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Historical transportation infrastructures (HTIs) like railways and bridges are essential to our cultural heritage. However, the preservation and enhancement of these structures pose significant challenges due to their complex nature and the need for modern upgrades. Historic building information modeling (HBIM) has emerged as a solution, facilitating the documentation, restoration, and maintenance of historic transportation assets. The purpose of the proposed work is to provide a systematic review of research findings on the application of HBIM in historic transportation infrastructure, highlighting its role in capturing intricate architectural details and supporting decision making for preservation efforts. A series of case studies in which HBIM has been instrumental in preserving historic transportation infrastructure are investigated and analyzed using a comprehensive literature review method. Furthermore, future directions in HBIM research are proposed, identifying potential applications and recommending areas for further investigation. Additionally, this paper suggests HBIM's potential to balance modernization demands with the conservation needs of historic transportation infrastructure, providing policymakers and stakeholders with insightful strategies for sustainable heritage management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The novel, Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid offers a thought-provoking reflection on the impact of infrastructures during times of unavoidable wars and mass immigration. This paper aims to analyse how the novel portrays civil infrastructures and their significance to both immigrants themselves and native residents. As living standards continue to improve, the concept of life infrastructure becomes increasingly diverse and complex. In such circumstances, civil infrastructures play a crucial role in literary works, especially when a city faces significant events. Infrastructures have a profound influence on various literary works that revolve around themes such as inevitable violence and immigration. Therefore, this study takes an in-depth look at the different aspects of civil infrastructures exposed to war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article delves into the ongoing consequences of UK 'Hostile Environment' policies, notably the Windrush Scandal and the challenges of techno-solutionism in migration governance. There is an exploration of how borders have permeated the internal boundaries of the UK and pushed private citizens and institutions to become new border agents. In this article there is a reflection on the infrastructure that has become reinforced, made visible and technologically upholds Hostile Environment policies. This article investigates the Home Office's new case working system, Atlas, to illuminate the intersection of border policies, technology and ethics. Through disentangling the political promises placed into the new case working system, this article argues the technological solutions to unjust policies are doomed to repeat and reinforce historic racialised practices. This article argues that technology projects in development, like Atlas, offer an opportunity to identify new private actors responsible for maintaining internal borders within the UK, private technology consultancy groups. Tracing the privatisation of border technology crystallises the new power dynamics introduced through technological projects developed to translate the goals of the Hostile Environment into operational technology used by the Home Office. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction sector is one of the leading global contributors to environmental footprint, with road infrastructures being a significant resource consumer. The traditional practice of using virgin raw materials and extracting natural aggregates has a significant impact, causing landscape alterations and disruptions to ecosystems. As result, the focus on achieving sustainable mobility through road networks is increasing. Companies operating in the civil sector must consider the environmental performance of roads to inform their decision making. Various assessment tools are available, with life cycle assessment being a commonly employed methodology in the industrial sector. However, its application to infrastructure projects has inherent challenges, primarily due to the complexity associated with inventory management. This complexity has resulted in a limited adoption of LCA within this sector. This research explores the suitability and compatibility of existing tools, methodologies, and databases, while establishing future requirements to adapt LCA and other types of environmental analysis to the life cycle of roads. To achieve this objective, a comprehensive analysis of the scientific and technical literature is conducted in this study. The findings highlight the need for more versatile impact analysis tools, including specialized databases tailored to the specifics of road infrastructure. Such enhancements would facilitate the application of procedures outlined in ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 2010s, various national and pan-European public infrastructures have been emerging around aggregation, viewing, and 3D heritage model collection. The purpose of this article is to focus on the current state and ecosystem for 3D models in Europe through (a) a review of published studies on users, objects, and demands (b) and an overview of the ecosystem for 3D heritage data. As part of the German distributed infrastructure, the DFG 3D Viewer Jena experimental repository serves as a testbed for technology prototyping and testing. Based on the findings of the European ecosystem, we used this repository to test a prototypic approach to (c) acquiring 3D data from multiple sources, (d) enriching data quality, and (e) enabling indexing, searching, and viewing functionalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nineteenth century was one in which millions of people acquired certificates and other credentials attesting that they knew what they claimed to know. These credentials resulted from mass examinations: systems of infrastructure that aspired to procedural objectivity. Among the key feature of these exams were the new numerical marking systems used to compare and commensurate different answers on these exams, because these numbers could generate averages and other formal abstractions of knowledge. While the resulting tests could be restrictive for the individual, they could be positive and even creative. Exam successes and credentials helped people work collectively in groups, giving each group member the confidence that other members knew what they claimed to know. