Urban trauma and self-organization of the city: autopoiesis in the Battle of Mogadishu and the Siege of Sarajevo

Cities under armed conflict become urban laboratories. Changes of their urban structure reflect intrinsic properties of the city, hardly noticeable in circumstances of stability. Not only does a conflict-conditioned urban trauma imply shattered spatial and social networks, it also removes memory from space, jeopardizing both city´s history and future. However, viewed through the lens of complexity, “trauma is an element that is not external, but intrinsically constitutive of a city´s organization” (Burke, 2010) – it defines the moment in which the urban system needs to reinvent itself in order not to disappear. In that sense, our object of study addresses an urban specificity that usually occurs in urban conflicts of high uncertainty: self-organization. This paper briefly exposes two cases that concern self-referential systems in war situations. The first case is the city of Mogadishu (Somalia) during the October 1993 pacification attempt by the U.S. Special Forces and the second is the city of Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), held under siege for more than three and a half years, between April 1992 and December 1995, by Bosnian Serb troops. In both cases, armed conflict caused an increase of self-organization in the urban system, changing its future unpredictably and irreversibly.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Investment Diversification as a Strategy for Reducing Investment Risk

Investment diversification is a widely accepted investment strategy, aimed at reducing investment uncertainty, while simultaneously keeping the expected return on investment unaltered. The development of investment diversification coincided with the development of portfolio theory. At the time when traditional portfolio theory was recognized as the leading portfolio management practice, the simple diversification of investments was the most commonly used strategy; however, due to its inability to recognize the importance of the correlation between returns on different investments, simple diversification was later rejected in modern portfolio theory and replaced with efficient diversification. The research study is aimed at conducting a comparative analysis between the simple and efficient diversifications of investments, together with the inevitable analysis of the optimal number of securities in a portfolio and the testing of the validity of the international diversification of investments. By applying a qualitative research methodology, it is concluded that the benefits of the international diversification of investments are still substantial, and as such outweigh specific limitations, and that the number of securities in a portfolio should be increased as long as its marginal benefits, in the form of reduced investment risk, exceed its marginal costs – in terms of increased portfolio management costs, which also represents the main result of the research

PERCEPTION OF ENTREPRENEURS REGARDING BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT IN MONTENEGRO: REGIONAL ANALYSIS

The goal of this work is to analyze the economic ambient by entrepreneurs through the identification of the most significant barriers exerting influences on the development of business in Montenegro. For the needs of researching, the questionnaire was created consisting of 30 questions, including five groups of barriers. The questionnaire was filled in by 102 business people with their main offices in Montenegro. Collected data were processed by means of the statistical processing data program SPSS20. The descriptive analysis was used with a view of getting the hierarchy of observed barriers, while the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used for determining statistically significant differences regarding to observed barriers by entrepreneurs classified into three geographical regions (maritime, central and northern). Financial resources, procedures in the local competence and centralized procedures were recognized by entrepreneurs as barriers of the greatest importance on entrepreneurial development. Statistically significant differences between the observed barriers by entrepreneurs in three geographical regions appeared in case of development inequality of regions and administrative procedures in employment

Mössbauer Spectroscopic Study and Magnetic Investigation of Iron(III) Complexes on a Dendrimeric Basis

The functionalization of the molecular surface of various dendrimer generations with a phosphorous core and external amine groups is obtained by converting those amine groups into the corresponding imines of salicylaldehyde creating multiple coordination sites for the iron atoms. Treatment with iron(III) chloride yields multinuclear iron(III) complexes on a dendrimeric basis. The obtained multinuclear molecular systems exhibit extremely high total spin values. The influence of the generation growth on this type of coordination compounds is investigated by Mossbauer spectroscopy and SQUIDmagnetometry

Determinants of economic (in)equality and its implications for sustainable economic development

Research focusing on specific key aspects of economic inequality, as well as economic equality, by analyzing numerous theoretical, methodological and empirical views concerning the mentioned socio-economic phenomena aims to identify the following related and relevant aspects that affect the efficiency of the functioning of a modern economy: a) economic inequality that has a stimulating effect on the creative, productive and innovative use of all production factors positively affects the functioning of the economy and is socially justifiable; b) high level of economic inequality which shows a tendency to further increase has a negative effect on the economic system indicators, as well as the stability of the society and the political environment, therefore resulting in weaker economic performance and lower economic growth rate; c) economic equality (certainly, not egalitarianism) by contributing to greater social and political stability, which in turn reflects positively on the economic stability and efficiency, is the basis for greater success of the modern economy and dynamic economic growth rates. The main result of this study is assessing the basic factors of high and rising economic inequality and its implications for the functioning of modern economies, and accordingly, pointing to the need to implement economic policies that would lower economic inequality and mitigate its adverse consequences for the economy and the society