain had their fighter ace heroes, too, but they seemed to have had a more
“functional” role in the context of a team composed of humans, aircraft, infrastructure etc.
But this is no more than a thesis to be explored further in the framework of relevant
theoretical approaches in the history of technology such as actor‐network theory,
technological determinism and others. Summary of major conclusions? We shall see by the
end of July. There are still six months to go and we want to be up to date, don`t we?
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Thursday
Session T2B
Room UI3
11:00‐12:30
The Military‐Technological Revolution of 1944
Professor David Zimmerman, University of Victoria, Canada
In the context of the history of the Second World War, the year 1944 marks the final decisive
battles that secured Allied victory a year later. In the history of warfare, however, 1944 is not
the beginning of the end, but the start of one of the most significant transitions in the
technology, tactics, and strategy used in conflict. The list of new types of weapons systems
and related technologies deployed in significant numbers for the first time is staggering: the
first jet aircraft (Me262 and Gloster Meteor); ballistic and cruise missiles ( A‐3 and V‐1);
proximity fuses; snorkel equipped and underwater high speed submarines; integrated
submarine killing sonar/underwater mortar systems (Type 247B/Squid); electronic
computers (Colossus); and the assault rifle (Sturmgewehr 44). Missing from this list, of
course, is the atomic bomb, but by the end of 1944 the scientists at Los Alamos had solved
all scientific and technical issues related to building a practical device. Remarkably, none of
these technologies played a significant role in the outcome of the war.
My paper will explore the roots of this military/technological revolution and examine the
ramifications of the introduction of so many new technologies for post war military planning,
research, development, and doctrine. It will provide new insights into the nature of military
and technological innovation during the war. Finally, I will compare the technological
revolution of 1944 to the one that occurred at the end of the First World War. I will provide
a brief analysis of how the uncertainty concerning the value of relatively untried weapons
influenced both the interwar and post‐Second World War periods.
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“The Dark Side of Technology”: Technology and Thursday
Session T2C
Illness since the Nineteenth Century: Room UI6
1. Technological Hazards 11:00‐12:30
Organiser & Chair: Amelia Bonea, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Technology and medicine are intimately connected. Particularly since the nineteenth
century, technology has often been hailed as an instrument of progress and modernization
and has played a central role in the development of medical theory and practice, making
diseases recognizable and curable. Yet, the invention and use of technologies has also been
surrounded by scepticism and anxiety, with new technologies often generating new
concerns and risks of disease. This panel will focus not on technology as a “cure” of disease,
but rather on technology as a (potential) cause of physical and mental illness. We are looking
for papers that will investigate health concerns associated with the proliferation and use of
various technologies, from medical technology such as vaccines and medical devices to
industrial technologies to technologies of transport and communication. Possible topics
include, but are not limited to: epidemics and travel, medical X‐rays and cancer risk,
technology and mental health, occupational health problems, musculoskeletal disorders and
technologies of communication. By examining case studies from a variety of geographical
and socio‐economic settings, the panel hopes to stimulate discussion of broader themes
such as the role of technology in creating medical knowledge, risk management and the
ethics of risk, and to identify common trends and divergences in health concerns associated
with technology over the last two centuries.
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Thursday
Session T2C
Room UI6
11:00‐12:30
“The Arm Troubles of Telegraphers”: Historical Perspectives on Technologies
of Communication and Repetitive Strain Injuries
Dr. Amelia Bonea, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
The unprecedented development and proliferation of technologies of communication during
the last decades has led to significant changes in work and lifestyle patterns, with more and
more people suffering from repetitive strain injuries as a result of excessive typing and the
use of a computer mouse. But such afflictions are far from new. During the nineteenth
century, another technology of communication, the telegraph, generated health concerns of
a strikingly similar nature. Known as “telegraphist’s cramp”, this nineteenth‐century
repetitive strain injury belonged to a group of disorders which also included “writer’s
cramp”, a condition prevalent among writers and the clerical strata. The symptoms were
pain, numbness and tingling of the arm and wrist, and, in severe cases, even paralysis of the
fingers. The medical and popular discourse of the time often described the use of the Morse
telegraphs as a possible cause for "telegraphist's cramp". By the end of the nineteenth
century, instances of cramp had reached almost epidemic proportions in Britain and in 1908
it became the first chronic disorder to be deemed compensable under the Workmen’s
Compensation Act. The disease was also reported in the United States and Australia, where
the use of automatic dot machines was suggested as a possible remedy.
Using the example of “telegraphist’s cramp”, this paper will provide a historical perspective
on technologies of communication as a cause of repetitive strain injuries, showing how the
etiology of the cramp has oscillated between a “disease of the body” and a “disease of the
mind” since the late nineteenth century. Furthermore, the paper will show how medical
knowledge about this condition was circumscribed by contemporary ideas about what it
meant to live and work in a modern, technologically advanced society. Unlike traditional
infectious diseases, “telegraphist’s cramp” was a condition with diverse symptoms, whose
specific lesions were difficult to identify. Thus, especially in the period before WWI, there
was a strong belief that the disorder had an underlying psychological component, affecting
people of an anxious, nervous disposition, who were unable to adapt to the frenetic pace of
modern life.
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Thursday
Session T2C
Room UI6
11:00‐12:30
“What the Great Majority of Patients Require is Letting Alone”: The Uses of
Technology in the Asylum
Dr. Jennifer Wallis, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
The late nineteenth century saw the proliferation of graphical methods in science and
medicine, particularly within the field of physiology. Instruments to measure the pulse
especially captured the imagination of medical practitioners. The sphygmograph of Étienne‐
Jules Marey was a notable example, fitting onto the wrist and recording the wearer’s pulse
by means of an attached pen.
The sphygmograph promised to reveal the innermost workings of the human body and was
put to use by a number of asylum practitioners in the hope of mapping the characteristic
pulse forms of various mental diseases. Employing such technology proved difficult in the
asylum, however. The excitable nature of many patients necessitated modifications such as
the strapping of the instrument to the arm, whilst the excitement or anxiety of others
prevented doctors from applying the instrument at all.
This paper will consider how the sphygmograph was employed within the asylum,
particularly how its presence as a medical object could problematize the very objectivity it
was intended to provide. The instrument’s tendency to inspire ‘horror and fear’ in its
subjects had clear implications for the assessment of patient’s mental states, the medical
knowledge that resulted from physiological investigation, and the boundaries between
physiology and psychology. In assessing mental states in this way, doctors were forced to
address how mental illness could be both a physiological fact (an unusual pulse form)
measurable by an instrument and a changeable condition dependent upon external factors
(fear of medical examination). The paper will also address how the instrument impacted
upon patient experiences, both in the immediate examination and via subsequent drug
treatments to alter the pulse, where broader issues were raised such as the applicability of
general hospital methods to the asylum context and the therapeutic value of physiological
investigation.
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Thursday
Session T2C
Room UI6
11:00‐12:30
Sunlight at the Flick of a Switch: The Risky Consumption of Ultraviolet Lamps,
c.1900‐1940
Dr. Tania Woloshyn, University of Warwick, United Kingdom
Harnessing light for therapeutic use during the early twentieth century was a risky business,
but a course of action perceived to have enormous individual and public benefit. This paper
will explore medical and popular perceptions of ultraviolet radiation through the ephemera
of lamp manufacturers, c.1900‐1940. It focuses especially on the selling and consuming of
carbon arc and mercury vapour lamps by the British manufacturers Hanovia, Perihel and the
Thermal Syndicate. While both of these types of lamps were available for therapeutic use at
the turn of the century, by the 1920s manufacturers began to modify them for prophylactic
and therapeutic home use, making them conveniently portable in size and advertising them
directly to consumers.
Some physicians and nurses celebrated the public’s access to ultraviolet lamps for private
use; others vehemently protested it. Accounts of severe burns, electric shocks and even
death by ultraviolet lamps in medical and popular press publications challenged and
complicated the supposed blind faith of practitioners in the rays’ powers to regenerate the
body. This would only be compounded by early reports warning of ultraviolet light’s
carcinogenic abilities, appearing in medical journals as early as 1925.
This paper offers a unique contextualisation of this understudied history by close analysis of
manufacturers’ illustrated pamphlets, user manuals and the lamps themselves. In particular
it will analyse photomontage as a vanguard method to represent the invisible rays of
ultraviolet light, comparing these with representations of other forms of therapeutic
radiation ‐ X‐rays and radium ‐ in contemporaneous visual culture. In doing so it looks to
images and objects as points of entry into light therapy’s contentious past, connecting the
ultraviolet lamp to the atom bomb.
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Thursday
Session T2C
Room UI6
11:00‐12:30
“One of those electric outfits put on the market by quacks”: Overbeck’s
Rejuvenator and the British Medical Association, 1924‐1937
Dr. James Stark, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Although historians have shown that relationships between the body, medicine and the
force of electricity have been complex and multi‐layered, many avenues remain to be
explored. One of the most prominent of these is the way in which electrotherapy
technologies were marketed to a wide variety of different end users and intermediaries. This
paper offers the first historical analysis of one such device – the Overbeck Rejuvenator – a
1920s electrotherapy machine designed for use by the general public. Its inventor, Otto
Overbeck, was not a medical man, but a brewer’s chemist, and this enabled him to use
aggressive strategies of newspaper advertising, using testimonials to market his product
alongside appeals to his own scientific authority. He commissioned the prestigious Ediswan
Company to manufacture the Rejuvenator on a large scale, and took out patents in eleven
countries to persuade users of the efficacy of the device. In response to Overbeck’s
activities, the British Medical Association enlisted an electrical engineer to examine the
Rejuvenator to determine whether it was safe, alerted practitioners whose endorsements
were being used in publicity material, and denied Overbeck permission to advertise in the
British Medical Journal. Despite the almost wholly negative response from the BMA, the
Rejuvenator brought its inventor wealth and notoriety, and helped redefine the concept of
“rejuvenation”, even if the professional reception of such a device was almost universally
hostile. This paper shows how the marketing, patenting and publishing strategies of
Overbeck combined to persuade members of the laity to try the Rejuvenator as an
alternative form of therapy even though it was privately rubbished by professional bodies
representing mainstream medicine.
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Modern Versus Traditional? Core and Peripheries in Thursday
Session T2D
the Transport and Communication Infrastructural Room UI7
Process: 1. National peripheries 11:00‐12:30
Organiser & Chair: Simone Fari, Universidad de Granada, Spain
Up to now, the gaze from the core towards the periphery has been shaped by “coloniality,”
whether of the classic colonialist/imperialist type, or of the more recent type governed by
population experts (Boatcă 2006). This is not only the case for ‘obvious’ targets like India or
Latin America, but also applies to the European fringes as the recent emotional debates
around Greece and Cyprus testify. This is largely the case also in infrastructural systems,
both of communication and of transport, which leads us to question the role of the concept
of periphery (and its core) on infrastructural networks (defined in a very broad sense) in
producing, reinforcing, smoothing, alleviating or revealing the concept of core (and cores)
and periphery (peripheries). We would like to go beyond the distinction between core and
periphery as defined in terms of time (modern versus traditional; civilized versus primitive)
and political agenda (progressive versus backward), and move to a more innovative
approach, such as, for instance, gender (masculine versus feminine), number (cores and
peripheries), and contamination (how peripheries accept, adapt and twist incoming models,
and how this altered examples are bouncing back to the cores). The question, then, is: What
set (and sets) this periphery apart? And are periphery and core (still used within the
discipline of World History) really the right terms to indicate these differences? (Wolfe 2010)
In this vein, peripheral can have a double entendre. Peripheral can be applied
geographically, in which infrastructures follow stereotyped models, which are disseminated
from a geographical core to peripheries. But “peripheral” can be also understood as
presence of different layers of infrastructural systems in the same place, in which some
networks are hidden, marginal or silent, and others are revealed. Finally, “peripheral” can
refer to under‐researched investigation paths: for this proposal, for instance, we stress the
need of a closer collaboration between transport historians and communication scholars.
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Thursday
Session T2D
Room UI7
11:00‐12:30
Semi‐Periphery in Transition: The Typology of the Greek State's Identification
in Relation with Automobility from the 1930s to the 2000s
Dr. Alexia‐Sofia Papazafeiropoulou, National Technical University of Athens, Greece
The categorization of the states as central, semi‐peripheral and peripheral as coined within
the world system analysis has been widely used for the exegesis of the geopolitical balances'
consolidation in relation with mobility. This approach is mainly based on the national states'
classification according to their economic power as well as their political influence. Still, as
far as mobility is concerned, such a dichotomy could be considered as oversimplifying, since
the mobility networks are related not only with economic and political but also with socio‐
cultural parameters. Moreover, the terms "center", "periphery", or "semi‐periphery" have
been characterized as somewhat vague even within the context of the world system
analysis, since they are used in order to describe a variety of heterogeneous cases.
Additionally, whereas centers and peripheries usually tend to be conceived as essentialist
and static, the characteristics on which such categorizations are based, can either change
over time, or they can be revisited. Regarding the above, the proposed paper aims to focus
on the construction of the Greek state's identification as a semi‐peripheral state in relation
with the mobility development from the 1930s to the 2000s. As the paper argues, the
specific case has had a transitional character in the geopolitical and geocultural map of
Europe throughout the examined period. Consequently, it is attempted to be conceptualized
within the context of the intercultural exchange of normative stereotypes between centers
and peripheries. In doing so, the paper aims to analyze this classification's typology as well as
the stereotypical representations it promotes as ontological characteristics, so as to better
understand if it provides the most adequate hermeneutic scheme for the understanding of
the geopolitical and geocultural dimension of the mobility networks. The main aim of the
paper is to contribute to the discussion concerning the transitional characteristics and the
power relations of the mobility infrastructural process which determine the categorization of
societies.
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Thursday
Session T2D
Room UI7
11:00‐12:30
High Speed Trains in a Peripheral Country: the Italian Railway System
between Revitalization, Modernization, and Polarization
Professor Andrea Giuntini, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy
Italy is the country in Europe in which, more than any other, the degree of road traffic
saturation leads to a forced reorientation of the overall transport organization. The Italian
infrastructure system now has a particularly high level of imbalance, generating
malfunctions. There is, in fact, a real competition between road and rail, except in the case
of over long distances and poor goods; road transport dominates, presenting a greater
versatility and the weight that has assumed is not reflected in any European experience. In
addition, the Italian railway system from the beginning of the new century presents worrying
polarization characteristics: on the one hand there is High Speed, which receives most of the
investments – the top of the system – on the other hand local trains networks, on which it is
more and more difficult to travel. The current conditions must be explained largely on the
basis of history: the lack of coordination between various operators of the transport system
and between the several modes is the core of the question. In particular the origins are in
the political and economic choices taken after the second World War, when the push to
motoring was too strong and the road transport was really favored in terms of lack of a
precise regulation. Despite a fluctuating attention was destined to it, with continuous and
exhausting “stop and go”, High Speed has been the only attempt to revitalize the railway
system in Italy in the last thirty years, introducing for many extents a high level of
modernization. The first steps in this direction were made with the implementation of the
Pendolino, the first tilting train, completed in 1971.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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Thursday
Session T2D
Room UI7
11:00‐12:30
A railway “Flowers bridge”. Iasi‐Ungheni‐Chisinau Railway (1876‐2011)
Mr. Andrei Berinde, S.C. RC‐CF TRANS S.R.L., Brasov, Romania
A track with an extreme strategic and economic importance, having the purpose to provide a
connection between Lemberg – Cernăuţi – Suceava – Paşcani – Iaşi and Odessa – Razdelnaia
– Tighina – Chişinău main lines and to facilitate the commercial links between the Austrian‐
Hungarian Empire and the Russian ports from the Black Sea's shore, the broad gauge (1524
mm.) Iaşi – Chişinău railway was built between 1871 and 1876 by the Russian Company for
Navigation and Commerce (Chişinău – Ungheni Prut section) and by Grigore Heliad
Enterprise (Iaşi – Ungheni section).
The first ideas concerning the opening of a railway link between Romania and the Tsarist
Empire appeared during the reign of Alexandru Ioan Cuza, the future international
connexion project being discussed during the bilateral meeting between the Tzar Alexander
III and Price Carol I, that took place on August 14th 1869, on the occasion of the Romanian
Ruler's visit in Crimea.
In the spring of 1871, the Russian Company for Navigation and Commerce begun the
building of Chişinău – Ungheni Prut railway, the line being completed on June 1st 1875.
In the spring of 1873, the Romanian private building enterprise of Engineer Grigore Heliad
begun to build the 21 km. of Iaşi – Ungheni railway, which was officially opened a year later,
on August 1st 1874.
Although Iaşi – Chişinău railway's building was completed on June 1st 1875, the actual link
between Romania and the Tsarist Empire was only possible starting from February 12th
1876, the day when the first track trials train crossed the bridge over Prut river, which was
officially opened a month later, on March 19th 1876.
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Turning Points in Technological Development in Thursday
Session T3A
Romania from the mid‐19th century to nowadays: Room UI2
5. Railway & Navy 14:00‐15:30
Organiser: Alexandre Herlea,
Chair: Toader Popescu, Universitatea de Arhitectură și Urbanism Ion
Mincu, Bucharest, Romania
The Romanian Railways during Two Transition Periods:
1945‐1960 and 1989‐2014 (in French)
Mr. Radu Robert Bellu
La première ligne de chemin de fer construite sur le territoire de la Roumanie d’aujourd’hui
est le “Simeringul Banatean” la ligne Oravita ‐ Anina ouverte pour le transport du charbon le
20 août 1854, ce qui fait d’elle la 13ème ligne construite en Europe. Avec ses 22.250 kms de
voies ferrées (8585 kms électrifiées) la Roumanie d’aujourd’hui occupe la 7ème place en
Europe.
Jusqu’en 1945, les chemins de fer en Roumanie ont été marqués par les guerres dont la
Deuxième Guerre Mondiale qui les a fortement affectés et par la concurrence de
l’automobile qui, entre les deux guerres mondiales, a commencé à les concurrencer et qui a
déterminé une modification substantielle des techniques d’administration de ceux‐ci.
Dans la période 1945‐1960 les chemins de fer ont du être reconstruits après les grandes
destructions dues à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale (1900 kms de voies, 1800 ponts, 22 tunnels
et plus d’un million de m2 de bâtiments) et s’adapter au régime communiste installé par
l’occupant soviétique. La direction générale des chemins de fer roumains a pris en charge les
travaux de reconstruction et dans la dernière étape de cette période a lancé les travaux pour
le début de l’électrification des chemins de fer : sources d’énergie, stations de traction et
locomotives électriques
Dans la période 1989‐2014 caractérisée elle aussi par un changement de régime politique,
notamment le retour de la Roumanie à la démocratie et à l’économie de marché, les
chemins de fer ont connu des changements profonds dus essentiellement aux transferts de
technologie. Sont ainsi modernisées les installations de centralisation des aiguillages des
voies, les outillages d’entretien des voies et le remplacement des locomotives à vapeur par
des locomotives diesel et électriques construites sous licence dans le pays. Dans la deuxième
partie de cette période, font aussi leur apparition les opérateurs privés dans le transport
ferroviaire de marchandises et de voyageurs.
Les aspects techniques, administratifs et économiques de toutes ces évolutions seront
présentés dans cette communication.
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Thursday
Session T3A
Room UI2
14:00‐15:30
Aspects of Romanian Navy Evolution, of its Harbours and Industry from 1860
to Nowadays (in French)
Dr. Carmen Atanasiu, Romanian Naval League, Romania
La Marine Roumaine est née avec la création de l’Etat roumain moderne, mise en place suite
à trois événements déterminants: l’union des Principautés Roumaines (1859), la montée sur
le trône de Carol I (1866) et la conquête de l’Indépendance suite à la guerre de 1877‐1878.
Celle‐ci a comme conséquence le retour de la Roumanie sur les bords de la Mer Noire
accédant à un littoral maritime de plus de 220 kms de long, fait d’importance capitale pour
le développement de la Marine Roumaine.
La communication portera sur : 1. Les ports fluviaux et maritimes. Dans les années 1870‐
1874, la Roumanie entreprend les premiers grands travaux techniques dans le port de
Giurgiu, sur le Danube et les ingénieurs français Larousselière, Desmaroux, et l’officier
ingénieur roumain Peiu feront dans le cadre du Service Hydraulique nouvellement créé les
premières études pour la modernisation des ports fluviaux. Suivent des travaux et des
constructions d’exception tels les silos des ports Galati et Braila (capacité 50 tonnes) pour la
construction desquels Anghel Saligny a utilisé parmi les premiers au monde le béton armé.
2. La marine militaire. Le 22 octobre 1860, les flottes militaires des deux principautés la
Moldavie et la Valachie, ont fusionné pour constituer un seul corps d’armée sous commande
unique.
3. La marine commerciale. Les premières institutions nationales de navigation ont été créées
à la fin du 19ème siècle : “la Navigation Fluviale Roumain” (1890) et “le Service Maritime
Roumain” (1895)
Après l’évocation de ces débuts, la communication présentera l’évolution de la Marine
Roumaine, des ports et de l’industrie navale sous les aspects techniques et scientifiques en
les plaçant dans le contexte politique et socio‐économique. On s’arrêtera notamment sur les
conséquences des deux guerres mondiales et des autres moments de rupture connus par la
Roumanie. Une attention particulière est accordée à l’époque communiste et à celle de la
transition d’après 1989.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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Thursday
Session T3A
Room UI2
14:00‐15:30
The Electrification of Railways in Romania
Lecturer Marius Daniel Calin, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
Mr. Dan Constantin Balan
Mr. Gheorghe Zaharie
The paper deals with following issues: the question on modernizing the railways by
electrification; the beginning of electrification of Romanian railways, the electrification of
Romanian railways during the communist regime 1965‐1989.
