„…und die Tradition schweigt“ – Solfège in der Diskussion

in Losert, Martin; Eschen, Andreas (Eds.) Gute Musik? Ästhetische Qualitäten von Musik im Unterricht (2023)

This article focuses on a historical overview, criticism of solfège teaching and more accomplishable approaches to music education. When Guido of Arezzo came up with the invention of the line system and ... [more ▼]

This article focuses on a historical overview, criticism of solfège teaching and more accomplishable approaches to music education. When Guido of Arezzo came up with the invention of the line system and derived tone syllables from the first letters of St John's hymn just under a millennium ago, he laid the foundation for a new approach to musical education: he replaced stubborn memorisation of (church) chants with a learnable, mechanical reading technique. He probably could not have foreseen that after almost a thousand years, 'his' idea would still be relevant. This article is based on several lectures and previous publications. It is intended to show the extent to which Solfège is situated in terms of music aesthetics on the one hand. However, on the other hand, this method of mechanical readability, when it is applied without any claim to music aesthetics, is increasingly causing headaches for music educators. Two years ago, the Kodály concept was recognised as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity. This mainly brought the preservation of the diverse Hungarian folk music heritage into focus and only secondarily the pedagogical idea associated with it. It should not be forgotten that the latter is based on Guido von Arezzo's predecessor concept and would be inconceivable without it. As a logical consequence, the Solfège should also be included in the list of intangible cultural assets. Its influence is based on a musical pedagogical concept that is more than a thousand years old and still has a decisive effect on musical education in many European countries. The Solfège system is not without controversy, but where is it written that an intangible cultural property must be based on consensus on content? Is not the discourse of musicology or music education the salt in the soup that could stimulate the discussion about the inclusion of cultural property in the UNESCO List [less ▲]

Regional heterogeneity and individual characteristics in the development of a European tax policy: historical insights from Luxembourg

in Danescu, Elena; Dima, Alina Mihaela (Eds.) Fostering recovery through metaverse business modelling - An interdisciplinary analysis of the new paradigm shift (2023, March)

Luxembourg is currently one of the most politically stable, consensus-oriented, and prosperous countries in the world, characterised by am advanced social market economy, and a level of material wellbeing ... [more ▼]

Luxembourg is currently one of the most politically stable, consensus-oriented, and prosperous countries in the world, characterised by am advanced social market economy, and a level of material wellbeing above the EU average. Its strong fiscal position is well illustrated by a longstanding AAA credit rating, a significant accumulation of government financial assets, and a distinct fiscal approach. In this light, this paper aims to investigate the specific features of the tax system in Luxembourg from a multidisciplinary perspective by analysing historical sources and exploring the development of these particularities over time, their impact on the socioeconomic context and their repercussions for the European integration process, especially in the design and completion of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). [less ▲]

The Next Generation EU (NGEU) as a catalyst for the promotion of the international role of the euro

E-print/Working paper (2023)

Recent developments in the global arena such as the COVID-19 pandemic and stresses in energy markets, made it clear that it is critical for the EU to ensure its strategic autonomy in the macroeconomic ... [more ▼]

Recent developments in the global arena such as the COVID-19 pandemic and stresses in energy markets, made it clear that it is critical for the EU to ensure its strategic autonomy in the macroeconomic field. Strengthening the international role of the euro is one of the key elements in this regard. Through timely analysis of the changes stemming from the establishment of the Next Generation EU (NGEU), we seek to understand to what extent the NGEU can serve as a catalyst for the promotion of the international role of the euro. While it is implausible that the euro will overcome the primacy of the US dollar, we center our analysis around the transformation of the EU’s presence in capital markets. Following massive issuances of green bonds under the NGEU, the EU became the largest issuer of green bonds and has the potential to progress from a small supranational issuer to a sovereign size issuer. This means that the pool of highly rated euro-denominated safe assets will expand significantly. That is where we focus our analysis and where we see the opportunity of the NGEU for unleashing the potential of the euro and boosting its international role. [less ▲]

Aktuelle Entwicklungen im Steuerrecht in der Informationstechnologie 2021/2022 - Teil 2

in Kommunikation und Recht (2023), 26(3), 178-186

Die Autoren fassen in diesem zweiteiligen Beitrag, dessen erster Teil in K&R 2023, 100 ff., erschienen ist, die aktuellen steuerrechtlichen Entwicklungen des vorangehende Jahres zusammen, sofern sich ... [more ▼]

