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Medieval fortified castles occupy a place of their own in the collective conscious of society, being constantly present in the world of our imagination due to their expressive place in the landscape. After a period of greatness in the Middle Ages, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there occurred a decrease in the military significance of castles. The contemporary role of medieval castles appears to be that of a status of tourist attractions and this necessitates their adaptation to this function. The forms of this adaptation and their exhibition are a subject of discussions among conservators, museologists, as well as tourists who visit a given site, discussions that remain unresolved. For on the one hand there exists a group of proponents of limited intervention in the preserved substance of fortified castles, while on the other - there are proponents of the preservation of the valuable substance of these structures while simultaneously introducing new elements and functions serving the contemporary use of historical castles for utilitarian purposes. New structures and elements built using contemporary technological systems, in some cases reversible ones, e.g. steel and glass, steel and stone or timber, which are becoming more and more popular in western European countries. The combination of a historical masonry structure with a system-based structure provides a designer with the possibility to clearly and safely implement the adopted design objectives and introduce new life to castles that are in ruin, while simultaneously increasing their aesthetic value, which is also important in contemporary public perception. A new life that provides opportunities for the continuous obtainment of financial resources for their preservation for future generations. The article presents examples of the contemporary use of medieval castles for utilitarian purposes, primarily in Poland, in addition to other various architectural and conservation concepts of their revitalisation prepared by Engineer's and Master's candidates, as well as students of the Faculty of Architecture of the Cracow University of Technology, as a part of the programmes of their education at the Institute of the History of Architecture and the Conservation of Historical Monuments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The purpose of the article was to highlight the aspects in which faith and superstition, or attention to the invisible world, emerged in people's lives in medieval times as illustrated in Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth. We wanted to establish how much weight the world of the unseen bore in the Middle Ages. The scrutiny has fallen on this subject in the above-mentioned piece of literature, as this novel is one of the most prominent on medieval times in recent years and is part of academic curricula, so it was interesting to check the insights that it offers on the atmosphere of an age since it shapes the perception of young minds nowadays. Also, the book ranked very well in British tops and abroad, inspiring video and board games, not to mention a television series. To the afore-mentioned aim, we analyzed the text from the perspective of cultural and identity studies, looking for instances in which any and all types of beliefs or superstitions were manifested by people's actions or mindsets. Then, we separated the results into: religious/dogmatic ones, distorted faith, and daily superstitions, games and sign-reading. Witchcraft was dedicated a separate section due to the complexity of this aspect. Based on the facts, we extracted the predominant outlook among medieval people with respect to the metaphysical, and concluded on the significant role that it played in their lives. More in-depth, we looked into their way of relating to the invisible - if it was a relationship of fear, love, domination, (em)power(ment), unilaterality or reciprocity, and found that the inclination was to feel dominated or subjugated, with more rare instances of viewing it as harmonious mutuality. Also, we verified the extent to which people's beliefs were founded on the Bible and dogma, in comparison with less conventional beliefs (superstitions), and which type of teachings had more impact on their psyche. The research contributes to the decoding of the novelistic universe of Follett's masterpiece. Particularly, it details this sphere of the supernatural and superstition. Also, it draws attention to the mysticism that permeated medieval times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medieval towns lived in carnival life. It was opposed to the official culture, its norms and rules which were stable, given and serious in their restrictive and rigid form. The ritual and mimetic forms of laughter culture included carnival-style celebrations and laughter ceremonies. They represented different aspects of life from the official ceremonies. Carnivals were a real, though, a temporary form of life that was meant for enjoying. The carnival became a living space with specific rules. It was characterised by freedom, the infinite space and time and was based on the principle of constant renewal. Another important element of it was the fact that all hierarchy among people was ruined. All people were considered to be equal and their relationships were familiar. Laughter had a ritual character, it expressed joy from being, it was festive, all-folk, universal and ambivalent. The Church not only tolerated these activities, but often took part in them. We talk about the so-called sacred parody (parody sacra), which includes parodic liturgies, hymns, psalms, parodies and transvestitions, disputes and familiar street-language speech, which related to the ignorance of social barriers and to informal relationships among people. These were the expressions of life that were traditionally perceived as animal, and therefore, they were aesthetically rejected. Bachtin, however, rated them high as the manifestations of joyful vitality of the medieval and Renaissance man. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The foreseen explosion in online video traffic over the upcoming years has left current mobile operators struggling to maximize their networks capacity and efficiency. MEDIEVAL project aims to evolve existing architectures through relevant cross-layer interactions, permitting to deliver expected QoE levels to users. In order to alleviate the impact of online video which potentially could be shared by a group of users in the core network, as well as maximize transport efficiency, the utilization of multicast and broadcast mechanisms is proposed. Moreover, the combination of multicast and network-based mobility protocols results in new problems which must be solved necessarily through network support. By using multicasting SVC, where a video is composed by one base layer and possibly multiple dependent enhancement layers, a single session may traverse the whole core and be adapted to the different terminal's characteristics. In this article, we present the research being developed towards mobile multicast support in future networks, describing solutions for improving wireless access efficiency (in 802.11 and LTE), and for enabling IP multicast mobility support. Furthermore, the end-to-end (e2e) support provided by MEDIEVAL in a SVC-based Personal Broadcast Service (PBS) scenario is analyzed, where both mobile multicast listeners and sources participate. The interfaces enhancing mobile video support are examined, along with the key exchanged parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Medieval commercial institutions are as much a condition for economic growth as they are the carrier of the rules that organized the transformation of social ties. In this paper, I analyze several thousands long distance trade equity associations that I coded from Genoese medieval notarial records (1154-1315) to demonstrate how the commercial upsurge altered the organization of trade and the Genoese social dynamics. I show that from a series of feebly tied star shape clusters in the second part of the 12th century, the network's cohesion at first decreased because of its lost hierarchy, before regaining connectedness mainly through intra status ties. As such, the data uniquely indicates that as the Genoese urban nobility lost its political hegemony toward the mid 13th century, commerce became an increasingly significant factor in the definition of social ties.Key words: medieval, commerce, cohesion, institution ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents abstracts of conference papers about management history. Some of the papers include "History, Ownership Forms and Corporate Governance Systems: A Study of the Indian Context," about the evolution of ownership and corporate governance in India, "Charisma Revisited," regarding the historical roles of charismatic leaders in organizations, and "The Times They Are A-Changin': Transformation in the Popular Music Industry - An Evolutionary View," about organizational change in the music recording industry.

The Hanseatic League was a prominent commercial federation of guilds and cities in the Baltic region of northern Europe from approximately 1150-1650. At its peak, it linked traders and market towns from England to Russia and most ports in between. It worked to remove trade barriers and provide security to its members. At its core, the Hanseatic League was a voluntary federation of wealth merchants, trade guilds, and their cities hoping to increase their mutual prosperity. The voluntary formation of federations is driven by five key contingencies (Oliver, 1990). When the Hanseatic League's formation is analyzed, the five key contingencies become apparent: (1) power asymmetries in the High Middle Ages existed between merchants and nobility; (2) individual guilds found it mutually beneficial to establish ongoing relationships with other guilds; (3) economies of both scope and scale allowed for efficiencies that would lead to trade dominance; (4) merchants sought more stable access to markets across northern Europe; and (5) guilds sought to increase the acceptance and privilege of their community. The Hanseatic League's formation was also based on a sixth key factor: security. During a time of economic, political, and social uncertainty, the desire for increased security can also be considered a driver of federation formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]