The first elements of electrification of railways in Romania have emerged since 1899, by
electrifying the narrow railway of the paper factory in Busteni. In 1913 is inaugurated the
electrified railway Arad‐Podgoria‐Ghioroc Piata‐Radna/Pancota, and the transportation is
provided by the motors „Green Arrow”, which had benzo‐electric traction on four axles with
Dion‐Buton motors to ensure the functioning of the generator of DC and the traction is
provided by the rear axle. The first project of electrification of the Romanian railways was
thought/designed since 1913 by the engineer I.S. Gheorghiu for the railway Bucuresti‐
Ploiesti‐Brasov.
During the period between the World Wars, under the command of the engineer Dimitrie
Leonida, the General Directorate of Railways was founded, based on the law 612/1942. New
projects and legal actions were initiated and new electric power plants were built to ensure
the power supply (hydro power plants from Dobresti, Galma‐Moroieni, Filipestii de Padure).
These projects were interrupted because of the outbreak of the second World War.
A new stage in electrification of the Romanian railwaysbegins in 1951, when the Ministry
Committee of electrification decided to stop the electrification works for the railways
Bucuresti‐Poiesti‐Brasov, starting with the line Brasov‐Predeal. They have adopted the
power supply system in alternativ current, mono‐phase (with the phase through wired air –
„catenary” and the neutral through rails) of 27 kV and the frequency of 50 Hz. In 1963 the
works to electrify the railway Brasov‐Predeal were interrupted, some technical samples were
begun. The Romanian government opened the action to purchase electric locomotives and
four offers were presented: Alsthom (France), Skoda (Czechoslovakia), VEB‐Lokomotivbau
Elektrotechnische Hennigsdorf (Germany), ASEA‐Vasterls (Swedena). The suppy contract was
signed with ASEA‐Vasterls‐Sweden (the locomotive isequipped with electronic systems with
silicon rectifiers), who purchased the license for these electric locomotives for the factories
Electroputere from Craiova. The first train hauled by an electric locomotive entered
Bucharest on February 16 1969, which meant finishing the electrification of the railway of
Ploiesti Vest‐Chitila – Bucureşti.
The paper also presents the implications of the electrification upon the social and
economical life in Romania.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
147
IXth Annual Symposium on the Social History of Thursday
Session T3B
Military Technology: 5 Room UI3
Organiser: Barton Hacker, National Museum of American History, 14:00‐15:30
Washington, USA
Chair: Ciro Paoletti, Italian Commission of Military History (CISM), Rome,
Italy
The Study of Information Technology Use in the Collection, Transmission and
Processing of Radiolocation Information
Dr. Ioan Gheorghe Ratiu, Military School of Air Force, Brasov, Romania
Radiolocation is the newest branch in radio technology, the radar method has emerged
before World War II, but it developed especially during the great conflagration, having by
then applications almost exclusively in the military field. Later, due to remarkable
performances and possibilities, radiolocation started to be utilized more and more in civilian
activities, from geology to astronomy and space domains, decisively contributing to the
scientific successes of our contemporary society.
Presently, the large‐scale use of information technology in radiolocation, allows processing
(collecting, processing and transmission) the enormous volume of radiolocation‐related data
and information of civil and military purpose (the integration degree of the two domains is
greater and greater) which are utilized in the present. Nowadays, an efficient management
of an extremely crowded air‐space is no longer possible without utilizing the 3D type high‐
resolution modern radars and integrated systems for command, control, computers,
communications and information which operate in real‐time with guaranteed
trustworthiness, accuracy and safety of delivered information to the local and international
beneficiaries.
Utilizing information technology in collecting, processing and transmitting the radiolocation
data has been approached in this thesis, wishing to bring a few modest contributions to a
field of large interest for the academic and civil communities with important preoccupations
and achievements. The problematic of utilizing information technology in the sense of the
approached theme is not exhausted at all, but on the contrary, there are foreseen new
perspectives due to the technological offensive without precedent which currently take
place.
The scientific research activity has been centered upon the following main ideas: clarifying
radiolocation basic theoretic notions; numerical processing of radiolocation signals; utilizing
and developing IT solutions; implementing modern information systems for air‐space
management.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
148
Thursday
Session T3B
Room UI3
14:00‐15:30
Postwar Medical Use of Infrared Technology in the USSR
Professor Vasily Borisov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Dr. Igor Y. Kudryavtsev, All‐Russian Electrotechnical Institute named after V.I. Lenin,
Moscow, Russia
Dr. Igor V. Ovcharov, All‐Russian Electrotechnical Institute named after V.I. Lenin, Moscow,
Russia
Dr. Anatoly N. Panibratets, All‐Russian Electrotechnical Institute named after V.I. Lenin,
Moscow, Russia
As in many other countries, before and during the Second World War, the Soviet Union
conducted intensive defense research . In peacetime, the results of these studies have been
used successfully for the benefit of people. Let us follow the example of this infrared
technology.
The first samples of the Soviet infrared (IR) night vision goggles (NVG) were created in the
late 30s . Twentieth century, the All‐Union Electrotechnical Institute (VEI , Moscow) and the
State Optical Institute (GOI, Leningrad) . They perceived radiation near‐infrared (0.7 ‐ 1.5
microns) and worked in active mode. Since the beginning of 1941 was organized by the serial
production of navigation devices IR "Gamma ‐ VEI" and supply them to the Black Sea Fleet.
These devices provide covert wiring ships at night. During the defense of Sevastopol it
helped save a lot of ships that evacuated civilians and wounded. In the late 50’s VEI in GOI
created the first Soviet thermal imagers. They recorded their own picture of the thermal
radiation of objects and work in passive mode in the range of 3 ‐ 5 microns. They were
initially designed for military purposes, but after a few years the leaders of development
Peter V. Timofeev and Mikhail М. Miroschnikov convinced Soviet leaders to release medical
thermal imagers, which played a major role in the diagnosis of cancer and other diseases.
During these years, the American inventor of Russian origin Vladimir Kozmich Zworykin also
worked in the field of medical electronics. Information was taken from publicly available
literature, as well as from the archives VEI and personal archives PV Timofeev.
Currently, the Russian manufacturer of medical imagers is the firm " IRTIS." Scientific school
of the USSR andRussia photonics and infrared technology over the years has achieved a lot.
Their work as successors in VEI and GOI and many other institutions and enterprises,
supporting and developing the national scientific and technical potential, increased not only
the defense, but the quality of people's lives.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
149
Thursday
Session T3B
Room UI3
14:00‐15:30
How Sweden Learned to Worry about the Bomb and Stopped Loving It
Ph.D. candidate Petter Wulff, Independent Scholar, Sweden
Cold War Sweden made a complete turn regarding the atom bomb. In the 1950s it was seen
as a new and powerful weapon that would strengthen the national defence capability.
Around 1960 doubts arose, and from then on Sweden became steadily more disenchanted
with the new weapon. It was a remarkable transition from a near‐nuclear to an anti‐nuclear
stance.
Leading both the pro‐nuclear and the skeptic movement was the Air Force. The point to be
made here is that technology itself was in transition and changed the prospects for the
service. This made the Air Force go in a few years from pro to skeptic. The Air Force in turn
influenced the view of the dominant political party, the Social Democrats, which became
skeptic to the value of acquiring atom bombs.
If the impact on the military and political arenas was rather swift, the military research arena
was slower to respond. The research organization for nuclear weapons was built up while
the military and political support was already on the wane. This, however, meant that an
impressive research competence could be harnessed to a new goal – nuclear disarmament!
If Sweden had not come close to developing its own nuclear bombs, it might not have had
the expertise necessary to challenge the arguments of the nuclear powers and force them to
accept concessions in their weapons development plans.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
150
“The Dark Side of Technology”: Technology and Thursday
Session T3C
Illness since the Nineteenth Century: 2. Impact of Room UI6
Mentality on Well‐being 14:00‐15:30
Organiser & Chair: Amelia Bonea, University of Oxford, United Kingdom
Technological Delusions as a Reflection of the Atmosphere of War:
Narratives of Gas, Radio and Magnetism in German and Israeli Psychiatry
during the 20th Century
Ph.D. candidate Maria Christina Müller, Universität Augsburg, Germany
Dr. Dana Tzur Bitan, Shalvata Mental Health Hospital, Tikva, Israel
Dr. Lars Hornuf, Ludwig‐Maximilians‐Universität München, Munich, Germany
The fear of invisible forces is present in the everyday life of ordinary people. Recent
examples include the perceived risk of terrorist attacks, the omnipresent video surveillance
and the impact of electromagnetic fields. The paper examines such hidden forces from a
historical and cross‐cultural perspective. Medical records from psychiatric hospitals
document narratives and associations of ‘hidden powers’. These phantasms are the internal
pictures of external concepts and artifacts, which the patients perceive as real. The public
discourse—i.e. social and cultural practices of society—shapes the themes of delusional
scenarios. Thus, phantasms of ‘hidden powers’ are subject to historical, social and technical
change. They are formed by rituals of popular belief: the veneration of the saints, the
existence of heaven and hell, political and religious rulers, and technological invention.
For instance, World War I significantly reinforced the delusional perception of gas. The
threatening feeling of being monitored and influenced by others became relevant with the
beginning of the 20th century. Instead of God’s Eternal Eye—which is located behind the
heart—patients increasingly feared telephones, hypnosis and electricity. By examining the
narratives of delusional content in two different cultures, the paper analyses how delusional
scenarios of references to technological devices in Germany and Israel reflect the general
atmosphere of war. A random sample of 500 medical files from the psychiatry of Kaufbeuren
(Germany) and Shalvata Hospital (Israel) are examined and narratives described by
psychiatric patients will be analyzed.
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151
Thursday
Session T3C
Room UI6
14:00‐15:30
Oh God Make Me Slim, Make Me Beautiful: The Side‐Effects of Slimming
Capsules in India – A Case Study
Dr. Tinni Goswami Bhattacharya, Calcutta University, India
The essential theme of this paper is to highlight the side effects of slimming capsules which
have a wide market in India. As a result of globalization, Indian women have become more
health conscious and their lust for a toned and trim figure is a well‐known fact. Nowadays
almost every woman wants a makeover from fat to fabulous. Even men have also joined in
this race for having a hot bod.
There are certain scientific procedures like a balanced diet, physical exercises and the usage
of the gym instruments recommended for reducing weight under medical supervision. But
the majority have no time and intention to try these methods. Rather they are highly
influenced by the gimmicks of the giant drug manufacturing companies who always want to
make a huge profit by establishing a wholesale market of slimming capsules. Sometimes they
hire popular actors or models to promote their products.
We all know that slimming pills, an example of advanced medical technology, can cause
insomnia, constipation, euphoria, increased blood pressure and heart rate and many more.
The long‐term use of this drug can lead to mental disorders like nervousness and
restlessness. In India the level of awareness regarding this issue is barely present. The role of
the Government in this matter is also insignificant as in any health reports the above‐
mentioned topic has never been highlighted. The silence of the Indian media is a matter of
concern and apart from a few articles in medical journals the evidence of prior research is
non‐existent. The present researcher aims to expose the Indian scenario and add a new
chapter to the history of health studies in post‐colonial India.
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152
Thursday
Session T3C
Room UI6
14:00‐15:30
Transitioning to Targets: Demography and Population Policy in India,
1951‐1975
Ph.D. candidate Cathryn Johnston, King’s College London, United Kingdom
In the 1960s India began to chart a new course in population policy, a course that laid the
foundations for the highly coercive measures deployed in the name of population control a
decade later during the Emergency. Marked by a shift in birth control technologies – from
the encouragement of “natural” fertility control methods towards an increased reliance on
technological and surgical methods (particularly, the IUD and vasectomy) – it was in the
1960s that India began to create the medical and technological frameworks on which it
would later rely during the mass sterilization campaigns of the Emergency. The chief factor
influencing this transition during the 1960s was the introduction of Demographic Target
Setting. In the 1950s and early 1960s a new analytical framework – Demographic Transition
Theory – emerged at forefront of demography. DTT was primarily developed in the West but
was not chiefly implemented there. The policies that were most strongly influenced by DTT
were formed on, and implemented in, the underdeveloped countries of the “Third World”.
Accordingly, DTT not only shaped how the West saw India's population, but how India came
to understand its own population, a significant outcome of which was Demographic Target
Setting.
Looking to the work of Sripati Chandrasekhar, demographer and Union Minister for Health
and Family Planning, I will assess the role of demographic thinking and practice in informing
Indian population policy, and demonstrate how Demographic Target Setting set the stage for
coercion in the context of the domestic and international politics informing population policy
and demography. In doing so, I will re‐frame India's experiences with coercive population
policies, drawing attention to the understudied 1960s, and placing the events of the
Emergency into the context of the transnational policy making and the international
population control movement.
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153
Modern Versus Traditional? Core and Peripheries in Thursday
Session T3D
the Transport and Communication Infrastructural Room UI7
Process: 2. Colonial peripheries 14:00‐15:30
Organiser: Simone Fari, Universidad de Granada, Spain
Chair: Alexia‐Sofia Papazafeiropoulou, National Technical University of
Athens, Greece
Colonial Roads in Angola and Mozambique. Experts between Peripheries and
Centres
Dr. Luìsa Sousa, CIUHCT, New University of Lisbon, Portugal
Scholars within the Science and Technology in the European Periphery network have
proposed that, regarding technological and scientific peripheries, there should be a greater
emphasis on the history of appropriation, which means considering the receptor
environment active and acknowledging the point of view of the receivers, and studying this
history through its conflicts, namely those caused by different agendas of the actors
(political, technical, and others). [1] How does this concept might have worked in a European
periphery, such as Portugal, in its relation, as a centre, to its former colonies of Angola and
Mozambique? We answer this question by following road engineers from the metropolis in
their technical missions to these African peripheries, and how they adapted their discourse
on traffic engineering and economic development to a discourse on the “economic roads” to
be built in the colonies in the 1950s. By taking this approach we aim to challenge the
concept of appropriation and apply it to the mobility realm, bringing also an interpretation
of the dynamic relation between centres and peripheries.
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154
Thursday
Session T3D
Room UI7
14:00‐15:30
Travelling or Communicating? The False Dilemma of Mobility. Questions
about a Marginalized Issue
Professor Gabriele Balbi, University of Lugano, Switzerland
Dr. Massimo Moraglio, Technische Universität Berlin, Germany
Telecommunications are often claimed to be a way to strongly reduce travel and its negative
effects, in terms of time consumption, energy costs and infrastructural investments. This
happened during the 1970s in various European countries, when special emphasis was given
to the possibility of developing forms of tele‐working; that is, work carried out at a place
other than the traditional workplace (office, etc.) and, in particular, at home, permanently or
part‐time.
In‐depth reflection brought to light the potential advantages in terms of time saved by
reducing or eliminating travel time to and from work. Other areas of reflection regarded the
possibility of reducing energy consumption and atmospheric pollution through tele‐work.
Looking more closely, there are ‐ nonetheless ‐ controversial indications. While not a
complete failure, the results of the experiments in tele‐working were certainly less
encouraging than expected for both the companies and the workers involved. More in
general, we are facing an impressive increase of remote connections, but (physical)
connections as a whole are also increasing, so that the growth of virtual information does
not necessarily mean a reduction of transport needs. It is NOT, in other words, a zero‐sum
game.
Everyday indication supports the idea that remoteness both replaces and catalyzes mobility.
Low cost airline companies would not exist without an internet‐based selling system.
Lessons from history are even more convincing. The massive use of remote devices, such as
the telegraph, telephone, teletypewriter and fax ‐ not to mention television and radio ‐
increased the fluxes of virtual information, while the world was contemporaneously
experiencing a boost in physical traveling. Finally, statistical data shows how the per capita
distance travelled each day has increased in practically all the countries in the world in the
past decades, despite (or as an effect of) large use of remote connections.The paper here
proposed will explore this theme, trying to consider communications and transportations
not as mutually exclusive, but much often integrated. A special focus will be given to the
concept of “periphery”, both conceptually and geographically.
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155
Thursday
Session T3D
Room UI7
14:00‐15:30
Railway at the Core and Telegraph at the Periphery
Dr. Simone Fari, Universidad de Granada, Spain
In Europe, at the origins, telegraphy lived in symbiosis with railway. It is well known, this
symbiosis was either technical or economic. There was an economic symbiosis because
telegraph, as a fast communication, provides a good allocation of goods, while railways, as
fast medium, provide the transport of same goods. There was technical symbiosis because,
above all in UK, telegraphy was the security system of the railways and because,
everywhere, telegraph lines were installed along the railroad in order to improve the
maintenance of both railways and telegraph service.
The aim of the paper is to analyze a neglected aspect of this symbiosis: the constitution of a
new core/periphery dichotomy. For this reason, I consider two opposite study cases: the
origins of telegraph service in UK during the 40s of XIX century and the building of telegraph
network in Italy during the ’60 and ’70 of the same century. In the first case, the boom of
railway business obscured and limited the introduction of the telegraph service at national
level. The use of telegraphy as a railway security system supported its technological
development but delayed the introduction of the telegraph service. To resume, at the
beginnings, railway is the core of the national communication system used by all social
classes, inside and outside the cities, while telegraphy was the “periphery” of this system,
with few specific users (railway, business men and the press).
On the contrary, in the Post‐Unity Italy (after 1861) there was not any kind of national
communication infrastructure. Railways were too expensive and the building of a national
network was impossible during the ’60. For this reason, the telegraph was used as a virtual
arm of the state. In the absence of a good national communication system the government
pushed for the expansion of a low cost infrastructure: the telegraph network. Consequently,
during the ’70 few railroads connected the commercial centres of the North, the core, while
the telegraph reached the poor and political instable regions of the South, the periphery.
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Thursday
Session T3D
Room UI7
14:00‐15:30
Psycho‐Historical Review on Korean Visual Representation of New
Transportations in 1890‐1920: From Tradition toward a Modern Culture
under Foreign Colonial Occupation
Professor Jung Sook Bae, Technical University Belfort Montbéliard, France
Korean society started to change from traditional Confucian to new modern values in the
1890. After the Gabo reform movement between 1894 ‐1896, the modernization process
begun to take place. But the Chosun Dynasty was closed by the Japan‐Korean Annexation
Treaty in 1910. However, the modern movement in Korea continued under Japanese
Colonial rule.
The first railroad opened on September 18, 1899 from Jaemulpo to Yeongdeungpo (33 km).
Different new modern means of transport were introduced: train, bus, car, truck and bicycle.
They were presented to the public mostly through advertisements in daily newspapers.
In analyzing the communication press, this research studies the characteristics of visual
representation of new modern products under the control of a foreign power. Two main
daily newspapers, Dongailbo and Chosunilbo were explored. They were written mainly in
Korean using the Hangeul script, mixed with some Chinese and Japanese characters,
reflecting the multicultural historical context. The contents of communications were
analyzed in terms of images, pictures and texts. The contextual analysis was performed using
the psychological semiology scale, a development of the Osgood scale.
We found that communication for new transportation means in Korean newspapers was
implemented mainly through visual representations. They were aimed to transmit practical
information using westernized images and to get the commercial benefits. In contrast the
advertisements of other products such as kitchen appliances, food, beauty and medical
products were more intensively imbedded in the cultural assimilation policy using modern
attractive Japanese images in modern contexts. They were sometimes mixed with images
reflecting identity and traditional values of the Korean society. Based on these results, a
theory of culture is reviewed to conceptualize and understand the dynamics of a culture in
transition to new meaningful ways of life.
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Poster Session Thursday
Session T3E
Chair: Slawomir Lotysz, University of Zielona Gora, Poland Exhibition, Aula
14:00‐15:30
Making a Functional Replica of a 1924 Dr. TITUS Radio Set
Dr. Ionita Daescu, Proradioantic, Bucharest, Romania
Researcher Francisc Visky, Pro Radio Antic, Arad, Romania
The leading manufacturer of the superregenerative radios was the Romanian Titus
Konteschweller. Radios manufactured by Dr. TITUS dominated the profile market in the
period1923‐1930. The factory was located in Paris Rue of Wattignies, no. 69 XII
arrondissement.
They were very popular, winning numerous specialized international competitions. The most
important contest was won the contest organized by Radio News magazine in 1927. Radio
News Magazine occurs in New York in a monthly circulation of 350,000 copies. The first prize
was won by Titus Konteschweller. The second and third prizes were not awarded.
The poster will be illustrated with numerous documents of the time (advertisements articles,
presentations, magazines), most original.
In the poster will be illustrated with a rich graphic material, the rich work carried out by
members of the Association PRORADIOANTIC to achieve a replica of the Dr. TITUS radio from
1924. It shows the stages of achievement, namely: Documentation from '20s papers.
Romanian magazine Radiofonia, released in 1926 was used. In this magazine, Michael
Konteschweller brother Titus Konteschweller manufacturer, shows how to make the radio;
Procurement of materials and pieces; Development of a 3D model; Carrying on a
breadboard; Realization of mechanical parts; General installation and commissioning; This
poster shall be accompanied by a functional replica of the Dr. TITUS radio brand,
manufactured in 1924.
