The state of local infrastructure investment in Europe

Local governments are on the front lines of some of today’s biggest challenges – climate change, affordable housing and equitable and effective education. But are they ready to invest at the scale needed? Our latest EIB Municipalities Survey asks local governments how they are tackling these challenges, and the roadblocks they face. Some insights from the survey: A majority of municipalities and cities plan to boost investment in climate measures and social infrastructure over the next three years. 56% of municipalities plan to significantly increase investment in climate change mitigation, while 53% plan to raise investment in social infrastructure. A lack of finance and burdensome regulations often slow or stall municipal investments. Nearly two-thirds of municipalities have difficulties finding finance for investments, and almost half cite lengthy regulatory processes a problem. A large and growing share of municipalities and cities say EU financial support is critical to financing future infrastructure investments. For planned investment projects, 83% of municipalities say EU grants will provide most of the funding, while 74% plan to use government transfers. Conducted since 2017, the EIB Municipalities Survey collects information from officials from local municipalities on local infrastructure investment activities and needs. The 2024-2025 edition is based on telephone interviews with 1 002 municipalities across the European Union, representing about 26 million people

Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming – Workshops

This open access book constitutes revised selected papers from the workshops held at the 25th International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2024, which took place in Bozen-Bolzano, Italy, during June 04-07, 2024. XP is the premier agile software development conference combining research and practice. It is a unique forum where agile researchers, practitioners, thought leaders, coaches, and trainers get together to present and discuss their most recent innovations, research results, experiences, concerns, challenges, and trends.  XP conferences provide an informal environment to learn and trigger discussions and welcome both people new to agile and seasoned agile practitioners. This year’s conference was held with the theme “Reflect, Adapt, Envision”. The 29 papers included in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 58 submissions to the following tracks: International Workshop on Advances in Software Intensive Startups Workshop on AI for Agile Software Engineering (AI4ASE) 2nd International Workshop on Global and Hybrid Work in Software Engineering (GoHyb) 11th International Workshop on Large-Scale Agile Development Workshop on the AI Scrum Master: Incorporating AI Into Your Agile Practices and Processes Agile Training and Education Track PhD Symposium Track Posters Trac

Missing persons, political landscapes and cultural practices

This book examines human disappearances in various contexts, ranging from enforced disappearances under oppressive governments and during armed conflicts to disappearing undocumented migrants and, finally, to people who go missing under more everyday circumstances in the Global North. The book argues that a missing person is always an anomaly in relation to the social and cultural order, and every disappeared person disturbs the normal flow of social life in families and communities, often also the smooth working of state bureaucracies. The book analyses both the circumstances that make some people disappear and the variety of responses that disappearances give rise to; the latter include projects focused on searching for the missing and identifying unidentified dead bodies, as well as political projects that call for accountability for disappearances. Moreover, the book examines more symbolic forms or reappearance, including museums, memorials, artworks, ghosts and spirits. Empirical examples range from Argentina to Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Mediterranean, Finland, Poland and beyond. Departing from this diversity, the book provides a theoretical frame within which to think about disappearances across cultural, political and geographical variety

Untersuchung von Wechselstromverlusten verschiedener hochtemperatursupraleitender Mehrleiterkonzepte für dreiphasige Hochstromanwendungen

Given the energy transition in Germany, network operators face the challenge of providing reliable energy transmission. The use of superconducting cables represents an alternative for conventional medium- and high-voltage technology. Therefore, this work investigates various high-temperature superconducting multi-conductor concepts for a three-phase medium-voltage cable, aiming to achieve a compact cable design with low electrical losses

Chapter 5 Japanese Language Education for Short-term Exchange Students

In light of the COVID-19 crisis, this edited volume explores the changing landscape of International Student Education in Japanese universities and the impact on global student mobility. Through analysing a wide range of data, the book engages historical, cultural, linguistic and pedagogical contexts relating to higher education in Japan. With a particular focus on Japanese tertiary education, the chapters provide comprehensive analysis from surveys and interviews conducted since 2020 amongst Japanese and non-Japanese Higher Education institutions (HEIs) on leadership styles, decision-making behaviours and perspectives on higher education practices in Japan. The authors also examine the challenges and impact on student mobility and international student education, and present future directions for the internationalisation of higher education in post-pandemic Japan. This book will appeal to researchers, educators and anyone with an interest in higher education development, international student mobility and language learning. Chapters 5 and 9 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license. The publication of these chapters as an open-access work was generously supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) through the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) [Grant Number JP20KK0052]

