The book will compare and contrast the key problems associated with the planning and implementation of major road investments in selected Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries: Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania.

The CEE countries serve as an excellent research field, as no group of states in history has ever had access to such substantial external funding for infrastructure development within a short time frame. At the same time, investment outcomes have varied significantly across individual countries. Spatial planning systems are often cited as one of the factors determining the scale and pace of transport investments.

This book will provide a synthetic analysis of the planning considerations involved in the implementation and execution of major road investments. This book will be relevant to academics and students interested in spatial planning and major road investments in Europe.

Beyond Smart Housing: Bridging Culture, Technology, and Community introduces a holistic understanding of smart living that values both efficiency and empathy, repositioning the idea of smart housing within a human-centered, culturally grounded, and socially aware framework.

In recent decades, the notion of "smart housing" has evolved into a dominant paradigm within architecture, planning, and urban innovation. Yet, much of this discourse remains narrowly focused on technological efficiency, automation, and energy optimization. This book challenges this limited view by exploring the deeper layers of what it truly means for a home, and by extension, a community, to be "smart." It argues that genuine intelligence in housing cannot be reduced to devices, data, or digital connectivity alone, but must also encompass cultural meaning, social interaction, and emotional attachment. The book unfolds in three analytical layers: 1. The House: as an individual unit of living, exploring its psychological, spatial, and sensory meanings; 2. The Home: as a lived and emotional space, shaped by identity, memory, and self-expression; 3. Housing and Neighborhood: as collective systems of life, where cultural intelligence and everyday practices sustain social cohesion. The book draws inspiration from real-world examples including the Dutch woonerf and field observations from Bojnord, Iran, to show how the idea of "everyday intelligence" already exists within lived social patterns. These cases illustrate that true smartness may arise not only from technology but from community behavior, shared awareness, and mutual care.

This book invites scholars and students, urban policymakers, designers, architects, and anyone who has ever wondered what makes a home and neighborhood truly smart to rethink the smart home as a living, learning environment: one that cultivates resilience, inclusivity, and emotional well-being.

What does it look like for host communities in international health research to be treated fairly?

Multinational pharmaceutical companies and research funding institutions from high-income countries frequently sponsor clinical trials in low- and middle-income countries, where underdeveloped health and welfare systems raise significant ethical concerns. The power asymmetry between well-resourced foreign sponsors and local communities with limited bargaining power further amplifies concerns of unjust treatment and fears of exploitation.

By drawing upon arguments from health research ethics; political philosophy, particularly global distributive justice; and the literature on the principle of fair play, this book addresses a significant gap in the current discourse: the lack of a solid conceptual foundation for the claim that host communities are entitled to fair benefits. Felicitas Holzer discusses concerns related to structural injustice and proposes alternative mechanisms to secure fair benefits for host communities. Ultimately, Holzer argues that obligations of fair benefit-sharing arise from the requirements of fair cooperation between distinct stakeholders.

Manufacturing Digitalisation in Italy: The Future Behind examines how digitalisation is transforming manufacturing in Italy, with particular attention to the interplay between new technologies and territorially embedded manufacturing systems.

Drawing on extensive empirical research, the book introduces the concept of the regional digitalisation system to explain how policies, firms, and decentralised institutional capacities jointly shape patterns of digital transformation. Challenging linear models of technological adoption, it advances the idea of "the future behind" to show how pre-existing regional socio-institutional configurations both enable and constrain emerging development trajectories. As Europe's second-largest manufacturing economy, yet a relative digital laggard, Italy has recently experienced a significant acceleration in firms' digitalisation, rapidly converging towards the EU average despite structurally adverse conditions. Characterised by regionalised capitalism, small and medium-sized enterprises, territorial inequalities, limited high-technology sectors, and weak, decentralised innovation systems, Italy provides a crucial case for understanding how subnational socio-institutional contexts shape manufacturing transformation and produce distinct regional digitalisation paths.

As the first comprehensive sociological book on manufacturing digitalisation, this book will appeal to scholars, practitioners, and policymakers interested in economic sociology, the sociology of work and industry, comparative political economy, industrial policy, regional studies, innovation studies, and the sociology of technology.