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asset management has been gaining momentum in both academic and industry, but is it so distinct from other existing management philosophies? This research effort discusses the relation between asset and quality management, particularly for organizations managing (public) infrastructures, to highlight the similarities and differences between both and their role towards sustainable infrastructure development. The compatibility matrix developed demonstrates that, in conceptual terms, asset and quality management are highly similar in the scope of these organizations. As such, organizations implementing formal and certified asset management systems should assess the existing processes to avoid overlaps and make the best use of the experience accumulated. It also proposed the balance between performance and risk as the metric to measure the quality (or value, adopting the asset management concept) of management decisions. The growing recognition that infrastructures exist in highly complex uncertain contexts requires changing management decisions from choosing the options with the highest expected outcome to the options with the best balance between expected outcome and potential variability of the outcome. Finally, considering sustainability as the ultimate goal, the relation between quality and asset management is linked to the need for integrated infrastructure management by analysing sustainable mobility versus sustainable transport infrastructures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infrastructures (viaducts, bridges, tunnels, railways, and roads) are fundamental to allow people and goods move around a country. In particular, in Italy, due to its orographic and morphological complexity, the ratio between the number of viaducts and the national geographical extension is the largest in Europe. This kind of structure constitutes a weakness of the road networks, especially those over 50 years old, and among these, prestressed concrete structures are the most vulnerable. Therefore, the study of the robustness of an infrastructure network is a quite useful topic for modern societies and public mobility managers. The aim of the present work is to develop a reliable and fast analysis tool capable of processing many structures in a relatively short time. In order to calibrate the most suitable instrument, starting from the study of an experimental campaign on six prototypes of artificially corroded posttensioned concrete beams, the reliability of concentrated plasticity models was investigated to reproduce force‐displacement diagrams and in particular, the effect of corrosion on the moment‐curvature relationship. In fact, this method could provide a well‐defined nonlinear analysis of prestressed elements, especially in the case of grillage decks where external girders could be more affected by corrosion damage in opposition to internal girders or diaphragms. A numerical model by FEM analysis is also presented to reproduce a vulnerability study on an actual structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the indicators that measures the economic development of a territory is its infrastructural endowment (road, rail, etc.). The presence of roads, railways, and airports are essential elements in creating the optimal conditions for the establishment or development of productive activities and economic growth; and also to generate benefits. However, the presence of infrastructure can have strong impacts on the environment and the living conditions of the population and infrastructure can be subject to actions related to contrast and opposition. Therefore, in parallel with the economic and environmental sustainability assessment, it is essential to decide whether or not to build new infrastructure. In addition, social sustainability is also pursued on the basis of an assessment that takes into account various aspects that relate the work to the population, also in order to identify the most satisfactory design solution. Alongside the adopted methodology, the assessment must be identified suitable criteria which are capable of taking into account the various impacts generated by the infrastructure, not only of an economic and environmental type, but also social and attributed relative importance (or weight) that is congruous with the correct balance of the three aspects of sustainability. This contribution deals with the identification of criteria for assessing the social sustainability of infrastructure projects, by taking as reference the 24 infrastructure projects in the planning and construction phase in the Liguria Region that make use of the Regional Law n. 39/2007 on the "Regional Strategic Intervention Programs—P.R.I.S." (Regional Strategic Intervention Programs); which guarantees citizens affected by the infrastructure. In this research work, the selection is performed through the involvement of local stakeholders as well as the subjects and institutions that operate within the decision-making process of a work (designers, technicians from public administrations). The selected criteria are then weighted through the pairwise comparison method used in the multi-criteria technique of ThomasSaaty—Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The goal is to identify the useful criteria for assessing social sustainability and the weights attributed by the various parties involved in the decision-making process by citizens directly or indirectly affected by the infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep-seated gravitational slope deformations (DsGSDs) are widespread phenomena in the Alpine environment. Their dynamics, although very slow, endanger human settlements and connecting infrastructures. Monitoring such phenomena is mandatory to evaluate the impact on infrastructure networks and inhabited areas. Nowadays, the implementation of a tool useful to define and manage the interactions of DsGSDs evolution and the anthropic element remains a challenge, particularly in land use planning. Apart from on-site monitoring, which is commonly poorly used for DsGSDs observation, satellite-based interferometry represents the most comprehensive instrument for an effective spatial and temporal characterization of these phenomena. This paper provides a dedicated procedure to assess the usability of Advanced Differential Interferometric SAR (A-DInSAR) techniques to explore the DsGSDs behaviour and investigate their local interaction along anthropic elements. Combining multi-temporal A-DInSAR data, ERS-1/2 (1992–2000), Radarsat-1/2 (2003–2010), COSMO-SkyMed (2011–2018) and Sentinel-1 (2014–2018), over the Motta de Pletè and Champlas du Col DsGSDs, north-western Italy, a line-of-sight displacement investigation over a long-time span is implemented. Multi-temporal deformation maps are generated to define the deformation pattern and DsGSDs evolution over time. Subsequently, a local-scale analysis along the main anthropic elements is performed, exploiting