Kanene

The Black SANDF soldiers’ experiences are unique, shaped by the armed struggle, long and repeated deployments, constant threats, and repeated exposure to the horrors of battle. Traumatised Black SANDF members’ journeys reveal the profound impacts of combat trauma, often echoing the symptoms of CPTSD, characterised by an ongoing sense of danger and a fractured sense of self. The interpretation of these soldiers’ lived realities interconnects, creating an intricate pattern of grief and resilience stitched into the camouflage fabric of their military and psychological reality. In the crucible of their pain, they find solace in shared silence, their sacred cries resounding through history’s corridors. We witness their raw truths as we navigate the shadows of their combat experiences. The legacy of fallen and surviving soldiers, etched in blood and sacrifice, honours the unyielding spirit of the human soul dedicated to the nation’s greater good. These lived stories, privilege us with an honoured glimpse into the psyche of serving force members haunted by our past and continuous military engagements. These soldiers’ stories forge a collective narrative of resilience, highlighting their enduring spirit in the face of trauma and adversity within an integrated SANDF. Kanene, armed with these soldiers’ self-insights, emerges as the guiding light, navigating through the dark psychological recesses of lived trauma to bring hope and healing to those who have served and continue to serve their country

Violence, Care, Cure

This book explores the notions of violence, care, and cure within the medical encounter and seeks to foreground the ways in which, whether individually or as a triad, they are prone to ambiguous interpretations. The chapters of this book attend to the complex interlacing of these three key terms and what to make of their entanglement by offering historical, practical, philosophical, personal, and aesthetic analyses of different medical scenes, objects, and concepts. Besides the three main concepts that give the collection its title, the volume deals with bodily experience, medical neglect or scepticism, pain and suffering, diagnosis and recovery, and epistemic injustice, through the lens of, among others, biopolitics, ethics, gender medicine, and critical medical humanities. Altogether, the chapters pay particular attention to the role of images and other narratives, including social media platforms. The case studies in this collection invite the reader to observe medical encounters that take place in and are shaped by a variety of both material and ‘immaterial’ spaces, from the consulting room to the antechamber of medical bureaucracy, and from artistic venues to biopolitical discourses. Taken together, this book argues that a hermeneutic of violence, care, and cure is inseparable from individual and collective perceptions of the medical encounter; that is, it is inextricable from an understanding of the tensions and consensus that surge among perceptions orchestrated by both internal (subjective) and external (social, cultural, political) ‘gazes’. Moreover, the volume aims to provide, both directly and indirectly, a meta‑eflection on the disciplines that fall under the umbrella of ‘medical and health humanities’, interrogating the field’s potential to unearth systemic bias, to open different possibilities of existence, and to make visible the complexity of its research objects, as well as to caution against their possible pitfalls. By bringing together different methodological approaches, this volume provides its readers with conceptual resources for thinking about the intersections of violence, care, and cure. By providing a space where the voices of both emerging and established scholars mingle and respond to one another, this book will be essential reading for anyone across the social sciences and humanities interested in the sociology of health and medicine, the medical humanities, and gender studies

Une dynastie de musiciens bretons

Les Collin forment un véritable « clan », actif de 1789 à 1951 à Saint-Brieuc, le « fief » de la famille, et dans un second temps à Rennes ; leur rayonnement maximal s’exerce durant le siècle qui s’écoule entre la nomination de Jules comme organiste de la cathédrale de Saint-Brieuc (1836) et la disparition de son petit-fils Charles-Augustin (dit C.-A.), titulaire de l’orgue de Notre-Dame de Rennes (1938). Ce clan dont l’origine sociale est relativement modeste, offre un remarquable exemple d’ascension : d’abord par la voie de l’Église (en particulier avec les quatre chanoines que compte la descendance de Julien, le « fondateur »), ensuite par celle de la musique où s’illustrèrent surtout les deux plus doués, Charles (1827-1911) et son fils Charles-Augustin (1865-1938). La richesse de la documentation et l’intérêt du fonds d’archives familial permettent d’apporter ici une contribution aux recherches concernant la vie musicale en province et même à Paris quand on sait les liens que la famille tissait avec le grand facteur d’orgue Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, l’organiste Lefébure-Wély et l’école Niedermeyer

