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The Coronavirus pandemic has led to restrictions on movement and workplace closures, resulting in governments offering temporary financial support to enterprises and workers. This paper evaluates a group unable to access this financial support, namely those in the undeclared economy, and possible policy responses. To identify the service industries and workers involved, a late 2019 Eurobarometer survey of undeclared work in Europe is reported. This reveals that undeclared work is particularly prevalent in the hospitality, retail and personal services sectors and identifies the population groups over-represented. Given that this undeclared workforce is now largely unable to work, it will be argued that providing access to temporary financial support, through a voluntary disclosure initiative, would be a useful initiative not only to provide the income support these enterprises and workers need but also to bring them out of the shadows and put them on the radar of the state authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This response examines the impact on the North American Gestalt community of Margherita Spagnuolo Lobb's extension of the field approach to include a "worldwide" suffering. I reflect on cultural variants in the understanding of suffering in Europe and North America and inquire what can be learned from the European model. Gestalt therapy's shift of attention from the rising figure to attention to the ground itself has enabled work with deeper forms of suffering such as psychopathology, depression, panic disorder, and trauma, as well as a diagnostic approach that describes the cocreated space between client and therapist. How much can this shift allow the Gestalt therapist to include the sense of an insecure world: changing boundaries, terrorism, inability to trust one's neighbor, lack of grounding? Although it may be difficult for the North American therapist to identify strongly with such matters, Spagnuolo Lobb asks us consider our youth's issues of desensitization, suicide, addictions, lack of containment and identity, to alert us to the need for change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper starts from the observation that development projects that create various forms of environmental injustice in Europe are an integral part of the process of biospheric expulsions, that is of pushing out groups from adequate land, water or air, as described by Saskia Sassen (2014). Apart from the environmental, socio-economic and health-impacts of ecologically destructive projects, there is an added dimension of concern that has been less obvious in the past, but tends to become increasingly pronounced in a warming world. Is it possible that accumulating environmental inequalities and forms of injustice can create new and "unnatural" vulnerabilities to the projected climate change impacts? The fi rst question that we tackle is whether environmental justice confl icts in Europe tend to take place disproportionately in climate hotspot areas, which are geographic spaces with above-average social sensitivity, potential vulnerability, potential social impact, potential environmental impacts or response capacity (ESPON, 2011). The second question concerns the distribution of diff erent characteristics of projects and of their associated confl icts in climate hotspot vs. non-hotspot areas. The fi nal goal is to establish, at a preliminary level, the emergence of a climate edge in Europe, a spatial confi guration in which vulnerability to climate change impacts is shaped by processes of biospheric expulsion, as postulated at a general level by Sassen. For the analysis, the most current data on environmental justice confl icts (444) from the Environmental Justice Atlas and ESPON climate impact projections, mapped on the Climate Adapt platform, are used. The expected result is to provide a preliminary description of the postulated climate edge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Three-dimensional FE models have been developed and validated by full-scale tests of prestressed concrete sleepers. • It is the first to identify the impact responses of railway concrete sleepers with under sleeper pads exposed to impact loading. • Increase in insertion losses and decrease of contact pressures from impulse moderation have been highlighted. • It is the first to reveal the effectiveness of USP in impact load response of railway sleepers. • Insights will help track engineers to make decision on the design and usage of USP. Exposed to operational uncertainties, the investment in railway infrastructure is increasing to improve track resilience, to mitigate long-term consequences, to prolong the track service life, and to reduce unplanned maintenance costs and carbon footprint. Under sleeper pads (USPs) have been widely used in several countries as a resilient component placed underneath concrete sleepers. However, it is well-known that, with any imperfection of either wheel or rail, railway tracks usually are incited by impact loading conditions. Accordingly, the application of USPs to mitigate the detrimental impact load consequences on track structure is unprecedentedly highlighted in this paper. Despite the common uses of USPs in various countries in Europe, the dynamic behaviour of the USPs under high-intensity impact loading conditions has not been fully investigated. Note that not only does this study focus on serviceability condition but it also instigates an extreme condition, which can occur when there are coupled effects of short and long wavelength defects (e.g. dipped rail joint coupled with track settlement, switches and crossings, etc.). This paper thus establishes a 3D finite element model of prestressed concrete sleepers with USPs, using LS-Dyna. This study has confirmed field measurement data that the sleepers with USPs tend to have lesser flexures, contact force and impact energy. However, this study is the world's first to reveal that the vibration of sleeper with USPs could be amplified by the large amplitude impact force, which can be induced especially when excited by a high-speed train travelling over short-pitch rail defects, rail joints, coupled defects or crossings. It is also noteworthy that a very stiff pad with a bedding modulus of 1 N/mm3 can be alternatively used as USPs as recommended by the results obtained. Based on both numerical and field measurement results, it demonstrates that the applications of USPs should be very carefully considered since the USPs could trade off the desired benefits by aggravating dynamic behaviours of sleepers with USPs. The new insights will help track engineers to make appropriate decision on the design and usage of USP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]