Vslope values and ground deformation time series, integrated with ground-based ones, where available. This local analysis is aimed to recognize the most critical sections of the anthropic elements along with an higher level of damage, and potential risk is expected. Moreover, the obtained results are compared with a survey damage of the anthropic elements for a local cross-check and to strengthen the A-DInSAR methodology. Overall, the presented methodology provides a powerful tool to better define the DsGSDs local dynamics in correspondence of the main strategic infrastructures and inhabited areas, for a proper infrastructure maintenance and territorial planning strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to expand mainstream descriptions of accessibility as a characteristic of materialities and infrastructures, inscribed into them at the design stage. Instead, it explores accessibility as a practice. That is, as the outcome of ongoing everyday interactions taking place between disabled and non-disabled users encountering materialities and accessibility-oriented protocols. Accessibility is framed as a relational achievement in which the practical action of those who routinely navigate public transport infrastructures locally enact heterogeneous landscapes of accessibility. The paper draws on qualitative data of disabled people using the public transport system of Santiago de Chile. Through an ethnomethodological analysis of video recordings and ethnographic work, the interaction between disabled and non-disabled passengers and infrastructures is put in context, revealing the embodied skills and interactional work that people do in order to enact accessible situations for themselves and for others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, the planning, the financing and the construction of transport and communication infrastructures have been competencies reserved for the nation-state. However, European integration process has also influenced this matter with progress in policies and regulations at the EU scale. The 2011 reform of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), its legal development in two regulations (2013) and the financing mechanism Connecting Europe Facility (CEF, 2014) are new milestones that challenge state sovereignty when planning, building, financing, and managing large infrastructures. In this article, after reviewing the general process that began decades ago and debating its interpretation, we focus on the change marked by the 2013 regulations and, above all, on the December 2021 revision proposal for the TEN-T network, which involves a clear advance in the Europeanization of large infrastructures. In this line, we will also show the important role of European financing associated with the Resilience and Recovery Funds (RRF) against the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (March 2020), which is added to the ordinary budgets of the European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reusability has been a key issue since the origins of the parts-based approach to synthetic biology. Starting with the BioBrick™ standard part, multiple efforts have aimed to make biology more exchangeable. The reusability of parts and other deoxyribonucleic acid-based data has proven over time to be challenging, however. Drawing on a series of qualitative interviews and an international workshop, this article explores the challenges of reusability in real laboratory practice. It shows particular ways that standards are experienced as presenting shortcomings for capturing the kinds of contextual information crucial for scientists to be able to reuse biological parts and data. I argue that researchers in specific laboratories develop a sense of how much circumstantial detail they need to share for others to be able to make sense of their data and possibly reuse it. When choosing particular reporting formats, recharacterizing data to gain closer knowledge or requesting additional information, researchers enact an 'economy of details'. The farther apart two laboratories are in disciplinary, epistemological, technical and geographical terms, the more detailed information needs to be captured for data to be reusable across contexts. In synthetic biology, disciplinary distance between computing science and engineering researchers and experimentalist biologists is reflected in diverging views on standards: what kind of information should be included to enable reusability, what kind of information can be captured by standards at all and how they may serve to produce and circulate knowledge. I argue that such interdisciplinary tensions lie at the core of difficulties in setting standards in synthetic biology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At its height, the Covid‐19 pandemic dispersed across society a perception of bodyminded contingency that ushered in modes of “building community” that were unimaginable in pre‐pandemic times, alongside an intensification of health and social inequalities. From the start, disabled people intervened on social media to stress the considerable extent to which the pre‐pandemic knowledge derived from their lived experience, disability theory, and disability rights’ organising could contribute both to the critique of how in pandemic times people were made differentially disposable and to the creation of new relationalities, mostly online, around the principle of accessibility. This article explores how a critical perspective rooted in the lived experience of disability builds on these interventions to excavate the role played by the lived experience of bodyminded contingency and vulnerability during the pandemic in generating a radical transformation of modes of living (together). First, it will suggest that this radical transformation powerfully resonated with the politics of accessibility associated with disability politics. It will do so by delineating the critical significance of commentary produced during the pandemic by disability theorists and activists, as well as the relationship between the perception of widespread bodyminded contingency and vulnerability and the development of “crip utopias of accessibility” and “dismodernist revolutions” during the pandemic. It will then locate this experiential spread of bodyminded contingency and vulnerability at the core of pandemic infrastructural sensibilities. I will conclude by reflecting on its relevance for the development of a “more‐than‐social” model of disability which attends to the crip world‐making power of disability as fundamentally entangling the social and the biological. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims at investigating the community level socioeconomic impacts in line with industrial establishments in one of the fast-growing urban centers-Mekelle, Ethiopia. Employing qualitative research designs, data were collected from two purposively selected kebeles. Key-informant interviews, focus group discussions and field observations were used to gather data on the community level socio-economic impacts of the industrial establishment. Findings of the study reveal that at the community level, the industrial establishment has brought a few positive assistances such as infrastructural and community service provisions; construction of grand projects and contribution to the national government; supported sports and other social activities. There were also economic contributions of the industry including provision of training and knowledge transfer; job creation and employment opportunities (permanent, daily, and indirect). The study concludes that expansion of industries while bringing advantages at the national level, it enables the local communities to benefit positively in different facets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern and smart cities are significantly vulnerable to natural hazard, and their functionality is based on resilient infrastructure systems. In particular, seismic resilience may be considered the ability to deliver services during and after hazard events. Therefore, it is fundamental to identify the most critical components within a system, especially when multiple infrastructure systems are interdependent. The paper aims to propose a novel methodology that consider interconnected infrastructures to assess seismic resilience that may be defined as a function that depends on time, and the different components are considered the functional dimensions. The proposed methodology may be applied for several typologies of infrastructures, specifically looking at the seismic resilience analyses related to transportation systems. A case study has been considered in order to apply the proposed formulation and to demonstrate the importance of considering interdependency in the assessment of the seismic resilience. Many stakeholders (infrastructure owners, public administrations, decision makers) may be interested in applying the methodology that could be used to study several applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article intends to bring to the attention of specialists and the general public alike contemporary educational methods to be applied in training for the awareness and internalization of values specific to the field of societal resilience, with critical infrastructures as the central framework of approach, with their main characteristics related to the fragility of the state of security. The article has a concrete practical value due to its applicability at the level of a centrally located county in Romania. The main infrastructures with critical value for determining potential disruptive events are mapped using specialized software, followed by the presentation of some institutions necessary to be involved for implementation of table-top exercises and, in conjunction or separately, field study trips. As a central point of the research methodology, recent literature highlights are emphasized, which robustly materialize and contextualize the practical approaches presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The oil crisis of 1973/74 is commonly seen as the advent of state-led attempts to restructure rich societies' energy infrastructures. Indeed, from a historical perspective, crises have repeatedly facilitated infrastructural transformations toward sustainability. But under what conditions can crises challenge existing orders and promote alternative infrastructures? Drawing on a historical vignette that reconstructs the public discourse emerging around the first oil crisis in the United States, this article proposes to reconsider the transformative potential of crises from a perspective focusing on the contested constitution of the future. We argue that the potential of crises to foster broader processes of infrastructural change is dependent on the capacity of actors to discursively challenge hopes and expectations inscribed in established infrastructures. As the example of the first oil crisis illustrates, crises are instances in which political actors engage in interpretative struggles to settle on whether disruptions present "real" crises that require infrastructural transformation - or are mere accidents, errors, or irregularities that existent infrastructure can either withstand or requires only minor adaption as a result. In these discursive struggles, images of the future are contested on three layers: tangible experiences are linked to or detached from broader future consequences; potential causes are projected into the future or relegated to the past; and feasible future remedies are conceived or discarded. It is on these three layers of crisis discourse that the future is "opened up," and alternative infrastructures become conceivable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infrastructure projects are usually complicated, expensive, long-term mega projects; accordingly, they are the type of projects that most need optimization in the design, construction and operation stages. A great deal of earlier research was carried out to optimize the performance of infrastructure projects using traditional management techniques. Recently, artificial intelligence (AI) techniques were implemented in infrastructure projects to improve their performance and efficiency due to their ability to deal with fuzzy, incomplete, inaccurate and distorted data. The aim of this research is to collect, classify, analyze and review all of the available previous research related to implementing AI techniques in infrastructure projects to figure out the gaps in the previous studies and the recent trends in this research area. A total of 159 studies were collected since the beginning of the 1990s until the end of 2021. This database was classified based on publishing date, infrastructure subject and the used AI technique. The results of this study show that implementing AI techniques in infrastructure projects is rapidly increasing. They also indicate that transportation is the first and the most AI-using project and that both artificial neural networks (ANN) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) are the most implemented techniques in infrastructure projects. Finally, the study presented some opportunities for farther research, especially in natural gas projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this interview Paolo Manghi discusses how policymaking, e-infrastructures and funding mechanisms are trying to bring into everyday routine the difficult shift of mindset towards Open Science: a scenario of publishing service systems that supports communities with methodologies to produce concrete, testable and reusable scientific results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Steel represents the majority of civil infrastructure. Corrosion is the