Despite increasing social inequality, hunger and nutritional poverty are not regarded as phenomena of German reality; Germany's debate on eating patterns is largely dominated by the issue of obesity. The article challenges this view and shows by means of empirical approaches that hunger and nutritional poverty tend to be underestimated in a supposedly affluent society. Due to a lack of appropriate food research in Germany, our study gives quantitative evidence drawn from a combination of studies to show that there is nutritional poverty in Germany, and that social welfare recipients are widely excluded from eating out, arguably an essential form of social and cultural participation. Furthermore, we provide insights, based on a qualitative longitudinal study, into day-to-day coping practices in response to food shortage. As the empirical results show, physiological hunger and hunger for social inclusion by eating out are a reality in contemporary German society. The predominant responses of the German political and social welfare system, however, can be characterised by delegation and denial of the problem and by a tendency to stigmatise the poor.

This article provides empirical results on food consumption patterns of German low-income households and those living under conditions of welfare as defined by Social Code II (Sozialgesetzbuch II). We focus on nutritional consumption patterns, strategies of food choices and typologies of coping with alimentary exclusion in Germany. Quantitative data from SILC/Eurostat are examined alongside qualitative data derived from a longitudinal study composed of more than 450 biographical interviews, conducted over a period of five years. The quantitative data reveal that food poverty and alimentary participation in German households is severe compared to the European average, the UK and even to Greece. The qualitative data give insight into a broad variety of individual coping strategies, eliciting evidence of the essential role of alimentary participation, as well as its tight restrictions.

Project-based work is considered a prototype for modern knowledge work, but is also often linked to stress. Complementing or substituting for conventional project management, agile methods are on the rise, but the implications of these methods for stress on employees still remain largely hidden. This article presents the results from qualitative case studies in software development that show how diverse agile methods are lived in practice and how these variations affect stress levels. The results unveil how agile methods, under certain assumptions, can protect team members against stress and voluntary self-exploitation - offering a safe space that is, however, fragile and requires accompanying organisational backing.

Unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are promising assets to support rescue operations in natural or man-made disasters. Most UGVs and UAVs deployed in the field today depend on human operators and reliable network connections to the vehicles. However, network connections in challenged environments are often lost, thus control can no longer be exercised. In this paper, we present a novel approach to emergency communication where semi-autonomous UGVs and UAVs cooperate with humans to dynamically form communication islands and establish communication bridges between these islands. Humans typically form an island with their mobile devices if they are in physical proximity; UGVs and UAVs extend an island's range by carrying data to a neighboring island. The proposed approach uses delay/disruptiontolerant networking for non-time critical tasks and direct mesh connections for prioritized tasks that require real-time feedback. The developed communication platform runs on rescue robots, commodity mobile devices, and various drones, and supports our operations and control center software for disaster management.

Although still a powerful economy, Germany faces rising income inequality and food insecurity. Quantitative data show that nutritional poverty in Germany has become a fact, especially for social welfare recipients. This contribution gives an overview and discusses the limits of results from different data sources, such as German food surveys, and addresses how affected population groups are systematically underrepresented. To give a more thorough impression of food insecurity in Germany, the article compares nutritional consumption data from the Statistics on Income and Living Conditions/Eurostat survey for Germany, the members of the European Union 27 (EU27), and Greece. The figures for Germans with incomes below 60% of the median equivalised income who cannot afford one proper meal every second day are worse than those in the remaining EU27 member nations, and the figures for their children are not so far from the figures for crisis-stricken Greece. As eating is not only about nutrition but also a means of social activity, we consider the ability to eat and drink with friends an issue of alimentary participation. The percentages of Germans who cannot afford a drink or meal with others at least once a month is very high compared to the rates of the remaining EU27 member nations and Greece. The provided quantitative figures prove that we see serious signs of food poverty in portions of Germany, despite its comparatively strong economy. Data from hundreds of qualitative interviews describing how people stricken by food insecurity try to cope with the situation complement these results. Such data are very important, as governments widely underestimate the problem and leave it to be dealt with by food banks as the only institutional solution.