For the first time, this volume brings together the writings, lectures, and correspondence of two of the most distinctive voices in twentieth-century French thought: Alexandre Kojeve (1902-1968) and Gaston Fessard (1897-1978).
Kojeve is widely regarded as one of the most influential philosophers in France. His Hegel seminars of the 1930s shaped an entire generation of intellectuals, including Georges Bataille, Jacques Lacan, and Raymond Aron. Among his closest interlocutors was Gaston Fessard, a leading Jesuit theologian and himself a member of the seminar.
Authority, History, and Political Theology charts Kojeve and Fessard's friendship through their reviews of each other's work, lectures, letters, and unpublished essays. These texts, many translated into English for the very first time, show how each thinker grappled with urgent political-theological issues, such as the rise of totalitarianism, secularism, and Marxism.
Including a historical introduction, the volume situates their exchange at the intersection of Hegelian philosophy, Catholic theology, and global politics. It shows how two readers of Hegel- one an atheist philosopher, the other a Jesuit theologian - challenge how we think about political life, the role of religion in the public sphere, and the meaning of the end of history. Part of Bloomsbury's Political Theologies series, this book is essential for readers interested in political theology, continental philosophy, and intellectual history.

This book examines how states and corporations across the Global South acquire land, identifying distinct patterns of expropriation and resistance. Across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, economic growth in sectors such as mining, agribusiness, energy, infrastructure, and real estate is driving far-reaching land-use change. Yet the processes of dispossession that underpin these transformations vary considerably. It introduces a comparative framework to explain how legal mechanisms, coercion, and state-business alliances combine in different ways to shape land conflicts.

Drawing on detailed case studies-including India's solar parks, Indonesia's palm oil plantations, Cambodia's real estate developments, East Timor's oil and gas projects, and Brazil's land mafias-the contributors highlight three distinct regimes of dispossession: state-led expropriation, curtailed land rights, and decentralised coercion. By comparing these patterns across contexts, the book deepens understanding of how dispossession is organised and resisted, while offering insight into the broader political economy of land-use change.

This book is essential reading for scholars, researchers, and students in development studies, political economy, agrarian studies, geography, and sociology. It will also appeal to policymakers, civil society organizations, and activists engaged with land rights, resource governance, and social justice issues in the Global South.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Globalizations.

In Liberatory Research Teams, Labs, and Collectives, Phelps-Ward, Brown, and Bankole provide guidance for research team leaders and members aspiring to facilitate research teams from a liberatory, human-centered, equitable perspective.

Whether leading a lab in chemistry and engineering, research team in the humanities or fine arts, or research collectives and collaboratives in the social sciences (e.g., psychology, social work, education, etc.), the authors provide rich examples, checklists, and resources facilitators and team members can begin using immediately to guide their everyday work. Through discussions on orienting research lab members and onboarding at the beginning of the text, to conversations about envisioned futures for research teams given the forecasted landscape of postsecondary education at the end of the text, this book contributes to the leadership, research methods, faculty, and graduate student development literature.

This text is a guide for those who desire a path to research team facilitation counter to how they may have been socialized in their terminal degree training, whether formally or informally, and aligned with values that center social justice and collective thriving. When the people on research teams thrive, so does the research, and ultimately, the broader impact of those in society.

Screening Postmillennial Queer Film provides a critical overview of global LGBTQIA+ filmmaking in the twenty-first century, examining queer cinema beyond the New Queer Cinema paradigm, and as part of a progressively re-conceptualised world cinema.

This volume explores how LGBTQIA+ film has evolved globally through diverse case studies spanning art-house, genre, and mainstream productions. Contributors examine key topics including aesthetics, authorship, activism, intersectionality, transnationalism, and geopolitics, contextualizing queer filmmaking within and beyond Anglo-American canons. The collection addresses the growing visibility of non-heteronormative identities in international politics, media, and culture, equipping readers with critical tools to analyse contemporary queer film production worldwide.

Bridging the generational differences in queer film studies and cultural/critical practice, this book is essential for students and scholars in film studies, queer studies, gender and sexuality studies, and cultural studies. It is particularly valuable for those studying world cinema, postcolonial cinema, and LGBTQIA+ media representation. Ideal for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate courses, the volume serves as both a teaching resource and foundation for interdisciplinary research on queer cinema and global film cultures.