principal source of structural degradation, primarily affected by the aggressive environment corrosion is a multiphysical process that occurs at the steel/electrolyte interface. This work presents a mechano-electrochemical coupling study of a corroded reinforced concrete (RC) beam subjected to section loss and a randomly varying load over time. A corrosion cell is created by connecting a zinc anode electrically to the RC beam system. This study uses numerical coupling techniques based on the mechanistic and kinetics of the corrosion process to evaluate the corrosion rate at different pore saturation degrees. The results reveal the impact of section loss on the RC beam displacement over time; as the crosssection reduces, the beam's ductility decreases, resulting in a yield and ultimate strength reduction. The moisture content effect on the electrochemical corrosion processes and oxygen diffusivity indicate that pore saturation levels are the primary determinant of the corrosion rate. The proposed numerical model explains the efficiency of coupled numerical analysis in the RC beam mechanical behavior assessment under corrosive conditions; the results include the concrete's porosity impact on the electrochemical corrosion process and the zinc anode contribution to steel corrosion protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the story of how Unix users hacked the European data networks competition in the 1980s, by using and appropriating common resources for their own experimental and operational needs while planting the seeds of participatory digital culture, both within and outside of the European Union's tech policies frame, both in prominent roles and behind the scenes of the "standards wars". I analyze how they were acknowledged among international computer networks, focusing on EUNET (1982–1992), a pioneering Internet provider in Europe. I show that Unix culture, beyond technical arguments, was reframed through their institutional relationships, when EUNET were courted by the EU tech programs to help develop a digital infrastructure for the knowledge sector. Eventually, the organization contributed but also profited from this alliance, before turning towards the new business of computerized telecom networks, illustrating the transfers between the knowledge institutions and the knowledge economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pedestrian infrastructures are a critical part of the sustainable transportation system of a city across the world. The key risks to pedestrians are well documented, including infrastructure in terms of the lack of dedicated pedestrian facilities, such as sidewalks, crossings, and raised medians. This paper aimed to assess pedestrian infrastructures of the road transport system in Jimma city. The P-index (Pedestrian-index) method was used to evaluate pedestrian infrastructures, computed with the formula containing the four pedestrian indicators: mobility, safety, pedestrian facility, and accessibility indicator. For this method, sixteen road segments were selected. The result of the mobility indicator shows that the star rating obtained was two stars, which means impaired mobility for the pedestrian. For safety, a 1-star of star-rating was obtained, indicating that the road segments were very unsafe. For the facility indicator, the star-rating value was 2-star which shows inadequate pedestrian facility. For the accessibility indicator, two star-rating was obtained, meaning there was poor accessibility to land uses by walking. Overall P-index value has got a 2-star rating that, which indicates that the existing roads were unfavorable to a pedestrian walking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between the arrival of early mobile communication technologies and the emergence of reality television (TV) contestants from the Northeast region, particularly Assam. It argues that such networked communication infrastructures enabled marginalised and aspirational publics to mobilise and assert their identities in an evolving mediascape; specifically, how these publics deploy telecommunication and media infrastructures to acquire media visibility. This correlation is examined via the success story of Debojit Saha—the first reality TV star from the Northeast. Significantly, his win was credited to a rigorous, coordinated SMS voting campaign conducted by local student and socio-political unions. Hitherto marginalised regional identities emerged as key players in development of the digital television culture in a neoliberal economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capital investment-laden green blue infrastructures (GBI) are being globally celebrated as harbingers of urban resilience to address environmental risks. These technocratic designs exclude historical and micro-political processes shaping urban environments. It is within this context that exposure to social sciences frameworks remains significant. Here, I formulate and deploy historical urban political ecology (HUPE) to explore the mutual relationship between Kolkata and her wetlands, finally demonstrating that cities need to be perceived as complex and adaptive "living systems infrastructure" evolved over time, across an intersecting array of technological apparatuses and social arrangements through constant interactions between human and non-human actors. Beyond linear choreographies of power equations, HUPE conveys the "plural" by exemplifying collaborations, compulsions and contingencies that mediate urban ecologies. I argue that HUPE is an enabling framework, eliciting emancipatory possibilities within political ecology by envisioning the translation of epistemological insights into implementable actions, towards more just and resilient urban ecologies of future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Retos, Revista de Ciencias Administrativas y Económicas is the property of Universidad Politecnica Salesiana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Policy & Internet is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper aims to investigate the debate regarding the Informal Value Transfer Systems (IVTS), in particular that of hawala, a trust-based money transfer system. In this regard, analyzing the debate regarding hawala using primary and secondary sources, the paper demonstrates how hawala suffers forms of coercion --particularly after the September 11 attacks in the US--. But also, experts and academics dealing with human rights, the remittance market and financial inclusion advocate for a fair and sustainable development of the hawala system. The article offers a brief overview of the possibilities and main challenges offered by the application of blockchain-based technologies and the societal, institutional and technological issues arising from it. In particular, the paper reflects on the contemporary debate about the hawala system to explain -- why at the moment -- the category of continuum cannot be considered adequate to describe the relationship between hawala and blockchain technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista AUS is the property of Revista AUS and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