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Thursday
Session T3E
Exhibition, Aula
14:00‐15:30
Technological Trends in Estonian Industry during and after World War I and II
Ph.D. candidate Vahur Mägi, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia
Most important mineral resources in Estonia are oil shale and phosphate rock. Though
scientific research into these minerals started earlier, production began just at the end of
WW I. Although knowledge on oil shale as a fuel was poor, it had to be adopted as a source
of energy. In 1921, the first device for extracting oil was tested. It took four years to create
the technology and in 1925 the first big oil factory was launched. Close attention was
devoted to mechanisation of underground work. Oil shale chemistry became the most
rapidly developing trade due to large investments and intense international competition.
Quickly it was learned how to produce fuel oil, preservative solutions, varnish, bitumen,
asphalt, kerosene. The principal part of equipment used in oil shale industry was produced in
Estonia. Electric power stations all over the country used grate furnaces designed by
Estonian engineers. With the entry of the Red Army in autumn 1944, the oil shale industry
was seized by the Soviet occupation forces. The Sillamäe oil plant was reconstructed into a
top secret mining enterprise for producing uranium from dictyonema argillite found in
Northern Estonia alongside oil shale. Despite great efforts, only an insignificant amount of
uranium was extracted. Eventually, the industrial extraction of uranium from dictyonema
argillite was termed economically infeasible and the processing of argillite was terminated.
Oil shale output increased. By 1980, more oil shale was being mined than the consumers
required. Phosphate rock mining commenced and in 1923 a phosphate industry was
founded. Studies indicated the feasibility of Estonian phosphate raw material for the
production of superphosphate. Preparations were started for building a modern
superphosphate factory. The technology was to be imported from Germany. WW II
postponed the completion of the factory; only in 1956 did the superphosphate plant begin
production. In 1987, the search for new phosphate deposits initiated a mass “phosphate
war” against the Soviet occupation that eventually led to the demise of the phosphate
industry.
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Thursday
Session T3E
Exhibition, Aula
14:00‐15:30
Organizing Scientific and Technical Information During Communism: a Public
Library Perspective
Ph.D. candidate Claudia Serbanuta, University of Illinois, U.S.A.
Ms. Raluca Nutiu, Librarian at the Mures County Library, Romania
Socialist ideology imposed science and technology as leading fields in communist societies.
Educating people into understanding and engaging with these fields became a primary
interest after the Second World War. Various types of libraries were created to serve this
purpose but, by the early 70s, their punctual efforts proved insufficient. In a heavily
industrialized county, a public library took upon itself the role of managing the information
about the scientific and technical collections in the region.
This poster will analyze the methods and instruments employed by a technical branch of a
public library in communist Romania in order to encourage access to scientific information.
Paying attention to the industrial profile of the region and the reader’s interest in scientific
works, the public library created a dedicated branch for the science and technology
collection. Aiming at serving the informational needs of the community, librarians employed
classical methods but also created in house instruments to help them navigate the thematic
information: Librarians developed a keyword catalog (among the first of its kind in the
country) to help them answer reference questions and retrieve relevant materials from their
science and technology collection; Public librarians shared their expertise with other libraries
in the region: they created a shared catalog of technical books and published a newsletter
announcing new books; Thematic bibliographies were produced at the request of individual
readers or institutions; An international science and technology collective catalog for all
types of libraries from the region was developed and kept up to date by public librarians; To
learn about the public’s needs but also to target them when organizing public programs the
librarians created a user’s profession catalog; This poster will capture a glimpse of the
communist information culture through the analysis of the methods and tools used by
professional librarians. Sources that will be consulted include: the archive of the technical
branch library (where traces of these instruments are kept), oral histories shared by
librarians that worked there, articles in the periodicals of the time (local, national and
professional), analysis of the catalogs used by librarians.
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Thursday
Session T3E
Exhibition, Aula
14:00‐15:30
Source of Light and Color, Natural and Artificial, in the Perception of a Work
of Art
Ph.D. candidate Andrei Hrib, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Iasi, Romania
The importance of source of illumination of a work of art is on the nature of materials used
in the installation, the constituent materials. Metamerism ‐ a phenomenon that occurs with
changing spectral distribution of light, due to the change of the light source, the two objects
initially identical in terms of colour ‐ is a problem often encountered in the practice of
restoration, chromatic reintegration imitative, most exactly. If in restoration phenomenon
have negative connotations, in fine art can be a starting point in the development of new
works of art through a careful study of pigments and exposure conditions. Study of diffuse
reflectance spectra (DRS) is an important step in understanding metamerism and
applicability in the field of visual arts, and together with other concepts: manner, technique,
school and style can bring news in fine arts and painting can translate into what the stories
say: „in day with a face, in night with another”. The presentation will take a practical part of
achieving a painting by this method in an attempt to capture the phenomenon. Article
source is the practical problem of metamerism colour restoration restorative treated in the
books of optical spectroscopy and restoration science.
A perfect reintegration should not be observed using other sources of lighting conditions. In
practice, old pigments should be replaced by mixtures of pigments or synthetic dyes with
diffuse reflectance spectra as similar to those of the old paint layer, either because there are
no known techniques for the preparation or composition of ancient pigments, whether there
is sufficient information on painting techniques used. For a proper reintegration must take
into account a number of factors relating to the texture, spreading, transparency and colour
of the paint layer. Similarity of colour in a restored work should be ensured by the three
basic characteristics of colour: hue, brightness and saturation.
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Thursday
Session T3E
Exhibition, Aula
14:00‐15:30
Back to the Workers’ Wonderland: Documenting the Industrial Culture in
Eastern Europe, 1945‐1989
Dr. Slawomir Lotysz, University of Zielona Gora, Poland
We all like to see historical photographs in scholarly books and articles. Usually they
illustrate the story quite aptly, right? Well… But how often are the photographs in focus?
How often do images of the past inspire us enough to go deeper into the story they tell us?
This presentation draws on the author’s own collection of historical photographs,
documenting industrial culture in Eastern European countries during the time of
communism. The photographs – roughly 7,000 items – come from a former communist‐era
press agency, long since dissolved and its materials sold to private collectors. Geographically,
the images cover Poland, Hungary, the former East Germany and Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria,
Albania, and the Soviet Union. Some of the images are of infrastructure and manufacturing
in the Eastern Block, while some of the photographs depict the dehumanised landscapes of
industrial plants of grandiose scale, and still others show men and women at work.
Additionally, the workers are also shown as consumers in shops and restaurants, as
holidaymakers in hotels and resorts, as patients of factory first aid stations, and so on. The
themes of housing economics, vocational training, and environmental issues are also vividly
portrayed.
In the digital age, accessing archives of visual materials is easier than ever before. Photo
collections are being put online by archives and libraries at different institutions around the
globe, and press agencies are opening their vast resources to the public, too. But how can
historians gain access to private collections of photographs? These are not necessarily just
family photos, but sometimes quite extensive collections of historic photographs,
documenting work, leisure, and everyday life in past decades. And if one possesses such a
collection and wants to make it available online, how does that happen? What are the legal
and copyright concerns? How about the technical side of things? And most of all, what are
the financial issues that need to be considered?
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Thursday
Session T3E
Exhibition, Aula
14:00‐15:30
The End of Assassination?
Researcher Lisa Traynor, Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds, United Kingdom
‘The End of Assassination’, explores the theory that silk bullet‐proof body armour could have
preserved the life of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo on 28th June 1914. Based on on‐
going ballistic experiments conducted at Royal Armouries, Leeds, the outcome of these tests
will eventually be able to confidently state if the Archduke’s life could have been preserved if
he had worn the protective silk body armour he was rumoured to own.
The poster itself is built up of an image from the 19th /early 20th century, used for
marketing these armours and images from the 21st century tests at the Royal Armouries.
The accompanying text to the poster quotes the original inventor Casimir Zeglen’s reasons
for devising such an invention.
This innovative new research is continuing at Royal Armouries, Leeds. It forms the focal point
of our new exhibition on the arms and armour of the First World War, which aims to engage
a wide audience with the history of technology.
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Round Table. Trends in Technological Education in Thursday
Session T3F
Eastern Europe Countries Exhibition, Aula
Chair: Alin M. Olarescu, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania 14:00‐15:30
Ştefan Bălan ‐ Remarkable Pathfinder of History of Science and Technics in
Romania, a Century since his Birth
Professor Mihai Alexandrescu, Technical University of Civil Engineering, Bucharest, Romania
Dr. Stefan Florin Bălan, Researcher, National Institute for Earth Physics, Magurele, Romania,
Adelin Bălan, Romania
The paper represents an homage to acad. prof. Stefan Balan with the occasion of 100 years
commemoration from his birth. His life is chronological presented on domains of activity
using a documenter material as well as vivid memories kept in minds of contemporary
people and rendered in a way to mix the authenticity of official documents with the
emotional testimony power of those who knew him closely. Along the paper are presented
accurate biographical data (origins, family, schools), but also professional activity with its
achievements and evolutions reflected in : academic and honorific titles, didactic career,
papers, books, design works, those accomplished like a civil engineer, as well as those
referring to the development of Romanian education and scientific research. All these are
emphasized by a large number of original photographs: with family, friends, construction
works etc.
There are presented also a large number of publications (books) from all stages of activity
and some of them are accompanied by short comments.
This paper is a homage to acad.prof. Stefan Balan, at 100 years since his birth, from the
Romanian school of constructions and civil engineers for his contribution to the professional
accomplishment of some thousands civil engineers, more than 30 doctorate degrees and for
his example of sobriety, modesty and elegance in his relations with all who knew him like
professor and scientist.
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Thursday
Session T3F
Exhibition, Aula
14:00‐15:30
V. Utkin as a Scientist and Designer in the Field of Space Rocket Engineering
(1971‐1990)
Dr. Alla S. Lytvynko, G.M.Dobrov Center for Scientific and Technological Potential and
Science History Studies NAS of Ukraine, Kiev
This paper deals with the scientific biography of Vladimir Utkin, an Ukrainian engineer and
designer of rockets and space systems who was the General Director of Yuzhnoye Design
Office in the Dnepropetrovsk city, and thanks to whose results parity in the field of nuclear
missiles was reached in the world after the global geopolitical, military, economic and
ideological confrontation in the period of the Cold War. Moreover, his pedagogical activity in
the field of technological education in Ukraine has been shown in the paper.
After graduation from Leningrad Military Mechanical Institute in 1952 V. Utkin worked at
Dniepropetrovsk Special Design Office of Plant № 586 on creation of the first soviet ballistic
missiles. In 1971 he became General Designer of Yuzhnoye Design Office. Under his
leadership, the strategic missile systems, having no analogs in the world and being the basis
of defense potential of the Soviet Union, were put into service. His team created effective
liquid‐propellant intercontinental ballistic missile SS‐18 («Satan») and sold‐propellant
intercontinental ballistic missile SS‐24 («Scalpel») of silo and railroad basing mode. Space
rocket systems Cyclone, Zenit, and a wide range of spacecrafts for military, scientific, and
national economy purposes were developed, the leak‐tightness of propellant systems and
long‐term missile staying on alert in fuelled condition, mortar launch of heavy missiles from
container, enemy's anti‐missile defense penetration were ensured. Space launcher Zenit
subsequently became the basis of successful international projects Sea Launch and Land
Launch. V. Utkin was an active participant of international scientific cooperation, including
Interkosmos project. He was elected as an academician of Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
(1976), an academician of Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1984) and a full member of
International Academy of Astronautics. In memory of the scientist, V. Utkin Gold and Silver
Medal for outstanding achievements in the field of space rocketry development were set.
It was found that V. Utkin always contacted properly with Physical and Technical Faculty of
Dnipropetrovsk University, and at Yuzhnoye Design Office the branches of main chairs of this
faculty were set up to improve the quality of technological training.
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Thursday
Session T3F
Exhibition, Aula
14:00‐15:30
Paradigm changes in technical education construction in Romania.
History, needs and building utopia
Professor Victoria Cotorobai, Professor Liviu ‐ Alexandru Sofonea, Lecturer Cristina Vladoiu,
Professor Theodor Mateescu, Romania, Technical University Gheorghe Asachi Iasi, Romania
Education has determined and was driven largely by major paradigm shifts in the Triad
Society & Civilization & Culture. Technical education in Romania had a particular history and
in construction was driven by the local peculiarities and needs but also by the many
influences West‐East. History of education in the present territory of Romania is extremely
interesting. This indicates, on the one hand, an ongoing interest in interculturalism, to
harmonize with the civilized world and constant updating but huge potential determined by
novator anchor deep in tradition and knowledge that DNA‐ized (from ancestry to the time of
day) to complex inter‐tradition & development, education & society & culture & economy &
ecology & .... This paper summarizes the history of the main technical Romanian educational
paradigms and announces a possible paradigm shift in education that specialists in urban
development and construction plan by bringing in the integrative science social‐ecological‐
economic "Geonomic" science that reveals the need for major changes in urban approaches
in general and construction in particular.
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Thursday
Session T3F
Exhibition, Aula
14:00‐15:30
Intelligence‐interchange in the area of Science and Technology between
Poland and the Soviet Union, 1986‐1990
Dr. Mirosław Sikora, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (The Institute of National Remembrance),
Katowice, Poland
Technological gap in the development between both sides of iron curtain became obvious
already during the 1950s. Along with the détente‐era communists countries managed to
import some vital technological solutions by purchasing production‐lines or signing license‐
agreements with France, West Germany or Great Britain. However, real high‐tech, especially
in such branches as automatic control or power engineering, was either protected by private
companies interested in maintaining its monopoly and export, or embargoed by western
governments inspired by the USA.
My paper claims that, in order to evade various legal restrictions in international trade, the
Soviet Union encouraged satellites‐states to launch massive clandestine undertakings.
Furthermore, Moscow’s intelligence service instructed and trained their colleagues from
Warsaw, Prague or East Berlin in the area of scientific and technical espionage. KGB also
organized this multilateral intelligence‐relationships, by designing a complex system of
information‐exchange.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, in most former communistic countries, documents of
the intelligence service had been declassified and made available for historians. In Poland
these files are stored and accessible in the Institute of National Remembrance (Instytut
Pamięci Narodowej ‐ IPN). Files of the scientific‐technical intelligence covering years 1986‐
1990 are exceptionally well preserved and they allow detailed reconstruction of the Polish‐
Russian cooperation in the area of industrial espionage during the last five‐years plan carried
out by the countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (so called Comecon).
Analysis involved tasks‐descriptions passed from KGB to Polish intelligence as well as Polish
reports on debriefings with the representatives of the Russian partner. Insight in those files
enables to estimate the profile and the quantity of smuggled and exchanged material as
construction‐documentation, chemical samples, components, entire devices etc. Moreover,
we can point out targeted countries, state’s corporations or private companies. Both sides
exchanged experience in recruiting, handling and paying agents, which will be also discussed
in the paper. The emphasis is put on the Russian partner, because the activity of the
scientific‐technical arm within KGB in the late 1980s – comparing to the previous period – is
still not enough examined by historians.
Basic conclusions are as follows: the amount of the information being shared was growing
systematically during the second half of the eighties. The spectrum of Soviet interest in the
area of science and technology was rather evenly distributed between the civil and military
applications. Electronic and IT as well as biotechnology and chemistry dominated
information‐stream, making heavy industry and energetic a secondary field of activity.
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Thursday
Session T3F
Exhibition, Aula
14:00‐15:30
Contemporary trends in the development of technological education in
Brasov
Dr. ing. Melania Filip, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
Prof. Monica Cotfas, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
Ing. Csaba Molnar, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
The analysis made in this paper aim to underline the contemporary tendencies in the
development of the technical education in the area of Brasov, Romania, taking into
consideration the approved school network approved by authorities along the years.
The evolution of the school network is presented starting with the years 1977/1978, the
diversifying of the technological educational offer from the years 1982/1989 which alongside
the mechanic and electric domain are augmented with the domains of industrial chemistry,
light industry, constructions, forestry‐ forestry exploitation, wood processing, marking the
development if the Romanian industry in the communist era.
In the second part of the paper the transition stages and the contemporary trends of the
technical education in Brasov are presented in correlation with the requirements of the
labour market and European policies for workforce occupation.
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Turning Points in Technological Development in Thursday
Session T4A
Romania from the mid‐19th century to nowadays: Room UI2
6. Car & Medical Instruments Industries 16:00‐17:30
Organiser & Chair: Alexandre Herlea, Technical University Belfort
Montbéliard, France
Birth and Evolution of the Medical Instruments Factories in Romania since
the Independence War (1877) to Nowadays (in French)
Professor Pompiliu Manea, Université d’Évry Val d’Essonne, France
La communication passe d’abord en revue les guerres auxquelles la Roumanie a participé et
les grands bouleversements politiques qu’elle a connus: Guerre d’Indépendance (1977–78)
Guerres Balkaniques (1913), deux guerres mondiales (1916 – 1918 et 1941 – 1945),
l’occupation soviétique et la dictature communiste (1944‐1989), la sortie du communisme et
la transition (1990 à aujourd’hui). Le rôle joué par des Roumains dans des grandes avancées
scientifiques et techniques, notamment les rayons X (Hurmuzescu et Marinescu), sont
également évoquées. Ensuite sont présentées les quatres grandes étapes connus dans la
création et le développement de l’industrie roumaine d’appareils et instruments médicaux.
1) Le début est lié à la Guerre d’Indépendance et aux efforts de modernisation du pays, faits
par le roi Carol I. En 1880 il demande au Parlement de prendre des mesures pour le
développement de l’artisanat, notamment par l’importation de technologie et la facilitation
d’installation dans le pays d’industriels étrangers. Dans ce contexte et vu le grand nombre
d’invalides de guerre s’installe dans le pays Carol Bünger qui crée les premiers ateliers de
prothèses et appareils médicaux de Roumanie. Ils vont se développer ensuite.
2) La Première Guerre Mondiale et la constitution de l’Etat unitaire national roumain
donnera une autre grande impulsion au développement de cette industrie. A la tête des
Ateliers du Ministère de la Santé est nommé en 1923 l’ingénieur Petre N. Georgescu, formé
à Paris, qui va développer cette entreprise la plus grande, dans le domaine, entre les deux
guerres.
3) Après la Deuxième Guerre, l’industrie de construction d’appareils médicaux a connu une
forte régression qui a duré jusqu’à vers 1960. Ensuite, la production a redémarréles et des
nouvelles entreprises sont nées: IOR, Electrotehnica, Automatica, Electronica, IEIA ‐ Cluj. On
fabrique en Roumanie des appareils et instruments médicaux dans toutes les spécialités qui
couvrent 75% le besoin du pays.
4) Après 1989 l’industrie d’appareils et instruments médicaux s’effondre, comme les autres
industries du pays; l’importation prend le dessus, dans un contexte de grande corruption.
Pourtant quelques spécialistes dans le domaine ont su prendre des initiatives et arriver à des
réalisations remarquables. Un example est l’entreprise TEMCO, que j’ai créée.
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Thursday
Session T4A
Room UI2
16:00‐17:30
Renault, from Romania to the Logan (in French)
Professor Jean Louis Loubet, Université d’Évry Val d’Essonne, France
Dans son histoire, Renault est venu deux fois en Roumanie. D’abord à la fin des années 1960,
poussé par les autorités soviétiques et celles du Comecon. L’aboutissement sera la naissance
de l’usine de Pitesti et le lancement en Roumanie de la Renault 12. La seconde venue, celle
qui nous intéresse ici, correspond à la renaissance du pays après l’ère communiste.
Le Président de Renault, Louis Schweitzer, mesure lors de la chute du bloc de l’Est la
potentialité d’une voiture à 5 000 $. Un long chemin à parcourir. L’une des conditions de ce
qui deviendra la voiture low‐cost est la maîtrise – et probablement la possession – d’un outil
industriel capable de produire à coût très bas, mais en même temps garant d’une qualité
parfaite, soit des éléments inexistants – voire incompatibles – en Europe occidentale.
C’est en Roumanie, sur l’ancien site de Pitesti, que Renault va construire l’usine à Logan, un
outil industriel remis pas à pas à niveau, mais aussi faire renaître une marque, Dacia. Le
système Dacia devient le socle d’une adaptation de l’automobile européenne à la crise de
ses marchés occidentaux, mais aussi une réponse évolutive aux besoins des marchés des
pays émergents. Renault a parié sur la Roumanie à la fin du XXe siècle. Ce pari est devenu
l’un des éléments structurants de sa résistance à la crise actuelle.
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Thursday
Session T4A
Room UI2
16:00‐17:30
Engines for Vehicules in Romania – a European Evolution through Research
and Innovation
Dr. Ruxandra Cristina Stanescu, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
Professor Cornel Stan, West Saxon University of Zwickau, Germany
Professor Anghel Chiru, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
The history of Romanian engines for vehicles, designed and mass produced based on
licenses and own concepts, begins 70 years ago.