This Research Agenda examines the dynamic interdisciplinary topic of water policy research, exploring how the field is continually adapting to challenges and innovations which foster integration, cooperation and innovation. It provides a critical analysis of the evolution of water policy research since the mid-20th century, framing it through three interlinked dimensions - process, sectoral interaction and learning - that bridge theory, practice and policy across scales.

Engaging with the entire policy process from agenda setting to evaluation, chapters identify themes of integrated water management, public participation and transboundary water governance. They highlight emerging research frontiers, including those relating to climate adaptation, urban water resilience and gender equity, shedding light on the interconnected nature of water challenges. The Research Agenda adopts a forward-looking and reflective tone, emphasising how ideas, institutions and governance models are transferred and enforced globally, and shaping learning-based and collaborative approaches to management.

This book will be valuable to students and scholars of public policy and politics, environmental governance and law. Policymakers and practitioners managing natural resources and conservation will benefit from the practical governance insights proposed.

This handbook brings together scholarship from different disciplines, institutions and locations to contribute critically to how the social sciences think about - with, against, beyond - debt.

By bringing together the best specialists in the field, this handbook both captures and feeds the theoretical and political debates on a subject of burning relevance. Across the diversity of theoretical and methodological approaches, a common thread to the contributions is a concern with power relations and inequalities. Who owes what to whom? To what extent is debt both shaped by and constitutive of social and power relations while crystallizing or giving rise to individual and collective aspirations, resistances and struggles? How is debt structured by long historical trajectories and broad trends that operate at a global level, while at the same time intertwining with institutions, organizations and interpersonal relations specific to singular contexts and periods of history? The handbook features a combination of theoretical and empirical chapters, but overall their purpose is to make an analytical contribution to some of the most relevant public issues of our time. The volume gives empirical examples from a wide variety of geographical locations, moving away from a narrow Euro-American-centric vision. It also explores the case of countries whose banking and debt systems are relatively unknown.

The handbook is an invaluable resource for readers who-besides debt itself--are interested in money, banking, economy, social obligation, poverty, and inequality.

Dabei ist es vor dem Hintergrund eines verfassungskonformen Ausgleichs von Freiheit und Sicherheit bedeutsam, Eingriffe in digitale Sphaeren durch normenklare Befugnisse und verfahrensrechtliche Begrenzungen zu regulieren. Dies betrifft namentlich die Ueberwachung (auch) des Surfverhaltens im Rahmen klassischer TKUe-Massnahmen sowie die Infiltration informationstechnischer Systeme, um Verschluesselungstechnologien zu umgehen. Dem Antagonismus von technischen Moeglichkeiten und rechtlichen Beduerfnissen begegnet die Untersuchung mit grundlegendem Reformbedarf und einer dogmatischen Weiterentwicklung des allgemeinen Persoenlichkeitsrechts: einem ≫Recht auf Vertraulichkeit intrapersoneller Internetkommunikation≪.

This book investigates the linguistic features and translation strategies of English-to-Chinese film translation from a comparative, corpus-based perspective.

It establishes an English-Chinese parallel corpus of 50 Oscar-winning or -nominated English films, alongside a reference corpus of 215 original Chinese films. This provides a foundation for exploring how translated film dialogue can be made more natural and colloquial. Focusing on character usage, vocabulary, syntactic patterns and cultural elements such as honorifics, idioms and vulgar language, the analysis reveals the distinctive differences between translated and original Chinese film texts. It also compares official dubbing translations with online fan subtitles. Using quantitative metrics such as frequency, lexical grade and multiplier values, the book provides practical translation strategies and stylistic benchmarks for English-Chinese film translation.

This book will serve as an invaluable reference for researchers and students of translation studies interested in English-Chinese translation, audiovisual translation and corpus linguistics. It will also provide translation professionals with a valuable guide to improving the quality and audience acceptance of film translation through evidence-based strategies and methodological approaches.

Focusing on Hong Kong's Tenants Purchase Scheme, this book examines the implications of transforming public tenants into homeowners, particularly in terms of creating properties that are marketable, financeable, and conducive to upward mobility.