The Laissez-Faire Peasant

In rural development studies there are two mainstream assumptions. One holds that peasants are the victims of state rural development schemes, the other that only planning can ensure change and prosperity in rural regions. It is rarely considered that peasants are architects of their own and local wellbeing – notions which are often in opposition to state plans for agriculture. The Laissez-Faire Peasant explores how rural development emerges on the ground. The concept involves the manifestation of peasant worldviews in which autonomy in decision-making, freedom of action, spontaneity, and flexibility in everyday cooperation play a dominant role. A role in which individual and local values generate a self-regulating system that manages a range of economic, social, and political relationships. The book examines manifestations of peasant autonomy, both in response to and independent of state rural development policies through a multi-sited ethnography of three Serbian villages. It is shown how these factors impede state programs for rural development while enabling the spontaneous flourishing of local communities. By focusing on the agency of rural residents, the book finds that peasants are resilient and competent agents who do not need government plans to thrive. Praise for The Laissez-Faire Peasant ‘Anthropologists and missionaries claim to love their peasants. Economists and planners claim to help them. Both look down. Diković brilliantly proposes a new approach, which might be called “humanomics’’. It gives respect, looking up from where people actually live.’ Deirdre Nansen McCloskey, University of Illinois at Chicago ‘This is an ethnographically rich and conceptually original study of post-socialist peasantry and rural development in Serbia. Jovana Diković draws a complex picture of the post-socialist peasants as autonomous and resilient subjects motivated by the visions of rural development anchored in their local lifeworlds.’ Agnieszka Joniak-Lüthi, University of Fribourg ‘In her excellent study Jovana Diković challanges the narrative about Serbian peasants usually viewed as downtrodden and exploited underdogs in need of governmental help. In this careful case study, these peasants represent an entrepreneurial, self -reliant and individualistic social group that can survive and thrive even in the conditions of modern and technologically advanced capitalism.’ Ivan Janković, Institut auf dem Rosenber

Hand Book

Hand Book: A Manual on Performance, Process, and the Labor of Laundry is a collection of writings and images from a performance and film set within a neighborhood laundromat, a microcosm of service work within our urban reality. With a focus on the people who are paid to wash and fold, Hand Book explores the convergence of dirt, stains, money, identity, and desire. Informed by both theory and history, filmmaker-poet Lynne Sachs and playwright Lizzie Olesker construct a model for making a site-specific work incorporating both live performance and film. From conversations with workers in laundromats around New York City, they develop a play that magnifies forms of manual labor that often go unrecognized. The core of Hand Book is Sachs and Olesker’s hybrid play-script which grew out of documentary material they collected in New York City over several years. Within this theatrical construct, the actors themselves navigate the dynamic between their laundry worker characters and who they are in their own lives. Images also engage with text to create an evocative graphic experience. Turning a page becomes an interactive, quasi-cinematic encounter, calling to mind the intimacy of touching other people’s clothes, almost like a second skin, the textural care for things kept close to the body. Hand Book includes essays, interviews, memoirs, and poetry that look at the relationship between art and social engagement. Observation, historical research, and fiction intersect, creating a patchwork of “what is” with a speculative, imagined “what was.” Historian and author Tera Hunter speaks to the importance of The Washing Society, a group of 3,000 Black women laundry workers who organized in Atlanta in 1881 for better pay and working conditions. Feminist historian Silvia Federici engages in a conversation about the meaning of reproductive labor and its relationship to laundry. Two leaders of a grassroots organization share their experience of immigration and activism. A dancer creates a gestural map of her choreography. An actor deconstructs the charged significance of her Civil War-era costume. Ultimately, Hand Book: A Manual on Performance, Process, and the Labor of Laundry presents an illuminating dialogue between the documentary arts, feminism, film, immigration, labor history, and theater. Throughout, a playwright and filmmaker contemplate how art-making can alter our understanding of the social structures of city life. Sachs and Olesker’s short documentary film The Washing Society will be available via QR code upon release of the book