This book offers unique insight to the regulatory, operational, and institutional advances of OLAF (the European Commission's Anti-Fraud Office). Since OLAF was set up in 1999, changes in the three levels of OLAF's functional environment have taken place: continuing advances in EU criminal law, especially in the areas of mutual assistance and substantive criminal law; the reconstruction of Eurojust and Europol though recent regulations and memoranda of cooperation; and the prospect of the Lisbon Treaty. The book shares the view that OLAF's current legal framework must adequately address these issues. The book's approach is multi-disciplinary. OLAF is examined through the prism of law and EU politics, thus focusing not only on the identification of current problems in regulation and procedure, but also on the feasibility of the institution in the future of European integration. This approach is dialectic in that after the exposure of regulatory and institutional defaults, operational solutions are then discussed. Although there is little doubt that OLAF suffers from regulatory discrepancies and institutional inefficiencies, there is value in the argument that its staff has managed to devise operational and functional mechanisms that address some of these problems, allowing the institution to proceed legitimately with its crucial role in combating fraud within the EU. Notwithstanding the efficiency and ingenuity of its staff, the need for express rules covering procedural and operational issues must be safeguarded in regulation. (Series: Studies in International and Comparative Criminal Law)

This book brings together authors from United States, South Africa, United Kingdom, China, Canada and Australia to provide insights and case studies from across a range of contexts to explore the interplay between the notions of rurality, innovation and education. The book reveals a hopeful and resilient approach to innovative rural education and scholarship collectively and provides important evidence to speak against an often deficit view of rural education. Three patterns are revealed, namely: the importance of place-attentive strategies, the importance of joined up alliances to maximise resources and networks and finally, the need to utilize alternative methodologies and frameworks that have a starting point of difference rather than deficit for any rural initiative or approach. By drawing from international examples and responding in innovative ways to rural education challenges, this book provides an opportunity to share international insights into innovations, interventions and partnerships that promote and support rural education in its broadest sense.

This book provides an evidentiary basis for policy decisions regarding initial teacher education and beginning teaching and informs the design and delivery of teacher preparation programs. Based on a rigorous analysis of international literature and the policy context for teacher education globally, and assessing data generated through a longitudinal study conducted in Australia, it investigates the effectiveness of teacher education in preparing teachers for the variety of school settings in which they begin their teaching careers. Over four years, the Studying the Effectiveness of Teacher Education (SETE) project tracked roughly 5,000 recently graduated teachers and 1,000 school principals in Australia to capture workforce data and gauge graduate teachers' and principals' perceptions of their initial teacher education programs. This book offers a synthesis of the research findings and uses the SETE as a catalyst for innovative theorization of the effectiveness of teacher education.

Doing Educational Research in Rural Settings is a much-needed guide for educational researchers whose research interests are located outside metropolitan areas in places that are generically considered to be rural. This book is both timely and important as it takes up the key question of how to conduct educational research within and for rural communities. It explores the impact of educational research in such contexts in terms of the lasting good of research and also those being researched. The authorship is international, which brings together researchers experienced in conducting educational inquiry in rural places from across European, Australian, American, and Canadian contexts, allowing readers insight into national and regional challenges. It also draws on the research experiences and methodological challenges faced by senior figures in the field of rural educational research, as well as those in their early careers. Key topics include: Working with and within the rural; The impact of educational globalisation and the problematisation of cultural difference in social research; Researcher subjectivities; The position of education research in rural contexts; The usefulness of research Reciprocity and converging interest; Ethics and confidentiality. This book is uniquely written with an eye to practicality and applicability, and will be an engaging guide for higher degree and doctoral students seeking to gain a stronger understanding of educational research in rural settings.

This book examines agentic approaches by which teacher educators navigate a highly regulated environment. It investigates how teacher educators are responding to such regulation by employing approaches such as exploratory and case study research designs. This book analyzes qualitative and quantitative data to understand the diverse, innovative and critical perspectives of teacher educators who are guided by state and federal level initiatives to enhance the quality Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs. Prominent educational theoretical perspectives are also used in this book to inform data analysis and to illuminate the empirically based findings. This book showcases research-informed insights for the global education community from leading researchers from across a number of teacher education institutions, locally and otherwise. By adopting an 'activist' approach, this book positions teacher educators' research and contribution to the field as agentive and pro-active.

In or, on being the other woman, Simone White considers the dynamics of contemporary black feminist life. Throughout this book-length poem, White writes through a hybrid of poetry, essay, personal narrative, and critical theory, attesting to the narrative complexities of writing and living as a black woman and artist. She considers black social life-from art and motherhood to trap music and love-as unspeakably troubling and reflects on the degree to which it strands and punishes black women. She also explores what constitutes sexual freedom and the rewards and dangers that come with it. White meditates on trap music and the ways artists such as Future and Meek Mill and the sonic waves of the drum machine convey desire and the black experience. Charting the pressures of ordinary black womanhood, White pushes the limits of language, showing how those limits can be the basis for new modes of expression.

This book brings together authors from United States, South Africa, United Kingdom, China, Canada and Australia to provide insights and case studies from across a range of contexts to explore the interplay between the notions of rurality, innovation and education. The book reveals a hopeful and resilient approach to innovative rural education and scholarship collectively and provides important evidence to speak against an often deficit view of rural education. Three patterns are revealed, namely: the importance of place-attentive strategies, the importance of joined up alliances to maximise resources and networks and finally, the need to utilize alternative methodologies and frameworks that have a starting point of difference rather than deficit for any rural initiative or approach. By drawing from international examples and responding in innovative ways to rural education challenges, this book provides an opportunity to share international insights into innovations, interventions and partnerships that promote and support rural education in its broadest sense.