Equipment, techniques and mathematical methods used for design, prototype execution,
research, approval and launch into production were at first modest, then they have evolved
in order to satisfy the requirements European and American regulations, as well as those of
the clients. The energetic, ecologic, technological and consumption related performances of
the engines, designed and produced in educational and research centers, companies and
universities form Brasov, Bucharest, Iasi, Timisoara, Pitesti, Campulung Muscel imposed
Romanian vehicles on the markets of Europe, Asia, Africa and America.
Developments that have occurred in Romania are remarkable. Their analysis is interesting
and relevant in the European context. After 1990, the investments in education were
important as well as the upgrading of universities research centers and laboratories. The
results – the existence of engine study centers and research laboratories within the
universities of Brasov, Cluj‐Napoca, Bucharest, Pitesti, Iasi and Timisoara, competitive in
terms of technical endowment, dedicated software, human resources and results with those
in the European Union and the United States.
Thus, this paper present a review of Romanian achievements in design, research and
production of internal combustion engines compared with the European trends between
1944 and 2014. References are made to the products of academic institutions, research
institutes, study centers and automotive companies from Germany, France, Italy, UK,
Belgium etc.
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IXth Annual Symposium on the Social History of Thursday
Session T4B
Military Technology: 6 Room UI3
Organiser: Barton Hacker, National Museum of American History, 16:00‐17:30
Washington, USA
Chair: Ciro Paoletti, Italian Commission of Military History (CISM), Rome,
Italy
Polish Torpedo Boats’ Constructions between 1965 – 1986
Professor Antoni Komorowski, Polish Naval Academy, Gdynia, Poland
Dr. Tomasz Neubauer, Polish Naval Museum,Gdynia, Poland
The paper presents some problems appearing during the design and exploitation of torpedo
boats equipped with metal hulls (alloy of aluminium ‐ hydronalium), which were created by
Polish engineers. After many years of exploiting wooden‐hulls torpedo boats, of Soviet
construction type 183, the time came to start using the more advanced ships from Polish
shipyards, which, unfortunately, turned out to be of a rather poor quality. The production of
the ships started from an experimental boat (type 633 D), which was being exploited
between 1965 – 1980. Since 1972, there were newer, improved versions type 664. The main
advantage of those ships was their impressive speed and weaponry – four torpedo launchers
– but the crew’s life conditions were far from perfect. Despite many design and building
attempts of yet another improved versions of the ships type ( 653, 655, 657, 660 oraz 662)
the duty of boats type 664 ended in 1986. This means that years between 1972 and 1986
were a difficult time for the boats’ crews as they had to deal with many technical problems.
Some of those technical and personal problems are described in this paper.
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Thursday
Session T4B
Room UI3
16:00‐17:30
Chasing Wonder Weapons
Dr. Hermione Giffard, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
The Third Reich’s pursuit of new weapons at the end of the Second World War is often
described as a search for ‘wonder weapons’. Yet although historians claim that the term first
came to prominence through propaganda of the Third Reich, there is no mention of
Wunderwaffen in any of Goebbels’ speeches. In fact, the term seems to have come into wide
use only after the end of the Third Reich, around the same time that the atomic bomb was
identified as the first true wonder weapon. This suggests that the term was used to
rhetorically link the USSR’s weapons to those of the Third Reich. Early analysis of the
technology of the Third Reich thus deeply reflected the geopolitical reality of when it was
first written; yet these same assumptions continue to inform histories of the Third Reich’s
weapons. That the term was used to link the weapons of the Cold War to a negative
historical example raises the question of how weapons have been represented in popular
culture, in myths, novels and film. How has the atomic bomb molded public thought about
weapons? To what extent are wonder weapons a threat peculiar to the twentieth century,
just as weapons of mass destruction are of the twenty‐first? Have there been dramatic
turning points in the public representation of weapons, such as the First World War?
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Thursday
Session T4B
Room UI3
16:00‐17:30
Military Technologies and Scientific Development from Galileo until
Nanotechnoscience
Professor Vitaly Gorokhov, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Case studies from the different times: Galileo as military engineer and his education program
for military engineers (artillery, military machinery and fortification). Tartaglia engineering
science of ballistic and Galileo technoscience. Scientific engineering education for military
engineers in 19th century (A. Betancourt high school for military engineers in Sankt
Petersburg from 1810). Radar Systems Engineering and military‐industrial complex of the
Soviet Union after Second World War: engineering‐science‐industry and scientific education
of engineers. Nanotechnology and nanotechnoscience for civil and military goals: nano
systems engineering.
Conclusion: engineering science and technoscience were first form new science in the new
time and had his sources in military engineering. Scientific engineering education originated
and developed as high school education for military engineers. Systems engineering is a new
form of the general education of the engineers for the military‐industrial complex after
Second World War. Nano systems engineering is the continuation of this traditions in last
time.
(This report is prepared for the project „From Galileo's technoscience to the
nanotechnoscience (philosopical and methodological analysis)“ Nr. 13‐03‐00190 of the
Russian Foundation for Humanities).
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Environmental Utopias and Engineering Reality Thursday
Session T4C
Chair: Timo Myllyntaus, University of Turku, Finland Room UI6
16:00‐17:30
Is the Debate Over: James Hansen's Contributions to the Changing
Atmosphere‐Changing Climate Theory
Dr. Anthony N. Stranges, Texas A&M University, USA
James Hansen (b. 1941), a physicist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New
York City since 1981 and a professor at Columbia University, is the latest spokesman for
climate scientists who support achanging atmosphere ‐ changing climate theory. He
continues in the tradition of other climate change scientists among them Roger Revelle and
Charles Keeling. Following his earlier planetary studies, Hansen developed his first climate
change model in 1974. A 1981 one‐dimensional model calculated temperatures as a function
of height. It enabled Hansen to conclude that the measured atmospheric CO2 concentrations
would produce an earlier‐than‐predicted warming. Beginning in 1983 Hansen introduced
three‐dimensional general circulation models that with the aid of high speed computers
allowed him to include variables such as air convection schemes and snow depths and to
estimate the change in mean global surface temperatures resulting from future greenhouse
gas emissions.
In 1987 Hansen undertook an analysis of surface air temperature records from 1,700
continental and island meteorological stations for the years 1880 to 1985. A three‐
dimensional general circulation model that he developed created an artificial global
temperature history. It showed that the four warmest recorded years were in the 1980s with
1981 and 1987 the highest, and that 1998 was the warmest year since 1880. The rate of
temperature change in the 1980s‐90s exceeded all rates of change recorded since 1880.
Much of the criticism of global warming came in the 1980s when the scientific evidence
established a definite rise in the global annual mean temperature curve. Hansen’s testimony
before the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in June 1988 triggered
the renewed criticism.
This paper examines Hansen’s research on global warming and the scientific evidence that
he and other scientists have compiled to establish the reality of global warming and to
silence their critics.
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Thursday
Session T4C
Room UI6
16:00‐17:30
Utilizing the Environment in Sweden‐Finland in the 18th Century –
Technology, Realism and Utopias.
Dr. Sami Louekari, University of Turku, Finland
This presentation deals with the politics and thinking of the Crown and the elite in Sweden
and Finland during the 18th century that was marked by a strong belief in the future. It was
believed that the country would have almost limitless possibilities of development, if the
progress made in the fields of technology and the natural sciences was put efficiently into
use in the utilization of natural resources. My presentation is based on my PhD‐thesis Politics
of Utility. Environmental History from Kokemäenjoki River Valley between 1720 ‐1850.
(2013).
Sweden lost its European superpower‐status in the beginning of the 18th century, after
which a replacement for this lost greatness was sought in the internal development of the
state. It was believed that, as long as the country’s natural resources were studied and
technological means were acquired to mould and utilize the environment, the state would
flourish again. Many optimistic and rather utopian views of the future can be found in the
colourful writings of national historians about the powerful Swedish state, which often
depicted it as being more bountiful and having a milder climate than it in fact had
Various and extensive waterway projects, dewatering and clearing works became important.
Both the Crown and the educated elite held this view, following in the footsteps of Europe,
and they were well aware of the waterway, dewatering and channelling projects in England,
the Netherlands, Russia and Prussia at the time.
My research shows that many of the 18th‐century prognoses and grand projects were
accompanied by excessive optimism. They were not based on a realistic conception of the
prevailing conditions and possibilities. The goals were too challenging compared to the
available resources and technology. In part, the hopeful and even utopian views of the
future were a kind of political and ideological optimism professed by the Crown and the
elite, by which they strived to lift national self‐esteem after the loss of the great power
status.
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Thursday
Session T4C
Room UI6
16:00‐17:30
Unintended yet Unignorable Change, Technological Interventions into the
river Eider (1886‐1973)
Dr. Eike‐Christian Heine, Universität Stuttgart, Germany
The theme of this proposal is not technological change but the opposite, a story of a
relationship of technological intervention and ecological consequences shaped by continuity.
Starting point is the construction of the Kiel Canal (1886‐1895). In order to complete this
waterway, the riverbed of the Eider (Schleswig‐Holstein’s biggest river) was heavily altered;
more precisely the river was chopped into three independent parts. Soon the severe
consequences became apparent, especially for the 120 kilometres between Rendsburg and
the mouth to the North Sea. Here a vicious circle started that was mainly driven by the
disconnection with the upper river: The lower Eider lost a major area where water was
distributed during high tides and it also lost more than half of its tributary water. The results
were the rise of the tides far up in the river and growing sedimentation. The technological
answer was higher dykes that gave better protection immediately, but fuelled the vicious
circle in the long run.
Since the beginning of the twentieth century the hydrological experts in Schleswig‐Holstein
had a clear understanding of these phenomena and formulated technological answers.
Parallel, devastating floods became ever more frequent and put pressure on policy makers.
As a result, dykes were permanently expanded. The engineers envisaged grander solutions
that were realised successively. Since 1937 a barrage roughly in the middle of the lower
Eider protected the land behind this installation from the North Sea. Yet, the “victory over
the forces of nature” was declared prematurely. For the remaining stretch the vicious circle
was still intact. By 1973 a four kilometre long barrage completely protected the land from
any impacts of the North Sea.
The paper explores the interdependence between technological interventions into a
landscape and its ecologic impacts. Part of this nexus of environmental history and the
history of technology are broader political and cultural significances. Accordingly, this
proposal does not report of technological change but of continuities between technology
and nature.
This yet untold story mainly draws from archival sources as well as printed sources. It is a
follow‐up project from my dissertation that explores the history of the Kiel Canal.
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Computers and the ‘Second Industrial Revolution’ Thursday
Session T4D
1945‐1970 Room UI7
Organiser & Chair: Dick van Lente, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The 16:00‐17:30
Netherlands
The panel explores an aspect of the conference’s general theme, ‘Technology in times of
transition’: the way computers and automation were thought to transform society so
thoroughly that one could speak of a second industrial revolution, more dramatic in its
effects than the first one had been. Famous scientists in the nineteen fifties, such as C.P.
Snow, Norbert Wiener, and Werner Heisenberg published such views, and their intellectual
authority gave these ideas a wide circulation. Thus we find the idea of a computer‐and‐
automation driven social transition in political debate, the business press, and popular
culture. From the late nineteen fifties however, the idea of the computer revolution faded,
only to return in a very different form with the coming of the personal computer, and
especially the internet. This rise‐and‐decline pattern is very similar to earlier imagined
‘technological revolutions’, connected with e.g. electricity, flight, chemistry, and nuclear
power. This recurring pattern of technology‐based expectations, that arose rather quickly
and then faded again, raises questions about the arguments put forward for, in this case, the
computer as a transforming power, the debates about it, and the purposes and interests
that might have been served by such rhetoric. Especially rewarding is an international
comparative approach, because it may show how the new technology was received, argued
and phantasized about in different cultural, economic, and political contexts, and how, why
and by whom certain images and views were developed and disseminated. This session
presents explorations on this broad topic from the United States, Sweden and the
Netherlands. It explores views on the computer‐driven transformation of society by
scientists, the business press, and popular culture.
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Thursday
Session T4D
Room UI7
16:00‐17:30
Exploring Comics as a Source for Computer History
Ph.D. candidate Rik Sanders, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Dr. Gerard Alberts, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
No sooner were computers constructed than they were the subject of social imagination. In
fact the variety of technologies for automatic computing was adorned with an equally wide
spread of images in literature, movies, in text and pictures.
Our present research explores comics on two levels: the images and the stories. For the first
level, an inventory is compiled of representations information technology, paving the way
for an iconography of computing. Cartoons typically portrayed the computer as an abacus,
or as a contraption containing an homunculus; as a threathening dehumanizing machine, or
as a dumb monster. Whereas long after the advent of desktop computers, the unspecified
roomfilling command and control center was a favorite picture, in other cases drawings may
be traced back to specific machines. On the second level, interpreting the narratives sheds
light on the cultural debate of this particular technology. Comparing the human brain to the
computer tells one story, a time machine or a joke about the escape key tell quite another.
As an excercise on the second level, a reading is presented of the Dutch comics of Ollie B.
Bommel, designed by Marten Toonder. Following the analysis offered by Dick van Lente of
Toonder’s view of technology in general, a similar interpretation is offered of Toonder’s
vision of the societal influence of information technology. In one story information
technology is the main character: Heer Bommel en de transmieter (1973). The machine,
called transmieter, fullfills the wishes of its user by actually bringing forward the object of
desire. Typical of Toonder’s pessimist view of modern society, technology disturbs the
balance of society, in this story literally because the “transmieter” transmits things. Van
Lente’s tools for analysis do work in this case. Yet, the case of computers offers new insights
and paradoxes on a narrative level – not unlike ambivalences in the contemporary debate on
computers in society – and rewarding details in terms of iconography.
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Thursday
Session T4D
Room UI7
16:00‐17:30
Evolution of Computers
Lecturer Carmen Lungoci, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
Professor Livia Sangeorzan, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
Transition from a person who performed arithmetic calculations before 1935 to a computer
meant a great evolution in the history of informatics. After 1945 years, during the second
industrial revolution, the concept of computing has been successfully associated to a
modern machine, according to Neumann’s concepts who assumed a device with inputs,
processing and storing data and outputs produced.
The machine evolution presented through the timeline of events in computer history will
discover the incredible world of bits that allow us today to exchange: text, pictures, sounds,
movies, all of that in a digital environment.
We cannot move on without link the developments in this area to pioneer computer
scientists, such as the British codebreaker Alan Turing, J. von Neumann who was the first
that explained how programs could be stored as data, or H. Edward Roberts – considered by
some to be the father of the first personal computer.
Effects on human society of their discoveries have been impressive; they changed the way of
thinking and action of all peoples.
We want to speak also about 1969 – the year of Internet birth, a network that links now
thousands of computers and reaches people all over the world in cyberspace.
Finally, the question putted by most of Scientifics is: after the WWW networking and nano
computers, what other technology will come?
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Romanians Pathbreakers of Technology Friday
Session F1A
Chair: Octavian Baltag Room UI2
9:00‐10:30
Automatic Focusing – a Romanian Invention
Professor Octavian Baltag, Universitatea de Medicina si Farmacie "Gr.T. Popa", Iași,
Romania
The work aims to present both the evolution of the technical solutions, and a Romanian
priority concerning the automatic focusing reached by the technologies of the optical and
electronic industries of image taking only 15 years after having been patented in Romania
the most utilized principles, namely the dynamic analysis of image contrast, a principle used
in commercialized cameras after the years ’80.
The paper presents a synthesis of the main technical solutions and automatic focusing
systems with applications in photography, television and cine‐cameras, also specifying the
year of patent granting. The synthesis refers to the period 1932‐1973, a period which also
includes the year 1965, when at OSIM Romania was filed the patent application for the
invention “Video‐captor apparatus with automatic focusing”.
The technological level on those years only permitted an analogue processing of the signal
supplied by the optical sensors that integrally analyzed the image projected on sensors. The
only patent referring to the analysis of an image segment is dated 1965‐ Romania, which
used the dynamic analysis of a part of the image, projected in a shooting camera, namely
part of the exploration of a TV line.
As for the analysis of the image contrast, a first mention of this method appears in the
patent application “Videocaptor devices with automatic focusing” filed at OSIM Bucharest
on the 7th of June 1965, 8h 15m; the patent was granted on the 9th of July 1966, with the
number 44,277.
The analysis of the image contrast does not appear in the consulted patent literature, this
solution being present only after 80’s.
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Friday
Session F1A
Room UI2
9:00‐10:30
Magnetic Measures and Countermeasures in Romania of the Cold War
Professor Octavian Baltag, Universitatea de Medicina si Farmacie "Gr.T. Popa", Iași,
Romania
Ph.D. candidate Georgiana Marin, Naval Academy, Constanta, Romania
This paper presents the evolution and the techniques employed by magnetometer measure
and countermeasure systems used in naval and land defense during the "cold war" (years
1970‐1989) and the beginning of transition, the 90’s. Following a brief history of magnetic
field measurements in Romania, since the nineteenth century until the 70’s, there is
described the evolution of magnetometry research and applications in the military field.
There are listed some applications of the magnetometer means for ship demagnetization,
control of the ship’s own magnetic field or induced field, demagnetization ranges, magnetic
characterization and detection of the ship magnetic signature. Regarding the magnetic
measures, there is described the magnetism detection used in naval mines with
multiparametric sensors
There are analyzed some applications related to magnetic range characterization of land
combat equipment. An application of magnetic sensors for multiparametric antitank mines is
also presented.
From the transition period, there are several applications related to electromagnetic
shielding using composite textiles with ferromagnetic amorphous micro wires.
Another area is represented by magnetic detection, i.e. the detection of mines, shipwrecks
or hidden bodies, or the detection of ‘mail bombs’.
During the "Cold War" Romania has managed to reach a technological level high enough in
order to fit a Soviet satellite with an original design magnetometer.
Although the lack of scientific and technical information, research in the field has supported
the achievement of magnetometer equipment intended for naval applications.
The originality of the research results from PhD theses, among which some are classified,
and the number of patents granted by the OSIM Romania.
Most equipment is protected by trademarks and patents.
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Friday
Session F1A
Room UI2
9:00‐10:30
Brasov, Romania, Academic Contributions to Systematization,
Diversification, and Optimization of Robotic Mechanisms
Professor Ionel Staretu, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
This paper presents in a synthetic manner, the research activities at Transilvania University
of Brasov, Romania, in the period 1986‐2008, for the systematization, diversification, and
optimization of industrial robots mechanisms. In Romania, research in the robots’ area
began in the late 70s and it began to be presented systematically at the National Symposium
on Industrial Robots. It had its first edition in Bucharest in 1981, initiated and coordinated by
the late Professor Cristian PELECUDI, with annual editions until 1989, then biannual editions
until 2002 when it became the “International Conference on Robotics,” with the edition in
2008 in Brasov. The activity in Brasov, coordinated by Professor Engineer Florea Dudiţă, PhD,
was based on a rigorous strategy on medium and long term, from a systematization of
achievements before the research start, seeking research development especially
diversification and optimization of robot mechanisms. Therefore, we set up three classes of
mechanisms – robot‐mechanisms, which make up the mechanical structure of the robot,
namely positioning mechanisms, orientation mechanisms and gripping mechanisms, we set
lines of research by doctorates and contracts, organizing the three working groups. Great
contributions were made on all three types of mechanisms that form the mechanical
structure of an industrial robot. Research conducted resulted in several PhD theses, scientific
papers, articles, monographs, patents, providing the academic school in Brasov a privileged
position nationally and internationally on contributions to systematization, diversification,
and optimization of robotic mechanisms. In addition, the research conducted allowed the
identification of new research directions. Out of them, we can mention optimization of
structural and kinematic synthesis and of constructive design of anthropomorphic modular
gripping mechanisms for robots. Next, it is solving the problem of virtual gripping with force
return for virtual objects with physical properties; mathematical modeling of objects micro
handling with anthropomorphic grippers with multiple‐joint fingers; diversifying virtual
gripping of objects with virtual gripping mechanisms with fingers etc.
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Friday
Session F1A
Room UI2
9:00‐10:30
The Romanian Titus Konteschweller – Global Pioneer of the Radiophony
Dr. Ionita Daescu, Proradioantic, Bucharest, Romania
Researcher Francisc Visky, Pro Radio Antic, Arad, Romania
This article shall be accompanied by a replica of the Dr. TITUS radio brand, manufactured in
1924. Through this paper we would like to highlight the work and achievements of a great
(maybe the greatest) super‐regenerative radios manufacturer even around the globe.
In the years following World War I, the world plunged into what is known as the era ”when
radio was king”. All started in Pittsburgh in 1920, when he took place the first public radio
broadcast. Everyone was concerned about this new machine that allowed you to, sitting
comfortably in the armchair at home, to watch what is happening to hundreds or even
thousands of miles away. People with the differant professions have become avid radio.
Thus, not surprising when one radio specialists, we find officers, lawyers, doctors and of
course engineers.
At the beginning of the third decade of the the twentieth century in Paris, two Romanian
brothers, big radio enthusiasts, business launches as manufacturers of radios sets. It
Konteschweller brothers, Titus and Michael, who came from Romania to study at universities
in Paris. Titus Konteschweller graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Paris and is known
as the author of the method of treatment called pyretotherapy. Michael Konteschweller
specializes in electricity in universities in Bristol and Paris. At the end of 1923 appears the
first radio set manufactured by Dr. TITUS factory. The factory was located in Paris Rue of
Wattignies, no. 69 XII arrondissement.