Die Autoren fassen in diesem zweiteiligen Beitrag, dessen erster Teil in K&R 2023, 100 ff., erschienen ist, die aktuellen steuerrechtlichen Entwicklungen des vorangehende Jahres zusammen, sofern sich Bezüge zur Informationstechnologie im weitesten Sinne und dem Informationstechnologierecht ergeben. Teil zwei des Beitrags beschäftigt sich mit den wesentlichen Entwicklungen im deutschen Verfahrensrecht sowie dem Ertrag- und Umsatzsteuerrecht. Zudem wird ein Überblick über den Stand des Informationsfreiheits- und Transparenzrechts gegeben. [less ▲]

« La cour d’assises semble être devenue une succursale de l’Académie française ». Figurations de l’éloquence judiciaire dans l’œuvre de Courier et de Béranger

in Romantisme (2023), 199(1), 16-25

In 1821 Paul-Louis Courier, accused of outrages to public morality because of his Simple discours (1821) and Pierre-Jean de Béranger, prosecuted for having outraged, with his Chansons (1821), public and ... [more ▼]

In 1821 Paul-Louis Courier, accused of outrages to public morality because of his Simple discours (1821) and Pierre-Jean de Béranger, prosecuted for having outraged, with his Chansons (1821), public and religious morality and social mores, and insulted the king, appeared before the Assizes court of the Seine. These two famous trials inspired both Courier and Béranger to write respectively the Procès de Paul-Louis Courier (The Trial of Paul-Louis Courier) and the Procès fait aux chansons de P.-J. de Béranger (The Trial against the Songs of P.-J. de Béranger). This paper aims to study through the lens of these texts the manner in which Courier and Béranger understand and appropriate, within texts that need to be considered as both aesthetic declarations and political professions of faith, the judicial eloquence manifested during their respective trials. [less ▲]

Making Next Generation EU a permanent tool

Report (2023)

The policy study assesses the possible scope and the technical and legal difficulties in implementing a "permanent Next-Generation EU (NGEU)", a central fiscal capacity for the EU, without ever losing ... [more ▼]

The policy study assesses the possible scope and the technical and legal difficulties in implementing a "permanent Next-Generation EU (NGEU)", a central fiscal capacity for the EU, without ever losing sight of the democratic requirement. The implementation of NGEU has raised coordination issues between the member states as to the allocation of funds across structural priorities (e.g. ecological transition vs digitalisation) and across countries. To these coordination difficulties, Section 2 adds the issue of the democratic legitimacy of EU policies when supranational priorities constrain the autonomy of national parliaments. The problem of accountability is not new when one thinks that supranational rules, such as the Stability and Growth Pact, impose limits on the power of parliaments to "tax and spend"; in fact, the intrinsic logic of coordination is to force (political) discretionary power to comply with (macroeconomic) functional imperatives; this inevitably produces a form of depoliticisation of fiscal policy. Throughout this policy study, we constantly keep in mind that transforming NGEU into a permanent programme offers an opportunity to fix this depoliticisation of EU policies and open a window for a breakthrough to a "political Europe". [less ▲]

Energy-Efficient RIS-Enabled NOMA Communication for 6G LEO Satellite Networks

E-print/Working paper (2023)

Reconfigurable Intelligent surfaces (RIS) have the potential to significantly improve the performance of future 6G LEO satellite networks. In particular, RIS can improve the signal quality of ground ... [more ▼]

Reconfigurable Intelligent surfaces (RIS) have the potential to significantly improve the performance of future 6G LEO satellite networks. In particular, RIS can improve the signal quality of ground terminal, reduce power consumption of satellite and increase spectral efficiency of overall network. This paper proposes an energy-efficient RIS-enabled NOMA communication for LEO satellite networks. The proposed framework simultaneously optimizes the transmit power of ground terminals at LEO satellite and passive beamforming at RIS while ensuring the quality of services. Due to the nature of the considered system and optimization variables, the problem of energy efficiency maximization is formulated as non-convex. In practice, it is very challenging to obtain the optimal solution for such problems. Therefore, we adopt alternating optimization methods to handle the joint optimization in two steps. In step 1, for any given phase shift vector, we calculate efficient power for ground terminals at satellite using Lagrangian dual method. Then, in step 2, given the transmit power, we design passive beamforming for RIS by solving the semi-definite programming. To validate the proposed solution, numerical results are also provided to demonstrate the benefits of the proposed optimization framework. [less ▲]

Moral Hazard, central bankers, and Banking Union: professional dissensus and the politics of European financial system stability

in Journal of European Integration (2023), 45(1), 15-41

Banking Union was a major policy response to the financial crisis that began in 2007 and the subsequent Eurozone crisis. Moral hazard has frequently been presented as a major cause of these crises ... [more ▼]