It argues that the hidden value embedded in public housing stems from security, predictable charges, and access to public services. However, the privatisation of housing does not always translate seamlessly into market dynamics-whether owners can sell their homes depends on factors such as resale regulations, valuation practices, mortgage accessibility, and eligibility criteria. Combining theory, institutional analysis, and original empirical evidence, the book explains why Hong Kong's resale market for privatised public housing has remained thin and difficult to access. The argument is further enriched through comparative analysis with the United Kingdom's Right to Buy programme and Singapore's Housing and Development Board resale system. Spanning decades of housing reform, the book explores how governments can promote homeownership while preserving mobility and public value, offering a valuable resource for advancing housing policy.

This book will appeal to scholars and policymakers working in housing policy, public administration, and real estate economics.

This open access book explores how courts and judges from common and civil law jurisdictions should address the following challenges that affect all of humanity - the ever-rapid development of AI and big data, the dangers of disinformation and misinformation, and the irreversible harmful effects of climate change.

The book is divided into 4 parts. Part I examines the impact of AI on judiciaries, in areas such as machine-generated evidence, access to justice and the ethical implications of AI. It features contributions from judges who have served in the Chinese, Indian and Singapore judiciaries. Part II delves into the topic of data protection and privacy in the era of big data and AI, focusing on the legal and regulatory issues relating to the processing of data. Part III addresses truth decay and the courts' role in ascertaining facts in an uncertain world. Part IV explores climate change litigation in various domestic courts around the world and the approaches and techniques that have been taken to address this dynamic and challenging area of the law.

This book is primarily for judges: how should they approach these topics when raised in their courts? What capacity-building is necessary for judges to stay current? Should judiciaries play a role, or is it solely or primarily the government's responsibility to formulate the relevant policies and laws? To what extent can and should impartial judges be proactive on these issues?

The book is, however, also addressed to legal academics, law students, and laypersons interested in the implications of these significant challenges on the integrity of our justice systems: how should our civil justice systems respond?

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

A timely contribution to the study of transnational higher education in China, this volume focuses on graduate employability and how to nurture Glocal Talents via Glocalised Higher Education, specifically in the context of transnational higher education programmes and transnational universities.

Offering readers a background on the conceptualisation of glocal talents, education policy frameworks of glocalised higher education and the approaches to cultivating the desired talents in and beyond China, Part 1 of the book suggests various practical models and frameworks for nurturing glocal talents in different regions and universities. In Part 2, the authors use a focal case study to present in-depth investigations into leadership, formal and informal curricula, and employability of graduates from the Sino-Foreign Cooperative Education Institution (SFCEI). The book makes an argument for how glocal talents should be better equipped to fit into a profession or an environment that requires the mindset and competence to bring the global, national and local into individual relationships for sustainable development of mankind. This comprehensive investigation into every section of glocal knowledge and visions provides readers a clear picture on how glocal talents could be practically nurtured through glocalised higher education.

Due to its unique exploration of the visions and practices of the leaders, academics, curriculum designers, and practitioners in the specific context of the more than 2000 SFCEIs, this is a must-read for students, researchers, policymakers, leaders, as well as formal and informal curriculum designers involved in international higher education (IHE), comparative education, and educational research.

Bringing together material religion and discourse theory, this cross-disciplinary book argues that theories of embodiment and religion co-produce one another.
Responding to the scholarly turn towards embodiment and phenomenology beginning in queer studies and branching out into the humanities more broadly, Jessica A. Albrecht brings religion to the table. This book contends that, if the turn to materiality emphasizes what religion does in bodies and spaces, or how bodies make religion, it is equally important to ask whose bodies are made legible, and under what conditions they come to matter. By shining a light on this reciprocal relationship between religion and embodiment, Albrecht reveals the processes through which meanings, "bodies," and "religion" itself are made. Across seven chapters spanning intersectionality, queer and cuir theory, and crip studies, this book traces counter-genealogies which reveal how bodies become unintelligible within the regimes of religion, race, gender, and ability. Albrecht offers tools for examining how religious experiences are shaped by queerness, disability, and power, providing a fresh and inclusive perspective on how bodies and practices are central constituents of conceptions of religion. The resulting framework for religious studies pushes beyond normative views or religious-secular divisions, prompting readers to critically re-consider both "religion" and the "body."