The device was cheap and highly sensitive. Success in the era of these radio sets was very
high. These devices have dominated the specialized market until the early 1930s. Dr. TITUS
devices have won numerous awards at international specialized exhibitions and
competitions. The most important contest was won a competition organized by the great
magazine Radio News in 1927. Radio News magazine had a circulation of 350,000 pieces and
appear monthly at New York. The first prize was won by Titus Konteschweller. The second
and third prizes were not awarded.
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New Uses of Old Technologies in Times of Transition: Friday
Session F1B
1. Theory and Practice of Industrial and Cultural Room UI3
Heritage Management 9:00‐10:30
Organiser & Chair: Daqing Yang, George Washington University, USA
Economic restructuring and globalization have often led to abandonment of old plants and
other industrial and engineering sites around the world. In recent years, local initiatives
and/or national government encouragement, with academic and citizen participation, have
created new incarnations of old technologies as industrial museums, “creativity parks” and
cultural and tourist attractions. “Heritaging,” defined as “enjoying the heritage sites of
modernization and industrialization,” has even become a new word in Japanese. What
factors‐‐ political and economic‐‐drive the creation of industrial heritage sites? What
explains the relative “success” of some endeavors while others have produced little
progress? Who construct their meanings and interpretations? How are we, as historians of
technology and society, to evaluate these projects from a comparative perspective? A total
of six papers form two successive sessions. Geographically they cover Europe, North
America, and East Asia. Focusing on Scottish marine engine works of 1871‐3, Mark Watson
considers the challenges posed by relocation for the purpose of preservation. Marta Vera
Prieto focuses on the first factory of zinc and brass established in Spain (1773), which
suffered a traumatic closure in 1996. Using the concept “musealization,” she illustrates the
importance of citizen participation in management, promotion and dissemination of
industrial heritage. An experienced expert in public works in Idaho and beyond, Todd Shallat
shows how “hard places” such as mining and weapon testing sites in North America’s
Mountain West have managed to reinvent themselves as tourist attractions. Anna Sivula
analyzes three well documented cases of the different industrial heritage projects in the
Finland and asks questions about finance, community and meaning. Nadezhda Soloninia
examines the past and present of some 300 metallurgical factories in Russia’s industrial
heartland. By introducing the brightest examples of Ural’s industrial heritage and other
industrial sites, she hopes to restore lost relationship between a human and cultural and
historical environment. Daqing Yang shows how central government, local government, and
business circles in Japan and China are working together behind the creation of “creativity
parks,” industrial museums, and even bids for enlistment in the UNESCO World Heritage
sites.
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Friday
Session F1B
Room UI3
9:00‐10:30
Relocating Marine Engine Shops in Scotland
Mr. Mark Watson, Historic Scotland, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Moving a building is a drastic measure normally only considered as a last resort. The
feasibility of doing this depends on the construction of the building, the method of
relocation, and the extent to which the significance of the building and its setting (existing
and proposed) will be affected. This turns on authenticity.
Where buildings have cultural importance they have been moved either: Because they are
wanted in some new location, such as to form part of a collection in an open air museum
(e.g. Skansen or Astra) or as mitigation arising from a major and unavoidable infrastructure
project (e.g. Abu Simbel, or churches in Bucharest). But should we remove buildings that can
be retained by planning legislation and more economically used as they are?
Creation of “zoos” of relocated buildings began at Skansen in Stockholm more than 100
years ago, brought from all parts of Sweden in order to keep folk traditions alive. There are
many imitators in Northern and Central Europe. Astra, in Sibiu, Romania, is the largest. In
North America the best example is probably Upper Canada Village. These developed on the
whole before in situ conservation legislation came to be applied to vernacular architecture
and craft technology. British examples at Avoncroft, Beamish, Blists Hill, the Black Country,
Welsh and Ulster Folk Museums show popular ways of presenting social and industrial
history.
I will focus on Scottish marine engine works of 1871‐3, relocated for different reasons. One
is now a shop in Dundee, another is now the Scottish Maritime Museum in Irvine. Both
outcomes are valid in terms of conservation principles. In their new locations both still
indicate the great height and organisation of labour required to erect inverted vertical triple
expansion marine engines, in which Scottish engineers excelled.
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Friday
Session F1B
Room UI3
9:00‐10:30
Citizen Participation in Management, Promotion and Dissemination of
Industrial Heritage: Ancient Brass Factory in Spain
Dr. Marta Vera Prieto, Fundación Juanelo Turriano, Madrid, Spain
The process called musealization, that is, a display of politics focused on conserving,
restoring, investigate and communicate a concrete item under the name of museum, is one
of the possibilities for an industrial space when machines are not working anymore. Friends
of the Royal Factories of Riópar association has collects an experience of citizen participation
in management, promotion and dissemination of industrial heritage. It approaches the first
factory of zinc and brass established in Spain (1773), which suffered a traumatic closure in
1996. More than 230 years of industrial history. People`s genealogy. By creating this space
open to all, we multiply the information associated with each document found in research,
by contrast with oral testimonies. Gadamer said that culture is “the field of everything that
grows by sharing”. This is a pro‐active and community oriented research methodology, as it
shares information, findings and questions to enhance different areas of knowledge,
bringing us to places where it is not possible to arrive through the archive... a space to tell or
listen, to ask and to propose, as a enabler; what we end up to is the drawing of an overview,
one of the potential landscapes of the historic industrial complex, that opens a door for
citizen participation in the construction of multiple museum discourses.
As a result of our work, conferences took place in the old factory, today Industrial Museum;
for some workers it was their first step in, back since the closure. 21 authors (metallurgical
workers, teachers, historians, architects, engineers, cooks ...) vividly reflect how past sneaks
into our present: different people who look at the world from the context of their own
experiences, united around a precious (and fragile) common heritage. This is the beginning
of a larger dialogue, which will allow a rational and humane use of our industrial heritage,
heart and soul of Riópar, and its further development, building together a better
appreciation of the rich legacy of which we are responsible.
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Friday
Session F1B
Room UI3
9:00‐10:30
Hard Places as Tourist Landscapes in North America's Mountain West
Professor Todd Shallat, Boise State University, USA
Exhaustion of underground mineral resources or decommissioning of military facilities create
new environmental and other challenge in industrial landscape. On the western steppe of
the Northern Rockies, where mining and weapons testing have savaged the sagebrush
prairie, blight has emerged as gold for tourism and urban renewal. Historians frequently
work with planners and city official to market these toxic places. In Boise, Idaho, for
example, a vacant rail yard is prime real estate for upscale townhouses, complete with an
inner‐city whitewater park in the former site of a gravel mine. In Wallace, Idaho, a gondola
skilift carries tourist over the scars of one on the nation’s most hazard mines. In Nevada,
meanwhile, bombing craters are ground zero for a proposed national park. Often these
places are thickly layered with mythical imagination about the American West as a frontier
for industrial conquest. Often the perception of pollution is more powerful deterrent than
the actual pollution. And perceptions change over time. Each generation makes its own
culturally coded assessment of the highest and best use of land. Drawing from my thirty
years of experience with industrial landscapes, I shall demonstrate how yesterday’s blight
have emerged as goldfields for tourism and urban renewal on the western steppe of the
North Rockies.
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Electric Power and Societal Development: 1. Hydro Friday
Session F1C
and Nuclear Power Room UI6
Chair: Edmund Todd, University of New Haven, USA 9:00‐10:30
Some Notes on the History of the German Nuclear Science Community,
1986‐2011
Dr. Tudor Ionescu, University of Vienna, Austria
Shortly after the Fukushima nuclear accident from March 2011, the German federal
government decided that the country was going to phase out nuclear energy by 2022. What
seems to be the simple misfortune of an unlucky career choice possibly bears a deeper
meaning as nuclear energy was once one of the most promising technologies in history. How
could it then have such a terrible fate in one of the most technically advanced countries in
the world? To answer that question, a close look at the history of the German nuclear
science community and the emergence of one particular reactor technology will be of some
help.
According to their initial proponents, the so‐called inherently safe reactors would allegedly
render active reactor safety systems useless and secure in an irrefutable way the safety of
nuclear power plants. This techno‐utopian idea reached the top of the agenda of nuclear
scientists shortly after the Three Mile Island accident and regarded by many as the necessary
and unique solution to the crisis of public trust that the nuclear community was struggling
with. The idea was also picked up by key actors from the German nuclear community, yet
not all of its members agreed that inherently safe reactors were the only way to go ahead.
The current paper is based on the author's personal experience as a researcher amidst the
German nuclear community between 2007 and 2012. Methodologically it is grounded in
“Analytic autoethnography” (Leon Anderson, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 35:4
(2006): 373‐395), while also drawing from technical documents on inherently safe reactors
and literature from the field of science and technology studies.
The results of the proposed analysis suggest that the German nuclear community is not likely
to recover from the social disgrace into which their métier has slipped due to the repeated
severe failures of a technology that once promised “energy too cheap to meter.” Instead, its
history exposes features of a Sisyphean myth, warning about the dangers of pursuing the full
understanding and control of nature’s law in modern Western society, where technoscience
is believed to have replaced the role of the sacred.
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Friday
Session F1C
Room UI6
9:00‐10:30
Quebec's Aborted Transition towards Nuclear Power, 1963‐1983
Ph.D. candidate Mahdi Khelfaoui, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada
This paper traces, over a period spanning between 1963 and 1983, the evolution of the
nuclear strategy of the government of Quebec (Canada). The first period, between 1963 and
1971, covers the beginning of Quebec's nuclear program, under the auspices of the public
electric utility Hydro‐Québec. The efforts of the corporation resulted in the construction of
the Gentilly‐1 nuclear plant in 1971. The second period, extending from 1972 to1977 deals
with a moment of political opposition about the definition of the nuclear program’s
objectives. The Liberal Party, in power, was in favor of the development of the hydroelectric
project of the Bay James. Meanwhile, the opposition party, the Parti Québécois, defended a
massive investment in nuclear power. The third period runs from 1977 to 1983. The Parti
Québécois came to power and changed its previous stands in favor of nuclear power. The
party published a White Paper on Energy in 1977 and imposed a moratorium on nuclear
energy in the same year until 1985.
From the analysis of these three periods, we will highlight the reasons that pushed the
government of Quebec to develop a local nuclear industry through the construction of two
nuclear reactors and a heavy water plant. We will also discuss various factors, technical,
economical and political that drove such a development. Finally, we will determine the
reasons that pushed the new government to radically change its previous positions in 1977:
a global oil crisis context, a local conflict with its public electric utility and a clash with the
federal government of Canada.
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Friday
Session F1C
Room UI6
9:00‐10:30
Monitoring and Control Chart of a Complex Hydropower Development
“Lotru”
Dr. Mihai Sporiș, Hydroelectrica, Romania
Mr. Ștefan Ioan Neacșu
Mr. Alexandru Duțu
Mr. Mihai Marian Sporiș
The work briefly presents the studied hydropower development Lotru, the flowing within
the hydrographic sub basin processes identification, the personalization of intakes of these
sub basins, their encoding within the overall result, implementation of a data base and rules
for a real‐time operating. Lotru Ciunget HPP has an installed capacity of 510 MW (three
groups equipped with Pelton turbines of 170 MW), installed flow of 81 cm/s, a drop of 809
m gross and was commissioned in 1972.
At the time of edification (years 70‐80), hydropower potential planning principles, laws on
environment and water management, operation of the economic system, the existence of a
socialist planned economy, etc. were different from current requirements.
This work presents modern concepts regarding the complex capitalization of the water
resources: the power supply estimated value of the water, related to the adduction routes
to turbines, the technological process of a hydropower development.
The monitoring and/or control chart of a hydropower development can be a co‐ordination
instrument of the water resource within the hydrographic basin by the operational
settlement of the optimum ratio between the captured and servitude flows; a safety system
in case of extreme torrential phenomena, in order to avoid the secondary adductions
warping.
The IT application is materialized in a MS Access 2000 database transposing the theoretical
model to optimize the exploitation of water resources within the complex intakes
development and hydropower plants of Lotru basin. In the IT application framework, there
are program menus and video formats for the values’ defining and recording typical to the
intakes development, for the flow daily reports and other information, also constituted as
historical data and results that help to define the optimization model, as well as for the
calculation, interpretation and display of the values resulting from the information
processing according to the defined theoretical model. The daily results of this data updates
and of the IT processing are pointed for each grouping level, including information about:
inflow discharge, captured flow, hydraulic intakes, installed flow overcome, as well as the
final results within a video format type results matrix of the intakes branches. The
application is designed in open system, allowing improvements, adjustments, simplifications.
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Designing a Product or Making a Customer? Policy Friday
Session F1D
and Perception Room UI7
Chair: Artemis Yagou, Macromedia University for Media and 9:00‐10:30
Communication, Munich, Germany
Deindustrialization, Multinationals and “Polish Electronics.” Public Debate
Towards the Role of Consumer Electronics Industry After the System
Transition of 1989
Dr. Patryk Wasiak, University of Wroclaw, Poland
With this paper I discuss how the interdependence between the deindustrialization process
and consumer electronics industries was framed in the public debate in Poland after the fall
of communism in 1989. My main argument here is that the development of national
consumer electronics industry was considered as a crucial element of the imaginary
“national technology.” This imagery was influenced by political and economic context of the
system transition. “Polish electronics” was supposed to enable Poland to cope with the
ongoing global process of deindustrialization, catch up with highly developed Western
countries, and secure economic prosperity.
During the time of state socialism heavy industry was intrinsically included in the communist
technological utopia. However, from the 1970s, after the discussion on the limits of growth
microelectronics was included in the imagery of technological development. In the mid‐
1980s Polish government subsidized R&D of Polish VCR and home computer under the
auspices of “electronization of national economy” program.
After the fall of communism economic and technological experts started a public debate
towards the assets and liabilities in Polish economy. Heavy industry was unequivocally
recognized as a liability while consumer electronics industry was a primary asset. It was
considered as the only economy sector that could provide Poland with the access to the
imagined “high tech Europe”. At that time the aggressive enter of foreign multinationals was
considered as a factor which would thwart Polish attempts to deindustrialize local economy.
Imaginary “Polish electronics” market was supposed to be co‐constructed by domestic
electronics manufacturers that would make modern and affordable products, and consumer‐
citizens who were supposed to buy Polish rather than “made in Japan” goods to support the
common good.
This study is based on the content analysis of relevant influential economic and technical
magazines, documents of state agencies, and market research reports. My paper shows how
we can bring the studies of technological change related to the system transition of 1989
into the ongoing discussions in the STS field. Analysis of discursive practices in public debate
provides an interesting empirical material for the discussion on the attribution of agency in
social shaping of technology.
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Friday
Session F1D
Room UI7
9:00‐10:30
The Perception of Commodities Reflecting Scientific Technology
Dr. Eva Waginger, University of Economy, Vienna, Austria
Historically one major task of economy is to organize the availability and distribution of
material goods in order to allow people to survive and even to attain some luxury life,
depending on their social class. In this connection the knowledge of the origin and quality of
goods as well as to take care and to preserve them were important for craftsmen and
merchants. Eearly books give evidence that the description of the quality of goods was a
major topic for production, trade and for “consumers”. When economic universities were
established in the 1920ies and 1930ies in central, eastern and southern Europe they hosted
institutes of technology and commodity science. These institutions reflected the
engagement of merchants in real goods, which, in form of a modern science has started in
the 17th century (technology and commodity science).
The paper will show, how ‐ due to many influences and paradigm shifts ‐ the economic
science almost completely lost its interest in the real nature of goods . This will be
demonstrated by reviewing the development of commodity literature from the early
beginning until present, showing an encyclopedic, an empirical and information based
approach and by outlining the institutional history of technology and commodity science.
Commodities were investigated and popularized by description, by instruments like the
microscope, by chemical analyses and physical testing, and in our days by information
technology. Each wave of technology created methods to describe and perceive the quality
of goods from functional artifacts to virtual lifestyle objects and representatives of ethic and
ecological values in a globalized world. ICT created totally new quality perspectives of
products which are dealt with in scientific research, in policy, in marketing and trade and in
consumption.
To conclude with technology does not only change the construction and functions of
products but also the stories which we are creating around them and influences strongly the
way we perceive and use them. This finding should be reflected seriously when discussing
sustainable consumption as it part of the explanation that resource depletion is advancing
rapidly.
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ICOHTEC Book And Article Prizes Round Table Friday
Session F2
Organisers: Dick van Lente, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Aula
The Netherlands 11:00‐12:30
Hermione Giffard, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
As in previous years, ICOHTEC will award two prizes for outstanding recent publications: the
ICOHTEC prize for young scholars, which is awarded for book, and which is sponsored by the
Juanelo Turriano Foundation, and the Maurice Daumas Article Prize, sponsored by the
Université de Technologique Belfort‐Montbéliard. A panel session will be devoted to each of
these two publications.
The book prize was won by Dr. Dora Vargha for her dissertation Iron Curtain, Iron Lungs:
governing polio in Cold War Hungary, 1952‐1963, defended at Rutgers University, 2013.
Discussants will be Professor Liliana Rogozea, Transilvania University of Brasov, and Dr.
James Stark, University of Leeds. Both are historians of medicine. The session will be chaired
by Dr. Dick van Lente of Erasmus University.
The article prize was won by Dr. Donna J. Drucker for her article, “Keying Desire: Alfred
Kinsey’s Use of Punched Card Machines for Sex Research” that appeared in Journal of the
History of Sexuality 22/1 (January 2013). The article will be discussed by Dr. Gerard Alberts,
computer historian of the University of Amsterdam, and Professor Amy Dix, historian of
gender and technology of Iowa State University under the chairmanship of Hermione Giffard
of the University of Utrecht.
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Turning Points in Technological Development in Friday
Session F2A
Romania from the mid‐19th century to nowadays: Room UI2
7. Information Technologies – IT 11:00‐12:30
Organiser & Chair: Alexandre Herlea, Technical University Belfort
Montbéliard, France
Development of the Information Revolution in Romania
Professor Stefan Iancu, Military Technical Academy of Bucharest, Romania
In the present paper academician Mihai Drãgãnescu is presented as a pioneer and promoter
of the information revolution inRomania.
The first part of this paper is dedicated to the Mihai Drăgănescu’s activity as a professor and
scientist, pointing out how this Professor has developed the school of electronic and
microelectronic devices in the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest and are indicated the main
electronics fields in which the professor has developed and published the original scientific
ideas.
In the second part of this paper, the author shows haw, Mihai Drăgănescu, since 1967,
participated at the establishment of a new Government Commission for endowment of
national economy with modern computing equipment and automatic data processing, and
promoted several principles and guidelines which allowed ideas to create a system‐wide unit
of society. Professor has developed during 1966‐1971 and 1976‐1985 the first national
program for the introduction and use of electronic computers in the Romanian economy and
society, one of the largest programs in the country's technological fields.
In the last part of the paper, the author pointed out the role of Mihai Drăgănescu for the
present ant the future as an example of the one high scientific personality who, through a
creative, competent and responsible activity, conceived scientific and managerial works
which are examples for us and for our followers.
The sources of this paper are 6 papers written by Mihai Drăgănescu between 1986‐2007, 2
papers written by academician Florin Filip in 1996 and 2002, 2 papers written by myself in
1995 and 2003, as well as information from two volumes published by myself in 2004 and
2009.
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Friday
Session F2A
Room UI2
11:00‐12:30
A Discourse Analysis of European Technobuzz and its Perception in Romania
Dr. Tudor Ionescu, University of Vienna, Austria
In contemporary Western societies, projections of techno‐scientific futures are increasingly
constructed around catch phrases that seem to have the capacity of spreading by
themselves. Terms like “green technology”, “bio foods”, “sustainable energy”, or “the
knowledge society” are not unfamiliar to most citizens, who follow expert discourse in
European political contexts. At the same time, the European technology sector is
increasingly dependent on research and development (R&D) subventions for consolidation
in times of economic normality and survival in times of crisis. This economic reality meets
the futuristic techno‐scientific discourse within the official documents and presentations of
the European R&D framework programs, which make heavy use of buzzwords, catch
phrases, and clichés such as “the innovation union”, “excellent science”, “competitive
industries”, “better society”, “blue sky research”, “reliable, clean, efficient energy”, “smart,
green transport”, and many more.
A close look at the linguistic construction of this futuristic techno‐scientific discourse, which
is usually referred to as “technobuzz”, reveals the true nature of an emerging wooden
language: it appears to be the result of a modern glass bead game, which has as little to do
with the present economic reality as did Herman Hesse’s Castalia with the reality of the
surrounding world. Yet by being repeated and reinforced at the highest level of European
science and technology policy, the promises encompassed by the discourse of technobuzz
are practically made to become reality.
In this context, it is important to inquire into the perception of this type of discourse on the
part of economic stakeholders and ordinary people in Romania—a country that is
undergoing a transition from a totalitarian political system dominated by communist
propaganda, which used an old wooden language, to a new political and economic system
dominated by what appears to be another type of economic propaganda, which uses the
technobuzz as its new official wooden language.