One of the challenges currently faced by emerging countries is to get their citizens to decide to use sustainable transport for their regular trips, in order to reduce the current vehicular pollution rates. The objective of this descriptive research is to examine the perceptions of Dominicans regarding the state of the country's transport systems and road infrastructure. For this purpose, a nationwide survey procedure was performed. This cross-sectional research used the data retrieved from a sample of 1260 citizens aged over 18, proportional in gender, age, habitat, and province of the Dominican Republic. The results showed how Dominicans believe that, compared to other road features, pedestrian roads and public transport vehicles remain in a very poor condition. Further, citizens report to be more interested about the improvement of road infrastructures than in the implementation of any other set of measures performed to promote sustainable road mobility, including those related with alternative transport means. Finally, this study claims for the need of fostering educational, communicative and participative actions and measures aimed at increasing the value given to sustainable transportation, and the relevance of integrate potential structural and vehicular improvements with those related to human behavior in mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Special Issue examines the relationship between imaginaries and infrastructures. Through a specific focus on the Asian region, the four articles contained herein demonstrate how these imaginaries span, transform and proliferate various boundaries. They also create new regimes of visibility and present a range of ethical dimensions for those who use them and the companies and governments that regulate the infrastructures. These include dating and video sharing apps, digital money transactions and diverging historical accounts of communications technologies. Such diverse examples demonstrate how media infrastructures and the media content they carry enable the production of imaginaries and meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social Anthropology / Anthropologie Sociale is the property of Berghahn Books and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This theoretical contribution analyzes remaining monetary policy tools and their ability to reestablish sound macroeconomic conditions in the euro area. Motivated by the observation of a lack of investment in the macroeconomy and subdued inflation, we review current monetary policy challenges and emphasize the major failure of traditional transmission channels. While interest rates and asset prices often respond to central bank tools, the effects on the real economy, specifically on investments, are often not observable. We suggest Investment Helicopter Money as a tool to directly strengthen investment and boost aggregate demand. This monetary impulse is found to offer a direct real effect without crowding-out investment or rising debt levels. Most importantly, we discuss necessary institutional arrangements and contrast the suggested tool with a simple monetary or fiscal impulse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Captured under the umbrella term Open Education, a wide range of educational initiatives has been popping up in the educational landscape. This study aims to offer empirical ground for understanding how Open Education introduces new forms of education. It does so by focusing on one initiative, namely the Interactive Open Online Courses included in the Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange. Social topology is taken up as a theoretical vantage point, with a dedicated focus on infrastructuring practices. The empirical accounts show how infrastructures stabilize forms of practices, while interplays with infrastructuring practices enact formations, i.e., constantly changing practices. The study finally discusses these interplays, labeled as bouncing and enfolding, as typical to this Open Education initiative. The study concludes by emphasizing how studying this initiative through a social topological lens enabled a position in between positive and negative hyperboles on Open Education, and how this allowed theorizing this movement in terms of continuity and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid19-related emergency has changed our perspectives on individual and collective priorities. One of them is to invest on infrastructures at the level of local communities, where most social and economic relations take place. This note explores the possibility to use a fully fledged European Stability Mechanism for this purpose. This would provide a solution to the required transformation of the ESM from a temporary instrument for financial assistance into a growth-promoting fund. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many people associate Building with Nature with its flagship project, the Sand Motor. This mega-nourishment redefined the role of natural processes in civil engineering projects, demonstrating that instead of 'do no harm' as the highest possible supporting goal of coastal infrastructure, the design could incorporate natural processes to attain societal and ecological goals. As such, the Sand Motor represents a key example of the integrated design of civil infrastructures. In this contribution, we pursue an improved understanding of the integrated design of civil infrastructures, by comparing the illustrative example of the Sand Motor against a framework based on transport infrastructures and the occasional flood defence. It turns out that application of a framework from one domain to another - a conscious act of interdisciplinary learning - results in a modification of that framework. Although the domain of Building with Nature fits well with many existing attributes of integrated design for civil infrastructures (the life cycle approach, adaptive design and adding functionalities), its key attribute (dynamics) adds a unique box to the integrality index. This intellectual effort raises two issues. It demonstrates that our understanding of integrated design is rather specific for different infrastructure-domains. Second, it is likely that the bandwidth of uncertainty that is key to the incorporation of natural processes in infrastructure design, and the changing behaviour of the structure itself in the maintenance phase, has implications for the governance regime of such infrastructures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines standardisation in synthetic biology as a form of social coordination and ordering. I discuss standardisation by exploring what makes standards possible, and offer an understanding based on infrastructures: technical and social systems that support the existence and operation of accepted standards. By exploring the role of social infrastructures, I contend that standards depend upon social ordering: ways of arranging people in particular positions, relations, and hierarchies. I suggest that synthetic biologists ought to develop an awareness of these social orders, take responsibility for their creation, and accept accountability for their consequences, both technical and social. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this paper, we describe an ethnographic study of a mobile money infrastructure, especially its design, organization, and implementation, and its potential consequences for financial inclusion goals. Through using the analytic lens of infrastructure studies to ground our findings, we observe is that infrastructures emerge in organized practice and use. Moreover, they are constantly evolving with no specific beginning and end; any bounding is contingent on our own methodological and theoretical affiliations as well as our logistical constraints. To this end, we focus our attention on the two different infrastructures – the mobile money and the loan management infrastructures – that were operating in tandem to connect low-income auto-rickshaw drivers to mainstream bank loans. We specifically privilege the human work that goes into making and sustaining this mobile money infrastructure. In doing so, we challenge the 'unbearable modernity' of mobile money and its purported effects on helping the poor manage their unpredictable cash flows. Eventually, we make two main contributions. First, we demonstrate that what appeared on the surface to be solely a 'mobile money infrastructure' is in fact a complex and, often, visibly seamless organization of at least two interacting infrastructural systems. These come together in an intricate, layered way to enable mobile money to be used for loan repayments in this low-income setting. It becomes especially important to emphasize that an infrastructure is not always organically built or spontaneously accessed in order to challenge the dominant narratives around mobile money where an insulated infrastructure is thought to enable all digital transactions and thus achieve financial inclusion. Second, we privilege the human work of what is otherwise often considered an exclusively technological infrastructure. Bringing attention to these sidelined human workers is an important concern for CSCW with its focus on the work that enables systems to function seamlessly. Indeed, mobile money remains a favorite topic of interest for development scholars and practitioners and in the emergent conversations the focus continues to remain largely on the technological innovations. Even where the retail agent networks are discussed, their work is not completely understood. Bringing attention to these sidelined human workers is an important concern in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By examining South Korea's urban renewal regime in the 1960s, this paper sheds light on hitherto underexplored transpacific connections in the history of urban renewal. The period in question is crucial in that both Washington and Seoul came to regard urban space as a means to maintain an anti-communist regional order, which prefigured major urban transformations in South Korea for the decades that followed. With a focus on the circulation of technologies of governing urban space through particular forms of urban renewal, this paper shows that urban renewal in the mid-twentieth century illuminates the function of three interrelated phenomena during the period: (1) the formation of the transpacific network of power and knowledge; (2) the establishment of legal, financial, and symbolic grounds on which the ideal of homeownership could operate; and (3) the transport of what I call infrastructures of displacement. In doing so, this paper suggests a way of looking at urban renewal in the mid-century as the geopolitical project of disseminating ideas, norms, and technologies of governing cities during the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Total factor productivity (TFP) in Spain over the period 1989–2010 has followed a decreasing trend. This paper explores to what degree the transport infrastructure investments financed with European Union Structural Funds (ERDF) and Cohesion Funds (CF) including the compulsory national cofunding (EUINFP) prevented TFP over this period from falling further. It estimates an augmented Mankiw–Romer–Weil model for the 17 Spanish regions over the period 1989–2010 and finds positive marginal contributions on the TFP growth rate for EUINFP, research and development, and the interdependencies between EUINFP and private capital. These factors partially offset the dismal TFP performance of Spain over this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the temporalities of infrastructuring, breakdown, and repair/disrepair interacting generatively – materially and symbolically – in "Yachay, the city of knowledge," the most ambitious and controversial public infrastructural project in Ecuador's history. I analyze the roles of expectations, and the infrastructural dynamics in the process of shaping Yachay during its intragovernmental scaling-up from a technical university to a city of knowledge; and during the material implementation of some of its basic physical infrastructure. I also highlight the embeddedness of the expectations in particular pasts and historical trajectories, thus extending the common use of expectations as only oriented to the future. The argument presented here draws on fieldwork conducted in Yachay for 14 months between 2016 and 2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Novel method forecasts interventions in deteriorating tunnel infrastructures. • Comprehensive tunnel data aids performance assessment. • Brazilian rail tunnel's degradation inspection. • Method reveals links between service levels and geology. • Inspection Digital Twin maps degradation zones, connects with database, enabling continuous digital structural oversight. Civil infrastructures inevitably undergo a degradation process due to extended periods of operation, frequent service requests, and weathering. This paper proposes a methodology for predicting necessary interventions and presents a database of inspection information for tunnels. The model developed correlates performance loss, measured by the tunnel serviceability index (TSI), to defects detected through a 2D grid composed of classified unit cells converted into a virtual representation. To support the framework developed, intervention time estimates were compared to stochastic degradation models presented in the literature. A limit analysis was performed using