Challenging the pursuit of sustainable lifestyles as a matter of technical inventiveness or individual action, this Handbook proposes that sustainability is instead a systemic process that reorients prevailing ambitions and creates conditions for societal flourishing. Expert contributing authors countermand the widespread assumption that achieving a more environmentally sustainable and socially equitable future relies mostly on developing more efficient technologies. They offer alternatives to the relentless focus on achieving these objectives by governments and businesses over the past several decades, which has often been driven by an unyielding commitment to economic growth rather than socioenvironmental concern.

The Handbook of Research on Sustainable Lifestyles is an authoritative resource for scholars and students of environmental studies, politics and public policy, sustainable development, human geography, and sociology. Policymakers in innovation and technology and business leaders will also benefit from its practical approach to effectively incorporating sustainability strategies into everyday life.

This is not a book about how to build AI. It is a book about what leaders must understand before deploying AI.

This comprehensive guide demystifies AI concepts, explores its history, and empowers readers to navigate its impact on business and society. Grounded in clear, non-technical but mathematically correct explanations, the book explores AI from foundational principles to advanced topics including neural networks and machine learning paradigms. Readers will gain a deeper understanding of how AI systems work, their limitations, and practical strategies for leveraging AI responsibly. The book highlights that AI systems are not built by algorithms alone, but by organizations that choose objectives, learning paradigms, data, thresholds, and incentives-choices that sit squarely with leadership. With its expert analysis and real-world advice, the book bridges the gap between technical knowledge and managerial decision-making, equipping leaders to make those choices confidently and correctly.

Ideal for business leaders seeking to understand and apply AI concepts, this book is also a valuable resource for professionals, educators, and students who want to enhance their knowledge of AI's role in shaping the future.

Questioning traditional legal concepts in light of AI's transformative influence, contributors assess fields such as intellectual property, privacy and data protection, fundamental rights and international law. They discuss the various facets of AI regulation, copyright and payment models, as well as different legal regimes and their applicability to AI, including unfair competition. The book also confronts under-explored issues like generative AI training, the regulation of rights reservation, author remuneration and perspectives on AI in the Global South.

Artificial Intelligence and Creativity is a key resource for scholars and students of intellectual property law, as well as practicing lawyers specializing in the law of artificial intelligence. Researchers in other disciplines, from economics to the humanities, interested in the impact of AI and its regulation will also benefit from its comprehensive overview of this increasingly complex and controversial field.

Drawing on new research, practice, and, crucially, lived experience of community members, this innovative edited collection explores the higher education experiences of Traveller, Gypsy, and Roma students in the UK.

With carefully collated chapters written by a wide range of academics, researchers and teaching staff, non-government organisations (NGOs), university professional services staff, graduates and students, including those from Gypsy, Roma, Traveller, and Showmen communities, this book is a vital resource. It is a call for discussion and critical reflection on how Traveller, Gypsy, and Roma students access university and have a successful and positive experience whilst studying. Divided into two parts, the first part focuses on critically exploring understandings of Romani history and the Romani-Traveller community, whiteness, racialisation and racism, and primary and secondary education. The second part focuses on higher education in more depth including personal reflections on higher education experiences. It explores topics such as the neoliberal university and aspirations; Roma in higher education in Europe; decolonising the curriculum; widening access, participation and engagement; career guidance and distance learning.

This important resource will be of interest to researchers and academics in higher education and for those who are interested in social justice, anti-racism and equality more generally. Moreover, this book will generate discussion and reflection on how Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller students can best be supported to access higher education and to have successful and positive experiences whilst at university.

Aesthetics and Music is a fresh, provocative exploration of the key concepts and arguments in musical aesthetics. It makes an eloquent case for a humanistic, meritocratic and genuinely aesthetic conception of music and musical understanding. Anyone interested in what contemporary philosophy has to say about music as an art will find this thought-provoking and highly enjoyable book required reading.

Thinkers discussed range from Pythagoras and Plato to Kant, Nietzsche and Adorno. Areas of music covered include classical, popular and traditional music, and jazz. This updated edition features new material, including three new chapters on the evolutionary perspective, words and music and music and language. There are guides to further reading, and new dialogues with some contemporary thinkers and musicians.