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Friday
Session F2A
Room UI2
11:00‐12:30
Romanian IT Seen by an Insider (in French)
Dr. Vlad Tepelea, Romanian Association of Software and Services Industry, Bucharest,
Romania
Le secteur informatique, depuis son apparition, a joué et joue un rôle de plus en plus actif en
Roumanie. Après la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale peuvent être mises en évidence trois
périodes: La période « théorique » marquée par les études et travaux de mathématiciens et
ingénieurs comme Grigore Moisil, Victor Toma et autres, la construction de machines à
tubes et plus tard à transistors à l’Institut de Physique Atomique et dans les trois centres
universitaires pionniers : Bucarest, Timişoara et Cluj ; La période « industrielle » ou une
industrie de fabrication d’ordinateurs voit le jour ainsi que des instituts de recherches et des
centres de calculs départementaux. Cette période débute en 1968 avec le rachat de France
par la Roumanie de la licence de fabrication des ordinateurs IRIS 50; La période « services »
d’après 1990, qui a vu naître une industrie locale importante de développements de logiciels
et de services et qui se caractérise par une utilisation en croissance galopante de
l’informatique et de l’Internet dans la vie courante et l’administration publique.
Chacune de ces périodes a ses traits spécifiques qu’il convient de discerner et que je
présenterai dans mon intervention. Celle‐ci sera celle d’un témoin direct et acteur de la vie
associative du secteur. L’accent sera mis sur trois projets auxquels j’ai pris part directement
en tant que chercheur et chef de laboratoire à l’ITC : 1) le projet “U” ; 2) le projet PNUD
Valea Jiului ; 3) l’informatisation des élections de 1990.
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New Uses of Old Technologies in Times of Transition: Friday
Session F2B
2. Theory and Practice of Industrial and Cultural Room UI3
Heritage Management 11:00‐12:30
Organiser: Daqing Yang, George Washington University, USA
Chair: Mark Watson, Historic Scotland, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Identity, History and Profit? Comparison of Three Industrial Heritage Cases in
Pori, Finland
Lecturer Anna Sivula, University of Turku, Finland
If we want to understand industrial heritage, we must begin with well‐documented case
studies. It is in case studies the diversity, different scales, and different durations of heritage
process become visible and intelligible. My paper is about understanding the diversity of
industrial heritages in the light of three different local cases. I analyze three well
documented cases of the different industrial heritage projects in the Finnish town of Pori.
My case studies are of Pori Cotton Factory, the Ahlström industrial landscape of Noormarkku
in Pori, and the tangible and intangible industrial heritage of the Pori Volunteer Fire Brigade.
The cotton factory is a symbol of Pori’s industrial history. The Ahström industrial landscape is
a legacy of a remarkable Finnish family of industrialists, the founding family behind the
Ahlstrom Corporation. The site is currently both in public and private use. In my third case
study, the listed buildings, restored fire engines and annual celebrations of a 150 years old
volunteer fire brigade of Pori make an interesting combination of tangible and intangible
industrial heritage.
If we, as historians of technology and society, want to evaluate these projects from a
comparative perspective, we must ask similar questions to well documented case studies.
For to understand the political and economic factors behind the cultural heritage, I’m asking
these simple questions to each case: How did these particular remains of industrial activities
become cultural heritage? Who finances the maintenance of the industrial heritage? Who
constructed the meaning and interpretation of the heritage? What kind of “heritage
community” is attached to the site? Who uses the industrial heritage, and for what purpose?
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Friday
Session F2B
Room UI3
11:00‐12:30
Heritage Plants of The Ural Region (Russia) in Post‐industrial Period
Ph.D. candidate Nadezhda Solonina, Ural States Academy of Architecture and Arts,
Yekaterinburg, Russia
The Ural industrial heritage is a large network of metallurgical factories and it counts more
then 300 sites of different degrees of conservation. Physical state of such objects varies from
completely lost to well‐saved and opened for public. During 3 centuries the factories have
overcome several economy crises. Consequently only some of large number of plants were
able to survive and keep on production.
The theoretical foundation of the research consists of the following sources: 1) references
helping to track the industrial history of the Urals and local identity of industrial sites; 2)
works revealing the issues, research methods and importance of preserving and
reconstructing cultural, historical and industrial legacy; 3) sources containing information of
effective presentation of world industrial heritage sites.
During the Soviet Union period the viability of a lot of plants had been supported by
government funding. It was necessary to provide an employment of each industrial district.
After the collapse of Soviet Union the former state‐owned enterprises transformed into
private property. They have to look for a place in the market in the conditions of new
economy policy. During perestroika Ural’s industrial heritage has lost a significant part of
unique relics. In the process of adaptation to new conditions the factories have to clear
territories and demolish old constructions. Using or conservation of such industrial relics
required large expenses for supporting of heritage specialists and reconstruction acts. Only
large and efficient factories could save their unique industrial constructions. The trend of
preservation and rethinking of industrial heritage is progressing in Russia for several years.
Thereby we can to attract attention of government, public and entrepreneurs to industrial
heritage of Urals and to form a conception of preservation and presentation unique relics of
local industry. It will help to restore lost relationship between a human and cultural and
historical environment.
Within the framework of the paper will be introduced the brightest examples of Ural’s
industrial heritage and other industrial sites, which are in the process of renovation
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Friday
Session F2B
Room UI3
11:00‐12:30
Late Industrialization and the Invention of Heritaging in Japan and Beyond
Professor Daqing Yang, George Washington University, USA
The Japanese neologism “heritaging” is defined as “enjoying the heritage of modernization.”
An Institute for the Study of Heritaging was established in 2004 by Asomura Takao, who
retired from Japan’s leading PR firm. Local governments and academics welcomed the idea
and together have produced a national trend of turning various sites associated with Japan’s
modernization into museums and other tourist attractions. Industrial heritage sites feature
prominently among them. The central government has also come on board by setting up
research councils in a hope to help jumpstart the Japanese economy after decades of
recession. Currently, a number of prefectures in western Japan are working together to
register a cluster of modern industrial sites as UNESCO world heritage sites.
In neighboring China, though its industrialization lagged even behind Japan's in the modern
era, a similar phenomenon is happening. Decades of market reform and urbanization have
produced decommissioned industrial plants in many sprawling cities, from Shenyang and
Beijing in the north to Nanjing and Shanghai in the east. While some have become
designated “art districts” to fill the vacuum of cultural industry in a rapidly developing
country, others have used their industrial roots as basis of “creativity parks,” incubators of
new industry such as software development. The 1865 site in Nanjing was China’s first
modern arsenal, later a state‐owned machinery plant under Mao, is currently reinventing
itself to meet the needs of new China.
My paper analyzes the multiple forces behind “enjoying the heritage of modernization” and
also explores how this trend helps redefine the popular Japanese and Chinese conception of
their trajectories to modernity as well as their self‐identity.
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Electric Power and Societal Development: 2. Era of Friday
Session F2C
Electrification Room UI6
Chair: Jochen F. Mayer, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom 11:00‐12:30
German Electrification in War and Revolution, 1913‐1921
Dr. Edmund N. Todd, University of New Haven, USA
Before World War I, German electrical manufacturing firms constructed electric power and
light systems to gain market share. The war and revolution provided opportunities to scale
up facilities and, perhaps, to rationalize and simplify the Byzantine pattern of local systems,
which replicated fragmented local, regional, and state governance. Historians and
contemporaries have castigated both sorts of fragmentation as impediments to proper
change. However, successful expansion required careful attention to technical, social,
economic, and political variations. Problems abounded. Unable to attend to local
differences, electrical manufacturers failed to simplify systems. Instead, Reich and state
governments became more active, as did a mixed, public‐private corporation growing out of
the Ruhr region, the Rhenish‐Westphalian Electrical Company (RWE). The different attempts
to resolve local problems met varying successes in their different locales. This paper
evaluates those different paths and stresses the benefits of the Byzantine systems of
governance that guaranteed empirical approaches to relevant social, political, economic, and
technical variations.
This paper draws on local municipal archives and the Stinnes papers, as well as on various
studies of electrification such as Thomas P. Hughes, Networks of Power (1983); Vincent
Lagendijk, Electrifying Europe (2008); and Bernhard Stier, Staat und Strom (1999). James C.
Scott, Seeing Like A State, notes the opportunities during revolutionary periods to promote
state or corporate simplifications and that practical, local knowledge has made those
simplifications work to the extent that they have. In the German context, Byzantine systems
of local governance guaranteed careful attention to local variations. The resulting
“technopolitical regimes” had lasting significance.
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Friday
Session F2C
Room UI6
11:00‐12:30
The impact of Electrification in the Spanish Most Progressive Decade,
1958‐1975
Dr. Maria Teresa Sanchis, Universitat de València, Spain
Following the growth accounting approach introduced by Oliner and Sichel (2000) for
measuring the impact of the ICT’s on GDP growth as a General Purpose Technology, this
paper analyzes the impact of electricity in Spanish economic growth in 1958‐1970. Spain
represent the case of a follower country that could display the benefits of electricity only
some decades later (1950’s and 1960’s) than it was introduced in the country (1900’s‐
1910’s) and four decades later than it had its biggest impact in the leader country, the U.S in
1920’s and 1930’s. The Oliner and Sichel (2000) analytical framework has been modified to
identify different kinds of spillover effects in order to account for a more comprehensive
impact of electricity. The results obtained confirm that electricity played a significant role in
Spain through the three channels identified in the literature for quantifying the contribution
of a GPT: multifactor productivity growth, capital deepening and spillover effects. The
impact is higher than those estimated for other follower countries in 1920’s, but lower than
the estimated impact for the U.S in its most progressive decades, 1920’s‐1930’s. An
interesting point of the paper is also to explore the role played by institutional and political
factors hampering or promoting the development of the new technologies. Spain’s in those
decades represents an interesting case of study because it was settled in the long lasted
Franco’s dictatorship.
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Friday
Session F2C
Room UI6
11:00‐12:30
Electric Machines between Industrial Revolution and Information Era
Professor Ion Voncila, “Dunarea de Jos” University of Galati, Romania
The paper begins with an overview of the existing types of electric machines mass produced
worldwide after the Word War II as consequences of new materials and technologies setting
up and new concepts generated by many limits in new fields applications (spacecraft,
shipbuilding etc.).
In the first stage are presented the new materials and technologies that allowed changes in
design and production of a new class of electric machines in '50 – '70 of 20th Century. Then,
there are also presented new concepts that came out in '80 ‐ '90 of the 20th Century. These
concepts led both to structure alterations and changes in the principles of operation.
The paper deals with the way of implementation of two major concepts for a new class of
electric machines in the begining of the 21st Century: the electric machine as an integrator
of electromagnetic, mechanic and information subsystems and the electric machine as a
system in permanent interaction with the environment.
Certain conclusions emerged as a consequence of the analysis: promotion of electric
machines new structures, which, through the materials and technologies, including specific
geometries, would have the lowest possible environmental impact, on its entire lifecycle;
new operation characteristics of the existing and future classes of electric machines both
through design process rethinking and through widening and refining the integration
concept.
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Rocketry and Spaceflight in the Cold War and After Friday
Session F2D
Chair: Michael J. Neufeld, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, USA Room UI7
11:00‐12:30
Cold War, Space Research in Greenland, and the Politics of Rockets
Dr. Henrik Knudsen, The Danish State Archives, Aarhus, Denmark
Issued on the front page of Danish newspaper Politiken on July 4, 1968 the lead article
announced the commencement of a joint Danish‐American “grand rocket program” to
investigate the “splendid natural phenomena” of sunspots and polar cap absorption from
Thule Air Base in northern Greenland. Enthusiasm and national pride ran high and
understandably so even if the scramble for space enjoyed far less public and political support
in Europe compared to its high profile in the two arm wrestling super powers. From the early
1960s Danish scientist took gradual steps into the field of rocket borne space research e.g.
through participation in rocket launches from Andøya (Norway). Now activities were about
to reach a new level with a joint Danish‐American program comprising of no less than 34
rocket launches. The ink was hardly dry when the same paper the next day reported that the
Danish government in a sweeping move had decided to call of the American part of the joint
effort. Only rarely had the Danish government said no to American research projects in
Greenland and never before had rejections reached the public. In the following weeks
newspapers reported on what most participants took to be a major political mishap by the
government. Archival research in Denmark and the USA points to some conclusions 1) the
project was funded and directed by the US Department of Defense and the US Air Force; 2)
the agenda was to assess the effects of high altitude nuclear explosions on DoD
communications systems; 3) in effect, Pentagon was proposing to use Greenland as a natural
nuclear laboratory; 4) that the Danish government had substantial knowledge about this
background; 5) that the role of Danish scientist in the project was diminutive. The paper will
situate the American rocket project in its Cold War military‐technological context and outline
the complex political appropriation process that lead the Danish government to the
rejection.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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Friday
Session F2D
Room UI7
11:00‐12:30
U.S. Planetary Exploration in the Post‐Cold‐War World
Dr. Michael J. Neufeld, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, USA
The end of the Cold War in 1989/91, and the related restructuring of the government and
military budget in the U.S., inevitably had significant effects on the American enterprise of
exploring the Solar System with robotic spacecraft. As was true of human spaceflight, NASA
tried to coordinate or integrate U.S. and Soviet/Russian missions. At the same time, some
NASA and Defense Department actors pushed for the transfer of technology developed in
the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, but nicknamed "Star Wars") into civilian spaceflight,
notably space science missions. Post‐Cold‐War attempts to restructure the U.S. government
and reduce the budget also impacted NASA’s budget and increased the pressure for reform.
This paper will examine the impact of the Cold War’s end on U.S. planetary programs and
technology in the 1990s through three brief case studies: 1) the creation of the Discovery
Program for smaller planetary spacecraft and the "faster, better, cheaper" initiative of NASA
Administrator Daniel Goldin (1992‐2001); 2) the attempt to create U.S.‐Russian cooperative
Mars, Pluto and solar missions; and 3) the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization’s
Clementine mission to the Moon and an asteroid, launched in 1994. In marked contrast to
human spaceflight, cooperation with Russia in planetary exploration failed, and Goldin’s
"faster, better, cheaper" technological revolution petered out after two Mars missions
failures in 1999. Moreover, the Defense Department never launched another solar system
mission. But NASA’s planetary exploration program was permanently altered, in part
through miniaturization technologies inherited from SDI.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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Economic and Social Consequences of Saturday
Session S1A
Automatisation Room UI2
Chair: Gerard Alberts, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands 9:00‐10:30
Office Spaces in Existing Structures for More Innovation and Space Efficiency
Dr. Erzsébet Szeréna Zoltán, University of Pécs, Hungary
The importance of alternative office spaces for more productivity and space efficiency is in
focus: analyzing the way of use as it was common in the past decades and how new
technologies and decreasing productivity in the tertiary and quaternary sector urge
intervention in the traditional structures and hierarchies to attain top competitiveness.
The history and functionality of the work environment and its widening scope is exploited to
consider how the reuse of existing office buildings could be made more sustainable and
healthier. In Hungary the trend was – and partly still is just the contrary: demolishing instead
of refurbishing. Demolition is the loss of substance on the one hand but then again it implies
the possibility to create something new. This can be considered as a normal process – as
even for several hundreds of years buildings had been in constant change. Analyzed from the
sustainability perspective of the process, it results merely in waste and recycling problem.
The life cycle of buildings in the post war era with the introduction of mass construction
preferably produced out of concrete was estimated about 50 years. As they still are
constructional well preserved, demolishing them is more like erasing the collective memory
related to the communist era. The smoother way for replacing them though could begin with
some refurbishment work until there are no almost remains of the original. This kind of
partial demolition would strain both urban and natural environment less. Thinking green and
sustainable should also mean making efforts to preserve what is present and trying to make
the best of it.
It is argued that the preservation of post‐war concrete skeleton structures can be
sustainable. Sustainability is usually considered only in terms of construction but it should be
complemented also in the work environment by satisfaction and wellbeing of the users. In
case of reduced productivity it is suggested that activity based design practices will result in
optimized space quality of office buildings and improved health for their occupants. The
building performance, human factors should be incorporated as a strategy for productivity
enhancement.
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Saturday
Session S1A
Room UI2
9:00‐10:30
Wealth for Whoever Owns the Robots: Technological Unemployment
Concerns in Twentieth and Twenty‐First‐Century Economic Crises
Dr. Amy Bix, Iowa State University, Kirksville, USA
The twentieth century brought waves of concern, among both professionals and the public,
about technological unemployment, fears of mechanization displacing workers. Twenty‐first‐
century economic transitions have renewed such debate, within new contexts of big data,
ubiquitous computing, and increasingly‐sophisticated robotics. Observers link workplace
technological change to middle‐class precariousness and income polarization.
Simultaneously, increasing integration of technologies has tied innovation ever closer to
twenty‐first‐century assumptions of “progress.” 1930s Depression‐era unemployment
fostered widespread discussions about the changing nature of “Machine Age” economic
opportunity. Critics blamed mechanization for displacing switchboard operators, movie‐
theater musicians, farmworkers, and factory operatives. America must start “finding jobs
faster than invention can take them away,” President Roosevelt warned. Engineers,
scientists, and businessmen fought back, insisting that technological change both created
new jobs and consumer abundance. Yet debates over “how far and how perilously the
machine has run ahead of the man” never vanished, reappearing alongside 1950s
discussions of automation and 1990s “jobless recovery” analysis. Modern perspectives
examine the job‐killing potential of “the autonomous economy,” automated warehouses,
Japan’s driverless trains, California’s robot citrus‐harvesters. Observers blame robotics and
networking for displacing secretaries, travel‐agents, ticket‐agents, banktellers, human‐
resource consultants, pharmacists, stock‐traders, paralegals, factory managers. In 2011,
President Obama said, “There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of
businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers....” Nobel‐
winning economist Paul Krugman commented, “Smart machines may make higher GDP
possible, but also reduce the demand for people… a society that grows ever richer, but… all
the gains… accrue to whoever owns the robots.”
This paper examines a wide range of sources among high‐profile media and economists’
discussions of technological unemployment, in order to compare attitudes across decades of
economic crisis. Like Depression‐era predecessors, twenty‐first‐century critics warn that
workplace mechanization fundamentally undermines social well‐being, linking it to “winner‐
take‐all” income inequality. As before, optimists insist that automation will make work more
enjoyable, opening opportunities that robots can never handle. Modern technological‐
unemployment talk reflects increasingly‐complex globalized economic tensions, plus
recognition of the accelerating inescapability of technological change across all aspects of
life.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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Saturday
Session S1A
Room UI2
9:00‐10:30
From File Card to Magnetic Tape: The Networks of Technologies and
Institutions behind West German Labour Statistics, c.1945‐1973
Dr. Jochen F. Mayer, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
This paper describes the transformation of information networks in place to create facts and
figures on the West German labour market c.1945‐1973. Drawing on a wide range of archival
material and specialist literature, I argue for a co‐production of these information networks
(hardware), the organisation of state administration, as well as the administrative practices
involved. In the first part of the paper, I will show how data on labour (that is the
occupational structure and (un‐)employment situation) until the mid‐1960s was essentially
based on early twentieth‐century techniques, namely paper forms and handwriting. I will
then go on to show that attempts, during and after the Second World War, to improve the
speed and accuracy of the data flow through punch‐card machinery failed mainly due to the
decentralised character of both filing system and labour administration. The final part
explains how a new generation of labour administrators, mathematicians and economists
went about rationalising the slow and unreliable ‘paper network’. Their extraordinary efforts
essentially bypassed punched‐card machinery to merge with technologies of the social
security systems in the early 1970s. This shift is interpreted not as a function of the
hardware (electronic data processing) alone, but of the co‐evolution of hardware (especially
magnetic storage devices), the ‘planning’ state now resuming unprecedented responsibilities
in responding to labour market imbalances, and administrative practices. The amalgamation
of pension insurance and labour administration for the purpose of statistical registration is
shown to be more evolutionary than revolutionary.
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Reinventing Industrial Culture Saturday
Session S1B
Chair: Slawomir Lotysz, University of Zielona Gora, Poland Room UI3
9:00‐10:30
Industrial Heritage as a Resource – the Case of Romania
Lecturer Ioana Irina Iamandescu, Universitatea de Arhitectură și Urbanism Ion Mincu,
Bucharest, Romania
The paper gives a general image of the industrial heritage inRomaniain time of de‐
industrialization and under the pressure of new economic developments, with an accent on
its technological value and its importance for the national identity, underlining conservation
problems as well as the development potential
To support the presentation several case studies, concentrated on two main issues, are
analyzed. One is the mining heritage and its urgent need for protection in a context that
favours the immediate closing of all surviving underground mines in Romania as well as the
opening of new large scale open pit exploitations in heritage contexts. The Romanian
examples are the XVIII ‐XX century coal mines in Banat ( Anina), the Jiu Valley XIX‐XX century
coal mines complex (Petrila, Aninoasa) and the gold exploitation known from Roman times
in Rosia Montana. The second is the industrial heritage sites in our cities, where industry
(that no longer is the engine of their economy) left behind sites that are very often seen only
as brownfields, ready to be completely demolished regardless to their technological and
historical value. The Romanian example is the capital city ofBucharestand its rich XIX century
industrial ring.