Banking Union was a major policy response to the financial crisis that began in 2007 and the subsequent Eurozone crisis. Moral hazard has frequently been presented as a major cause of these crises. Therefore, Banking Union can be understood as a response to moral hazard in relation to banks and sovereigns. Yet, moral hazard was an acknowledged and supposedly managed problem prior to these events. Paradoxically, moral hazard has been used to justify contradictory policy options to safeguard European financial system stability, such as decentralized institutional arrangements for banking supervision but also a centralized system coordinated by the European Central Bank (ECB). To address this paradox, this paper investigates moral hazard as a political concept. Based on a comparison of how central bankers from the Bundesbank and the ECB understand and use the moral hazard concept, this paper argues that moral hazard is closer to the realm of politics than expertise. [less ▲]

Varier les supports et les ressources pour enseigner le lexique en classe de français

Presentation (2023, February 28)

La perspective actionnelle, au centre des cours de langues depuis les années 2000, prend en compte le besoin de communiquer des apprenants. Ces derniers sont habitués à réaliser des tâches en contexte ... [more ▼]

La perspective actionnelle, au centre des cours de langues depuis les années 2000, prend en compte le besoin de communiquer des apprenants. Ces derniers sont habitués à réaliser des tâches en contexte pour communiquer dans la langue cible, alors comment rendre aujourd’hui l’apprentissage du lexique dynamique pour nourrir ces interactions dans le contexte multilingue de l’enseignement secondaire au Luxembourg ? Dans cette communication, nous allons explorer plusieurs ressources (l’art et des applications numériques spécialisées sur le lexique) et les travailler sur différents supports (le téléphone et les tablettes). Ces outils didactisés offrent des stratégies d’enseignement-apprentissage en classe inversée ou en enseignement hybride, tout en permettant -nous le verrons-, de maintenir l’attention des élèves en cours de français. Cette démarche facilite également la mise en place de la pédagogie différenciée auprès d’un public aux niveaux hérétogènes (Français Langue Etrangère, Français Langue Seconde, et Français Langue Maternelle). [less ▲]

Spaceborne GNSS reflectometry for land remote sensing studies

Doctoral thesis (2023)

Understanding, quantifying and monitoring soil moisture is important for many applications, e.g., agriculture, weather forecasting, occurrence of heatwaves, droughts and floods, and human health. At a ... [more ▼]

Understanding, quantifying and monitoring soil moisture is important for many applications, e.g., agriculture, weather forecasting, occurrence of heatwaves, droughts and floods, and human health. At a large scale, satellite microwave remote sensing has been used to retrieve soil moisture information. Surface water has also been detected and monitored through remote sensing orbital platforms equipped with passive microwave, radar, and optical sensors. The use of reflected L-band Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals represents an emerging remote sensing concept to retrieve geophysical parameters. In GNSS Reflectometry (GNSS-R) these signals are repurposed to infer properties of the surface from which they reflect as they are sensitive to variations in biogeophysical parameters. NASA's Cyclone GNSS (CYGNSS) is the first mission fully dedicated to spaceborne GNSS-R. The eight-satellite constellation measures Global Positioning System (GPS) reflected L1 (1575.42 MHz) signals. Spire Global, Inc. has also started developing their GNSS-R mission, with four satellites currently in orbit. In this thesis we propose and validate a method to retrieve large-scale near-surface soil moisture and a method to map and monitor inundations using spaceborne GNSS-R. Our soil moisture model is based on the assumption that variations in surface reflectivity are linearly related to variations in soil moisture and uses a new method to normalize the observations with respect to the angle of incidence. The normalization method accounts for the spatially varying effects of coherent and incoherent scattering. We found a median unbiased root-mean-square error (ubRMSE) of 0.042 cm3 cm-3 when comparing our method to two years of Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) data and a median ubRMSE of 0.059 cm3 cm-3 compared to the observations of 207 in-situ stations. Our results also showed an improved temporal resolution compared to sensors traditionally used for this purpose. Assessing Spire and CYGNSS data over a region in south east Australia, we observed a similar behavior in terms of surface reflectivity and sensitivity to soil moisture. As Spire satellites collect data from multiple GNSS constellations, we found that it is important to differentiate the observations when calibrating a soil moisture model. The inundation mapping method that we propose is based on a track-wise approach. When classifying the reflections track by track the influence of the angle of incidence and the GNSS transmitted power are minimized or eliminated. With CYGNSS data we produced more than four years of monthly surface water maps over the Amazon River basin and the Pantanal wetlands complex with a spatial resolution of 4.5 km. With GNSS-R we could overcome some of the limitations of optical and microwave remote sensing methods for inundation mapping. We used a set of metrics commonly used to evaluate classification performance to assess our product and discussed the differences and similarities with other products. [less ▲]