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Refugees’ access to psychotherapeutic care is insufficient in Germany. One factor particularly contributing to hindering their access to adequate therapeutic care is a lack of provision of language mediation. This paper aims to explore the institutional system in which the financing of language mediation in the context of the medical treatment of asylum seekers in Germany is located. It examines why the language barrier problem resulting from a lack of financing is not being solved, even though it has been well known for years as a structural problem of day-patient health care to refugees and migrants in Germany.

The financing of language mediation is analysed against the background of theories of the so-called “shunting yard”, in which public responsibilities for the assumption of costs are shifted from one level and actor to the other, thus preventing sustainable solutions being achieved. A mix of qualitative methods including the evaluation of official documents, reports and secondary literature, and of 23 expert interviews was used.

The financing of language mediation is a perfect example of the “shunting yard” phenomenon, with responsibilities being shifted between federal government, health insurance bodies and the municipalities in Germany. This paper argues that the specific financing structure in the German federal system can be viewed as a reason for the non-solution of the language barrier that hinders refugees’ access to health care.

The problem of the financing of language mediation in the context of health care has been rarely treated from a social sciences perspective. This paper contributes to addressing this gap.

June 16, 1966. Negligence — Duty of care — Foreseeability — Startling crash — Railway employee examining carriages in shunting area — Exceptionally heavy crash caused by improper shunting practice — Crash startling employee — Whether foreseeable that somebody startled by crash — Employee injured as a result of stumbling — Whether reaction to being startled foreseeable — Negligence of employer.

November 25, 1968 Negligence — Safe system of work — Burden of proof — Railway — Appreciable daily risk known of danger to engine driver — Whether employer's liability depending on extent of risk and nature of necessary avoiding steps — Plaintiff adducing evidence of several feasible and reasonable possibilities for minimising risk — Whether onus on plaintiff to state specific possibility economically acceptable for adoption by employers — Whether employers negligent — Driver killed on musjudging precise position in relation to bridge — Whether contributory negligence.

This contribution describes the urban freight structure in the Zurich area, the possibilites and the potential for rail and intermodal transport. It contains results from studies made for the authorities of the city and the canton of Zurich and also from European research projects. It also notes supporting measures and framework conditions to reach a modal shift from road to rail based transport.

In the EC, Combined Transport (CT) is generally regarded as the most promising market for external logistics suppliers. EC deregulation policy makes market entry a strategic option both for mega carriers and big shippers. Concentrates on access problems to this market. Shows that liberalization does not automatically mean lower access barriers. The semi‐deregulated CT industry presents strong entry barriers due to low profitability and a high level of control over upstream and downstream resources by established main actors. Therefore the set of CT main providers, the “railway‐league” and the “UIRR‐forwarder‐league”, remains stable. The situation will probably not change as long as (1) the low price level of trucking is accepted by environmental and transport policy makers and (2) access to relevant resources is nationally monopolized. Only a combination of measures designed to rectify both of these market imperfections, not a succession of isolated actions, will support further development of CT. The consequence of its fast liberalization, without higher returns on capital, could be a serious crisis for the whole industry.

Previous work has suggested that the adhesion between oil and metallic surfaces of an engine could be an important factor in determining crankcase cleanliness. It can be shown that it is only necessary to measure the spreading pressure of an oil on metal in order to get a direct measure of the work of adhesion, Surface tensions of lubrictaing oils vary very little and it can be assumed that the critical film pressure (C.F.P.) obtained with a given apparatus is an acceptable measure of the work of adhesion as well as of the spreading pressure. Oils of similar properties may vary tenfold in their C.F.P's. The addition of additives influences the spreading pressure, the largest increments in C.F.P. being given by dispersant and detergent additives.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the necessity of longer and/heavier and/or faster freight train operations and their viability in the European context.

Using a case study, the current research applies qualitative methods, including desktop research and informal discussion with the rail freight industry and shippers. The case study is the recently conducted trial of 1.5 km long Marathon freight train in Europe.

The research finds that at this stage there is no commercial necessity of running a 1.5 km long train. There are technical and operational limitations which are less problematic, but the commercial necessity is a must and that will need sufficient traffic volume on a longer route (to justify extra time and cost incurred in marshalling yard and reasonable pre- and post-consolidated rail transport haul). The time required to form up/disperse such large formation could arguably be a major constraint for the train itself as well as for other services run on the same network. The authors agree in principle with the “do more with less” notion and the necessity of faster train concept. Also, the authors are agreeing with the heavier train aspect.

Considering the current and future (more semi-finished and finished, containerised) cargo trend, it is more important that freight train is operated consistently, reliably, and commercially attractive relatively faster and frequent serving moderate distances (around 300+ km). Towards this, the operation of merging two (or more) short trains to form up to 750 m long trains should be explored, in particular on the nine Rail Freight Corridors, to identify the potential and realistic opportunities for commercial deployment of “longer and/or faster and/or and heavier” freight train.

At the moment there is no need of a 1.5 km long freight train to improve the performance of EU railways.

The case study provides an important platform for debate on the contemporary notion of “longer”, “faster” and “heavier” freight trains in the European context.

My objective is to give a thumbnail sketch of the computing art, and perhaps to kill a few fallacies on the way. One fallacy which I will tackle right away is the idea that computers are essentially for numerical computations, and that if they do anything else it is, like Dr Johnson's description of a woman's preaching, ‘not done well, but it is surprising to find that it is done at all’. It is true that numerical computing was the umbilical cord on which the electronic computer was born; but the digital computer uses pulse patterns to represent the data, and there is nothing essentially numerical about the pulses.