The paper is stressing the necessity for documentation, conservation and re‐use of such
industrial heritage sites and is presenting the latest Romanian initiatives that should make a
difference in seeing these sites as important resources rather than as unsolvable problems.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
209
Saturday
Session S1B
Room UI3
9:00‐10:30
New Industrial Culture
Dr. Lars Scharnholz, Institut für neue Industriekultur, Cottbus, Germany
Researcher Heidi Pinkepank, Institut für neue Industriekultur, Cottbus, Germany
The presentation of Heidi Pinkepank and Lars Scharnholz will focus on the German idiom of
“Industriekultur” (“industrial culture”). After its first use in the early 20th century the term
“Industriekultur” has been transformed, adjusted and newly invented within the following
decades. A closer look illustrates that the different interpretations of “Industriekultur” over
the course of time were following different mainstreams and trends in society. As a result of
this today there is a wide range of interpretations that somewhat barricade a thoughtful and
distinguished examination of “Industriekultur”.
The multifaceted discussion on the concept of industrial culture in Germany however is
linked to the encouraging promise of a postindustrial future. The many preservation efforts
to conserve and save the built past of the industrialization reflected by various industrial
heritage alliances all over Germany is commonly combined with the understanding of
“Industriekultur” as a phenomena referring to the past. Thus the current retrospective focus
of industrial culture is the protection of an earlier period that seems to be completed and
the conservation of its technology based artefacts. The global reality however shows a
different view: While one part of the world seems to say goodbye the “times of the
machine” and industrial technology the rest of the globe undoubtedly notices an incredibly
dynamic and high‐speed process of progressing industrialization.
Therefore Heidi Pinkepank and Lars Scharnholz argue while studying the disproportion
between postindustrial anticipations in Germany and global reality of industrialization and
technology that it is essential to identify industrial actuality as a cultural phenomenon of the
present and to stand up for it. This is not only true for the newly industrial nation but also for
the traditional industrial nations such as Germany. To underline the necessity of the
actualization of the cultural concept of industrialization the term “New Industrial Culture” is
introduced. Thus “New Industrial Culture” emphasizes the cultural value of industrialization
in present and future times.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
210
Artisans, Savants, and Engineers Saturday
Session S1C
Chair: Antoni Roca‐Rosell, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Room UI6
Barcelona, Spain 9:00‐10:30
Progressive Dies. History and Evolution (In Spanish)
Dr. Fernando Fadon, Universidad de Cantabria, Spain
Dr. Enrique Ceron, Universidad de Cantabria, Spain
Progressive dies are tools widely used in mass production in sheet metal manufacture. They
are commonly applied in several industrial sectors such as electronics, automotive,
aerospace, home appliance. Although its design and construction is a complex task their use
is largely widespread due to they produce large quantities of high quality and cheap parts
compared to other manufacturing processes. They are especially recommended for large
mass production.
As part of one of the fields of manufacturing technology most applied along history as metal‐
forming is, in this case cold forming, its invention is no clearly well‐defined. The origin of
progressive dies does not have a precise period or date in technology history, since it is a
tool that has been developed and improved when the designers experience was increasing,
going from simple tools, minor modifications of tools commonly used in sheet‐metal
working, to later become in highly complex tools with the accuracy required for mass
production of a lot everyday items.
This paper presents a study of its evolution, how the transition was made from the simple
tools or machines that were used until the seventeenth century to the great development
that took place in its design and mainly throughout the nineteenth century until to reach the
present design that has had little changes over the last 100 years. It has changed its
accuracy, the tools and processes to design and build them, but the main part of its design
and function retains the same essence as the designs of the late nineteenth century.
For this study it has been analyzed mainly specific manufacturing books from the XIX and
early XX century, as well as encyclopedias and other generic sources from the XIX century
where its development was more significant and also from earlier centuries.
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211
Saturday
Session S1C
Room UI6
9:00‐10:30
The Birth of the Science of Machines and the Roles of the Fathers‐Founders
Dr. Irina Gouzevitch, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, France
Dr. Dmitri Gouzevitch, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, France
It is well known that the science of machines has as its founders four savants: Gaspard
Monge, Pierre‐Nicolas Hachette, José Maria de Lanz and Augustin Betancourt. However, a
specific role of each one remains unclear. To explore this question will be the purpose of this
paper. We will present a chronicle of the events which preceeded the elaboration of the
course of machines at the Ecole polytechnique, under Monge’s pressure (1794‐1808).
Further on, we will explore the way in which the Essai sur la composition des machines by
Lanz and Betancourt has been created (1808) given that the relations among two co‐authors
were then very complicate. The publications of this work by the Ecole polytechnique in 1808
will be questioned, as well as the integration of a third co‐author, Hachette, who, first,
plagiarized their idea before following his independent research path.The subsequent
editions of Lanz and Betancourt’s work (1819, 1840; translations: 1820; 1822; 1824; 1829)
and of Hachette’s developments (1811, 1814; 1819; and 1828) will be analised. An
explanation will be done of a new notion of ‘elementary machines’ proposed by Lanz and
Betancourt to designate a plenty of indexed assemblies which included not only rigid, but
also flexible, liquid and gaz links. In spite of its syncretic character, this approach allowed a
more coherent classification of the elements of machines according the the forms of
movement (kinematic principle). A particular role of the Essai in the development of the
theoretical knowledge about machines places its authors among the main promotors of the
emerging science: Leupold‐Euler‐Carnot–Monge‐Lanz/Betancourt‐Hachette. In this filiation,
the Essai marks a point in which the science of machines was born.
Main conclusions: Monge pointed out a possibility of creating a classification of machines
based on the kinematic principle; Betancourt participated in its elaboration and completed it
with practical and technical content; Lanz and Hachette, having published, each, 3‐4
monographic issues, managed to lay foundations of a new science; at the early stage (1806‐
1808), the Essai of Lanz and Betancourt turned out primary with regard to Hachette’s work,
this latter hawing borrowed from them the initial and fundamental idea of classification.
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Technology of Research: Digitalization, Saturday
Session S1D
Dissemination, and Popularization of Technical Room UI7
Knowledge 9:00‐10:30
Chair: Francesco Gerali, National Autonomous University of Mexico,
Mexico
The Technical Public Library: Popularizing Science vs. Offering Specialized
Services
Ph.D. candidate Claudia Serbanuta, University of Illinois, U.S.A.
Ms. Raluca Nutiu, Librarian at the Mures County Library, Romania
Science and technology have always been a major part of the communist ideology. In the
last decades of the regime, the push for popularization of science and industrialization was
strongly felt throughout society. Public libraries were key institutions in the process of
educating the New Man. This paper will investigate what were the roles played by public
libraries in disseminating science and technology in a communist society.
While union libraries or libraries serving specific manufacturers have been functioning for
some time, the need for both general and professionalized information services was great in
the 1970s. The public library, a library serving the general public, decided to create specific
services to help out. An analysis of the activities of a technical branch from a Romanian
public library will reveal the duality of services offered by the library. On one hand, the
library services—supported by the publishing industry and regional cultural committee—
were addressing the masses and, on the other hand, they were targeting specialized
professionals.
Librarians created a special collection by broadly defining science and technology and
created in house tools for searching and retrieving materials from that collection. In a
culture of isolation with little knowledge sharing practices, through specific instruments,
librarians connected their technical collection to other thematic local and national
collections and to the scientific publishing from neighbouring countries. By analysing the
activities’ archive from the 1970s and the 1980s and corroborating them with oral histories
of librarians that planned and implemented these activities, we will get an in‐depth
understanding of the roles played by public libraries in the socialist technical revolution. This
article will provide new insights into understanding the ways in which this revolution was
experienced at the grass roots level.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
213
Saturday
Session S1D
Room UI7
9:00‐10:30
Digitization of Documentary Cultural Heritage in Romania
Ph.D. candidate Marius Stoianovici, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
Ph.D. candidate Ionela Barsan, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
Professor Angela Repanovici, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
Ph.D. candidate Nadine Roman
Professor Liliana Rogozea, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
The paper presents the present framework of the digitization process of the Romanian
national cultural heritage. The legislative issues underlying the digitization process are
analyzed, the functions of the coordinating institutions in the digitization process are
presented (Ministry of Culture and Cultural Heritage, Institute of Cultural Memory ‐ cIMeC,
Romanian National Library) and the representative projects of the infodocumentary
structures, owners of heritage values.
In order to analyze the present situation regarding the digitization and to identify the
digitization projects in Romania, we developed a questionnaire, which was distributed online
in 134 cultural institutions. By help of Swot analysis, the strong and weak points were
emphasized, as well as the opportunities and threats coming from the external environment
and hinder the development of digitization projects.
The conclusions of the questionnaire the the results of the Swot analysis lead to generating
proposals concerning the improvement of digitization activity at national level.
Research limitations/implications – The sample size limits the extent of statistical analyses
and possible generalizations. The planned qualitative research may help in confirmation of
the digitization process.
Originality/value – The proposed model may be generalized. The digitization process is of
great interest throughout the world.
This paper describes a unique approach and could be transferred to other countries and
communities.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
214
Saturday
Session S1D
Room UI7
9:00‐10:30
Archives in Wonderland: The Promise and Perils of Transitions into the
Digital Era
Professor Darwin Stapleton, University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA
“How puzzling all these changes are!,” said Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. This
paper will explore and comment on how rapid technological change is affecting archives and
archive‐based scholarship. It will engage especially a range of issues that historians and
archivists are experiencing as archival research transitions into a new era of steadily
increasing availability and access. Archives are being pressured by the expectations of full
and unhindered access that are fostered by internet‐savvy researchers. It will examine
several significant programs of digital outreach created by archives that have enormously
expanded opportunities for scholarly research in the history of technology, and will identify
the most promising directions for future development.
The paper also will consider some of the serious problems that accompany scholarly
research in the digital environment, focusing in particular on the ephemeral nature of many
digital collections, and the difficulty of working with facsimiles rather than original
documents. It will engage as well the subject of borne‐digital records, the likelihood that
most borne‐digital information will be lost or destroyed, and what is likely to be preserved.
The paper will draw on fundamental concepts of the history of technology that should
underpin historians’ use of digital resources. It will conclude that historians need to deepen
their understanding of the processes and procedures of archives in the digital era if they are
to be effective and productive scholars in the future.
My remarks will draw on contemporary archival literature; my 40+ years as an historian of
technology and editor of scholarly publications; and my experience as a professional
archivist, including 22 years as an administrator, and (since 2010) as the Director of a
graduate‐level archives‐education program. This paper will be supported by PowerPoint
images.
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215
Telecommunication in Transition Saturday
Session S2A
Chair: Maria Elvira Callapez, CIUHCT, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Room UI2
Portugal 11:00‐12:30
The Period of Transitions: from Landlines to Wireless Telegraphy in Brazil
Dr. Mauro Costa da Silva, Federal Institute of Colégio Pedro II, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
In the beginnig of twentieth century, Brazil had telegraph landlines running aside of the
seashore from the North to the South, where the majority of the population lived. There
were only few cities in the interior of Brazil with telegraph service, specially in São Paulo,
Minas Gerais and Mato Grosso State.
In the first decade of twentieth century, some wireless telegraph equipments started to be
tested in Rio de Janeiro. Two wireless stations were set: one at Santa Cruz fortress, in the
entrance of Guanabara bay, and the other at Ilha Grande, a large island in Angra dos Reis
city, around one hundred and fifty kilometers away toward South of Rio de Janero State.
In Amazonas, the telegraph connection between Belém, capital of Para state, and Manaus,
capital of Amazonas state, was made by submarine cables along Amazonas river. Many
circumstances related to the local nature turned the communication intermittent. The Para
and Amazonas states government tried to install wireless telegraph stations to provide
another way of communication between both capitals. The idea was to hire a private
enterprise to set the wireless stations. Nevertheless, the Brazilian Congress forbade any
wireless telegraph grant for private companies, leaving this business for government
monopoly.
In the meanwhile, the Brazilian government decided to install a huge telegraph landline from
Mato Grosso to Manaus. The government gave the challenge to the Army, which had already
experience exploring wild unknown lands. Why did the government not try to use wireless
stations instead of using landlines in length nearly two thousand kilometer?
This work will show the advantage and disadvantage of both telegraph systems and in which
mesure polictical interests could decide which one was the most appropriate. All arguments
and conclusion are grounded by primary sources from Brazilian government and Brazilian
Army.
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216
Saturday
Session S2A
Room UI2
11:00‐12:30
The Emergence of Optical Telegraphy during the French Revolutionary and
Napoleonic Wars: a Case Study of Ireland, 1797‐1805
Ph.D. candidate Adrian James Kirwan, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland
Optical telegraphy emerged in many countries throughout Europe in the period following
the French revolution. The technology offered rapid communication to belligerent states in a
period of massive change. This revolutionary period and the new dangers that it represented
meant that states were much more willing to embrace advance technology. However, the
adoption of various forms of optical telegraphy was not uniform. While some states adopted
the technology wholeheartedly, developing large optical telegraph networks, others used
the technology sparsely. This paper shall address the rationale behind the up‐take of optical
telegraphs. It shall briefly examine the use of the technology in France and Britain before
surveying its use in Ireland. Here the optical telegraph system of Richard Lovell Edgeworth
was adopted in late 1803 as a response to the threat of French invasion. The island, only two
years after political union with Britain and five years after the 1798 rebellion, was ill‐
prepared for any potential invasion. It would be reliant upon its land‐based forces to repel
any potential French landing, native rebellion or combination of the two. Therefore the
advantage of the telegraph in allowing the rapid movement of troops was obvious. The
subsequent strengthening of Ireland’s coastal defences and, thus, renewed focus on naval
defence destroyed the rationale for an Irish optical telegraph system. Using
contemporaneous published sources as well as the Edgeworth Papers, located in the
National Library of Ireland, this paper shall, through this case study of Ireland, argue that
optical telegraphy was only of significant benefit to nations whose main military force was
land‐based.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
217
Saturday
Session S2A
Room UI2
11:00‐12:30
The Evolution of Telecommunications in Romania
Professor Mariana Jurian, University of Pitesti, Rromania
Professor Ioan Lita, University of Pitesti, Rromania
Lecturer Daniel Visan, University of Pitesti, Rromania
Communications, as the primary means of transmitting information, represents an
important factor in ensuring the progress of a country, thus the interest in promoting and
introducing in Romania the latest techniques and technologies in the field.
In this paper are presented the steps of telecommunications development inRomania. The
first part represents a brief overview of the early nineteenth century communications and
early twentieth century, going from wired to radio communications.
Most important part of the paper is devoted to the aspects of the development of modern
communications: radio, television, data, mobile etc., through terrestrial or satellite links,
following the transition from analog to digital technologies.
Romania has followed closely the countries that promotes new technologies in
telecommunications, introducing and promoting himself these technologies, so today has
developed sound and video broadcast networks, mobile communications networks, satellite
communications, radio relay, etc.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
218
From Wagons to Luxury Cars and Beyond Saturday
Session S2B
Chair: Biborka Bartha, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania Room UI3
11:00‐12:30
How Dutch Wagonmakers Became Body Makers. Knowledge Transfer by
Trade Association and a Government Agency, 1900‐1940
Ph.D. candidate Sue‐Yen Tjong Tjin Tai, Eindhoven University of Technology, The
Netherlands
This paper investigates how Dutch wagonmakers became body makers as a response to
industrialization and motorization. It specifically studies the knowledge transfer roles of the
trade associations and a government agency during this process.
The paper is based on archival research and historical and innovation literature review.
Literature review compares the Dutch wagonmaker sector with their American and German
counterparts.
The need for knowledge and new skills varied between three different groups of carriage
and wagonmakers: carriage makers, city wagonmakers and country wagonmakers. This
meant that the degree of local and handmade production varied. For body making they had
to be able to adapt foreign chassis and vehicles to local customer needs.
Wagonmakers were able to survive as body makers in niches that the automobile industry
did not serve. However, these niches changed as automobile production evolved more and
more into mass production, and as user preferences changed. Therefore, body makers’
knowledge needs changed as well: they started as artisan woodworkers and ended as
metalworkers in small industrial firms. To fulfill the body makers’ needs, the trade
association, its journal and the government agency, continuously updated their activities and
trainings.
Finally, the paper concludes that the activities of the trade association, its journal and the
government agency fulfilled an important role in enabling the transition of wagonmakers
into body making.
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
219
Saturday
Session S2B
Room UI3
11:00‐12:30
Automobile Coachbuilders on the Early 20th Century in Portugal: Craftsmen
Skills and Customs Policy as Factors to Softening Peripheral Status
Dr. José Barros Rodrigues, CIUHCT, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
As it happens throughout Europe, automobile coachbuilders in Portugal developed their new
activity from established carriage builders. Naturally, we find very early the same design
constraints and the same construction techniques of carriages on the very first bodywork
motor car designs. In Portugal, despite the lack of an automotive industry, the coachbuilders
had a very healthy and reliable activity, assuring a consistent production of approximately
15% of the overall annual car sales.
Craftsmen skills were, obviously, one of the keys for this economic success. Years of training
and a huge production experience lead to high quality bodies, similar to French and British
work. On top of this, cost production factors (feedstock, labor and energy) and a custom
protection policy gave to this industry the necessary boost for its development and
consolidation. This was also the case of other peripheral European countries such as Spain,
whose experience will be used as reference for Portuguese production.
In the present work we will summarize the flourishing coachbuilder’s activity in Portugal, in
the early years of the 20th century, studying the production costs and the influence of
customs policy on its activities. Whenever is possible we will use available data from Spanish
industry to fix some critical variables for further development and comparison with other
peripheral European countries.
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Saturday
Session S2B
Room UI3
11:00‐12:30
The Appearance of Techniques Derived from Automobile Coachwork in Jean
Prouvés Industrial Architecture
Dr. Andreas Buss, Lutz & Buss Architekten AG, Zürich, Switzerland
The development of the curtain wall in terms of a light, not load‐bearing facade has been
influenced by techniques and materials applied by the automotive industry.
This can be shown in the oeuvre of Jean Prouvé who achieved an outstanding position
among the protagonists of the modern movement as he undertook serious developments in
terms of introducing methods of industrial fabrication in architecture. His innovative use of
thin sheet‐metal for architectural elements dates from the 1930`s and led to architectural
designs which differ from permanent or static architecture in a traditional sense. This
architectural countenance joined the demands of society in the phase of reconstruction after
1945. At the same time, it made use of increased capacitys in the production of Aluminium
as a result of warplane production. Prouvés approach, to join façades or even whole
buildings derived from a kit of parts is comparable to the principles established in
automotive industry, where the creation of different variants is based on transposition of a
standardised set of compounds. Not only the method, but the techniques of contruction find
their analogy: The architectural elements were made predominantly by applying modern
bending and welding techniques. In comparison to traditional construction work, this meant
a radical break. A case study will analyse the prefabricated petrol stations of the 1950`s
derived from Prouvés so‐called “standard” system. This represents a highly inventive kit of
elements which whave been fabricated in his own workshop, a factory near Nancy, where
Prouvé designed and produced many series of structural elements for buildings, facades and
also furniture.
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Technical Infrastructure and Technology on Saturday
Session S2C
Peripheries Room UI6
Chair: Antoni Roca‐Rosell, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 11:00‐12:30
Barcelona, Spain
The Modern Technique of Tapping the Pine in Spain, or The Learning Process
of Forest Engineers and Resin Tappers (1865‐1900)
Ph.D. candidate Juan Luis Delgado, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
The industrialisation of Spanish woods during 19th century is a theme already studied by
Spanish forest historiography. Well‐known are the cases of wood and cork, notwithstanding
the case of the gum resin obtained from the pine tree has been less studied. Just one author
has stressed the relevance of this industry in the central woods of Spanish plateau. Thus,
was revealed that one of the more industrialised activities in Spanish woods was, in fact, the
gum resin industry. Its expansion began in the second half of the 19th century and reached a
mature stage at the beginning of the 20th century. The author previously mentioned was
studying the history of this industry, on the contrary, my purpose is to study the technique
itself. On one hand, the technique of tapping the pine trees, on the other, the forest
technique to develop and sustain a pine wood in order to extract the gum resin as long as
possible. For this reason, I am deeply involved with the construction process of this
technique, in which I started to distinguish that that technique was completely new for both:
forest engineers and resin tappers. With the difference that at least this latest had a notion
of the activity derived from its long experience in the activity (conducted in a different way),
on the contrary, forest engineers who were educated in forestry especialized in wood had
no idea about the conception and development of a pinewood where gum resin was the
main product. In this paper my aim is to tell the story of the learning process where both
human agents involved had to give up of more or less previous knowledge in order to enter
into the new industrialised world.
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Saturday
Session S2C
Room UI6
11:00‐12:30
Solar Desalting Plants in Atacama (1872, 1907)
Ph.D. candidate Nelson Arellano, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
Since 1914 almost a hundred of papers and books announced the existence of the first solar
energy desalting industry (Arellano, 2011). Las Salinas desalting plant was built in Atacama
Desert in 1872 following the design of the Swedish engineer Charles Wilson (Arellano, 2013).
Throughout our search in physical and virtual archives, public and private documentation
from gremial organizations, researchers of solar energy, engineering mass media and
general press, it has been possible to know many details about the plant of Las Salinas and
we have discovered that there existed a second solar plant that was built some years later,
in 1907.
The data allows to strength our conceptual approach of the intermittent duration of a
sustainable technology that could be analysed in the framework of artifactual discard of
George Basalla’s perspective (1991). This could explain one of the ways of the evolution of
technology in XIXth century and allow us understand some elements of the energetic
transition. We wish to offer new insights on the early industrial use of solar energy.