This book provides an evidentiary basis for policy decisions regarding initial teacher education and beginning teaching and informs the design and delivery of teacher preparation programs. Based on a rigorous analysis of international literature and the policy context for teacher education globally, and assessing data generated through a longitudinal study conducted in Australia, it investigates the effectiveness of teacher education in preparing teachers for the variety of school settings in which they begin their teaching careers. Over four years, the Studying the Effectiveness of Teacher Education (SETE) project tracked roughly 5,000 recently graduated teachers and 1,000 school principals in Australia to capture workforce data and gauge graduate teachers' and principals' perceptions of their initial teacher education programs. This book offers a synthesis of the research findings and uses the SETE as a catalyst for innovative theorization of the effectiveness of teacher education.

In or, on being the other woman, Simone White considers the dynamics of contemporary black feminist life. Throughout this book-length poem, White writes through a hybrid of poetry, essay, personal narrative, and critical theory, attesting to the narrative complexities of writing and living as a black woman and artist. She considers black social life-from art and motherhood to trap music and love-as unspeakably troubling and reflects on the degree to which it strands and punishes black women. She also explores what constitutes sexual freedom and the rewards and dangers that come with it. White meditates on trap music and the ways artists such as Future and Meek Mill and the sonic waves of the drum machine convey desire and the black experience. Charting the pressures of ordinary black womanhood, White pushes the limits of language, showing how those limits can be the basis for new modes of expression.

Tiona Nekkia McClodden considers the presence and absence of the Black figure and aesthetic tropes of representation through work traversing film, installation, sculpture, painting, and writing. ---------- “An artist who may be America’s most essential today.” — Siddhartha Mitter, The New York Times ---------- Known for her poignant examinations of biomythography and identity, McClodden uses a research-based approach in her practice as an artist and self-described “historian and cultural custodian.” MASK / CONCEAL / CARRY dissects the many meanings of “masking,” “concealing,” “carrying,” and their opposites, revealing the constant contradiction and harmony between these actions. In this body of work, McClodden creates sculptural meditations on guns—a gold and silver chainmail helmet and a leather molded magazine of an AR15 assault rifle. Through custom lighting, the artist carefully choreographs a performance between the work, space, and viewer. Adding to McClodden’s narrative and psychological concepts, this publication includes a curator’s note from Ebony L. Haynes, a poem by the acclaimed writer and artist Rhea Dillon, and a conversation between the poet Simone White and the artist, as well as a statement penned by McClodden herself.

Methodological Issues for Educational Research in Rural Settings is a much-needed guide for educational researchers, and in particular graduate students, whose research interests are located outside metropolitan areas in places that are generically considered to be rural. This book is both timely and important as no other text currently takes up the key question of how to conduct educational research within and for rural communities or seeks from an inquiring stance to explore the impact of educational research in rural contexts in terms of the lasting 'good' of research to those being researched about. The authorship is international bringing together researchers experienced in conducting educational inquiry in rural places from across European, Australian, American, and Canadian contexts discussing national and regional challenges and ways of working into conversation.It also draws from the research experiences of the most senior 'elders' in the field of rural educational research as well as those in their early career as they share their research methodological issues such as unpacking their own subjectivities; considering ethics of confidentiality/pseudonymity in places where often everyone is well known and identifiable; thinking about reciprocity and converging interests; and notions of representation. This book is uniquely written with an eye to practicality and applicability for a higher degree and doctoral research market and offers a compelling international comparative perspective addressing a key criticism that rural education research tends to be too locally-focused, nostalgic or insufficiently attuned to the effects of globalization.

The rapidly expanding field of galaxy formation lies at the interface between astronomy, particle physics, and cosmology. Covering diverse topics from these disciplines, all of which are needed to understand how galaxies form and evolve, this book is ideal for researchers entering the field. Individual chapters explore the evolution of the Universe as a whole and its particle and radiation content; linear and nonlinear growth of cosmic structure; processes affecting the gaseous and dark matter components of galaxies and their stellar populations; the formation of spiral and elliptical galaxies; central supermassive black holes and the activity associated with them; galaxy interactions; and the intergalactic medium. Emphasizing both observational and theoretical aspects, this book provides a coherent introduction for astronomers, cosmologists, and astroparticle physicists to the broad range of science underlying the formation and evolution of galaxies.

This text offers an understanding of legal and political progress toward the protection of the financial interests of the European Community. Historically, progress has been uneven due to the sectoral approach adopted. On the expenditure side of the EC budget, the most regulated area remains the EAGGF-Guarantee Section Fund. By contrast, procurement fraud of the Structural Funds, sometimes involving corruption of officials, is rife in many Member States. On the income side, control of VAT rests mainly with the Member States. The near collapse of the transit system has made collection of duties more difficult, stimulating proposals for computerization of the transit system and improvements in Customs' strategies. All Member States have experienced difficulties in recovering EC funds through irregularities: a case study is offered, comparing British and Danish approaches to recovery. The author also describes and evaluates more far-reaching developments and prospects. An EC penal-administrative space has been created which some penalistes regard as a fore-runner to a European Criminal Legal Space. Acknowledging both the attractions and difficulties inherent in such a project, the author focuses attention back to existing First Pillar competencies for EC fraud. For example in relation to VAT and excise regimes, the organisation of Customs, and recovery of funds, deeper integration would reduce criminal opportunities. The book concludes with a review of the Amsterdam Treaty from this perspective. This book is aimed at professionals, teachers, students, and researchers, especially those whose interest in EC institutions and law overlaps in so called "white collar crime". However, the book should also be of interest to all those concerned with the integrity and development of the European Union in general.