inverse exponential equations, utilizing data from different sources and supported by a digital representation of the analysis structure. This was done to estimate times with unitary inspection data, deterioration mapping control, and data connection to the developed inspection model. A railway tunnel for ore transport in northern Brazil was selected as a case study to apply the forecast model, as it showed an accelerated deterioration process within a few years of service. The tunnel was divided into four sections that were analyzed using the methodology developed through inspection-sensitive analysis. The section with the lowest service level (TS 1) matched the geological-geotechnical mapping, which indicated a rock mass with high metamorphic grade and susceptibility to weathering agents. The digital model resulted in an inspection digital twin (IDT) prototype that maps the zones with the greatest problems regarding the degradation process. Metadata is assigned to control elements, and there is online connection to a visual database of the tunnel. The target intervention time was set at 16 years by the developed structure, which falls within all forecast intervals calculated by the limit analyses. The inspection DT enables digital monitoring of the structure under analysis, allowing for efficient and optimized management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of COVID-19 raised critical questions about the functionalities of urban infrastructures, and in particular, practices of food provision, consumption and distribution. This paper focuses on the actions of non-commercial collaborative food sharing practices in Dublin city, incorporating surplus food redistribution initiatives, community kitchens, and community gardens, during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020. Whilst initially curtailed under conditions of strict lockdowns, many of these food sharing initiatives became characterised as essential services as the crisis unfolded, offering infrastructures of mobility, accessibility and care. Focusing on urban food infrastructures, qualitative content analysis of online media debates around food sharing in Dublin during this period was conducted to explore how non-commercial food sharing initiatives have been affected by, and responded to, the COVID-19 outbreak in Dublin. The paper analyses forms of improvisation, institionalisation and impact that emerged through food sharing actions and reflects on whether food sharing initiatives prefigure more sustainable urban food systems. • Demonstrates how food sharing initiatives have been affected by, and responded to, the COVID-19 outbreak in Dublin, Ireland • Contributes to the research on critical urban infrastructures and food infrastructures in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of this paper is to analyse recent trends in freight transport volumes as well as their relation to socio-economic and infrastructural variables, in the case of the following major European countries: France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom. This analysis refers to the period 2005-2016, so that years affected by the global economic crisis, which shows its peak in 2009, are taken into account. This research demonstrated that not all the countries under study show a strong relation between freight traffic and GDP as it could have been expected based on well consolidated experiences and studies. Moreover, other relations are investigated, with mixed results, between the freight traffic volumes and the extension of the rail and road networks as well as oil price data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban integration (UI) has emerged as the guiding maxim for enabling efficient resource flows and smart and connected cites. The last decade has led to renewed interest in exploiting interconnections to optimise city capacities in urban policy, practice and research. However, the imperative for integration across resources, infrastructures, sectors and disciplines remains largely unquestioned, and its socio-political and environmental implications receive little critical attention. This paper subjects the ideas and practices of UI to scrutiny. We argue that integration-in-practice (as opposed to integration-in-theory) is partial and selective in its objects of combination and outcomes. The key issue this raises is whether the promise of new metropolitan-wide imaginaries of horizontal integration gives way to more selective logics of vertical integration that privilege socially and spatially valued enclaves. Rather than challenge urban splintering, UI practices would therefore reinforce urban infrastructure divides. The paper argues that a subtle shift is taking place in the UI discourse that whilst promising resource sustainability and metropolitan inclusivity, re-prioritises and re-intensifies more selective infrastructural planning processes. We term this new emerging mode bifurcated urban integration (BUI). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the significance of linguistic and cultural regions for the global expansion and localization of digital platforms. Bringing issues of globalization and cultural difference to bear on the study of platforms, we explore the industrial and cultural logics at work when digital platforms like YouTube navigate new markets. We first map YouTube's trajectory in India and outline how the company came to recognize and value southern India's linguistic and cultural diversity as crucial for its national and global expansion. Through close readings of videos produced by a leading channel (Put Chutney), we then outline how 'region' emerges as the dominant scale for localization and examine different conceptions of the region that are mobilized to secure an online audience. More broadly, we argue that platform localization is the contingent outcome of the interaction of algorithmic and representational logics that structure the operations of digital platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study considers cultural crowdfunding as a heterogeneous system that allows money and attention to flow from backers to founders of cultural projects in diverse cultural sectors and focuses on the nature of the standards governing it. It analyzes Kickstarter's corporate blog since the platform's launch and finds indications that social media practices are increasingly naturalized as integral to crowdfunding and that social media architectures are increasingly adopted by the crowdfunding platform. This, I argue, has a potential exclusionary effect. At the same time, the analysis finds evidence that Kickstarter is striving to develop an independent capacity to set aesthetic standards, which might moderate that effect and help constitute crowdfunding as an alternative decentralized arena for the funding of culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]