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Saturday
Session S2C
Room UI6
11:00‐12:30
The Lighting Systems on Lighthouses of the Polish Coast Changes
Professor Antoni Komorowski, Polish Naval Academy, Gdynia, Poland
Dr. Iwona Pietkiewicz, Polish Naval Academy, Gdynia, Poland
In the given paper the development of lighthouses and their lights for the purpose of
maritime sailing is presented on the basis of the analyses of Polish and German archive
materials. The safety of vessels serving in the area of the Baltic Sea in the 19th and 20th
century was very much depended on the navigational precision. One of the most important
things concerning it, good quality lighthouses’ lights, was simply invaluable. Lighthouse
network built in the given time period on the south of the Baltic Sea, the result of German
engineers’ and government, levelled up the safety of the Baltic sailing routes.
Along with the technical progress, lighthouses’ light systems were also changing. The
evolution of the lighthouses’ light systems shows us the process of changes from the lights
based on fire to oil, petroleum and gas lamps closed in glass lanterns, to, finally, electric
ones. This process was concerning the majority of lighthouses around the world. Polish
problems with technological development and the progress connected with the usage of
better quality lights were nothing unusual and were concerning light systems all around the
world, and their development increased maritime safety. A lot of modern lighthuses were
put on sea routes to Gdańsk, a port with impressive goods overturn. Their job was to inform
about danger and show the correct sea route; actions which, undoubtedly, helped to
increase the safety of goods transport.
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Imagining Technological and Scientific Progress Saturday
Session S2D
Chair: Gerard Alberts, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Room UI7
11:00‐12:30
April Fool’s Day Hoaxes and the Understanding of Technology
Dr. Olle Hagman, Independent Scholar, Göteborg, Sweden
A funny thing about April Fool’s Day hoaxes is that many of them deal with technology. So
many, that technology is the most common theme. On the Internet based Museum of
Hoaxes’ list of the world’s ”best” April Fool’s Day hoaxes of all times, almost 50 per cent
refer directly to technology. A number of hoaxes on other themes are performed through
the use of technology, and indeed, sometimes quite advanced technology. Some are
practical jokes, also using technology. In addition, almost all of the hoaxes on the list have
been presented in mass media, using modern technology for their distribution. April Fool’s
Day hoaxes, thus, seem to be a phenomenon closely connected to modern western
technology, in more than one way.
The reason that technology for many years has been such a common theme in April Fool’s
Day hoaxes must be that it “works”, or can be expected to work, in some way or the other.
Some people get fooled, and some think that is funny. But what is it about technology that
makes these hoaxes work? What aspects of the relations between technology and society
make technology such a useful theme?
The different hoaxes on the list illustrate different aspects of modern western technology.
Some of them reveal its connections to power, authority, control, exclusion, and/or moral,
and some show its relation to wants and desires, as well as disgust. The success of some
hoaxes can also illustrate the unpredictability of technological development and the
alienated relation to it.
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Saturday
Session S2D
Room UI7
11:00‐12:30
I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen. The Technology of Reality in Czechoslovak
Science‐Fiction Films 1945‐1989
Researcher Peter Koval, Humboldt‐Universität zu Berlin, Germany
The role of technology in the socialistic/Eastern European/Comecon science‐fiction films
seems to be somewhat paradoxical. On the one hand in the predominant interpretation of
Marx in the Comecon world “the technology” was regarded as a mean of change, of
transformation or “transition” towards a better future (e.g. mechanization of agriculture).
On the other hand – in the official narrative of that times – the better future have already
arrived in form of socialistic system. That delineates a field of very own even if problematic
interpretations of technology – the czechoslovak film “I killed Einstein, Gentlemen” from
1970 would be a good example.
For the analysis of the role of “technology” in Eastern European socialistic films I will focus
on the czechoslovak science fiction productions from the 1945‐1989 period. Within this well
defined corpus of films the focus will be on the distinctive features of fictional artifacts or
gadgets and their designs. These seems to be interesting not only because – as instruments
of knowledge – they materialize the historical fiction of technology. They are also a product
(or a by‐product) of limited resources for special effects (“technology”) in Comecon film
industry. One could also assume that the fictionality the artifacts as it was embodied in a
whole spectrum of representations – from ironic auxesis of actual possibilities to known
unknowns of science – served as a negative technology of reality.
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Saturday
Session S2D
Room UI7
11:00‐12:30
The Image of Bio‐Technology in Contemporary Art and Media
Professor Urszula Jarecka, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
The presentation of chosen bio‐technologies, past and present, in the artistic creations not
only visualizes the techno‐euphoria but also reflects the socio‐cultural threats and fears.
Concept of moral imagination is the frame of reference to the research. Popularization of
new discoveries, new technologies and the discussion on their application in everyday life is
a significant part of media culture established at the end of the 19th century. In press
discourse, as well as in fine arts and cinema, technology was the “hot topic” due to its role in
creating the future of social life.
Cultural texts chosen as case studies here become from the international media. A lot of
portraits of scientists who abuse technology and bio‐technology one can find in the movies,
and e.g. science fiction is the main genre responsible for the visions of future. Mostly
dystopian, American science fiction narratives are rather conservative ones in the
predictions and hopes connected with the development of society. Techno‐risk, as well as
techno‐euphoria, is discussed in a lot of mainstream and niche science fiction movies, thus in
this paper only some aspects of the problem will be analyzed (such as the changes in social
order or the limits of the future progress). Movies together with documentaries produced by
television channels belong to the first category of primary sources. To talk about technology
the strategy of shock is used in both, movies and fine arts; however artists use technology to
produce special, sometimes living artworks (just like Eduardo Kac’s experiments with DNA of
flowers and animals). So, some examples of contemporary fine arts belong to the second
category of primary sources.
In conclusions the background of social anxiety connected with innovative technologies
presented in media discourse will be explained and interpreted using theories of fear and
anxiety, “moral panic”, tremendum etc.
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CONFIDENCE AND EXCELLENCE
Transilvania University of Braşov is a public institution of higher education with a tradition of
over half a century and declares the mission of providing and developing the resources and
instruments for high quality teaching and scientific research, aiming to ensure its
competitiveness in the European Higher Education and Research Area. The University was
founded in 1948, as a Polytechnic Institute and developed as a comprehensive university
starting with 1990.
The university evolves within the dynamics of today's knowledge‐based society, relying on
its dedicated teaching staff which coordinates numerous multi‐disciplinary national and
international projects, both scientific and educational, and organizes high‐class international
conferences and forums.
Education
Every year the University is the chosen destination of hundreds of students and teachers
participating in academic exchange programs, coming from all EU countries; at the same
time the university is represented by its students and teachers in educational and research
activities at more than 200 universities from Europe and other cultural spaces, partners in
various collaboration agreements.
Transilvania University of Braşov includes 18 faculties (9 technical faculties, like Mechanics,
Materials Engineering, Forestry, etc., as well as other profiles like Languages and Literatures,
Medicine, Music, Law, Mountain Sports, etc.) and over 20 000 students. Its educational offer
consists of over 100 Bachelor study programs (full time, part time, distance learning), over
60 Master study programs (full time, part time, distance learning) as well as 18 domains for
PhD studies.
The fundamental development objectives for 2012 ‐ 2016 are the consolidation of
Transilvania University of Brasov as a key national and international institution for
generating and conveying advanced knowledge, as well as the harmonious integration in the
European Higher Education and Research Area.
The current study programs are the result of extensive restructuring focused on ensuring
educational process quality and competitiveness, as well as compatibility with the demands
of the European labor market. The syllabuses underlying the study programs were
developed according to the needs of the economic, social and cultural environment and
correspond to related study programs offered at well‐established European universities.
The continued adjustment of Bachelor, Master and Doctoral studies to the requirements of
society has yielded flexible integrated Bachelor‐Master‐PhD (BMP) study routes, accessible
to students from the very moment of their admission. This innovative offer of study
programs certainly allows secondary education graduates to choose the path which suits
best their capacities and aspirations.
All faculties have developed modern laboratories endowed with high‐tech equipment,
updated IT infrastructure and specific software. The University's direct cooperation with
companies from the economic environment has resulted in their investing in well‐equipped
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teaching laboratories. The development of these facilities ensures specialized training and
development of highly qualified human resources for the investing companies and the wider
labor market.
In recent years, the university has significantly invested in infrastructure quality as required
by the teaching process (23 auditoriums were modernized and over 300 teaching
laboratories built up). The university provides modern teaching – studying ‐ evaluation
instruments by its e‐Learning platform launched in 2008. Access to this platform is facilitated
by the 6 computer rooms opened for students as well as by free internet made available in
all student halls of residence. Modernization of residences, that fully cover student
accommodation needs, represents yet another permanent concern of the university.
A modern, high standard learning space is the Transilvania University Library, fully
automated, with open shelf access and ample reading rooms is a frequent destination for
both students and teachers, open for learning, and broadening the knowledge extent.
Research
Research in the university has been structured upon interdisciplinary priority fields, capable
of ensuring the attaining of a top position at national level and full integration in the
European Research Area. Upon an internal evaluation process, the university defined 21
research departments, self‐managed and operating with their own staff and infrastructure,
conducting research of excellence targeting the development of innovative high‐tech
products. A significant contribution to developing and ensuring the human resources
required for research is made by the university's Interdisciplinary Doctoral School and the
research – oriented master programs coordinated by the research departments.
Efficient and synergetic deployment of the existing resources and of those in progress
represents a key feature of university strategy, materialized by the major development
project of the R&D Institute for High‐tech products for Sustainable Development, PRO‐
DD/ICDT, opened in 2012. The R&D Institute groups its high‐performance infrastructure in
12 specialized laboratories, available to the 21 research departments as well as to
cooperation with national and European research facilities and research divisions of various
companies. Located in the new Green Energy Independent University Campus ‐ GENIUS, the
institute will be completed with an area dedicated to the training of highly qualified human
resources by master and doctoral programs, as well as with an area made available to
international companies invited to establish branches directly collaborating with the
Institute.
The new R&D Institute
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The Institute will also represent the main component of a research pole of excellence for the
7th – Centre Development Region of Romania in the field of sustainable energy and
environment.
The University as a Promoter of Sustainable Development
Transilvania University, located in the heart of the city at the foot of Mount Tâmpa, the city
that has been a binder of culture and civilization from both sides of the Carpathian
Mountains enjoys significant prestige in education and research. It has an active, beneficial
and dynamic presence in economic, social and cultural community life.
Through its personalities and achievements the University is able to offer a competent and
coherent vision of the regional development perspectives (in 7th – Centre Region of
Romania) and to significantly contribute to the effort of promoting and strengthening
European values. The university promotes sustainable development by partnerships with
local and regional bodies, involving: the participation in devising the Strategy of Sustainable
Development of Braşov county, city and Metropolitan area, and coordination of the work
groups for Economic, Environmental and Cultural Development and Urban Endowment
by experts from Transilvania University; a substantial contribution to materializing the
Integrated Urban Development Plan that includes the new GENIUS University Campus, a
major municipal development project; development of the ABMEE Energy Agency (SAVE
Project), the University being a founding member since 2006; the active promotion of
sustainable energy systems in the Centre Region (FP7 projects, RenErg EUReg 2008‐2010)
and development of research ‐ industrial clusters in this field; development of human
resources: training of trainers in cooperation with the Braşov Chamber of Commerce and
Industry and the County School Inspectorate; development of university‐industry structures
for promoting new/innovative high‐tech products: PRO‐ENERG Technological and Business
Incubator within the University (2008); new teaching and research laboratories in
cooperation with international companies like INA Schaeffler, Viessmann, Oracle, Motorola,
Horiba, LMS, Festo, Kronospan; joint projects with the economic and social environment.
A Welcoming Institution
Transilvania University of Brasov has a rich patrimony of buildings in the city area, both old
and new. Its truly iconic building, situated in the old city center, is the remarkable Rectorat, a
neo‐Renaissance masterpiece, built in 1886, decorated with sgrafitto panels along the upper
part of its three imposing facades. Two guardian angels, not yet restored, welcome the
academic staff and the visitors at the entrance, beyond the two ionic columns supporting a
loggia.
The Rectorate of the University
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The R&D Institute, the most recent building (finished in 2012) displays daring architecture
and luminous, spacious laboratories.
The University is looking forward to the 41ST ICOHTEC Symposium, happily preparing to
welcome all participants and guests in a friendly academic atmosphere at the University Aula,
a modern and functional building, situated in the city center.
The city of Brasov, the most livable city of Romania, is discreetly showing its major attractions
in these beautiful summer days of July 2014.
The Aula of the University
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The city of Brasov is also known as Kronstadt – in German,Brassó ‐ in Hungarian, Corona or
Brassovia – in Latin. Between 1950 and 1960 it was called Orasul Stalin – the Town of Stalin.
Brașov is located in the central area of Romania, in southern Transylvania. It is a
mountainous city, being surrounded by a part of the Oriental Carpathians.
History and Population
The city was first mentioned in 1235 AD under the name Corona (Medieval Latin, crown), a
name given by the German colonists. The first attested mentioning of the name Brașov is
Terra Saxonum de Barasu (Saxon Land of Baras) in a 1252 document. The German name
Kronstadt (Crown City) is visible in the city's coat of arms, in its founding legends. In the
Middle Ages, both Kronstadt and Corona were used simultaneously.
German colonists known as Transylvanian Saxons played a decisive role in the new
settlement’s development. They were invited and encouraged by King Géza II of Hungary to
build and develop towns and mining activities, and to cultivate the rich land of Transylvania,
at different stages between 1141 and 1162. The settlers came primarily from the Rhineland,
Flanders, and the Moselle region, but also from Thuringia, Bavaria, Wallonia, and even
France. In 1211, by order of King Andras II of Hungary, the Teutonic Knights fortified a
southern plateau of Transylvania, known as Tara Barsei, in order to defend the borders of
the Kingdom of Hungary. On the site of a former village, the Teutonic Knights built Kronstadt
– which soon enough was blessed with prosperity, due to royal privileges concerning
important tax exemptions.
Like all of Transylvania, Brasov belonged to the Austrian‐Hungarian Empire, until 1918 when
Transylvania became part of the new Romanian state. In 1850 the town had 21 782
inhabitants, out of which 40.7% Germans, 40% Romanians, 13.4% Hungarians, having also
significant Jewish, Greek and other communities. The inter‐war period was a time of
intensive economic and cultural life, triggered also by this ethnic diversity of the city, but
during the communist era (1948‐1989) most Germans and Jews, but also Hungarians and
Romanians immigrated to Western European countries, Israel and the USA.
According to the latest census, the city has now 253 200 inhabitants and together with its
metropolitan area there are over 360 000 inhabitants.
Education
Johannes Honterus (1498‐1549) was a Transylvanian Saxon, a Renaissance humanist and
theologian, who achieved the introduction of Lutheranism to Transylvania. He founded the
humanist gymnasium (a German primary and highschool still functioning today, known as
the Honterus Highschool), set up a printing press in 1539, and helped the building of a paper
mill in the city. In 1542, in Braşov, he printed a new version of his Rudimenta Cosmographica,
with 13 maps, engraved by Honterus himself. The maps show all known parts of the world.
The book was so successful that no less than 39 editions were printed in Braşov, Zürich,
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Antwerp, Basel, Rostock, Prague and Cologne, being considered the first European‐wide
manual.
Brasov is known also for having had one of the first European girl schools, in the 16th century,
at St. Catherine Monastery.
The cultural and religious importance of the First Romanian School and church, built in 1495
in the formerly extra‐muros quarter of Șchei, becomes visible when visiting the charming
local museum, as well as the harmonious St. Nicolae church nearby.
Nowadays the city has more than 30 highschools ‐ among which there are also technical and
vocational institutions, a state university – Transilvania University (founded in 1948 as
Polytechnic Institute) and the Air Force Academy Henri Coanda, as well as 6 private
universities.
Architecture and cultural institutions
Germans living in Brașov were mainly involved in trade and crafts. The location of the city at
the intersection of trade routes linking the Ottoman Empire and Western Europe, together
with the above mentioned tax exemptions, allowed Saxon merchants to obtain considerable
wealth and exert a strong political influence. They had a substantial contribution to the
architectural configuration of the city. Fortified walls around the city were built, with several
towers and bastions that were maintained and guarded by the guilds, according to the
medieval custom. Part of the fortification ensemble was recently restored. Two important
city gates, Poarta Ecaterinei (or Katharinentor) and Poarta Șchei (or Waisenhausgässertor),
are still visible. The city center is marked by the Old City Hall (Altes Rathaus, Casa Sfatului)
built in 1502 and rebuilt in 1780, now the County History Museum. It is surrounded by a
polygonal square, where there are other prestigious buildings, like the Kaufhaus, built by
Apollonia Hirscher in 1539, the oldest Chamber of Commerce of Transylvania, another old
international trade center and shop, built in the 13th century and rebuilt in 1566, now
Museum of Urban Civilization. Nearby is the Black Church (Schwarze Kirche, Biserica Neagră),
claimed to be the largest Gothic style church in South‐East Europe, displaying a stunning
collection of precious carpets, dedicated to the church by rich citizens.
The Black Church seen from the Tampa alley Rope Street
The frequent presence of the late Renaissance and baroque architectural styles in the old
city center is due to the rather frequent rebuilding activity (because of local wars and fires),
in the 17th and 18th century. In the 19th century neoclassicism and eclecticism
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characterized the official city architecture, followed by the Art Nouveau and the neo‐
Romanian style. In the communist era, the social housing quarters, quite numerous at the
outskirts of the city, meant mainly cheap, functional architecture displaying a crude
modernism.
Now contemporary architecture spreads all over the city, one of the most representative
building being the new Research Institute of the Transilvania University (finished in 2012).
The best view of the architectural contrasts of Brasov can be viewed by taking the cable‐car
to the top of Tâmpa Mountain, situated within the city.
The city is home to several prestigious cultural institutions, like the Art Museum, having on
display a remarkable collection of Romanian painting, the County History Museum, recently
remodeled and offering a significant overview of more than 4000 years of culture and
civilization development in the area, the Brasov Philharmonic Orchestra, the city Theatre,
the Reduta Cultural Centre, the County Library, the French and German Cultural Centers, the
Confucius Chinese Cultural Center (within the Transilvania University), etc.
Brasov is known to be the birthplace of the national anthem of Romania, Deșteaptă‐te,
române, composed by Iacob Muresanu. A small but very attractive and interactive museum
is Casa Muresenilor, home of the old Muresanu family.
Industrial Development
The industrial development of the city, based initially on the diversity and prestige of the
guilds, became more dynamic in the 19th and 20th century. In the inter‐war period the
airplane factory IAR Brasov was built. Here the first Romanian fighter planes, which were
used in World War II against the Soviets, were designed and manufactured. After 1948, the
plant was converted to the manufacturing of agricultural equipment, mainly tractors, being
renamed Uzina Tractorul Brașov. Industrialization was accelerated in the Communist era,
with special emphasis being placed on heavy industry – trucks, tractors, ball‐bearings,
weapons and various machinery. Heavy industry is still present, including the plant Roman
S.A., which manufactures MAN AG trucks as well as native‐designed trucks and busses.
Although the industrial base has been in decline in recent years, Brașov is still a site for
manufacturing agricultural tractors and machinery, hydraulic transmissions, auto parts, ball‐
bearings, helicopters, building materials, tools, furniture, textiles, shoes and cosmetics,
chocolate and beer. GlaxoSmithKline established recently a pharmaceutical production site
in Brașov and the Swiss giant Kronospan built a huge chip‐and fiberboard manufacturing
plant.
Tractorul Plant
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Local Transportation, Tourism, Sports
The local transport network is very well developed, with around 50 bus and trolleybus lines,
many of these being links between the Railway Station (Gara Brasov) and all parts of the city.
There is also a regular bus line serving Poiana Brașov, a long known winter resort. Because of
its central location, the Brașov Railway Station is one of the busiest stations in Romania with
trains to and from most destinations in the country served by rail. Brașov is a good starting
point for trips to the nearby village of Bran where the imposing castle is a main tourist
attraction (Dracula’s Castle), to Prejmer (Tartlau) to see the 13th century fortified church
and to Sinaia, to visit the royal summer castles Peles and Pelisor.
Temperatures from May to September are situated around 23 °C (73 °F). Brașov benefits
also from an excellent winter tourism season centered on all winter sports and beyond.
Poiana Brașov is the most popular Romanian ski resort and an important tourist center
preferred by many tourists from other European states.
The city is also an excellent place to taste some of the local and international cuisine, some
of the best places to start with being in the city center.
The Brasov City Council and County Council recently invested large budgets for building and
rebuilding of important sports venues, like the new Ion Tiriac Arena, the Brasov Olympic Ice
Rink and the rebuilding of the Ion Popescu‐ Colibasi Sports Hall and Olympic Swimming Pool.
Brasov is a city for all seasons, for all personalities – it is a perfect place to live in. All summer
umbrellas of the outdoor restaurants and pubs make a statement very dear to all citizens:
Brasov – probably the best city in the world!
Poiana Brasov in wintertime
TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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TECHNOLOGY IN TIMES OF TRANSITION | Brasov, Romania, 29 July‐3 August 2014
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